Ed Mcbain - The Heckler

“Wha—” There was a long pause on the line. “Is that you, Savage?”

“Yeah, this is me.”

“Didn’t you get my message?”

“It would be inconvenient for me to drop dead at the moment.”

“Look, Savage, I’m not a polite feuder. I’m not interested in mixing clever talk with you. You almost got my wife killed once, you son of a bitch, and if you ever show your face around here I’ll throw you out the window. Does that make it clear?”

“The Commissioner might like to know why every other paper in the city—”

“The hell with you and the Commissioner both! Goodbye, Savage,” Carella said, and he hung up.

Savage held the dead receiver in his hand for just a moment, then he slammed it onto the hook and stormed out of the booth.

* * *

THE PUERTO RICAN GIRL’Sname was Margarita. She had been in the city for only six months, and she didn’t speak English too well. She enjoyed working for Mr. Raskin because he was a nice cheerful man who did not shout too much. It was important to Margarita that the person for whom she worked did not shout. Margarita reported for work at nine o’clock each morning. The Culver Avenue loft was only five blocks from her house, and she enjoyed the walk to and from work each day. Once she got to the loft, she went into the bathroom and changed from her street clothes to a smock which she wore while pressing. Since she lived so close to the loft, someone had once suggested to her that she wear the smock to work rather than changing after she got there. But Margarita felt that the smock was not suitable attire for the street. And so every morning she put on a sweater and a skirt and then changed to the smock after she got to the loft. She never wore anything under the smock. She pressed dresses all day long, and it got very hot in that loft and she didn’t want the bother of panties and brassiere.

She was a very well-formed girl, Margarita, and as she hefted that steam iron her breasts frolicked beneath the loose smock in time to the accompanying jiggle of her buttocks. Which was another thing she liked about Mr. Raskin. Mr. Raskin never came up behind her and pinched her. She had worked for another man before him, and he was always pinching her. Mr. Raskin was a very cheerful man who kept his hands to himself and who didn’t mind the girls telling jokes in Spanish every now and then. So long as they got the work done.

There were two other girls besides Margarita, but Margarita was the unofficial foreman of the group. Each morning, when all the girls had had their second cup of coffee and changed into their smocks and fixed their makeup, Margarita would roll over the dollies with the cartons of dresses which Mr. Raskin had bought in wholesale lots, and she would turn them over to the girls who would press out all the wrinkles. Margarita would work right alongside them, that iron flashing over the creased skirts and bodices, those breasts jutting and bouncing. Then she would have a consultation with Mr. Raskin about pricing the dresses, and then she and the girls would mark each of the dresses and that evening Mr. Raskin would take them to the retail stores or to the farmers’ markets, depending on which outlets needed merchandise. It was a very smooth-running operation. Sometimes, when she discussed prices with Mr. Raskin, he would try to see into the low front of her dress because he knew she wore nothing underneath, but she didn’t mind him looking because he never touched. He was a gentleman, and she liked working for him. As far as Margarita was concerned, David Raskin was the nicest man in the world.

Which is why she couldn’t understand the threatening calls.

Why would anyone in the world want to threaten Mr. Raskin? And especially over so stupid a thing as a dirty loft? No, Margarita could not understand it, and each time the caller phoned again, she would feel frightened for her boss, and she would say a silent prayer in Spanish.

She was not frightened on the afternoon of Thursday, April 9 when the delivery man entered the loft.

“Anybody here?” he called from the door at the opposite end.

“Jus’ a mini’,” Margarita said, and she put down her steam iron and then ran the length of the loft to the entrance doorway, forgetting that she was wearing nothing beneath the smock, and puzzled by the goggle-eyed expression on the delivery man’s face when she reached him.

The delivery man took a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his forehead with it.

“You know something?” he said breathlessly.

Margarita smiled. “What?”

“You ought to be in burlesque, sister. I mean it. Burlesque is crying for you.”

“What eees thees bul-esk?”

“Oh, sister. Oh, sister.” The delivery man sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, where do you want these cartons?” he asked, his eyes swinging back to the low-cut front of the smock. “I’ve got about fourteen cartons of stuff downstairs, so tell me where you want it, and it’s yours.”

“Oh, I don’ know,” Margarita said. “My boss, he is no’ here ri’ now.”

“I only want to know where you want it dumped, sister.”

“What ees it, anyways?” Margarita asked.

“Don’t know, sister, I only work for the trucking company. Come on, choose a spot. Go down to the other end of the loft again, and then run down this way and choose a spot as you come, okay?”

Margarita giggled. “Why I got to run for?” she asked, knowing full well what he was referring to. “You put them inside here, near the door, okay?”

“Okay, sister.” The delivery man winked. “Sssssss,” he said, as if he were a steam radiator. He wiggled his eyebrows, rolled his eyes and then went downstairs. He came up a few moments later with another man, carrying a heavy carton between them. Together they began setting it down just inside the door. The first man gestured with his eyebrows toward Margarita who was stooping to pick up a hanger. The second man almost crushed his fingers as they put down the carton. It took them an hour and a half, what with the various distractions provided by Margarita, to carry thirteen of the cartons upstairs. They were carrying the fourteenth and final carton into the loft when Dave Raskin arrived.

“So what’s all this?” he asked.

“Who are you?” the delivery man said. “Mr. Minsky?” He winked at Raskin. Raskin didn’t get the joke, so he didn’t wink back. Margarita had gone back to her pressing and was throwing herself into her work with wild abandon. The second delivery man was leaning against one of the cartons and wishing he had a better seat and a box of popcorn.

“Who is Mr. Minsky?” Raskin said: “Who, in fact, are you? And what is all these boxes, would you mind telling me?”

“Are you David Raskin?”

“I am he.”

“Darask Frocks, Inc.?”

“Yes?”

“Then these are yours, mister.”

“ What is mine?”

“Search me. We’re only truckers, mister. What does it say on the cartons?”

Raskin studied the bold black lettering on the side of one of the cartons. “It says ‘Sandhurst Paper Company, New Bedford, Massachusetts’!” Raskin scratched his head. “I don’t know any Sandhurst Paper Company in New Bedford, Massachusetts. What is this?”

The delivery men were in no hurry to leave. Margarita at the table was pressing up a storm, and it was a delightful storm indeed.

“Why don’t you open one of the cartons?” the first man suggested.

The second man nodded in vague abstraction and said, “Sure, why don’t you?”

“Will that be all right?” Raskin asked.

“Sure. It’s addressed to you, so open it.”

“Sure,” the second man said.

Raskin began struggling with the carton. The two delivery men sat on the edge of his desk and watched Margarita’s monumental bout with the steam iron. Finally, Raskin managed to pry loose two of the staples holding the carton closed. He tore the cardboard flap open, ripped the opening still larger and reached into the carton where he found a horde of smaller boxes resembling shoe boxes. He pulled one of these out, placed it on his desk top, and then lifted the lid.