Ed Mcbain - Cop Hater

Mama Luz was wearing a silk kimono. Mama Luz was a big fat woman with a mass of black hair pulled into a bun at the back of her head. Mama Luz used to be a welf-known prostitute, allegedly one of the best in the city, but now she was a madam and never indulged, except for friends. She was scrupulously clean, and always smelled of lilacs. Her complexion was as white as any complexion can be, more white because it rarely saw the sun. Her features were patrician, her smile was angelic. If you didn't know she ran one of the wildest brothels on the Street, you might have thought she was somebody's mother.

She wasn't.

"You come on a social call?" she asked Carella, winking.

"If I can't have you, Mama Luz," Carella said, "I don't want anybody."

Kling blinked, and then wiped the sweatband of his hat.

"For you, toro," Mama Luz said, winking again, "Mama Luz does anything. For you, Mama Luz is a young girl again."

"You've always been a young girl," Carella said, and he slapped her on the backside, and then said, "Where's Ordiz?"

"With la roja," Mama Luz said. "She has picked his eyes out by now." She shrugged. "These new girls, all they are interested in is money. In the old days . . ." Mama Luz cocked her head wistfully. "In the old days, toro, there was sometimes love, do you know? What has happened to love nowadays, eh?"

"It's all locked up in that fat heart of yours," Carella said. "Does Ordiz have a gun?"

"Do I shake down my guests?" Mama Luz said. "I don't think he has a gun, Stevie. You will not shoot up the works, will you? This has been a quiet day."

"No, I will not shoot up the works," Carella said. "Show me where he is."

Mama Luz nodded. As Kling passed her, she looked down at his fly, and then laughed uproariously when he blushed. She followed the two cops in, and then passed them and said, "This way. Upstairs."

The stairs shook beneath her. She turned her head over her shoulder, winked at Carella, and said, "I trust you behind me, Stevie."

"Gracias," Carella said.

"Don't look up my dress."

"It's a temptation, I'll admit," Carella said, and behind him he heard Kling choke back a cross between a sob and a gasp.

Mama Luz stopped on the first landing. 'The door at the end of the hall. No blood, Stevie, please. With this one, you do not need blood. He is half-dead already."

"Okay," Carella said. "Get downstairs, Mama Luz."

"And later, when the work is done," Mama Luz said suggestively, and she bumped one fleshy hip against Carella, almost knocking him off his feet She went past Kling, laughing, her laughter trailing up the stairwell.

Carella sighed and looked at Kling. "What're you gonna do, kid," he said, "I'm in love."

"I never understand detectives," Kling said.

They went down the hallway. Kling drew his service revolver when he saw Carella's was already in his hand.

"She said no shooting," he reminded Carella.

"So far, she only runs a whore house," Carella said. "Not the Police Department."

"Sure," Kling said.

Carella rapped on the door with the butt of his .38.

"Quien es?" a girl's voice asked.

"Police," Carella said. "Open up."

"Momenta," the voice said.

"She's getting dressed," Kling advised Carella.

In a few moments, the door opened. The girl standing there was a big redhead. She was not smiling, so Carella did not have the opportunity to examine the gold teeth hi the front of her mouth.

"What you want?" she asked.

"Clear out," Carella said. "We want to talk to the man in there."

"Sure," she said. She threw Carella a look intended to convey an attitude of virginity offended, and then she swiveled past him and slithered down the hallway. Kling watched her. When he turned back to the door, Carella was already in the room.

There was a bed in the room, and a night table, and a metal washbasin. The shade was drawn. The room smelled badly. A man lay on the bed in his trousers. His shoes and socks were off. His chest was bare. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was open. A fly buzzed around his nose.

"Open the window," Carella said to Kling. "Jesus, this place stinks."

The man on the bed stirred. He lifted his head and looked at Carella.

"Who are you?" he said.

"Your name Ordiz?" Carella asked.

"Yeah. You a cop?"

"Yes."

"What did I do wrong now?"

Kling opened the window. From the streets below came the sound of children's voices.

"Where were you Sunday night?"

"What time?"

"Close to midnight."

"I don't remember."

"You better, Ordiz. You better start remembering damn fast. You shoot up just now?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You're an H-man, Ordiz, and we know it, and we know you copped three decks a little while back. Are you stoned now, or can you read me?"

"I hear you," Ordiz said.

He passed a hand over his eyes. He owned a thin face with a hatchet nose and thick, rubbery lips. He needed a shave badly.

"Okay, talk."

"Friday night, you said?"

"I said Sunday."

"Sunday. Oh yeah. I was at a poker game."

"Where?"

"South 4th. What's the matter, you don't believe me?"

"You got witnesses?"

"Five guys in the game. You can check with any one of them."

"Give me their names."

"Sure. Louie DeScala, and his brother, John. Kid named Pete Diaz. Another kid they call Pepe. I don't know his last name."

"That's four," Carella said.

"I was the fifth."

"Where do these guys live?"

Ordiz reeled off a string of addresses.

"Okay, what about Monday night?"

"I was home."

"Anybody with you?"

"My landlady."

"What?"

"My landlady was with me. What's the matter, don't you hear good?"

"Shut up, Dizzy. What's her name?"

"Olga Fazio."

"Address?"

Ordiz gave it to him. "What am I supposed to done?" he asked.

"Nothing. You got a gun?"

"No. Listen, I been clean since I got out."

"What about those three decks?"

"I don't know where you got that garbage. Somebody's fooling you, cop."

"Sure. Get dressed, Dizzy."

"What for? I paid for the use of this pad."

"Okay, you used it already. Get dressed."

"Hey, listen, what for? I tell you I've been clean since I got out. What the hell, cop?"

"I want you at the precinct while I check these names. You mind?"

"They'll tell you I was with them, don't worry. And that junk about the three decks, Jesus, I don't know where you got that from. Hell, I ain't been near the stuff for years now."

"That's plain to see," Carella said. "Those scabs on your arm are from beri-beri or something, I guess."

"Huh?" Ordiz asked. "Get dressed."

Carella checked with the men Ordiz had named. Each of them was willing to swear that he'd been at the poker game from ten-thirty on the night of July 23rd, to four a.m. on the morning of July 24th. Ordiz' landlady reluctantly admitted she had spent the night of the 24th and the morning of the 25th in Ordiz' room. Ordiz had solid alibis for the times someone had spent killing Reardon and Foster.

When Bush came back with his report on Flannagan, the boys were right back where they'd started.

"He's got an alibi as long as the Texas panhandle," Bush said.

Carella sighed, and then took Kling down for a beer before heading over to see Teddy.

Bush cursed the heat, and then went home to his wife.

Chapter TEN

from where Savage sat at the end of the bar, he could plainly see the scripted lettering on the back of the boy's brightly colored jacket. The boy had caught his eye the moment Savage entered the bar. He'd been sitting in a booth with a dark-haired girl, and they'd both been drinking beer. Savage had seen the purple and gold jacket and then sat at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. From time to time, he'd glanced over at the couple. The boy was thin and pale, a shock of black hair crowning his head. The collar of the jacket was turned up, and Savage could not see the lettering across the back at first because the boy sat with his back tight against the padded cushioning of the booth.