Эд Макбейн: Lady, Lady, I Did It!

“Know him long?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Two years.”

“He’s been a junkie all that time?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know he’s dead?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know how he died?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think?”

Pine shrugged. He was twenty-three years old, a blond boy with blue eyes that seemed wide and staring, partially because he’d had a shot before they picked him up and the dilated pupils gave his eyes a weird look and partially because the skin under his eyes was dark, making the blue of the pupils more startling.

“Anybody after him?” Willis asked.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know his pusher?”

Pine did not answer.

“I asked you a question. Do you know who La Scala’s pusher was?”

“No.”

“That’s a lie,” Willis said. “He’s probably the same crumb you use.”

Pine still would not answer.

“That’s right,” Willis said, “protect the pusher. That’s the smart thing. You scrape together all your nickels and dimes. Go ahead. Make the pusher fat. And then protect him, so he can go right on sucking your blood. You goddamn fool, who’s the pusher?”

Pine did not answer.

“Okay. Did La Scala owe him any money?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“You’re a cop,” Pine said. “You know all about how fat pushers are, don’t you? Then you also know they take cash on the line. No. Tony didn’t owe the connection nothing.”

“Got any ideas who killed him?”

“I don’t have any ideas,” Pine said.

“You high now?”

“I’m a little drowsy, that’s all,” Pine said.

“When did you have your last shot?”

“About an hour ago?”

“Who’s your connection, Pine?”

“Aw, come on, cop,” Pine said. “What’s he gonna bother with knocking off a guy like Tony for, huh? That’s stupid, ain’t it? Would you knock off a customer?”

“How bad was Tony hooked?”

“Through the bag and back again.”

“How much did he spend every day?”

“Twenty-five bucks, maybe three bills, maybe more, I don’t know. Whatever it was, his connection sure as hell wasn’t gonna lose it by knocking him off. Besides, what’s the reason?” Pine smiled thinly. “Pushers like hopheads, don’t you know that?”

“Yeah, they like ‘em,” Willis said dryly. “All right, tell me everything you know about La Scala. How old was he?”

“About my age. Twenty-three, twenty-four.”

“Married? Single?”

“Single.”

“Parents living?”

“I think so. But not here.”

“Where?”

“The coast, I think. I think his old man is in pictures.”

“What do you mean, pictures? La Scala’s father is a movie star?”

“Yeah, just like my father is a movie star,” Pine said. “My father’s Cary Grant. You didn’t know that?”

“Don’t get wise,” Willis said. “What does La Scala’s father do?”

“Something with the crew. A grip, a shmip, who knows? He works with the crew.”

“Does he know his son is dead?”

“I doubt it. Nobody in LA reads newspapers.”

“How the hell would you know?”

“I been West.”

“On your way to Mexico to pick up some junk?”

“What does it matter where I was on the way to? I been West, and in LA nobody reads newspapers. In LA what they do is complain about the smog and keep their eyes open in case Lana Turner should stop for a traffic light. That’s what they do out there.”

“You’re the first junkie we had in here who’s also a social commentator,” Willis said.

“Well, it takes all kinds,” Pine said philosophically.

“So La Scala was living alone, that it?”

“Yeah,” Pine said.

“No girl?”

“No.”

“Did he have relatives besides his parents?”

“A sister, yeah. But she lives on the coast, too. In Frisco.”

“You think they read the papers there, Pine?”

“Maybe. All I know for sure about Frisco is that all the ladies wear hats.”

“You think his sister knows he’s dead?”

“I don’t know. Give her a call and ask her. You got plenty of taxpayers’ money. Give her a call.”

“You seem to be perking up a little, Pine. You’re getting a real sharp edge of a sudden.”

“Yeah. Well, you can’t operate on one level all the time, you know.”

“I wouldn’t know. In other words, Pine, La Scala was alone in this city, huh? You know anybody who might have wanted him dead?”

“Nope. Why should they? He wasn’t bothering nobody.”

“And all his relatives are in California, is that right, too?”

“That’s right.”

“Then nobody here’ll miss him,” Willis said.

“I got news for you, cop,” Pine answered. “Even if they were here, they would not miss him.”

Paul Blaney was an assistant medical examiner, a short man with a scraggly black mustache and violet eyes. It was Blaney’s contention that he, as junior member on the medical examiner’s staff, was always given the most gruesome corpses for necropsy, and he was rather surprised and pleased to receive the body of Eileen Glennon. The girl seemed to be in one piece, and there were no signs of undue violence, no stab wounds, no gunshot wounds, no broken skull. Blaney was sure one of his colleagues had made a mistake in assigning this particular cadaver to him, but he was not a man to look a gift horse in the mouth. Instead, he fell to work with Dispatch, half afraid they would change their minds and give him another corpse before he was through.

He called the squadroom at 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon, ready to give a full necropsy report to whoever was handling the case. Steve Carella took the call. He had spoken to Blaney many times before, and Blaney was glad that Carella and not another of the 87th’s cops had answered the phone. Carella was a man who understood the problems of the medical examiner’s office. Carella was a man you could talk to.

The men exchanged the pleasantries and amenities and then Blaney said, “I’m calling about this little girl they sent over. From what I understand, the body was found in Majesta, but it seems to be connected with a case you’re working on, and I was asked to deliver my report to you. I’ll send this over typed later, Carella, but I thought you might want the findings right away.”

“I’m glad you called,” Carella said.

“Her name’s Eileen Glennon,” Blaney said, “That right?”

“That’s right.”

“I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same person before I went through the whole bit.”

“That’s okay,” Carella said.

“This was an interesting one,” Blaney said. “Not a mark on her. Plenty of bloodstains, but no visible wounds. I figure she’s been dead a few days, probably since Sunday night sometime. Where was she found, exactly?”

“In a little park.”

“Hidden?”

“No, not exactly. But the park doesn’t get much traffic.”

“Well, that might explain it. In any case, I estimate she was lying wherever they found her since Sunday night, if that’s any help to you.”

“It might be helpful,” Carella said. “How’d she die?”

“Well, now, that’s what was interesting about this. Does she live in Majesta?”

“No. She lives with her mother. In Isola.”

“Well, that makes sense, all right. Though I can’t understand why she didn’t at least try to get home. Of course, considering what I found, she probably had a range of symptoms, which could have confused her. Especially after what she’d been through.”

“What kind of symptoms, Blaney?”