Эд Макбейн: Lady, Lady, I Did It!

The waiter beamed. “Ah, yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then we will order, yes? I have some suggestions, sir, whenever you’re ready.” He paused, his smile lighting his face. “It’s a beautiful night, sir, isn’t it?”

“It’s a wonderful night,” Claire answered...

Alone in the night, alone in the light-blinking silence of his furnished room, he tried to tell himself she was not dead. He had spoken to her this afternoon. She had told him about her new bra. She was not dead. She was still alive and vibrant. She was still Claire Townsend.

She was dead.

He sat staring through the window.

He felt numb and cold. There was no feeling in his hands. If he moved his fingers, he knew they would not respond. He sat heavily, shivering in the warm October breeze, staring through the window at the myriad lights of the city, how gently the curtain rustled in the caressing wind, he felt nothing but an empty coldness, something hard and rigid and frighteningly cold at the pit of his stomach, he could not move, he could not cry, he could not feel.

She was dead.

No, he told himself, and he allowed a faint smile to turn the corners of his mouth; no, don’t be ridiculous. Claire dead? Don’t be ridiculous. I spoke to her this afternoon. She called me at the squadroom, the way she always calls. Meyer was making jokes about it. Carella was there — he could tell you. He remembers. She called me, and they were both there, so I know I wasn’t dreaming, and if she called me she must be alive, isn’t that so? That’s only logical. She called me, so I know she’s alive. Carella was there. Ask Carella. He’ll tell you. He’ll tell you Claire is alive.

He could remember talking to Carella once not too long ago in a diner, the plate-glass window splashed with rain. There had been an intimacy to the place, a rained-in snugness as they had discussed the case they were working, as they had lifted steaming coffee mugs. And into the intimate mood of the moment, into the rain-protected comfort of the room, Carella had said, “When are you going to marry that girl?”

“She wants to get her master’s degree before we get married,” Kling said.

“Why?”

“How do I know? She’s insecure. She’s psychotic. How do I know?”

“What does she want after the master’s? A doctorate?”

“Maybe.” Kling had shrugged. “Listen, I ask her to marry me every time I see her. She wants the master’s. So what can I do? I’m in love with her. Can I tell her to go to hell?”

“I suppose not.”

“Well, I can’t.” Kling had paused. “You want to know something, Steve?”

“What?”

“I wish I could keep my hands off her. You know, I wish we didn’t have to... well, you know, my landlady looks at me cockeyed every time I bring Claire upstairs. And then I have to rush her home because her father is the strictest guy who ever walked the earth. I’m surprised he’s leaving her alone this weekend. But what I mean is... well, damn it, what the hell does she need that master’s for, Steve? I mean, I wish I could leave her alone until we were married, but I just can’t. I mean, all I have to do is be with her, and my mouth goes dry. Is it that way with... well, never mind, I didn’t mean to get personal.”

“It’s that way,” Carella had said.

She’s alive, Kling reasoned.

Of course, she’s alive. She’s going for her master’s degree. She’s already doing social field work. Why, just today, on the telephone, she told me she’d be a little late: I have to pick up some texts.

Interviewing: Its Principles and Methods, he thought.

Patterns of Culture, he thought.

The Sane Society, he thought.

She’s dead, he thought.

“NO!”

He screamed the word aloud into the silence of the room. The scream brought him physically out of the chair, as if the force of its explosion had lifted him.

“No,” he said again, very softly, and he walked to the window, and he rested his head against the curtain, and he looked down into the street, looking for Claire. She should have been here by now. It was almost... What time was it? What time? He knew her walk. He would recognize her the moment she turned into the block — a white blouse, she had said; that and a black skirt — yes, he would know her instantly. He wondered abruptly what the bra looked like, and again he smiled, the curtain soft and reassuring against his cheek, the lights of the restaurant across the way staining his face in alternating red and green neon.

I wonder what’s keeping her, he thought

Well, she’s dead, you know, he thought.

He turned away from the window. He walked to the bed, and he looked at it unseeingly, and then he walked to the dresser, and he stared down at its cluttered top, and picked up the hairbrush, and saw strands of her black hair tangled in its bristles, and put down the brush, and looked at his watch, and did not see the time.

It was almost midnight.

He walked back to the window and stared down into the street again, waiting for her.

By 6:00 A.M. the next morning he knew she was not coming.

He knew he would never see her again.

A police precinct is a small community within a community. There were 186 patrolmen attached to the precinct and sixteen detectives attached to the squad. The men of the precinct and the squad knew each other the way people in a small town do: there were close friendships, and nodding acquaintanceships, and minor feuds, and strictly formal business relationships. But all of the men who used the station house as their office knew each other by sight, and usually by name, even if they had never worked a case together.

By 7:45 the next morning, when a third of the precinct patrolmen were relieved on post, when the three detectives upstairs were officially relieved, there was not a single man in the precinct — uniformed or plainclothes — who did not know that Bert Kling’s girl had been killed in a bookstore on Culver Avenue.

Most of the cops didn’t even know her name. To them, she was a vague image, real nonetheless, a person somewhat like their own wives or sweethearts, a young girl who took on personality, who because flesh and blood only by association with their own loved ones. She was Bert Kling’s girl, and she was dead.

“Kling?” some of the patrolmen asked. “Which one is he?”

“Kling’s girl?” some of the detectives asked. “You’re kidding! You mean it?”

“Man, that’s a lousy break,” some of them said.

A police precinct is a small community within a community.

The cops of the 87th Precinct — uniformed and plainclothes — understood that Kling was one of them. There were men among the patrolmen who knew him only as the blond bull who had answered a squeal while they were keeping a timetable. If they’d met him in an official capacity, they would have called him “sir.” There were other men who had been patrolmen when Kling was still walking a beat, and who were still patrolmen, and who resented his promotion somewhat because he seemed to be just a lucky stiff who’d happened to crack a murder case. There were detectives who felt Kling would have made a better shoe clerk than a detective. There were detectives who felt Kling was indispensable on a case, combining a mature directness with a boyish humility, a combination that could pry answers from the most stubborn witness. There were stool pigeons who felt Kling was tight with a buck. There were prostitutes on La Via de Putas who eyed Kling secretly and who admitted among themselves that for this particular cop they wouldn’t mind throwing away a free one. There were shop owners who felt he was too strict about city ordinances concerning sidewalk stands. There were kids in the precinct who knew that Kling would look the other way if they turned on a fire hydrant during the summer. There were other kids in the precinct who knew that Kling would break their hands if he caught them fiddling with narcotics, even with something as harmless as mootah. There were traffic cops who called him “Blondie” behind his back. There was one detective on the squad who hated to read any of Kling’s reports because he was a lousy typist and a worse speller. Miscolo, in the Clerical Office, had a suspicion that Kling didn’t like the coffee he made.