Эд Макбейн - Bread

“So what’d you get from the IS?” Carella asked Hawes.

“Nothing on Reardon, clean as a whistle.”

“What about Roger Grimm?”

“He took a fall six years ago.”

“What for?”

“Forgery/Three. He was working for an import-export house at the time, sold close to a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of phony stock certificates before he got caught. Seventy-five thousand was recovered, stashed away in a bank.”

“What about the rest?”

“Spent it. Bought himself a new Cadillac, was living high on the hog at a hotel downtown on Jefferson.”

“Was he convicted?”

“Oh, sure. Sentenced to three years, and a two-thousand-dollar fine. Served a year and a half at Castleview, and was released on parole... Let me see,” Hawes said, and consulted his notes. “Four years ago, this June,”

“How about since?”

“Nothing. Honest as the day is long.”

“Except that all of a sudden he has two fires.”

“Yeah, well, anybody can have a fire, Steve.”

“Anybody can sell phony stock certificates, too.”

“So where do we go from here?”

“I’ve got Reardon’s address from his driver’s license. I’d like to hit his apartment tomorrow morning, see what we can turn up there.”

“Okay. Shall we go together, or what?”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“Friday. The sixteenth.”

“You take it alone, Cotton. I want to get a search warrant before the weekend, and the way the courts are jammed, I’m liable to be there all day.”

“What do you plan to do? Shake down Grimm’s office?”

“Yeah, the Bailey Street place, where he keeps his books. That seems like the next logical step, don’t you think?”

“Sounds good to me,” Hawes said.

“So let’s go home.”

“Half-a-day today?” Meyer called from where he and Brown were still explaining Miranda-Escobedo to the kid.

“So what do you say, sonny?” Brown asked. “You want to talk to us or not?” He was standing in his shirtsleeves near the chair in which the addict sat, his sleeves rolled up over powerful forearms, a huge black man who dwarfed the kid sitting in the chair with his wrist handcuffed to the desk.

“What if I tell you about the scag?” the kid said. “Will you forget about the wristwatches?”

“Now, sonny,” Brown said, “you’re asking us to make deals only the DA can make.”

“But you want to know about those two decks, don’t you?”

“We’re mildly interested,” Brown said, “let me put it that way. We got you dead to rights on the burglary...”

“The robbery, you mean.”

“No, the burglary,” Brown said.

“I thought a burglary was when you went into somebody’s apartment and ripped it off.”

“Sonny, I don’t have time to give you a lecture on the Penal Law. You want the charge to read robbery, well be happy to oblige. You also got a rape or a homicide you want to tell us about, why, we’ll just be tickled to death to listen. But Third-Degree Burglary is what we got you on, and that’s what we’re going to book you for. If that’s okay with you.”

“Okay, fine,” the kid said.

“Now, if you want to cooperate with us,” Brown said, “and I’m not making any promises because that’s expressly forbidden by Miranda-Escobedo... but if you want to cooperate with us and talk about how you got that heroin, why maybe we can later whisper in the DA’s ear that you were helpful, though I’m not making any promises.”

The kid looked up at Brown. He was a skinny kid with a longish nose and pale blue eyes and hollow cheeks. He was wearing dungarees and a striped, short-sleeved polo shirt. The hit marks of his addiction ran up the length of his arm, following the veins like an army of marauding ants.

“What do you say?” Brown asked. “You’re wasting our time here. If you want to talk to us, speak now or forever hold your peace. The sergeant downstairs is waiting to write your name in the book.”

“Well, I don’t see no harm talking to you,” the kid said. “Provided...”

“Never mind ‘provided,’ ” Meyer said. “He just told you we can’t make any promises.”

“Well, I realize that,” the kid said, offended.

“Well, fine,” Meyer said. “So shit or get off the pot, will you?”

“I said I’d talk to you”

“Okay, so talk.”

“What do you want to know?” the kid asked.

“How about starting with your name?” Brown said.

“Samuel Rosenstein.”

“You Jewish?” Meyer said.

“Yes,” the kid said defensively. “What of it?”

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Meyer said, “why’re you shooting that poison into your body?”

“What’s it to you?” the kid said.

“Dumb bastard,” Meyer said, and walked away.

“All right, Sammy,” Brown said, “how’d you get those two decks you were carrying?”

“If you think I’m going to tell you the name of my connection, we can quit talking right this minute.”

“I didn’t ask you who, and I didn’t ask you where. I asked you how .”

“I don’t follow,” Sammy said.

“Now, Sammy,” Brown said, “you and I both know that two weeks ago there was the biggest narcotics bust we’ve ever had in this city...”

“Oh, is that it?” Sammy said.

“Is what it?”

“Is that why it’s so tough to score?”

“Don’t you read the papers?” Brown asked.

“I ain’t got time to read the papers. I just been noticing the stuff is scarce, that’s all.”

“It’s scarce because the 5th Squad busted a dope factory and confiscated two hundred kilograms waiting to be cut and packaged.”

“How much is that?”

“More than four hundred pounds.”

“Wow!” Sammy said. “Four hundred pounds of scag! That could keep me straight for a year.”

“You and every other junkie in this city. You know how much that’s worth pure?”

“How much?”

“Forty-four million dollars.”

“That’s before they cut it, huh?”

“That’s right. Before they put it on the street for suckers like you to buy.”

“I didn’t ask to be a junkie,” Sammy said.

“No? Did somebody force it on you?”

“Society,” Sammy said.

“Bullshit,” Brown said. “Tell me how you got those two decks.”

“I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” Sammy said.

“Okay, are we finished then? Meyer, the kid’s ready for booking.”

“Okay,” Meyer said, and walked over.

“I been saving it,” Sammy said suddenly.

“How’s that?”

“I been a junkie for almost three years now. I know there’s good times and bad, and I always keep a little hid away. That was the last of it, those two decks. You think I’d’ve busted a store window if I wasn’t desperate? Prices are skyrocketing, it’s like a regular junk inflation. Listen, don’t you think I know we’re in for a couple of bad weeks here?”

“Couple of bad months is more like it,” Meyer said.

“Months?” Sammy said, and fell silent, and looked up at the two detectives. “Months?” he said again, and blinked his eyes. “That can’t be. I mean... what’s a person supposed to do if he can’t...? I mean, what’s gonna happen to me?”

“You’re going to break your habit, Sammy,” Brown said. “In jail. Cold turkey.”

“What’ll they give me for the burglary?” Sammy asked. His voice was quite low now; he seemed drained of all energy.

“Ten years,” Brown said.

“Is this a first offense?” Meyer asked.

“Yeah. I usually... I usually get money from my parents, you know? I mean, enough to get me through the week. I don’t have to steal, they help me out, you know? But the prices are so high, and the junk is so lousy... I mean, you’re paying twice as much for half the quality, it’s terrible, I mean it. I know guys who’re shooting all kinds of shit in their arms. It’s a bad scene, I got to tell you.”