Ed McBain - Give the Boys a Great Big Hand

“Did you write the number down?”

“What?”

“The number. Did you write it down?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Daniels said, but he pulled out his wallet and began going through it, muttering all the while, “I have to get a shot, I have to get fixed, I have to get out of here,” his hands trembling as he riffled through the wallet’s compartments. “Here,” he said at last, “here it is, here’s the number. Let me out of here before I puke.”

Carella took the card.

“You can puke at the station house,” he said.

The telephone number was Economy 8-3165.

At the squadroom, Carella called the telephone company and got an operator who promptly told him she had no record of any such number.

“It may be an unlisted number,” Carella said. “Would you please check it?”

“If it’s an unlisted number, sir, I would have no record of it.”

“Look, this is the police department,” Carella said. “I know you’re not supposed to divulge—”

“It is not a matter of not divulging the number, sir. It is simply that I would have no record of it. What I’m trying to tell you, sir, is that we do not have a list labeled ‘Unlisted Numbers.’ Do you understand me, sir?”

“Yes, I understand you,” Carella said. “But the telephone company has a record of it someplace, doesn’t it? Somebody pays the damn bill. Somebody gets the bill each month. All I want to know is who gets it?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I wouldn’t know who—”

“Let me talk to your supervisor,” Carella said.

Charles Tudor had begun walking from his home in The Quarter, and Cotton Hawes walked directly behind him. At a respectable distance, to be sure. It was a wonderful day for walking, a day that whetted the appetite for spring. It was a day for idling along and stopping at each and every store window, a day for admiring the young ladies who had taken off their coats and blossomed earlier than the flowers.

Tudor did not idle, and Tudor did not admire. Tudor walked at a rapid clip, his head ducked, his hands thrust into the pockets of his topcoat, a big man who shouldered aside any passerby who got in his way. Hawes, an equally big man, had a tough time keeping up with him. The sidewalks of The Quarter on that lovely Saturday were cluttered with women pushing baby carriages, young girls strutting with high-tilted breasts, young men wearing faded tight jeans and walking with the lope of male dancers, young men sporting beards and paint-smeared sweatshirts, girls wearing leotards over which were Bermuda shorts, old men carrying canvases decorated with pictures of the ocean, Italian housewives from the neighborhood carrying shopping bags bulging with long breads, young actresses wearing makeup to rehearsals in the many little theaters that dotted the side streets, kids playing Johnny-on-the-Pony.

Hawes could have done without the display of humanity. If he were to keep up with Tudor, he’d have to—

He stopped suddenly.

Tudor had gone into a candy store on the corner. Hawes quickened his pace. He didn’t know whether or not there was a back entrance to the store, but he had lost Tudor the night before, and he didn’t want to lose him again. He walked past the candy store and around the corner. There was only one entrance, and he could see Tudor inside making a purchase. He crossed the street quickly, took up a post in the doorway of a tenement, and waited for Tudor to emerge. When Tudor came out, he was tearing the cellophane top from a package of cigarettes. He did not stop to light the cigarette. He lighted it as he walked along, three matches blowing out before he finally got a stream of smoke.

Doggedly, Hawes plodded along behind him.

“Good afternoon, sir, this is your supervisor; may I help you, sir?”

“Yes,” Carella said. “This is Detective Carella of the 87th Squad up here in Isola,” he said, pulling his rank. “We have a telephone number we’re trying to trace, and it seems—”

“Did the call originate from a dial telephone, sir?”

“What call?”

“Because if it did, sir, it would be next to impossible to trace it. A dial telephone utilizes automatic equipment and—”

“Yes, I know that. We’re not trying to trace a call, operator, we’re trying to—”

“I’m the supervisor, sir.”

“Yes, I know. We’re—”

“On the other hand, if the call was made from a manual instrument, the possibilities of tracing it would be a little better. Unless it got routed eventually through automatic—”

“Lady, I’m a cop, and I know about tracing telephone calls, and all I want you to do is look up a number and tell me the party’s name and address. That’s all I want you to do.”

“I see.”

“Good. The number is Economy 8-3165. Now would you please look that up and give me the information I want?”

“Just one moment, sir.”

Her voice left the line. Carella drummed impatiently on the desk top. Bert Kling, fully recovered, furiously typed up a DD report at the adjoining desk.

Tudor was making another stop. Hawes cased the shop from his distant vantage point. It was set between two other shops in a row of tenements, and so the possibility of another entrance was unlikely. If there was another entrance, it would not be one accessible to customers of the shop.

Hawes lighted a cigarette and waited for Tudor to make his purchase and come into the street again.

He was in the shop for close to fifteen minutes.

When he came out, he was carrying some white gardenias.

Oh great, Hawes thought, he’s going to see a dame.

And then he wondered if the dame could be Bubbles Caesar.

“Sir, this is your supervisor.”

“Yes?” Carella said. “Have you got—?”

“You understand, sir, that when a person requests an unlisted or unpublished telephone number, we—”

“I’m not a person,” Carella said, “I’m a cop.” He wrinkled his brow and thought that one over for a second.

“Yes, sir, but I’m referring to the person whose telephone number this is. When that person requests an unpublished number, we make certain that he understands what this means. It means that there will be no record of the listing available, and that no one will be able to get the number from anyone in the telephone company, even upon protest of an emergency condition existing. You understand that, sir?”

“Yes, I do. Lady, I’m a cop investigating a murder. Now will you please—”

“Oh, I’ll give you the information you requested. I certainly will.”

“Then what—?”

“But I want you to know that an ordinary citizen could not under any circumstances get the same information. I simply wanted to make the telephone company’s policy clear.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly clear, operator.”

“Supervisor,” she corrected.

“Yes, sure. Now who’s that number listed for, and what’s the address?”

“The phone is in a building on Canopy Street. The address is 1611.”

“Thank you. And the owner of the phone?”

“No one owns our telephones, sir. You realize that our instruments are provided on a rental basis, and that—”

“Whose name is that phone listed under, oper — supervisor? Would you please—?”

“The listing is for a man named Charles Tudor,” the supervisor said.

“Charles Tudor?” Carella said. “Now what the hell—?”

“Sir?” the supervisor asked.

“Thank you,” Carella said, and he hung up. He turned to Kling. “Bert,” he said, “get your hat.”

“I don’t wear any,” Kling said, so he clipped on his holster instead.

Charles Tudor had gone into 1611 Canopy Street, unlocked the inner vestibule door, and vanished from sight.