Эд Макбейн - Let’s Hear It For The Deaf Man

“Let him in, Bob,” a girl’s voice said.

Bob scowled, opened the door, and stepped aside to let Carella in. Mary Margaret was sitting on a mattress on the floor. A chubby girl wearing a pink sweater and jeans was sitting beside her. Both girls had their backs to the wall. Hank was straddling a kitchen chair, his chin on his folded arms, watching Carella as he came into the room.

“Hello, Mary Margaret,” Carella said.

“Hello,” she answered without enthusiasm.

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“Talk,” she said.

“Privately.”

“Where would you suggest? There’s only this one room and a john.”

“How about the hallway?”

Mary Margaret shrugged, shoved her long hair back over her shoulders with both hands, rose with a dancer’s motion from her cross-legged position, and walked barefooted past Carella and into the hallway. Carella followed her out and closed the door behind them.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked.

“Do you pose for an artist named Sandy Elliot?”

“Why?” Mary Margaret asked. “Is that against the law? I’m nineteen years old.”

“No, it’s not against the law.”

“So, okay, I pose for him. How’d you know that?”

“I saw some of his work. The likeness is remarkable.” Carella paused. “Do you also drive for him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did you drive him up to Boston last weekend?”

“Yes,” Mary Margaret said.

“Were you posing for him today when I went to the shop?”

“I don’t know when you went to the shop.”

“Let’s take just the first part. Were you posing for him today?”

“Yes.”

“What time?”

“From ten o’clock on.”

“I was there about eleven.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Sandy didn’t mention my visit?”

“No.”

“When did he hurt his leg, Mary Margaret?”

“I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you posed for him?”

“Before today, do you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Last Thursday.”

Carella took a small celluloid calendar from his wallet and looked at it. “That would be Thursday, the fifteenth.”

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Was he on crutches at that time?”

“Yes.”

“When did you pose for him before that?”

“I pose for him every Thursday morning.”

“Does that mean you posed for him on Thursday, April eighth?”

“Yes.”

“Was he on crutches then?”

“No.”

“So he hurt himself sometime between the eighth and the fifteenth, is that right?”

“I guess so. What difference does it make when he...?”

“Where’d you go in Boston?”

“Oh, around.”

“Around where?”

“I don’t know Boston too well. Sandy was giving me directions.”

“When did you leave here?”

“Friday.”

“Friday, the sixteenth?”

“Mmm.”

“Was it?”

“Yes, it was. Last Friday. Right.”

“What kind of car did you use?”

“Sandy’s.”

“Which is what?”

“Little Volkswagen.”

“Must have been uncomfortable. Crutches and all.”

“Mmm.”

“How long did it take you to get up there?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Four, five hours. Something like that.”

“What time did you leave?”

“Here? The city?”

“Yes.”

“In the morning.”

“What time in the morning?”

“Nine? Ten? I don’t remember.”

“Did you come back down that night?”

“No. We stayed a few days. In Boston.”

“Where?”

“One of Sandy’s friends.”

“And came back when?”

“Late Monday night.”

“And today you posed for Sandy again.”

“That’s right.”

“How much does he pay you?”

Mary Margaret hesitated.

“How much does he pay you?” Carella asked again.

“Sandy’s my boyfriend,” she said. “He doesn’t pay me anything.”

“Where do you pose?”

“In the back of his shop. He’s got his studio there. In the back.”

“Are you living with him, Mary Margaret?”

“I live here. But I spend most of my time with Sandy.”

“Would you know the name of the doctor who treated his foot?”

“No.”

“What happened to it, anyway?”

“He had an accident.”

“Fell, did he?”

“Yes.”

“And tore the Achilles’ tendon, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Mary Margaret, do you think Sandy might have known that man in the picture I showed you?”

“Go ask Sandy.”

“I did.”

“So what did he say?”

“He said no.”

“Then I guess he didn’t know him.”

“Did you know him?”

“No.”

“You want to know what I think, Mary Margaret?”

“What?”

“ I think Sandy was lying.”

Mary Margaret shrugged.

“I think you’re lying, too.”

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know yet,” Carella said.

He had been inside the apartment for perhaps twenty minutes when he heard a key turning in the lock. He knew that the Ungermans would be gone until the end of the week, and at first he thought the building superintendent was making an inopportune, routine check, but then he heard a man say, “Good to be home, eh, Karin?” and realized the Ungermans were back, and he was in the bedroom, and there were no exterior fire escapes; the only way out was through the front door, the way he had come in. He decided immediately that there was no percentage in waiting, the thing to do was make his move at once. The Ungermans were a couple in their late sixties, he would have no trouble getting past them, the difficult thing would be getting out of the building. They were moving toward the bedroom, Harry Ungerman carrying a pair of suitcases, his wife a step behind him, reaching up to take off her hat, when he charged them. He knocked Ungerman flat on his back, and then shoved out at Mrs. Ungerman, who reached out toward him for support, clutching at his clothes to keep from falling over backward the way her husband had done not ten seconds before. They danced an awkward, silent little jig for perhaps four seconds, her hands grasping, he trying to shove her away, and finally he wrenched loose, slamming her against the wall, and racing for the front door. He got the door unlocked, opened it, and was running for the stairway at the far end of the hall when Mrs. Ungerman began screaming.

Instead of heading down for the street, he went up toward the roof of the twelve-story building. The metal door was locked when he reached it. He backed off several paces, sprang the lock with a flat-footed kick, and sprinted out onto the roof. He hesitated a moment in the star-drenched night, to get his bearings. Then he ran for the parapet, looked down at the roof of the adjacent building, and leaped.

By the time Harry Ungerman put in his call to the police, the man who had tried to burglarize his apartment was already four blocks away, entering his own automobile.

But it had been a close call.

If you are going to go tiptoeing into empty apartments, you had best make certain they are going to stay empty all the while you are illegally on the premises. If they suddenly become anything less than empty, it is best not to try pushing around an elderly lady with a bad back, since she just might possibly grab you to keep from falling on her coccyx, and in the ensuing gavotte might get a very good look at you, particularly if she is a sharp-eyed old bat.

Karin Ungerman was a very sharp-eyed old bat, and mad as a hornet besides. What annoyed her particularly was the kitten. The kitten was a fluffy little tan thing who had wet on the gold brocade chaise in the Ungerman bedroom. Mrs. Ungerman was certain the stain would not come out, despite liberal and repeated sprinklings of a highly touted spot remover. The first thing she asked Kling when he arrived that morning was whether or not her insurance company would pay damages for the kitten’s indiscretion. The kitten had, after all, been brought there by a burglar and she was covered for fire and theft, so why shouldn’t they pay? Kling did not know the answer. Kling — who had arrived at the squadroom at 8 A.M., and been promptly informed of last night’s events — had rushed over to 641 Richardson Drive immediately, and was interested only in getting a description of the man both Ungermans had seen.