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

Lipton seemed to know one of the dancers, a woman of about thirty-five, with bleached blond hair and siliconed breasts tipped with star-shaped pasties, ample buttocks, rather resembling in build one of the sturdy Clydesdale horses in the Rheingold commercials. When she finished her number, she kneeled down beside him on the bar top, chatted with him briefly, and then went to join him at a table in the rear of the place. Lipton ordered a drink for the girl, and they talked together for perhaps a half hour, at the end of which time she clambered onto the bar top again to hurl some more beef at her audience, all of whom watched her every move in pop-eyed fascination, as though privileged to be witnessing Markova at a command performance of Swan Lake . Lipton settled his bill and left the bar. Without much regret, Hawes followed him back to the garden apartment, where he put his car into one of a row of single garages on the ground level of the building, and then went upstairs. Figuring he was home for the night, Hawes drove back to the Gee-Gee-Go-Go, ordered a scotch and soda, and waited for an opportunity to engage the beefy blonde in conversation.

He caught her after she finished her number, a tiresome repetition of the last three, or five, or fifty numbers she had performed on the bar top. She was heading either for the ladies’ room or a dressing room behind the bar when he stepped into her path, smiled politely, and said, “I like the way you dance. May I buy you a drink?”

The girl said, “Sure,” without hesitation, confirming his surmise that part of the job was getting the customers to buy watered-down booze or ginger ale masquerading as champagne. She led him to the same table Lipton had shared with her, where a waiter appeared with something like lightning speed, pencil poised. The girl ordered a double bourbon and soda; apparently the champagne dodge was a mite too sophisticated for the Calm’s Point sticks. Hawes ordered a scotch and soda and then smiled at the girl and said, “I really do like the way you dance. Have you been working here long?”

“Are you a cop?” the girl asked.

“No,” Hawes said, startled.

“Then what are you? A crook?”

“No.”

“Then why are you carrying a gun?” the girl said.

Hawes cleared his throat. “Who says I am?”

“ I say you are. On your right hip. I saw the bulge when we were talking in the hallway there, and I brushed against it when we were coming over to the table. It’s a gun, all right.”

“It’s a gun, yes.”

“So, are you a cop?”

“No. Close to it, though,” Hawes said.

“Yeah? What does that mean? Private eye?”

“I’m a night watchman. Factory over on Klein and Sixth.”

“If you’re a night watchman, what are you doing here? This is the nighttime.”

“I don’t start till midnight.”

“You always drink like this before you go to work?”

“Not always.”

“Where’d you go when you left here before?” the girl asked.

“You noticed me, huh?” Hawes answered, and grinned, figuring he’d get the conversation onto a socio-sexual level and move it away from more dangerous ground.

“I noticed,” the girl said, and shrugged. “You’re a big guy. Also you’ve got red hair, which is unusual. Do they call you ‘Red’?”

“They call me Hamp.”

“Hamp? What kind of name is that?”

“Short for Hampton.”

“Is that your first name or your last?”

“My last. It’s Oliver Hampton.”

“I can see why you settled for Hamp.”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s on the card outside. Didn’t you see it?”

“I guess I missed it.”

“Rhonda Spear.”

“Is that your real name?”

“It’s my show business name.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Why do you want to know? So you can call me up in the middle of the night and breathe on the phone?”

“I might call you, but I wouldn’t breathe.”

“If a person doesn’t breathe, he drops dead,” Rhonda said. She smiled, consumed her drink in a single swallow, and said, “I’d like another double bourbon, please.”

“Sure,” Hawes said, and signaled for the waiter to bring another round. “How many of those do you drink in a night?”

“Ten or twelve,” she said. “It’s only Coca-Cola,” she said. “You’re a cop, you know damn well it’s Coca-Cola.”

“I’m not a cop, and I didn’t know it was Coca-Cola,” Hawes said.

“ I know cops,” Rhonda said. “And you know Coca-Cola.” She hesitated, looked him straight in the eye, and said, “What do you want from me, officer?”

“Little conversation, that’s all,” Hawes said.

“About what?”

“About why you would tell a cop, if that’s what you think I am, that he’s paying for bourbon and getting Coca-Cola.”

Rhonda shrugged. “Why not? If this joint was gonna be busted, they’d have done it ages ago. Everybody in this precinct, from the lieutenant on down, is on the take. We even dance without the pasties every now and then. Nobody ever bothers us. Is that why you’re here, officer,” she asked sweetly, “to get your share of the pie?”

“I’m not a cop,” Hawes said, “and I wouldn’t care if you danced bare-assed while drinking a whole crate of Coca-Cola.”

Rhonda laughed, suddenly and girlishly. Her mirth transformed her face, revealing a fleeting glimpse of what she must have looked like when she was a lot younger, and a lot softer. The laughter trailed, the image died. “Thanks, honey,” she said to the waiter, and lifted her glass and said to Hawes, “Maybe you’re not a cop, after all. Who gives a damn?”

“Cheers,” Hawes said.

“Cheers,” she answered, and they both drank. “So if you’re not a cop, what do you want from me?”

“You’re a pretty woman,” Hawes said.

“Um-huh.”

“I’m sure you know that,” he said, and lowered his eyes in a swift covetous sweep of the swelling star-tipped breasts.

“Um-huh.”

“Saw you talking to a guy earlier. I’m sure he...”

“You did, huh?”

“Sure.”

“You’ve been watching me, huh?”

“Sure. And I’ll bet he didn’t want to talk about the price of Coca-Cola, either.”

“How do you know what he wanted to talk about?”

“I don’t. I’m just saying that a pretty woman like you...”

“Um-huh.”

“Must get a lot of attention from men. So you shouldn’t be so surprised by my attention. That’s all,” he said, and shrugged.

“You’re kind of cute,” Rhonda said. “It’s a shame.”

“What is?”

“That you’re a cop.”

“Look, how many times...”

“You’re a cop,” she said flatly. “I don’t know what you’re after, but something tells me to say good night. Whatever you are, you’re trouble.”

“I’m a night watchman,” Hawes said.

“Yeah,” Rhonda replied. “And I’m Lillian Gish.” She swallowed the remainder of her drink, said, “You’ll settle with the waiter, huh?” and swiveled away from the table, ample buttocks threatening the purple satin shorts she wore.

Hawes paid for the drinks, and left.

On Saturday morning, while Carella was waiting for a lab report on the sneaker he had found in Elliot’s trash, he made a routine check of the three hospitals in the area, trying to discover if and when a man named Sanford Elliot had been treated for a sprained ankle. The idea of calling all the private physicians in the area was out of the question, of course; if Carella had not hit pay dirt with one of the hospitals, he would have given up this line of investigation at once. But sometimes you get lucky. On Saturday, April 24, Carella got lucky on the second call he made.