Ed McBain - Another Part of the City

“They don’t, huh? I’m fifty years old, I broke that case nine years ago. Nine fuckin’ years, Bry. I was Detective/First at the time, and I’m still Detective/First. Somebody up there’s got his eye on me, Bry. There’s a folder up there at Headquarters, it’s marked Chick Hoffman, and under my name it says ‘Hold.’ I’m in a holding pattern, Bry. I could find Judge Crater tomorrow, and I still won’t get a promotion. You know what it feels like to be in a job you know you do pretty damn good, and there ain’t no future in—”

“Up ahead,” Reardon said.

“What?”

“There she is.”

Sadie was standing in front of a building near Hester Street, picking through the garbage can out front. They pulled the car to the curb. Hoffman was already on the sidewalk as Reardon turned off the ignition. Sadie looked up as Hoffman approached, recognized him right off as a cop. and seemed about to run.

“Hello, Sadie,” Hoffman said. “How you doing?”

Sadie held her ground, her eyes shifting to Reardon as he came up.

“Got a few minutes?” Hoffman said. “We’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m busy just now,” Sadie said.

“Come on, we’ll buy you a drink,” Reardon said.

“Why not?” Sadie said at once.

At a little before one that afternoon, the Cathay Bar on Bayard Street was virtually empty. Three Chinese men sat at the bar on stools, but that was it. There were two empty shot glasses in front of Sadie. She had downed each of the shots in something like two seconds flat, and was working on the third one now. savoring it this time, lingering over it.

“Where were you Monday night, Sadie?” Reardon asked. “How come you weren’t in your doorway?”

“I was out with some friends,” Sadie said.

“Doing what?” Hoffman asked.

“We went to a movie.”

“What movie?”

“I forget the name. It was cowboys.”

“Cowboys, huh?”

“Yeah, cowboys,” she said, and smiled, pleased with her answer. Her blue eyes were shrewd in her face. She peered out at them from behind a scarf wrapped around her head and under her chin. She sipped at her whiskey again, gauged what was left in the shot glass, wondering how long she could keep them here buying drinks for her.

“How come you haven’t been back to Mulberry Street?” Reardon asked.

“I been there,” she said.

“Not in your usual doorway.”

“Yeah, but I been there.”

“You don’t like that doorway anymore?” Hoffman asked.

“I like it fine,” Sadie said, and shrugged. “But there’s plenty other doorways this city.” She looked at the shot glass hesitantly and then, apparently deciding she could take a chance on their generosity, swallowed the rest of the whiskey in a single gulp. She looked into the empty glass mournfully. She looked up at the detectives. Her eyes were startlingly blue. Reardon suddenly realized that she must have once been a very beautiful woman. He signalled to the bartender, pointed to Sadie’s glass. The bartender was not accustomed to giving table service, but he knew the Law when he saw it. He hurried over with a bottle.

“Leave the bottle,” Reardon said.

“So how come?” Hoffman said.

“How come what?” Sadie said, pouring for herself.

“How come you ain’t been back to that doorway?”

“I got tired of that doorway,” she said, drinking. “I like to try different doorways every now and then.”

“You haven’t tried a different doorway for the past three years,” Reardon said.

“Well, time for a change, right?” Sadie said, again pleased with her answer, her blue eyes twinkling.

“Where you living now, Sadie?”

“Well, I found a nice doorway on Kenmare the night after the...”

She stopped dead.

“The night after the what?” Reardon said.

“Snowstorm,” she said at once.

“You talking about last night?” Hoffman said.

“Musta been.”

“Or Monday night?”

“No, no. Monday night, I slept at the Chelsea.”

“How come no doorway?”

“Well, I had a little money, so I figured...”

“Were you afraid to sleep in a doorway on Monday night?”

“Why would I be afraid?”

“You tell us,” Reardon said.

“No, I wasn’t afraid.”

“What were you afraid of, Sadie?”

“Did something scare you, Sadie?”

“Did you see the shooting, Sadie?”

“I didn’t see no shooting Monday night,” Sadie said.

“Who said the shooting was on Monday night?”

“You just asked me...”

“Where were you on Monday night, Sadie?”

“I told you,” she said. “At the movies.”

“Which movie?”

“The cowboys.”

“Not the picture, the theater,” Hoffman said. “What theater was it?”

“The one on Bowery and Hester.”

“The Music Palace?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a Chinese theater,” Hoffman said.

“It only shows Chinese pictures,” Reardon said.

“Yeah, it was Chinese cowboys,” Sadie said.

“You were in your usual doorway on Monday night, weren’t you?” Reardon said.

“You saw the shooting, didn’t you?” Hoffman said.

“What’d you see, Sadie?”

“Were you in your doorway as usual?”

“Nossir,” she said, and poured herself another drink.

“You’ve got nothing to be afraid of,” Reardon said. “If you saw something, you can tell us.”

“Sure, and get in trouble,” Sadie said.

“A man’s been killed,” Hoffman said. “We want to lock up whoever did it.”

“Sure, and they’ll be out in six months.”

“They?” Reardon said.

“How do you know there was more than one of them. Sadie?”

“I don’t know how many there was. I didn’t see nothing.”

“Sadie, if we catch these men, we’ll send them away for a long, long lime. You don’t have to worry, Sadie. If you saw something...”

“I don’t want no trouble,” Sadie said. “I got a good life, I don’t want no trouble.”

“Did you see them?” Hoffman asked.

Sadie looked down into her shot glass.

“Sadie?” Reardon said. “Please help us.”

She kept staring into her glass.

“I got a good life,” she said.

The detectives said nothing.

“I don’t want trouble,” she said.

They waited.

At last she looked up. There were tears in her eyes.

“I saw them,” she said.

“Where were you?” Hoffman asked.

“In my doorway. They pulled up in a car.”

“How many of them?”

“Three. One stayed in the car.”

“Were they wearing masks?”

“Not when they pulled up.”

“What’d they look like?”

“They were Puerto Ricans.”

“All three of them?”

“All three.”

“What kind of car were they driving?”

“A brown Mercedes-Benz.”

Hoffman looked at Reardon.

“Armed robbers in a Mercedes-Benz?” he said. “You sure it wasn’t a Chevy?”

“I know my cars,” Sadie said. “It was a Mercedes-Benz.”

“Did you happen to notice the license plate?”

“No. I mind my own business.”

“Was it a New York plate?”

“I didn’t see it.”

“Three Puerto Ricans in a Mercedes-Benz,” Reardon said.

“Grand Larceny, Auto,” Hoffman said bleakly.

“Okay, Sadie, thanks,” Reardon said, and both men got up.

“Could you leave the bottle, please?” Sadie said in a very small voice.

It was close to one-thirty m the afternoon when Sarge let himself into the brownstone on East Seventy-first Street. He took his key from the latch, put it back into his trouser pocket, and then hung his overcoat on the brass rack just inside the ground-level entrance door.