Ed McBain - Another Part of the City

The taxi dispatcher outside Eastern Airlines was busy signalling to cabs and loading passengers.

“You picked a day, all right,” he told them when Reardon identified himself.

“What do you know about this Arab who came in on Eastern’s nine o’clock shuttle from Washington last Sunday night?” Reardon asked.

“Come on, you gotta be kidding,” the dispatcher said, and turned to a man and a woman standing at the curb. “Where you going, mister?” he asked.

“The Parker Meridien,” the man said.

“Manhattan?”

“Yes,” the man said.

The dispatcher signalled to the next cab in line.

“The guy got shot, it was in all the newspapers the next day, don’t you read the newspapers?” the dispatcher said. “Manhattan,” he said to the cabbie. “Parker Meridien. Load the bags fast, okay?” He turned to Reardon again. “Or you’re supposed to be a cop, don’t you talk to other cops? Who were here when the guy got shot?”

“Well, it’s a big city,” Reardon said.

“Were you working last Sunday night?” Hoffman asked.

“I was working,” the dispatcher said. “Where to, lady?”

“Brooklyn,” the woman next in line said.

The dispatcher signalled to another cab. “I usually work from four to midnight,” he said. “I took the day shift today because the other dispatcher’s home sick. I don’t know who the hell’s gonna work the night shift, because it ain’t gonna be me, I can tell you that. Brooklyn,” he said to the cabbie. “These your bags, lady?”

“Yes.”

“Two bags,” he said, “load ’em fast.”

“Were you working when the nine o’clock shuttle came in?” Reardon asked.

“Worked straight through to midnight,” the dispatcher said. “Who’s next here? There’s supposed to be a line here.”

“So what happened with the Arab?” Hoffman asked.

“Make a line here, okay?” the dispatcher said to the crowd. “I can’t help you unless you make a line. There’s no sense shoving, ’cause there ain’t no cabs right this minute, anyway. First come, first serve. Where you goin’, mister?”

“Manhattan.”

“Okay, you’re next up. soon as we get a cab here.”

“Did you see this man we’re talking about?” Hoffman said.

“Are you kidding?” the dispatcher said. “ Everybody saw him. He was cornin’ out of the terminal when they opened fire on him.”

“Who?”

“Two guys in business suits, who. Who knows who? Have they been caught yet? Does anybody even know who was shot? Who. he asks me.”

“Got shot where? Right out here on the taxi line?”

“He come out of the terminal like a ship under sail, you know?” the dispatcher said. “Sheets flying in the wind. He comes over to me, is coming over to me. when bam, bam. bam, a dozen shots ring out, he’s dead before he hits the sidewalk.”

“Then what?” Reardon said.

“Then we got people scrambling in all directions, and cops all over the place, and an ambulance pulling in, and off he goes.”

“To where?” Hoffman asked.

“To Elmhurst General, is where. Here we go, mister, you said Manhattan, didn’t you?”

The three-column headline on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times read:

Beneath that, the subhead read:

The newspaper was on the desk in Phelps’s study. He kept looking at the headline as he dialed Rothstein’s number. He let the phone ring six times, seven, eight, where the hell was ...?

“Hello?”

“Lowell, it’s Joe.”

“Yes, Joe.”

“What took you so long to...?”

“I was in the shower. What’s the matter?”

“Have you seen the Times?”

“No. What is it?”

“Kidd had a stroke.”

“What?”

“A stroke, a stroke, what are we going to do?”

“I’ll call Phoenix right away,” Rothstein said.

“Get back to me, will you?”

“Yes, Joe, as soon as I know what’s...”

“Lowell...”

“Joe, I’ll take care of it, okay?”

The emergency room at Elmhurst General Hospital was uncommonly crowded for a Sunday morning. One of the two interns on duty was a hawk-faced Indian with a sallow complexion and an extremely harried look. Hoffman wondered why all the goddamn interns in this city came from Calcutta. Dr. Brajabihari Hemkar — as his little nametag read — told them that Saturday night was usually their busiest time, something the detectives already knew. In this city, Saturday night was when the werewolves came out to howl and drink blood. But this was Sunday morning, 10:05 A.M. by the wall clock, and in addition to the usual number of kids who’d overturned a scalding pot of water or stuck a fork into a toaster, there were two stabbing victims and a gunshot victim, all three of whom added immeasurably to the sense of confusion in the waiting room and the harried look on Dr. Hemkar’s face.

“What is it you wanted to know?” he asked, and glanced nervously toward the entrance door where a uniformed police officer had just come in with a man who was bleeding down the left side of his head.

Neither Reardon nor Hoffman was wearing anything that would indicate they were police detectives, no shield or ID card pinned to the collar, nothing that would have told the uniformed cop they were on the job. But he recognized them at once for fellow officers, and immediately said, “His wife hit him with a baseball bat.”

“Very nice,” Hoffman said, nodding.

The man kept bleeding. His eye was swollen half-closed. Dr. Hemkar asked a nurse to get Dr. Shaffer, and then took the detectives aside and said, “I hope we can make this fast, really. As you can see...”

“Just a few quick questions.” Reardon said. “We’re trying to track down a man who was brought here from La Guardia last Sunday night. He would’ve been wearing traditional Arab...”

“Yes, what about him?” Hemkar said, and then turned to a young man who came from a room near the admissions desk. Through the open door, Reardon could see a woman lying on a table, the front of her blouse covered with blood.

“Can you take this one, Jake?” Hemkar said.

“World War III today,” the other intern said. “Come with me, please, sir.”

“His wife hit him with a baseball bat,” the uniformed cop said again.

“Thank you, officer. This way, please, sir.”

“You need me anymore?” the uniformed cop asked Hemkar.

“No, thank you, that’ll be fine,” Hemkar said, and sighed heavily, and turned to the detectives again.

“Do you remember the man?” Hoffman asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“As we understand this,” Reardon said, “it was a D.O.A., is that right?”

“Correct,” Hemkar said.

“Who was he?” Hoffman asked.

“Who knows?” Hemkar said. “There was no identification on the body.”

“No wallet?”

“No passport?”

“Nothing,” Hemkar said. “I had a nurse call the Hundred and fourteenth Precinct the moment I realized he was dead. Two detectives were here within the hour.”

“Then what?” Reardon asked.

“They called Queens General, and the morgue wagon picked up the cadaver sometime later that night. Around eleven, eleven-thirty, I think it was.”

“For autopsy?”

“As required in any trauma death.” Hemkar said, and nodded.

The Chief of Staff at Queens General Hospital was a portly little man with a white goatee and rimless eyeglasses. He sat toying with a letter opener as the detectives told him what they had learned at Elmhurst General. A triangular-shaped nameplate on his desk read DR. ERNEST PATTERSON. A mustard stain was centered like a tie tack on his blue tie.