Ed McBain - Another Part of the City

“From Dodge?”

“Yes,” Fazal said.

“Who told you to get it back?”

“He did,” Fazal said, and nodded at Zahir, whose balls were better now, but who still had a scowl on his face.

“You the boss here?” Reardon asked him.

No answer.

Gianelli put down the phone. “Abbas was ticketed Phoenix-Washington-New York, connecting the next day with the Concorde to Rabat.”

“Where the fuck is Rabat?” Hoffman said.

“Morocco.” Ruiz said.

“What was he doing in Phoenix?” Reardon asked Zahir.

No answer.

“Is that where you guys are from?” Farmer asked. “Morocco?”

No answer. The two friendlies were now having second thoughts, Reardon guessed. In a police station, people always had second thoughts. First they spilled their guts, and then they wondered whether they’d said too much. The bossman’s intransigence wasn’t helping much, either. Still setting a bad example. Mouth compressed in a tight little line, eyebrows pulled down, all the curses he could think of glowering in his dark eyes.

“Mister, you’re the one who’s gonna take the fall here, you know that, don’t you?” Reardon said.

“Sure, these other jerks are just accomplices,” Gianelli said, immediately picking up on Reardon’s drift.

“They already said he’s the one told them to go get that timetable,” Hoffman said. “That makes him...”

“I was only following orders,” Zahir said.

“What orders?”

“To recover the timetable.”

“How’d you get these orders?”

“I received a phone call.”

“Who from?” Reardon said.

“I don’t know.”

“Hold it,” Farmer said, “let’s take this from the top, okay? What you’re saying is that somebody sent you to Dodge’s apartment to get this time table — whatever the hell kind of timetable it is — but you don’t know who this person is, or was, this person who called you, is that about it?”

“I know the person who called me,” Zahir said. “But he was only relaying a message from someone else.”

“All right, who called you, let’s start there.”

“One of my countrymen.”

“A Moroccan?”

“We are not Moroccans.”

“What ever the fuck you are,” Hoffman said, “what’s this countryman’s name?”

“I don’t know his name,” Zahir said. “Only his voice.”

The detectives all looked at each other. Farmer sighed.

“Okay, this man whose voice you know but whose name you don’t,” he said, “calls you. What did he say?”

“He said that a man named Peter Dodge was in possession of a valuable timetable, and we should recover it from him.”

“And that’s all he said?”

“That’s all he said.”

Now it was the turn of the other two Arabs to jump up and start yelling in Arabic. The detectives listened to it, not understanding a word. Ruiz scratched his head. Farmer was wondering if anybody on the uniformed force was of Syrian or perhaps Iraqi extraction. Now and then, a few English words came through.

“Our orders...”

More Arabic.

“You know what...”

Arabic again.

And finally, from Anwar, in a burst of angry English, his forefinger under Zahir’s nose as if he were about to skewer him. “Our orders were to kill him!”

Zahir was off the bench again, exploding in Arabic.

Hoffman wondered if he should kick him in the balls again.

Reardon signalled to let them play out the string.

“Or anyone else who had seen the timetable!” Fazal shouted.

Silence.

The three Arabs looked at one another.

Gianelli wondered if they were going to kiss and make up.

“You two got the right idea,” Reardon said, and wondered how much they knew about American law. “If you were acting on orders, there’s no sense you taking the rap.”

“But we were!” Anwar said.

“Sure,” Reardon said, and turned again to Zahir. “Is that true?” he asked.

Zahir nodded.

“You had orders to kill Dodge?”

“To recover the timetable,” Zahir said.

“And to kill him,” Fazal said. “Why are you being such a stubborn fool? Do you want to be hanged?”

“Orders to kill him, yes.” Zahir said softly, and sighed.

“Because he’d seen this timetable, is that right?”

“He’d seen it, yes.”

Marvelous fucking reason to kill a man, Reardon thought, he sees a timetable.

“Let me get this straight,” Farmer said. “I’m having trouble keeping this damn thing straight. Your man Abbas...”

“Messenger to the Eternal Prince,” Zahir said with dignity.

“... is carrying a timetable with him when he gets off the plane at La Guardia. But he gets shot, and the timetable disappears, and it turns up in Dodge’s apartment?” He looked at his detectives. “Is that what you guys get?” He turned to Zahir again. “How’d this timetable end up in Dodge’s hands?”

“A man named Ralph D’Annunzio gave it to him,” Zahir said.

“What?” Hoffman said.

Reardon nodded. It was beginning to fall into place.

“He gave it to Dodge at lunch that day,” Zahir said. “This is what Dodge told us. He took possession of the timetable in D’Annunzio’s restaurant. The Luna Mare.”

Silence.

Reardon was putting it all together.

Or at least trying to.

“So you had to kill D’Annunzio, too,” Reardon said, nodding.

“Yes,” Zahir said.

“Because he’d seen the timetable.”

“Yes.”

“Important fuckin’ timetable,” Hoffman said.

“What were you doing on Sutton Place?” Ruiz asked. “Somebody there see this timetable?”

“We were sent there,” Zahir said.

“Who the fuck keeps sending you to these places?” Hoffman said.

“We received a call.”

“From your pal again?” Farmer asked. “The one who you know his voice but you don’t know his name and you don’t know who calls him and tells him to give you these fuckin’ mysterious messages, is that the one?”

“Yes,” Zahir said, exactly as if Farmer had just spoken a simple English sentence.

“And?”

“I was told only that a man named Joseph Phelps had stolen some negotiable securities, and that I was to get to him before the police did.”

“What kind of negotiable securities?” Reardon asked.

“I have no idea,” Zahir said.

“This guy on the phone just gives you orders, huh?” Farmer said. “And you run out and do whatever the fuck...”

“Sounds like the police department,” Gianelli said.

“We do it for our country,” Zahir said.

Reardon, who’d been quiet for several moments, suddenly said, “You didn’t know what was on this timetable, huh?”

Zahir shook his head.

“Then how’d you know what you were looking for?”

Silence.

“You tore up Dodge’s apartment, what the hell were you looking for?”

Silence.

Zahir looked at the others.

None of them said a word.

“What’s on that timetable?” Reardon said.

Silence.

“Who’s gonna tell us what’s on that timetable?” Farmer asked.

Stone faces.

End of the road.

“All right, get them out of here,” Farmer said.

S andy’s office at Forbes was about the size of the interrogation room back at the Fifth. She sat behind a desk cluttered with clippings from magazines and newspapers, photocopies of pages from books, a jar of paste, a pair of scissors, a roll of transparent tape, pencils in assorted sizes and colors, and an ashtray brimming with cigarette stubs. The room smelled of stale tobacco smoke.