Ed McBain - Eighty Million Eyes

“He doesn’t work here?”

“No.”

“Are all of your employees full-time men?”

“All of them.”

“No part-time workers, maybe somebody who worked here for just a few days—”

“I know everybody who works here,” Brady said. “That guy don’t work here.”

“Is he someone who might possibly make deliveries here?”

“What kind of deliveries?”

“I don’t know. Maybe—”

“The only thing we get delivered here is animals.”

“I’m sure you get other things delivered here, Mr. Brady.”

“Nothing,” Brady said, and he rose from behind his desk. “I got to get back to work.”

“Sit down, Mr. Brady,” Kling said. His voice was harsh.

Surprised, Brady looked at him with rising eyebrows, ready to really take offense.

“I said sit down. Now go ahead.”

“Listen, mister—” Brady started.

“No, you listen, mister,” Kling said. “I’m investigating an assault, and I have good reason to believe this man”—he tapped the drawing—”was somewhere around here last Friday. Now, I don’t like your goddamn attitude, Mr. Brady, and if you’d like the inconvenience of answering some questions uptown at the station house instead of here in your nice cozy office overlooking all that killing out there, that’s just fine with me. So why don’t you get your hat and we’ll just take a little ride, okay?”

“What for?” Brady said.

Kling did not answer. He sat grimly on the side of the desk opposite Brady and studied him coldly. Brady looked deep into his eyes.

“The only thing we get delivered here is animals,” he said again.

“Then how’d the paper cups get here?”

“Huh?”

“On the water cooler,” Kling said. “Don’t brush me off, Mr. Brady, I’m goddamn good and sore.”

“Okay, okay,” Brady said.

“Okay! Who delivers stuff here?”

“A lot of people. But I know most of them, and I don’t recognize that picture.”

“Are there any deliveries made that you would not ordinarily see?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does anything come into this building that you personally would not check?”

“I check anything that goes in or out. What do you mean? You mean personal things, too?”

“Personal things?”

“Things that have nothing to do with the business?”

“What’d you have in mind, Mr. Brady?”

“Well, some of the guys order lunch from the diner across the dock. They got guys working there who bring the lunch over. Or coffee sometimes. I got my own little hot plate here in the office, so I don’t have to send out for coffee, and also I bring my lunch from home. So I don’t usually get to see the guys who make the deliveries.”

“Thank you,” Kling said, and rose.

Brady could not resist a parting shot. “Anyway,” he said, “most of them delivery guys are niggers.”

The air outside was clean, blowing fresh and wet off the river. Kling sighted the diner on the opposite end of the dock rectangle and quickly began walking toward it. It was set in a row of shops that slowly came into sharper focus as he moved closer to them. The two shops flanking the diner were occupied by a plumber and a glazier.

He took out his notebook and consulted it: suet, sawdust, blood, animal hair, fish scale, putty, wood splinter, metal filings, peanut, and gasoline. The only item he could not account for was the peanut, but maybe he’d find one in the diner. He was hopeful, in fact, of finding something more than just a peanut inside. He was hopeful of finding the man who had stopped at the slaughterhouse and stepped into the suet, blood and sawdust to which the animal hair had later clung when he crossed the pens outside. He was hopeful of finding the man who had walked along the creosoted railroad tracks, picking up a wood splinter in the sticky mess on his heel. He was hopeful of finding the man who had stopped on the edge of the dock where the fishermen were cleaning fish, and later walked through a small puddle of gasoline near the marine pumps, and then into the glazier’s where he had acquired the dot of putty, and the plumber’s where the copper filings had been added to the rest of the glopis. He was hopeful of finding the man who had beaten Cindy senseless, and the possibility seemed strong that this man made deliveries for the diner. Who else could wander so easily in and out of so many places? Kling unbuttoned his coat and reassuringly touched the butt of his revolver. Briskly, he walked to the door of the diner and entered.

The smell of greasy food assailed his nostrils. He had not eaten since breakfast, and the aroma combined with his slaughterhouse memories to bring on a feeling of nausea. He took a seat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee, wanting to look over the personnel before he showed his drawing to anyone. There were two men behind the counter, one white and one colored. Neither looked anything at all like the drawing. Behind a pass-through into the kitchen, he caught a glimpse of another white man as he put down a hamburger for pickup. He was not the suspect, either. Two Negro delivery boys in white jackets were sitting in a booth near the cash register, where a baldheaded white man sat picking his teeth with a matchstick. Kling assumed he had seen every employee in the place, with the possible exception of the short-order cook. He finished his coffee, went to the cash register, showed his shield to the baldheaded man and said, “I’d like to talk to the manager, please.”

“I’m the manager and the owner both,” the baldheaded man said. “Myron Krepps, how do you do?”

“I’m Detective Kling. I wonder if you would take a look at this picture and tell me if you know the man.”

“I’d be more than happy to,” Krepps said. “Did he do something?”

“Yes,” Kling said.

“May I ask what it is he done?”

“Well, that’s not important,” Kling said. He took the drawing from its envelope and handed it to Krepps. Krepps cocked his head to one side and studied it.

“Does he work here?” Kling asked.

“Nope,” Krepps said.

“Has he ever worked here?”

“Nope,” Krepps said.

“Have you ever seen him in the diner?”

Krepps paused. “Is this something serious?”

“Yes,” Kling said, and then immediately asked, “Why?” He could not have said what instinct provoked him into pressing the issue, unless it was the slight hesitation in Krepp’s voice as he asked his question.

“How serious?” Krepps said.

“He beat up a young girl,” Kling said.

“Oh.”

“Is that serious enough?”

“That’s pretty serious,” Krepps admitted.

“Serious enough for you to tell me who he is?”

“I thought it was a minor thing,” Krepps said. “For minor things, who needs to be a good citizen?”

“Do you know this man, Mr. Krepps?”

“Yes, I seen him around.”

“Have you seen him here in the diner?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“When he makes his rounds.”

“What do you mean?”

“He goes to all the places on the dock here.”

“Doing what?”

“I wouldn’t get him in trouble for what he does,” Krepps said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s no crime what he does. The city is unrealistic, that’s all.”

“What is it that he does, Mr. Krepps?”

“It’s only that you say he beat up a young girl. That’s serious. For that, I don’t have to protect him.”

“Why does he come here, Mr. Krepps? Why does he go to all the places on the dock?”

“He collects for the numbers,” Krepps said. “Whoever wants to play the numbers, they give him their bets when he comes around.”

“What’s his name?”