Ed McBain - Ax

It was now 12:00 noon, and he was hungry, but he wanted to wrap up the third floor before he went to lunch, which would leave him three more floors to tackle in the afternoon. There were four apartments on each floor, and he had already questioned the tenants of 3-A and 3-B, which left 3-C and 3-D and then twelve more tenants on floors four to six inclusive. Some way to spend a Monday. The word had flashed through the building the moment he’d climbed the front stoop and entered the rank-smelling foyer, so everyone in the building knew that fuzz was on the scene, which wasn’t very surprising anyway, considering the fact that old Georgie Lasser had had his head opened for him on Friday afternoon last week. Nobody liked fuzz, especially on Monday, especially in January, so Hawes had his work cut out for him.

He knocked on the door to 3-C and, getting no answer, knocked again. He was about to move on to 3-D when he heard a voice inside the apartment say, “Georgie? Is that you?”

The voice was a young voice, and a weak one, and Hawes at first thought it belonged to someone who was sick, and then a couple of things occurred to him as he backed up to the door again. First, since everyone in the building knew John Law was here, why did that voice inside apartment 3-C ask if he was Georgie? And, second, Georgie who? The only Georgie that Hawes could think of at the moment was a dead man named George Lasser.

He knocked on the door again.

“Georgie?” the voice asked. The voice was still quiet, subdued. Hawes tried to remember where he had heard a similar voice before.

“Yes,” he answered. “It’s Georgie.”

“Just a minute,” the voice said.

He waited.

He heard footsteps approaching the door. Whoever did the walking was barefoot. He heard the rigid bar of a police lock being taken out of its plate screwed into the door, and then a chain being slipped out of its metal track, and then the door’s regular lock being turned, the tumblers falling, the door opening a crack.

“You’re not—” the voice said, but Hawes’s foot was already in the door. Whoever was behind the door tried to slam it shut, but Hawes pushed his shoulder against it at just that moment and the door flew back and inward, and Hawes was inside the apartment.

The apartment was dark. The shades were drawn, and there was the smell of urine and stale cigarette smoke and human perspiration and something else. The man standing before Hawes was in rumpled striped pajamas. A five-day stubble covered his face, and he was badly in need of a haircut. His feet were dirty and there were yellow stains on his fingers and on his teeth. Through the open door behind him, Hawes could see a bedroom and a bed with twisted sheets. A girl was on the bed. She was wearing only a soiled slip, the nylon pulled high up over one scarred thigh.

If nothing else in the apartment spelled junkie, the girl’s thigh did.

“Who the hell are you?” the man asked.

“Police,” Hawes said.

“Prove it.”

“Don’t get smart, sonny boy,” Hawes said, pulling his wallet from his pocket. “From the looks of this, you’re in enough trouble already.”

“Maybe you’re in trouble for unlawful entry,” the man said, looking at Hawes’s shield held up in front of his face. Hawes put the wallet back into his trouser pocket and walked to the kitchen window. He raised the shade and opened the window and, over his shoulder, said, “Have you given up breathing, or what?”

“What the hell do you want, cop?” the man asked.

“What’s your name?”

“Bob Fontana.”

“And the girl?”

“Ask her,” Fontana said.

“I will, when she comes around. Meanwhile, suppose you tell me.”

“I forget,” Fontana said, and he shrugged.

“How long have you been holed up in here?”

“I don’t know. What’s today?”

“Monday.”

“Monday? Already?”

“You mind if I let some more air in here?”

“What are you? A fresh-air fiend?”

Hawes went into the bedroom and opened the two windows there. The girl on the bed did not stir. As he rounded the bed, he pulled the slip down over the backs of her legs.

“What’s the matter, cop?” Fontana asked. “You don’t like pussy?”

“How long has she been stoned like that?” Hawes asked.

“How do I know? I can’t even remember her name.”

“Is she alive?” Hawes asked.

“I hope so. She’s breathing, ain’t she?”

Hawes lifted the girl’s wrist and felt for the pulse. “Barely,” he said. “When did you shoot up?”

“I don’t know what you mean by shoot up,” Fontana said.

Hawes picked up a charred tablespoon from the seat of a chair alongside the bed. “What’s this, Fontana?”

“It looks like a spoon to me. Maybe somebody was having some soup.”

“All right, where is it?”

“Where’s what? The soup?”

“The junk, Fontana.”

“Oh, is that what you came in here for?”

“It’s all gone, huh?” Hawes said.

“Well, now, I don’t know. You seem to be asking the questions and answering them all at the same time.”

“Okay,” Hawes said, “let’s take it from the top. How long have you been in this apartment?”

“Since New Year’s Eve.”

“Celebrating, huh? And the girl?”

“The girl is my sister. Don’t bug me,” Fontana said.

“What’s her name?”

“Louise.”

“Louise Fontana?”

“Yeah.”

“Where does she live?”

“Here—where do you think?”

“And you?”

“Here.” Fontana saw Hawes’s look. “Get your mind out of the gutter, cop. I sleep on the couch there.”

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-two.”

“And you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“How long have you been hooked?”

“I don’t know what hooked means. You got something to pin on me, pin it. Otherwise get the hell out.”

“Why? You expecting someone?”

“Yeah, I’m expecting the president. He’s coming here to discuss the Russian situation. He comes here every Monday for lunch.”

“Who’s Georgie?” Hawes said.

“I don’t know. Who’s Georgie?”

“When I knocked on the door, you asked if I was Georgie.”

“Did I?”

“Georgie who?”

“Georgie Jessel. He comes with the president every Monday.”

“Or maybe some other Georgie, huh?” Hawes said. “You mind if I go through some of these drawers?”

“I think you’d better get a search warrant before you go messing up my underwear,” Fontana said.

“Well, that poses a slight dilemma,” Hawes said, “Maybe you can help me with it.”

“Sure, glad to help the law any time,” Fontana said, and rolled his eyes.

“There’s no law against being an addict—you know that, I guess.”

“I don’t even know what an addict is.”

“But there is a law against possessing certain specified amounts of narcotics. Now here’s the dilemma, Fontana. I can’t pinch you unless I can prove possession. Well, I can’t prove possession unless I make a search. And I can’t make a search without a warrant. But if I go downtown for a warrant, by the time I come back you’ll have flushed whatever I was looking for down the toilet. So what do I do?”

“Why don’t you go home and sleep it off?” Fontana said.

“Of course, if I make an illegal search and come up with six pounds of uncut heroin—”

“Fat chance.”

“—why then nobody’s going to worry about whether or not I had a warrant, are they?”

“Who’s gonna worry, anyway? Who you trying to kid, cop? The last time I seen a cop with a search warrant in this neighborhood, it was snowing inside the church in the middle of July. You’re worried about a warrant, don’t make me laugh. You bust down the door, and then suddenly you get legal? Ha!”