Ed McBain - Ten Plus One

“Hardly ever.”

“Then how do you know whether they’re funny or not?”

“I don’t. I just write them and hope somebody else’ll think they’re funny.” He shrugged. “I guess they must be, because I sell an awful lot of them. To the best magazines, too.”

“I never met a gag writer before,” Meyer said, cocking his head to one side appreciatively.

“I never met a detective before,” Cohen said, and suddenly the visit came back into focus, suddenly there were two detectives in a small office with a man who was linked to six homicides. In deference to the pleasant tangent, there were perhaps thirty seconds of silence. Then Meyer said, “Can you tell us anything about that play in 1940, Mr. Cohen?”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Cohen said. “I went into it for kicks. I was a liberal-arts major, and I hadn’t yet made up my mind what I wanted to do, so I was experimenting. I fooled around with the drama group for about a year, I guess.”

“Acting?”

“Acting, yes, and I also wrote some skits for a revue we did.”

“When was that?”

“After The Long Voyage Home ; 1941, I think.”

“What about the people who were in the O’Neill play? What do you remember about them?”

“Gee, that was a long time ago,” Cohen said.

“Was there anything out of line? An incident of some kind? A fight? Even a heated argument?”

“Not that I can recall. It seemed like a pretty smooth production. I think everyone got along pretty well.”

“There were three girls in the play,” Carella said. “Was there any trouble with them?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Two guys falling for the same girl, anything like that?”

“No, nothing,” Cohen said.

“Then nothing out of the ordinary happened?”

“I can’t remember anything. It was just a routine college show. We all got along pretty well.” Cohen hesitated. “Even had a party after the show.”

“Anything out of line happen at the party?”

“No.”

“Who was there?”

“The cast, and the crew, and Professor Richardson, the faculty adviser. He left early.”

“How late did you stay?”

“Until it was over.”

“And when was that?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. Early in the morning sometime.”

“Who else was there when it broke up?”

“Five or six of us.” Cohen shrugged. “Six, I guess.”

“Who were the six?”

“Three guys and three girls.”

“Who were the girls?”

“The three who were in the show. Helen Struthers, and the other two.”

“And the guys?”

“Tony Forrest, Randy Norden, and me.”

“Any trouble?”

“No. Look, we were kids. We were all in separate rooms, necking.”

“And then what, Mr. Cohen?”

“Then we all went home.”

“All right, what’d you do after you got out of college? Were you in the service?”

“Yes.”

“What branch?”

“The Army. The infantry.”

“What was your rank?”

“I was a corporal.”

“And your job?”

Cohen hesitated. “I…” He shrugged. “I told you. I was in the infantry.”

“What’d you do in the infantry?”

“I was a sniper,” Cohen said.

The room went silent.

“I know how that sounds.”

“How does it sound, Mr. Cohen?”

“Well, I’m not exactly an idiot, and I know the man who’s been doing these killings is a…a sniper.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I haven’t seen a rifle since I was discharged in 1946,” Cohen said. “I never want to see another rifle as long as I live.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t like killing people from ambush.”

“But you were an expert marksman, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you shoot at all now?”

“I told you…”

“Hunting, I mean. For sport.”

“No.”

“Do you own a rifle, Mr. Cohen?”

“No.”

“A pistol?”

“No.”

“Any kind of a weapon?”

“No.”

“Have you ever used a telescopic sight?”

“Yes, in the Army.” Cohen paused. “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” he said. “Nowadays, when I talk about killing somebody, I mean I’ve written a gag that’ll knock him dead.”

“And that’s all you mean?”

“That’s all.”

“Mr. Cohen,” Meyer said, “where do you live?”

“Uptown. Near the Coliseum.”

“We’d like to take a look at your apartment, Mr. Cohen, if that’s all right with you.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“We’ll be forced to swear out a search warrant.”

Cohen reached into his pocket and threw a ring of keys on the desk. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said. “The key with the round head opens the vestibule door. The brass key opens the apartment door.”

“The address?”

“127 North Garrod.”

“And the apartment number?”

“4-C.”

“We’ll give you a receipt for the keys, Mr. Cohen,” Carella said.

“Will you be out of there by six?” Cohen asked. “I’ve got a date.”

“I imagine so. We appreciate your cooperation.”

“I just have one question,” Cohen said. “If this guy is out to get us, how do I know I’m not next?”

“Would you like police protection?” Carella asked. “We can provide it, if you like.”

“What kind of protection?”

“A patrolman.”

Cohen considered this for a moment. Then he said, “Forget it. There’s no protection against a sniper. I used to be one.”

In the street outside, Carella asked, “What do you think?”

“I think he’s clean,” Meyer said.

“Why?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve been watching television, and going to the movies, and reading books, and I discovered something about homicide.”

“What’s that?”

“If there’s a Jew, or an Italian, or a Negro, or a Puerto Rican, or a guy with any foreign-sounding name, he’s never the one who did it.”

“Why not?”

“It ain’t permitted, that’s why. The killer has to be a hunnerd-percent white American Protestant. I’ll bet you ten bucks we don’t find anything bigger than a slingshot in Cohen’s apartment.”

The big black bomb with the furiously burning fuse was an unknown sniper somewhere out there in a city of ten million people. The two detectives sitting in a shoddy detective squadroom were drinking coffee from cardboard containers and looking out at the May sunshine streaming through the grilled window. They had searched David Arthur Cohen’s apartment from transom to trellis—the apartment boasted a small outdoor terrace overlooking a beautiful view of the River Harb—and found nothing at all incriminating. This did not mean that Cohen wasn’t a very clever murderer who had hidden his rifle in an old garage somewhere. It simply meant that, for the time being, the detectives had found nothing in his apartment.

At 3:30 that afternoon, long after they had returned Cohen’s keys to him, the telephone on Carella’s desk rang, and he picked the receiver from its cradle and said, “87th Squad, Carella.”

“Mr. Carella, this is Agnes Moriarty.”

“Hello, Miss Moriarty. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you. Suffering a bit of eyestrain, but all right otherwise.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Mr. Carella, I’ve been searching through our files since you called this morning. I am a very weary woman.”

“We certainly appreciate your help,” Carella said.

“Well, don’t get too appreciative until I tell you what I’ve found.”