Ed McBain - The Empty Hours

February 14

I found a knife in the ark today, at the rear of the cabinet behind the Torah.

March 8

We had no further use of the Bibles we replaced, and since they were old and tattered, but nonetheless ritual articles containing the name of God, we buried them in the back yard, near the tool shed.

March 22

I must see about contacting a painter to do the outside of the synagogue. Someone suggested a Mr. Frank Cabot who lives in the neighborhood. I will call him tomorrow, perhaps. Passover will be coming soon, and I would like the temple to look nice.

The mystery is solved. It is kept for trimming the wick in the oil lamp over the ark.

The telephone rang. Meyer, absorbed in the diary, didn’t even hear it. Sarah went to the phone and lifted it from the cradle.

“Hello?” she said. “Oh, hello, Steve. How are you?” She laughed and said, “No, I was watching television. That’s right.” She laughed again. “Yes, just a minute, I’ll get him.” She put the phone down and walked to where Meyer was working. “It’s Steve,” she said. “He wants to speak to you.”

“Huh?”

“The phone, Steve.”

“Oh,” Meyer nodded. “Thanks.” He walked over to the phone and lifted the receiver. “Hello, Steve,” he said.

“Hi. Can you get down here right away?”

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Finch,” Carella said. “He’s broken jail.”

Finch had been kept in the detention cells of the precinct house all day Sunday where, it being Easter, he had been served turkey for his midday meal. On Monday morning, he’d been transported by van to Headquarters downtown on High Street where, as a felony offender, he participated in that quaint police custom known simply as “the line-up.” He had been mugged and printed afterward in the basement of the building, and then led across the street to the Criminal Courts Building where he had been arraigned for first-degree murder and, over his lawyer’s protest, ordered to be held without bail until trial. The police van had then transported him crosstown to the house of detention on Canopy Avenue where he’d remained all day Monday, until after the evening meal. At that time, those offenders who had committed, or who were alleged to have committed, the most serious crimes, were once more shackled and put into the van, which carried them uptown and south to the edge of the River Dix for transportation by ferry to the prison on Walker Island.

He’d made his break, Carella reported, while he was being moved from the van to the ferry. According to what the harbor police said, Finch was still handcuffed and wearing prison garb. The break had taken place at about ten p.m. It was assumed that it had been witnessed by several dozen hospital attendants waiting for the ferry which would take them to Dix Sanitarium, a city-owned-and-operated hospital for drug addicts, situated in the middle of the river about a mile and a half from the prison. It was also assumed that the break had been witnessed by a dozen or more water rats who leaped among the dock pilings and who, because of their size, were sometimes mistaken for pussy cats by neighborhood kids who played near the river’s edge. Considering the fact that Finch was dressed in drab gray uniform and handcuffs — a dazzling display of sartorial elegance, to be sure, but not likely to be seen on any other male walking the city streets — it was amazing that he hadn’t yet been picked up. They had, of course, checked his apartment first, finding nothing there but the four walls and the furniture. One of the unmarried detectives on the squad, probably hoping for an invitation to go along, suggested that they look up Eleanor Fay, Finch’s girl. Wasn’t it likely he’d head for her pad? Carella and Meyer agreed that it was entirely likely, clipped their holsters on, neglected to offer the invitation to their colleague, and went out into the night.

It was a nice night, and Eleanor Fay lived in a nice neighborhood of old brownstones wedged in between new, all-glass apartment houses with garages below the sidewalk. April had danced across the city and left her subtle warmth in the air. The two men drove in one of the squad’s sedans, the windows rolled down. They did not say much to each other, April had robbed them of speech. The police radio droned its calls endlessly; radio motor patrolmen all over the city acknowledged violence and mayhem.

“There it is,” Meyer said. “Just up ahead.”

“Now try to find a parking spot,” Carella complained.

They circled the block twice before finding an opening in front of a drugstore on the avenue. They got out of the car, left it unlocked, and walked briskly in the balmy night. The brownstone was in the middle of the block. They climbed the twelve steps to the vestibule, and studied the name plates alongside the buzzers. Eleanor Fay was in apartment 2B. Without hesitation, Carella pressed the buzzer for apartment 5A. Meyer took the doorknob in his hand and waited. When the answering click came, he twisted the knob, and silently they headed for the steps to the second floor.

Kicking in a door is an essentially rude practice. Neither Carella nor Meyer were particularly lacking in good manners, but they were looking for a man accused of murder, and a man who had successfully broken jail. It was not unnatural to assume this was a desperate man, and so they didn’t even discuss whether or not they would kick in the door. They aligned themselves in the corridor outside apartment 2B. The wall opposite the door was too far away to serve as a springboard. Meyer, the heavier of the two men, backed away from the door, then hit it with his shoulder. He hit it hard and close to the lock. He wasn’t attempting to shatter the door itself, an all but impossible feat. All he wanted to do was spring the lock. All the weight of his body concentrated in the padded spot of arm and shoulder which collided with the door just above the lock. The lock itself remained locked, but the screws holding it to the jamb could not resist the force of Meyer’s fleshy battering ram. The wood around the screws splintered, the threads lost their friction grip, the door shot inward and Meyer followed it into the room. Carella, like a quarterback carrying the ball behind powerful interference, followed Meyer.

It’s rare that a cop encounters raw sex in his daily routine. The naked bodies he sees are generally cold and covered with caked blood. Even vice-squad cops find the act of love sordid rather than enticing. Eleanor Fay was lying full length on the living-room couch with a man. The television set in front of the couch was going, but nobody was watching either the news or the weather.

When the two men with drawn guns piled into the room behind the imploding door, Eleanor Fay sat bolt upright on the couch, her eyes wide in surprise. She was naked to the waist. She was wearing tight-fitting black tapered slacks and black high-heeled pumps. Her hair was disarranged and her lipstick had been kissed from her mouth, and she tried to cover her exposed breasts with her hands the moment the cops entered, realized the task was impossible, and grabbed the nearest article of clothing, which happened to be the man’s suit jacket. She held it up in front of her like the classic, surprised heroine in a pirate movie. The man beside her sat up with equal suddenness, turned toward the cops, then turned back to Eleanor, puzzled, as if seeking an explanation from her.

The man was not Arthur Finch.

He was a man in his late twenties. He had a lot of pimples on his face, and a lot of lipstick stains. His white shirt was open to the waist. He wore no undershirt.

“Hello, Miss Fay,” Meyer said.

“I didn’t hear you knock,” Eleanor answered. She seemed to recover instantly from her initial surprise and embarrassment. With total disdain for the two detectives, she threw the jacket aside, rose and walked like a burlesque queen to a hard-backed chair over which her missing clothing was draped. She lifted a braissiere, shrugged into it, clasped it, all as if she were alone in the room. Then she pulled a black, long-sleeved sweater over her head, shook out her hair, lighted a cigarette, and said, “Is breaking and entering only a crime for criminals?”