Carol-Lynn Waugh - The Twelve Crimes of Christmas

He tried to sound. “I’ll bet anything Uncle Roy has gone to see some woman that helps you.”

“Why?”

“’Cause he said he had to see a girl about a restaurant, just after he got a phone call. I thought you’d know about it,” he added in real surprise. “I figured it was your girl helping you.”

I was irritated. “Doesn’t he know any other girls?”

Howie said self-righteously, “He’s married. And if you’ve got more than one girl, I bet you’re in trouble.”

“Not if the first one never finds out-oh, wait. Of course. Sure.” Funny how things fall together when you’re not looking for them. “Howie, thanks for calling. What you just told me was important. But why did you call me? What made it important to you?”

His whisper was moist and breathy; he must have had the mouthpiece right against his lips. “’Cause when Uncle Roy left he took two guns and all kinds of bullets, and I’ve never seen him do that before.”

The sheets weren’t just snowy-suddenly they felt like ice. I said, “I’ll do something about it right now. Howie, nobody ever said you weren’t on the ball, and nobody’s ever going to.”

“Thanks, Nathan,” he said seriously, then hung up.

Right after the click I called Pederson. I was lucky enough to find him in.

“What do you want?” he groused. “Phillips, I thought if you took a rest, I’d have one.

“Fat chance. Are you doing anything?”

“Plenty.”

“Drop it and pick me up at the hospital. Roy needs someone from Homicide.”

“There are other cops besides me, you know.” I could hear the whuff as he lit up one of his cigars and pulled at it. “Some of them are even Homicide.”

“He needs a friend-two of them. He’s in trouble, and some rookie with a gun won’t get him out of it.”

“Why not?”

“Because his own gun’s getting him into it right now.”

That was as close as I could come without committing myself.

It worked. There was a moment’s silence, then Pederson said roughly, “I don’t understand, and I’ll be right over. Be downstairs and ready in ten minutes, even if it hurts.”

Ten minutes later he was there. I was ready, and God, did it hurt! I gave him the address, and he drove faster than I’d have dared through downtown, even with a siren. We skidded onto Lake Street, wove through traffic till we shot under 35W, then screeched into a right turn we almost skidded out of. I filled him in the whole time, not stopping when I grabbed the dash for support.

He interrupted twice. “How do you know all this?”

“The restaurant bills. The man who kept a woman in that slum didn’t show her three good nights on the town.”

He grunted, and we went on. A little later he said, “You know, Phillips, I wish you could have done without me. My badge is sticky; it doesn’t pull off just because a friend’s involved.”

How do you answer that? “I know. I’m hoping we’ll get there before anything too bad happens.” He sped up then. I hadn’t thought it possible.

We pulled in across the street from the building. Roy’s car was nowhere in sight, but maybe he’d stowed it. Pederson headed for the front door, but I pulled at his arm and pointed. We ran to the fire escape and started climbing.

We hung back from the window at first. It was three inches open; we couldn’t hear anything in the apartment. Finally, we looked in. Roy wasn’t there. The only person there was Mary Jordan, a.44 held against her right leg, sitting in a chair and staring at the door.

All three of us tensed; we heard, dimly, footsteps in the hall. I had my gun out again. This time it might do me some good. The woman locked her fingers on her gun and raised it. I steadied my.38 on my left arm. This had to be perfect.

Pederson clamped onto my wrist. I pointed with the gun barrel towards the door, and he understood. He nodded, raised his gun and aimed faster than I could when I was already set, then fired. My own shot was barely behind his.

The shots were a foot apart, three inches from the top of the door. Mine was too far to the side; Pederson’s must have gone right over Roy’s head, if Roy was in front of the door. He was-we heard him drop to the floor; a second later Mary’s gun jumped in her hand, nearly knocking her chair over backwards. The bullet went through the center of the door.

Then we dropped below the sill while she turned, spitting fury, and fired four shots out the window at us. One bullet hit the window frame; it ripped the board loose and powdered an already crumbling brick. Then the door burst open and the spitting sound got louder.

Pederson shoved up the broken window and vaulted over the sill, a virile fifty-odd. I hobbled after him, a doddering old gent of thirty-one. Cartley had her around the waist with one arm and had pinned her arms to her body with the other.

He had lifted her off the floor, turning his hip between her legs to spread them and keep her from kicking backwards. Pederson reached for the handcuffs. I reached for a chair, and sat in it, emptying her handbag on the table.

Inside were matchbooks, still unused, from all the restaurants Gillis had written checks to, plus a receipt-dated two days back-from the store where he had done his previous buying. I looked up.

“Playing detective, Mary? Did you find out who she was?”

She clammed up, then. Pederson looked at her with interest. “Aren’t you even waiting to shut up till I read your rights? You are an amateur.” That stung, but she stayed quiet.

Roy was looking back and forth. He tossed his gun on the table and said, looking tired, “All right, what is it I don’t know?”

I gestured at Mary. “Only what she finally knew. I’m not the only one with an invisible lady friend.”

“Lady friend?” Pederson stared at me. “You? You never even shave-” He shut his mouth as Roy began chuckling.

“I’ve had a busy day-I put off shaving.” I turned to Mary. “One thing I can’t put off, Mary-what’s the name of the girl that aced you out?” I wanted her to make a scene and keep Pederson occupied.

“If I’d ’a known,” Mary said, “the cops’d know by now.”

Roy looked back at me helplessly, then suddenly understood. “The bills?”

I nodded. “If you hadn’t been so worried, you’d have seen it, too. Gam must have been a real bastard, borrowing from Mary to take out some other woman. Mary found out, convinced him to break into your house-probably by saying you had evidence against him-” I glanced at her, but she wasn’t reacting, so I went on- “and stabbed him after backing him up to the fireplace with her gun.

“He did the breaking in. That’s why that was professional, but everything else-the bomb, the bolted doors, the red herring to Petlovich-was amateur. Deadly amateur, but amateur.” Still no reaction-Pederson was looking at me strangely.

I tried my last shot. “He really wiped the floor with her before she got him, though. What a rotten, low-life-”

She tried to swing at me, ignoring Pederson, Roy and her own cuffed wrists. “You wouldn’t dare talk that way if he was here!” she snapped.

Pederson grabbed her. I sidled over quietly, picked Roy’s gun off the table and said politely to him, “Roy, I’d like to shake your hand. We made it.”

Roy still had one hand in his coat. He looked at me narrowly, then grinned and stuck out his empty hand. His pocket hung limp. “Thanks for trying, Nate, but the other gun’s in the glove compartment. I cooled down on the way over here. One of the kids tipped you off?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling silly. “That Howie is growing up fast; he and Amy make a hell of a team. She’s sharper than he is, but he’s trying to turn pro.”