Ed McBain - Downtown (13 page)

"No!" she said sharply. "Not at _all like _Gaslight. Don't even _breathe the word _Gaslight. This is a very scary picture." "So was _Gaslight." "Will you please stop with _Gaslight? This is a much better picture than _Gaslight, you'll see when it opens." "When will that be?"

"On the second. That's a Thursday. So we'll catch the _Weekend section of the _Times. When they review all the new movies. The Friday paper."

"What does Charlie Nichols look like?" "What difference does it make? He's only a voice." "Yes, but what does he look like?"

"I never met him. I just told you, he's a voice."

"Have you met any Charlies who are _more than voices?"

"Everybody has met a Charlie who is more than a voice." "I mean, who is also a Charlie that Crandall

knows."

187 "I can't think of any other Charlies he knows." "You said he knows a _lot of Charlies."

"No, I said there are a lot of Charlies in this _city is what I said."

"But Charlie Nichols is the only Charlie that Crandall knows."

"He's the only Charlie that _I know Arthur knows. For all I know, Arthur may know a _hundred Charlies, maybe even a _thousand Charlies, there are probably _millions of Charlies in this city. All I'm saying is that Charles R. Nichols is the only Charlie ..."

"Okay, I've got it. Do you know where he lives?" "No." "But I do." The voice came from behind him. A man's voice. He turned at once.

Arthur Crandall was standing in the doorway to the bedroom. Fat and short and bald and wearing the same three-piece suit he'd worn on television, a Phi Beta Kappa key hanging on a gold chain across the front of his vest.

"Merry Christmas, Mr. Barnes," he said. "Who's the dead man?" Michael asked. "And why are you running around town telling people _I killed him?" "Which of course you didn't do," Crandall said, and looked at his watch. "And why are you looking at your watch?" Michael asked. "I was wondering when the police would get here," Crandall said. "I called them the moment you arrived. They should be ..." "Thank you for the warning," Michael said, and started for the door. "It was nice meeting you both, there certainly are some charming and delightful people here in downtown New ..." "No," Crandall said, and reached into his pocket. His hand came out with a gun in it.

Everybody in this city has a gun, Michael thought. And took a step toward him.

"No, please don't," Crandall said. "This

is a gun, you know."

189 "So is this," Michael said.

8

You usually knew in that first split second whether the other guy was serious.

In Vietnam, lots of guys had to prove they were big macho killers, had to keep telling this to themselves over and over again because otherwise they'd go weak with terror whenever a leaf rattled out there in the jungle. So one way they tried to prove it was to lean on anybody they thought would back down. Come to think of it, this may have been the origin of all that Russian roulette stuff in _The _Deer _Hunter. Because lots of times out there, weapons came into play during the showdown process.

Now if you were going to lean on somebody, it was usually better not to choose some guy who weighed three hundred pounds and was built like the Chesapeake and Ohio. Because this man would chew up both you _and your rifle and then spit out railroad spikes. So you didn't go bumping on him, you didn't go waving your weapon around in his face unless you felt it would be patriotic to get killed by a fellow American instead of a gook.

What you tried to do, if you were looking to bolster your own courage and make yourself feel like a great big macho killer, was you tried to pick on somebody who wore eyeglasses and who looked sort of scrawny and whose middle name was Jellicle, was what you tried to do. Shove your rifle in _his face, man. See if you could get _him to back down. And usually you knew in that first split second whether you had him or not. And vice versa, if you were the one who was looking into the barrel of the rifle--as had so often been the case with Michael--you knew immediately whether the guy threatening you would really paint the jungle with your blood if you didn't back off _toot _sweet, as they all used to say in their bastardized, learned-from-the-gooks French. Michael had never backed off. Even when he knew the other guy was dead serious.

The ones who were all bluff and bravado, you dismissed with a wave of the hand, boldly turned your back on them, went back into the hooch to smoke a joint.

But the red-eyed ones ...

191

The ones who'd had too much of the jungle and were no longer capable of telling friend from foe ...

The ones who had murder scribbled crookedly on their mouths ...

These were the ones it was essential to stare down.

Because if you backed off from them now, if you let the barrel of that automatic rifle force you to turn away, why then one day they would shoot you as soon as look at you. No warning next time. Just _pow when the jam was on, in the back, in the face, in the chest, it didn't matter, they knew you were nothing but dog shit and they could waste you whenever they wanted to, and wasting you would give them the magical power to kill all the gooks in the jungle. It was like eating your testicles or your heart or whatever Long Foot Howell had told him the Indians used to eat after they'd scalped you.

What you did, you said, "Fuck off, okay?"

And if he didn't choose to do that, you walked right up to him, and you slapped the muzzle of the rifle aside with the palm of your hand. And if the muzzle refused to be slapped aside, if those little red pig eyes in the man's head were telling you that he was going to blow you away in the next count of three, why then what you had to do was kick him in the balls the way Michael had kicked Charlie Wong in the balls only several hours ago. And while the man was writhing on the ground in pain, you stepped on his face hard, which Michael guessed he'd have done to Charlie Wong if Detective O'Brien hadn't shown up in her sexy underwear, braving the cold and all. And once you'd stolen the man's face, why then you could turn your back on him the way you did with the other kind, just saunter away into the hooch for a little smoke. Maybe ask him to join you if you were feeling generous. And maybe he'd shoot you anyway one fine day, but chances were he wouldn't. The situation here was identical to all those showdowns Michael had survived in Vietnam, where he'd sometimes thought he'd rather face a whole platoon of gooks rather than another red-eyed American trying to show he wasn't scared. Crandall wasn't doing such a good job of showing he wasn't scared. It was Michael's guess that the man had never held a gun in his hand before this very moment and that the sight of the larger weapon in Michael's hand was causing him to have some second

thoughts about keeping him here until the

193 police showed. Panic was in his eyes. He definitely did not want a gunfight here at the old O.K. Corral. So Michael did what he would have done in Vietnam when facing a bluff. He dismissed Crandall with a wave of his free hand, turned his back on him, and started for the door. Which should have worked. But it didn't.

Because apparently Michael hadn't learned a lesson he should have learned many, many years ago, and the lesson was Watch Out For That Harmless Little Vietnamese Woman With Her Gentle Smile And Her Innocent Eyes Because She Is Deadlier Than A Crack Male Regiment. It was Jessica Wales who hit him. She hit him very hard on the back of his head with something that sent him staggering forward toward the front door, in which direction he'd been heading anyway. He knew better than to let go of the gun. He also knew enough to roll away, the way he'd rolled away into the snow when Charlie Wong was trying to kick his brains into New Jersey. This time the foot that came at him was wearing an ankle-strapped shoe with a stiletto heel that looked like silver or perhaps stainless steel as it came flashing toward-- The woman was trying to stomp him. He had seen many black soldiers in Vietnam stomping other soldiers. They had learned this art while growing up in lovely ghettos here and there across the United States. Where lovely Jessica had learned it was anyone's guess. But she definitely was trying to stomp him. Not kick him. Stomp him. Kicking and stomping were two different things, although often used in conjunction. When you kicked someone, you were trying to send his head sailing through the goal posts. When you stomped someone, you were trying to break open his head like a melon. Squash it flat into the pavement. The pressure point in the stomping process was the heel. In Vietnam, the heel had been flat and attached to a combat boot. Here in the living room of Jessica Wales's apartment, it was four inches long and tapered to a narrow point. If that heel connected with his head--

Michael kept rolling away.

195

There were here-again gone-again glimpses of long legs flashing, white thighs winking, the silver robe parting and flapping as Jessica tracked him across the floor, searching for an opportunity to step on him good. He rolled, rolled, rolled blindly into the wall, came to a frightening dead stop, and was scrambling to his feet when he saw Jessica bending her right leg and reaching down for the shoe. Tired of stepping and stomping, she had undoubtedly decided it would be better to wield the shoe like a hammer. And was now in the process of getting the shoe off her foot and into her hot little hand.

Fascinated, he watched her little balancing act. Blonde Jessica standing on one foot, opposite leg bent backward at the knee, right hand sliding the heel of the shoe off the heel of her foot-- He would never have a better shot.

He lunged forward, ramming his shoulder hard against the leg she was standing on, knocking her off balance. The shoe flew off her foot and out of her hand. As she tumbled over backward, legs splayed, the robe opened disappointingly over a triangular patch of very black hair. Michael leaped to his feet. "I warned you!" Crandall shouted. And fired. At first, Michael thought he'd made a terrible and perhaps fatal mistake. For the first time in his life, he'd wrongly identified a genuine shooter as a bluffer. But then he saw that Crandall was looking at the smoking gun in his hand as if it had suddenly developed fangs and claws. This thing here in his hand had actually gone off! That's what his astonished face said. He had pulled the trigger and this thing had exploded in his hand and a bullet had come out of it and had in fact whistled across the room to shatter a mirror on the wall above where Jessica was already getting up off the floor in a tangle of legs and open robe and mons veneris and one silver shoe. Michael wondered if he should walk over to Crandall, push the muzzle of the gun aside, tell him to fuck off, and then go back into the hooch for a smoke. He figured it just might work. While he was doing all this calculation, he forgot about Jessica for the second time that night, and

remembered too late that once may be

197 oversight but twice is stupidity.

The way he remembered was that Jessica hit him on the head again with the same object she'd used earlier, which he now realized was a metal tray of some sort, this time connecting more solidly and causing him to stagger forward almost into Crandall's arms. Crandall backed away as if being attacked. He certainly did not want this thing in his hand to go off again. Nor did he want to catch Michael in his arms, which he would have to do if Michael kept stumbling toward him. But Michael suddenly brought himself up short because even in his dizziness he had clearly and finally perceived that Jessica and not Crandall was the real danger. Where? he thought.

And turned, hoping he would not get shot in the back, after all, because getting shot in the back would be a first for him. On Christmas Day, no less. Which would not be such a terrific surprise since he seemed to be experiencing a great many firsts here in festive New York City, the least of which was being attacked by a ferocious movie star who now looked not like Marilyn Monroe but that lady, whatever her name was, in _Fatal _Attraction with the frizzed hair and the long knife in her hand.

Jessica did not have a knife in her hand. Jessica had a poker in it.

Which she had grabbed from a little stand alongside the fireplace, leaving a shovel and a brush still hanging from it. She came limping at Michael, one shoe on, one shoe off, her lips skinned back, her capped movie-star teeth glistening with spit, her eyes blazing. He figured she was angry because he'd knocked her on her ass. But then Crandall put a very clear perspective on the entire situation.

"Careful!" he shouted. "He's a killer!" And Michael realized in a dazzling epiphany that Crandall either really believed he had murdered someone, or else was putting on a damn good show of believing it. Convincing Jessica --who did not seem to need very much convincing--that Michael was an armed and dangerous murderer, and this was a simple matter of survival. Which explained the desperate look in Jessica's eyes and the headlong rush at him with the poker. But which did not explain why Crandall stood there with a weapon in his hand and his thumb up his ass.

Michael had never hit a woman in

199 his life.

When he'd learned about Jenny and her branch manager, he'd wanted to hit her, but then he'd wondered what good that would do. He'd already lost her. James Owington had already taken her from him, so what was the sense of hitting her? Wouldn't that be more punishing to him than it would be to her? The eternal knowledge that he had hit a woman who was only five-feet six-inches tall and weighed a hundred and twenty pounds? Who wasn't even working for the Viet Cong?

Jessica wasn't working for the Viet Cong, either. She was merely a sensible woman trying to save her own life. She had a good cheering section, too. As she came at Michael, the poker swinging back into position, Crandall whispered little words of encouragement like "_Hit him, _kill him!" From the look on her face, she needed no urging. Crandall had warned her that Michael was a killer; unless she took him out, he would kill again. The thing to do now was knock off his head. Before he knocked off hers. Which Michael did. He hit her very hard. There was nothing satisfying about the collision of his fist with her jaw. He hit her virtually automatically, bringing his fist up from his knees as if he were throwing an uppercut at a sailor in a Saigon bar, repeating an emotionless action he had gone through at least a dozen times before, unsurprised when he heard the click of teeth against teeth, unsurprised when he saw her eyes roll back into her head. He watched as she collapsed. One moment she was standing, the poker back and poised to swing, and the next moment she folded to the floor as if someone had stolen her spine.