Ed McBain - Downtown (24 page)

There were revolvers and automatic pistols of every size and caliber and make. Smith and Wesson, Colt, Browning, Walther, Ruger, Harrington and Richardson, Hi-Standard, Iver Johnson, you name it, you had it. There were rifles and shotguns, too--Remington, and Winchester, and Mossberg, and Marlin, and Savage, Stevens and Fox. And there were several military weapons as well, guns Michael recognized as AK-47 assault rifles and AR-15 semiautomatics. Rambo would have felt right at home at this counter. Rambo could have picked up an entire attack arsenal at this counter.

"I think we can drill out the lock with this," Michael said. "Is it a crime to steal stolen goods?" Connie asked. "Yes," he said. "Is what I thought," she said.

He walked past her to where the filing cabinet stood against the wall. He opened the little plastic case, and was searching for a bit he hoped would tear through the metal lock on the cabinet, when Connie joined him, her hands in the pockets of the short black car coat. Michael chose his bit, fitted it into the chuck collar, tightened the collar with a chuck key, found a wall outlet near the

cabinet, knelt to plug in the drill,

363 tested it to see if he had power, and then went back to the cabinet. Connie was still standing there with her hands in her pockets. He studied the lock for a moment, and got to work. The bit snarled into the metal. There was a high whining sound. Baby over there, Andrew was saying. Where? Over there. Crying.

Curls of metal spun out from behind the bit. The lock disintegrated. Michael yanked open the drawer. They were looking in at an open shoe box containing two little plastic vials of crack. "M/'ve used all his dope to pay for the merchandise in here," Michael said. "Either that, or there's _more dope someplace else." "Like where?" "Like where would _you keep a whole bunch of crack?" Michael looked at the safe. "Do you know how to do something like that?" Connie asked. "No," Michael said. "I didn't think so." "But I have a question." "Yes?" "Would you lock a file drawer that had nothing but two vials of crack in it?" Connie looked at him. "Neither would I," he said.

He knelt beside the file cabinet, lifted the shoe box, turned it upside down, and looked at it. Nothing. He ran his hands along the bottom and back of the drawer, and then moved them forward along each side of the drawer to the front of it, and then felt along the back of the front panel and-- "Here it is," he said. He bent over the drawer and looked into it. Scotch-taped to the back of the panel was a slip of paper. It was fastened upside down, so that the writing on it could be read easily from above. It read:

4 L 28

365

3 R 73

2 L 35

Slow R Open

"You're so smart," Connie said. "Do you know it's almost midnight?" "Is it?" "Only a minute left." He looked at his watch. "Yes," he said. "And then Christmas will be gone. Forty seconds, actually." "Yes." "Do you remember what we did last night at this time?" "I remember."

"I think we should do it again, don't you?" she said, and put her arms around his neck. "Make it a tradition." Their lips met. And even as bells had sounded when they'd kissed last night in Crandall's office, and even as bells had sounded when Michael left the Mazeltov All-Nite Deli, so did bells sound now. This time, however, the bells were not on a ringing telephone, and they weren't attached to a trip mechanism on an emergency door, they were instead the bells and gongs and chimes on the multitude of stolen clocks that lined the wall opposite the windows. This was a symphony of bells. This was bells pealing out into the vastness of the warehouse, floating out over the rows and rows of stolen items, reverberating on the dust-laden air, enveloping Connie and Michael in layers and layers of shimmering sound where they stood in embrace alongside a stolen Apple II-E computer, their lips locked, bong bong went the bells, tinkle tinkle went the chimes, bing bang bong went every clock in the place, announcing the end of Christmas Day, heralding the twenty-sixth day of December, a bright new Thursday morning in a world of abundant riches, witness all the shiny new merchandise here in the late Ju Ju Rainey's storeroom. And suddenly the bells stopped. Not all at once since the clocks weren't in absolute synchronization, but trailing off instead, a bong clanking heavily, a chime chinging tinnily, a dissonant bing here, a reluctant tink there, and

then stillness.

367 "It's Boxing Day, you know," she said. "I didn't know," he said.

"Yes," she said. "The day after Christmas. It's called Boxing Day." "I see." "I know because it's celebrated in Hong Kong, which is still a British colony." "Why is it called Boxing Day?"

"Because they have prizefights on that day. Throughout the entire British Empire." "I see," he said.

They were still standing very close to each other. He wondered if anyone had ever made love to Connie on a counter bearing stolen Cuisinarts. "Listen," she said.

He remembered that she had terrific ears. "The elevator," she said. "Someone's using the elevator." He listened. He could hear the elevator whining up the shaft. The baby sitting just off the trail. Crying. The elevator stopped. He heard its doors opening. Footsteps in the corridor now.

Voices just outside the metal entrance door to Ju Ju's bargain bazaar. When you were outnumbered, you headed for the high ground. The highest ground here was the rack holding all those expensive fur coats. He took Connie's hand, and led her silently and swiftly across the room, moving past a table bearing a sextant, an outboard engine, an anchor, a compass, and a paddle, and then past another table upon which there were ... A key turning in the door lock. ... seven baseball bats, three gloves, a catcher's mitt and mask, a Lacrosse stick, and a pair of running shoes ...

Tumblers falling with a small, oiled click. ... and reached the end of the rack where a seal coat with a raccoon collar was hanging. The door opened.

"Who left these lights on?" a woman said. Michael knew that voice.

He could not see her from where he was hunched over behind what looked like a lynx jacket, but this was Alice the Pizza Maven, who was also the lady who owned the Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbine with

its Kahle scope, which she'd fired from

369 the rooftop at them earlier today--or yesterday, as it now was officially--which gun was now snug in its case in Connie's bedroom closet, which was where Michael now wished _he was. Because the next voice he heard belonged to Silvio, who had earlier thought it would be hilarious to kill Michael and leave him either in Ju Ju's piss-stinking bed or else in a garbage can behind McDonald's. And the voice after that was Larry's, both men now vigorously denying that either of them had left the lights on.

"In which case," Alice wanted to know, "how come the lights _are on?" There was a dead silence.

Michael wondered if he and Connie should have gone to hide in the bathroom. "Check out the toilet," Alice said. He guessed it was good they hadn't gone to hide in the bathroom. Silence. The sound of metal rings scraping along a shower rod as the curtain was thrown back. More silence. "So?" Alice asked. "Nobody in there."

"Check out the whole floor," Alice said. And suddenly there were more voices. A man said, "All this stuff has to go, huh?" "All of it," Alice said.

"The piano, too?" a second man said. "'Cause we ain't piano movers, you know." "That's good," Silvio said, "'cause it ain't a piano." "Then what is it, it ain't a piano?" "It's an organ." "Take _this organ," the man said. "If you don't mind," Larry said, "there's a lady present here." "So?" "So stop grabbing your balls and telling us what's an organ."

"I'm telling you we ain't piano movers." "And I'm telling you it's an organ." "And I'm telling you take _this organ."

"Just shoot him in the balls," Alice said calmly.

"Some lady," the man said, but presumably he let go of his balls.

A third man said, "Okay, where's

371 all this stuff has to go?"

A fourth man said, "Look at this joint, willya? What's this, a discount store?" A fifth man said, "You want this stuff boxed?" "What's breakable," Alice said. "And wrapped, too." "What's that?" the third man asked. "A _piano?"

"I already told them," the second man said.

"'Cause we don't move pianos," the third man said. "It's an organ," Silvio said, "and don't reach for your balls." "My father used to play drums," the fifth man said.

The first man said, "Why don't Mama move in the daytime, like a normal human being?"

Larry said, "Whyn't you go take that up with Mama, okay?" "No, thank you," the man said. "Then get to work," Larry said.

"Where's that combo?" Alice asked somebody. "I got it," Silvio said. "If he was gonna give you the combo, anyway," Larry said, "why you suppose he wet the bed?" They all began laughing. Even the moving men. "'Cause if you wet the bed," Silvio said, laughing, "then a person won't shoot you." "It's a magic charm," Alice said, laughing. "You wet the bed, the bad guys'll go away."

"First time I ever had a man wet the bed before I shot him," Silvio said, still laughing. "Give me the combo," Alice said.

"I tell you," one of the moving men said, "this wasn't Mama, I wouldn't go near that piano." "You could get a hernia from that piano," another one of the men said.

"It's an _organ," Silvio said, but his voice was muffled and Michael guessed he was standing at the safe with his back turned. From where Michael crouched behind the furs with Connie, he felt like Cary Grant in _Gunga _Din, the scene where the three of them are hiding in the temple and all the lunatics are yelling "Kali!" "Read it to me," Alice said.

"Four left to twenty-eight,"

373 Silvio said.

"Look at this, willya?" one of the moving men said. "Roller skates, ice skates, dart boards, a pool table ..." "I ain't lifting that pool table, I can tell you that." "That's heavier than the piano."

"It's an organ," Silvio said over his shoulder. "Three right to seventy-three." "What's _this thing?" "A toboggan." "What do you do with it?" "Two left to thirty-five," Silvio said.

"I never seen so much stuff in my life."

"And this is what's left _after Christmas, don't forget."

"Slowly to the right till it opens," Silvio said. Silence. Then: "Holy shit!" This from Larry. More silence. "That's got to be at least a million dollars' worth of dope," Alice said. Yep, Michael thought. A dope plot. "I thought Mama said Ju Ju was only small-time," Silvio said. "Mama was wrong," Larry said.

"Or lying," Alice said, and there was another silence.

A longer one this time. A contemplative one. A pregnant one. The silence of thieves considering whether another thief had screwed them. It was an interesting silence, laden with possibilities. Michael waited. Connie squeezed his hand. She had understood the silence, too.

"Maybe Mama didn't know there'd be so much stuff in the box," Larry said. "Maybe," Alice said. She did not sound convinced. Silence again.

All three of them were trying to figure it out. "Listen, we ain't touching that pool table," one of the moving men said. "There's slate in that table, it weighs a ton." "Fine," Alice said. "Damn straight," the moving man said.

Silence except for the sound of

375 newspapers being crumpled, cartons being snapped open, work shoes moving across the floor, men grunting as they lifted heavy objects. "We got paid," Larry said. A shrug in his voice. "But did we get paid _enough?" This from Alice.

"The deal was to deliver Ju Ju," Larry said. "That's what we done." Trying to make peace. But he was standing with the rest of them at that safe, and he was looking in at what Alice had described as at least a million dollars' worth of dope. "That was the _original deal," Larry said.

"The deal changed yesterday," Alice said. "The deal changed to doing Barnes, too." "And cleaning out Ju Ju's store." "Was what the deal changed to." "But did Mama know there'd be all this stuff in Ju Ju's box?" They were all silent again. "The answer is no," Alice said. Silence. "Because I'll tell you why."

Michael was extremely interested in hearing why.

"Because if _you were Mama," Alice said, "would _you trust the three of _us with a million dollars' worth of dope?" They all began laughing. Michael nodded in agreement. "Sure, laugh," one of the moving men said. "It ain't you three gonna get the hernia."

"What I think," Alice said, "I think the trucks can deliver all this fine merchandise to Mama ..." "As agreed," Silvio said. "But _us three will take what's in the box here, how does that sound to you?" "It sounds only fair to me," Silvio said. "More than," Larry said. "But who left on the lights?" Alice asked.

14

Michael thought it was a bad idea to be standing here behind all these dead animal skins. He should have

been standing at the table with the weapons

377 instead. Because Alice and her two chums were now fanning out over the warehouse floor, earnestly trying to determine who had left the lights on.

He guessed this was going to be a process of elimination.

This was going to be Gee, it wasn't _us who left the lights on, and it couldn't have been the moving men, so it had to have been someone else. And maybe the someone else is still in here. Like maybe hiding behind the counter over there, upon which were displayed six Tandberg FM tuners, three Nakamichi cassette decks, and a Denon direct-drive turntable. A woman came around that counter now. Alice. For sure.

The same woman who'd been firing at them from the rooftop. The long blonde hair and slitted blue eyes, the delicate Michael Jackson nose, the pale ivory oval of her face. In her hand, a gun that looked foreign. She could have been playing a Russian assassin in a James Bond movie. It was bad enough, however, that she was an American assassin in a real-life drama starring Michael Barnes and Connie-- It occurred to him that Connie was no longer at his side.

Before he had time to wonder how or when she'd disappeared, he saw a short, thickset man coming around the sleeve of a chinchilla coat hanging at the far end of the rack. Except for his broken nose, the man looked a lot like Tony the Bear Orso or Charlie Bonano, both of whom looked like Rocky's brother-in-law. He had a gun in his hand. Michael guessed this was Silvio.