Ed McBain - Downtown (3 page)

"At least the defroster's working," Michael said. "Good thing I wore gloves," Crandall said, and went around to the back of the car again, and began scraping at the rear window with the flat of his hand. It took them about five minutes to clear the windshield, the side windows, and the rear window. The car was toasty warm by then. Michael took off his glasses, wiped the lenses clear of condensation, and put them on again. "You don't plan to drive, do you?" Crandall asked. "What do you mean?" "Well ... he stole your license, didn't he?" Michael said nothing.

He sat with his hands on the steering wheel, staring forlornly through the windshield, nodding.

At last he sighed and said, "Do you know how to drive?" "Well, sure." "Do you have a license?" "Sure, but ..." "Would you please drive?" "If you want me to, sure." "I'd appreciate it," Michael said. "I'll come around," Crandall said.

Both men got out of the car and walked around the front of it, through the snow, changing places. Behind the wheel now, Crandall familiarized himself with the dashboard instrumentation ... "Is this the headlight switch?" "No, the one above it." ... and the gear-shift lever ... "Automatic transmission, huh?" "Yes." ... and the brake and accelerator pedals. "Shall I give it a whirl?" he asked. "I'm ready when you are."

"I'll take it real slow," Crandall said, "make sure we don't get into any accidents." He eased the car out of its space and into the street. The digital dashboard clock read

8:01, still early for a big-city night.

31 But this was Christmas Eve, and there was not much traffic in the streets. Besides, news of the impending storm had probably driven everyone home even earlier than usual. "How does the road feel?" Michael asked. "Not too bad."

Crandall drove knowledgeably through the narrow twisting streets of downtown Manhattan, a mysterious maze to Michael, inching the car along until finally they came to Canal Street, where Crandall waited out a red light and then made a left turn. "They usually clear the main thoroughfares first," he said. "Here comes a snowplow now. We should have pretty clear sailing over to Varick. Why don't you put on the radio, see if we can get a forecast?" Michael fiddled with the radio dial. "Ten-ten is all news, all the time," Crandall said. He was still driving slowly, although the road ahead was clear of snow. Wet but clear.

"... Arab leaders maintaining that the proposed oil hikes were more than adequately ..." "Pain in the ass, the Arab leaders," Crandall said. "... justified by recent ..." "What the hell is _that?" Crandall said.

"... developments in the Persian Gulf. Should OPEC decide ..." "Turn that off," Crandall said. Michael turned off the radio. "Did you feel that?" Crandall said. "No. Feel what?" "Listen." Michael listened.

"I think we've got a flat," Crandall said. "You're kidding." "I wish I were, my friend."

He glanced into the rearview mirror, rolled down the window on his side, and hand-signaled that he was pulling over to the curb. He double-parked alongside a laundry truck, looked into the rearview mirror again, and sighed deeply. "It's a horror movie, am I right?" he said, and shook his head. "You want to check that right rear tire?"

Michael opened the door on the

33 passenger side and stepped out into __Nanook of the _North. He closed the door behind him and sidled back between the laundry truck and the car, his coat flapping around his knees, his hair dancing wildly on top of his head, snow beginning to cake on his eyeglasses. He stopped before the right rear tire, kicked at it perfunctorily, and was kneeling to study it more closely when the car pulled away. He threw himself back against the laundry truck, thinking in that split second that Crandall had accidentally stepped on the accelerator, and then realizing in the next split second that Crandall hadn't made any damn mistake, the car was speeding away, swerving a little as it sought purchase on the wet roadway, and then shooting off as straight as an-- "Hey!" he shouted. The car kept speeding away into the distance.

"You son of a bitch!" he shouted, and began running after the car.

He ran up the middle of Canal Street, waving his arms and shouting, his coat flapping, horns honking behind him, headlights coming at him from the other side of the road, blinding him. A fearful blast immediately at his back caused him to leap to his right just as the sound of air brakes filled the snow-laden air, and then another blast of the horn, and a voice shouting, "You dumb fuck!" and the rush of the trailer truck as it came by him like a locomotive on the way to Albuquerque, wherever that was, and then the truck was gone as certainly as was Crandall in the rented car. Sucking in great gulps of air, trying to catch his breath, Michael leaned against a red Cadillac parked at the curb. The window on the driver's side slid down suddenly and electrically. He jumped away from the car, turned, saw a girl on the passenger side with her blouse wide open and her breasts bulging out of her brassiere, and alongside her, behind the wheel, a teenage Puerto Rican with a scraggly moustache and a lipstick-smeared face. "You mine not leanin' on dee wagon?" the boy said. A sign in Spanish on the wall behind the muster desk advised Michael of his rights. To the right of the sign was the same warning in English--which was

considerate, Michael thought. The sergeant

35 sitting behind the desk and before both signs was a very fat man wearing a long-sleeved blue sweater over his blue uniform shirt. He looked up and said, "Help you, sir?" "I want to report a few crimes," Michael said. "Let me hear 'em," the sergeant said.

"A fake detective stole all my money and my ..." "How do you know he was a _fake detective?" the sergeant asked. "Well, if he _robbed me, I have to assume ..."

"Oh, yeah, right," the sergeant said. "What did he get from you?" he asked, and picked up the phone receiver. "My money, my credit cards, and my driver's license." Into the phone, the sergeant said, "Tony, there's a man here had his money and his credit cards and his license stolen from him by a fake detective." "My car, too," Michael said. "His car, too," the sergeant said. "You want to talk to him?"

"By a different person," Michael said. "The car." "Right, I'll send him up," the sergeant said, and hung up. "Sir," he said, "if you'll go right up those steps outside there to the second floor and follow the signs that say Detectives, you'll ask for Detective Anthony Orso, that means `bear` in Italian, he'll take good care of you." "Thank you," Michael said. "Don't mention it," the sergeant said, and picked up a ringing telephone. "First Precinct, Mulready," he said.

Michael walked up the iron-runged steps to the second floor, followed the signs with the word DETECTIVES and a pointing arrow on them, and at last came to a blue door with a glass panel. Painted onto the panel was a large facsimile of a gold and blue-enameled shield like the one Cahill had flashed in the bar. Under that was a sign that read: 37

1st Precinct

Detectives

Room No. 210 Michael guessed this was the detective squadroom. He opened the door and stepped into the room and the first thing he saw was a little man sitting on a blue upholstered chair behind one of the desks. He was badly in need of a shave and he looked like a street hoodlum.

"Detective Orso?" Michael asked.

"Tony the Bear, that's me," Orso said. "You the one Gallagher ripped off?" Michael blinked. "Come in, come in," Orso said, and got up, and ushered Michael in. The squadroom was small but freshly painted in a blue the same color as the door. Electric IBM typewriters sat on all the desktops. There were five or six desks in the room, but the room did not look crowded. A WANTED FOR MURDER poster with twelve photographs was taped to the wall over a small cabinet with fingerprinting equipment on it. A height chart was on the wall alongside the cabinet. Sitting on another blue-upholstered chair beside Orso's desk was a little man who looked remarkably like Orso's twin brother, except that his right hand was handcuffed to one of the chair rungs.

"We ain't got a detention cage," Orso explained. "Some dump," the other man said.

"You shut up!" Orso said, pointing a finger at him. "I know my rights," the man said. "They all know their rights," Orso said sourly, and held out a chair for Michael. "Please, sir," he said. From where Michael sat he could see both Orso and his look-alike in the other chair. The resemblance was uncanny. Michael wondered if Orso realized the man looked like him. And vice versa. "So," Orso said. "Tell me what happened." Michael told him what had happened. Orso listened. So did his twin brother.

"That's Gallagher, all right," Orso said.

"No, his name was Cahill," Michael said.

"Detective Daniel Cahill."

39 "Are you sure? Was he working with a redhead calls herself Nikki Cooper, or sometimes Mickey Hooper, or sometimes Dorothy Callahan?" "That don't rhyme," the other man said. "Who asked you?" Orso said.

"Dorothy Callahan don't rhyme with the other two, that's all."

"I _know it don't rhyme," Orso said. "Who says it has to rhyme?" "She picks two names that rhyme, you figure the third one's gonna rhyme, too. But it don't."

"Do all _your names rhyme?" Orso said. "I got three names, too, and they all rhyme," the other man said, somewhat offended. "Charlie Bonano, Louie Romano, and Nicky Napolitano."

"What name were you using tonight when you stuck up the liquor store?" Orso asked. "Charlie Bonano, and I didn't stick up no liquor store."

"No? Then who was it holding the gun on the proprietor?" Orso asked. "Musta been one of them two _other guys, huh? Romano or Napolitano."

"Which ain't the point," Bonano said. "The point is a person chooses names that rhyme, then the names should rhyme. You don't go throwing in a Dorothy Calabrese." "Callahan." "Whatever." "Shakespeare we got here in the squadroom," Orso said. "Worryin' about his iambic parameter." "The point is ..."

"The point is shut up. The point is we got this phony cop calls himself Gallagher runnin' all over the precinct workin' with a female redhead and rippin' off honest citizens like this gentleman here. Also, if you want to know somethin', Bonano, it's wops like you give Italians a bad name." "_Three bad names," Bonano said. "And you're ugly besides," Orso said. "So are you," Bonano said. "Maybe so, but I ain't going to jail," Orso said, and turned back to Michael. "We'll have to fill out some papers, sir," he

said, "but I can tell you right now we ain't

41 got a chance in hell of getting back the cash, and we'll be lucky Gallagher don't clean out Tiffany's tomorrow with your credit cards. First thing you better do is advise all the companies that your cards were stolen--do you know the numbers on the cards?"

"Nobody knows the numbers on their cards," Bonano said. "Who asked you?" "_You asked _him." "But nobody asked you, did they?" "What's the point askin' the man an impossible question to answer? Excuse me, sir, but do you know the numbers on your credit cards?" "No," Michael said. "There you are," Bonano said.

"It so _happens," Orso said, "I happen to _know nobody knows the numbers on their credit cards. But it don't hurt to ask because one chance in a million, the person will know. It don't matter whether he knows or not, _anyway, 'cause the credit card company has all this shit on a computer, and all you have to do, sir," he said, turning again to Michael, "is give them your name and address, and tell them your cards were stolen, and they'll make sure the word goes out. Otherwise, Gallagher's gonna buy himself a ticket on the Concorde to Paris and charge it to your MasterCard."

"_Two tickets," Bonano said. "One for his girlfriend Dotty." "You'll have to inform all your credit card companies," Orso said solemnly. "Now, sir," he said, and rolled some forms and some sheets of carbon into his typewriter. "Can you tell me your name, please?" "Michael J. Barnes." "What does the J stand for, sir?" "Just J. Just the letter J." "Yes, sir, and your address, sir? In case we catch Gallagher in the next hour or so." "Ha!" Bonano said. Orso gave him a look. Bonano shrugged.

"I _was staying at the Hilton," Michael said. "But I've already checked out. In fact, my valise was in the ..." "On Fifty-fourth and Sixth?" "Yes."

"I stayed at the Hilton once,"

43 Bonano said. "What is it with you, huh?" Orso said. "Don't you know how to keep your mouth shut?"

"It's a very nice hotel, sir," Bonano said, as though complimenting its owner. Orso rolled his eyes. "Your home address, please," he said.

"16554 Fruitville Road," Michael said. "Sarasota, Florida." "Ah-ha," Orso said. "Something told me you were from Florida." "Like maybe his suntan," Bonano said. "Are you near Hollywood Park? I go to Hollywood Park for the races."

"That's on the east coast," Michael said. "So," Orso said, "from what the desk sergeant told me on the phone, Gallagher stole not only your money, your credit cards, and your driver's license, but also your car. What kind of ...?was "No, it wasn't Cahill who stole the car," Michael said. "Gallagher, you mean." "Neither one." "Then who was it?" "Arthur Crandall." "Who?" Bonano said.

"Arthur Crandall," Michael said. "He's a movie director. Here's his card."

"He stole your car and gave you his _card?" Orso said, astonished. "That is _some classy thief," Bonano said. Orso looked at the card.

"This looks like a piece of film," he said. "It's his business card," Michael said. "I can't get over it. A guy steals your car and hands you his card."

"He gave me the card first," Michael said. "And _then stole your car?" Bonano said.

"One thing I know for sure," Orso said, "a guy planning to steal your car hands you a business card with a name and two addresses on it, the name and the addresses are phony." "For sure," Bonano said.

"So what we got here," Orso said, "is two unrelated cases. We got a phony cop and his copy editor girlfriend ... did she tell you she was a copy editor?" "No, a lawyer."

"Not a copy editor?"

45 "A criminal lawyer." "Hmm," Orso said, and shook his head. "Well, what we got here nonetheless is this phony pair who stole your money and your credit cards and your driver's license ..."

"My library card, too," Michael said. "Do you read a lot?" Bonano asked. "Yes," Michael said.