Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 (12 page)

Johnny Milton was dressed for spring sunshine this after-noon, although it was still raining outside his window. Wearing a
pastel blue V-necked sweater over a yellow shirt open at the throat, beige slacks, and tasseled loafers, he looked like a
producer on a Hollywood lot, rather than an agent in an office the size of the lieutenant’s back at the old Eight-Seven. Instead
of mug shots, however, the walls here were covered with framed posters of shows in which Milton’s clients had presumably performed.
Some of the shows were familiar to Carella, if only by their titles. Most of them rang no bell at all. Milton’s right hand
was extended as he came around the desk.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “nice to see you again,” and shook hands first with Carella and then with Kling. “Sit down, please.
Just move that stuff, here let me get it,” he said, and went to a sofa laden with what Carella guessed were scripts in variously
colored binders. Milton carried them to his desk, dropped them on it unceremoniously, motioned for them to sit, and then went
behind the desk and sat himself. The sofa was one of those narrow little love seats upholstered in a very dark green velvet
fabric. The detectives sat side by side on it, their shoulders touching.

“Michelle’s fine,” Milton said at once. “If you’re wondering.” He looked at his watch. “Rehearsing right this minute, in fact.”

“Good,” Carella said. “Mr. Milton, had she mentioned any of these threatening phone calls to you?”

“Not until yesterday. I was the one who advised her to go to the police.”

“Ahh,” Carella said.

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you the man sounded like Jack Nicholson?”

“Yes. But, of course …”

“Of course.”

“… he
isn’t
Jack Nicholson. You understand that, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Jack Nicholson is in Europe right now, in fact, on location.”

“So he couldn’t have been the man who stabbed Michelle in that alleyway,” Carella said, deadpan.

“Exactly what I’m saying,” Milton said.

“Any idea who that man might have been?” Carella asked.

“No.”

“Do any of your clients do jack Nicholson imitations?”

“No. Not to my knowledge, anyway,” Milton said, and smiled.

“Mr. Milton,” Kling said, “do you remember where you were last night when you heard Michelle had been stabbed?”

“Yes, I do. Certainly. Why?”

“Where would that have been, sir?”

“At a steakhouse on the Stem. Stemmler Avenue,” he added, explaining the abbreviation as if the detectives had just got off
a boat from Peru.

“Do you remember the name of it?” Carella said.

“O’Leary’s Steakhouse.”

“On the Stem and North Twelfth?”

“Yes.”

“All the way uptown, huh?”

“Michelle was supposed to meet me there. It’s close to the theater.”

“Three, four blocks away, in fact.”

“Yes.”

“What time were you supposed to meet?”

“I made a reservation for seven.”

“But she never showed.”

“No. Well, you know what happened.”

“Yes. She got stabbed as she was leaving the theater. Apparently on her way to meet you.”

“Apparently.”

“What’d you do when she didn’t show?”

“I called the theater.”

“What time was that?”

“Seven-fifteen, seven-twenty. That was when I learned what had happened.”

“Oh?” Kling said.

Both detectives looked at each other.

“I thought you heard the news on the radio,” Carella said.

“No, Torey told me what had happened. The play’s security guard.
Romance
. The play she’s in. He told me she’d been stabbed and they’d taken her to Morehouse General. So I caught a cab and rushed
right over.”

“I got the impression you’d heard the news on the radio,” Carella said.

“Really? What gave you that impression?”

“Just the way you said it.”

“What I said was I’d just heard the news.”

“Yes, and rushed right over.”

“Right.”

“Made it sound as if you’d heard a news broadcast.”

“No, I didn’t. It was Torey who told me about it.”

“I understand that now.”

The detectives looked at each other again.

“According to Miss Cassidy, you and she are living together, is that right?” Kling asked.

“That’s right.”

“Where do you live, sir?”

“Her apartment. What
used
to be her apartment, till we decided to take the plunge. Live together, I mean.”

“And where’s that?” Carella asked.

“The apartment? On Carter and Stein.”

The Eighty-eighth, Carella thought.

Carter and Stein was just on the edge of Diamondback, in what used to be the area’s Gold Coast back in the late twenties and
early thirties. In those days, Diamondback was exclusively black, and the high-rise buildings on Carter Avenue between Stein
and Ridge were populated with entertainers, musicians, artists, businessmen, politicians, all the elite of Isola’s black society.
The buildings still afforded a splendid view of Grover Park, an inducement that had caused an enterprising black developer
to renovate them into doorman buildings which downtown honkies had snapped up in a minute. These adventurous whites wouldn’t
have been quite so bold if the buildings had been offered for sale a scant twelve blocks farther uptown. L
iving
in the heart of Diamondback was a bit different, Charlie, from going uptown to Mama Grace’s for a down-home supper of chitlins,
black-eyed peas, and grits. But Carter Avenue was still relatively safe for this city, and you couldn’t beat the price or
the view of the park.

Diamondback was
still
predominantly black. In fact, one of its more clever nicknames was Diamond
black.
But Hispanics from Colombia and the Dominican Republic—as opposed to the Puerto Ricans who were now third-generation citizens—and
other immigrants, many of them illegal, from Pakistan, Vietnam, Korea, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the planet Venus had begun
infiltrating the area in ever-expanding pockets, foreign to most of the longtime residents and cause for cultural clashes
of a minor scale—so far. The mix was a volatile and dangerous one. Except along Carter Avenue, where Johnny Milton lived with
Michelle Cassidy in an apartment that used to be hers alone.

“She’s also your client, is that right?” Carella asked.

“Yes.”

“Which came first?”

“She was my client before we started a personal relationship, if that’s what you mean.”

“When was that?”

“Seven years ago.”

“The personal relationship?”

“Yes.”

“How about the business relationship?”

“That goes back a long while.”

“How long a while?”

“Since she was ten. She was a child actress, you know …”

“Yes.”

“I got her the touring company of
Annie.
She played Annie. The starring role.”

“So you’ve known each other how long?”

“Thirteen years.”

“Neither of you is seeing anyone else, are you?”

“No, no. It’s the same as if we’re married.”

“Would you say your relationship is a good one?”

“Very good. The same as being married.”

“Then it has its ups and downs, huh?“Carella said. “Same as being married.”

“Yes. Exactly the same.”

“How’d you react when she told you about the threatening calls?”

“I told you. I advised her to go straight to the police.”

“Any idea why she waited so long to tell .you?” Kling asked.

“No.”

“Because apparently the calls …”

“Yes, I know …”

“… started on the twenty-ninth of March …”

“Yes, I know …”

“But she didn’t tell you about them till yesterday.”

“I think she was hoping they would stop.”

“
You
never talked to this man, did you?” Carella asked.

“No.”

“What I mean, you didn’t answer the phone and have someone in a Jack Nicholson voice asking for Miss Cassidy, did you?”

“No, never.”

“Any hang-ups?”

“Oh, sure. This is the city.”

“Wrong numbers, like that?”

“Yeah, like that.”

“Anyone ever say `Sorry, wrong number’ in a Jack Nicholson voice?”

“No. The wrong numbers are foreign voices mostly. Hispanic, Asian, Solly, long numbah. They don’t know how to dial a goddamn
phone, you know.”

Carella made no comment.

“What time did you get to O’Leary’s?” Kling asked.

“I told you. Seven.”

“On the dot?”

“Few minutes before, maybe. My reservation was for seven.”

“When did you start getting nervous?”

“About her not showing up?”

“Yes.”

“About ten after. I knew they were supposed to break for dinner at seven. This is a play in rehearsal, you understand, everything’s
racing against the clock, everything’s sliding downhill toward opening night. If the dinner break is at seven, that
means
seven, and it means you’re back at eight, to pick up where you left off. The theater’s, what, five minutes from O’’Leary’s?
I gave her till a quarter after, and then I went looking for a phone.”

“Who answered the phone at the theater?”

“Torey, I told you. There’s a phone backstage. The minute I asked to speak to Michelle, he said, `Hold on tight, Johnny. Michelle
just got stabbed in the alley outside.’ ”

“His exact words?”

“Exact. I asked him where they’d taken her, and he told me Morehouse. So I left the restaurant and went right over.”

“By taxi?”

“Yes.“

“Left the restaurant at what time?”

“Soon as I got off the phone. Twenty after seven? Twenty-five after?”

“Went straight to the hospital.”

“Well, yeah. You were there when I walked in, what time was it? Quarter to eight, something like that?”

“Around then,” Carella said. “Mr. Milton, thanks for your time, we appreciate ...”

“Are you gonna
catch
this guy?” Milton asked.

“We hope so,” Kling said. “Thanks again, sir, we appreciate your time.”

The secretary in the small waiting room was on the phone again when they walked out, explaining to Mike the Actor that Mr.
Milton had had an unexpected visit, but that he was free to talk to him now. She smiled at Kling as they walked out, and then
buzzed the inner office. In the hallway outside, as they waited for the elevator, Carella said, “Let’s drive uptown.”

“Sure,” Kling said. “The theater first? Or O’Leary’s?” ”

The theater,” Carella said.

No knife.

Such was what the sodden blues had reported upon their return to the station house late this morning, and neither Carella
nor Kling had reason to doubt the diligence of their search. Nonetheless, he and Kling made another pass at the alley and
the stretch of sidewalk and gutter in front of the theater, and confirmed in the riddling rain that indeed there was no knife.

None that they could find, at any rate.

Besides, they weren’t here primarily to search for a knife. They were here to clock the time it took to walk from

the theater to O’Leary’s Steakhouse on the Stem.

They’d eliminated at once the possibility that whoever had stabbed Michelle Cassidy had
run
off after committing the dastardly deed; in this city, a running man attracts attention. So Kling hit the stopwatch button
on his complicated digital watch, and together they began walking at a good clip, out of the alley, turning left under the
theater marquee with the red-lettered title ROMANCE on a black back-ground, moving quickly past the posters announcing the
April sixteenth opening of the play, Kling’s watch ticking away, both men striding out briskly like the youngsters they no
longer were, but who was counting, up toward the corner of Detavoner Avenue where a red light stopped them, ticking, ticking,
WALK, the traffic sign flashed, and they crossed the avenue that was still under construction after God knew how many years,
but who was counting, nobody in this city counted, up toward Sexton Avenue, the watch ticking, ticking, and finally they reached
Stemmler Avenue itself, the
Stem
of legend and lore, and made a hasty turn at the corner and headed uptown toward North Twelfth. Kling hit the button again
the moment they pushed through O’Leary’s entrance door. The time was twentyseven minutes past twelve. It had taken them exactly
five minutes and forty-two seconds to get here, and they’d been counting.

The place was already packed with its lunchtime crowd, and everybody was too busy to talk to a pair of cops who’d been walking
fast in the spring rain. But Carella mentioned the magic name “Michelle Cassidy,” and in this celebrity-mad city, in this
celebrity-worshipping nation, all at once everybody had all the time in the world to discuss the darling little thing who’d
been stabbed in a theater alley, as reported on three television newscasts at eleven last night, and as plastered all over
the front pages of the city’s two tabloid dailies early this morning.

“Michelle Cassidy, yes,” the headwaiter said. “She comes here frequently. They’re rehearsing just up the street, you know.”

Well, four blocks away, Kling thought. And five minutes and forty-two seconds

“She was in
Annie, you
know. On the road.”

“Yes,” Carella said, “so we’ve been told.”

Steak joints in this city tended to get noisy as hell. O’Leary’s was no exception. The place was filled with raucous businessmen
in suits and vests who sat ham-hocked at tables with pristine white tablecloths and sparkling glassware, blowing smoke in
the air, blasting laughter to the rafters, causing the place to reverberate with thunderous sound. Carella wondered why steak
joints seemed to bring out the worst in men. None of them would have behaved this way in a tearoom.

“We understand she was supposed to be here last
night
,” he shouted over the noise.

“Is that right?” the headwaiter said.

He was as big as the noise in the place, a man with side whiskers and a belly that started under his chin, wearing a dark
suit and a plum-colored tie fastened to his shirt with a modest diamond stickpin. Carella thought he looked like a British
barrister in a Dickens novel. He sounded like one, too, come to think of it.