The McBain Brief (17 page)

“This puts a different light on it, huh?”

Johnny nodded.

We staked out
every candy store and ice cream parlor in the Gun Hill Road to 219th Street area, figuring we might pick up someone passing the pornos there. We also set up four policewomen in apartments, thinking there was an off chance someone might contact them for lewd posing. The policewomen circulated at the local dances, visited the local bars, bowling alleys, movies. We didn't get a rumble. The Skipper kept us on the case, but it seemed to have bogged down temporarily.

We'd already gone over the dead girl's belongings at her home. She'd had an address book, but we'd checked on everyone in it, and they were all apparently only casual acquaintances. We'd checked the wallet the girl was carrying on the night of her murder. Aside from the In-Case-Of card, a social security card, and some innocent pictures taken outside the high school with her girl friends, there was nothing.

Most of her high school friends said, under questioning, that
Jean Ferroni didn't hang around with them much anymore. They said she'd gone snooty and was circulating with an older crowd. None of them knew who the people in the older crowd were.

Her teachers at school insisted she was a nice girl, a little subdued and quiet in class, but intelligent enough. Several of them complained that she'd been delinquent in homework assignments. None of them knew anything about her outside life.

We got our first real break when Mrs. Ferroni showed up with the key. She placed it on the desk in front of Johnny and said, “I was cleaning out her things. I found this. It doesn't fit any of the doors in the house. I don't know what it's for.”

“Maybe her gym locker at school,” I said.

“No. She had a combination lock. I remember she had to buy one when she first started high school.”

Johnny took the key, looked at it, and passed it to me. “Post office box?” he asked.

“Maybe.” I turned the key over in my hands. The numerals 894 were stamped into its head.

“Thanks, Mrs. Ferroni,” Johnny said. “We'll look into it right away.”

We started at the Williamsbridge Post Office right on Gun Hill Road. The mailmen were very cooperative, but the fact remained it wasn't a key to any of their boxes. In fact, it didn't look like a post office key at all. We tried the Wakefield Branch, up the line a bit, and got the same answer.

We started on the banks then.

Luckily, we hit it on the first try. The bank was on 220th Street, and the manager was cordial and helpful. He took one look at the key and said, “Yes, that's one of ours.”

“Who rents the box?” we asked.

He looked at the key again. “Safety deposit 894. Just a moment, and I'll have that checked.”

We stood on either side of his polished desk while he picked up a phone, asked for a Miss Delaney, and then questioned her about the key. “Yes,” he said. “I see. Yes, thank you.” He cradled the phone, put the key on the desk and said, “Jo Ann Ferris. Does that help you, gentlemen?”

“Jo Ann Ferris,” Johnny said. “Jean Ferroni. That's close enough.” He looked directly at the manager. “We'll be back in a little while with a court order to open that box. We'll ask for you.”

“Certainly,” the manager said, nodding gravely.

In a little
over two hours, we were back, and we followed the manager past the barred gate at the rear of the bank, stepped into the vault, and walked back to the rows of safety deposit boxes. “894,” he said. “Yes, here it is.”

He opened the box, pulled out a slab and rested the box on it. Johnny lifted the lid.

“Anything?” I asked.

He pulled out what looked like several rolled sheets of stiff white paper. They were secured with rubber bands, and Johnny slid the bands off quickly. When he unrolled them, they turned out to be eight by ten glossy prints. I took one of the prints and looked at Jean Ferroni's contorted body. Beside me, the manager's mouth fell open.

“Well,” I said, “this gives us something.”

“We'll just take the contents of this box,” Johnny said to the manager. “Make out a receipt for it, will you, Mike?”

I made out the receipt and we took the bundle of pornographic photos back to the lab with us. Whatever else Jean Ferroni had
done, she had certainly posed in a variety of compromising positions. She'd owned a ripe, young body, and the pictures left nothing whatever to the imagination. But we weren't looking for kicks. We were looking for clues.

Dave Alger, one of the lab men, didn't hold out much hope.

“Nothing,” he said. “What did you expect? Ordinary print paper. You can get the same stuff in any home developing kit.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“The girl's mostly. A few others, but all smeared. You want me to track down the rubber bands?”

“Comedian,” Johnny said.

“You guys expect miracles, that's all. You forget this is science and not witchcraft.”

I was looking at the pictures spread out on the lab counter. They were all apparently taken in the same room, on the same bed. The bed had brass posts and railings at the head and foot. Behind the bed was an open window, with a murky city display of buildings outside. The pictures had evidently been taken at night, and probably recently because the window was wide open. Alongside the window on the wall was a picture of an Indian sitting on a black horse. A wide strip of wallpaper had been torn almost from ceiling to floor, leaving a white path on the wall. The room did not have the feel of a private apartment. It looked like any third-rate hotel room. I kept looking at the pictures and at the open window with the buildings beyond.

“You think all we do is wave a rattle and shake some feathers and wham! we got your goddam murderer. Well, it ain't that simple. We put in a lot of time on . . .”

“Blow this one up, will you?” I said.

“Why? You looking for tattoo marks?”

“No. I want to look through that window.”

Dave suddenly brightened. “How big you want it, Mike?”

“Big enough to read those neon signs across the street.”

“Can do,” he said.

He scooped up all the pictures and ran off, his heels clicking against the asphalt tile floor.

“Think we got something?” Johnny asked.

“Maybe. We sure as hell can't lose anything.”

“Besides, you'll have something to hang over your couch,” Johnny cracked.

“Another comedian,” I said, but I was beginning to feel better already. I smoked three cigarettes down to butts, and then Dave came back.

“One Rheingold beer billboard,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“And one Hotel Mason. That help?”

The Hotel Mason
was a dingy, grey-faced building on West Forty-Seventh. We weren't interested in it. We were interested in the building directly across the way, an equally dingy, gray-faced edifice that was named the Allistair Arms.

We walked directly to the desk and flashed our buzzers, and the desk clerk looked hastily to the elevator bank.

“Relax,” Johnny said.

He pulled one of the pictures from under his jacket. The lab had whitened out the figures of Jean Ferroni and her male companion, leaving only the bed, the picture on the wall, and the open window. Johnny showed the picture to the desk clerk.

“What room is this?” he said.

“I . . . I don't know.”

“Look hard.”

“I tell you I don't know. Maybe one of the bellhops.” He
pounded a bell on the desk, and an old man in a bellhop's rig hobbled over. Johnny showed him the picture and repeated his question.

“Damned if I know,” the old man said. “All these rooms look alike.” He stared at the picture again, shaking his head. Then his eyes narrowed and he bent closer and looked harder. “Oh,” he said, “that's 305. That picture of the Injun and the ripped wallpaper there. Yep, that's 305.” He paused. “Why?”

I turned. “Who's in 305?”

The desk clerk made a show of looking at the register. “Mr. Adams. Harley Adams.”

“Let's go, Johnny,” I said.

We started up the steps, and I saw Johnny's hand flick to his shoulder holster. When the hand came out from under his coat, it was holding a .38. I took out my own gun and we padded up noiselessly.

We stopped outside room 305, flattening ourselves against the walls on either side of the door.

Johnny reached out and rapped the butt of his gun against the door.

“Who is it?” a voice asked.

“Open up!”

“Who is it?”

“Police officers. Open up!”

“Wha . . .”

There was a short silence inside, and then we heard the frantic slap of leather on the floor.

“Hit it, Johnny,” I shouted.

Johnny backed off against the opposite wall, put the sole of his shoe against it, and shoved off toward the door. His shoulder hit the wood, and the door splintered inward.

Adams was in his undershirt and trousers, and he had one leg
over the windowsill, heading for the fire escape, when we came in. I swung my .38 in his direction and yelled, “You better hold it, Adams.”

He looked at the gun, and then slowly lowered his leg to the floor.

“Sure,” he said. “I wasn't going anyplace.”

We found piles of pictures in the room, all bundled neatly. Some of them were of Jean Ferroni. But there were other girls and other men. We found an expensive camera in the closet, and a darkroom setup in the bathroom. We also found a switch knife with a six-inch blade in the top drawer of his dresser.

“I don't know anything about it,” Adams insisted.

He kept insisting
that for a long time, even after we showed him the pictures we'd taken from Jean Ferroni's safety deposit box. He kept insisting until we told him his knife would go down to the lab and they'd sure as hell find
some
trace of the dead girl on it, no matter how careful he'd been. We were stretching the truth a little, because a knife can be washed as clean as anything else. But Adams took the hook and told us everything.

He'd given the kid a come-on, getting her to pose alone at first, in the nude. From there, it had been simple to get her to pose for the big stuff, the stuff that paid off.

“She was getting classy,” Adams said. “A cheap tramp like that getting classy. Wanted a percentage of the net. I gave her a percentage, all right. I arranged a nice little party right in my hotel room. Six guys. They fixed her good, one after the other. Then I drove her up to her own neighborhood and left her the way you found her—so it would look like a rape kill.”

He paused and shifted in his chair, making himself comfortable.

“Imagine that broad,” he continued. “Wanting to
share
with me. I showed her.”

“You showed her, all right,” Johnny said tightly.

That was when I swung out with my closed fist, catching Adams on the side of the jaw. He fell backward, knocking the chair over, sprawling onto the floor.

He scrambled to his feet, crouched low and said, “Hey, what the hell? Are you crazy?”

I didn't answer him. I left the Interrogation Room, walking past the patrolman at the door. Johnny caught up with me in the corridor, clamped his hand onto my shoulder.

“Why'd you hit him, Mike?” he asked.

“I wanted to,” I said. “I just wanted to.”

Johnny's eyes met mine for a moment, held them. His hand tightened on my shoulder, and his head nodded almost imperceptibly.

We walked down the corridor together, our heels clicking noisily on the hard floor.

S
itting at the bar, Pete Charpens looked at his own reflection in the mirror, grinned, and said, “Merry Christmas.”

It was not Christmas yet, true enough, but he said it anyway, and the words sounded good, and he grinned foolishly and lifted his drink and sipped a little of it and said again, “Merry Christmas,” feeling very good, feeling very warm, feeling in excellent high spirits. Tonight, the city was his. Tonight, for the first time since he'd arrived from Whiting Center eight months ago, he felt like a part of the city. Tonight, the city enveloped him like a warm bath, and he lounged back and allowed the undulating waters to cover him. It was Christmas Eve, and all was right with the world, and Pete Charpens loved every mother's son who roamed the face of the earth because he felt as if he'd finally come home, finally found the place, finally found himself.

It was a good feeling.

This afternoon, as soon as the office party was over, he'd gone into the streets. The shop windows had gleamed like pot-bellied stoves, cherry hot against the sharp bite of the air. There was a promise of snow in the sky, and Pete had walked the tinselled streets of New York with his tweed coat collar against the back of
his neck, and he had felt warm and happy. There were shoppers in the streets, and Santa Clauses with bells, and giant wreaths and giant trees, and music coming from speakers, the timeless carols of the holiday season. But more than that. For the first time in eight months, he had felt the pulse beat of the city, the people, the noise, the clutter, the rush, and above all the warmth. The warmth had engulfed him, surprising him. He had watched it with the foolish smile of a spectator and then, with sudden realization, he had known he was part of it. In the short space of eight months, he had become a part of the city—and the city had become a part of him. He had found a home.

“Bartender,” he said.

The bartender ambled over. He was a big red-headed man with freckles all over his face. He moved with economy and grace. He seemed like a very nice guy who probably had a very nice wife and family decorating a Christmas tree somewhere in Queens.

“Yes, sir?” he asked.

“Pete. Call me Pete.”

“Okay, Pete.”

“I'm not drunk,” Pete said, “believe me. I know all drunks say that, but I mean it. I'm just so damn happy I could bust. Did you ever feel that way?”

“Sure,” the bartender said, smiling.

“Let me buy you a drink.”

“I don't drink.”

“Bartenders never drink, I know, but let me buy you one. Please. Look, I want to thank people, you know? I want to thank everybody in this city. I want to thank them for being here, for making it a city. Do I sound nuts?”

“Yes,” the bartender said.

“Okay. Okay then, I'm nuts. But I'm a hick, do you know?
I came here from Whiting Center eight months ago. Straw sticking out of my ears. The confusion here almost killed me. But I got a job, a good job, and I met a lot of wonderful people, and I learned how to dress, and I . . . I found a home. That's corny. I know it. That's the hick in me talking. But I love this damn city, I
love
it. I want to go around kissing girls in the streets. I want to shake hands with every guy I meet. I want to tell them I feel like a person, a human being, I'm alive, alive! For Christ's sake, I'm alive!”

“That's a good way to be,” the bartender agreed.

“I know it. Oh, my friend, do I know it! I was dead in Whiting Center, and now I'm here and alive and . . . look, let me buy you a drink, huh?”

“I don't drink,” the bartender insisted.

“Okay. Okay, I won't argue. I wouldn't argue with anyone tonight. Gee, it's gonna be a great Christmas, do you know? Gee, I'm so damn happy I could bust.” He laughed aloud, and the bartender laughed with him. The laugh trailed off into a chuckle, and then a smile. Pete looked into the mirror, lifted his glass again, and again said, “Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.”

He was still smiling when the man came into the bar and sat down next to him. The man was very tall, his body bulging with power beneath the suit he wore. Coatless, hatless, he came into the bar and sat alongside Pete, signalling for the bartender with a slight flick of the hand. The bartender walked over.

“Rye neat,” the man said.

The bartender nodded and walked away. The man reached for his wallet.

“Let me pay for it,” Pete said.

The man turned. He had a wide face with a thick nose and small brown eyes. The eyes came as a surprise in his otherwise
large body. He studied Pete for a moment and then said, “You a queer or something?”

Pete laughed. “Hell, no,” he said. “I'm just happy. It's Christmas Eve, and I feel like buying you a drink.”

The man pulled out his wallet, put a five dollar bill on the bar top and said, “I'll buy my own drink.” He paused. “What's the matter? Don't I look as if I can afford a drink?”

“Sure you do,” Pete said. “I just wanted to . . . look, I'm happy. I want to share it, that's all.”

The man grunted and said nothing. The bartender brought his drink. He tossed off the shot and asked for another.

“My name's Pete Charpens,” Pete said, extending his hand.

“So what?” the man said.

“Well . . . what's your name?”

“Frank.”

“Glad to know you, Frank.” He thrust his hand closer to the man.

“Get lost, Happy,” Frank said.

Pete grinned, undismayed. “You ought to relax,” he said, “I mean it. You know, you've got to stop . . .”

“Don't tell me what I've got to stop. Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Pete Charpens. I told you.”

“Take a walk, Pete Charpens. I got worries of my own.”

“Want to tell me about them?”

“No, I don't want to tell you about them.”

“Why not? Make you feel better.”

“Go to hell, and stop bothering me,” Frank said.

The bartender brought the second drink. He sipped at it, and then put the shot glass on the bar top.

“Do I look like a hick?” Pete asked.

“You look like a goddamn queer,” Frank said.

“No, I mean it.”

“You asked me, and I told you.”

“What's troubling you, Frank?”

“You a priest or something?”

“No, but I thought . . .”

“Look, I come in here to have a drink. I didn't come to see the chaplain.”

“You an ex-Army man?”

“Yeah.”

“I was in the Navy,” Pete said. “Glad to be out of that, all right. Glad to be right here where I am, in the most wonderful city in the whole damn world.”

“Go down to Union Square and get a soap box,” Frank said.

“Can't I help you, Frank?” Pete asked. “Can't I buy you a drink, lend you an ear, do something? You're so damn sad, I feel like . . .”

“I'm not sad.”

“You sure look sad. What happened? Did you lose your job?”

“No, I didn't lose my job.”

“What do you do, Frank?”

“Right now, I'm a truck driver. I used to be a fighter.”

“Really? You mean a boxer? No kidding?”

“Why would I kid you?”

“What's your last name?”

“Blake.”

“Frank Blake? I don't think I've heard it before. Of course, I didn't follow the fights much.”

“Tiger Blake, they called me. That was my ring name.”

“Tiger Blake. Well, we didn't have fights in Whiting Center. Had to go over to Waterloo if we wanted to see a bout. I guess that's why I never heard of you.”

“Sure,” Frank said.

“Why'd you quit fighting?”

“They made me.”

“Why?”

“I killed a guy.”

Pete's eyes widened. “In the ring?”

“Of course in the ring. What the hell kind of a moron are you, anyway? You think I'd be walking around if it wasn't in the ring? Jesus!”

“Is that what's troubling you?”

“There ain't nothing troubling me. I'm fine.”

“Are you going home for Christmas?”

“I got no home.”

“You must have a home,” Pete said gently. “
Everybody's
got a home.”

“Yeah? Where's your home? Whiting Center or wherever the hell you said?”

“Nope. This is my home now. New York City. New York, New York. The greatest goddamn city in the whole world.”

“Sure,” Frank said sourly.

“My folks are dead,” Pete said. “I'm an only child. Nothing for me in Whiting Center anymore. But in New York, well, I get the feeling that I'm here to stay. That I'll meet a nice girl here, and marry her, and raise a family here and . . . and this'll be home.”

“Great,” Frank said.

“How'd you happen to kill this fellow?” Pete asked suddenly.

“I hit him.”

“And killed him?”

“I hit him on the Adam's apple. Accidentally.”

“Were you sore at him?”

“We were in the ring. I already told you that.”

“Sure, but were you sore?”

“A fighter don't have to be sore. He's paid to fight.”

“Did you like fighting?”

“I loved it,” Frank said flatly.

“How about the night you killed that fellow?”

Frank was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Get lost, huh?”

“I could never fight for money,” Pete said. “I have a quick temper, and I get mad as hell, but I could never do it for money. Besides, I'm too happy right now to . . .”

“Get lost,” Frank said again, and he turned his back. Pete sat silently for a moment.

“Frank?” he said at last.

“You back again?”

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you about something that's painful to you. Look, it's Christmas Eve. Let's . . .”

“Forget it.”

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“No. I told you no a hundred times. I buy my own damn drinks!”

“This is Christmas E . . .”

“I don't care what it is. You happy jokers give me the creeps. Get off my back, will you?”

“I'm sorry. I just . . .”

“Happy, happy, happy. Grinning like a damn fool. What the hell is there to be so happy about? You got an oil well someplace? A gold mine? What is it with you?”

“I'm just . . .”

“You're just a jerk! I probably pegged you right the minute I laid eyes on you. You're probably a damn queer.”

“No, no,” Pete said mildly. “You're mistaken, Frank. Honestly, I just feel . . .”

“Your old man was probably a queer, too. Your old lady probably took on every sailor in town.”

The smile left Pete's face, and then tentatively reappeared. “You don't mean that, Frank,” he said.

“I mean everything I ever say,” Frank said. There was a strange gleam in his eyes. He studied Pete carefully.

“About my mother, I meant,” Pete said.

“I know what you're talking about. And I'll say it again. She probably took on every sailor in town.”

“Don't say that, Frank,” Pete said, the smile gone now, a perplexed frown teasing his forehead, appearing, vanishing, reappearing.

“You're a queer, and your old lady was a . . .”

“Stop it, Frank.”

“Stop what? If your old lady was . . .”

Pete leaped off the bar stool. “Cut it out!” he yelled.

From the end of the bar, the bartender turned. Frank caught the movement with the corner of his eye. In a cold whisper, he said, “Your mother was a slut,” and Pete swung at him.

Frank ducked, and the blow grazed the top of his head. The bartender was coming towards them now. He could not see the strange light in Frank's eyes, nor did he hear Frank whisper again, “A slut, a slut.”

Pete pushed himself off the bar wildly. He saw the beer bottle then, picked it up, and lunged at Frank.

The patrolman knelt
near his body.

“He's dead, all right,” he said. He stood up and dusted off his trousers. “What happened?”

Frank looked bewildered and dazed. “He went berserk,” he
said. “We were sitting and talking. Quiet. All of a sudden, he swings at me.” He turned to the bartender. “Am I right?”

“He was drinking,” the bartender said. “Maybe he was drunk.”

“I didn't even swing back,” Frank said, “not until he picked up the beer bottle. Hell, this is Christmas Eve. I didn't want no trouble.”

“What happened when he picked up the bottle?”

“He swung it at me. So I . . . I put up my hands to defend myself. I only gave him a push, so help me.”

“Where'd you hit him?”

Frank paused. “In . . . in the throat, I think.” He paused again. “It was self-defense, believe me. This guy just went berserk. He musta been a maniac.”

“He
was
talking kind of queer,” the bartender agreed.

The patrolman nodded sympathetically. “There's more nuts outside than there is in,” he said. He turned to Frank. “Don't take this so bad, Mac. You'll get off. It looks open and shut to me. Just tell them the story downtown, that's all.”

“Berserk,” Frank said. “He just went berserk.”

“Well . . .” The patrolman shrugged. “My partner'll take care of the meat wagon when it gets here. You and me better get downtown. I'm sorry I got to ruin your Christmas, but . . .”

“It's
him
that ruined it,” Frank said, shaking his head and looking down at the body on the floor.

Together, they started out of the bar. At the door, the patrolman waved to the bartender and said, “Merry Christmas, Mac.”