Ed McBain - Downtown (26 page)

The village looked abandoned at first. Not a soul in sight.

Michael knocked on the door to the apartment. "Cops listen first," Connie said. Belatedly, he put his ear to the door and listened. He did not hear anything. "Nobody home," he said. Charlie musta flew the coop, Sergeant Mendelsohnn said. Michael knocked on the door again. And waited. No answer. He studied the locks. Four of them. One under the other. To get into this apartment, you would need a battering ram. He wondered if they should try the fire escape again. But how many fire escapes could you climb before someone yelled fire? Careful, Andrew said.

An old man had appeared in the doorway to one of the thatched huts. Nodding. Smiling. Scared shitless. Six automatic rifles

suddenly trained on him.

395 "We'd better go," Michael said. Cover me, Mendelsohnn said. Rain coming down. A light rain. Everything looking so green. So fresh. Waiting in the rain. The whisper of the rain. Mendelsohnn talking quietly to the old man. Scraps of Vietnamese, snippets of French, bits and pieces of English. Other gooks peering around doorways now. Women mostly. Some other old men. Watching solemnly. Looking scared. Big American liberators standing in the rain with their guns. All but one of them no older than twenty, scaring women and old men to death. Says Charlie went through about three days ago, Mendelsohnn said. All of them listening.

Took all their rice, Mendelsohnn said. Got to be miles away by now.

"Maybe you ought to knock again," Connie said. "No," Michael said. "Let's go." Looka the one in the blue over there, the RTO said. Yeah, Andrew said. Givin' us the eye.

Give her some big Indian cock, Long Foot said. Let's move it out, Mendelsohnn said. The rain still falling lightly.

A breeze coming up over the rice paddies.

They were coming down the steps when Michael heard the footsteps below. Coming up. Moving up toward them. Another tenant, he thought. Or maybe--but no, that would be too lucky. But why not? Judy Jordan coming home. By her own admission, she'd been naked the last time he was here, probably dressing to go out, it had been only ten o'clock. So she'd put on a robe and peeked out into the hallway to find nobody there, this city was full of mysteries, and she'd finished dressing, and had gone out on the town. But the night had vanished all at once, and this was now one o'clock in the morning on Boxing Day, and here she was, folks, home sweet home again, coming up the steps to the second floor, reaching the second-floor landing just as Michael and Connie came down from the third floor, hand on the banister, hello there, Judy, long time no-- But it wasn't Judy Jordan. Or even Helen Parrish.

Instead, it was--

397 "You!" Michael shouted. The man looked at him. His mouth fell open, his eyes opened wide in his head. "You!" Michael shouted again. And the man turned and started running downstairs. Michael took off after him. The streets were deserted. It would have been impossible to lose him, anyway, because he was wearing a yellow ski parka that served as a beacon, which Michael thought was extremely considerate of him. He was fast for a big man, but Michael was faster; he'd had practice chasing Charlie Wong all the way from the subway kiosk on Franklin to the fortune-cookie factory someplace in Chinatown on Christmas Eve, and it seemed to him he'd been running ever since. He wanted very badly to get his hands on this son of a bitch in the yellow ski parka, and so he ran faster than he'd ever run in his life, arms and legs pumping, eyeglasses steaming up a bit, but not so much so that he couldn't see the yellow parka ahead, the distance closing between them now, ten feet, eight feet, six feet, three feet, and Michael hurled himself into the air like a circus flier, leaping off into space without a net, arms outstretched, reaching not for a trapeze coming his way from the opposite direction, but instead for the shoulders of Detective Daniel Cahill, who had called him a thief after stealing his money, his driver's license, his credit cards, and his library card to boot. His hands clamped down fiercely on either side of Cahill's neck, the weight and momentum of his body sending the man staggering forward, hands clawing the air for balance. They fell to the sidewalk together, Michael on Cahill's back, the big man trying to shake Michael off. Michael was tired of being jerked around in this fabulous city, tired of being shaken up and shaken off. He allowed himself to be shaken off now, but only for an instant. Rolling clear, he got to his feet at once, and then immediately reached down for Cahill and heaved him up off the sidewalk. His hands clutched into the zippered front of the yellow parka, he slammed Cahill against the wall of the building, and then pulled him off the wall and slammed him back again, methodically battering him against the bricks over and over again. "Cut it out," Cahill said.

"I'll cut it out, you son of a

399 bitch!" "Are you crazy or something?" "Yes!" Michael shouted. "Ow!" Cahill shouted.

"Detective Daniel Cahill, huh?" "Damn it, you're hurting me!" "Let's go down the precinct, huh?" "Ow! Damn it, that's my _head!" Michael pulled him off the wall. "Speak," he said.

"You're a very violent person," Cahill said. "Yes. What's your name?"

"Felix. And I don't have your money, if _that's why you're behaving like a lunatic. Or anything _else that belongs to you."

Felix. Big burly man with hard blue eyes and a Marine sergeant's haircut. On Christmas Eve, he'd sported a _Miami _Vice beard stubble, but now--at a little past one A.M. on Boxing Day--he was clean-shaven. On Christmas Eve, he'd been wearing a tweed overcoat and he'd been carrying a detective's blue-enameled gold shield, and he'd sounded very much like a tough New York cop. Tonight he was wearing a yellow ski parka over a brown turtleneck sweater, and he sounded like a frightened man protesting too loudly that he did not have Michael's-- But didn't he know that Michael's identification had been planted alongside the dead body of Ju Ju Rainey? "Felix what?" Michael asked.

"Hooper. And I'm telling you the truth. I gave everything to Judy. And she still hasn't paid me, by the way. I mean, I think it's demeaning for a person to have to come to another person's apartment at one in the morning to ask for his money, don't you?" "I assume you mean Judy Jordan."

"Yes, of _course, Judy Jordan. Your friend Judy Jordan who owes me a thousand bucks." "How do you happen to know her?" "We've worked together in the past." "Stealing things from people?" "Ha-ha," Felix said. Michael looked at him.

"I am an _actor, sir," Felix said,

proudly and a trifle indignantly. In

401 fact, he tried to pull himself up to his full height, but this was a little difficult because Michael still had his hands twisted into the throat and collar of the parka. "I was asked to play a police detective," Felix said. "I'd never played one before. I thought the role would be challenging." "You thought stealing my ..." "Oh, come on, that was for a good purpose." "A good ..." "In fact, you should have been delighted."

"Delighted? Do you know what Judy _did with those things? My credit cards and my license and my ...?was

"Yes, she had them blown up as posters." "She _what?" "For your birthday party." "My _what?" "How terrible it must be," Felix said. "What?"

"To be born on Christmas Day, do you think you could let go of my collar now?" "Born on ...?was

"It's like being upstaged by Christ, isn't it?" Felix said. "I really think you're closing off an artery or something. I'm beginning to feel a bit faint." Michael let go of the collar. "Thank you," Felix said. "So that's what she told you. Judy." "Yes." "That my birthday was on Christmas Day ..."

"Well, her friend's birthday. She didn't tell me your name."

"And she was going to have my credit cards blown up as posters." "Yes, and your driver's license, too. To hang on the walls. For the party." "Which is why you went to this bar with her ..." "Yes. And waited for her signal." "Her signal?"

"She said she would signal when she wanted me to move in." "I see."

"She would hold out her hand to you, palm up." Asking for the ring back, Michael thought.

__The ring. Please, I don't want any _trouble.

"And that was when you were supposed to come over and do your Detective Cahill act."

"Yes."

403 "Where'd you get the badge?"

"A shield. We call it a shield. I bought it in an antiques shop on Third Avenue." "You were very convincing."

"Thank you. I thought so, too. Did you like it when I said, `This individual is a thief?` That's the way policemen talk, you know. They will never call a person a _person, he is always an individual." "Yes, that was very good." "Thank you."

"But why'd you steal my money? If Judy wanted the ..." "I don't know why she wanted the money. She said your money and all your identification. Which is all I took." "Which was only everything in my wallet." "Well, that was the job." "Which you did for a thousand dollars."

"Yes, but I'm between engagements just now. How was the party?"

"Mr. Hooper, do you know where all that stuff ended up?"

"No. All I know is that I still haven't got my thousand dollars." "That stuff ended up alongside a dead man."

"That's a shame," Felix said. "But I'm sure it had nothing to do with my performance." "Do you know who Mama is?" "No. Is that a riddle?"

"Did Judy Jordan ever mention a woman named Mama?" "No. Mama who?" "She didn't say, did she, that it was _Mama who wanted that stuff taken from my wallet?" "No." "Did she ever mention a man named Arthur Crandall?" "Arthur Crandall? The _director? The man who did _War _and _Solitude? What are you saying?" "Did she tell you it was Crandall who wanted my ...?was "Oh my God, was I auditioning for _Crandall?" "No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm trying to find out if ..."

"Crandall, oh, _God, I'm going

405 to faint." "Would you know if ...?was

"Why didn't she _tell me? I mean, I hardly even _prepared! I mean, I went on cold! If I'd known I was doing it for _Crandall ..."

"Well, that's what I'm trying to ..." "I'll kill her, I swear to God! Why'd she give me that story about a birthday party? _Crandall, I'm going to cry." "No, don't cry, just ..."

"I'm going to die, I'm going to kill her, I'll go kill her right this minute." "You can't, she isn't home." "Then where is she?" "I don't know where she ..." "The _theater!" Felix shouted.

15 The theater was on Thirteenth Street off Seventh Avenue, a ninety-nine-seat house in what had once been the rectory of a Catholic church. The church was still functional, although the theater --according to Felix--barely scraped by. All of the street lamps on either side of the block had been smashed by vandals, and the only illumination at one-forty in the morning was a floodlight bathing the facade of the church and causing it to look like a sanctuary for Quasimodo. A hand-lettered sign affixed to a stone buttress on the northwest side of the church advised that the Cornerstone Players could be found in the direction of the pointing arrow at the bottom of the sign. "They're rehearsing a medieval play," Felix said, "an allegory of sorts."

Michael thought it odd that a group of players would be rehearsing at this hour of the morning. Then again, he did not know anything at all about allegories. Perhaps an allegory had to be rehearsed in the empty hours of the night.

"They were supposed to open just before Christmas," Felix said, "but the director's wife ran off with another woman, and they had to bring in a replacement. They'll be lucky if they make it before the end of the year. Even _with all these crash rehearsals."

He was leading them familiarly up the lighted alleyway on the side of the church, feeling very

chipper now that Michael had stopped

407 banging him against the wall and had released his grip on the parka. On the way downtown in the open convertible, he'd told them he was really looking forward to killing Judy Jordan. Michael doubted he would actually kill her, even though he sounded simultaneously serious and cheerfully optimistic about the prospect. Apparently, an audition with Arthur Crandall was an important thing. Working in an Arthur Crandall film, even if the movie didn't make any money, could help an actor's career enormously. Which was why Felix was so incensed that Judy hadn't told him the detective role was an audition. Michael assured Felix it had been nothing of the sort, but Felix thought he was just mollifying him, Judy Jordan being a good friend of his and all, who'd even thrown a surprise birthday party for him. Michael was thinking that in his own way Felix was crazier than any of the people he'd met in the past few days. But Felix was an actor; perhaps he was only _acting crazy.

There was an arched doorway near the rear of the church, which Felix explained was the entrance to the theater, but he walked right past it and around to the back of the church, where a metal door was set in a smaller arch. A sign advised that this was the stage door and asked all visitors to announce themselves. Felix pressed a button under a speaker. A woman's voice said, "Yes?" "Felix Hooper," he said. "Minute," the woman said. There was a buzz. Felix grasped the doorknob, twisted it, and led them into a space that looked like a one-room schoolhouse, with students' desks and a teacher's desk and a piano in one corner, and an American flag in another corner. A dark-haired woman wearing a wide, flower-patterned skirt over a black leotard and tights came into the room, carrying a clipboard. "Hi, Felix," she said. "Hi. Is Judy here?" "Onstage," she said. Michael noticed that she was barefoot. "I'm Anne Summers, the stage manager," she said.

"I'm Connie Kee, the chauffeur," Connie said. Michael did not introduce himself because he was still

wanted for murder, albeit the murder

409 of a dope dealer fence. "You look familiar," Anne said.

"Everybody tells me that," Michael said. "Okay to go in?" Felix asked. "Sure." "'Cause I want to kill Judy," Felix said, and smiled.

"So does Kenny," Anne said, and turned to Michael. "Kenny Stein, the director," she explained.

Michael figured that in the theater, everyone had a title. He wondered if he was supposed to recognize Kenny Stein's name. Anne was looking at him expectantly. "Gee," Michael said. "You'd better sit way in the back," she said to Felix. "Kenny likes a lot of space around him. Are you sure I don't know you?" she asked Michael.