Ed McBain - Downtown (30 page)

But no, it was only Arthur Crandall stepping out of the car with a gun in his hand. And suddenly the limo resembled a hearse. "Join us," Crandall said.

Michael figured he _still didn't know how to use a gun. But as he moved toward him, Mama suddenly appeared again out of the night, and the knife was still in his hand, and besides, Michael could now see that Connie was inside the car. Mama grinned. "Yes?" he said. Michael nodded. The limo was quite cozy.

Mama and Michael on jump seats

457 facing Connie on the left, Crandall in the middle, and Jessica on the right. Crandall still had the gun in his hand. Mama had the knife pressed into Michael's side between the third and fourth rib on the left. About where his heart was, he guessed. Jessica looked somewhat bewildered. He wondered if she knew what was going on here. Did she still think he'd murdered someone? How big a story had Crandall sold her? Her eyes kept snapping from the gun in Crandall's hand to the knife in Mama's.

"This is Mama Rodriguez," Crandall said.

"Yes, we've had the pleasure," Michael said, and then realized that Crandall was introducing Mama to Jessica. Which meant she'd never met him before tonight. Again, he wondered how much she knew about what was going on. He also wondered how much he _himself knew about what was going on. "How do you do?" Jessica said. She seemed even more bewildered now that she knew this man's name was Mama. A man with a thick black mustache? Mama? Her eyes now snapped from the knife in his hand to the mustache under his nose. Michael was more worried about the knife than he was about the mustache.

"You _did say Mama?" Jessica said. "For Mario Mateo," Mama said, and smiled at her like one of the bandidos in __Treasure of the Sierra _Madre. "I see," she said.

She did not look as if she saw anything at all. She looked as confused as Goldie Hawn in a hot air balloon over the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mama's fingers were dancing all over the handle of the knife, as if he simply could not wait to use it. This was a good movie back here in the backseat of the limousine. Beautiful Chinese girl looking gorgeous and alert. Beautiful blonde girl looking like a dumb bimbo, which she probably was, Albetha had been right. Fat motion-picture director with a Phi Beta Kappa key across his belly and a gun that looked like a Luger in his hand. Little Mexican bandido holding an open switchblade knife in _his hand, coveting either Humphrey Bogart's high-topped shoes or the blonde's sparkly red ones. And sitting on one of the jump seats, the hayseed from Sarasota, Florida, the

death-defying orange-grower who after the

459 Tet Offensive in the year 1968, when he was but a mere eighteen years old--

"Let me tell you what I think happened," he said. "No, let me tell you what's _going to happen," Crandall said. "Jessica and I are going to get out of this car on St. Luke's Place, and then Mama is going to take you and your lovely little friend ..." "I'm five-nine," Connie said. "... out to Long Island someplace ..."

"And I don't want to go to Long Island," she said.

"The ocean breezes are very nice at this time of the year," Mama said. "You'll enjoy Jones Beach." "Why are you sending them to Long Island?" Jessica asked, puzzled. "Why don't we take them to the police instead? This man's a murderer!" "Don't worry," Crandall said.

"What does that mean, don't worry? This person _killed a person!" "There are police on Long Island," Crandall said. "Don't worry." "Why did you do that, Mr. Barnes?" she asked, turning to him. "I'm an actress, as you know ..." "Yes."

"So I keep wondering about your motivation. Are you a crazy person? Is that it?" "Ask your director," Michael said. "Ask him why he went to Charlie Nichols and asked him to hire two other actors ..."

"Are you casting another movie?" Jessica asked. "No, this wasn't a movie," Michael said. "This was Christmas Eve in a bar on--why'd Nichols give me your card?" he asked, turning suddenly to Crandall, who sat smiling and shaking his head as if Michael were certifiable. Jessica, however, was not smiling.

Jessica was trying to understand what the hell was happening here.

Maybe she wasn't such a dumb bimbo after all. "You _expected me to go to the police, didn't you?" Michael said. "He already knows the whole fucking thing," Mama

said suddenly.

461 Jessica looked at him. Michael did, in fact, think he already knew the whole fucking thing. But this wasn't a movie. This wasn't the scene where the bad guys said, All right, Charlie, since we're going to kill you in the next five minutes, anyway, it won't do any harm telling you all about the terrible things we did. Nor was this the scene where the hero was playing for time waiting for the police to kick in the door, during which suspenseful moments he could explain to the bad guys exactly why they had committed all those gruesome murders. This was real life, such as it was, here in the backseat of this limousine, and the way Michael figured it, Mama was ready to make his move.

Dumb blonde bimbo notwithstanding, Mama was ready. Even if it meant throwing away the blonde with the bathwater. The blonde meant nothing to Mama. Mama wanted home free. Mama had gone into this to kill two birds with one stone. Get paid for ridding himself of a competitor and take over his business besides. Now he had both stones in his back pocket and a switchblade knife in his hand and the only thing standing between him and prosperity was a dumb fuck from Sarasota, Florida. And his Chink girlfriend. So naturally, they both had to go. That was the way Rodriguez thought. That was the way to become successful in America. And if the blonde accidentally happened to become a witness to something she shouldn't have seen, why then the blonde would have to go, too, and Mama would later give her red shoes to his _own mama. The way Michael figured it, Mama was a businessman. And business was business. And 'twas the season to be jolly.

On the other hand, Crandall was now in over his head. Michael guessed that Mama was supposed to have done his job and then disappear into the woodwork again. Supply Crandall with a body, that was all. Charlie Nichols must have told him that he knew someone who could pick up a body for them. His crack dealer. A man named Mario Mateo Rodriguez, familiarly called Mama. No questions asked. Six thousand big ones and he'd deliver a corpse. Crandall was the sort of man who wouldn't want to know where the corpse was coming from. This was commerce. He needed a dead body. Period. He did not want to know about murder.

He preferred believing that Mama would

463 find a dead derelict in a Bowery hallway. Or in a garbage can behind McDonald's. No great loss to the city. Here's the money Charlie promised you, six thousand bucks out of the nine I safely drew from the bank, no questions asked, the other three already gone to Charlie and his fellow thespians for their contribution to the scheme. It was nice not knowing you, Mama, good-bye and good luck. "Mr. Crandall?" The chauffeur's voice, coming over the loudspeaker. Crandall threw a switch. "Yes?"

"We're approaching Houston, sir. Will you and the lady still be getting out on St. Luke's?" "Yes, please," Crandall said. In Vietnam, Michael had simply quit. He had told that colonel to go fuck himself, sir, and he had meant it. He had quit. Because after the way Andrew died, there was no sense pursuing this dumb fucking war any further. This war was all about people doing unspeakably horrible things to themselves and to other people. If he had been the one who'd picked up that baby, if he had been the one who'd reached for that little girl a second before Andrew did, then _his hands would have been blown off, _his chest would have blossomed with blood, Andrew would have carried _him through the jungle, and _he would have been the one who was loaded onto that chopper in a body bag, dead. The obscenity had been as much in the randomness of death as in the singularly callous act that had preceded it, the wiring of a baby, yet _another random victim. The whole fucking thing was a lottery, and Michael had wanted nothing more to do with it. He wanted nothing more to do with _this, either. But on Christmas Eve, for no reason and no cause, he had been chosen at random to take part in yet another obscenity. The promotion of a goddamn _movie. So he went for Mama's knife.

17 A lot of people got hurt in that limousine. Including the driver. Who'd been nowhere near that slashing knife. A couple of people got hurt _outside the limousine, too. What happened was that he had her up against this brick wall in this

sort of little alleyway between two

465 buildings on Houston Street and he had his hand up under her skirt and they were both breathing very hard and all of a sudden there was a screeching sound and lights flashing and he thought at first that perhaps he'd had an orgasm since he was only thirteen years old or perhaps _she'd had one since she was only twelve or perhaps _both of them'd had one together because that was when the earth was supposed to move. But instead it was only a big mother of a black Cadillac jumping the curb and coming up onto the sidewalk and almost into the mouth of the alley, forcing him to fall down on top of her with his hand still up under her skirt, causing him to break his wrist and causing her to lose her virginity, for which dire injuries their separate attorneys said they could collect big money for damages. This was what Tony the Bear Orso told Michael in his room at St. Vincent's Hospital. It was still Boxing Day. Eight o'clock in the morning. From the window of his room, Michael could see a rooftop Christmas tree, its branches tossing wildly in the fierce wind.

"It was a terrible accident, sir," Orso said. "The driver told me everybody was screaming and kicking in the backseat and yelling in Spanish and Chinese and grabbing for guns and knives and kicking at the window separating them from where he was sitting, so naturally he lost control, just like you and me would've." "Naturally," Michael said. "When a person is wielding a sharp instrument," Orso said, "the backseat of a limousine can become a very small place." The instrument had indeed been sharp.

In the Operating Room, when Michael came out of the anesthesia, the doctor told him he'd been slashed and stabbed eighteen times. He said it was a miracle that Michael was still alive, since one of the slash wounds was dangerously close to the jugular and another had almost severed his windpipe. "Is Connie all right?" Michael asked him. The doctor did not know who Connie was. He thought Michael was hallucinating, and asked the nurse to give him a sedative. "Is Connie all right?" Michael asked Orso.

"Yes, she is a brave Chinese person," Orso said. "When she saw Mama carving you up like a Christmas turkey, she right away jumped

on him. She got cut herself, too, on

467 the hand, but she's okay." "Where is she?"

"I don't know where she is now, sir. I talked to her in the Emergency Room." "Does she know where I am?" "I don't know if she knows where you are or not. The last she saw of you was when they were wheeling you upstairs to the O.R. She herself was bleeding, and they were bandaging Crandall's head, and the blonde was still yelling at him. There was a good deal of confusion, sir." "Yes," Michael said.

"Yes. But everybody's okay now, including Mama. Who, if you'd have killed him, sir, the city would have given you a ticker-tape parade on Fifth Avenue. Which, as you may know, sir, is _up-town." "Where is he now?" "Mama? Down the hall, with a police officer outside his door. Not that he is going anyplace. He went through the window." "What window?" "That separated the back of the limo from the driver. Crashed through it headfirst when the car jumped the curb and almost hit them two kids in the alley. You should see him, sir. He looks like the Invisible Man all bandaged up." "Good," Michael said. "Yeah, fuck him," Orso agreed. On the rooftop, the Christmas tree danced in the wind. "Why were they bandaging Crandall's head?" Michael asked. "Because the blonde hit him with one of her sparkly red shoes." "She's good at that," Michael said.

"Yes, very good. She put two holes in his head like she was wielding a ball peen hammer instead of a high-heeled shoe." "Did she say why?"

"Because she suddenly realized," Orso said. "Realized what?" "That something was fishy, but she didn't know what. All she knew was Crandall had a gun in his hand and Mama was cutting you to ribbons and blood was flying all over the car and the Chinese girl was throwing herself on Mama and yelling what sounded like orders to the kitchen, so she figured she might as well take off her shoe and hit Crandall on the

head with it. She ain't very bright, you know."

469 Michael nodded.

"What I got here," Orso said, "which I will probably forget and leave on your bed and have to come back for later, is a transcript of the QandA we done with Crandall after they bandaged his head and we got him up the squadroom. That little cockroach Mama wouldn't tell us nothing, he's a pro, the son of a bitch, he knows his rights. In fact, he threatened to sue us for false arrest, the little bastard. But Crandall spilled his guts. Without a lawyer present, no less. _He thought he was being slick as baby shit, but he gave us enough to hang him. I was thinking that if I should leave this here on your bed, sir, because I'm so absentminded, and if you should happen to glance through it, I know you won't mention it to Crandall because then his lawyers'll say his rights were violated. Every lawyer in this city is lookin' for a rights loophole. You get a guy he shot his grandmother, his grandfather, his twin sisters, his mother, his uncle, and his pet goldfish, the lawyer looks for a rights loophole. Which, by the way, sir, Charlie Bonano sends his regards." "Where is he now?" "Out on bail, of course. He read all about you killing Crandall in the newspaper, and he called me up to say if we caught you I should tell you never mind the ten bucks. He also said you couldn'ta done it, which I already knew." "How'd you know?" "Because nobody's so dumb he's gonna kill a person and then take the person's business card to the police, no offense, sir. Not even somebody from Florida. But Crandall was figuring ... well, it's all in the transcript here, if I should absentmindedly leave it behind and if you should happen to read through it before I remember and come back for it in about ten, fifteen minutes." "Thank you," Michael said. "I'll ask around outside about Connie, case she's wandering the hospital lookin' for you. It's a big hospital." "Thank you," Michael said again.