Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 (11 page)

“Torey, can you tell me anything about what happened last night?” Carella asked.

“Oh, sure. It was me who called the police. I heard her screaming, I ran out there, she was laying on the ground, screaming.”

“You didn’t see anyone
else
in the alley, did you?”

“No. Just her. You mean the one who stabbed her? No. I wished I did.”

“What’d you do?”

“I left her laying there. You ain’t supposed to move anybody’s hurt. I learned that when I was still in the ring. Somebody
gets hit bad, you move him, it could make him worse. So I left her out there, and I come inside again and called nine-one-one.
From the phone right there. They got here right away. Which is a miracle, this city.”

“Can you remember seeing anyone suspicious
before
Miss Cassidy left the theater?”

“I wasn’t outside.”

“I meant
inside
the theater. After everyone else left.”

“You mean after Miss Peck went out, too.”

“Yes. You didn’t see anyone suspicious in the theater, did you? Anyone who shouldn’t have been here?”

“No, I didn’t. Miss Peck left, and a few minutes later Michelle came up to use the phone, and …”

“Miss Cassidy made a phone call?”

“Yeah. From the phone right on the wall there.”

“Did you hear what she
said
while she was on the phone?”

“Well, it was a very quick call.”

“But did you hear it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did she say?”

“She said … well, you want this exact? Because I’m not sure I can remember it
exact
.”

“As close as you can remember.”

“Well … she said like uh This is me, I’m just about to leave, something like that. And then she listened, and I guess she
just said Okay, and hung up.”

“Did she mention anyone’s name?”

“No.”

“What did she do then?”

“She came over here and we talked for a while.”

“How long a while?”

“Five minutes? She kept looking at her watch … I figured she had to go meet somebody. But we talked for a few minutes, and
then she looked at her watch again, and said, `Well, so long, Torey,’ something like that, and off she went.”

“What time was this?”

“Few minutes after seven.”

“How do you know?”

“Clock hanging right there on the wall,” he said, and gestured with his head. “I look at it all the time. It’s funny,” he
said. “You’re in the round three minutes, it seems like forever. But here, in the theater here, I sit on my stool, I look
at the clock, and I remember the old days, and it’s like a movie going by too fast. Sometimes I think I won’t have enough
time to play all the movies inside my head. You think I’ll have time to play them all?”

“I hope so,” Carella said gently.

The clock on the squadroom wall read twenty minutes past one. They had sent out for lunch, and now, as they ate, they recapped
what each of them had separately learned.

“Who’d she call?” Kling asked.

“Big question.”

“Let me see that estimate Morgenstern gave you,” he said, and Carella shoved it across the desk to him.

WEEKLY ESTIMATED BUDGET—“ROMANCE“

FOR A 500-SEAT “MIDDLE” THEATER

BASED ON A BREAK-EDEN GROSS OF $100,000

SALARIES

CAST:

“Scale actors get a big one a week, huh?”

“Wanna be an actor?”

“Nope.”

“What’s A.E.A.?”

“Don’t know.”

“T. W.A. U.?”

“Some kind of union, I’ll bet.”

“MU? HS?”

“Don’t know.”

“Guess they don’t believe in the power of the tube, huh?”

“Guess not.”

“What’s a three-sheet?”

“Beats me.”

“As the monkey said while peeing into the till …”

“This is running into a lot of money,” Carella said, and both men began giggling like schoolboys.

“You can skip over the rest of the administrative and general expenses,” Carella said. “Look down to the next section.”

Kling looked:

“Michelle isn’t getting a piece of the action, I see.”

“None of the actors are.”

“Big winner is the author.”

“
Bigger
winner is Morgenstern.”

“Not according to this.”

“He
also
gets fifty percent of the profits.”

“Nice. Does he own the
theater,
too?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So what’ve we got here?”

“Add it up.”

“Morgenstern gets half of that,” Carella said. “Plus his two percent and his office expenses.”

“You think he did it?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“Whoever Michelle phoned before she left the theater

T
HE SECRETARY IN THE SMALL WAITING ROOM OF JOHNNY
Milton’s office on Stemmler Avenue and Locust Street was on the telephone when the detectives arrived at three o’clock that
Tuesday afternoon. She glanced up briefly, signaled to the bench on the wall opposite her desk, listened for another moment,
and then said, “I can understand how you feel, Mike, but he really
is
on a conference call, and I don’t know how long he’ll be.”

She listened again, rolled her eyes, and said, “Well, that isn’t true, Mike, he talks to you
all
the time.
When?
What do you mean
when?”
she said, and rolled her eyes again. “Whenever there’s anything to report, he calls you. Well, that’s not true, either. He’s
always got things to report to you. Mike, you just got back from a dinner club date in Boston, who do you suppose got
that
for you, if not Johnny. What? No, I’m sure that wasn’t two months ago. February? Really? Was it in
February?
Then I guess it
was
two months ago. Gee. Even so, he’s working for you all the time, Mike, I promise you. Ooops, there goes the other phone,”
she said, although nothing else in the office was ringing. “I’ll tell him you called, he’ll get right back to you. Nice talking
to you,” she said, and hung up, and expelled her breath in exasperation.

“Actors,” she said, and then, realizing that the two men standing near the bench across the room were cute enough to be actors
themselves, and might just possibly
be
actors, she said in explanation, “Hitchcock was right,” and recognized she might only be compounding the felony although
neither of the two seemed to understand the reference, which was to Hitchcock constantly saying all actors were cattle, which
she’d read in a magazine in a doctor’s office, never having met the man.

“Can I help you?” she asked, smiling pleasantly and sitting up straighter in her chair, the better to impress in her somewhat
tight red sweater. The blond one stepped away from the wall with the framed eight-by-tens of Johnny’s clients on it, and crossed
over to the desk, a sort of leather fob falling open in his right hand to reveal a gold shield that had the name of the city
on it, and the city’s seal in gold on blue enamel and the word DETECTIVE under it, and under that 87TH SQUAD.

“Detective Kling,” he said. “My partner, Detective Carella,” nodding toward him as he, too, approached the desk. “We’d like
to talk to Mr. Milton, please.”

“Oh,” she said. “Sure,” and immediately picked up the phone and hit a button on its base, giving the lie to the conference-call
story she’d just told the actor named Mike. “Mr. Milton,” she said, “there are some detectives here to see you.” She listened,
nodded, and said, “Yes, sir, right away,” and replaced the phone on its base. “Just go right in,” she said, and indicated
a wood-paneled door to the right of her desk.