Night and Day (2 page)

Johnny’s left hand was clawing for the back pocket of his pants, his eyes wild. The sharp
thud when I slapped my pistol on the table in front of me stopped him dead. He stared at it, and
then at me. I sipped my coffee, my right hand next to the gun, fingers gently tapping the table.
Johnny let his hand fall to his side.

“If you’re interested in a cup of coffee and some breakfast, you can sit and order,” Hanritty
continued. “I’ll take anybody’s money. Even yours.” He paused. “If not, hit the road.” He lifted
the spatula and shoved Johnny away from the counter.

Johnny’s face was a deep red, nearly purple. “You...” he sputtered, his whole body
trembling. “Eddie’s gonna hear about this.”

Hanritty stared at him expressionlessly and wiped his hand on his apron. He pulled a towel
from under the counter, wiped the spatula, and turned back to the griddle.

“You hear me!” Johnny shouted. “Eddie is gonna hear about this!”

Hanritty ignored him. I heard an egg splatter into the grease on the griddle.

Johnny spun and pointed at me. “He’s gonna hear about you too, Welles.”

I winked and took another sip of coffee.

“Two, Charlie?” Hanritty asked from behind the counter.

“Make it three, Han,” I said, my eyes never leaving Johnny’s. “Have to go uptown this
morning. Ain’t much open there before sundown, so I’ll probably miss lunch.”

“Three it is.” I heard two more eggs drop into the grease.

Johnny stared from me to Hanritty, then back to me. Without another word, he spun on his
heel and stalked out of the coffee shop. The plate glass windows that looked out on the square
rattled as the door slammed.

“Appreciate you not throwing my ham at him,” I said as I shoved the pistol back into the
holster on my belt and adjusted my jacket. I had a carry permit for it, but it’s not a good idea to
flash a pistol that can blow somebody’s heart out through their spine. That kind of firepower
makes some people nervous.

Hanritty laughed. “In this business, one of the first things you learn is that you don’t throw
anything that a customer is willing to pay for.” A plate clattered and he came around the counter.

“Three and ham,” he said, sliding the plate onto the table in front of me.

As I picked up my knife and fork, and cut into the thick slice of ham, he said, “Didn’t have
to pull your piece, you know. I had Johnny under control.”

I forked the chunk of ham into my mouth and chewed slowly. Hanritty looked to be in his
mid-fifties, maybe sixty. He was short, thick, built like a wrestler. In the year or so I’d been
coming in, I’d seen him handle more than a couple of customers who got mouthy. If they got
rough, he’d get rough. But I never saw him lose his temper, and I never saw him lose a fight.
And he rarely had to reach for the baseball bat he kept under the counter.

“I knew that, Han,” I said. I paused. “I was hungry. Sooner Johnny left, sooner I could
eat.”

Hanritty nodded. “What do you think he was going for in his pocket? Gun?”

I scooped up a piece of egg and shoveled it into my mouth. “The way you had that spatula
on his windpipe, he was probably going for his wallet to pay for the sausage.”

Hanritty smiled.

“Eddie Gee wouldn’t put Three-Legs on the street carrying a piece.
Johnny’s so dumb, he might actually use it. He shoots somebody, where does that leave Eddie?”

“Main attraction at some uptown slurp club, right next to Johnny Three-Legs.”

“Exactly.” I speared another piece of ham. “Johnny carries a knife. Three-inch blade.
Word around the neighborhood is that he’s pretty handy with it. Wouldn’t want to chop down a
tree with a knife like that, but he could stick somebody real good. And has, from what I hear.”

Hanritty nodded and pulled a napkin from the dispenser on the table. As I chewed my food,
I watched him lift the sausage patty from the floor. He held it up to the light, examined both
sides, dabbed at it with the napkin, then went back behind the counter. I heard the sizzle as it hit
the griddle.

It was almost seven-thirty, and the morning regulars began to dribble in. In a neighborhood
joint like Hanritty’s, it’s pretty much the same people every day.

First, as usual, was a couple that always took the first booth. Her with her back to the
window, him facing it, watching the people that strolled by on the sidewalk. Guy was
mid-twenties, kind of shabby looking, scraggly black hair that brushed his shoulders, short beard.
Girl was blonde, cute, maybe 20. Maybe younger.

I didn’t know if he was her husband, her boyfriend, or her pimp, but they’d been coming in
together for almost six months. Coffee and two scrambled eggs for her, coffee and cornflakes for
him. I’d never seen them speak to each other during breakfast, and they were usually out the
door in under thirty minutes.

Next in was an old broad, about Hanritty’s age. It was clear she and Hanritty had history.
She’d been on the first stool, shoveling oatmeal into her mouth, the first day I’d walked into the
joint. Around mouthfuls of oatmeal, she’d been spewing some of the filthiest language I’d ever
heard come out of a woman. It wasn’t angry swearing, just her way of expressing herself. She
normally took the first stool, though I’d seen her move down if Hanritty was talking with
customers at the other end of the counter. Breakfast was always oatmeal and a glass of water.
No ice.

She was just digging into her oatmeal when another regular slipped in, made a beeline past
her, and sat down, his back to me, in the booth next to mine. No pendant around his neck, but I got the feeling he
was on his way home from work. Stopped in every morning for a chicken salad sandwich and
home fries. Mid-twenties, well-groomed, neatly dressed, with a hard look about him, mostly
around the eyes. He was pleasant and friendly with Hanritty, but his quick smiles never quite
reached eye level.

I had no idea what his story was. Ex-soldier, maybe ex-con. There were plenty of both on
the streets these days. Whatever he was into, he wasn’t going to be into it long if it put him on
the streets after sunset. I’d worked enough missing persons in the past year and a half to know.
You might be okay for a while, as long as luck was with you. But once luck moved on to
somebody else, you were finished. One of these mornings, luck was going to leave him dead in
an alley.

The last of the early morning regulars came in a few minutes later. Age somewhere
between forty and seventy. Graying, unkept shoulder-length hair. Tall and thin, almost skeletal.
Empty eyes.

As usual, Hanritty served him two slices of dry toast and a cup of black coffee. If the past
was any indication, he’d sip his coffee, eat his toast, toss some money on the counter, and leave,
never saying a word.

After I got friendly with Hanritty, I asked him about the guy.

“Tom Castle,” Hanritty told me. “Got tapped during the war, maybe after in a camp.”
Hanritty paused and looked away. “Tapped pretty hard. Physically he’s okay. But his mind is
just . . . someplace else.” Hanritty paused again. “Probably someplace better.”

Those were the regulars I saw every day. The couple by the window. The old lady. The
guy in the booth next to me. And Tom Castle. I’m sure Hanritty had other regulars, but these
were the people I saw before I went to the office. I didn’t know any of them, or talk to any of
them. But there was a level of familiarity, and I’d notice if they weren’t there.

I finished my coffee and checked my watch. It was getting close to eight. Cynthia would be
at the office pretty soon. She lived way downtown and never left her apartment before the sun
was well into the sky. It was clear she’d had a real bad experience, during the war or later, in the
camps. But I’d never asked. Everybody has a sob story. It’s usually best to leave it alone.

I put my cup on my plate and carried it to the counter while I fished in my pocket for a fiver.
As I was dropping the bill on the counter, I heard the door open.

Hanritty glanced in that direction, then went back to frying ham. I turned to look and saw a
pair of beat cops coming toward the back of the shop. They weren’t in any hurry, but their eyes
told me where they were going and who they wanted to see.

Chapter Two

I knew both the cops. The one on the left, Shelly Hodge, had been with the New York City
Police Department. She made it out before New York was overrun and ended up here. Just in
time to get bagged and thrown into an internment camp like everybody else. Shelly was in her
mid-thirties, short and bulky, though not exactly fat. People remembered Shelly for her soft,
high-pitched voice. If you closed your eyes when she spoke, you’d think you were listening to a
twelve-year old.

Dick Nedelmann was with her. He and I had history from before the war, when we were
both working at the 83
^rd
Street Station. I’d been pretty friendly with Nedelmann when I was a
cop, and we were still friendly enough.

The relationship had changed though. Some of it was because I’d moved to the private side
of the street. The rest was Nedelmann himself. The war, and the camp afterward, had eaten a
big chunk out of him, chewed it up, and spit it back as raw, bloody hate. He wasn’t much fun to
be around.

I leaned against the counter and waited for them. Everybody else worked on their
breakfasts. Well, everybody except the couple in the window booth.

The guy waited until the cops had walked by the booth, their backs to him and the girl. Then
he threw some money on the table, stood, grabbed the girl’s arm in a tight grip, and steered her
out the door. They hadn’t even finished their breakfast.

Shelly and Nedelmann reached me. “Morning, Charlie,” Shelly said. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

Nedelmann jerked his chin at the booth I’d just left. “Let’s sit down.” He looked across the
counter at Hanritty. “Couple of coffees at the booth.”

As we crossed the room, the guy in the booth next to mine froze, a fork full of potatoes
hovering an inch from his mouth. When he realized we were heading for the back booth and not
his, he put the potatoes in his mouth and began to chew.

Lot of people didn’t like cops.

I slid into the still-warm seat. Nedelmann and Shelly sat across from me and said nothing
while Hanritty put their coffee on the table.

Once Han was back behind the counter, Shelly said, “That girl you been looking for.
Klinger. You still looking?”

“MaryAnn Klinger. Dad threw her out of the apartment six months ago, mom threw dad out
of the apartment a few weeks ago. Now mom wants her little angel back.” I paused. “You
find her?”

“We didn’t,” Shelly said. “Uptown District did. Pulled her out of a dumpster yesterday
morning. Tapped dry.”

I winced. “Positive identification?”

Shelly nodded. “They ran her prints last night, compared them against camp records.
Perfect match.”

“Girl liked to run with the wrong kind of people. That’s why her father threw her out.” I
shook my head. “Still no reason to end up like that.”

“Lot of it going around,” Shelly said. “Uptown finds two, sometimes three a morning.
Dumpsters, alleys, parks. Runaways mostly. Drained and tossed away like empty soda cans.”

“They doing anything about it?”

Nedelmann snorted. “What do you think?”

Shelly shrugged. “Cases get turned over to night shift, like any other major crime. What
night shift does with them is anybody’s guess.”

“They don’t do a fucking thing,” Nedelmann said, sipping his coffee. “Might as well be
reporting a dead dog in the street.”

“Easy, Dick,” Shelly said, her voice soft.

“Yeah, you bet,” Nedelmann said. “Seventeen-year old girl ends up sucked dry in a
dumpster, you turn it over to night shift and forget about it. Easy.”

Nedelmann’s daughter had been about that age when she went into the camp. She hadn’t
come out.

“Body still at Uptown station?” I asked.

“Far as I know,” Shelly said.

“I should go up there and make some arrangements. Her mother probably won’t be up to it.”

They were both silent for a moment, then Shelly said, “You might want to wait till
tomorrow. Things are kind of messy at Uptown right now.”

“Messy?”

Shelly glanced at Nedelmann. “I don’t think . . .”

Nedelmann laughed. “They got a real situation at Uptown. Couple of beat cops leave the
station this morning, start their rounds. Walk around the corner, notice a panel van parked next
to a hydrant.”

He laughed again. “Well, they’re real careful about things like parking tickets in Uptown
District, it being Uptown and all. So they figure they’ll peek through the windows, see if they
can figure out who the van belongs to. I mean, why waste time writing a ticket if it’s gonna be
ripped up come sundown.”

“Dick...” Shelly said.

Nedelmann ignored her. “So they look through the windows and what do you think they
see?”

“Dick, we shouldn’t be talking about this.” Shelly put a hand on Nedelmann’s arm.