Ed McBain - Downtown (21 page)

He did not want to kill anyone. He had Crandall's .32 in his right hand and Frankie Zeppelin's .45 in the left-hand pocket of his bomber jacket, but he did not want to use either of those guns to kill anyone. He'd already been accused of killing _one person, and he did not want to add to that list the _actual murder of yet another person. It was too bad, of course, that the person lying on the roof up ahead was armed with a

rifle he'd already fired at Michael.

315 Because if that person wanted to kill him, as seemed to be the case, then he certainly wasn't going to put down his rifle and come along like a nice little boy. In which case Michael might very well have to shoot him. Perhaps kill him. The way he'd killed people in Vietnam, where it hadn't seemed to matter much. Kill or be killed. Like tonight. Maybe.

He suddenly wondered why this person wanted him dead.

Crawling across the snow--closer and closer, keeping his eyes on the man as he advanced steadily toward him, ready to fire if he had to, if he was spotted, if the man turned that rifle on him--the question assumed paramount importance in his mind.

__Why does this person want to kill _me? And then another question followed on its heels, so fierce in its intensity that it stopped Michael dead in his tracks.

__Who is the person _they've already _killed?

The corpse wasn't Crandall's, that was for sure, even though Crandall's identification had been found on it.

But there _was a corpse, there was no mistake about that, the police of the Seventh Precinct had found a dead man in the car Michael had rented, so who was that man?

Maybe the man in black over there would have the answers to _both questions. Michael began moving toward him again. He could see the man clearly in the moonlight now. Forty yards away from him now. Black watch cap. Black leather jacket. Black jeans. Black boots. Black gloves. Crouched behind the parapet facing the street, hunched over a rifle, Michael couldn't tell what kind at this distance. Telescopic sight on it. The man suddenly got to his feet. Michael froze. In an instant, the man would spot him, and turn the rifle on him.

In an instant, Michael would have to shoot him. But no, the man-- Huh? The man was taking the telescopic sight off the rifle. He was putting the rifle and the scope into a gun case. He was snapping the case shut. He was, for Christ's sake, quitting! Giving

the whole thing up as a botched job!

317

He rested the gun case against the parapet. Angled it against the parapet so that the wider butt end of the case was on the snow, the muzzle end up. He reached into his jacket pocket. Took out a package of cigarettes. Lighted one. Nice moonlit night, might as well enjoy a cigarette here on the rooftops overlooking downtown New York. His back to Michael. Looking out over the lights of the city. Enjoying his little smoke. So he'd bungled the job, so what? Plenty of time to get the dumb orange-grower later on. Unless the dumb orange-grower had something to say about it. It was not easy moving across the snow-covered roof. Silence was the only advantage the snow gave Michael. He glanced behind him once to make sure Chen was still glued in place and out of sight. He saw no sign of the fat little Chinese. At the parapet, the man in black was still enjoying his moonlight smoke, his back to Michael, one foot on the parapet, knee bent, elbow on the knee. Not five feet separated them now. Michael hoped the cigarette was a king-sized one.

The man suddenly flipped the cigarette over the edge of the roof. And reached for the gun case.

And was starting to turn when Michael leaped on him. He caught the man from behind, yanking at the collar of his jacket, trying to pull him over backward onto the snow, but he was too fast and too slippery for Michael. He turned, saw the gun in Michael's hand, knew that his own weapon was already cased and essentially useless, and used his knee instead, exactly the way Michael had used his knee on Charlie Wong last night, going for the money but coming up a little short, catching Michael on the upper thigh instead of the groin, and then looking utterly surprised when Michael threw a punch at him instead of firing his gun.

Michael went straight for the nose, the way he'd gone for Charlie Wong's nose yesterday, because a hit on the nose hurt more than a hit anyplace else, even sharks didn't like to get hit on their noses, ask any shark. The man all in black looked like a sixteen-year-old kid up close, but Michael had killed

fourteen-year-old Vietnamese

319 soldiers and this kid's age didn't mean a damn to him, the only thing that mattered was that he'd tried to kill Michael not twenty minutes ago. Peachfuzz oval face, slitted blue eyes, a very delicate Michael Jackson nose, which Michael figured wouldn't look so delicate after he made it bleed, which was another nice thing about going for the nose. Noses bled easily, whereas if you hit a guy on the jaw, for example, with the same power behind the punch, he wouldn't bleed at all. The kid slipped the punch. Ducked low and to the side and slipped it. Michael's momentum almost caused him to fall. He grabbed for the kid, trying to keep his balance, clutched for the kid's shoulders, and that was when the kid got him good, right in the balls this time, square on. Michael dropped the .32. Caught his breath in pain. The kid was turning, the kid was starting to run for the door of the roof. Michael reached out for him, clutched for his jacket, his head, anything, caught the black watch cap instead, felt it pulling free in his hands, and the kid was off and loping through the thick snow like an antelope. Michael fell to his knees in pain. Grabbed for his balls. Moaned.

Did not even try to find the .32 where it had sunk below the snow some two feet away from him. Did not even try to reach for the .45 in his jacket pocket. The person running away from him across the rooftop was not Helen Parrish. Nor was she Jessica Wales. But she was a tall, long-legged, slender woman with blonde hair that glistened like gold in the silvery moonlight now that it was no longer contained by the black watch cap Michael still clutched in his hands close to his balls.

Maybe he didn't try shooting her because he was in such pain himself.

Or maybe he'd shot and killed too many women. In Vietnam.

Where anyone in black pajamas was Charlie. The roof door slammed shut behind her. And he was alone in pain in the moonlight. 321

12 "Are you sure she was blonde?" Connie asked. She was asking about Helen Parrish. "Yes, she was blonde," Michael said.

"But Charlie's daughter has _dark hair." "She's the same person, believe me."

They were driving toward the address in Charlie Nichols's book. Judy Jordan's address. Judy Jordan who was also Helen Parrish whose dear dead daddy was Charlie Nichols. In the bar last night, Helen Parrish had told him she was thirty-two years old. Which was about right if the picture in Charlie's study had been taken fifteen years ago and if she'd been seventeen at the time. It was very cold outside, driving alfresco this way. The dashboard clock wasn't working, which came as no surprise in a convertible with a broken top-mechanism. Michael waited to look at his watch until they stopped for a traffic light on a corner under a street lamp. It was almost ten o'clock. He was very eager to see Miss Helen Parrish again. The _fake Miss Parrish, who was in reality-- Well, that wasn't necessarily true. It was possible that Judy Jordan was now married, although in that bar last night Helen Parrish had told him she wasn't married, wasn't divorced, she was just single. Well, she'd told him a lot of things. But if she _was married, and if Helen Parrish was indeed her real name now, which she'd have been crazy to have given him, then her maiden name _could have been Judy Jordan, the girl with the long brown-- But no. Charlie Nichols was her father. Isn't that what she'd written on the photo? To My Dear Daddy. Then why had she signed her name Judy Jordan?

"What I'd like to know," Connie said, "is if Judy Jordan is Helen Parrish, then how come she's not Judy Nichols if Charlie Nichols is or was her father?"

"I love you," Michael said, and kissed her

fiercely.

323 The Amalgamated Dwellings, Inc., were cooperative apartments at 504 Grand Street, but the entrance to the complex was around the corner on a street called Abraham Kazan, no relation. You went down a series of low brick steps and into an interior courtyard that might have been a castle keep in England, with arches and what looked like turrets and a snow-covered little park with shrubs and trees and a fountain frozen silent by the cold. The lettered buildings--A, B, C, and so on --were clustered around this secret enclave. Judy Jordan lived in E. The name on the mailbox downstairs was J. Jordan.

"Women who do that are dumb," Connie said. "Using an initial instead of a name. You do that, and a rapist knows right off it's a woman living alone. You can bet I don't have C. Kee on _my mailbox." "What _do you have?" "Charlie Kee."

"That's a very common name in this city," Michael said. "Charlie."

"Which is why I put it on my mailbox," Connie said, and nodded. "Why?"

"So a rapist would think it was a common man named Charlie Kee up there." "How about the postman?"

"Mr. Di Angelo? A rapist? Don't be ridiculous!"

"I mean, how will he know where to deliver mail addressed to Connie Kee?" "That's _his worry," Connie said.

Michael looked at the name on the mailbox again. J. Jordan. "I'll go up alone," he said. "You go back to the car."

"If this blonde is as beautiful as you say she is ..." "She may also be dangerous." "I'll bet."

"Connie, please go wait in the car for me, okay?" "I'll give you ten minutes," she said. "If you're not back by then, I'm coming up after you." "Okay. Good."

He kissed her swiftly.

325 "I still think I ought to go with you," she said. But she was already walking out of the courtyard. Michael pressed the button for Judy Jordan's apartment. "Yes?" a woman's voice said.

He could not tell whether the voice was Helen Parrish's or not. As a matter of fact, he'd completely forgotten what Helen Parrish had sounded like. "Miss Jordan?" he said. "Yes?" "Charlie Nichols sent me," he said.

"Look," she said, "this is an inconvenient time. I was just dressing to ..."

"I'd like to talk to you, Miss Jordan, if ..."

"Oh, well, all right, come on up," she said, and buzzed him in. He climbed to the third floor, found her apartment just to the left of the stairwell, and was about to ring the bell set in the doorjamb when he hesitated.

If Judy Jordan did, in fact, turn out to be Helen Parrish, or vice versa, then the woman inside this apartment was the person who'd set the whole scheme in motion, the MacGuffin as she might be called in an Alfred Hitchcock film. Was he going to simply knock on the door and wait for the MacGuffin to answer it, perhaps to do him more harm than she'd already done? Michael did not think that was such a good idea. He reached into the right-hand pocket of his new bomber jacket, and took out the .32 he had appropriated from Arthur Crandall. He flipped the gun butt-side up, and rapped it against the door. Twice. Rap. Rap. And listened.

"Who is it?" a woman said. Same voice that had come from the speaker downstairs. "Me," he said. "Who's me?" "I told you. Charlie sent me."

"If it's about the money, I still haven't got it," the woman said from somewhere just inside the door now. There was a peephole set in the door at eye level. She was probably looking out at him. He still couldn't tell whether the voice was Helen Parrish's. "I'd like to talk to you, if I may," he said, ducking his chin, trying to hide his face so that if this

_was Helen Parrish looking out at him,

327 she wouldn't get such a good look. "Just a minute," she said. "I'm still half-naked." He wondered if this really was Helen Parrish, half-naked inside there. He thought back to the beginning of their relationship together, their gentle, easy conversation, the way they'd held hands, the way they'd looked deep into each other's eyes. He thought what a shame it was that she'd turned out to be a MacGuffin but maybe all beautiful women turned into MacGuffins sooner or later. He certainly hoped that wouldn't be the case with Connie. He looked at his watch.

What the hell was taking her so long in there?

He rapped on the door with the gun butt again. Three times. Rap. Rap. Rap. "Miss Jordan?" he called. No answer. "Miss ..." "Put your hands up, Mr. Barnes." A man's voice. Behind him. "Up!" the man said. "Now!" The thing in Michael's back felt very much like the muzzle of a gun. Michael raised his hands over his head, the .32 in his right hand. The bandaged left arm hurt when he raised it. He almost said Ouch. "Just let the gun fall out of your hand," the man said. "Just open your hand and drop the gun."

He opened his hand. The gun fell out of it. Dropped to the floor. Hit the floor with a solid _thwunk. "Thank you," the man said. "Now stand still, please."

Kneeling to pick up the gun now, Michael supposed. There was a small scraping sound as it came up off the tile floor. A hand began patting him down. All his pants pockets. Then the right-hand pocket of the jacket, and then--

"Well, well, another one," the man said.

Frankie Zeppelin's .45 came out of Michael's pocket. "Mr. Barnes?" the man said.

And hit him on the back of the head with at least one of the guns. 329 He heard voices.

A man's voice. A woman's voice. "... blow the whole thing," the man said. "... other choice, do you?" He opened his eyes. A tin ceiling.

The shrink he had gone to in Boston had an office with a tin ceiling. Michael used to lie on his couch and look up at all the curlicues in his tin ceiling. He was not on a couch now. He was on a bed. An unmade bed. The bed smelled as if someone had peed in it. He wondered if it was a child's bed. The bed had a metal footboard, which he could see by lifting his head. Wrought iron painted white. He was spread-eagled on the bed with his ankles tied to the footboard and his arms up over his head and tied to the headboard, which was also wrought iron painted white. He had never seen this room in his life. The room looked like the sort he imagined you'd find in any cheap hotel that catered to hookers and dope dealers. He figured this had to be a drug plot. Otherwise why would a man who'd known he was Michael Barnes--or at least _Mr. Barnes--have hit him on the head with his own gun and then tied him to a bed in what was truly a very shitty room? A drug plot for sure. Paint peeling off the walls. A pile of dirty laundry in one corner of the room. No curtain or shade on the window leading to the fire escape. And--hanging crookedly on the wall beside the window --a framed and faded print of an Indian sitting on a spotted pony. Michael was really very surprised and disappointed by this totally shitty drug-plot room because the building itself had looked so nice from the street and the hallways had been so neat and clean, which proved you couldn't always judge a book by its cover. He lifted his head again. A closed door. The voices beyond it.