87th Precinct 11 - Give the Boys a Great Big Hand by McBain Ed

Author:McBain, Ed [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural, Fiction
ISBN: 9781612181622
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2012-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

The King and Queen was actually on the outermost fringe of The Quarter, really closer to the brownstone houses that huddled in the side streets off Hall Avenue than to the restaurants, coffeehouses, small theaters, and art shops that were near Canopy Avenue.

The place was a step-down club, its entrance being one step down from the pavement. To the right of the entrance doorway was a window that had been constructed of pieces of colored glass in an attempt to simulate a stained-glass window. The colored panes showed a playing-card portrait of a king on the left, and a playing-card portrait of a queen on the right. The effect was startling, lighted from within so that it seemed as if strong sunlight were playing on the glass. The effect, too, was dignified and surprising. Surprising because one expected something more blatant of a strip joint, the life-sized placards out front featuring an Amazonian doll in the middle of a bump or a grind. There were no placards outside this club. Nor was there a bold display of typography announcing the name of the place. A small, round, gold escutcheon was set off center in the entrance door, and this was the only indication of the club’s name. The address—“12N.”— was engraved onto another round gold plaque set in the lower half of the door.

Hawes and Carella opened the door and walked in.

The club had that same slightly tired, unused look that most nightclubs had during the daytime. The look was always startling to Carella. It was as if one suddenly came across a middle-aged woman dressed in black satin and wearing diamonds at 10:00 in the morning in Schrafft’s. The King and Queen looked similarly overdressed and weary during the daylight hours, and perhaps more lonely. There wasn’t a sign of life in the place.

“Hello!” Carella called. “Anybody home?”

His voice echoed into the long room. A window at the far end admitted a single gray shaft of rain-dimmed light. Dust motes slid down the shaft of light, settled silently on the bottoms of deserted chairs stacked on round tables.

“Hello?” he called again.

“Empty,” Hawes said.

“Looks that way. Anybody here?” Carella yelled again.

“Who is it?” a voice answered. “We don’t open until six P.M.”

“Where are you?” Carella shouted to the voice.

“In the kitchen. We’re closed.”

“Come on out here a minute, will you?”

A man appeared suddenly in the gloom, wiping his hands on a dish towel. He stepped briefly into the narrow shaft of light and then walked to where the two detectives were standing.

“We’re closed,” he said.

“We’re cops,” Carella answered.

“We’re still closed. Especially to cops. If I served you, I’d get my liquor license yanked.”

“You Randy Simms?” Hawes asked.

“That’s me,” Simms said. “Why? What’d I do?”

“Nothing. Can we sit down and talk someplace?”

“Anyplace,” Simms said. “Choose your table.”

They pulled chairs off one of the tables and sat. Simms was a sandy-haired man in his late forties, wearing a white dress shirt open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up. There was a faintly bored expression on his handsome face.

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