Nocturne: A Novel of the 87th Precinct (87th Precinct Mysteries) by Ed McBain

Author:Ed McBain [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446560276
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2009-05-01T06:00:00+00:00

Georgie and Tony had a serious problem on their hands.

“The thing is,” Georgie said, “the old lady probably didn’t even remember putting that money in the locker.”

“An old lady, how old?” Tony asked. “How could she remember?”

“You see the envelope it’s in?”

The envelope was in the inside pocket on the right-hand side of his jacket. It bulged out the jacket as if he was packing, which he was not. Georgie only carried a gun when he was at the club protecting Priscilla. Carrying a gun was too dangerous otherwise. People would think you were an armed robber or something. Georgie preferred subtler ways of beating the System. Beating the System was what it was all about. But now, Priss Stetson had in some strange mysterious way become the System.

“Even the envelope looks ancient,” Georgie said, lowering his voice.

The men were in the bus terminal restaurant, eating an early dinner and trying to figure out what to do about this large sum of money that had come their way. The place wasn’t too crowded at a little past seven. Maybe a dozen people in all. Black guy and what looked like his mother sitting at a nearby table. Three kids in blue parkas, looked like college boys, sitting at another table across the room. Old guy in his sixties holding hands with a young blonde maybe thirty or forty, she was either his daughter or a bimbo. Two guys hunched over racing forms, trying to dope out tomorrow’s ponies.

It had been snowing since two this afternoon. Beyond the restaurant’s high windows, sharp tiny flakes, the kind that stuck, swirled dizzily on the air, caught in the light of the streetlamps. There had to be six inches on the ground already, and the snow showed no sign of letting up. Inside the restaurant, there was the snug, cozy feel of people hunched over good food in a safe, warm place. Outside, buses came and went. The hundred thou in the yellowing envelope was burning a hole in Georgie’s pocket.

“The question here,” he said, “is what is our obligation?”

“Our moral obligation,” Tony said, nodding.

“If the old lady forgot the money was there.”

“My grandmother forgets things all the time.”

“Mine, too.”

“She says it, too. I mean, she knows it, Georgie. She says if her head wasn’t on her shoulders she’d forget where she put it.”

“They forget things. They get old, they forget things.”

“You know the story about the old guy in the nursing home?”

“Yeah, you told us.”

“No, not that one.”

“Parkinson’s? You told us.”

“No, this is another one. This old guy is in a nursing home, the doctor comes in his room, he says, ‘I’ve got bad news for you.’ The old guy says, ‘What is it?’ The doctor says, ‘First, you’ve got cancer, and second, you’ve got Alzheimer’s.’ The old guy goes, ‘Phew, thank God I don’t have cancer.’ ”

Georgie looked at him.

“I don’t get it,” he said.

“The old guy already forgot,” Tony explained.

“Forgot what?”

“That he has cancer.”

“How can a person forget he has cancer?’

“Cause he has Alzheimer’s.

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