The Heckler by Ed McBain

Author:Ed McBain [McBain, Ed]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: General, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Police Procedural
ISBN: 9780743466943
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2003-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

THE SQUADROOM WAS EMPTYwhen Carella entered it not five minutes later. He looked around, yelled “Anybody home?” and went to his desk. “Hey, where is everybody?” he yelled again.

The door to Byrnes’s office opened briefly. Meyer’s bald head appeared. “In here, Steve,” he said, and then closed the door again instantly.

Carella took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and frowned again. He had begun frowning a lot lately. He knew exactly why.

Ever since he had learned the dead man’s alias—the patently transparent “John Smith”—he had been going through the files of known criminals in an attempt to locate the man’s real name. He had found nothing even resembling the dead man. It was now the twenty-eighth of April and he seemed no closer to identifying his man—much less solving his case—than he’d been on the day the body was discovered in the park. He supposed that set some sort of record for inept detection but, by Christ, he was really trying, and nothing seemed to jell. He had considered the possibility that the shapely Lotte Constantine had done in the old man herself, and he had assigned Bert Kling to a surveillance of the girl while he himself had tried to get a line on her. From what he could gather, the girl was perfectly clean. She had come to the city from Indiana some four years back. She had held a series of unrelated jobs before landing the job as cigarette girl in the Harem Club two years back. She had never been in trouble with the police. Her employer at the Harem described her as “a lovely, quiet girl.” Her affection for the dead “John Smith” had apparently been very real. Her co-workers at the club informed Kling that since she’d met the man who called himself “Johnny,” she had not dated another man, even though men at the club were constantly asking her. Bert Kling, reporting on the girl’s movements, stated that she generally slept late, went to dancing school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, dramatics classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and reported for work daily at the Harem at 8:00P.M . where she donned her abbreviated costume and black net stockings, not removing them until three in the morning, at which time she went directly home. Kling had been tailing her since April eighteenth and this was the twenty-eighth. In one of his reports, Bert Kling wrote,“She has a lovely behind, this girl, and I don’t mind tailing her. But Steve, I think she’s clean. I think I’m wasting my time.”

Carella was inclined to agree, but he decided to maintain the surveillance for at least a few more days.

But now, considering the seeming innocence of this girl, considering the fact that she and “John Smith” really did seem to be in love with each other, it occurred to him that the man might possibly have been telling her the truth. In fact, Carella could find no really good reason for assuming the man had lied.

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