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  Ed Mcbain

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  [An 87th Precinct Mystery]

  Ed McBain

  Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU

  * * * *

  1

  The woman on the ledge was wearing a nightgown. It was only three-thirty in the afternoon, but she was dressed for sleep, and the brisk spring breezes flattened the sheer nylon fabric against her body so that she looked like a legendary Greek figure sculptured in stone, immobile, on the ledge twelve stories above the city street.

  The police and the fire department had gone through the whole bit-they had seen this particular little drama a thousand times in the movies and on television. If there was anything that bored civil service employees, it was a real-life enactment of an entertainment cliché. So the firemen spread their nets in the street below, and got their loudspeakers going, and the policemen roped off the block and sent a couple of detectives up to the window where spring flattened the girl against the brick wall of the building.

  She was a pretty girl, a young girl in her early twenties, with long blond hair caught by the April breeze and whipped furiously about her face and head. Andy Parker, one of the sweet-talkers sent over by the 87th Squad was wishing the girl would come in off the ledge so he could get a closer look at the full breasts beneath the sheer nightgown. Steve Carella, the other detective, simply didn’t think anyone should die on such a nice spring day.

  The girl didn’t seem to know either of the detectives was there. She had moved away from the window through which she had gained access to the ledge, had gingerly inched her way toward the corner of the building and stood there now with her arms behind her and her fingers spread for a grip on the rust-red wall of the building. The ledge was perhaps a foot wide, running around the twelfth floor, broken at the building’s corner by one of those grotesque gargoyles which adorned many of the city’s older structures. The girl was unaware of the grinning stone head, unaware of the detectives who leaned out of the window some six feet away from her. She stared straight ahead of her, the long blond hair whipping over her shoulders in a bright gold tangle against the red brick of the wall. Occasionally, she looked down to the street below.

  There was no emotion on her face. There was no conviction, no determination, no fear. Her face was a beautiful blank washed clean by the wind; her body a voluptuous, thinly sheathed, wind-caressed part of the building.

  “Miss?” Carella said.

  She did not turn toward him. Her eyes stared straight ahead of her.

  “Miss?”

  Again, she did not acknowledge his presence. She looked down into the street instead and then, suddenly remembering she was a good-looking woman, suddenly remembering that hundreds of eyes were fixed upon her nearly naked figure, she moved one arm across her breasts, as if to protect herself. She almost lost her balance. She tottered for an instant, and then her hand moved quickly from the front of the gown, touched the rust-red brick again in reassurance. Calla, watching her, suddenly knew she did not plan to die.

  “Can you hear me, miss?” Carella said.

  “I can hear you,” she answered without turning toward him. “Go away.” Her voice was toneless.

  “Well, I’d like to, but I can’t.” He waited for an answer, but none came. “I’m supposed to stay here until you come off that ledge.”

  The girl nodded once, briefly. Without turning, she said, “Go home. You’re wasting your time.”

  “I couldn’t go home in any case,” Carella said. “I don’t get relieved until five forty-five.” He paused. “What time do you think it is now?”

  “I don’t have a watch,” the girl said.

  “Well, what time do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know what time it is, and I don’t care. Look, I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me in conversation. I don’t want to talk to you. Go away.”

  “Listen, I don’t want to talk to you either,” Carella said. “But the lieutenant said ‘Go over and talk to that nut on the ledge.’ So here I…”

  “I’m not a nut!” the girl said vehemently, turning to Carella for the first time.

  “Listen, I didn’t say it, the lieutenant did.”

  “Yeah, well you go back and tell your lieutenant to go straight to hell.”

  “Why don’t you come back with me and tell him yourself?”

  The girl did not answer. She turned from him again and looked down into the street.

  It seemed she would jump in that moment. Quickly, Carella said, “What’s your name?”

  “I don’t have any name.”

  “Everybody has a name.”

  “My name is Catherine the Great.”

  “Come on.”

  “It’s Marie Antoinette. It’s Cleopatra. I’m a nut, isn’t that what you said? All right, I’m a nut, and that’s my name.”

  “Which one?”

  “Any one you like. Or all of them. Go away, will you?”

  “I’ll bet your name is Blanche,” Carella said.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Your landlady.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  “That your name is Blanche Mattfield, that you come from Kansas City, and that you’ve been living here for six months. Is that right?”

  “Go ask her, that nosy bitch.”

  “Well, is your name Blanche?”

  “Yes, my name is Blanche. Oh, for God’s sake, do we have to go through this? I can see clear through you, mister. You’re made of glass. Will you please go away and leave me in peace?”

  “To do what? To jump down into the street?”

  “Yes, that’s right. That’s exactly right. To jump down into the street.”

  “Why?”

  The girl did not answer.

  “Aren’t you a little chilly out there?” Carella asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s a strong wind.”

  “I don’t feel it.”

  “Shall I get you a sweater?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t you come in off there, Blanche? Come on. You’re gonna catch cold out there.”

  The girl laughed suddenly and startlingly. Carella, unaware that he had said anything funny, was surprised by the outburst.

  “I’m ready to kill myself,” the girl said, “and you’re worried about my catching cold.”

  “I’d say the chances of your catching cold are better than the chances of your killing yourself,” Carella said softly.

  “You would, huh?”

  “I would,” Carella said.

  “Mmm-huh,” the girl said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you’re going to be in for a hell of a surprise.”

  “Am I?” Carella asked.

  “I can guarantee it.”

  “You’re pretty set on killing yourself, huh, Blanche?”

  “Really, must I listen to this?” she said. “Won’t you please, please go away?”

  “No. I don’t think you want to die. I’m afraid you’ll fall off that ledge and hurt yourself and some of the people down below, too.”

  “I want to die,” the girl said softly.

  “Why?”

  “You really want to know why?”

  “Yes. I’d really like to know.”

  “Because,” she said slowly and clearly, “I am lonely, and unloved, and unwanted.” She nodded, and then turned her head because her eyes had suddenly flooded with tears, and she did not want Carella to see them.

  “A pretty girl like you, huh? Lonely, and unloved, and unwanted. How old are you, Blanche?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “And you never want to get to be twenty-three, huh?”

  “I never want to get to be twenty-three.�
�� she repeated tonelessly. “I don’t want to get another minute older, not another second older. I want to die. Won’t you please leave me alone to die?”

  “Stop it, stop it,” Carella said chidingly. “I don’t like to hear that kind of talk. Dying, dying, you’re twenty-two years old! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Nothing. He’s gone, there’s nothing, he’s gone.”

  “Who?”

  “Nobody. Everybody. Oh! Oh!” She put one hand to her face suddenly and began weeping into it. With the other hand, she clung to the building, swaying. Carella leaned further out of the window, and she turned to him sharply and shouted, “Don’t come near me!”

  “I wasn’t…”

  “Don’t come out here!”

  “Look, take it easy. I wouldn’t come out there if you gave me a million dollars.”

  “All right. Stay where you are. If you come near me, I’ll jump.”

  “Yeah, and who’s gonna care if you do, Blanche?”

  “What?”

  “If you jump, if you die, you think anyone’ll care?”

  “No, I… I know that. No one’ll care. I… I’m not worried about that.”

  “You’ll be a two-line blurb on page four, and then nothing. Nothing lasts a long time.

  “I don’t care, Oh, please, won’t you please leave me alone? Can’t you understand?”

  “No, I can’t. I wish you’d explain it to me.”

  The girl swallowed and nodded, and then turned to him and slowly and patiently said, “He’s gone, do you see?”

  “Who’s gone?”

  “Does it matter? He. A man. And he’s gone. Goodbye, Blanche, it’s been fun. That’s all. Fun. And I…” Her eyes suddenly flared. “Damn you, I don’t want to live! I don’t want to live without him!”

  “There are other men.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No. I loved him. I love him. I don’t want any other men. I want…”

  “Come on in,” Carella said. “We’ll have a cup of coffee, and we’ll try to…”

  “No.”

  “Come on, come on. You’re not going to jump off that damn ledge. You’re just wasting everybody’s time. Now, come on.”

  “I’m going to jump.

  “Sure, but not right now, huh? Some other time. Next week maybe, next year. But we’re very busy today. The kids are turning on fire hydrants all over the city. Spring is here, Blanche. Do me a favor and jump some other time, okay?”

  “Go to hell,” she said, and then looked dawn to the street.

  “Blanche?”

  She did not answer.

  “Blanche?” Carella sighed and turned to Parker. He whispered something in Parker’s ear, and Parker nodded and left the window.

  “You remind me a little of my wife,” Carella said to the girl. She did not answer. “Really, my wife. Teddy. She’s a deaf-mute. She…”

  “A what?”

  “A mute. Born deaf and dumb.” Carella smiled. “You think you’ve got problems? How’d you like to be deaf and dumb and married to a cop besides?”

  “Is she really… deaf and dumb?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. She never even thinks of throwing herself off a building.”

  “I… I wasn’t going to do it this way,’’ the girl said. “I was going to take sleeping pills. That’s why I put on the nightgown. But… I wasn’t sure I had enough. I had only half a bottle. Would that have been enough?”

  “Enough to make you sick,” Carella said. “Come on in, Blanche. I’ll tell you all about the time I almost slashed my wrists.”

  “You never did.”

  “I almost did, I swear to God. Look, everybody feels like hell every once in a while. What happened? Did you get your period today?”

  “Wh… ? How… how did you know?”

  “I figured. Come on.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Blanche.”

  “No! Stay away from me!”

  From inside the apartment, there came the sudden shrill ring of a telephone. The sound was clearly heard by the girl. She turned her head for a moment, and then closed her mind to the ringing phone. Carella pretended surprise. He had sent Parker downstairs to call the girl’s number, but now he pretended the ringing was unexpected. Quietly, he said, “Your phone’s ringing.”

  “I’m not home.”

  “It might be important.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “It might be… him.”

  “He’s in California. It’s not him. I don’t care who it is.” She paused. Again, she said, “He’s in California.”

  “They have phones in California, you know,” Carella said.

  “It’s… it’s not him.”

  “Why don’t you answer it and find out?”

  “I know it isn’t him! Leave me alone!”

  “You want us to answer this?” someone in the apartment shouted.

  “She’s coming,” Carella said. He extended his hand to the girl. The telephone kept ringing behind him. “Take my hand, Blanche,” he said.

  “No. I’m going to jump.”

  “You’re not going to jump. You’re going to come inside and answer your telephone.

  “No! I said no!”

  “Come on, you’re getting me sore,” Carella shouted. “Are you just a stupid broad, is that what you are? You want to squash your brains on that sidewalk? It’s made of cement, Blanche! That’s not a mattress down there.”

  “I don’t care. I’m going to jump.”

  “So jump, for Christ’s sake!” Carella said angrily, using the tone of a father whose patience has finally been exhausted. “If you’re going to jump, go ahead. Then we can all go home. Go ahead.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “So go ahead. Either jump, or take my hand. We’re wasting time here.”

  Behind him, the phone kept ringing furiously. There was no sound in the apartment, no sound on the face of the building except for the ringing of the telephone and the sighing of the wind.

  “I will,” the girl said softly.

  “Here,” Carella said. “Here’s my hand. Take it.”

  For a speechless, shocking moment, he didn’t realize quite what was happening. And then his eyes opened wide, and he stood stock-still at the window, his hand extended, his hand frozen in space as the girl suddenly shoved herself away from the wall and leaped.

  He heard her scream, heard it trailing all the way down the twelve stories to the street below, drowning out the frenzied ringing of the telephone. And then he heard the sound of her body striking the pavement, and he turned blindly from the window and said to no one, “Jesus, she did it.”

  * * * *

  The salesman was going to be a dead man within the next five minutes.

  Some twenty blocks away from where Blanche leaped to her death, he entered a street flirting with Spring, carrying a heavy sample case in one hand, and attributing gender to the vernal equinox. To the salesman, Spring was a woman who had come dancing in over the River Harb, flitting past flotsam and jetsam, those two old-time vaudeville performers, showing her legs to the passing, hooting tugs, winking lewdly at the condoms floating on the river’s edge, flashing fleshy thighs to Silvermine Road and the park, and then airily leaping over the tenement rooftops to land gracefully in the middle of the street. The people had come outdoors to greet her. They wore smiles and flowered house dresses, smiles and open-throat sports shirts, smiles and sneakers and T shirts and shorts. Grinning, they took Spring into their arms and held her close and kissed her throat, where you been all this time, baby?

  The salesman didn’t know he was going to be a dead man, of course. If he’d known, he probably wouldn’t have been spending his last few minutes on earth carrying a heavy sample case full of hairbrushes down a city street making love to Spring. If he’d known he was about to die, he might have saluted or something. Or, at the very leas
t, be might have thrown his sample case into the air and gone to Bora Bora. Ever since he’d read Hawaii, he had gone to Bora Bora often. Sometimes, when selling hairbrushes got particularly rough, he went to Bora Bora as often as ten or twelve times a day. Once he got to Bora Bora, he made love to dusky-skinned fifteen-year-old maidens. There were a few dusky-skinned fifteen-year-old maidens on the street today, but not very many. Besides, he didn’t know he was going to die.