The Heckler Read online

  The Heckler

  Ed Mcbain

  “The 87th Precinct series [is] one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century.”

  —Pete Hamill,Daily News (New York)

  “It’s hard to think of anyone better at what he does. In fact, it’s impossible.”

  —Robert B. Parker

  Praise for the 87th Precinct Novels from America’s Unparalleled, Award-Winning Master of Crime Fiction

  ED McBAIN

  MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

  Edgar Award nominee!

  “Crisp and fresh…savagely brutal…[with] unexpected and amusing twists.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “McBain plays fair and square with the complications that arise from this clever setup. Over and over, he keeps telling us to keep an eye on the money, which slips through more hands than a third-grade bathroom pass.”

  —The New York Times

  “Tight plotting, crackling police work, and bizarre people…a witty tale of counterfeit money that grows before the reader’s eyes.”

  —The Plain Dealer(Cleveland)

  “Captivating stuff.”

  —St. Petersburg Times(FL)

  “An instant classic…. It’s McBain at his best. And there’s none better.”

  —The Post and Courier(Charleston, SC)

  “McBain’sMoney is a sure bet…. [His] writing remains young, vigorous, sharp, and entertaining.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The complications flow so effortlessly and the tone is so irresistibly ebullient that you can relax in the hands of a master. Merry Christmas.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Pure prose poetry…. It is writers such as McBain who bring the great American urban mythology to life.”

  —The London Times

  THE LAST DANCE

  “The fiftieth novel of the 87th Precinct is one of the best, a melancholy, acerbic paean to life—and death—in the fictional big city of Isola…. This is McBain in classic form, displaying the writing wisdom gained over more than forty years of 87th Precinct novels to deliver a cop story that’s as strong and soulful as the urban heart of America he celebrates so well.”

  —Publishers Weekly(starred review)

  “Having stripped down and refined his language over the years to the point where it now conceals as much as it reveals, McBain forces us to think twice about every character we meet inThe Last Dance, even those we thought we already knew.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  Praise for

  CANDYLAND

  A Novel in Two Parts

  by EVAN HUNTER and ED McBAIN

  APeople Magazine “Page-Turner of the Week”

  “Hunter provides a compelling psychological portraiture…. McBain easily matches his achievement with an inspired police procedural, topped off with a completely unexpected and satisfying twist at the end.”

  —People

  “A tour de force….”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “The plot is fabulous and the ending whapped me in the eyeballs.”

  —Larry King,USA Today

  “A tribute to the skills of this great storyteller…. It is fun to read, despite the grim nature of its subjects….Candyland exhibits a smoothness, a professionalism, a gritty energy and wit.”

  —The New York Times

  “Superb…. A multifaceted, psychologically astute portrait of crime and punishment…. Each part of the novel works beautifully alone but also in tandem.”

  —Publishers Weekly(starred review)

  “Under any name, this man is a master of his craft.”

  —Library Journal

  Books By Evan Hunter

  NOVELS

  The Blackboard Jungle(1954)Second Ending (1956)Strangers When We Meet (1958)A Matter of Conviction (1959)Mothers and Daughters (1961)Buddwing (1964)The Paper Dragon (1966)A Horse’s Head (1967)Last Summer (1968)Sons (1969)Nobody Knew They Were There (1971)Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972)Come Winter (1973)Streets of Gold (1974)The Chisholms (1976)Love, Dad (1981)Far from the Sea (1983)Lizzie (1985)Criminal Conversation * (1994)Privileged Conversation (1996)Candyland * (2001)The Moment She Was Gone ** (2002)

  SHORTSTORYCOLLECTIONS

  Happy New Year, Herbie(1963)The Easter Man (1972)

  CHILDREN’SBOOKS

  Find the Feathered Serpent(1952)The Remarkable Harry (1959)The Wonderful Button (1961)Me and Mr. Stenner (1976)

  SCREENPLAYS

  Strangers When We Meet(1959)The Birds (1962)Fuzz (1972)Walk Proud (1979)

  TELEPLAYS

  The Chisholms(1979)The Legend of Walks Far Woman (1980)Dream West (1986)

  *Available in paperback from Pocket Books

  **Available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster

  Also By Ed McBain

  THE87THPRECINCTNOVELS

  Cop Hater* •The Mugger •The Pusher * (1956)The Con Man •Killer’s Choice (1957)Killer’s Payoff * •Killer’s Wedge •Lady Killer (1958) ’Til Death •King’s Ransom (1959)Give the Boys a Great Big Hand •The Heckler * •See Them Die (1960)Lady, Lady, I Did It! (1961)The Empty Hours •Like Love (1962)Ten Plus One (1963)Ax (1964)He Who Hesitates •Doll (1965)Eighty Million Eyes (1966)Fuzz (1968)Shotgun (1969)Jigsaw (1970)Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here (1971)Sadie When She Died •Let’s Hear It for the Deaf Man (1972)Hail to the Chief (1973)Bread (1974)Blood Relatives (1975)So Long As You Both Shall Live (1976)Long Time, No See (1977)Calypso (1979)Ghosts (1980)Heat (1981)Ice (1983)Lightning (1984)Eight Black Horses (1985)Poison •Tricks (1987)Lullaby * (1989)Vespers * (1990)Widows * (1991)Kiss (1992)Mischief (1993)And All Through the House (1994)Romance (1995)Nocturne (1997)The Big Bad City * (1999)The Last Dance * (2000)Money, Money, Money * (2001)Fat Ollie’s Book ** (2003)

  THEMATTHEWHOPENOVELS

  Goldilocks(1978)Rumpelstiltskin (1981)Beauty & the Beast (1982)Jack & the Beanstalk (1984)Snow White & Rose Red (1985)Cinderella (1986)Puss in Boots (1987)The House That Jack Built (1988)Three Blind Mice (1990)Mary, Mary (1993)There Was a Little Girl (1994)Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (1996)The Last Best Hope (1998)

  OTHERNOVELS

  The Sentries(1965)Where There’s Smoke •Doors (1975)Guns (1976)Another Part of the City (1986)Downtown (1991)Driving Lessons (2000)Candyland * (2001)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  Copyright © 1960 by Ed McBain

  Copyright renewed © 1988 by Evan Hunter

  Afterword copyright © 2003 by Hui Corp.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN: 0-7434-6694-2

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Visit us on the World Wide Web:

  http://www.SimonSays.com

  This is for my father-in-law

  Harry Melnick—

  who inspired it

  The city in these pages is imaginary.

  The people, the places are all

  fictitious. Only the police routine is based

  on established investigatory technique.

  1.

  SHE CAME IN like a lady, that April.

  The poet may have been right, but there really wasn’t a trace of cruelty about her this year. She was a delicate thing who walked into the city with the wide-eyed innocence of a maiden, and you wanted to hold her in your arms becau
se she seemed alone and frightened in this geometric maze of strangers, intimidated by the streets and the buildings, shyly touching you with the pale-gray eyes of a lady who’d materialized somehow from the cold marrow of March.

  She wandered mist-shrouded through the city, a city that had become suddenly green in exuberant welcome. She wandered alone, reaching into people the way she always does, but not with cruelty. She touched wellsprings deep inside, so that people for a little while, sensing her approach, feeling her come close again, turned a soft vulnerable pulsing interior to her, turned it outward to face the harsh angles of the city’s streets and buildings, held out tenderness to be touched by tenderness, but only for a little while.

  And for that little while, April would linger on the walks of Grover Park, linger like white mist on a mountain meadow, linger on the paths and in the budding trees, spreading a delicate perfume on the air. And along the lake and near the statue of Daniel Webster below Twelfth Street, the cornelian cherry shrubs would burst into early bloom. And further west, uptown, facing Grover Avenue and the building which housed the men of the 87th Precinct, the bright yellow blossoms of forsythias would spread along the park’s retaining wall in golden-banked fury while the Japanese quince waited for a warmer spring, waited for April’s true and warm and rare and lovely smile.

  For Detective Meyer Meyer, April was a Gentile.

  Sue him; she was a Gentile. Perhaps for Detective Steve Carella April was a Jewess.

  Which is to say that, for both of them, April was a strange and exotic creature, tempting, a bit unreal, warm, seductive, shrouded with mystery. She crossed the avenue from Grover Park with the delicate step of a lady racing across a field in yellow taffeta, and she entered the squadroom in her insinuating perfume and rustling petticoats, and she turned the minds of men to mush.

  Steve Carella looked up from the filing cabinets and remembered a time when he was thirteen and experiencing his first kiss. It had been an April night, long, long ago.

  Meyer Meyer glanced through the grilled windows at the new leaves in the park across the street and tried to listen patiently to the man who sat in the hard-backed chair alongside his desk, but he lost the battle to spring, and he sat idly wondering how it felt to be seventeen.

  The man who sat opposite Meyer Meyer was named Dave Raskin, and he owned a dress business. He also owned about two hundred and ten pounds of flesh which was loosely distributed over a six-foot-two-inch frame garbed at the moment in a pale-blue tropical suit. He was a good-looking man in a rough-hewn way, with a high forehead and graying hair which was receding above the temples, a nose with the blunt chopping edge of a machete, an orator’s mouth, and a chin which would have been completely at home on a Roman balcony in 1933. He was smoking a foul-smelling cigar and blowing the smoke in Meyer’s direction. Every now and then Meyer waved his hand in front of his face, clearing the air, but Raskin didn’t quite appreciate the sublety. He kept sucking on the soggy end of his cigar and blowing smoke in Meyer’s direction. It was hard to appreciate April and feel like seventeen while swallowing all that smoke and listening to Raskin at the same time.

  “So Marcia said to me, you work right in his own precinct, Meyer’s,” Raskin said. “So what are you afraid of? You grew up with his father, he was a boyhood friend of yours, so you should be afraid to go see him? What is he now, a detective? This is to be afraid of?” Raskin shrugged. “That’s what Marcia said to me.”

  “I see,” Meyer said, and he waved his hand to clear the air of smoke.

  “You want a cigar?” Raskin asked.

  “No. No, thank you.”

  “Good cigars. My son-in-law sent them to me from Nassau. He took my daughter there on their honeymoon. A good boy. A periodontist. You know what that is?”

  “Yes,” Meyer said, and again he waved his hand.

  “So it’s true what Marcia said. I did grow up with your father, Max, God rest his soul. So why should I be afraid to come here to see his son, Meyer? I was at thebriss, would you believe it? When you were circumcised,you, I was there,me . So I should be afraid now to come to you with a little problem, when I knew your father we were kids together? I should be afraid? You sure you don’t want a cigar?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Very good cigars. My son-in-law sent them to me from Nassau.”

  “Thank you, no, Mr. Raskin.”

  “Dave, Dave. Please. Dave.”

  “Dave, what seems to be the trouble? I mean, whydid you come here? To the squadroom.”

  “I got a heckler.”

  “What?”

  “A heckler.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A pest.”

  “I don’t think I understand.”

  “I’ve been getting phone calls,” Raskin said. “Two, three times a week. I pick up the phone and a voice asks, ‘Mr. Raskin?’ and I say, ‘Yes?’ and the voice yells.‘If you’re not out of that loft by April thirtieth, I’m going to kill you!’ And then whoever it is hangs up.”

  “Is this a man or a woman?” Meyer asked.

  “A man.”

  “And that’s all he says?”

  “That’s all he says.”

  “What’s so important about this loft?”

  “Who knows? It’s a crumby little loft on Culver Avenue, it’s got rats the size of crocodiles, you should see them. I use it to store dresses there. Also I got some girls there, they do pressing for me.”

  “Then you wouldn’t say it was a desirable location?”

  “Desirable for other rats, maybe. But not so you should call a man and threaten him.”

  “I see. Well, do you know anyone who might want you dead?”

  “Me? Don’t be ridiculous,” Raskin said. “I’m well liked by everybody.”

  “I understand that,” Meyer said, “but is there perhaps a crank or a nut among any of your friends who might just possibly have the foolish notion that it might be nice to see you dead?”

  “Impossible.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m a respected man. I go to temple every week. I got a good wife and a pretty daughter and a son-in-law he’s a periodontist. I got two retail stores here in the city, and I got three stores in farmers’ markets out in Pennsylvania, and I got the loft right here in this neighborhood, on Culver Avenue. I’m a respected man, Meyer.”

  “Of course,” Meyer said understandingly. “Well, tell me, Dave, could one of your friends be playing a little joke on you, maybe?”

  “A joke? I don’t think so. My friends, you should pardon the expression, are all pretty solemn bastards. I’ll tell you the truth, Meyer, no attempt to butter you up. When your dear father Max Meyer died, God rest his soul, when your dear father and my dear friend Max Meyer passed away, this world lost a very great funny man. That is the truth, Meyer. This was a hilarious person, always with a laugh on his lips, always with a little joke. This was a very funny man.”

  “Yes, oh yes,” Meyer said, and he hoped his lack of enthusiasm did not show. It had been his dear father, that very funny man Max Meyer who—in retaliation for being presented with a change-of-life baby—had decided to name his new son Meyer Meyer, the given name to match the surname. This was very funny indeed, the gasser of all time. When Max announced the name at thebriss those thirty-seven years ago, perhaps all the guests, including Dave Raskin, had split a gut or two laughing. For Meyer Meyer, who had to grow up with the name, the humor wasn’t quite that convulsive. Patiently he carried the name like an albatross. Patiently he suffered the gibes and the jokes, suffered the assaults of people who decided they didn’t like his face simply because they didn’t like his name. He wore patience as his armor and carried it as his standard.Omnia Meyer in tres partes divisa est: Meyer and Meyer and Patience. Add them all together, and you got a Detective 2nd/Grade who worked out of the 87th Squad, a tenacious cop who never let go of anything, who doggedly and patiently worried a case to its conclusion, who used patience the way some men used glibness or good looks.r />
  So the odd name hadn’t injured him after all. Oh yes, it hadn’t been too pleasant, but he’d survived and he was a good cop and a good man. He had grown to adult size and was apparently unscarred. Unless one chose to make the intellectual observation that Meyer Meyer was completely bald and that the baldness could have been the result of thirty-seven years of sublimation. But who the hell wants to get intellectual in a detective squadroom?

  Patiently now, having learned over the years that hating his father wasn’t going to change his name, having in fact felt a definite loss when his father died, the loss all sons feel when they are finally presented with the shoes they’ve wanted to fill for so long, forgetting the malice he had borne, patiently reconstructing a new image of the father as a kind and gentle man, but eliminating all humor from that image, patiently Meyer listened to Raskin tell about the comedian who’d been his father, but he did not believe a word of it.