The McBain Brief Read online

  Lieutenant Anderson shrugged wearily. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  Chalk

  Her face was a piece of ugly pink chalk, and her eyes were two little brown mud puddles. Her eyes were mud puddles and they did not fit with the pink chalk. The chalk was ugly, and her eyes were mud puddles, and they made the chalk look uglier.

  “Your eyes are mud puddles,” I said, and she laughed.

  I didn’t like her to laugh. I was serious. She shouldn’t have laughed when I told her something serious like that.

  I hit the pink chalk with my fist but it didn’t crumble. I wondered why it didn’t crumble. I hit it again and water ran out of the mud puddles. I pushed my hand into one of the mud puddles and it turned all red, and it looked prettier with water coming out of it and red.

  I tore the beads from her neck and threw them at the chalk. I felt her nails dig into my skin and I didn’t like that. I twisted her arm and she struggled and pushed, and her body felt nice and soft up tight against mine. I wanted to squeeze her and when I began squeezing her she screamed, and the noise reminded me of the Third Avenue El when it stops going, and the noise reminded me of babies crying at night when I’m trying to sleep. So I hit her mouth to stop the noise but instead it got louder.

  I ripped her dress in the front and I swore at her and told her to stop the noise, but she wouldn’t stop so I kicked her in the leg and she fell. She looked soft and white on the floor. All except her face. It was still pink chalk.

  Ugly pink chalk.

  I stepped on it with all my might and the mud puddles closed and red came from her nose.

  I stepped on her again and the pink chalk was getting red all over and it looked good and I kept stepping. And the red got thicker and redder, and then she started to twitch and jerk like as if she was sick and I bent down and asked, “Are you sick, Jeannie?”

  She didn’t answer except like a moan, and then she made a noise that sounded like the Third Avenue El again, and I had to hit her again to make her stop.

  I kept punching her in the face and the noise stopped.

  It was very quiet.

  Her eyes weren’t mud puddles. Why did I think they were mud puddles? They were two shiny glass marbles and they were looking right at me, only they couldn’t see me because they were glass and you can’t see out of glass.

  The pink chalk was all red now except for white patches here and there. Her mouth was open but there was no noise.

  Then I heard the ticking.

  It was loud, like an ax splitting wood, and I was afraid it was going to wake her up and then she would make the noise all over again, and I would have to tell her to stop and hit her again. I did not want to hit her again because her eyes were only marbles and you can’t see out of marbles, and her face was a pretty red and not made of chalk that would not crumble.

  So I stepped on the ticking. I stepped on it twice so that I could be sure. Then I took off her clothes and she looked all red and white and quiet when I put her on the bed. I closed the light and then I left her to sleep. I felt sorry for her.

  She couldn’t see because her eyes were only marbles.

  It was cold in the night. It shouldn’t have been cold because the sky was an oil fire, all billowy and black. Why was it cold?

  I saw a man coming and I stopped him because I wanted to know why it was so cold when the sky was burning up. He talked funny and he couldn’t walk straight, and he said it was warm and I was crazy if I thought it was cold. I asked him if he was warm.

  He said, “I am warm, and don’t bother me because I feel wonderful and I don’t want to lose this feeling.”

  I hit him and I took his coat because he was warm and he didn’t need it if he was warm.

  I ran fast down the street, and then I knew he was right. It was warm and I didn’t need his coat so I went back to take it to him because he might be cold now. He wasn’t there so I put the coat on the sidewalk in case he came back for it.

  Then I ran down the street because it was nice and warm and it felt like springtime, and I wanted to run and leap. I got tired and I began to breathe hard so I sat down on the sidewalk. Then I was tired of sitting and I did not want to run anymore so I began looking at the windows but they were all dark. I did not like them to be dark because I liked to look at the things in the windows and if they were dark I couldn’t see them.

  Poor Jeannie. Her eyes were marbles and she could not see the things in the store windows. Why did God make my eyes out of white jelly and Jeannie’s out of glass? I wondered how she knew me if she couldn’t see me.

  It was getting cold again and I swore at the man who had talked funny and couldn’t walk straight. He had lied to me and made me feel warm when it was really cold all along. I lifted my hand up to the light in the street because it was yellow and warm, but I couldn’t reach it and I was still cold.

  Then, the wet fell out of the sky and I began to run so it wouldn’t touch me. But it was all around me and the more I ran the more it fell. And the noise in the sky was like a dog growling under his teeth, and the lights that flashed were a pale, scary blue. I ran and ran and I was getting tired of running and the wet was making me wet, and the damp was creeping into my head and the dark was behind it the way the dark always was.

  The damp pressed on the inside and it pushed outwards, and then the dark creeped up and I screamed, and it sounded like the Third Avenue El when it stops going, and I screamed again and it sounded like babies crying, and I punched myself in the face so I would stop the way Jeannie had. But I screamed again and the damp was all in and over my head. The dark was waiting, too.

  I screamed because I didn’t want the dark to come in, but I could see it was getting closer and I knew the way the damp always felt just before the dark came in. I hit my face again but the damp was heavy now and it was dripping inside my head and I knew the dark was coming and I ran away from it.

  But it was there, and first it was gray like the ocean and then it got deeper like a dense fog and it turned black and blacker, and the dark came and I knew I was falling, and I couldn’t stop because Jeannie’s eyes were only marbles.

  I am lying on a sidewalk in a strange street.

  The sun is just rising and the bustle of the day has not yet begun. There is a severe pain in my head. I know I haven’t been drinking, yet where did this terrible pain come from?

  I rise and brush off my clothes.

  It is then that I notice the blood on my hands and on my shoes. Blood?

  Have I been fighting? No, no, I don’t remember any fighting. I remember—I remember—calling on Jeannie.

  She did not feel like going out, so we decided to sit at home and talk. She made coffee, and we were sitting and drinking and talking.

  How do I come to be in this strange street? With blood on my body?

  I begin to walk.

  There are store windows with various forms of merchandise in them. There is a man’s overcoat lying in the street, a ragged overcoat lying in a heap. I pass it rapidly.

  It is starting to drizzle now. I walk faster. I must see Jeannie. Perhaps she can clear this up for me.

  Anyway, the drizzle is turning into a heavy rain.

  And I have never liked the darkness or dampness that come with a storm.

  Still Life

  It was two in the morning, raining to beat all hell outside, and it felt good to be sitting opposite Johnny Knowles sipping hot coffee. Johnny had his jacket off, with his sleeves rolled up and the .38 Police Special hanging in its shoulder holster. He had a deck of cards spread in front of him on the table, and he was looking for a black queen to put on his king of diamonds.

  I was sitting there looking past Johnny at the rain streaming down the barred window. It had been a dull night, and I was half-dozing, the hot steam from the coffee cup haloing my head. When the phone began ringing, Johnny looked up from his Solitaire.

  “I’ll get it,” I said.

  I put down the cup, swung my legs
out from under the table and picked up the receiver.

  “Hannigan,” I said.

  Johnny was watching me now.

  “Yep,” I said. “I’ve got it, Barney. Right away.”

  I hung up and Johnny looked at me quizzically.

  “Young girl,” I said. “Gun Hill Road and Bronxwood Avenue. Looks bad, Johnny.”

  Johnny stood up quickly and began shrugging into his jacket.

  “Some guy found her lying on the sidewalk.”

  “Hurt bad?” Johnny asked.

  “The guy who called in thinks she’s dead.”

  We checked out a car and headed for Gun Hill Road. Johnny was silent as he drove, and I listened to the swick-swack of the windshield wipers, staring through the rain-streaked glass at the glistening wet asphalt outside. When we turned off White Plains Avenue, Johnny said, “Hell of a night.”

  “Yeah.”

  He drove past the Catholic church, past the ball field belonging to the high school, and then slowed down as we cruised up to the school itself.

  “There he is,” Johnny said.

  He motioned with his head, and I saw a thin man standing on the sidewalk, flagging us down. He stood hunched against the rain, his fedora pulled down over his ears. Johnny pulled up alongside him, and I opened the door on my side. A sheet of rain washed into the car, and the guy stuck in his head.

  “Right around the corner,” he said.

  “Get in,” I told him. I moved over to make room, and he squeezed onto the seat, bringing the clinging wetness of the rain with him. Johnny turned the corner, and the old man pointed through the windshield. “There,” he said. “Right there.”

  We pulled the car over to the curb, and Johnny got out from behind the wheel before the man next to me had moved. The man shrugged, sighed and stepped out into the rain. I followed close behind him.

  The girl was sprawled against the iron-barred fence that surrounded the school. She’d been wearing a raincoat, but it had been forcibly ripped down the front, pulling all the buttons loose. Her blouse had been torn down the center, her bra cruelly ripped from her breasts. Johnny played his flash over her, and we saw the ugly welts covering her wet skin. Her skirt and underclothing had been shredded, too, and she lay grotesque in death, her legs twisted at a curious wide-spread angle.

  “Better get a blanket, Mike,” Johnny said.

  I nodded and walked to the car. I took a blanket from the back, and when I walked over to the girl again, Johnny was getting the man’s name and address.

  “The ambulance should be along soon,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Johnny closed his pad, took the blanket and draped it over the girl. The rain thudded at it, turning it into a sodden, black mass on the pavement.

  “How’d you find her?” I asked the man.

  “I been workin’ the four to twelve at my plant,” he said, “out on Long Island. I usually get home about this time when I got that shift. I live right off Bronxwood, get off the train at Gun Hill.”

  “You were walking home when you found the girl?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What’d you do then?”

  “I walked clear back to White Plains Avenue, found an open candy store and called you fellows. Then I came back to wait for you.”

  “What’d you tell the man who answered the phone?”

  “All about the girl. That I’d found her. That’s all.”

  “Did you say she was dead?”

  “Well, yes. Yes, I did.” He stared down at the girl. “My guess is she was raped.” He looked at me for confirmation, but I said nothing.

  “I think you can go home now, sir,” Johnny said. “Thanks a lot for reporting this. We’ll call you if we need you.”

  “Glad to help,” the old man said. He nodded at us briefly, and then glanced down at the girl under the blanket again. He shook his head, and started off down Bronxwood Avenue. We watched him go, the rain slicing at the pavement around us. Johnny looked off down the street, watching for the ambulance.

  “Might be rape at that,” he said.

  I pulled my collar up against the rain.

  We got the autopsy report at six that morning. We’d already found a wallet in the dead girl’s coat pocket, asking anyone to call a Mrs. Iris Ferroni in case of accident. We’d called Mrs. Ferroni, assuming her to be the girl’s mother, and she’d identified the body as that of her daughter, Jean Ferroni. She’d almost collapsed after that, and we were holding off questioning her until she pulled herself together.

  Johnny brought the report in and put it next to my coffee cup on the table.

  I scanned it quickly, my eyes skimming to the “Cause of death” space. In neat typescript, I read:

  Sharp instrument entering heart from below left breast.

  I flipped the page and looked at the attached detailed report. The girl had been raped, all right, consecutively, brutally.

  I turned back to the first page and looked at it once more. My eyes lingered on one item.

  Burial Permit No: 63-7501-H.

  “Now she’s just a number,” I said. “Sixteen year old kid with a grave-number.”

  “She was seventeen,” Johnny said.

  “That makes a big difference.”

  “I think we can talk to her mother now,” Johnny said.

  I rubbed my forehead and said, “Sure. Why don’t you bring her in?”

  Johnny nodded and went out, to return in a few minutes with a small, dark woman in a plain black coat. The woman’s eyes were red, and her lip trembled. She still looked dazed from the shock of having seen her daughter with the life torn from her.

  “This is Detective Hannigan,” Johnny said, “and I’m his partner, Detective Knowles. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Mrs. Ferroni nodded, but said nothing.

  “What time did your daughter leave the house last night, Mrs. Ferroni?” I asked.

  The woman sighed. “Eight o’clock, I think,” she said. There was the faintest trace of an accent in her voice.

  “Did she leave with anyone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “A boy. He takes her out sometimes. Ricky. Ricky Tocca.”

  “Do you know the boy well?”

  “He’s from the neighborhood. He’s a good boy.”

  “Did they say where they were going?”

  “To a movie. I think they go up to Mount Vernon a lot. That’s where they were going.”

  “Does this Tocca have a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you know the year and make, Mrs. Ferroni?”

  “A Plymouth,” she said. “Or a Chevy, I think. I don’t know. It’s a new car.” She paused and bit her lip. “He wouldn’t hurt my daughter. He’s a nice boy.”

  “We’re not saying he would,” Johnny said gently. “We’re just trying to get some sort of a lead, Mrs. Ferroni.”

  “I understand.”

  “They left the house at eight, you say?”

  “About that time.”

  “What time does your daughter usually come home?”

  “One, two. On weekends. During the week . . . well, I liked her to come home early . . .”

  “But she didn’t, is that it?”

  “You know how it is with a young girl. They think they know everything. She stayed out late every night. I told her to be careful . . . I told her . . . I told her . . .”

  She bit her lip, and I expected tears again, but there were none. Johnny cleared his throat, and asked, “Weren’t you worried when she didn’t show up this morning? I mean, we didn’t call you until about four a.m.”

  Mrs. Ferroni shook her head. “She comes in very late sometimes. I worry . . . but she always comes home. This time . . .”

  There was a strained, painful silence. “I think you can go now, Mrs. Ferroni,” I said. “We’ll have one of our men drive you home. Thank you very much.”

  “You’ll . . . you’ll find who did it, won’t you?
” she asked.

  “We’ll sure as hell try,” I told her.

  We picked up Richard Tocca, age twenty, as he was leaving for work the next morning. He stepped out of a two-story frame on Burke Avenue, looked up at the overcast sky, and then began walking quickly to a blue Ford parked at the curb. Johnny collared him as he was opening the door on the driver’s side.

  “Richard Tocca?” he asked.

  The kid looked up suspiciously. “Yeah.” He looked at Johnny’s fist tightened in his coat sleeve and said, “What is this?”

  I pulled up and flashed my buzzer. “Police officers, Tocca. Mind answering a few questions?”

  “What’s the matter?” he asked. “What did I do?”

  “Routine,” Johnny said. “Come on over to our car, won’t you?”

  “All right,” Tocca said. He glanced at his watch. “I hope this doesn’t take long. I got to be at work at nine.”

  “It may not take long,” I said.

  We walked over to the car and I held the door for him. He climbed in, and Johnny and I sat on either side of him. He was a thin-faced kid with straight blond hair and pale blue eyes. Clear complexioned, clean shaven. Slightly protruding teeth. Dressed neatly and conservatively for a kid his age.

  “What’s this all about?” he asked.

  “You date Jean Ferroni last night?” Johnny asked.

  “Yes. Jesus, don’t tell me she’s in some kind of trouble.”

  “What time’d you pick her up?”

  “About eight-fifteen, I guess. Listen, is she . . .”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Well, that’s just it. We were supposed to have a date, but she told me it was off, just like that. She made me drive her to Gun Hill and then she got out of the car. If she’s in any trouble, I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “She’s in big trouble,” Johnny said. “The biggest trouble.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t have . . .”

  “She’s dead,” I said.

  The kid stopped talking, and his jaw hung slack for a minute. He blinked his eyes rapidly two or three times and then said, “Jesus. Jesus.”

  “You date her often, Ricky?”

  “Huh?” He still seemed shocked. “Yeah, pretty often.”