Ed McBain (5 page)

"Some coincidence, huh, Art?"

"Yeah," I said. "Some coincidence."

I put the box of Luger magazines back on the shelf.

"I think we'd better talk to the kid now," I said.

We left the attic, Connerly whispering something about the way fate sometimes works. He called Mrs. Owens, and she came up to lead us to the boy's room on the second floor of the house.

She rapped on the door and softly called, "Jeffrey?"

I could hear sobbing beyond the door, and then a muffled, "Yes?"

"Some gentlemen would like to talk to you," she said.

The sobbing stopped, and I heard the sound of bare feet padding to the door. The door opened and Jeffrey stood there, drying his face. He was thinner than the photograph had shown him, with bright blue eyes and narrow lips. His hair hung over his forehead in unruly strands, and there were tear streaks under his eyes and down his cheeks.

"You're policemen, aren't you?" he said.

"Yes, son."

"We just want to ask a few questions," Ed said.

"Come in."

We walked into the room. There were two beds in it, one on either side of the large window. There was one dresser, and I imagined the two boys shared this. Toys were packed neatly in a carton on one side of the room. A high school pennant and several college pennants decorated the walls, and a model airplane hung from the ceiling.

Mrs. Owens started into the room, and Ed said gently, "If we can talk to him alone..."

Her hand went to her mouth, and she said, "Oh. OK, all right."

Jeffrey walked to his bed and sat on it, one leg tucked under him. He stared out the window, not looking at us.

"Want to tell us how it happened, son?"

"It was just an accident," he said. "I didn't mean to do it, honest."

"We know," Ed said. "We just want to know how it happened."

"Well, we were upstairs playing with the trains, and then we got sort of tired. We started kidding around, and then I found Perry's ... that's my older brother who was killed in the war ... I found Perry's Luger and we started foolin' around with that."

"Is that the first time you saw the gun, son?"

"No, no." He turned to look me full in the face. "Perry sent it home a long time ago. Before he was killed, even. One of his buddies brought it to us."

"Uh-huh. Go on, son."

"Well, then we found the bullets in the box..."

"You didn't know the bullets were there before this?"

"No." Again, Jeffrey stared at me. "No, we just found them today."

"Did you know where the gun was?"

"Well ... yes."

"You said you found it, though. You didn't mean that, did you, son?"

"Well, I knew it was in the attic someplace because that's where Mom put it. I didn't know just where until I found it today."

"Oh, I see. Go on, please."

Ed looked at me curiously, and then turned his interest back to the boy.

"We found the bullets, and I took a cartridge from one of the magazines, just to fool around. I stuck it in the gun and then all at once the gun went off ... and ... and ... Ronnie ... Ronnie..."

The kid turned his face away, then threw himself onto the pillow.

"I didn't mean to do it," he said. "Honest, honest. The gun just went off. It just did. I loved my brother. I loved my brother. Now there's just me and Mom, just the two of us. I didn't want it to happen. I didn't."

"Sure, son," I said. I walked to the bed and sat down beside him. "You liked your brother a lot. I know. I have a brother, too."

Ed gave me another curious look, but I continued to pat the kid's shoulder.

"Yes," Jeffrey said, "I did like him. I liked Perry, too, and he was killed. And now ... now this. Now there's just me and Mom. They're all gone. Dad, and Perry, and ... and ... Ronnie. Now we're all alone." He started bawling again. "It's my fault," he said. "If I hadn't wanted to play with that old gun..."

"It's not your fault," I said. "Accidents happen. They happen all the time. No one could possibly blame you for it."

His tears ebbed slowly, and he finally sat up again. "You know it's not my fault, don't you?" he asked solemnly.

"Yes," I said. "We know."

He tried to smile, but failed. "It was just an accident," he said again.

"Sure," I said. I picked myself off the bed and said, "Let's go, Ed. Nothing more for us here."

At the door, I turned to look at Jeffrey once more. He seemed immensely relieved, and he smiled when I winked at him. The smile was still on his mouth and in his eyes when we left him.

It was cold in the Merc, even with the heater going.

We drove in silence for a long time, and finally Ed asked, "All right, what was all that business about?"

"What business?"

"First of all, that brother routine. You know damn well you're a lousy, spoiled, only child."

"Sure," I said. "I just wanted to hear the kid tell me how much he loved his brothers."

"That's another thing. Why the hell did you cross-examine the kid? Jesus, he had enough trouble without your..."

"I was just wondering about a few things," I said. "That's all."

"What kind of things?"

"Well, the newspaper clipping about the little boy who accidentally killed that girl, for one. Now why do you suppose any kid would save a clipping like that?"

"Hell," Ed said, "you know how kids are. It probably caught his fancy, that's all."

"Probably. Maybe the Luger magazine caught his fancy, too."

"What do you mean?"

"The kid said he found those magazines for the first time today. He said he took a cartridge from one of the clips and stuck it into the gun. Tell me how he managed to handle a dust-covered magazine without smearing any of the dust."

Ed looked at me.

"He didn't, Ed, that's the answer. He took that bullet from the clip a long time ago. Long enough ago for the box and the magazine to acquire a new coat of dust. This was no spur-of-the-moment job. No, sir, not at all."

"What the hell are you trying to say?" Ed asked. "You mean the kid did this on purpose? You mean he actually
killed
his brother?
Murdered
him?"

"Just him and Mom now, Ed. Just the two of them. No more Dad, no more big brother, and now no more little brother." I shook my head and stared at my own breath as it clouded the windshield. "But just take it to a judge. Just take the whole fantastic thing to a judge and see how fast he kicks you out of court."

Ed glanced at me quickly, and then turned his eyes back to the road.

"We'll have to watch that kid," I said, "maybe get him some psychiatric care. I hate to think what would happen if he suddenly builds up a dislike for his mother."

I didn't say anything after that, but it was a cold ride back to the station.

Damned cold.

I grew up as Salvatore Lombino, on 120th Street between First and Second avenues, in New York City's East Harlem. My grandfather had a tailor shop on First Avenue. We grandsons and granddaughters of Italian, Irish, Jewish, and German immigrants lighted celebratory bonfires in the streets on election night, and sometimes roasted potatoes over smaller fires in vacant lots. We roller-skated in the streets. We played marbles—or "immies," as we used to call them—in the curbside gutters. We played stickball and Johnny-on-a-Pony and Ring-a-Leevio. It was a good street with good people on it. In all of my twelve years on that street, I never met any kid like the lead character in this story.

"
See Him Die" was first published in
Manhunt
in July of 1955 under the Evan Hunter byline. By then, I was using my new (hey, only three years old!) name on virtually everything I wrote; the movie version of
The Blackboard Jungle
had been released in February of that year, and the novel was now a multimillion-copy bestseller in paperback (which it hadn't been in hardcover) and so Evan Hunter was now somewhat well-known.

I was busy finishing my second Evan Hunter novel, almost prophetically titled
Second Ending
(it later sold only 16,000 copies, most of them bought by my mother) when Herb Alexander, the editor in chief of Pocket Books, called Scott Meredith. What happened was that Scott had submitted to Pocket an as-yet-unpurchased Hunt Collins novel titled
Cut Me In,
and despite the pseudonym, Herb had recognized the style. He called Scott to ask, "Is this our friend Hunter?" Surprised to learn that I also wrote mysteries, eager to find a successor to the aging Erie Stanley Gardner, he explored with Scott—and later with me—the possibility of my writing a continuing series of novels. By then, I was convinced that cops were the only legitimate people to investigate crimes. Herb didn't buy
Cut Me In,
but he gave me a contract to write three cop novels. Thus were Ed McBain and the 87th Precinct born.

"
See Him Die"—in a greatly changed and expanded version—was later retitled
See Them Die,
and published in 1960 as the thirteenth novel in the 87th Precinct series.

W
HEN YOU'RE THE HEAD MAN, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO GET
the rumble first. Then you feed it to the other kids, and you read off the music, and if they don't like it that's their hard luck. They can take off with or without busted heads.

So that's why I was sore when Aiello comes to me and starts making like a kid with an inside wire. He's standing in a doorway, with his jacket collar up around his nose, and first off I think he's got some weed on him. Then I see he ain't fixing to gather a stone, but he's got this weird light in his eyes anyway.

"What're you doing, A," I said.

Aiello looked over his shoulder as if the bulls were after him. He takes my arm and pulls me into the doorway and says, "Danny, I got something hot."

"What?" I said. "Your head?"

"Danny, what I mean, this is something."

"So tell it."

"Harry Manzetti," he said. He said it in a kind of a hoarse whisper, and I looked at him funny, and I figured maybe he'd just hit the pipe after all.

"What about him?"

"He's here."

"What do you mean, here? Where here?"

"In the neighborhood."

"You're full of it," I told him.

"I swear to God, Danny. I seen him."

"Where?"

"I was going up to Louises. You know Louise?"

"I know Louise."

"She lives on the seventh floor. I spot this guy up ahead of me, and he's walking with a limp and right off I start thinking of the guys in the neighborhood who limp, and all I come up with is Carl. And then I remember Harry."

"There must be a million guys who limp."

"Sure, but name me another one, dad. Anyway, I get a look at his face. It was Harry."

"How'd you see his face?"

"He went up the seventh floor, too. I was knocking on Louise's door, and this guy with the limp goes down the end of the hall and sticks a key in the latch. Then he remembers I'm behind him, and he turns to cop a look, and that's when I see his face. It was Harry, all right."

"What'dyoudo?"

"Nothing. I turned away fast so he wouldn't see I spotted him. Man, that cat's wanted in more states..."

"You tell Louise this?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"Dad, I'm sure." Aiello looked at me peculiar, and then he turned his eyes away.

"Who'd you tell, A?"

"Nobody. Danny, I swear it on my mother's eyes. You the first one I'm talking to."

"How'd he look?" I said.

"Harry? Oh, fine. He. looked fine, Danny."

"Whyn't you tell me sooner?"

"I just now seen you!" Aiello complained.

"Whyn't you look for me?"

"I don't know. I was busy."

"Doing what? Standing in a doorway?"

"I was..." Aiello paused. "I was looking for you. I figured you'd come by."

"How'd you figure that?"

"Well, I figured once the word leaked, you'd be around."

"How'd the word leak if you're the only one knows it?"

"Well, I figured..."

Aiello stopped talking, and I stopped listening. We both heard it at the same time, the high scream of a squad car siren.

"Cops," I said.

And then we heard another siren, and then the whole damn block was being busted up all at once, sirens screaming down on it from all the side streets.

In fifteen minutes, every damn cop in the city was on our block. They put up their barricades, and they hung around behind their cars while they figured what to do. I spotted Donlevy in the bunch, too, strutting around like a big wheel. He had me in once because some jerk from the Blooded Royals took a slug from a zip gun, and he figured it was one of my boys who done it, and he tried to hang it on me. I told Donlevy where he could hang his phony rap, and I also told him he better not walk alone on our block after dark or he'd be using his shield for a funeral emblem. He kicked me in the butt, and told me I was the one better watch out, so I spit at his feet and called him a name my old man always uses, and Donlevy wasn't hip to it so he didn't get too sore, even though he knew I was cursing.

So he was there, too, making like a big wheel, with his tin pinned to his coat so that everybody could know he was a cop. All the bulls were wearing their tin outside, so you could tell them from the people who were just watching. There were a lot of people in the streets now, and the cops kept shoving them back behind the barricades which they'd set up in front of the building where Harry was. It didn't take an Einstein to figure that somebody'd blown the whistle on Harry and that the bulls were ready to try for a pinch. Only thing, I figured, they didn't know whether he was heeled or not, and so they were making their strategy behind their cars, afraid to show their stupid faces in case he
was
heeled. I'd already sent Aiello for the boys, and I hung around on the outside of the crowd now because I didn't want Donlevy to spot me and start getting wise. Also, there were a lot of bulls all over the place, and outside of the tin you couldn't tell the bulls from the people without a scorecard, and nobody was selling scorecards. So when a bull's back was turned and the tin couldn't be seen, he looked just like anybody else, and Christ knows which bull had spotted me somewhere doing something or other, and I didn't want to take chances until all the boys were with me.