The Big Bang

I looked up from what was supposed to be veal, and waited.

Her mouth smiled but her brown eyes were dead serious. "All roads lead to Rome, as they say. Frazer, Billy, the good doctor ... they all had some connection with the shop, and you had a connection with them, Mike. How am I doing so far?"

"Right on the track, sugar."

"Right in the middle, wouldn't you say?"

"Not exactly..."

"Then start your interrogation." She was still smiling impertinently, something of the little girl in her showing through. Spoiled rich kids have a cocky attitude that can endear or irritate, depending on the context. I was endeared ... so far.

"Okay," I said. "How did Frazer get the job there?"

She mulled a second, her fork poised over her plate—she was having the Dover sole, and I wished I was.

"Russell came in about a year ago," she said. "He had been making deliveries for another company in the area—paper supplies, shipping materials—and we were one of his stops. He seemed to be genuinely interested in ceramics, and when the shop expanded, Mr. Elmain asked him if he'd like to work there. Russell grabbed at the chance."

"You ever see his apartment?"

"No. I told you, Mike, we weren't close."

"Regular lover-boy bachelor pad, and a closet full of Carnaby Street. Trust me, he spent a lot more than he made with you."

She shrugged noncommittally. "Maybe he had a sideline."

I shook my head. "I think the ceramics shop was the sideline."

Now she frowned, interested, confused. "Sideline for ... what?"

"Beats me," I lied.

Shirley studied her plate a few seconds, as if looking for permission there, then looked up. "I don't know if you've run across this in your investigations, Mike, but you know, Russell ... he liked to gamble."

"Didn't know that. Care to elaborate?"

"Well, I know he played the numbers. Could he have hit one, from time to time?"

I shook my head. "Daily players don't lay out that much, so the take couldn't have accounted for his assets."

She sat forward, the brown eyes alert. "But that isn't all—I heard him call in horses occasionally. Supposing he parlayed one chunk of money into something really big?"

"It's possible," I agreed, "but luck rarely runs like that. For the guys who make a profession of gambling, maybe. For small-timers like Frazer likely was, it's generally a washout."

Her eyes tensed. "Then ... where would he get that kind of cash?"

"That's one of the things I'm going to find out."

"Mike..."

"What?"

"You told me that ... that Russell tried to kill you."

I nodded and filled her in on most of it. The rest involving the drifter Brooke, she had read in the papers. Now she watched me, frowning. Finally she asked, "Are you sure Russell tried to kill you?"

"Take it from an old soldier, doll. He made a damned good try at it. If I hadn't had my mind on other things, I would've known it wasn't some punk trying to mug me."

Her eyes squinted up and she cocked her head. "Mike—you said we're practically neighbors."

"Uh-huh."

"Two men were killed in the lobby of—"

"My building. Nothing to do with you, sugar. Maybe nothing to do with me, either."

Her tongue dampened her lips and she laced her fingers together, not able to take her eyes from mine. For an instant there, she was looking at me as if I were something that just crawled out of a hole. It was a look I'd seen before.

I wasn't about to louse up my story, so I said, "Last week there was a mob killing down on the corner. Two days later, the bank a block away was hit. Who knows what's going to happen anymore? This is big bad New York, honey."

The cloud left her eyes and she shrugged. "I guess you're right, Mike. But it is kind of frightening, isn't it?"

"Especially when you see it for the first time. To me, it's everyday stuff. I only get bugged when it's my ass somebody is after."

For some reason, that made her smile. Then I figured it out, and said, "I get it—you're used to having guys after your ass."

She didn't blush or pretend to be shocked. She just said, "Like you said, Mike—everyday stuff."

For a few minutes we ate in silence, then her eyes drifted upward again. "Why do you do it, Mike? Put yourself at risk, I mean. There must be safer jobs."

"Safer, but not as satisfying. Anyway, day in day out, my work is routine. Recovering lost property, finding missing kids, looking into insurance claims. But it does have its moments."

"I know. I've read about some of them...."

"Don't believe everything you read in the papers."

"Oh?"

"Some of it is worse."

She managed a tiny smile, then asked, "Does it bother you to kill somebody? Or is there a ... rush of some kind?"

I thought about it, then felt around for an answer. "There's no thrill to it, if that's what you mean. If you're in a firefight, sure there's a rush. But killing itself.... If it has to be done, all I can say is that I don't feel any remorse afterward."

Her expression was blank but somewhere behind it, she was disturbed. "How do you justify killing somebody?"

"No sense in trying."

"No ... remorse?"

"It's either you or them. When it comes to survival, I want to be on the breathing end. Remorse doesn't enter in."

She shuddered, just a little. "I would think killing someone would always bring remorse to somebody."

I shrugged. "Sometimes it brings relief to the survivors."

Shirley shook her head slowly. She was getting a crash course in the cost of being attracted to Neanderthals. "What about Dr. Harrin's son? He took that awfully hard."

"Grief and remorse are related, but not the same animal." I was lighting up another smoke. "It hit the doc hard because that kid died too young, too early. Did you know the boy?"

She nodded. "He came in the store a few times, to pick up some things for the hospital. Twice the doctor was with him ... and when he came back, after his son died? I couldn't get over how Dr. Harrin had changed. He looked ten years older."

"I didn't know him before, so I've got no basis for comparison."

"Well, trust me on this, he was a vital older man, very upbeat, very jovial ... clowned around with everybody, and had a real interest in the ceramics project he had going in the children's ward. After his son died, though, he seemed to lose interest. Oh, he kept things going with the program, but he didn't have that personal involvement anymore. Billy Blue managed everything for him."

"Billy's a good kid."

"Very," she agreed, "and the doctor really took him under his wing, I understand. But there's no substituting for flesh and blood, is there? David, Jr.—Davy—was an outstanding young man. A very good student, I understand, excelled at athletics—and practically the image of his father."

"I thought you only saw him a few times."

"True, but Davy Harrin was pretty much a local institution ... especially among the girls. He dated one who used to work after school at the shop, for us. She was forever showing clippings from the Weekly Home News about her great love."

"Weekly Home News?" I asked her. I hadn't even heard of it. "What's that, a supermarket rag?"

Shirley smiled and shook her head in mock disgust. "You down-towners forget that Manhattan Island is more than Times Square and Central Park. The News is a twelve-page tabloid of local news only. No comics, but an easy crossword puzzle." She smiled in open amusement. "Would you like a subscription? I can get half off mine, if I get a friend to sign up."

"No thanks. But if you have Girl Scout cookies for sale, I'll think about it."