pockets to pay the freight.
In this city, things were happening all the time, all over the place, and you didn’t have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind .
—Ed McBain, The Big Bad City
18
FUCK FUCK FUCK… sorry to start like that but I’m seriously pissed. And worse, I haven’t killed anybody since last we talked. I screwed up, can you believe it? I can’t frigging credit I’ve been so stupid. You’ve got a good idea of how smart I am by now… right?
Had it all together, chugging along nicely, killing at my leisure, a solid gig going, no waves. Putting it all down here in my diary. I mean you gotta keep a record, like I’m gonna do all this shit and be unknown. Be, as the profilers term it, ‘an unsub.’ Like Ford, when he realized the jig was up. I’ve followed him too closely and got screwed the same way. Yeah, a woman. Ford had it all together, Jim Thompson had it all down, then it all fell apart. I was so sure I had the measure of Mandy Yeah, it’s her, the treacherous bitch. I underestimated her. I keep this diary in a safe place, course I do, I mean I haven’t lost the plot entirely. But I had it in my home, which I rarely do, and got drunk with her, passed out. Woke to find her about to leave and she was edgy, nervous, anxious to go. I asked:
‘Anything wrong, hon?’
Man, she was jumpy, went:
‘Ah, no, ah, I’m… late for the hairdressers…’
And she was gone. Lying through her fucking teeth. I know liars, having spent so much of my life practicing.
The diary, the journal, my goddam life is kept in a leather-bound volume that I bought on Charing Cross Road. Vellum parchment, the whole nine yards. Course, as a child of the movies, I’d laid a thin hair across the front, not that I for a moment thought anyone would have access, but I enjoyed the Bondish touch. The hair was gone, the book had been opened. She knew. I don’t know if she had time to read it all but enough to send her flying. Considered going after her, nailing her on the street and doing her. But that infringed my code, the bloody code. It would spoil the whole deal I’d been arranging and, worse, I’d be exposed. So straightaway, I got out of there and down to Waterloo, hired a locker, put the diary in. Sweat fairly running off me, went to a kiosk, ordered a large crushed OJ. The assistant tried to flirt with me, going:
‘Hot enough for you?’
I gave her the cold eye, said:
‘I’m spoken for.’
And fucked off out of there, back to the flat to await the arrival of the cops because they’d be coming. Went round the whole area, seeing if there was anything to connect me besides the word of a hooker. She’d tell, oh yeah, she’d tell, and some dumb flat-foot would come barging in, sniffing round, and if he had the manners of a pig, I couldn’t off him, leastnot in the flat. Women, the jails are full of suckers who trusted them, and me… Me!… I’d all the angles covered. And to think I thought I could best a hooker.
Deep breaths, concentrate, get Zen-like, get real chilled, think think think.…
Brant had considered telling Roberts about his lead, but hey, he had the car-ring going and good results from that. Porter needed the gig, so he called him and they met at Clapham Common. Mandy’s place was near The Clapham Arms. Porter arrived wearing a black leather jacket, black pants. Brant was wearing his Driza-Bone. He had the Aussie hat but couldn’t quite bring himself to wear it. He said:
‘You look like a lethal priest.’
Porter didn’t think this was flattery but let it slide, and Brant filled him in on Caz’s story. Porter asked:
‘What do you think?’
‘Let’s go see. He usually is on the money’
The building was freshly painted and they rang the intercom, got buzzed in. Porter said:
‘Not very security conscious is she? I mean she just let us in.’
Brant gave him the look, said:
‘She’s a hooker, what do you expect?’
Her door was open and she was waiting,
In this city, things were happening all the time, all over the place, and you didn’t have to be a detective to smell evil in the wind .
—Ed McBain, The Big Bad City
18
FUCK FUCK FUCK… sorry to start like that but I’m seriously pissed. And worse, I haven’t killed anybody since last we talked. I screwed up, can you believe it? I can’t frigging credit I’ve been so stupid. You’ve got a good idea of how smart I am by now… right?
Had it all together, chugging along nicely, killing at my leisure, a solid gig going, no waves. Putting it all down here in my diary. I mean you gotta keep a record, like I’m gonna do all this shit and be unknown. Be, as the profilers term it, ‘an unsub.’ Like Ford, when he realized the jig was up. I’ve followed him too closely and got screwed the same way. Yeah, a woman. Ford had it all together, Jim Thompson had it all down, then it all fell apart. I was so sure I had the measure of Mandy Yeah, it’s her, the treacherous bitch. I underestimated her. I keep this diary in a safe place, course I do, I mean I haven’t lost the plot entirely. But I had it in my home, which I rarely do, and got drunk with her, passed out. Woke to find her about to leave and she was edgy, nervous, anxious to go. I asked:
‘Anything wrong, hon?’
Man, she was jumpy, went:
‘Ah, no, ah, I’m… late for the hairdressers…’
And she was gone. Lying through her fucking teeth. I know liars, having spent so much of my life practicing.
The diary, the journal, my goddam life is kept in a leather-bound volume that I bought on Charing Cross Road. Vellum parchment, the whole nine yards. Course, as a child of the movies, I’d laid a thin hair across the front, not that I for a moment thought anyone would have access, but I enjoyed the Bondish touch. The hair was gone, the book had been opened. She knew. I don’t know if she had time to read it all but enough to send her flying. Considered going after her, nailing her on the street and doing her. But that infringed my code, the bloody code. It would spoil the whole deal I’d been arranging and, worse, I’d be exposed. So straightaway, I got out of there and down to Waterloo, hired a locker, put the diary in. Sweat fairly running off me, went to a kiosk, ordered a large crushed OJ. The assistant tried to flirt with me, going:
‘Hot enough for you?’
I gave her the cold eye, said:
‘I’m spoken for.’
And fucked off out of there, back to the flat to await the arrival of the cops because they’d be coming. Went round the whole area, seeing if there was anything to connect me besides the word of a hooker. She’d tell, oh yeah, she’d tell, and some dumb flat-foot would come barging in, sniffing round, and if he had the manners of a pig, I couldn’t off him, leastnot in the flat. Women, the jails are full of suckers who trusted them, and me… Me!… I’d all the angles covered. And to think I thought I could best a hooker.
Deep breaths, concentrate, get Zen-like, get real chilled, think think think.…
Brant had considered telling Roberts about his lead, but hey, he had the car-ring going and good results from that. Porter needed the gig, so he called him and they met at Clapham Common. Mandy’s place was near The Clapham Arms. Porter arrived wearing a black leather jacket, black pants. Brant was wearing his Driza-Bone. He had the Aussie hat but couldn’t quite bring himself to wear it. He said:
‘You look like a lethal priest.’
Porter didn’t think this was flattery but let it slide, and Brant filled him in on Caz’s story. Porter asked:
‘What do you think?’
‘Let’s go see. He usually is on the money’
The building was freshly painted and they rang the intercom, got buzzed in. Porter said:
‘Not very security conscious is she? I mean she just let us in.’
Brant gave him the look, said:
‘She’s a hooker, what do you expect?’
Her door was open and she was waiting,
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