Read Online The Last Dance by Ed McBain - Free Book Online Page A

streak over his left temple looked like a patch of melting snow.
    â€œNobody says your goons are brain surgeons.”
    â€œBlack and white, huh?”
    â€œAnd red all over.”
    â€œCould’ve been an old beef,” Hawes suggested. “Finally caught up with him.”
    â€œBe a coincidence, the day he’s meeting with Steve. But I buy coincidence,” Byrnes said. “I’ve been a cop long enough.”
    â€œCoulda been they wanted him before he told Steve whatever it was he had to tell him,” Brown said. He was straddling a wooden chair near the bookcases, a huge man with skin the color of a giant grizzly’s coat. His shirt collar was open, and he was wearing over it a green sweater. His arms were resting on the chair’s top rail.
    â€œ
Did
he tell you anything?” Kling asked. “Before they got him?”
    â€œNot really. He wanted to get paid first.”
    â€œGee, there’s a surprise.”
    â€œHow much was he looking for?” Hawes asked.
    â€œFive grand.”
    Hawes whistled.
    â€œWhat’d he promise?” Willis asked, giving in at last to his curiosity. He was the shortest man on the squad, wiry and intense, dark eyes reflecting the day’s cold light. Parker turned to him with a sharp look, as if his best friend in the entire world had suddenly moved to Anniston, Alabama, to wallow in pig shit.
    â€œHe said he knew the name and address of the guy who did Hale,” Carella said.
    â€œWhere’d he get
that?”
Willis asked, totally involved now. Parker stepped a little bit away from him.
    â€œPal of his was in a poker game with the hitter.”
    â€œLet me get this straight,” Hawes said. “Danny was in a poker game with the hitter?”
    â€œNo, no,” Meyer said. “A
friend
of Danny’s was in the game.”
    â€œWith the guy who hung Hale from the bathroom door?”
    â€œHanged him, yeah.”
    â€œYeah, him?”
    â€œThe very.”
    â€œWhat is this, a movie?” Willis asked.
    â€œI wish,” Carella said.
    â€œI’da paid him on the spot,” Parker said suddenly, and then realized with a start that he’d broken his own sullen silence. Everyone turned to him, surprised by the vehemence in his voice, surprised, too, that he’d bothered to shave this morning. “That kind of information,” he said, plunging ahead, “I’da asked him to wait while I went to rob a bank.”
    â€œI should’ve,” Carella said.
    â€œWho’s this pal of his?” Kling asked. He was wearing this morning a brown leather jacket that looked like it had come from Oklahoma or Wyoming, but which he’d bought off a pushcart at a street fair this summer. Blond and hazel-eyed, with a complexion and lashes most women would kill for, he projected a country bumpkin air that worked well in Good Cop/Bad Cop scenarios. He was particularly well-paired with Brown, whose perpetual scowl could sometimes be intimidating. “Did Danny give you a clue?”
    â€œSomebody named Harpo.”
    â€œIt is a movie,” Willis said.
    â€œHarpo what?”
    â€œDidn’t say.”
    â€œHe’s gay,” Meyer offered.
    â€œWhite, black?”
    â€œDidn’t say.”
    â€œWhere’d the card game take place?”
    â€œLewiston Av.”
    â€œThe Eight-Eight.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œProbably black,” Parker said. “The Eight-Eight.”
    Brown looked at him.
    â€œWhat?” Parker said. “Did I say something bothered you?”
    â€œI don’t know
what
you said.”
    â€œI said a card game in the Eight-Eight, you automatically figure black players,” Parker said, and shrugged. “Anyway, fuck you, you’re so sensitive.”
    â€œWhat’d I do,
look
at you?” Brown asked.
    â€œYou looked at me cockeyed.”
    â€œBreak it up, okay?” Byrnes said.
    â€œJust don’t be so fuckin