Read Online The Night and The Music by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lawrence Block
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faked the piece and let the ladies alone.
And that was about it. When the killer failed to strike again the newspapers hung up on the story. Good news is no news.
I walked back from the library. It was fine weather. The winds had blown all the crap out of the sky and there was nothing but blue overhead. The air actually had some air in it for a change. I walked west on Forty-second Street and north on Broadway, and I started noticing the number of street people, the drunks and the crazies and the unclassifiable derelicts. By the time I got within a few blocks of Fifty-seventh Street I was recognizing a large percentage of them. Each mini-neighborhood has its own human flotsam and jetsam and they’re a lot more noticeable come springtime. Winter sends some of them south and others to shelter, and there’s a certain percentage who die of exposure, but when the sun warms the pavement it brings most of them out again.
When I stopped for a paper at the corner of Eighth Avenue I got the bag lady into the conversation. The newsie clucked his tongue and shook his head. “The damnedest thing. Just the damnedest thing.”
“Murder never makes much sense.”
“The hell with murder. You know what she did? You know Eddie, works for me midnight to eight? Guy with the one droopy eyelid? Now he wasn’t the guy used to sell her the stack of papers. Matter of fact that was usually me. She’d come by during the late morning or early afternoon and she’d take fifteen or twenty papers and pay me for ‘em, and then she’d sit on her crate down the next corner and she’d sell as many as she could, and then she’d bring ‘em back and I’d give her a refund on what she didn’t sell.”
“What did she pay for them?”
“Full price. And that’s what she sold ‘em for. The hell, I can’t discount on papers. You know the margin we got. I’m not even supposed to take ‘em back, but what difference does it make? It gave the poor woman something to do is my theory. She was important, she was a businesswoman. Sits there charging a quarter for something she just paid a quarter for, it’s no way to get rich, but you know something? She had money. Lived like a pig but she had money.”
“So I understand.”
“She left Eddie seven-twenty. You believe that? Seven hundred and twenty dollars, she willed it to him, there was this lawyer come around two, three weeks ago with a check. Eddie Halloran. Pay to the order of. You believe that? She never had dealings with him. I sold her the papers, I bought ‘em back from her. Not that I’m complaining, not that I want the woman’s money, but I ask you this: Why Eddie? He don’t know her. He can’t believe she knows his name, Eddie Halloran. Why’d she leave it to him? He tells this lawyer, he says maybe she’s got some other Eddie Halloran in mind. It’s a common Irish name and the neighborhood’s full of the Irish. I’m thinking to myself, Eddie, schmuck, take the money and shut up, but it’s him all right because it says in the will. Eddie Halloran the newsdealer is what it says. So that’s him, right? But why Eddie?”
Why me? “Maybe she liked the way he smiled.”
“Yeah, maybe. Or the way he combed his hair. Listen, it’s money in his pocket. I worried he’d go on a toot, drink it up, but he says money’s no temptation. He says he’s always got the price of a drink in his jeans and there’s a bar on every block but he can walk right past ‘em, so why worry about a few hundred dollars? You know something? That crazy woman, I’ll tell you something, I miss her. She’d come, crazy hat on her head, spacy look in her eyes, she’d buy her stack of papers and waddle off all businesslike, then she’d bring the leftovers and cash ‘em in, and I’d make a joke about her when she was out of earshot, but I miss her.”
“I know what you mean.”
“She never hurt nobody,” he said. “She never hurt a soul.”
“Mary Alice Redfield. Yeah, the multiple stabbing
And that was about it. When the killer failed to strike again the newspapers hung up on the story. Good news is no news.
I walked back from the library. It was fine weather. The winds had blown all the crap out of the sky and there was nothing but blue overhead. The air actually had some air in it for a change. I walked west on Forty-second Street and north on Broadway, and I started noticing the number of street people, the drunks and the crazies and the unclassifiable derelicts. By the time I got within a few blocks of Fifty-seventh Street I was recognizing a large percentage of them. Each mini-neighborhood has its own human flotsam and jetsam and they’re a lot more noticeable come springtime. Winter sends some of them south and others to shelter, and there’s a certain percentage who die of exposure, but when the sun warms the pavement it brings most of them out again.
When I stopped for a paper at the corner of Eighth Avenue I got the bag lady into the conversation. The newsie clucked his tongue and shook his head. “The damnedest thing. Just the damnedest thing.”
“Murder never makes much sense.”
“The hell with murder. You know what she did? You know Eddie, works for me midnight to eight? Guy with the one droopy eyelid? Now he wasn’t the guy used to sell her the stack of papers. Matter of fact that was usually me. She’d come by during the late morning or early afternoon and she’d take fifteen or twenty papers and pay me for ‘em, and then she’d sit on her crate down the next corner and she’d sell as many as she could, and then she’d bring ‘em back and I’d give her a refund on what she didn’t sell.”
“What did she pay for them?”
“Full price. And that’s what she sold ‘em for. The hell, I can’t discount on papers. You know the margin we got. I’m not even supposed to take ‘em back, but what difference does it make? It gave the poor woman something to do is my theory. She was important, she was a businesswoman. Sits there charging a quarter for something she just paid a quarter for, it’s no way to get rich, but you know something? She had money. Lived like a pig but she had money.”
“So I understand.”
“She left Eddie seven-twenty. You believe that? Seven hundred and twenty dollars, she willed it to him, there was this lawyer come around two, three weeks ago with a check. Eddie Halloran. Pay to the order of. You believe that? She never had dealings with him. I sold her the papers, I bought ‘em back from her. Not that I’m complaining, not that I want the woman’s money, but I ask you this: Why Eddie? He don’t know her. He can’t believe she knows his name, Eddie Halloran. Why’d she leave it to him? He tells this lawyer, he says maybe she’s got some other Eddie Halloran in mind. It’s a common Irish name and the neighborhood’s full of the Irish. I’m thinking to myself, Eddie, schmuck, take the money and shut up, but it’s him all right because it says in the will. Eddie Halloran the newsdealer is what it says. So that’s him, right? But why Eddie?”
Why me? “Maybe she liked the way he smiled.”
“Yeah, maybe. Or the way he combed his hair. Listen, it’s money in his pocket. I worried he’d go on a toot, drink it up, but he says money’s no temptation. He says he’s always got the price of a drink in his jeans and there’s a bar on every block but he can walk right past ‘em, so why worry about a few hundred dollars? You know something? That crazy woman, I’ll tell you something, I miss her. She’d come, crazy hat on her head, spacy look in her eyes, she’d buy her stack of papers and waddle off all businesslike, then she’d bring the leftovers and cash ‘em in, and I’d make a joke about her when she was out of earshot, but I miss her.”
“I know what you mean.”
“She never hurt nobody,” he said. “She never hurt a soul.”
“Mary Alice Redfield. Yeah, the multiple stabbing
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