Calypso by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

curtain, pull the lever, nigger man no fool
         Mayor's out, Mama's out, they's a brand new rule.
        
        Smiling, Carella wondered if he should go look up the mayor. A song like that was reason enough for murder, ridiculing as it did the mayor's obese wife, Louise, and the highly touted Champagne Ball she'd sponsored last April. He shook his head, washed his hand over his face, and told himself again that it was time to go home. Instead, he turned to the next page in the notebook.
        The rhyme scheme and rhythm in the next song seemed similar to that of the first, but he detected almost at once- before he'd come through the first several lines, in fact-that it was written to be sung at a much slower tempo. He tried to imagine the dead George Chadderton singing the words he'd jotted into his notebook. He imagined there would be no smile on his face; he imagined there would be pain in his eyes. Recognizing the intent of the song, Carella went back and began reading the lyrics again from the top:
        
         Sister woman, black woman, sister woman mine,
         Why she wearin them clothes showin half her behine?
         Why she walkin the street, why she working the line?
         Do the white man dollar make her feel that fine?
         Ain't she got no brains, ain't she got no pride,
         Lettin white man dollar turn her cheap inside?
         Takin white man dollar, lettin he…
        
***
        
        The white man who approached her was holding an umbrella over his head. She stood just across the street from the city's main railroad terminal, a long-legged, good-looking black girl in her early twenties, wearing a blond wig, a beige coat, and black high-heeled patent-leather pumps. She stood in the doorway of a closed delicatessen, her coat open over a scoop-necked pink blouse and a short black skirt. She wore no bra under the blouse; the chill wetness of the September night puckered her nipples against the thin satin fabric. It was ten minutes past 3:00 a.m., and she had turned eight tricks since beginning work at ten. She was bone weary and wanted nothing more than to go home to her own bed. But the night was young-as Joey often reminded her-and if she didn't bring home no more bread than she already had in her bag, he'd more'n likely throw her out naked in the rain. As the white man approached, she pursed her lips and made a kissing sound.
        "Want a date?" she whispered.
        "How much?" the man said. He was in his late fifties, she supposed, short little man with almost no hair, wearing eyeglasses that were spattered with rain despite the umbrella over his head. He looked her up and down.
        "Twenty-five for a hand job," she said. "Forty for a blow job, sixty if you want to fuck."
        "Have you… ah… been to a doctor lately?" the man asked.
        "Clean as a whistle," she said.
        "Forty sounds high for a… for what you said."
        "A blow job? Is that what you're interested in?"
        "I might be."
        "What's holdin you back then?"
        "The price. Forty sounds definitely high."
        "Forty's what I'm gettin."
        "You're not getting much standing here in the rain," he said, and laughed at his own little joke. "Three o'clock in the morning," he said. "You're not getting much standing in the rain."
         "You ain't gettin nothin 'thout the forty dollars," she said and laughed with him. "Think it over. Take your time."
        "That's a nice… ah… set you've got there," he said.
        "Mmm," she said, smiling.
        "Very nice," he said, and reached out to touch her breasts. She turned away shyly. "No, please," she said. "Not here."
        "Where?"
        "Place around the corner."
        "Forty dollars, is that it?"
        "Forty's the price."
        "Are you very good at it?"
        "I'm not Linda Lovelace, but I promise you won't be sorry."
        "And you're clean? You've been to