Ed McBain - Downtown by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

than you could call anyone black, or red for that matter, or even white, it was pointless to try to identify people by color because the colors simply didn't match. Here and now she came gliding sleekly out of the din and the smoke, a sinuous glide unique to Orientals, a green silk dress slit high on her right thigh, a red
    rose in her black hair, green satin
    71 high heeled pumps, the colors of Christmas, fa-la-la-la-la, Andy Williams sang, and Michael wondered how many Saigon hookers he had fallen in love with. And later killed their sisters in the jungle. "Hello, Harry," she said, "are you winning?"
    "Jus' rolled me a 'leven," Harry said. Michael smiled at her. She did not smile back.
    An hour and fifty minutes to plane time. "Let the twenty ride," he said, and realized he was showing off for her, big spender betting all his money without batting an eyelash. Harry picked up the dice, winked at him, and said, "Man knows a winner. Bet the two hunnerd."
    "I'll take it all," the other black man said.
    "You facin' disaster, Slam," Harry told him and laughed his dirty Eddie Murphy laugh.
    "I'm facin' a man got lucky one time," Slam said.
    "Oh, my my my," Harry said to the dice, "you hear this man runnin' his mouth?"
    "Who wanna fiffy more?" the first Chinese man asked.
    "I'll take thirty of that," the seaman with the watch cap said.
    "I hassa twenny," the second Chinese man said. Harry brought the dice up close to his mouth. "Sugah," he whispered, "we don't wanna disappoint our friends here, now do we?"
    He was talking to the dice as if he were talking to a woman. How could they possibly fail a man who speaks so gently and persuasively? Michael thought, and realized he was smiling. The girl thought he was smiling at her. Maybe he was. But she still did not smile back. Oh well, he thought.
    "You know jus' what we need," Harry told the dice, "so I'm jus' goan let you do yo' own thing," and he shook the dice gently, and opened his hand again, and the dice rolled off his palm and strutted across the blanket, and kissed the wall, and skidded off the wall to land with a five-spot and a six-spot showing for a total of eleven again, which was another winner.
    Michael now had forty dollars, certainly enough
    to get him to Kennedy by cab.
    73 "How's that, James?" Harry asked. "Good," the first Chinese man said, beaming.
    "_No good," the second Chinese man said sourly. "Bet the four hundred," Harry said.
    Michael looked at the girl one last time. She seemed not to know he existed. He pocketed his forty bucks and started moving away from the blanket. "Don't go, man," Harry said softly. Michael looked at him. "You my luck, man." In Vietnam--ah, Jesus, in Nam--too many young men had said those words to too many other young men. Over there, you needed something to believe in other than yourself, you needed a charm, a rabbit's foot, a buddy to stand beside you, to be your luck when it looked as though your luck might run out at any moment. Michael looked at his watch. 9:30. If he could get out of the city in the next half hour or so, he'd be okay. The roads to Kennedy would surely be clear of snow by now, it would be a quick half-hour run by taxi, walk directly to the gate, no luggage--thanks to Crandall--and off he'd go. "You with me or not?" Harry asked.
    There was something almost desperate in his eyes. "I've got forty says you're good," Michael said, and tossed the money onto the blanket and smiled at the girl. This time, she smiled back. "What's your name?" she asked. "Michael," he said. "How do you do?" she said.
    "We shootin' dice here?" Slam asked, "or we chattin' up Miss Shanghai?" "Miss Mott Street, you mean," the seaman with the watch cap said.
    "Miss China Doll," the second Chinese man said. "Are you really all those things?" Michael asked. "No, I'm Connie," she said. "Willya please _roll 'em?" Slam said.
    Grinning from ear to ear, Harry picked up the dice. He was good for the next pass, and three more passes after that, by which