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

Gimp.
    â€œDanny?” he said. “It’s Steve.”
    â€œHey, Steve,” Danny said. “Whatta ya hear?”
    This was a joke. Danny Gimp was an informer.
He
—and notCarella—was the one who heard things and passed them on. For money. The men didn’t exchange any niceties. Carella got right down to business.
    â€œOld guy named Andrew Hale …”
    â€œ
How
old?” Danny asked.
    â€œSixty-eight.”
    â€œAncient,” Danny said.
    â€œGot himself aced Thursday night.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œApartment off Currey Yard.”
    â€œWhat time?”
    â€œME puts it around midnight. But you know how accurate PMI’s are.”
    â€œHow’d he catch it?”
    â€œHanged. But first he was doped with a drug called Rohypnol. Ever hear of it?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œYou have?”
    â€œSure,” Danny said.
    â€œAnyway,” Carella said, “the only two people who had any reason to want him dead have alibis a mile long. We’re wondering if maybe they knew somebody handy with a noose.”
    â€œUh-huh.”
    â€œHe’s a lawyer …”
    â€œThe dead man?”
    â€œNo. One of the suspects.”
    â€œA criminal lawyer?”
    â€œNo. But he
knows
criminal lawyers.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean he knows hit men.”
    â€œIt means there could’ve been access.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAsk around, Danny. There’s twenty-five grand in insurance money involved here.”
    â€œThat ain’t a lot.”
    â€œI know. But maybe it’s enough.”
    â€œWell, let me go on the earie, see what’s what.”
    â€œGet back to me, okay?”
    â€œIf I hear anything.”
    â€œEven if you don’t.”
    â€œOkay,” Danny said, and hung up.
    He did not get back to Carella until the following Sunday night, the seventh of November. By that time, the case was stone-cold dead.
    Danny came limping into the place he himself had chosen for the meet, a pizzeria on Culver and Sixth. The collar of his threadbare coat was pulled high against the wind and the rain. A long, college-boy, striped muffler was wrapped around his neck, and he was wearing woolen gloves. He peered around the place as if he were a spy coming in with nuclear secrets. Carella signaled to him. A scowl crossed Danny’s face.
    â€œYou shouldn’t do that,” he said, sliding into the booth. “Bad enough I’m meeting you in a public place.”
    Carella was willing to forgive Danny his occasional irritability. He had never forgotten that Danny had come to the hospital when he’d got shot for the first time in his professional life. It had not been an easy thing for Danny to do; police informers do not last long on the job once it is known they are police informers. Danny’s eyes were darting all over the place now, checking the perimeter. He himself had chosen the venue, but he seemed disturbed by it now, perhaps because it was unexpectedly crowded at nine A.M. on a Monday morning. Who the hell expected people eating
pizza
for breakfast? But he couldn’t go to the station house, and he didn’t want Carella to come to his shitty little room over on the South Side because to tell the truth, it embarrassed him. Danny had known better times.
    He was thinner than Carella had ever seen him, his eyes rheumy, his nose runny. He kept taking paper napkins from the holder onthe table, blowing his nose, crumpling the napkins and stuffing them into the pockets of his coat, which he had not yet removed. He did not look healthy. But more than that, he looked unkempt, odd for a man who’d always prided himself on what he considered sartorial elegance. Danny needed a shave. Soiled shirt cuffs showed at the edges of his ragged coat sleeves. His face was dotted with blackheads, his fingernails edged with grime. Sensing Carella’s scrutiny, he said in seeming explanation, “The leg’s