Ed McBain - And All Through the House

Detective Steve Carella was alone in the squad room. It was very quiet for a Christmas Eve.

Normally, all hell broke loose the moment the stores closed. But tonight the squad room and the entire station house seemed unusually still. No phones ringing. No typewriters clacking away. No patrolmen popping upstairs to ask if any coffee was brewing in the clerical office down the hall. Just Carella, sitting at his desk and re-reading the D.D. report hed just typed, checking it for errors. Hed misspelled the armed in armed robbery. It had come out aimed robbery. He overscored the i with a ballpoint pen, giving the felony its true title. Armed robbery. Little liquor store on Culver Avenue. Guy walked in with a .357 Magnum and an empty potato sack. The owner hit a silent alarm and the two uniforms riding Boy One apprehended the thief as he was leaving the store.

Carella separated the carbons and the triplicate pages-white one in the uppermost basket, pink one in the basket marked for Miscolo in clerical, yellow one for the lieutenant. He looked up at the clock. Ten-thirty. The graveyard shift would be relieving at a quarter to 12, maybe a bit earlier, since it was Christmas Eve.

God, it was quiet around here.

He got up from his desk and walked around the bank of high cabinets that partitioned the rest of the squad room from a small sink in the corner opposite the detention cage. Quiet night like this one, you could fall asleep on the job. He opened the faucet, filled his cupped hands with water and splashed it onto his face. He was a tall man and the mirror over the sink was set just a little too low to accommodate his height. The top of his head was missing. The mirror caught him just at his eyes, a shade darker than his brown hair and slanted slightly downward to give him a faintly Oriental appearance. He dried his face and hands with a paper towel, tossed the towel into the wastebasket under the sink and then yawned and looked at the clock again, unsurprised to discover that only two minutes had passed since the last time hed looked at it. The silent nights got to you. He much preferred it when things were really jumping.

He walked to the windows on the far side of the squad room and looked down at the street. Things looked as quiet down there as they were up here. Not many cars moving, hardly a pedestrian in sight. Well, sure, they were all home already, putting the finishing touches on their Christmas trees. The forecasters had promised snow, but so far there wasnt so much as a flurry in the air. He was turning from the window when all of a sudden everything got bloody.

The first thing he saw was the blood streaming down the side of Cotton Hawess face. Hawes was shoving two white men through the gate in the slatted rail divider that separated the squad room from the corridor outside. The men were cuffed at the wrist with a single pair of cuffs, right wrist to left wrist, and one of them was complaining that Hawes had made the cuff too tight.

Ill give you tight, Hawes said and shoved again at both men. One of them went sprawling almost headlong into the squad room, dragging the other one with him. They were both considerably smaller than Hawes, who towered over them like a redheaded fury, his anger somehow pictorially exaggerated by the streak of white in the hair over his right temple, where a burglar had cut him and the hair had grown back white. The white was streaked with blood now from an open cut on his forehead. The cut streamed blood down the right side of his face. It seemed not to console Hawes at all that the two men with him were also bleeding.

What the hell happened? Carella asked.

He was already coming across the squad room as if someone had called in an assist officer, even though Hawes seemed to have the situation well in hand and this was, after all, a police station and not the big, bad streets outside. The two men Hawes had brought in were looking over the place as if deciding whether or not this was really where they wanted to spend Christmas Eve. The empty detention cage in the corner of the room did not look too terribly inviting to them. One of them kept glancing over his shoulder to see if Hawes was about to shove them again. Hawes looked as if he might throttle both of them at any moment.

Sit down! he yelled and then went to the mirror over the sink and looked at his face. He tore a paper towel loose from the holder, wet it and dabbed at the open cut on his forehead. The cut kept bleeding.

Id better phone for a meat wagon, Carella said.

No, I dont need one, Hawes said.

We need one, one of the two men said.

He was bleeding from a cut on his left cheek. The man handcuffed to him was bleeding from a cut just below his jaw line. His shirt was stained with blood, too, where it was slashed open over his rib cage.

Hawes turned suddenly from the sink. Whatd I do with that bag? he said to Carella. You see me come in here with a bag?

No, Carella said. What happened?

I mustve left it downstairs at the desk, Hawes said and went immediately to the phone. He picked up the receiver, dialed three numbers and then said, Dave, this is Cotton. Did I leave a shopping bag down there at the desk? He listened and then said, Would you send one of the blues up with it, please? Thanks a lot. He put the receiver back on the cradle. Trouble I went through to make this bust, he said, I dont want to lose the goddamn evidence.

You aint got no evidence, the man bleeding from the cheek said.

I thought I told you to shut up, Hawes said, going to him. Whats your name?

Im supposed to shut up, how can I give you my name? the man said.

How would you like to give me your name through a mouthful of broken teeth? Hawes said. Carella had never seen him this angry. The blood kept pouring down his cheek, as if in visible support of his anger. Whats your goddamn name? he shouted.

Im calling an ambulance, Carella said.

Good, the man bleeding from under his jaw line said.

Who wants this? a uniformed cop at the railing said.

Bring it in here and put it on my desk, Hawes said. Whats your name?

Henry, the cop at the railing said.

Not you, Hawes said.

Which desk is yours? the cop asked.

Over there, Hawes said and gestured vaguely.

What happened up here? the cop asked, carrying the shopping bag in and putting it on the desk he assumed Hawes had indicated. The shopping bag was from one of the citys larger department stores.

A green wreath and a red bow were printed on it. Carella, already on the phone, glanced at the shopping bag as he dialed Mercy General.

Your name, Hawes said to the man bleeding from the cheek.

I dont tell you nothing till you read me my rights, the man said.

My name is Jimmy, the other man said.

Jimmy what?

You dope, dont tell him nothin till he reads you Miranda.

You shut up, Hawes said. Jimmy what?

Knowles. James Nelson Knowles.

Now you done it, the man bleeding from the cheek said.

It dont mean nothin hes got my name, Knowles said.

You gonna be anonymous all night? Hawes said to the other man.

Into the phone, Carella said, Im telling you weve got three people bleeding up here.

I dont need an ambulance, Hawes said.

Well, make it as fast as you can, will you? Carella said and hung up. Theyre backed up till Easter, be a while before they can get here. Wheres that first-aid kit? he said and went to the filing cabinets. Dont we have a first-aid kit up here?

This cut gets infected, the anonymous man said, Im gonna sue the city. I die in a police station, theres gonna be hell to pay. You better believe it.

What name should we put on the death certificate? Hawes asked.

Who the hell filed this in the missing-persons drawer? Carella said.