McBain's Ladies Too: More Women of the 87th Precinct

Oona Blake

There was the strong smell of cigar smoke.

There was a long shaft of light far away, and a silhouette filling the piercing beam.

There was pain, excruciating pain that throbbed and vibrated and sang with a thousand shrill voices.

There was warmth, a warmth that was thick and liquidy, oozing, oozing.

Cotton Hawes fought unconsciousness.

He felt as if his body was quivering. He felt as if every part of him was swinging in a wild circle of nauseating blackness. Some inner sense told him he was lying flat on his back, and yet he had the feeling that his hands were clutching, grasping, trying to reach something in the blackness, as if his legs and feet were twitching uncontrollably. The pain at the side of his face was unbearable. It was the pain, finally, that forced away the unconsciousness, needling him with persistent fire, forcing sensibility into his mind, and then his body. He blinked.

The cigar smell was overpowering. It filled his newly alert nostrils with the stink of a thousand saloons. The shaft of light was penetrating and merciless, flowing steadily through an open window at the end of the room, impaling him with sunshine. A man stood at the window, his back to Hawes.

Hawes tried to get to his feet, and the nausea came back with frightening suddenness, swimming into his head and then dropping like a swirling stone to the pit of his stomach. He lay still, not daring to move, aware now that the side of his face was bleeding, remembering now the sudden blinding blow that had knocked him to the floor unconscious. The nausea passed. He could feel the steady seeping of the blood as it traveled past his jawbone and onto his neck. He could almost feel each separate drop of blood rolling over his flesh to be sopped up instantly by the white collar of his shirt. He felt as if he were being born, hypersensitive to every nuance of smell, and sight, and touch. And, newborn, he was also weak. He knew he could not stand without falling flat on his face.

He turned his head slightly to the left. He could see the man at the window clearly, each part of the man combining with the next to form a sharply defined portrait of power as he crouched by the window, the late afternoon sunshine enveloping the silhouette in whitish licking flames of light.

The man's hair was black, worn close to his skull in a tight-fitting woolly cap. The man's brow was immense in profile, a hooked nose jutting out from bushy eyebrows pulled into a frown. A small scar stood out in painful relief against the taut skin of the man's face, close to the right eye. The man's mouth was a tight, almost lipless line that gashed deep into the face above a jaw cleft like a horse's buttocks. His neck was thick, and his shoulders bulged beneath the blue tee shirt he wore, biceps rolling hugely into thick forearms covered with black hair that resembled steel wool. One huge hand was clutched around the barrel of a rifle. The rifle, Hawes noticed, was mounted with a telescopic sight. An open box of cartridges rested near the man's right shoe.

This is no one to tangle with in my present condition, Hawes thought. This may be no one to tangle with in any condition. He looks like a man who tears telephone books in sixteenths. He looks like a man who allows automobiles to drive over his inflated chest. He looks like the meanest son of a bitch I have ever seen in my life, and I am not anxious to tangle with him. Now, or maybe ever.

But that's a rifle he's holding, and it has a telescopic sight, and he sure as hell doesn't plan to pick his teeth with it.

Do I still have my gun? Or has he disarmed me?

Hawes looked down the length of his nose. He could see the white throat of his shirt stained with blood. He could see his shoulder holster strapped to his chest beneath his open coat.

The holster was empty.

There's nothing I can do but lie here, he thought, and wait for my strength to come back.

And pray, meanwhile, that he doesn't take a pot shot at anybody across the yard at the reception.

In the attic of the Birnbaum house, Cotton Hawes felt his strength returning. For the past ten minutes, he had lain silently, his eyes flicking from one corner of the attic to another, and then back to the patiently waiting powerhouse squatting on the floor near the window. The attic was filled with the discarded paraphernalia of living: bundles of old magazines, a green trunk marked "CAMP IDLEMERE" in white paint, a dressmaker's dummy, a lawn mower without blades, a hammer, an Army duffel bag, a radio with a smashed face, three albums marked photographs and numerous other items that had undoubtedly cluttered the busy life of a family.

The only item which interested Hawes was the hammer.

It rested on top of the trunk some four feet from where he lay.

If he could get the hammer without being heard or seen, he would promptly use it on the sniper's skull. Provided the sniper didn't turn first and shoot him. It would not be too pleasant to get shot at close range with a rifle.

Well, when? Hawes asked himself.

Not now. I'm not strong enough yet.

You're never going to get any stronger, Hawes thought. Are you afraid of that big bastard crouched by the window?

Yes.

What?

Yes, I'm afraid of him. He can break me in half even without using his rifle. And he may use it. So I'm afraid of him, and the hell with you.

Let's go, coward, Hawes thought. Let's make our play for the hammer. There's no time like the present, the man said.

The man didn't have to face Neanderthal.

Look, are we…?

All right, all right, let's go.

Silently, he rolled over onto his side. The sniper did not turn. He rolled again, completing a full turn this time, coming to rest a foot away from the trunk. Swallowing hard, he reached out for the hammer. Soundlessly, he slid it oil the trunk and gripped it tightly in his right hand.

He swallowed again and got to his knees.

Okay, he thought, we rush him now, hammer raised. We crease his skull before he knows what hit him.

Ready?

He got to a crouching position.

Set?

He stood up and raised the hammer high.

Go!

He took a step forward.

The door behind him opened suddenly.

"Hold it, mister!" a voice said, and he whirled to face a big blonde in a red silk dress. She was reaching into her purse as he leaped at her.

It cannot be said of Cotton Hawes that he did not ordinarily enjoy wrestling with blondes whose proportions matched this one's. For here was truly a blonde. Here was a handful, and an armful, and an eyeful; here was the image that automatically came to mind whenever anyone muttered the magic words "big blonde."

Standing on a runway in Union City, this girl would have caused heart stoppage. Third-row bald heads would have turned pale with trembling.

On the legitimate Broadway stage, this girl would have set the theater on fire, set the customers on their ears, and set the critics rushing back to their typewriters to pound out ecstatic notices.

In a bedroom — Hawes's imagination reeled with the thought.

But unfortunately, this girl was not on a runway or a stage or a bed. This girl was standing in the doorway to a room no bigger than an upper berth in a Pullman. This girl was obviously not planning to set anyone but Hawes on his ear. She reached into her purse with all the determination of a desert rat digging for water, and then her hand stopped, and a surprised look came over her lovely features. In clear, crystal-pure, ladylike tones, she yelled, "Where's my goddamn gun?" and Hawes leaped on her.

The sniper turned from the window at the same moment.

The girl was all flesh and a yard wide. She was also all teeth and all nails. She clamped two rows of teeth into Hawes's hand as he struggled for a grip, and then her nails flashed out wildly, raking the uninjured half of his face. The sniper circled closer, shouting, "Get away from him, Oona! I can't do anything with you…"

Hawes did not want to hit the girl. He especially did not want to hit her with the hammer. But the hammer was the only weapon he possessed and he reasoned correctly that if this girl got away from him, Neanderthal would either club him into the floorboards with the stock of the rifle or, worse, plunk a few slugs into his chest. Neither prospect seemed particularly entertaining. The blonde herself was not entertaining in the slightest. Wiggling in his arms, she delivered a roundhouse punch that almost knocked out his right eye. He winced in pain and swung at her with the hammer, but she ducked inside the blow and brought her knee to his groin in an old trick she'd probably learned in grammar school, so expertly did she execute it. Hawes had been kicked before. His reactions, he discovered, were always the same. He always doubled over in pain. But this time, as he doubled, he clutched at the blonde because the blonde was insurance. As long as her hot little body remained close to his, the sniper was helpless. He clutched at her, and he caught the front of her dress and it gave under his hand, tearing in a long rip that exposed the blonde's white brassiere and three-quarters of her left breast.

The material kept ripping, with the blonde at the end of it like an unraveling ball of wool in the paws of a playful kitten. He swung the hammer again, catching flesh this time, his fingers closing tightly as he pulled her toward him. The blonde's dress was torn to the waist now, but Hawes wasn't interested in anatomy. Hawes was interested in clubbing her with the hammer. He swung her around and her backside came up hard against him, a solid muscular backside. He swung one arm around her neck, his elbow cushioned between the fleshy mounds of the girl's breasts, and he brought back the hand with the hammer again, and the girl pulled another old grammar-school trick.

She bent suddenly from the knees, and then shot upward with the force of a piston, the top of her skull slamming into Hawes's jaw. His arm dropped. The girl swung around and leaped at him, a nearly barebreasted fury, clawing at his eyes. He swung the hammer. It struck her right arm, and she clutched at it in pain, her face distorted. "You son of a bitch!" she said, and she reached down, her knee coming up, her skirt pulling back over legs which would have been magnificent on the French Riviera stemming from a bikini, and then she pulled off one high-heeled pump and came at Hawcs with the shoe clutched like a mace.

"Get the hell away from him!" the sniper veiled, but the girl would not give up the fight. Circling like wrestlers, the girl's chest heaving in the barely restraining brassiere, Hawes panting breathlessly, one holding a hammer, the other a spiked-heel shoe, they searched for an opening. The girl's lips were skinned back over teeth that looked as if they could bite Hawes in two.

She feinted with the shoe, and he brought up his left arm to ward off the blow, and then she moved swiftly to the side, and he saw only the blur of the red shoe coming at his face, felt only the crashing pain as the stiletto-like spike hit his temple. He felt his fingers loosen from the handle of the hammer. He felt himself pitching forward. He held out his arms to stop his fall, and the girl caught him as he came toward her and his head bounced against her shoulder, slid, and he felt the warm cushion of her breast for an instant before she viciously pushed him away from her.

He struck the floor and the last shamed thought he had was, A girl Jesus, a girl…

Oona Blake crouched on the floor over him, her skirt pulled back over powerfully beautiful legs, the top of her dress torn to the waist. Darkness had invaded the small attic room of the Birnbaum house. The vanishing light of daytime filtered feebly through the attic window, catching her blonde hair and then the white exposed flank of her thigh as she knotted the ropes securely around Hawes's body and then went through his pockets.

Marty Sokolin, chewing on his cigar, one huge hand around the rifle barrel, watched her. She scared him somewhat. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever known in his life, but she moved with the power of a Nike rocket, and she scared him sometimes; but she excited him, too. Watching her flip open the man's wallet, watching her hands as they quickly went through the contents, he was frightened and excited.

"A cop," she said.

"How do you know?"

"A badge, and an ID card. Why didn't you search him before?"

"I was too busy. What's a cop doing here? How'd a cop…?

"They're crawling all over the place," Oona said.

"Why?" His eyes blinked. He bit down more fiercely on the cigar.

"I shot a man," she answered, and he felt a tiny lurch of fear

"You…?"

"I shot a man, an old fart who was heading for this house. You told me to keep people away from here, didn't you?"

"Yes, but to shoot a man! Oona, why'd you…?"

"Aren't you here to shoot a man?"

"Yes, but…"

"Did you want someone coming up here?"

"No, Oona, but it's brought cops. I've got a record, for Christ's sake. I can't…"

"So have I," she snapped, and he watched the sudden fury in her eyes, and again he was frightened. Sweat erupted on his upper lip. In the gathering gloom, he watched her, frightened, excited.

"Do you want to kill Giordano?" she said.

"Yes. I… I do."

"Do you or don't you?"

"I don't know. Jesus, Oona, I don't know. I don't want cops. I don't want to go to jail again."

"That's not what you told me."

"I know, I know."

"You said you wanted him dead."

"Yes."

"You said you'd never be able to rest until he was dead."

"Yes."

"You asked for my help. I gave it to you. Without me, you wouldn't know how to wipe your nose. Who got the apartment near the photography shop? Me. Who suggested this house? Me. Without me, you'd be carrying your goddamn grudge to the grave. Is that what you want? To carry the grudge to your grave?"

"No, Oona, but…"

"Are you a man… or what are you?"

"I'm a man."

"You're nothing. You're afraid to shoot him, aren't you?"

"No."

"I've already killed for you, do you know that? I've already killed a man to protect you. And now you're chickening out. What are you? A man or what?"

"I'm a man!" Sokolin said.

"You're nothing. I don't know why I took up with you. I could have had men, real men. You're not a man."

"I'm a man!"

"Then kill him!"

"Oona! It's just… there are eops now. There's a cop here, right with us…"

"There'll be fireworks at eight o'clock…"

"Oona, if I kill him, what do I accomplish? I know I said I…"

"… a lot of noise, a lot of explosions. If you fire then, the shot won't even be heard. No one will hear it."

"… wanted him dead, but now I don't know. Maybe he wasn't responsible for Artie's getting shot. Maybe he didn't know…"

"You go to the window, Marty. You pick him up in your sights."

"… there was a sniper in the trees. I'm clean now. I'm out of jail. Why should I fool around with something like this?"

"You wait for the fireworks to start. You squeeze the trigger. He's dead, and we take off."

"And the cop laying there on the floor? He's seen both of us."

"I'll take care of him," Oona said, and grinned. "It'll be a real pleasure to take care of him." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Get to the window, Marty."

"Oona…"

"Get to the window and get it over with. As soon as the fireworks start. Get it over and done with. And then come with me, Marty, come with me, baby, come to Oona baby. Marty, get it over with, get it over with, get it out of your system!"

"Yes," he said. "Yes, Oona."

"Can you see him?"

Him, him, him, him, him…

"Yes. I've got him in the sights."

Sights, sights, sights, sights, sights…

Don't miss this time, I won't, take careful aim, I will, they're starting the fireworks now, the little ones, I don't like the sound of fireworks, reminds me of guns going off, I hate guns going off, Marty, shut up, concentrate on what you're doing, I am, look they're setting off the pinwheels, can you still see him, yes, don't fire until the big ones go off, we need the cover of the explosions, don't fire yet, Marty, I won't, I won't.

Won't, won't, words, words, people talking, jumble of words, thunder in the distance, gunshots, fire, don't won't…

Cotton Hawes climbed the echoing tunnel of unconsciousness, voices and sounds blurred meaninglessly, reverberating inside his head as blackness gave way to brightness, pinwheeling brightness outside, fireworks, yes, fireworks going off outside in the…

He blinked his eyes.

He tried to move.

He was trussed like Aunt Sadie's roast; his hands tied to his feet behind him, he sprawled on the floor like the base of a big rocking horse. By turning his head, he could see the window. Beyond the window, the bright dizzy gleam of the fireworks split the night air. Silhouetted in the window was Neanderthal, squatting over the rifle, and standing above him, one hand on his shoulder, leaning over slightly, the red silk stretched taut over her magnificent buttocks, was the girl who'd clonked him with the shoe.

"Take careful aim, Marty," she whispered.

"I am, I am, I've got him. Don't worry."

"Wait for the big ones. The noisy ones."

"Yes. Yes."

"You can do it, Marty."

"I know."

"You're a man, Marty. You're my man."

"I know. Shhh. Shhh. Don't make me nervous."

"When it's over, Marty. You and me. Take careful aim."

"Yes, yes."

He's going to shoot Tommy, Hawes thought helplessly. Oh my God, he's going to shoot Tommy, and I can't do a goddamn thing to stop him.

The pinwheels had sputtered out, and the Roman candles had filled the night with red. And now, standing behind the platform, the caterers from Weddings-Fetes, Incorporated, stood at the ready, anxious to light the fuses for the grand finale. Tommy Giordano stood alongside his father-in-law and his bride, bathed in the light from the bandstand, waiting for the medley of explosion and light which would come in the next few moments. He did not know that the crosshairs of a telescopic sight were fixed at a point just above his left eye. He smiled pleasantly as the caterers rushed around behind the platform, squeezed Angela's hand when he saw the first fuse being touched.

The fuse burned shorter, shorter, and then touched the powder. The first of the rockets sailed skyward, exploding in a shower of blue and green stars, followed by the second rocket almost instantly afterward, silver fishes darting against the velvet night. Explosions rocked the peaceful suburb of River-head, shockingly loud explosions that threatened to rip the night to shreds.

In the attic room, Oona Blake dug her fingers into Sokolin's shoulder.

"Now," she said. "Now, Marty."

The men worked together as a highly efficient team, and perhaps everything would have gone smoothly, bloodlessly, had not Bob O'Brien been a part of the team. It was certain that once the men returned to the squadroom, legend and superstition would prevail to single out O'Brien as the culprit.

They had drawn their service revolvers on the front porch of the Birnbaum house. O'Brien stood to one side of the door, and Meyer turned the knob and eased the door open. The living room on the ground floor of the house was dark and silent. Cautiously, both men entered the room.

"If he's here and plans to use a rifle," Meyer whispered, "he must be upstairs."

They waited until their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. They found the staircase then and began climbing it, hesitating when their weight caused the treads to creak. On the second floor, they checked the two bedrooms and found them empty.

"An attic?" O'Brien whispered, and they continued climbing.

They were in the hallway outside the attic room when the fireworks started in the Carella back yard. At first they thought it was gunfire, and then they recognized it for what it was, and both instantly formed the conclusion that their sniper — if he were indeed in the house — had undoubtedly been waiting for the fireworks before opening up with his rifle. They did not speak to each other. There was no need to speak. The operation they were about to perform had been acted out by them hundreds of times before, either together, or as part of other teams. The fireworks in the yard across the way simply added urgency to the operation but they moved swiftly and without panic, Meyer flattening himself against the wall to the right of the door, O'Brien bracing himself against the corridor wall opposite the door. O'Brien glanced at Meyer, and Meyer nodded soundlessly.

From inside the room, they heard a woman's voice say, "Now. Now, Marty."

O'Brien shoved himself off the wall, his left leg coming up, the left foot colliding with the door in a powerful, flat-footed kick that splintered the lock and shot the door inward. Like a fullback following a line plunge, O'Brien followed the door into the room, Meyer crossing in behind him like a quarterback ready to take a lateral pass.

O'Brien was not anxious to fire.

His gun was in his hand as he entered the room, following the jet-catapult of the door, his eyes sweeping first to the window where the man crouched over the rifle, then to the floor where Cotton Hawes lay tied in a neat bundle, and then back to the window again as the blonde in the red silk dress whirled to face him.

"Drop the piece!" he shouted, and the man at the window swung around with the rifle in his hands, the rockets exploding behind him in the back yard illuminating his eyes, pinpointing his eyes with fiery lights, and O'Brien's eyes locked with his, and in that moment he weighed the necessity for firing.

"Drop it!" he shouted, his eyes locked with the other man's, and he studied those eyes for the space of three seconds that seemed like three thousand years, studied the fright in them, and then the sudden awakening to the situation, and the rapid calculation. And then the eyes began to narrow and O'Brien had seen the instantaneous narrowing of the eyes of a man with a gun before, and he knew the eyes were telegraphing the action of the trigger finger, and he knew that if he did not fire instantly, he would drop to the floor bleeding in the next split second.

Meyer Meyer had seen the eyes tightening, too, and he shouted, "Watch it, Bob!" and O'Brien fired.

He fired only once, from the hip, fired with a calmness that gave lie to the lurching beat of his heart and the trembling of his legs. His slug took Sokolin in the shoulder at close range, spinning him around and slamming him up against the wall, the rifle dropping from his hands. And all O'Brien could think was Don't let him die, Dear God don't let him die!

The blonde hesitated for a fraction of an instant. With Sokolin slowly crumpling from the wall to the floor, with Meyer rushing into the room, with the world outside disintegrating in a shower of sparks and cacophonous welter of explosions, she made her decision and acted upon it, dropping instantly to her knees, pulling her skirt back in a completely feminine gesture as she stooped with masculine purposefulness to pick up the rifle.

Meyer kicked her twice. He kicked her once to knock the rifle upward before her finger found the trigger, and then he kicked out at her legs, knocking her backward to the floor in a jumble of white flesh and sliding red silk. She came off the floor like a banshee out of hell, lips skinned back, lingers curled to rake. She wasn't looking for conversation, and Meyer didn't give her any. He swung his .38 up so that the barrel was nested in his curled fingers, the butt protruding below. Then he brought the gun around in a side-swinging arc that clipped the girl on the side of the jaw. She threw her arms and her head back, and she let out a slight whimper, and then she went down slowly, slowly, like the Queen Mary sinking in the River Harb, dropping to the floor in a curious mixture of titantic collapse and fragile gracefulness.

O'Brien was already crouched over Sokolin in the corner. Meyer wiped his brow.

"How is he?"

"He's hurt," O'Brien answered. "But he isn't dead."

"I knew there'd be shooting," Meyer said simply. He turned to where Cotton Hawes lay on the floor in his rocking-horse position. "Well, well," he said, "what have we here? Take a look at this, Bob."

"Get me out of these ropes," Hawes said.

"It talks, Bob," Meyer said. "Why, I do believe it's a talking dog. Now isn't that a curiosity!"

"Come on, Meyer," Hawes pleaded, and Meyer saw his battered face for the first time, and quickly stooped to cut the binding ropes. Hawes rose. Massaging his wrists and ankles, he said, "You got here just in the nick."

"The Marines always arrive on time," Meyer said.

"And the U.S. Cavalry," O'Brien answered. He glanced at the blonde. "She's got crazy legs," he said.

The men studied her appreciatively for a moment.

"So," Meyer said at last, "I guess this is it. We'll need the meat wagon for that joker, won't we?"

"Yeah," O'Brien said listlessly.

"You want to make the call, Bob?"

"Yeah, okay."

He left the room. Meyer walked to the blonde and clamped his handcuffs onto her wrists. With a married man's dispassionate aloofness, he studied her exposed legs for the last time, and then pulled down her skirt. "There," he said. "Decency and morality prevail once more. She had a wild look in her eye, that one. I wouldn't have wanted to mess with her."

"I did," Hawes said.

"Mmm." Meyer looked at his face. "I think maybe we got another passenger for the meat wagon. You don't look exactly beautiful, dear lad."

"I don't feel exactly beautiful," Hawes said.

Meyer holstered his revolver. "Nothing like a little excitement on a Sunday, is there?"

"What the hell are you kicking about?" Hawes asked. "This is my day off."

'Til Death, 1959