“What book deal?” Carella asked.
“Man from a publisher here in the city came to see me, offered me a whole bunch of money for my life story. Not as much as they gave Hillary, but a goodly sum of money anyhow. I figured I ought to take it.”
“Are you free to say howmuch money?” Carella asked.
“A million-five,” Will said.
“That’s a goodly sum of money, all right,” Carella said.
“I guess there’s more than one way to make a killing, after all, huh?”
“I guess so,” Carella said.
HE STOPPED AT his mother’s house on the way home.
The front walk had been shoveled clean, he wondered who had shoveled it for her. He rang the doorbell, and heard chimes sounding inside, and then her voice calling, “Just a minute.” He waited.
When she opened the door, he almost burst into tears.
He had seen her only two days ago, but she seemed so suddenly old all at once.
He took her in his arms.
They hugged.
“Are you okay, son?” his mother asked.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“I love you, Steve,” she said.
“I love you, too, Mom.”
They sat at the kitchen table the way they used to when he was a boy eating breakfast before heading off to school, sat there now drinking coffee, and he told her he’d just come from an arraignment on what was going to shape up as a very difficult case, but at least they’d got past the first two hurdles. It was a miracle they’d managed to get the guy arraigned at all, and whereas they were hoping at best for bail in the millions, the judge had denied bail altogether, which was very good for their side. He told her all this sitting at the kitchen table, the way he used to sit there after school when he was a kid, drinking his milk and telling her everything that had happened that day.
She asked him what he and Teddy would be doing tonight, and he told her they’d be staying home with the kids, before you knew it Mark and April would be old enough to go to New Year’s Eve parties on their own, might as well enjoy the few years they still had left with them. His mother asked him if Teddy would be making lentils for the new year, it was good luck to serve cold lentils when the clock struck twelve, and he told her he remembered how she used to do that when he was a boy…
“Well, I still do it,” his mother said.
“I know, Mom. I’ll tell Teddy.”
“Tell her,” his mother said. “It’s good luck, really.”
They both fell suddenly silent.
He could hear the clock ticking in the living room.
He remembered his father winding that clock every Sunday night.
“Well,” he said, and there was nothing left to say except that he was sorry.
“I love you, Mom,” he said. “If you want to get married, I’ll lead you down the aisle. Angela, too, I love you both, I’m sorry I behaved like a shit. I think maybe it was the lion, I think Ange was right, I think that lion scrambled my brains. But there are no more lions now, I’m okay now, I promise you. I’m cool with it, really. I love you both, I’m sorry, life’s too damn short, I love you.”
They hugged again.
At the front door, she reminded him that the lentils had to be served at midnight, not before.
“For luck in the new year,” she said.
“I’ll remember,” he said.
“Good luck with your case,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom.”
He was starting for the car when he turned to her and said, “Mom?”
She was just about to close the door.
“Mom?” he said again.
“Yes, son?”
“Say hello to …uh … Luigi for me, okay?”
“Yes, son,” she said. “I’ll say hello.”
“Don’t forget now, okay?”
“I won’t forget.”
“Happy New Year, Mom.”
“Happy New Year, Steve.”
He waved, and nodded, and then turned and walked swiftly to where he’d parked the car.
Bad Money a novel by Oliver Wendell Weeks
It was a dark and stormy night.
Detective/First Grade Oswald Wesley Watts wasn’t overly fond of this section of the city because a lot of Negroes lived here, and they could infrequently be dangerous. On the other hand, “Big Ozzie Watts” as he was affectionately known to the residents of Rubytown, was here on an errand of mercy.
An evil individual was using government funds to enslave these oppressed folk, just the way the British had done in Japan, turning the entire populace into a nation of junkies before the Opium War put an end to that little gambit. Someone in this building was involved in the purchase and recycling of narcotics like cocaine. In police work, this illicit drug was called a “controlled substance.” It was sold in what was known as “keys,” which was an underworld expression for “kilograms.” A kilogram was 2.2 pounds. “Big Ozzie” knew all this valuable information because he had been a highly decorated (for bravery) law enforcement officer for a good many years now.
Tall and handsome, broad of shoulder and wide of chest, slender of waist and fleet of foot, Detective “Big Ozzie” Watts, pistol in hand (a nine-millimeter semi-automatic Glock, by the way), boldly climbed the steps to the fourth floor of the reeking tenement and knocked on the door to apartment 4C. The sound of music came from somewhere inside the apartment. Its noisome beat filled the hallway tremblingly. He heard the stammering click of high-heeled shoes approaching the door.
The woman who opened the door was a very gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old blonde, thirty-six, twenty-two, thirty-four, wearing a long green gown slit up the side to show her extremely curvaceous thigh. Leaning against the door jamb, the gown’s quite low neckline exposed fulsome white creamy breasts. She smiled dazzlingly out into the hall.
“Hello, Detective Watts,” she exclaimed.
“So, Mother,” he retorted. “We meet again.”
ED MCBAIN is the only American ever to receive the Diamond Dagger, the British Crime Writers Association’s highest award. He also holds the Mystery Writers of America’s prestigious Grand Master Award. His most recent 87th Precinct novel wasThe Last Dance.Under his own name—Evan Hunter—his writing career has spanned almost five decades, from his first novel,The Blackboard Jungle, in 1954, to the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’sThe Birds, toCandyland,his most recent novel, written in tandem with his alter ego, Ed McBain.