Free Cop Hater by Ed McBain

to in the neighborhood as Danny Gimp. Even his letters came addressed that way.
    Danny was fifty-four years old, but it was impossible to judge his age from his face or his body. He was very small, small all over, his bones, his features, his eyes, his stature. He moved with the loose-hipped walk of an adolescent, and his voice was high and reedy, and his face bore hardly any wrinkles or other telltale signs of age.
    Danny Gimp was a stool pigeon.
    He was a very valuable man, and the men of the 87th Precinct called him in regularly, and Danny was always ready to comply—whenever he could. It was a rare occasion when Danny could not supply the piece of information the bulls were looking for. On these occasions, there were other stool-ies to talk to. Somewhere, somebody had the goods. It was simply a question of finding the right man at the right time.
    Danny could usually be found in the third booth on the right hand side of a bar named Andy's Pub. He was not an alcoholic, nor did he even drink to excess. He simply used the bar as a sort of office. It was cheaper than paying rent someplace downtown, and it had the added attraction of a phone booth which he used regularly. The bar, too, was a good place to listen—and listening was one-half of Danny's business. The other half was talking.
    He sat opposite Carella and Bush, and first he listened.
    Then he talked.
    "Dizzy Ordiz," be said. "Yeah, yeah."
    "You know where he is?"
    "What'd he do?"
    "We don't know."
    "Last I heard, he was on the state."
    "He got out at the beginning of the month."
    "Parole?"
    "No."
    "Ordiz, Ordiz. Oh, yeah. He's a junkie."
    "That's right."
    "Should be easy to locate. What'd he do?"
    "Maybe nothing," Bush said. "Maybe a hell of a lot."
    "Oh, you thinking of these cop kills?" Danny asked.
    Bush shrugged.
    "Not Ordiz. You're barkin' up the wrong tree."
    "What makes you say so?"
    Danny sipped at his beer, and then glanced up at the rotating fan. "You'd never know there was a fan going in this dump, would you? Jesus, this heat don't break soon, I'm headin' for Canada. I got a friend up there. Quebec. You ever been to Quebec?"
    "No," Bush said.
    "Nice there. Cool."
    "What about Ordiz?"
    "Take him with, me, he wants to come," Danny said, and then he began laughing at his own joke.
    "He's cute today," Carella said.
    "I'm cute all the time," Danny said. "I got more dames lined up outside my room than you can count on an abacus. I'm the cutest."
    "We didn't know you was pimping," Bush said.
    "I ain't. This is all for love."
    "How much love you got for Ordiz?"
    "Don't know him from a hole in the wall. Don't care to, either. Hopheads make me puke."
    "Okay, then where is he?"
    "I don't know yet. Give me some time."
    "How much time?"
    "Hour, two hours. Junkies are easy to trace. Talk to a few pushers, zing, you're in. He got out the beginning of the month, huh? That means he's back on it strong by now. This should be a cinch."
    "He may have kicked it," Carella said. "It may not be such a cinch."-
    "They never kick it," Danny said. "Don't pay attention to fairy tales. He was probably gettin' the stuff sneaked in even up the river. I'll find him. But if you think he knocked off your buddies, you're wrong."
    "Why?"
    "I seen this jerk around. He's a nowhere. A real trom-benik, if you dig foreign. He don't know enough to come in out of an atom bomb attack. He got one big thing hi his life. Horse. That's Ordiz. He lives for the White God. Only thing on his mind."
    "Reardon and Foster sent him away," Carella said.
    "So what? You think a junkie bears a grudge? All part of the game. He ain't got time for grudges. He only got time for meetin' his pusher and makin' the buy. This guy Ordiz, he was always half-blind on the stuff. He couldn't see straight enough to shoot off his own big toe. So he's gonna cool two cops? Don't be ridic."
    "We'd like to see him, anyway," Bush said.
    "Sure. Do I tell you how to run headquarters? Am I the commissioner? But this guy is from