Free The Empty Hours by Ed McBain Page B

“You cashed a check for Miss Claudia Davis sometime in July. An
insurance-company check for twenty-five thousand dollars. Would you happen to
remember it?”
     
    “No,
sir, I don’t think I handled it.”
     
    “Would
you check around and see who did, please?”
     
    The
girl held a brief consultation with the other girls, and then walked to a desk
behind which sat a corpulent, balding man with a razor-thin mustache. They
talked with each other for a full five minutes. The man kept waving his hands.
The girl kept trying to explain about the insurance-company check. The bell
over the front door sounded. Bert Kling came in, looked around, saw Carella,
and joined him at the counter.
     
    “All
done?” Carella asked.
     
    “Yeah,
I bought her a charm for her bracelet. How about you?”
     
    “They’re
holding a summit meeting,” Carella said.
     
    The fat
man waddled over to the counter. “What is the trouble?” he asked Carella.
     
    “No
trouble. Did you cash a check for twenty-five thousand dollars?”
     
    “Yes.
Is the check no good?”
     
    “It’s a
good check.”
     
    “It
looked like a good check. It was an insurance-company check. The young lady
waited while we called the company. They said it was bona fide and we should
accept it. Was it a bad check?”
     
    “No,
no, it was fine.”
     
    “She
had identification. It all seemed very proper.”
     
    “What
did she show you?”
     
    “A
driver’s license or a passport is what we usually require. But she had neither.
We accepted her birth certificate. After all, we did call the company.
Is the check no good?”
     
    “It’s
fine. But the check was for twenty-five thousand, and we’re trying to find out
what happened to five thousand of . . .”
     
    “Oh,
yes. The francs.”
     
    “What?”
     
    “She
bought five thousand dollars’ worth of French francs,” the fat man said. “She
was going abroad?”
     
    “Yes,
she was going abroad,” Carella said. He sighed heavily. “Well, that’s that. I
guess.”
     
    “It all
seemed very proper,” the fat man insisted.
     
    “Oh, it
was, it was. Thank you. Come on, Bert.”
     
    They
walked down Hall Avenue in si lence.
     
    “Beats
me,” Carella said.
     
    “What’s
that, Steve?”
     
    “This
case.” He sighed again. “Oh, what the hell!”
     
    “Yeah,
let’s get some coffee. What was all that business about the francs?”
     
    “She
bought five thousand dollars’ worth of francs,” Carella said.
     
    “The
French are getting a big play lately, huh?” Kling said, smiling. “Here’s a
place. This look okay?”
     
    “Yeah,
fine.” Carella pulled open the door of the luncheonette. “What do you mean,
Bert?”
     
    “With
the francs.”
     
    “What
about them?”
     
    “The
exchange rate must be very good.”
     
    “I don’t
get you.”
     
    “You
know. All those francs kicking around.”
     
    “Bert, what
the hell are you talking about?”
     
    “Weren’t
you with me? Last Wednesday?”
     
    “With
you where?”
     
    “The
line-up. I thought you were with me.”
     
    “No, I
wasn’t,” Carella said tiredly.
     
    “Oh,
well, that’s why.”
     
    “That’s
why what? Bert, for the love of. . .”
     
    “That’s
why you don’t remember him.”
     
    “Who?”
     
    “The
punk they brought in on that burglary pickup. They found five grand in French
francs in his apartment.”
     
    Carella
felt as if he’d just been hit by a truck.
     
    * * * *

 
     
    16
     
     
    It had been crazy from the
beginning. Some of them are like that. The girl had looked black, but she was
really white. They thought she was Claudia Davis, but she was Josie Thompson.
And they had been looking for a murderer when all there happened to be was a
burglar.
     
    They
brought him up from his cell where he was awaiting trial for Burglary One. He
came up in an elevator with a police escort. The police van had dropped him
off at the side door of the Criminal Courts Building, and he had