Free The Con Man by Ed McBain Page A

Havilland’s face, and he didn’t like Havilland’s hand on his arm.
    “Where you going on your vacation, kid?” Havilland asked. “You don’t want to waste that nice cool month of June, do you? Remember, it gets to be summer along about the twenty-first. Where you going, huh?”
    “We haven’t decided yet,” Kling said.
    “We? We? You going with somebody?”
    “I’m going with my fiancée,” Kling said tightly.
    “Your girl, huh?” Havilland said. He winked at Meyer, including him in a secret fraternity that Meyer did not feel like joining.
    “Yes,” Kling said. “My girl.”
    “Whatever you do,” Havilland said, winking at Kling this time, “don’t take her out of the state.”
    “Why not?” Kling asked, the implication escaping him for a moment, immediately sorry as soon as Havilland opened his mouth in reply.
    “Why, the Mann Act, kid!” Havilland said. “Watch out for those state lines.”
    Kling stared at Havilland and then said, “How would you like a punch in the mouth, Havilland?”
    “Oh, Jesus!” Havilland roared. “The kid breaks me up! There’s nothing dishonest about screwing, kid, unless you cross a state line!”
    “Lay off, Rog,” Meyer said.
    “What’s the matter?” Havilland asked. “I envy the kid. Vacation in June, and a sweet little shack-up waiting for—”
    “Lay off!” Meyer said, more loudly this time. He had seen the spark of sudden anger in Kling’s eyes, and he had seen the involuntary clenching of Kling’s right fist. Havilland outweighed and outreached Kling, and Havilland was not famous for the purity of his fighting tactics. Meyer did not want blood on the squadroom floor—not Kling’s blood, anyway.
    “Nobody’s got any sense of humor in this dump,” Havilland said surlily. “You got to have a sense of humor here, or you don’t survive.”
    “Go help Brown with his con man troubles,” Meyer said.
    “Brown ain’t got no humor, either,” Havilland said, and he stalked off.
    “That big turd,” Kling said. “Someday…”
    “Well,” Meyer said, his eyes twinkling, “in a sense, he’s right. The Mann Act is a serious thing. Very serious.”
    Kling looked at him. Meyer had used almost the same words as Havilland, but somehow, there was a difference. “A very serious thing,” he answered. “I’ll be careful, Meyer.”
    “Caution is the watchword,” Meyer said, grinning.
    “The truth is,” Kling said, “this damn June tenth spot might screw things up. Claire goes to college, you know. She may be in the middle of finals or something right then.”
    “You been planning on this for some time?” Meyer asked.
    “Yeah,” Kling said, thinking of the June 10 spot, and hoping it would jibe with Claire’s schedule, and wondering what he could do about it if it didn’t.
    Meyer nodded sympathetically. “Is it a special occasion?” he asked. “Your going away together, I mean?”
    Kling, immersed in his thoughts, answered automatically, forgetting he was talking to a fellow cop. “Yes,” he said. “We’re in love.”
    “The trouble with you,” Havilland said to Brown, “is you’re in love with your work.”
    “I spend almost all my waking hours in this room,” Brown said. “It’d be a sad goddamn thing if I didn’t like what I was doing.”
    “It wouldn’t be sad at all,” Havilland said. “I hate being a cop.”
    “Then why don’t you quit the force?” Brown asked flatly.
    “They need me too much,” Havilland said.
    “Sure.”
    “They do. This squad would go to pieces in a week if I wasn’t around to hold its hand.”
    “Hold this a while,” Brown said.
    “Crime would flourish,” Havilland continued, unfazed. “The city would be overrun by cheap thieves.”
    “Roger Havilland, Protector of the People,” Brown said.
    “That’s me,” Havilland confessed.
    “Here, Protector,” Brown said, “take a look at this.”
    “What?”
    “This RKC card. How does it look to you?”
    “What am I supposed to