Free Bread (87th Precinct) by Ed McBain

the hallway a moment longer, debating whether he should go through this routine with every apartment in the building, and finally decided to go find a cop. He found one up the block, near the corner, a black patrolman turning off the fire hydrant there with a monkey wrench. Kids in swimming trunks danced around him as the patrolman worked, sweating in his blue uniform, armpits stained. They shouted at him, and taunted him, and splashed their feet in the curbside puddles, hoping to get him as wet as they were, but he steadfastly turned the octagonal brass fitting until the stream of water became a trickle and then stopped entirely. He screwed both heavy iron caps back onto the hydrant, and then fitted a new lock into place, a lock that would be broken before the day was out, just as its predecessor had been broken.
    “You want to use the hydrants, go get a spray attachment,” he said to the assembled kids.
    “Go hump your mother,” one of the kids said.
    “I already humped yours,” the patrolman answered, and began walking up the block toward the next hydrant.
    Hawes fell into step beside him. “Got a minute?” he said, and flashed his detective’s shield.
    “What’s up?” the patrolman asked.
    “I’m looking for a man named Charles Harrod, 1512 Kruger. Would you know what apartment he’s in?”
    “Harrod, Harrod,” the patrolman said. “Big guy, white Cadillac, tailor-made suits, knife scar down the left side of his face. That the one?”
    “Sounds like him.”
    “Building near the pool parlor,” the patrolman said. “Is that 1512?”
    “That’s 1512.”
    “He lives on the top floor, I don’t know the apartment number. There’s only two apartments on each floor, so you can’t go wrong.”
    “Thanks, pal,” Hawes said.
    “Don’t mention it,” the patrolman said, and walked off carrying his monkey wrench. Up the block, the kids had already seen him coming and were already starting to chant.
    Hawes went back to the building. Inside the church next door, the congregation had begun singing. The fat man on the stoop was tapping his foot in time to the music. He knocked over the Coke bottle and bent to pick it up as Hawes went past him again and into the dark vestibule. The heat on the upper stories of the building was stifling. Hawes reached the sixth floor and knocked on the door nearest to the stairwell. There was no answer. He knocked again, and this time a voice said, “Who’s there?” The voice was pitched very low; he could not tell if it belonged to a man or a woman.
    “Charlie?” he said.
    “Charlie ain’t here right now,” the voice said. “Who’s that, anyway?”
    “Police officer,” Hawes said. “Mind opening the door?”
    “Go away,” the voice said.
    “I’ve got a warrant for the arrest of Charles Harrod,” Hawes lied. “Open the door, or I’ll kick it in.”
    “Just a minute,” the voice said.
    Hawes moved against the wall to the side of the door—just in case the voice inside was Charlie Harrod’s, and just in case Harrod had shot Frank Reardon to death, and just in case his lie about the warrant resulted in a fusillade of bullets through the wooden door. He unbuttoned his jacket and cleared his holster. Footsteps were approaching the door. The door opened wide.
    A young black girl was standing in the doorway, backlighted with strong sunlight that blazed through an open kitchen window. She was wearing dungarees and a pink halter top. She was tall and slender, with long narrow fingers and an Afro hairdo that billowed from her head like a cloud of smoke. Her eyes were brown and savvy and distrustful and angry. In her low, hoarse voice, she immediately asked, “Where’s the warrant?”
    “I haven’t got one,” Hawes said. “Does Charles Harrod…?”
    “Goodbye,” the girl said, and started to close the door.
    Hawes stuck his foot into it. “Don’t make me go all the way downtown for one, honey,” he said. “I get mean as hell when I have to go to all