Free The Mugger by Ed McBain Page A

because he truly loved autumn. It was strange, he supposed, because autumn was a time of dying, summer going quietly to rest, dying leaves, and dying days, and…
    Dying girls.
    He shook the thought aside. On the corner opposite the junior high, a hot dog cart stood, and the proprietor wore a white apron, and he owned a moustache and a bright smile, and he dipped his fork into the steaming frankfurter pot and then into the sauerkraut pot, and then he put the fork down and took the round stick from the mustard jar and spread the mustard and handed the completed masterpiece to a girl of no more than fourteen who stood near the cart. She paid for the frankfurter, and there was pure joy on her face as she bit into it, and Kling watched her and then walked on.
    A dog darted into the gutter, leaping and frisking, chasing a rubber ball that had bounced from the sidewalk. A car skidded to a stop, tires screeching, and the driver shook his head and then smiled unconsciously when he saw the happy pup.
    The leaves fell toward the pavement, oranges and reds and yellows and russets and browns and pale golds, and they covered the sidewalks with crunching mounds. He listened to the rasp of the leaves underfoot as he walked, and he sucked in the brisk fall air, and he thought, It isn’t fair; she had so much living to do.
    A cold wind came up when he hit the avenue. He started for the elevated station, and the wind rushed through the jacket he wore, touching the marrow of his bones.
    The voices of the junior-high-school kids were far behind him now, up De Witt Street, drowned in the controlled shriek of the new wind.
    He wondered if it would rain.
    The wind howled around him, and it spoke of secret tangled places, and it spoke of death, and he was suddenly colder than he’d been before, and he wished for the comforting warmth of a coat collar, because a chill suddenly worked its way up his spine to settle at the back of his neck like a cold, dead fish.
    He walked to the station and climbed the steps, and curiously, he was thinking of Jeannie Paige.

The girl’s legs were crossed.
    She sat opposite Willis and Byrnes in the lieutenant’s office on the second floor of the 87th Precinct. They were good legs. The skirt reached to just a shade below her knees, and Willis could not help noticing they were good legs. Sleek and clean, full-calved, tapering to slender ankles, enhanced by the high-heeled black-patent pumps.
    The girl was a redhead, and that was good. Red hair is obvious hair. The girl had a pretty face, with a small Irish nose and green eyes. She listened to the men in serious silence, and you could feel intelligence on her face and in her eyes. Occasionally, she sucked in a deep breath, and when she did, the severe cut of her suit did nothing to hide the sloping curve of her breast.
    The girl earned $5,555 a year. The girl had a .38 in her purse.
    The girl was a detective/2nd grade, and her name was Eileen Burke, as Irish as her nose.
    “You don’t have to take this one if you don’t want it, Miss Burke,” Byrnes said.
    “It sounds interesting,” Eileen answered.
    “Hal—Willis’ll be following close behind all the way, you understand. But that’s no guarantee he can get to you in time should anything happen.”
    “I understand that, sir,” Eileen said.
    “And Clifford isn’t such a gentleman,” Willis said. “He’s beaten, and he’s killed. Or at least we think so. It might not be such a picnic.”
    “We don’t think he’s armed, but he used something on his last job, and it wasn’t his fist. So you see, Miss Burke—”
    “What we’re trying to tell you,” Willis said, “is that you needn’t feel any compulsion to accept this assignment. We would understand completely were you to refuse it.”
    “Are you trying to talk me into this or out of it?” Eileen asked.
    “We’re simply asking you to make your own decision. We’re sending you out as a sitting duck, and we feel—”
    “I won’t be such a