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“From the woman”
“What woman?”
“Cynthia Keating,” Holden said, and hooked his thumbs into his vest pockets “She's ratted you out”
Palmer looked at him
“But if you had nothing to do with this”
“Just a ave them the name of someone I ith”
“The other es Who killed her father”
“Well, the only one / know is Charlie He's the one I ith I may have mentioned his name to her In casual conversation If so, she must have contacted him on her own”
“Ah,” Holden said, and nodded “To ask if he ht know anyone who'd help kill her father, is that it?”
“Well, II'm sure I don't knohat she asked him” ,
“Called London to arrange his murder, is that how you see it?”
“I don't see it any way at all I' to explain”
“Yes, that you, personally, had nothing to do with this”
“Nothing whatever”
"So Mrs Keating is lying to them Has lied to them, in fact She's accepted a deal, you see They've dropped the conspiracy charge and lowered the ree Twenty to life, with a recommendation
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Ed McBain
for parole“ Holden paused ”They ain, perhaps not"
Palmer looked at him
“Because of the related murder”
Pal at him
“They seem to think you did that one personally The old lady Martha Coleridge I have no idea where she fits into the scheiarism suit Do you know the woman I mean?”
“Yes,” Palmer said
“That would constitute a second count of first-degree murder,” Holden said, and stroked his mustache “So I doubt if they'd offer you the same deal, after all”
“I' for a deal”
“Why should you be? You haven't done anything”
“That's right”
“I'll just tell theet it”
“Of course They have no proof”
“Well, they have the woman's confession Which ifor him now, apparently In Euston He lives in Euston”
Palain
“You won't be granted bail, you realize,” Holden said “You're a foreigner i In fact, till the dust settles one way or another, they'll want your passport” He sighed heavily, said, “Well, I'll see about finding a lawyer for you,” and went to the corner where he'd hung his overcoat Shrugging into it, buttoning it, his back to Pal tooffer them, would you?”
“How do you mean?”
Holden turned toward him
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The Last Dance
“Well,” he said, “I must tell you, with the woh for an indicto worse for you if they catch up with the Jaot a quite decent case”
“But I haven't done anything”
“Right Keep forgetting that Sorry Let me talk to theain, and said, “You wouldn't know anything about this little black girl who got stabbed up in Diamondback, would you?”
Palmer merely looked at him
“Althea Cleary? Because they like to tidy things up, you see If you can tell the to implicate you in it, by the way, they seem to think the Jauirl, lost his temper Whatever” His voice lowered “But if heabout it to youperhaps before he went back to Londonit ht be worth a deal, hm?”
Pal
His voice almost a whisper, Holden said, “He's just a Yardie, y'know”
Palme'r sat as still as a stone
“Well, I suppose not,” Holden said
It suddenly occurred to him that the man was simply very stupid
He sighed again, and went out of the room
In the squadrooht have happened to Althea Cleary
“She takes the Jaested "He drops the rope in her drink, figures he's ho for it to take effect,
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Ed McBam
she casually onna cost him two bills He's offended because he's never had to pay for it in his life, male or female So he stabs her"
“That's possible,” Brown said, “but you're forgetting so”
“What's that?”
“He's gay”
“He's bi”
“He thinks he's bi”
“He wouldn'ta been there if he wasn't bi,” Parker insisted
“He gets into the apartment,” Brown said, undaunted, “drops the pills, and starts ay She doesn't excite him He can't perform So he loses his temper and jukes her”
“Well, that's a possibility,” Meyer said, “but so else could've happened, too”
“What's that?”
“Bridges drops the pills, right? Fivefunny She accuses hirabs a knife from the counter, lets her have it”
“Yeah, ets in the apartment”
“Who's for pizza?” Parker asked
“They profile a Yardie as soed or stolen British passport,” Carella said “Usually—but not necessarily—he's a black hteen and thirty-five He's either got a record already”
“Does Bridges have one?” Byrnes asked
"Nobody by that name in their files They said he may be a new kid on the block, there's a constant flow Most of
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The Last Dance
the rope would've been a walk in the park for him"
“Is he wanted for anything?”
“Not by the Brits Not so far, anyway”
“Give him time,” Byrnes said
“Meanwhile, he's running around London someplace”
“Or Manchester”
“Or wherever Actually, we don't need hih”
“Conspiracy and the overt act, yes”
“Which she's already got”
“So let the Queen's mother worry,” Byrnes said
Ollie felt very nervous, like a teenager about to ask for a first date He dialed the nu three, four, five
“Hello?”
“Miss Hobson?” he said
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Weeks We talked about piano lessons, do you remember?”
"No Detective whoT
“Weeks Oliver Wendell Weeks I was investigating theOllie, they sometimes call s, remember?”
“Oh Yes,” she said
“I still do”
“I see,” she said
“I got a list we can pick from,” he said
“Did you find him?”
“Who do you mean, Miss Hobson?”
“Whoever killed Althea”
"He's in London just now We're leaving it to the
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Ed McBain
bobbies there, they're supposed to be very good When can we start, Miss Hobson?"
“That depends on which songs you want to learn”
“Oh, they're easy ones, don't worry”
“That's so reassuring,” she said drily “But which ones are they exactly?”
“Guess,” he said, and grinned into the mouthpiece
They had no idea they were in the middle of a race riot until it was full upon the television and drifting off to sleep, Kling knowing he was due back in the squadroo her day would start at about the sa an explosion, each surprised when it came
A panel of talking heads was offering its collective opinion on the war, the election, the wedding, the crash, the trial, the disaster, the gah merely to present the news, you then had to have half a dozen cohts on what the news had just been all about Over the background din, Kling was telling Sharyn there'd been an extraordinary nu on other people in this case they'd just wrapped, a veritable chorus of rats singing to whoever would listen, when all at once a blond wo about the “so-called blue wall of silence,” and Sharyn said, “Shhh,” and someone else on the panel, a blackin the Milagros case if the victim had been white, and someone else, a whiteabout is a uys I ain, when all he'd
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The Last Dance
wanted to say was that Hector Milagros had been given up by Maxie Blaine who'd been given up by Betty Young in a case virtually defined by perpetual snitchery
“You don't knohether those men ent in there hite or black!” someone on the panel shouted
“You don't even know if they were actually copsl” someone else shouted
“They were cops and they hitel”
“I'll bet they were,” so fro fro's He turned to look at her
The blonde on television very calmly said, “I do not believe that any police officer in this city wouldThe police”
“Oh, come off it,” Sharyn said
“simply don't knoent in there, that's all If they knew”
On the television set, the black uy who let them in knows”
“Every cop in this city knows,” Sharyn said
“I don't,” Kling said
And now there was a veritable Babel of voices pouring fro invective that rose higher and higher in volume and passion
“Instead oftheir ridiculous posture of”
“There are black cops, too, you know I don't see any of them”
“Would you come forward if?”
“You're asking them to be rats”
“It's not infor if the person ”
“Milagros was in custody!”
“He's a criminal!”
“So are the cops who beat him up!”
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Ed McBam
“A murderer!”
“almost killed him!”
“He's blackl”
“Here we go,” Kling said
“That's why they beat him up!”
“Hang on, honey,” Sharyn said
Together, they huddled against the angry voices
At last, Kling said, “Wanna dance?”
278
About the Author
Ed McBain is the only Aer, the British Crihest award He also holds the Mystery Writers of America's coveted Grand Master Award His books have sold over one hundrednovel, The Blackboard Jungle, to the recent bestseller Privileged Conversation, both written under his own name, Evan Hunter, which he used on his screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds HisBad City He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Dragica
279
Copyright © 2000 by Hui Corporation
The right of Ed McBain to be identified as the Author
of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by Hodder
and Stoughton
First published in paperback in 2000 by Hodder and Stoughton A division of Hodder Headline
A New English Library Paperback 10 98765432 I
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any for or cover other than that in which it is published and without a si imposed on the subsequent purchaser
All characters in this publication are fictitious
and any rese or dead
is purely coincidental
McBain, Ed, 1926 -The last dance
I8yth Precinct (Iinary place)-Fiction 2Detective and mystery stories ITitle 8i3-5'4tF]
isbno 340 72806 XL
Typeset by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,
Polshire
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
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This, yet another time, is for my wife— DRAGICA DIMITRIJEVIC-HUNTER
winner of v
the crime writers'association/ -
cartier diaer award '
Ain what appears to be a suicide But Carella and coed and unconscious, he could not possibly have hanged hiation takes them into the politics and passions of a musical in preparation Or rather' two: one that happened half a century ago and one that is happening rjow
'One oi the masters oi crime fiction'
? sunday telegraph - :
'McBain is so good he ought to be arrested' ;
publishers weekly " •-'!
'When it coolden ear'
I new york times book review • •
'A virtuoso'
Many of Ed McBain's dazzling lish Library paperbacks - the latest 87th Precinct stories are The Big Bad City and Nocturne The Last Best Hope features Florida detective Matthew Hope Have you read thern ajl?
0059'
NEW ENGLISH LIBRARY Fiction: Crime
Author photograph by Dragica Dimitrijevic
Cover Photographs Tony Stone Ies
ISBN 0-340-72806-X