Long Time No See by Ed McBain Page A

were playing around.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Call her.”
    Preston went to the door and opened it. He looked out into the corridor, and then turned back to look at Carella again. Carella nodded. Preston went into the corridor and shouted, “Sylvia?”
    From somewhere in the apartment she answered, “Yes, Frank?”
    “Sylvia, Mr. Carella wants to use the phone…Come in here a minute, will you?”
    “Yes, Frank.”
    “The phone’s in the bedroom,” Preston said. “Down the hall.”
    “Thank you,” Carella said.
    As he walked down the corridor Mrs. Preston came around the bend in the L. “It’s in the bedroom,” she said.
    “Yes, thank you,” he said, and went into the bedroom and waited until he saw Preston and his wife entering the television room at the end of the hall. He closed the door then, and went directly to where the phone was resting on a night table alongside the bed. The elevated train rattled along the tracks a block away. Through the windows at the end of the room, he saw it moving against the sky, black against the cold gray of November. There was something oddly evocative about the sight of it. A toy train somewhere? The house in Riverhead when he was a boy. His father’s rich laughter.
    He watched the train, and forgot for a moment that he was here to learn about murder. He kept watching it until it rumbled into the platform, and then he picked up the telephone receiver and dialed 411 for information. When the operator came on, he asked for the Golden Inn on Culver, and she gave him the number. He dialed it at once. Through the windows he could see the train moving away from the platform. A library. Something. Walking to the library with books under his arm. The elevated train overhead. Snow on the pavement.
    “Golden Inn, good morning,” a man’s voice said.
    “Good morning, this is Detective Carella, police department.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I’d appreciate it if you’d check your register for a couple that may have been there this past Thursday, that would have been November eighteenth.”
    “Sir?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll have to call you back on that.”
    “I’m not at the office.”
    “Well, it’s…How do I know you’re a policeman?”
    “Call the 87th Squad, here’s the number, and ask whoever’s there if a Detective Carella works there. That’s Frederick 7-8024. Then call me back here as soon as you’ve checked—the number here is Westmore 6-2275. Have you got both those numbers?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Do it fast, please.”
    “Yes, sir, I’ll do it right this minute.”
    “Good,” Carella said, and hung up.
    He waited. Another train pulled into the elevated platform. He waited. The train pulled out. He looked at his watch. On the dresser opposite the bed, there was a picture of Frank and Sylvia Preston, taken when they were much younger. There were pictures of grown children, presumably theirs. There was a wedding picture of two young people Carella assumed were also children of the Prestons. The sweep hand on the electric dresser clock wiped the dial relentlessly. Another train pulled into the station. Carella sighed. He waited. The train rumbled out again. Exasperated, he picked up the receiver and dialed the motel.
    “Golden Inn, good morning.”
    “Good morning, this is Detective Carella again. Did you check with the squad?”
    “Sir, the phone rang the minute I hung up, I haven’t had a chance to—”
    “What’s your name?” Carella asked.
    “Gary Otis.”
    “All right, Mr. Otis, listen to me,” Carella said. “This is a homicide I’m investigating here, and I haven’t got time for you to go checking all over the city to see whether I’m a bona fide cop or not. My name is—have you got a pencil?—Stephen Louis Carella, that’s Stephen with a p-h, I’m a detective second/grade working out of the 87th Squad in Isola. My shield number is 714-56-32, and my commanding officer’s name is Detective-Lieutenant Peter Byrnes. Have you got all