Read Ed McBain_87th Precinct 47 for Free Online

Well, actually, he’s an agent.”
    “Would anyone have reason to be jealous of him?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Or want to get back at him for something? Through you?”
    “Gee, I don’t think so.”
    “Do you get along with all the people involved in this play?”
    “Oh, sure. Well, you know, there are little… ”
    “Sure.”
    “… tiffs and such. But for the most part, we get along fine.”
    “How many people
are
there?”
    “In the cast? Just four of us, really. Speaking roles, any-way. The rest of the people are sort of extras. Four actors do
     all the other parts.”
    “So that’s eight altogether.”
    “Plus all the technical people. I mean, this is a
play.
It takes lots of people to put on a play.”
    “And you say you get along with all of them.”
    “Yes.”
    “This man who calls you … do you recognize his voice, by any chance?”
    “No.”
    “Doesn’t sound at all familiar, him?”
    “No.”
    “Yeah, well, I didn’t think it would. But sometimes …”
    “Well, he doesn’t sound like anyone I
know,
if that’s what you mean.
Personally, I
mean. If that’s what you mean.”
    “Yes, that’s what I …”
    “But he
does
sound familiar.”
    “Oh ?“
    “He sounds like Jack Nicholson.”
    “Jack … ?”
    “The actor.”
    “ Oh .“
    “That same sort of voice.”
    “I see. But you don’t
know
Jack Nicholson personally, is what you’re …”
    “I
wish
I knew him,” she said, and rolled her eyes.
    “But you don’t.”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “The caller just
sounds
like Jack Nicholson.”
    “Or somebody trying to
imitate
Jack Nicholson.”
    “I don’t suppose you know anyone who does Jack Nicholson imitations, do you?
    “Yes, I do,” she said.
    “You do?” he said, and leaned across the desk toward her. “Who?”
    “Everybody.”
    “I meant
personally.
Anyone in your circle of friends or… ?”
    “No.”
    “Can you think of anyone at
all
who might want to harm you, Miss Cassidy?”
    “No, I can’t. I’m sorry.”
    “I don’t suppose you have caller ID, do you?”
    “I sure don’t,” she said.
    “Well,” he said, “let me talk this over with some of the other detectives, get their opinion, run it by the lieutenant, see
     if he thinks we can get a court order for a trap-and-trace. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
    “I wish you would,” she said. “I think he’s serious.”
    There were three deputy chiefs working under the police department’s chief surgeon. One of these was an elderly shrink, another
     was an administrative executive, and the third was Sharyn herself. Sharyn was a board-certified surgeon with four years of
     medical school behind her, plus five years of residency as a surgeon, plus four years as chief resident at the hospital. The
     shingle on the door to her office read:

    She had worked here at 24 Rankin Plaza for the past five years, competing for the job against a hundred applicants, some of
     whom now served elsewhere in the police department’s medical system; there were twenty-five district surgeons employed in
     five police clinics throughout the city. Each of them earned $62,500 a year. As one of the deputy
chief
surgeons, Sharyn earned $68,000 a year, for which she had to put in some fifteen to eighteen hours a week here in the Majesta
     office. During the rest of the week, she maintained her own private practice in an office not far from Mount Pleasant Hospital
     in Diamondback. In a good year, Deputy Chief Cooke earned about five times what Detective/Third Grade Kling earned.
    Which had nothing to do with the price of fish, as her mother was fond of saying.
    She had not yet told her mother she’d dated a white man last night.
    Probably never
would
tell her.
    The man in her office at four-thirty that Monday after-noon was a black man. There were some thirty-one thousand police officers
     in this city, and whenever one of them got sick, he or she—fourteen percent of the force was female—reported to