The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Introduction copyright © 1989 Hui Corporation

  Text copyright ©1956 Hui Corporation

  Republished in 2012

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  eISBN: 9781477855416

  The city in these pages is imaginary.

  The people, the places are all fictitious.

  Only the police routine is based on established

  investigatory technique.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  About the Author

  Praise for Ed McBain & the 87th Precinct

  “Raw and realistic…The bad guys are very bad, and the good guys are better.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series…simply the best police procedurals being written in the United States.”

  —Washington Post

  “The best crime writer in the business.”

  —Houston Post

  “Ed McBain is a national treasure.”

  —Mystery News

  “It’s hard to think of anyone better at what he does. In fact, it’s impossible.”

  —Robert B. Parker

  “I never read Ed McBain without the awful thought that I still have a lot to learn. And when you think you’re catching up, he gets better.”

  —Tony Hillerman

  “McBain is the unquestioned king…light years ahead of anyone else in the field.”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune

  “McBain tells great stories.”

  —Elmore Leonard

  “Pure prose poetry…It is such writers as McBain who bring the great American urban mythology to life.”

  —The London Times

  “The McBain stamp: sharp dialogue and crisp plotting.”

  —Miami Herald

  “You’ll be engrossed by McBain’s fast, lean prose.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “McBain redefines the American police novel…he can stop you dead in your tracks with a line of dialogue.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “The wit, the pacing, his relish for the drama of human diversity [are] what you remember about McBain novels.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  “McBain is a top pro, at the top of his game.”

  —Los Angeles Daily News

  INTRODUCTION

  Cop Hater, the first of the 87th Precinct novels, was originally published in paperback early in 1956. My records indicate that I received payment for the book on January 4, 1956, which would further seem to indicate that it was delivered sometime in December of 1955. I don’t remember how long it took to write. The early McBains usually took a month. Nowadays, perhaps because the novels are longer, they take two months. Cop Hater took a much longer time because there was a lot of research to do for the first book in the series. I still do research, of course, but not as much as I had to do when I was initially figuring out police procedures and routines. In any case, the actual writing time is vague in my memory. I didn’t keep work calendars then, as I do now.

  What is not vague is the genesis of the series.

  I had written a great many mystery short stories and a few mystery novels before The Blackboard Jungle was published in October of 1954. Some of these stories were published under my own name (Evan Hunter), others under various pseudonyms. I would often have two or three stories in the same issue of a magazine like Manhunt, for example, all under different pseudonyms. One mystery novel written under the pseudonym had not yet sold by the time The Blackboard Jungle was published, and my agent was still shopping it around in 1955. Pocket Books was, at the time, publishing a handful of paperback originals in its Permabooks line, so my agent sent this novel (I believe it was Runaway Black as by Richard Marsten, but I’m not sure) to Herbert Alexander, then editor-in-chief of Pocket Books, and a man who was instrumental in purchasing reprint rights to The Blackboard Jungle.

  He is possibly the smartest man who ever lived.

  He is also a good detective.

  He finished reading the pseudonymous mystery novel, called my agent immediately, and asked, “Is this our friend Hunter?” When he learned that the true author was indeed Hunter, he said he would like to have a meeting with me (the Hollywood term “take a meeting” had not yet been invented, and anyway, this was New York.)

  Over lunch, Herb told me that the mainstay of Pocket Books was Erie Stanley Gardner, whose books they reissued on a regular rotating schedule, with new covers on them each time out. He told me that Gardner was getting old (I don’t know how old he was in 1955) and that they were looking for a mystery writer who would eventually replace him. Herb hadn’t much liked the pseudonymous novel (he didn’t buy it, did he?), but he recognized from it that I was familiar with the form, and if I had an idea for a mystery series with a fresh and original lead character, then I was the man for them. I said I didn’t have an idea in my head, but that I would like some time to think about it. We promised we’d stay in touch.

  The mystery stories I’d written up to that point were a mixed bag. “Private Eye,” “Woman in Jeopardy,” “Innocent Bystander,” “Man on the Run,” “Biter Bit,” and several police stories. The novels, if I recall, were either Innocent Bystander or Man on the Run. I had most enjoyed writing the police stories—which were frankly influenced by the old Dragnet series on radio—and it seemed to me that a good series character would be a cop, even though I knew next to nothing about cops at the time. I knew for certain, though, that any other character dealing with murder was unconvincing. If you came home late at night and found your wife murdered in the bed you shared, you didn’t call a private eye, and you didn’t call a little old lady with knitting needles, and if you called your lawyer it was to ask what you should say when you called the police. In fiction, there is always a quantum jump to be made when anyone but a police detective is investigating a murder. I come up against it in my Matthew Hope series. Hope is a lawyer who has no right investigating murders. Disbelief must be overcome, first by the author himself, then by the reader. This isn’t the case with a police detective. He is supposed to investigate murders.

  So, yes, a cop.

  But then, thinking it through further, it seemed to me that a single cop did not a series make, and it further seemed to me that something new in the annals of police procedurals (I don’t even know if they were called that back then) would be a squadroom full of cops, each with different traits, who—when put together—would form a conglomerate hero. There had been police novels before I began the 87th Precinct series. There had not, to my knowledge, been any to utilize such a concept. I felt, at the time, that it was unique. So, then, a squadroom of police detectives as my conglomerate hero. And, of course, New York City as the setting.

  I called Herb Alexander. I told him that I wanted to use a lot of cops as my hero, one cop stepping forward in one novel, another in the next novel, cops getting killed and disappearing from the series, other cops coming in, all of them visible to varying extents in each of the books. He said he liked the idea and would give me a contract for three novels—“To see how it goes.”

  I began my research.

  I found that the New York City Police Department was somewhat reluctant to let the author of The Blackboard Jungle into its precincts or its cars. Perhaps they felt I was about to do a number on them. A contact told me I could gain access by paying off a judge, a captain, and God knew how many sergeants. I told him that wasn’t the kind of access I wanted. Finally, and after much perseverance, I was allowed to visit and take notes, except when prisoners were being interrogated. I rode with cops, I talked with cops, I spent hours in squadrooms and labs and at line-ups (now defunct except for identification purposes), and in court, and in holding cells—until I felt I knew what being a cop was all about. And then—promising every cop I met that I would undoubtedly be calling him for further information once I got into the first book—I sat down to write.

  And discovered that I was calling the NYPD almost daily. As gracious as they were, I soon learned that cops had real crimes to solve, lab technicians were often too busy to discuss my problems at length, forensics specialists had open corpses on the table at the moment and could not be bothered with fictitious ones. I learned, in short, that I was becoming a pain in the neck. And I realized early on that if I had to count on the NYPD to verify every detail of the procedure in the books I was writing, I would have to spend more time on the phone than I was spending at the typewriter.

  So I asked myself why I had to use a real city? What if the city I used was like New York, but not quite New York. What if I premised my geography only locally on the real city, stuck with routine that was realistic for any police department in America (“clinical verity” Herb later called it), and then winged it from there? Wouldn’t this free me from the telephone and get me back to the typewriter? And wouldn’t it provide me with creative freedom?

  Thus was the mythical city born.

  Out of desperation, I guess.

  I’ve never regretted the choice. If a conglomerate detective hero was something new in detective fiction, then the mythical city as a backdrop was similarly new. At least, I knew of no other writer who had used it before. Anyway, I thought it would be more fun to create a city than to write about an existing one. It has turned out to be a lot of fun. I can’t describe how much joy I experience each time I write about another section of a city that doesn’t exist, inventing historical background, naming places as suits my fancy, and then fitting it all together in a jigsaw pattern that sometimes even I don’t fully understand. It is next to impossible to overlay a map of my city on a map of New York. It’s not simply a matter of north being east and south being west or Isola representing Manhattan and Calm’s Point representing Brooklyn. The geography won’t jibe exactly, the city remains a mystery.

  The city, then, became a character.

  So did the weather, which figures prominently in Cop Hater and in each subsequent book in the series.

  But there is one other character worth mentioning: the author.

  I know that in these books I frequently commit the unpardonable sin of author intrusion. Somebody will suddenly start talking or thinking or commenting and it won’t be any of the cops or crooks, it’ll just be this faceless, anonymous “someone” sticking his nose into the proceedings like an unwanted guest. Sorry. That’s me. Or rather, it’s Ed McBain.

  Where did the name come from?

  Out of the blue.

  I did not want to use Evan Hunter on the series; I felt at the time that Evan Hunter was supposed to write so-called “serious” novels and maybe crime novels weren’t serious enough. I now know they are very serious indeed, and many years ago I voluntarily blew the McBain cover (which really was a secret for a good long while). But neither did I want to use Marsten or Collins if this was to be a new series by a supposedly new writer.

  I had just pulled the last page of Cop Hater out of the typewriter. I read the final lines and sat there thinking for several moments. I used to work in the back bedroom of a development house on Long Island. I walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, where my former wife was spoon-feeding our infant twins.

  I said, “How’s Ed McBain?”

  She said, “Good,” and went back to feeding the twins.

  So here’s Cop Hater. By Ed McBain.

  The first of them.

  —ED McBAIN

  From the river bounding the city on the north, you saw only the magnificent skyline. You stared up at it in something like awe, and sometimes you caught your breath because the view was one of majestic splendor. The clear silhouettes of the buildings slashed at the sky, devouring the blue: flat planes and long planes, rough rectangles and needle sharp spires, minarets and peaks, pattern upon pattern laid in geometric unity against the wash of blue and white which was the sky.

  And at night, coming down the River Highway, you were caught in a dazzling galaxy of brilliant suns, a web of lights strung out from the river and then south to capture the city in a brilliant display of electrical wizardry. The highway lights glistened close and glistened farther as they skirted the city and reflected in the dark waters of the river. The windows of the buildings climbed in brilliant rectangular luminosity, climbed to the stars and joined the wash of red and green and yellow and orange neon which tinted the sky. The traffic lights blinked their gaudy eyes and along the stem, the incandescent display tangled in a riot of color and eye‐aching splash.

  The city lay like a sparkling nest of rare gems, shimmering in layer upon layer of pulsating intensity.

  The buildings were a stage set.

  They faced the river, and they glowed with man‐made brilliance, and you stared up at them in awe, and you caught your breath.

  Behind the buildings, behind the lights, were the streets.

  There was garbage in the streets.

  The alarm sounded at 11:00 P.M.

  He reached out for it, groping in the darkness, finding the lever and pressing it against the back of the clock. The buzzing stopped. The room was very silent. Beside him, he could hear May’s even breathing. The windows were wide open, but the room was hot and damp, and he thought again about the air‐conditioning unit he’d wanted to buy since the summer began. Reluctantly, he sat up and rubbed hamlike fists into his eyes.

  He was a big man, his head topped with straight blond hair that was unruly now. His eyes were normally gray, but they were virtually colorless in the darkness of the room, puffed with sleep. He stood up and stretched. He slept only in pajama pants, and when he raised his arms over his head, the pants slipped down over the flatness of his hard belly. He let out a grunt, pulled up the pants, and then glanced at May again.

  The sheet was wadded at the foot of the bed, a soggy, lifeless mass. May lay curled into a sprawling C, her gown twisted up over her thigh. He went to the bed and put his hand on her thigh for an instant. She murmured and rolled over. He grinned in the darkness and then went into the bathroom to shave.

  He had timed every step of the operation, and so he knew just how long it took to shave, just how long it took to dress, just how long it took to gulp a quick cup of coffee. He took off his wristwatch before he began shaving, leaving it on the washbasin where he could glance at it occasionally. At 11:10, he began dressing. He put on an aloha shirt his brother had sent him from Hawaii. He put on a pair of tan gabardine slacks and a light poplin windbreaker. He put a handkerchief in his left hip pocket and then scooped his wallet and change off the dresser.

  He opened the top drawer of the dresser and took the .38 from where it lay next to May’s jewelry box. His thumb passed over the hard leather of the holster, and then he shoved the holster and gun into his right hip pocket, beneath the poplin jacket. He lighted a cigarette, went into the kitchen to put up the coffee water, and then went to check on the kids.

  Mickey was asleep, his thumb in his mouth as usual. He passed his hand over the boy’s head. Christ, he was sweating like a pig. He’d have to talk to May about the air‐conditioning again. It wasn’t fair to the kids, cooped up like this in a sweat box. He walked to Cathy’s bed and went through the same ritual. She wasn’t as perspired as her brother. Well, she was a girl; girls didn’t sweat as much. He heard the kettle in the kitchen whistling loudly. He glanced at his watch and then grinned.

  He went into the kitchen, spooned two teaspoonfuls of instant coffee into a large cup, and then poured the boiling water over the powder. He drank the coffee black, without sugar. He felt himself coming awake at last, and he vowed for the hundredth time that he wouldn’t try to catch any sleep before this tour; it was plain stupid. He should sleep when he got home. Hell, what did he average this way? A couple of hours? And then it was time to go in. No, it was foolish. He’d have to talk to May about it. He gulped the coffee down and then went into his bedroom again.

  He liked to look at her asleep. He always felt a little sneaky and a little horny when he took advantage of her that way. Sleep was a kind of private thing, and it wasn’t right to pry when somebody was completely unaware. But, God, she was beautiful when she was asleep, so what the hell, it wasn’t fair. He watched her for several moments, the dark hair spread out over the pillow, the rich sweep of her hip and thigh, the femaleness of the raised gown and the exposed white flesh. He went to the side of the bed and brushed the hair back from her temple. He kissed her very gently, but she stirred and said, “Mike?”

  “Go back to sleep, honey.”

  “Are you leaving?” she murmured hoarsely.

  “Yes.”

  “Be careful, Mike.”

  “I will.” He grinned. “And you be good.”

 

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