The Heckler

Strangers When We Meet(1959)The Birds (1962)Fuzz (1972)Walk Proud (1979)

TELEPLAYS

The Chisholms(1979)The Legend of Walks Far Woman (1980)Dream West (1986)

*Available in paperback from Pocket Books

**Available in hardcover from Simon & Schuster

Also By Ed McBain

THE87THPRECINCTNOVELS

Cop Hater* •The Mugger •The Pusher * (1956)The Con Man •Killer’s Choice (1957)Killer’s Payoff * •Killer’s Wedge •Lady Killer (1958) ’Til Death •King’s Ransom (1959)Give the Boys a Great Big Hand •The Heckler * •See Them Die (1960)Lady, Lady, I Did It! (1961)The Empty Hours •Like Love (1962)Ten Plus One (1963)Ax (1964)He Who Hesitates •Doll (1965)Eighty Million Eyes (1966)Fuzz (1968)Shotgun (1969)Jigsaw (1970)Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here (1971)Sadie When She Died •Let’s Hear It for the Deaf Man (1972)Hail to the Chief (1973)Bread (1974)Blood Relatives (1975)So Long As You Both Shall Live (1976)Long Time, No See (1977)Calypso (1979)Ghosts (1980)Heat (1981)Ice (1983)Lightning (1984)Eight Black Horses (1985)Poison •Tricks (1987)Lullaby * (1989)Vespers * (1990)Widows * (1991)Kiss (1992)Mischief (1993)And All Through the House (1994)Romance (1995)Nocturne (1997)The Big Bad City * (1999)The Last Dance * (2000)Money, Money, Money * (2001)Fat Ollie’s Book ** (2003)

THEMATTHEWHOPENOVELS

Goldilocks(1978)Rumpelstiltskin (1981)Beauty & the Beast (1982)Jack & the Beanstalk (1984)Snow White & Rose Red (1985)Cinderella (1986)Puss in Boots (1987)The House That Jack Built (1988)Three Blind Mice (1990)Mary, Mary (1993)There Was a Little Girl (1994)Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear (1996)The Last Best Hope (1998)

OTHERNOVELS

The Sentries(1965)Where There’s Smoke •Doors (1975)Guns (1976)Another Part of the City (1986)Downtown (1991)Driving Lessons (2000)Candyland * (2001)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 1960 by Ed McBain

Copyright renewed © 1988 by Evan Hunter

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This is for my father-in-law

Harry Melnick—

who inspired it

The city in these pages is imaginary.

The people, the places are all

fictitious. Only the police routine is based

on established investigatory technique.

1.

SHE CAME IN like a lady, that April.

The poet may have been right, but there really wasn’t a trace of cruelty about her this year. She was a delicate thing who walked into the city with the wide-eyed innocence of a maiden, and you wanted to hold her in your arms because she seemed alone and frightened in this geometric maze of strangers, intimidated by the streets and the buildings, shyly touching you with the pale-gray eyes of a lady who’d materialized somehow from the cold marrow of March.

She wandered mist-shrouded through the city, a city that had become suddenly green in exuberant welcome. She wandered alone, reaching into people the way she always does, but not with cruelty. She touched wellsprings deep inside, so that people for a little while, sensing her approach, feeling her come close again, turned a soft vulnerable pulsing interior to her, turned it outward to face the harsh angles of the city’s streets and buildings, held out tenderness to be touched by tenderness, but only for a little while.