“Seems a resident here got himself aced yesterday morning, ah yes,” Ollie said.
“So I understand,” Carella said.
“Then why’d you ask, m’little chickadee?” Ollie said, once again doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation. The pity was—but hedidn’t realize this—nobody today knew who W. C. Fields was. Whenever Ollie did his impersonation, everyone thought he was doing Al Pacino inScent of a Woman.
“Want to go get a bite to eat?”
“Gee, what else is new?” Carella said.
Sarcasm, Ollie thought. Everybody today is into sarcasm.
THE PLACEthey chose was a diner on Culver and South Eleventh, which Ollie said was run by the Mob, which Carella doubted since he’d only been working in this precinct forever, and except for prostitution and numbers, the boys had pretty much ceded the hood to black gangs and Colombian posses. The black gangs used to devote their time to street rumbles until they realized there was money to be made dealing dope. The Colombian gangs knew this all along. Unfortunately, dope didn’t stop anyone from killing anyone else. In fact, it seemed to encourage the activity.
“I need your help,” Ollie said. “I’m gonna have my hands full checking out the Hall and how somebody could’ve got in and out of there with what Ballistics now tells me was a .32 aced Henderson. His views weren’t particularly appreciated in the so-called Negro community, you know, so it ain’t exactly unlikely that he was offed by some irate person of color, as they sometimes refer to themselves, ah yes.”
“What is it you’d like me to do?” Carella asked.
He was watching Fat Ollie eat, an undertaking of stupendous proportions to anyone not himself a glutton. Ollie had ordered three hamburgers to start, and was devouring them with both hands and a non-stop mouth, consuming simultaneously a huge platter of fries with ketchup, and drinking his second chocolate milk shake, a perpetual-motion, eating, drinking, slurping, slobbering, dripping, incessant ingestion machine.
“I want you to go up Smoke Rise,” Ollie said, signaling to the waitress, “talk to the councilman’s widow, see you can find out did he have any enemies besides the usual suspects…yes, darling, here’s what I’d like if you could be so kind,” he said to the waitress. “Bring me another shake, that’s chocolate, and another hamburger, and that apple pie—is it apple?—looks good, too, with some vanilla ice cream on it, please, make it two scoops,isit apple?”
“Actually, it’s strawberry peach,” the waitress said, looking already weary at twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but Ollie appreciated women who appeared beaten and defeated.
“Yum, strawberry peach sounds good, too,” he said, “two scoops of ice cream, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that uniform is very becoming,” Ollie said, “ah yes, m’dear, have you ever considered modeling?”
The waitress smiled.
Ollie smiled back.
Carella bit into his grilled cheese sandwich.
“I’d like to take a look at the Hall,” he said. “See what happened there before I go talking to any widow.”
“What’s one thing got to do with the other?” Ollie asked.
“Well, a woman’s husband gets shot, maybe she’d like to know some of the details.”
“I can tell you everything you need to know right now, you don’t have to waste time. He was up there getting the lay of the land, helping his people set the stage for what was supposed to be a big rally last night. Somebody plugged him from the wings, or the balcony, or wherever—I’m still waiting for information on trajectory, flight curve, all the other garbage, from both the ME and Ballistics. I got three different acoustics reports from witnesses at the scene. One said…”
“Who were the witnesses?”
“Guy named Alan Pierce, who’s Henderson’s aide, and a guy from the company supplying the balloons, the bunting, all the other shit, both of them standing right next to the councilman when the bullets took him.”
“What’d they hear?”
“Pierce says the shots came from the wings. The other guy—his name is Chuck Mastroiani, one of yourpaisans,” Ollie said, and grinned as if he were telling a dirty joke, “says the shots came from the balcony. Neither of them know Shinola from bow-waves, they were prob’ly talking about muzzle reports. Third guy, this young college twerp, was actually sitting in the balcony, which is maybe why he told me the shots came from downstairs.Whereverthe shots came from…”
“How many?” Carella asked.
“Six. Ballistics says they were fired from a .32 Smith & Wesson, which means the shooter emptied the gun at him. Betokens rage, mayhap? Leading back to the possibility that a jig done it—oops, forgive me, I know you don’t appreciate slang.”
“Some people might consider your ‘slang’ racist,” Carella said.
“Pip, pip, my good fellow,” Ollie said, trying to imitate a British member of Parliament, but sounding instead like either W. C. Fields or Al Pacino. “There’s a vast difference between being politically incorrect and being racist.”
“Explain the difference to Artie Brown sometime.”
“Actually, Brown’s a good cop,” Ollie said. “For a Negro.”
“Explain ‘Negro’ to him, too.”
“Steve, don’t bust my chops,” Ollie said. “I saved your goddamn life.”
“Twice, don’t forget.”
“Don’t forget is right.”
“I still want to take a look at that hall,” Carella said.
3
YELLOWCRIME SCENEtapes defined a wide area leading from the sidewalk to the entrance doors of the hall. A row of uniformed cops stood outside the building, uneasily expecting the appearance of anyone with scrambled eggs on his cap. They all knew a city councilman had been shot to death inside here yesterday morning. They all knew the murder was all over the newspapers and television yesterday afternoon and early this morning. They also knew that last summer a series of gropings in Grover Park had attracted intense media scrutiny because some policemen appeared to have been inattentive to the needs of women whose panties were being yanked down. The cops here today did not wish to be considered derelict in their duty. So they stood outside the hall scratching their asses and wondering what the hell they were supposed to be doing here, while simultaneously trying to appear alert for future assassins. The appearance of two gold-and-blue shields on the scene made them uneasy.
“At ease, men,” Ollie said, though none of the uniforms had snapped to attention.
A sergeant who’d seen it all, and heard it all, and done it all merely looked at Ollie, who opened one of the glass doors and allowed Carella to precede him inside. The two made an odd-looking couple. Carella was some six feet tall in his stocking feet, weighing in at about a buck-eighty now that he was watching his weight, broadshouldered and narrow-waisted, with the stride of a natural athlete—which he certainly wasn’t. Ollie was somewhat shorter, with the pear-shaped body of a bell buoy floating off the harbor, but with a stride that actually surpassed Carella’s, not for nothing was it rumored that fat men were light on their feet. Once, in fact, while vacationing in the Caribbean, Ollie had won a salsa contest—but that was another story. Marching side by side into the marbled entrance lobby, Carella actually had difficulty keeping up with him. Ollie flashed the tin at the gaggle of uniforms standing attentive guard in front of the inner doors, and again allowed Carella to walk ahead of him, this time into the vast auditorium itself.
The place had a ghostly silence to it, not unusual at the scene of a murder, but somehow more resolute because of the cavernous space. The stage was still partially hung with bunting and balloons, American flags and banners proclaiming the councilman’s name. But the job hadn’t been quite finished because someone had
