Fiddlers

Now was eleven fifteen on the morning of June twenty-second. Connors and Brancusi had given them Coombes’s home phone number, and he’d agreed to meet them at the club.

‘Was that your policy six months ago?’ Meyer asked. ‘Twenty-one or over?’

‘It’s been our policy always. In fact, nowadays the average age is even older than that. Late twenties, early thirties, a nice eclectic mix of straights, gays, and who-can-tell-whats. Two or three months ago, our DJs were spinning techno, reggae, and hip-hop, but now they’re moving more toward funkier stuff like the Rolling Stones, T-Rex, MC5, Iggy and the Stooges, all that. We sell alcoholic bevs, yes, mostly exotic, cutesy-poo drinks this age group seems to favor. But drugs? Nossir. Never. I can absolutely guarantee that Naomi Maines did not buy that dust here at GB’s. Nossir.’

‘We think she swallowed two tabs of it in here.’

‘You think wrong. I just told you. We don’t sell

‘Did you see her that night?’

‘Not that I would know.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means if she was here, if she somehow got past the door with a phony ID, I wasn’t aware of her.’

‘Would she have left the club at any time that night?’ Meyer asked.

‘She might have,’ Coombes said. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Who would know?’

‘Al. Bouncer at the back door. Aldo Mancino. He’d have stamped her hand.’

‘Is he here now?’

‘This is a nightclub,’ Coombes said. ‘He doesn’t come in till nine tonight. If you want to come back then…’

‘No, we want his home address,’ Carella said.

* * * *

Aldo Mancino’s landlady told them he usually went over to ‘the club’ this time of day. The club was the Italian American Club on Dorsey Street all the way downtown. This was now one in the afternoon. Mancino and some other men were sitting outside at round tables, enjoying the rest of this mild day, drinking espresso from the coffee bar next door. Inside the club, Carella could see a television set going, some men shooting pool.

Mancino fit the description his landlady had given them. Big and burly, thirty years old or so, with dark curly hair, bushy eyebrows, and brown eyes, he sat in a tank-top undershirt and blue jeans, muscles bulging, grinning as he delivered the punch line to a joke. The two men with him burst out laughing, then stopped abruptly when they saw Carella and Meyer approaching.

‘Mr. Mancino?’ Carella said.

Mancino looked up at him.

‘Detective Carella,’ he said, and showed his shield. ‘My partner, Detective Meyer. Few questions we’d like to ask, if you can spare the time.’

‘Uh-oh, what’d you do now, Aldo?’ one of the other men asked.

‘I guess I’m about to find out,’ Mancino said, and grinned. He had an engaging grin. Nice-looking man altogether. Couldn’t have been anything but a furniture mover or a bouncer. He knew he wasn’t in any trouble here; his manner was relaxed and receptive.

‘Gentlemen?’ Meyer said.

‘I guess he’s saying this is private,’ the same man said.

‘We won’t be long,’ Carella said.

Both men rose. One of them clapped Mancino on the shoulder. ‘Let us know where we can bring cigarettes,’ he said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Mancino said.

The two men went inside the club. Carella and Meyer took their empty chairs.

‘Grandma’s Bloomers,’ Carella said. ‘Six months ago.’

‘That again, huh?’ Mancino said.

‘Sorry, but something’s come up.’

‘Naomi Maines, right? Cause, you know, they talked me deaf, dumb, and blind already. The two Narcotics cops.’

‘This is a new case.’

‘What’s it got to do with me? I’ll tell you just what I told the narcs. Bobby cards everyone at the front door, even if they look old enough. He would’ve carded her, too.’

‘Who’s Bobby?’

‘Bobby Nardello. He screens everybody going in. Admission is free, but you gotta show ID. And he checks bags and pats you down. There’s a girl does the girls. Her name is Tracy.’

‘We understand you’re on the back door.’

‘Right. We don’t like a lot of smokers hanging around outside the front of the club. You’re not allowed to smoke inside, you know. So we ask them to go out back, in the alley. I stamp their hands when they leave, check them when they come back in.’

‘Did Naomi Maines leave the club anytime before her death?’

‘Is that a trick question, or what?’

The detectives looked at him.

‘Of course she left the club. They found her dead up the street, so she had to’ve left the club, am I right?’

‘Before then, we mean.’

‘I think so. I’m not sure. You know how many people come out of that club for a smoke? The die-hards come out every ten minutes or so, just gotta have that cigarette, you know. I must stamp a hundred hands every night. Maybe more.’

‘You think you might’ve stamped Naomi’s hand?’

‘I think so. They showed me her picture, the narcs. Attractive blonde girl, very mature looking. Meaning great tits. Never would’ve thought she was only sixteen. Dress cut down to here. No bra.’

‘So you do remember her.’

‘I think so. If she’s the one. But she didn’t immediately reach for a pack of cigarettes, the way most of them do. She just sort of strolled up the alley. Well, lots of them do that, too. The smokers. They light up, take a little stroll, puff their brains out, then come back inside again.’

‘Up the street toward Ninotchka?’ Carella asked.

‘Yeah. Well, yeah, in that direction.’

‘Naomi, I mean. Did she head toward Ninotchka?’

‘Yeah. If she’s the one.’

‘How long was she gone?’

‘You mean, before she came back in again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ten, fifteen minutes.’

‘Could you see her all that time?’

‘I wasn’t looking.’

* * * *

From his cell phone, Carella called Narcotics and asked Brancusi what the sister’s name was.

‘Her and the friend both,’ he said.

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ Brancusi said.

‘Naomi Maines. Her sister and her friend. How do we find them?’

‘Why do you want them?’ Brancusi said. ‘This is a cold case.’

‘Not anymore, it isn’t,’ Carella said.

* * * *

Both girls were checkers at a supermarket called Garden Basket. Naomi Maines used to work there, too. They were on their break now, smoking out back. Meyer wondered if either of them knew that smoking caused cancer.