mere chapter in most mystery writers' novels, although there were some bestselling practitioners of the craft who seemed to prefer much shorter chapters, like say a page and a half long. In any event, reciting even a thirty-six- page book from memory was not an easy task, especially if you were a drug addict beginning to come down from a truly splendid high.
Almost unable to believe his good fortune, Ollie provided sweets and coffee for his thieving storyteller, and then set a tape recorder going. This was not unlike the good old days when woolly mammoths roamed the earth, and wise old men sat outside caves reciting tales of hunting valor and skill. The other detectives of the Eight-Eight pulled up chairs around Ollie's desk, not so much because they were dying to hear Emilio's story, but more because they wished to sneak a peek or two up Emma's skirt. But as the tale unfolded, they began to get more and more interested in the intricate plot development and intriguing characterization.
It took Emilio precisely an hour and forty-three minutes to recite Ollie's book word for word. By that time, the assembled detectives were all agog.
'Did you really write that?' one of them asked Ollie.
'Ah yes,' he said.
'That is terrific stuff,' one of the other detectives said, shaking his head in wonder and awe. Absolutely terrific'
'You got a sure bestseller there.'
'Make a great movie.'
And, little lady, you did a great job reading it.'
Were it not for the presence of these other detectives, Ollie might have let Emilio go at that point, so grateful was he for the recitation, and the response to it. On the other hand, Emilio was just a no-good little cross-dressing whore who was a disgrace to his fine Puerto Rican heritage, and who, besides, had been pointed out as someone having knowledge pertaining to the hundred-dollar bills Melissa Summers was handing out in the drug community hither and yon, ah yes.
So Ollie picked up a throwdown dime bag of shit which he just happened to find under Emilio's chair, and he said, 'Well, well, well, now where do you suppose this came from, Emilio?'
Which is how Emilio gave up Aine Duggan.
WAITING FOR THE girl to come downstairs again, Kling visualized all sorts of things, none of them very pleasant.
First there was Sharyn and Hudson.
Sharyn in bed with a man blacker than she herself was.
Pornographic images of them doing all the things Kling felt only he himself did with Sharyn.
A black man fucking Sharyn.
(Was this a racist thought?)
A black man going down on her.
Sharyn slobbering the black man's Johnson.
An expression she had taught him.
A black expression.
(Was this damn thing, whatever it was, turning him racist?)
Well, whatever it was . . .
And at first it had appeared to be merely (merely!) Sharyn and Hudson alone, just the two of them, a sweet little love affair between a pair of colleagues, what the Italians called una storia, he would have to ask Carella's intended stepfather if that was correct, una storia, some 'story' here between these two black medical practitioners, some little goddamn fucking storyl
But then it had turned into what appeared to be a genuine three-way, Sharyn, Hudson, and the so-far anonymous white woman, Hudson at the center of an Oreo, the cream on the outside this time around, black Sharyn on his right, the white woman on his left, or vice versa, who gave a damn, it was still lucky Pierre, always in the middle! Would the picture in his mind be less detestable if the man in the middle was white? And if Sharyn had longed for a three-way, why the hell hadn't she invited Kling himself?
And now —
Now this white woman rendezvousing with Sharyn on her own, the three-way turning into a possible lesbian relationship, the movie in his mind suddenly becoming black and white, the women hugging, the women kissing, the women fondling, the women muff-diving, Hudson excluded, Kling excluded, just the two women, black and white, locked in secret, steamy embrace.
The deception.
The deceit.
He snapped off the projector in his mind.
The screen went blank.
He looked at his watch.
Seven twenty-three.
It was starting to rain.
AINE DUGGAN WAS curled up in a fetal ball when Ollie found her in an alley off Thompson and shook her awake. It had begun to rain lightly. She blinked up at him.
He could barely recognize this woman with long stringy bleached blond hair and a few missing teeth, wearing blue jeans and a soiled gray sweatshirt, loafers without socks, scabs all over her ankles. The hooker he'd briefly questioned about Emilio Herrera shortly after his book was stolen had been wearing a cute short black skirt and a neat pink halter top and her hair was Irish-red and cut short and she looked like a teenager even though she was twenty-five at the time, which had not been all that long ago. She now looked thirty-five.
'Whussup?' she asked.
'I want to become a mailman,' he said.
'Yeah?'
'I hear there's money in it.'
'Who told you that?'
'Little birdie.'
'I don't know whut the fuck you're talking about.'
'A woman paying you to deliver a letter.'
'Yeah?'
'To the Eight-Seven.'
'Yeah?'
'Where'd you meet her, Aine?'
'How do you know my name?'
'Little birdie,' he said again.
It was dark in the alley, but if she wasn't so down and out this very minute, she might have recognized Ollie, anyway, from their last encounter in a galaxy far far away. But the black tar had worn off, and she was no longer high, and she knew she didn't have any money and would probably have to jones her next fix, so who was this fat asshole kneeling beside her, with her face getting all wet from the rain? Was he maybe a prospective John?
'You wanna see my pussy?' she asked.
'I wanna see Melissa Summers.'
'Yeah?'
'Where'd you meet her, Aine? Where can I find her?'
'Do I know you?' she asked, and peered at his face through the falling rain.
'Detective Oliver Wendell Weeks,' he said. You know me.'
'Am I busted?'
'For what, Aine?'
'I don't know. I'm not a bad person, Detective.'
'I know that.'
'I'm just a person needs to be comforted and helped . . .'
'Sure,' Ollie said.
' . . . a person to be pitied.'
