'Man, you goan be out there all night?'
'I think we're about finished,' Logan called. In explanation, he added, 'My cousin. From Seattle.'
Georgie raised his eyebrows.
They called on Danny Gimp because they couldn't find The Cowboy again, and they didn't particularly like to deal with Fats Donner, the third man in their triumvirate of reliable informers. Danny, unlike most good informers, was not indebted to the police. They had nothing on him that could send him away. Or, if they did, they'd forgotten what the hell it was. Danny was a businessman, plain and simple, a superior purveyor of information who enjoyed the trust of the criminal community because they knew he was an ex-con, which was true. What was not true was that he'd been wounded during a big gang shoot-out, hence the limp. Danny limped because he'd had polio as a child, something nobody had to worry about anymore. But pretending he'd once been shot gave him a certain cachet he considered essential to the business of
informing. Even Carella, who'd been shot once or twice himself, thanks, had forgotten that story about getting shot was a lie.
'You ever notice that most of the cases we work together, it's wintertime?' Danny asked.
'Seems that way.'
'I wonder why,' Danny said. 'Maybe it's cause you hate winter. Don't you hate winter?'
'It's not my favorite season,' Carella said. He was behind the wheel of the police car driving Danny and Hawes to an all-night deli on Stem. The snow had stopped and they were in a hurry to get going on this damn thing, but Danny something of a prima donna who didn't like to be treated like some cheap snitch who transfered information in back alleys or police cars. Hawes sitting in the back. Danny didn't ask Hawes what his favorite season was because he didn't particularly like the man. He didn't know why. Maybe it was the streak in his hair. Made him look like the fuckin of Frankenstein. Or maybe it was the faint trace of Boston dialect that made him sound like one ofthe fuckin Kennedys. Whatever, he directed most of his conversation to Carella.
There were maybe three, four other people in the diner when they walked in, but Danny looked the place over like a spy about to trade atomic Satisfied he would not be seen talking to cops, chose a booth at the back, and sat facing the door. and grizzled, and looking stouter than he actually was because of the layers of clothing he was wearing Danny picked up his coffee cup in both hands
sipped at it as if a Saint Bernard had carried it through a blizzard. His leg hurt. He told Carella it hurt whenever it snowed. Or rained. Or even when the sun was shining, for that matter. Fuckin leg hurts all the time.
Carella told him what they were looking for.
'Well, there ain't no cockfights on Sunday nights,' Danny said.
He hadn't been to bed yet, either; to him, it was still Sunday night.
'You get them on Saturday nights, different parts of the city,' he said, 'mostly your Spanish neighborhoods, but you don't get them on Sunday nights.' 'How about Friday nights?'
'Sometimes, when there's heat on, you know, they change the night and the location. But usually, it's Saturday night.'
'We're looking at Friday.' 'This past Friday?' 'Yes.'
'There might've been one, I'll have to make some calls.'
'Good, make them.'
'You mean now? It's two in the morning!' 'We're working a homicide,' Carella said.
'What are those, the magic words?' Danny said. 'Let me finish my coffee. I hate to wake people up in the middle of the night.'
Carella shrugged as if to say you want to do business or you want to lead a life of indulgence and indolence?
Danny took his time finishing the coffee. Then he slid out of the booth and limped over to the pay phone
on the wall near the men's room. They watched' he dialed.
'He doesn't like me,' Hawes said.
'Naw, he likes you,' Carella said.
'I'm telling you he doesn't.'
'He came to the hospital when I got shot,' Carella
said.
'Maybe I ought to get shot, huh?'
'Bite your tongue.'
They sipped at their coffees. Two Sanil
Department men came in and took stools
Outside the deli, their orange snowplows sat at the curb. The night was starless. Everything was black outside, except for the orange plows. Danny reached his party. He was leaning in close to the mouthpiece, talking, nodding, even gesticulating.
' limped back to the table some five minutes later.
'It'll cost you,' he said.
'How much?' Hawes asked.
'Two bills for me, three for the guy you'll be talking to.'
'Who's that?'
'Guy who had a bird fighting in Riverhead
Friday night. There was also supposed to be a fight
Bethtown, but it got canceled. Big Asian there, this ain't only a Spanish thing, you know.'
'Where in Riverhead?' Hawes asked.'
'The bread, please,' Danny said, and rolled thumb against his forefinger.
Hawes looked at Carella. Carella nodded.
took out his wallet and pulled two hundred-dollar bill out from it. Danny accepted the money.
'Gracias,' he said. I'll take you up there, introduce you to Luis. Actually, I'm surprised you don't know about this already.'
'How come?' Carella asked.
'The place got busted Friday night. That's the only reason he's willing to talk to you.'
Ramon Moreno was the doorman who'd been on duty outside the hotel on Sunday morning, when the tall blond man delivered the envelope. They had telephoned him at the Club Durango, down in the Quarter, and he was just packing up to go home when they got there at a quarter past two. Ramon was a musician. He worked days at the hotel to pay the bills, but his love was the B-flat tenor saxophone, and he played whatever gig came his way whenever. He told Priscilla who he knew way a fellow musician that he'd played the Durango three nights running so far, and he was hoping it would turn into a steady gig. The club was Mexican, and they played all the old standby stuff like 'El Jarabe de la Botella' and 'La Chachalaca' and the ever-popular and corny 'Cielito Lindo,' but occasionally they got a hip crowd in and could cut loose on some real jazz with a Hispanic tint. When he wasn't playing the Durango, he did weddings and anniversary parties and birthday parties... 'A girl's fifteenth birthday is a big thing in the Spanish culture...' and whatever else might come along. He even played a barmitzvah a couple of weeks ago.
All of which is very fucking interesting, Georgie thought.
The way he got to be a tenor player was strange, Ramon said. He used to play the alto, instrument better suited to his size in that he was five feet six inches tall. At the time, he was playing in a band with a four-piece sax section, and one of the playing tenor was this big tall guy, six-three, which was appropriate because the tenor is a large instrument, not as big as your baritone sax, but good-sized horn, you understand? Then one time during rehearsal, they switched instruments just for fun, and discovered they were better suited to horns they'd borrowed, the short guy, Ramon himself, blowing this tenor sax almost bigger than he is, and the tall guy, Julius, playing the smaller alto, which looked almost like a toy saxophone in his hands.
All of which is even more interesting, thought.
'About yesterday morning,' Priscilla said,
to the chase.
'Yeah,' Ramon said, sounding a bit
