'I'm looking for a blond girl who was wearing a black mini and a red fur jacket.'
He didn't mention that she was dead.
'Fake fur,' he said. 'Fake blonde, too.'
'We get lots of those in here,' Sally said, and with a faint tilt of her head indicated that lots of those were in here right this very minute, sitting at tables hither and yon behind Ollie.
'How about Saturday night? Remember a blonde in a red fur jacket?'
'I sure don't,' Sally said.
'How about three white guys in blue hooded parkas?'
'Nope.'
'Or a black guy in a black leather jacket.'
'We get thousands of black guys in black jackets.'
'These three white guys would've been in the gutter.'
'Where?'
'Outside there,' Ollie said, jerking his head and shoulder toward the front windows of the diner. 'This weather?' Sally said, and laughed. Ollie laughed, too.
'Need Willie warmers, this weather,' Sally said Black guy would've run out the diner, told them to stop peeing.'
'Can't blame him,' Sally said, and began laughing again.
Ollie laughed, too.
'How do you know all this fascinating stuff?.' Sally asked.
Ollie figured she was flirting with him. women preferred men with a little girth, as he had.
'Three black guys outside told me,' he said. 'Oh, those three.' .... 'You know them?'
'They're out there every night.'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah, they're crazy.'
'Yeah? Crazy?'
'Yeah, they just got out of Buenavista a few ago.'
'Buenavista, huh?'
'Yeah. What they do, these mental hospitals, medicate all these psychos till they're stabilized.
they let them loose on the streets with prescriptions they don't bother filling. Before you know it, they're acting nutty all over again. I saw a man talking to a mailbox the other day, would you believe it? Holding along conversation with a mailbox. Those three guys out there stand around that fire all night like it's some kind of shrine. The one who looks like Morgan Fairchild...'
'That's his name!' Ollie said and snapped his fingers.
'He's the nuttiest of them all. Anything he told you, I'd take with a grain of salt.'
'He told me these three white guys were peeing in the gutter when this black man in a black leather jacket came running out of here to stop them.'
'Naw,' Sally said. 'Don't believe it.'
'Were you working here alone on Saturday night?' Ollie asked slyly.
He spent the next fifteen minutes talking to another waitress, the short-order cook, and the cashier, who was also the night manager. None of them had seen three white guys in hooded parkas peeing in the gutter. And whereas all of them had seen half a dozen black guys in black leather jackets, none of them had seen one running out into the street to prevent mass urination.
Five minutes after Ollie left, Curly Joe Simms walked in.
There was no one named Bernie Himmel or Bernard Himmel listed in any of the phone directories for the city's five separate sectors. On the off chance that Marvin the bartender had got Bernie the bookie's
family name wrong, they even checked all the listings under HIMMER and HAMMIL but found matching first name. There were two listings for HEMMER, but these turned out to be women, surprise, who did not appreciate being awakened at a quarter to four in the morning.
'So that's it,' Georgie said. 'Let's forget it for tn.
Go home, get some sleep.'
'No,' Priscilla said.
She had just had an idea.
The computer listed a Bernard Himmel, alias B Himmel, alias Benny Himmel, alias Bernie Banker' Himmel, a thirty-six-year-old white who had taken two prior falls for violation of 225.10 of the state's Penal Law, titled Gambling in the First Degree, which read:
A person is guilty of promoting gambling in the degree when he knowingly advances or profits unlawful gambling activity by Engaging bookmaking to the extent that he receives or accepts in any one day more than five bets totaling more five thousand dollars or Receiving, in with a lottery or policy scheme... And so on, which the second provision did not apply either of Bernie's arrests and subsequent
Violation of 225.10 was a class-E felony,
by a term of imprisonment not to exceed four The first time around, Bernie was sentenced to one three and was back on the street again, and at the old stand again, after serving the requisite year. next time, he drew two to four as a so-called
felon and was paroled after serving the minimum. The address he'd registered with his parole officer was 1110 Garner Avenue, not a mile away from The Juice
Bar, where apparently he'd set up business again. Carella and Hawes got to Garner at four A.M.
If Himmel was in fact taking bets again, then he was breaking parole at best and would be returned to prison to serve the two years he still owed the state. If, in addition, he was once again arrested and charged and convicted, then he would technically become a so-called persistent felony offender, and could be sentenced for an A-1 felony, which could mean fifteen to twenty-five years behind bars. Neither Carella nor Hawes had ever heard of anyone in this city or this state taking such a fall on a gambling violation. But Bernie the Banker Himmel was still looking at the two years owed on the parole violation, plus another two to four as a predicate felon with a new gambling violation. Such visions of the future could make any man desperate. Moreover, only two mornings ago, Carella and Hawes had knocked on a door and been greeted with four bullets plowing through the wood. They did not want to provoke yet another fusillade.
Without a no-knock arrest warrant, they were compelled to announce themselves. Gun-shy, they flanked the door. Service revolvers drawn, they pressed themselves against the wall on either side of it. Carella reached in to knock. No answer. He knocked again. He was about to knock a third time when a man's voice said, 'Who is it?' 'Mr. Himmel?'. 'Yes?'
'Police,' Carella said. 'Could you come to the door please?'
Still standing to the side of it. Hawes on the side of the jamb, facing him. Cold in the hallway
Not a sound from inside the apartment. Not
anywhere in the building. They waited.
'Mr. Himmel?'
No answer.
'Mr. Himmel? Please come to the door, sir.'
they waited. 'Or we'll have to go downtown for a
Still no answer. 'Mr. Himmel?'
They heard footsteps approaching the door.
They braced themselves
Lock clicking open.
The door opened a crack. A night chain
The same voice said, 'Yes?'
'Mr. Himmel?'
'Yes?'
'May we come in, sir?'
'Why?'
'We'd like to ask you some questions, sir.'
