• • •
OLLIE DID NOT, in fact, show up at the precinct until twelve noon that Tuesday, just in time for lunch. Ollie’s internal mechanism always told him when it was time to eat. Ollie sometimes believed it told him it wasalwaystime to eat.
“Anybody for lunch?” he asked.
He had opened the gate in the slatted rail divider that separated the squadroom from the long corridor outside, and was waddling—the proper word, Carella thought—across the room toward where Carella sat behind his desk. On this bright April morning, Ollie was wearing a plaid sports jacket over a lime green golfing shirt and blue Dacron trousers. He looked like a Roman galley under full sail. By contrast, Carella—who was expecting the imminent appearance of a burglary victim he’d scheduled for an interview—looked sartorially elegant in a wheat-colored linen shirt with the throat open and the sleeves rolled up over his forearms, and dark brown trousers that matched the color of his eyes. Ollie noticed for the first time that Carella’s eyes slanted downward, giving his face a somewhat Oriental appearance. He wondered if there was a little Chink in the armor back there someplace, huh, kiddies?
“How’s my eternally grateful friend?” he asked.
He was referring to the fact that around Christmastime, he had saved Carella’s life—twice, no less.
“Eternally grateful,” Carella said. In all honesty, he didn’t enjoy the idea of being indebted to Ollie in any which way whatever. “What brings you to this part of town?” he asked. As if he didn’t know.
“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.