“I’m losing money here,” Liebowitz said.
“I’m sorry about that, but this is a homicide, you see.”
Liebowitz went pale.
“Okay to come sit inside?” Ollie asked.
“Sure,” Liebowitz said. “What do you mean, a homicide?”
“Three of them, actually,” Ollie said cheerfully, and came around to the passenger side and opened the door to the front seat.
He climbed in and made himself comfortable behind the meter hanging above the dash. Reading from the card, he said, “Max R.
Liebowitz, huh? What’s the R for?”
“Reuven,” Liebowitz said.
“I’ll bet that’s Jewish, right?” Ollie said, and grinned.
Something in the grin told Liebowitz everything he had to know about Fat Ollie Weeks. Not for nothing had he lost half his
family to the ovens at Auschwitz.
“That’s right, Jewish,” he said.
“Nice,” Ollie said, still grinning. “So tell me, Max, did you pick up a young lady outside the Stardust Club yesterday morning
around five-thirty?”
“How should I remember who I picked up yesterday morning at five-thirty?”
“The Hack Bureau tells me your call sheet lists a five-thirty pickup outside the club, is that right, Max?”
“I really can’t remember.”
He was thinking this was a vice cop.
He could already see the headlines.
“Could you turn down your heater a little?” Ollie said. “It’s very hot in here. Don’t you find it hot in here?”
Max was freezing to death.
He turned down the heater.
“This would’ve been a blond girl,” Ollie said, “nineteen years old, wearing a short black skirt and a fake-fur jacket, red.
Carrying a shiny red handbag. A clutch, they call it. Do you remember such a girl, Max?”
“I think I do, yeah. Now that you mention it.”
“She’s dead, Max.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So are two other people she may or may not have known. Dead, I mean. Not sorry like you. Well, maybe sorry, too, considering
they’re dead. Two black guys, Max. Were there any black guys with her when you picked her up?”
“No, she was alone.”
“You remember now, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“This was five-thirty?”
“Around then.”
“Your call sheet said five-thirty.”
“Then that’s what it must’ve been. Cause we have to write it down, you know.”
“I know. Max, did you drop her off on Ainsley and North Eleventh, like your call sheet says?”
“Yes, I did.”
“At what time, Max?”
“It must’ve been six o’clock.”
“Took you half an hour to drive three miles from the Stardust to Ainsley and North Eleventh?”
“Yeah.”
“How come, Max? That time of day, it should’ve taken no more than ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Must’ve been traffic,” Liebowitz said, and shrugged.
“Five-thirty on a Sunday morning?”
“Well, sometimes there’s traffic.”
“So you’re saying there was traffic, huh?”
He was leaning in close to Liebowitz now. The front seat of the cab seemed suddenly very crowded. The man had terrible body
odor; Liebowitz was thinking it wouldn’t hurt he should take a bath every now and then. Some people, they claimed it wasn’t
the person, it was the
clothes
that smelled, clothes that hadn’t been dry-cleaned in a while. But how could clothes start to smell unless the person wearing
them smelled? Liebowitz was willing to bet this guy hadn’t bathed since Rosh Hashanah, which last year had fallen on September
24. Also, his breath stank of garlic and onions. Besides, what the hell did he want here, while the meter wasn’t ticking?
“I don’t remember whether there was traffic or not,” he said. “I know it took whatever time it took to go from wherever to
wherever.”
“Half an hour, you said.”
“If that’s what it took, that’s what it took,” Liebowitz said. “Now listen, Detective, I’m a working man, I got a living to
earn. You want to know something about this girl, ask me. Otherwise, let me get back to work.”
“Sure,” Ollie said. “Did you know she was a prostitute?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Liebowitz said, lying. “She told me she was a topless singer and dancer.”
“What I’m trying to find out, Max, is whether you might have dropped the girl off at St. Sab’s and First …”
“No, I …”
“… instead of Ainsley and Eleventh. You didn’t see her going in an alley on St. Sab’s and First, did you?”
“No.”
“Because that’s where she was found dead, in an alley there, you see. We’re wondering did these two black shits
really
rob her and kill her, or was it some
other
shits? This is a serious thing here, Max.”
“I know it is.”
“So if you dropped her someplace different from what it says on your call sheet …”
“No.”
“Or if she stopped someplace to score …”
“No, no.”
“Cause she was in possession of ten jumbo bottles, you see.”
“I don’t know what that is, jumbo bottles.”
“Crack, Max. Big vials of crack. Red tops.”
“I didn’t take her anyplace but Ainsley and Eleventh.”
“Not even for a minute.”
“Not even for ten seconds.”
“So what took you so long to go three miles uptown, Max?”
The taxi went silent.
“Max, are you lying to me?”
“Why would I lie to you?”
“Well, I don’t know. You tell me, Max.”
Outside on the street, an ambulance siren wailed to the night. Liebowitz was silent. Ollie waited. The sound of the ambulance
melted into the city’s constant nighttime song, a murmur that rose and fell, rose and fell, the pulse beat of a giant metropolis.
Still Ollie waited.
“Max,” he said.
“Okay,” Liebowitz said, “the young lady and I had relations, okay?”
“You and the young lady are
related
?” Ollie asked, being deliberately dense.
Liebowitz cleared his throat.
“No, we
had
relations.”
“Ah,” Ollie said. “Your mutual relatives are dead?”
“We had sex,” Liebowitz whispered.
“Sex?”
“Yes.”
“You mean you had
intercourse
with her, Max?”
“No, no.”
“Then what
do
you mean, Max?”
“She performed … uh … fellatio on me.”
“Ah.”
“That’s why it took so long to get uptown.”
“Ah.”
“I’m not a young man anymore, you see.”
“I see.”
“It takes a while.”
“I see. Max, you could’ve got arrested, do you know that, Max?”
“I know.”
“You did a foolish thing, Max. You could contract AIDS, Max, do you know that?”
“Please. Don’t even mention such a thing.”
“Very dangerous, what you did, Max.”
“I know, I know.”
“Anyway, that explains it.”
“Yes.”
“A half hour to drive only three miles uptown.”
“Yes.”
“But you
did
drop her off at Ainsley and Eleventh, is that right?”
“Oh yes.”
“No stops along the way.”
“Well, yes. I pulled over to the curb while she … uh … did it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember. A dark street. I picked a spot that looked dark.”
“And then went directly to Ainsley and Eleventh afterward, is that right?”
“Yes. Dropped her right at the curb.”
“Where’d she go then, did you happen to notice?”
“Well, no. I guess she went off with these people who were waiting for her.”
“What?” Ollie said.
“Some people were waiting for her.”
“Who? What people?”
“Three white kids and a black guy,” Liebowitz said.
“Tell me what they looked like,” Ollie said.
The night manager at the Hotel Powell had given Priscilla the addresses and phone numbers of both the manager and doorman
who’d been on duty when the tall blond man delivered the envelope containing the key to the pay locker. The letter had been
delivered at a little past eleven on Sunday morning and this was now a little before two on
Monday
morning, but Priscilla felt it wouldn’t be
tomorrow
until she went to bed and woke up again.
This was not a view shared by James Logan, who was asleep at one-fifteen
a.m
. when Priscilla telephoned him to say she was coming over, and who was
still
asleep at one fifty-eight
a.m
. when she rang his doorbell. Swearing mildly, Logan got out of bed in his pajamas, pulled on a robe, and went mutteringly
to the front door. He would have told anyone else exactly where to go at this hour of the night, but Miss Stetson was a performer
who brought mucho bucks into the hotel’s café. Putting on a false smile, he opened the door and welcomed her as if she were
Princess Di, whom she slightly resembled, to tell the truth.
Logan was gay.
He would have combed his hair had he known she was bringing two men along, one of whom wasn’t at all bad looking. As it was,
he stood there in the doorway wearing his ratty robe, his wrinkled striped pajamas, his worn bedroom slippers, and his unconvincing
smile, and asked them all to please come in, wouldn’t they? They all went in. Logan offered them a drink. The good-looking
one—Georgie, was that his name?—said he wouldn’t mind a little Scotch if Logan had some, thanks a lot. Rough trade if Logan
was any judge. He poured the Scotch. The other one, Tony, said he’d thought it over, and he wouldn’t mind a little Scotch,
too, please. Logan poured another glass. With a splash of soda, please, Tony said. Logan went to fetch a bottle of club soda
from the refrigerator. This was turning into a regular little tea party at two o’clock in the morning. With a black kid named
Daryll in the bedroom.
“I want to know whatever you can tell me about the man who delivered that letter to me this morning,” Priscilla said.
“
Yesterday
morning,” Logan corrected, since he himself had already gone to bed and awakened again.
Been
awakened, more accurately.
“Did he give you his name?” Priscilla asked.
“You asked me that yesterday morning,” Logan said. “No, he didn’t give me his name.”
“What did he say exactly?”
“He said to be sure the envelope was delivered to your suite.”
“He said
suite
?”
“Yes.”
“Not
room
?”
“He specifically said suite.”
“So he knows I have a suite there,” Priscilla said to Georgie.
Georgie nodded wisely and sipped at his Scotch. His job here was to make sure she
never
found this tall blond guy, whoever he was, because then he would tell her the envelope was very fat when he’d left it in
the locker. Then it would become a matter of believing some tall blond stranger or two Italian guys looked like they just
got off the boat from Napoli, albeit in Armani threads. In Georgie’s experience, blond broads always trusted blond men over
swarthy wops. So next thing you knew, she’d be asking them how come the envelope was now so
skinny
, and before you could say Giuseppe Umberto Mangiacavallo, she’d actually be accusing them of having
stolen
the fuckin ninety-five K—all because they were Italian. Boy.
“Tell me what he looked like,” Priscilla said.
“Tall blond man.”
“How tall?”
“Six-two.”
“Would you say a blond blond or a dirty blond?”
“More like a dirty blond.”
“Like Robert Redford?”
“Not as blond. Redford tints, I’ll bet.”
“But a dirty blond, right?”
“Muddy, I’d say. Actually, he looked like Redford.”
“Robert Redford delivered the envelope?” Tony said, astonished.
“No, no. But he
resembled
Redford. Except for the accent.”
“What accent?”
“I told you. Some kind of heavy accent.”
“Russian?”
“I really couldn’t say. There are so
many
accents in this city.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A dark blue overcoat.”
“Hat?”
“No hat.”
“A scarf?”
“Yes. A red muffler.”
“Gloves?”
“No.”
“What color shoes?”
“I couldn’t see them from behind the desk.”
“Beard? Mustache?”
“Clean-shaven.”
Priscilla didn’t know that the cops had asked virtually these same questions on the night of her grandmother’s murder. Nor
did she realize, of course, that the man who lived down the hall from her had given them this exact description.
“Anything else you remember about him?”
Sounding more and more like a cop.
Maybe she’d missed her calling.
“Well … this will sound funny, I know,” Logan said.
“Yes?”
“He smelled of fish.”
“What do you mean?”
“When he handed the envelope across the desk, there was a faint whiff of fish rising from his hands.”
“Fish?”
“Mm.”
“James?” a voice from the bedroom called.
“Yes, Daryll?”
“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 Danny’s story about getting shot was a lie.
“You ever notice that most of the cases we work together, it’s wintertime?” Danny asked.