Ed McBain - Fiddlers

Ollie nodded, sipped at his beer.

‘What’sa matter?’ Parker asked.

‘Nothing. Why? What’sa matter?’

‘You din’t think that was funny?’

‘Not very.’

‘Grand Theft, Auto? You din’t think that was funny?’

‘I thought it was Grand Theft, Auto, is what I thought it was. It coulda been any three guys driving the car, that woulda been Grand Theft, Auto, if they stole the car.’

‘Yeah, but these were three spics, which is what made it Grand Theft, Auto, which is what makes the joke funny.’

‘Okay, so it’s funny,’ Ollie said. ‘Ha ha.’

‘You know what’s wrong with you all at once?’ Parker said, and jabbed his finger across the table at him.

‘I didn’t realize anything was wrong with me all at once,’ Ollie said.

‘Yes, all at once you are losing your you-ness.’

‘My what?’

‘Your essential Ollie-ness .’

‘And what is that, my essential Ollie-ness?’

‘Your capacity to laugh at niggers and spies and wops and kikes…”

‘I told you “ha ha,” didn’t I?’

‘Yes, but you didn’t mean it. You are losing your ris de veau .’

‘My what?’

‘Your ris de veau. That’s French for “joy of living.” When the French say a person has ris de veau, it means he enjoys life.’

‘Too bad I ain’t French.’

‘I got another story to tell you,’ Parker said.

‘What’s this one?’ Ollie said. ‘Four Jews in a blue Caddy?’

‘No, it’s about this puppy dog walking along the railroad tracks…’

‘Is he white, black, or Puerto Rican?’

‘He is a little white puppy dog, and this train comes along, and the wheels run over his tail, and he loses the end of his tail. And he’s very sad about this. So he puts his head down on the tracks and he begins crying his heart out, and not paying any attention. And just then another train comes along, and runs him over again, cutting off his head this time. You know the moral of that story, Ollie?’

‘No, what’s the moral?’

‘Never lose your head over a piece of tail.’

The table went silent.

‘You understand me?’ Parker said.

Ollie figured maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

THEY FOUND THE first of Alicia’s husbands in a salsa club called Loco Tapas y Vargas on Verglas Street, downtown on the edge of the city’s Garment District. Ricky Montero was playing trumpet in one of the club’s two ‘top-name Big Band Orchestras’; neither Parker nor Genero had ever heard of either of them.

Montero’s band was rehearsing when they came in at ten thirty that Tuesday morning, the twenty-second day of June. He explained that both bands played mambo, cha-cha, rumba, son, merengue, guaracha, timba, and songo. He told them each of the bands played both ‘On Two’ and ‘On One’ music…

‘On Two is a mambo style where the break step…”

‘The what step?’

‘The first long step, the break step, comes on the second beat. No pauses.’

‘Uh-huh.’

“With On One, the break comes on the first beat…”

‘Uh-huh.’

‘… and the dancers pause on the fourth and the eighth beats.’

Parker nodded.

So did Genero.

Neither knew what the hell Montero was talking about.

‘Many dancers prefer the On One style.’

‘I can see why,’ Parker said.

‘On Two is based on percussion,’ Montero explained. ‘Not like On One.’

‘What’s On One based on?’

‘Melody.’

‘Right,’ Genero said.

Parker felt like ordering a beer. So did Genero.

‘Tell us about your ex-wife,’ Parker said.

‘Somebody offed her, huh?’ Montero said. ‘I read about it in the papers. Some kind of serial killer, huh?’

‘Well, we don’t know that yet.’

‘All we know so far is she was sexually promiscuous at an early age.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say that.’

‘You had no reason to believe that?’

‘Well, she had a healthy appetite, let’s say.’

‘For sex, right?’

‘Well, sex, yes.’

‘Which means she was sexually promiscuous, right?’

‘Depends on how you define promiscuous.’

‘How do you define it, Mr. Montero?’

‘Well, yes, she was sexually promiscuous, I would say, yes.’

‘How about drugs? Was she using drugs?’

‘Well.’

‘Because we understand you yourself do…’

‘No, no.’

‘…a little dope.’

‘No, that’s not true. Long ago, maybe. Not no more.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Ten years? When we were together, yes, we experimented a little, you might say.’

‘With what? Crack?’

‘No, no, crack was on the scene much earlier, the crack rage. Alicia and I split ten years ago. Heroin was back by then. All we did was a little shit every now and then.’

‘Just dabbled, would you say?’

‘Oh, yes, nothing serious.’

‘Not even little teeny-weeny chickenshit habits?’

‘No habits at all. Nothing. Like you said, we just dabbled.’

‘Who helped you with all this dabbling?’

‘Not all this dabbling. Come on. It was just every now and then. Recreational, you might say. Recreational use. Hey, I’m a musician.’

‘Alicia wasn’t a musician, though.’

‘Well, we were married. Look, this wasn’t such a big deal. Don’t try to make it into such a big deal.’

‘Was she working when you were married?’

‘Yes.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Manicuring.’

‘Would you remember where?’

‘No. This was before she got into selling beauty products.’

‘Why’d you divorce her, Ricky?’

‘I didn’t.’

The detectives looked at him blankly.

‘She was the one wanted the divorce.’

‘Why?’

‘Different lifestyles, she said.’

‘Dope?’ Genero said.

‘No, we were both experimenting along those lines.’

‘Sex?’

‘I didn’t mind that.’

‘Then what?’

‘I have no idea. She just said our lifestyles were too different.’

‘About this experimenting…’

‘Just a little.’

‘Just a little shmeck every now and then, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Who supplied you?’

‘Shit, man, you can score on any street corner in this city, don’t you know that? I mean, you’re cops, you don’t know that?’

‘Nobody in particular? No favorite dealer?’

‘Nobody I’d remember.’

‘Would you know if she kept on using? After you split?’

‘I haven’t seen her in ten years.’

‘So you wouldn’t know if she was still “dabbling”?’

‘ “Experimenting” ?’

‘How would I know?’

‘But if she was…’

‘I don’t know what she…”

“… you wouldn’t know who might have been supplying her nowadays.’

‘I wouldn’t know anything about her. I just told you, I haven’t seen her in ten years.’

‘Wouldn’t know if she owed some dealer money, for example?’

‘Is there a problem with the sound in here? What is it you don’t understand? I haven’t seen the woman in ten years. I don’t know if she was shooting dope in her arm or in her eye or even up her ass.’

‘How do you know she was selling beauty products?’

‘Huh?’

‘If you haven’t seen her in ten years, how do you happen to know that?’

‘I heard around.’

‘From who?’

‘I forget who told me. She was selling nail polish and shit. Was what I heard. She was like a sales rep, is what they call it. Look, if you got any more questions, make it fast, okay? I gotta get back on the stand.’