Ed McBain - Fat Ollie's Book

“Take a look at this,” he said, and nodded at the sheet of paper while biting into what appeared to be two slices of pizza at the same time.

“What is it?” Carella asked.

“Diagram from the electrical guy.”

Carella put down his slice of pizza, unfolded the sheet of paper, and flattened it on the desk top.

“The podium’s in the center there,” Ollie said. “Henderson came on stage left, walked across to it, got shot just as he reached it. The shooter was in the wings stage right. The electrical guy saw repeated muzzle flashes, are you guys going to finish that pizza or what?”

“Go ahead, have a slice,” Kling said.

He was eager to see if Ollie could juggle four slices simultaneously.

“Kept the follow spot on him all the way to the floor, dedicated, huh?” Ollie said, hands reaching, mouth working, teeth biting, sauce and toppings and cheese dripping all over his hands and his shirt and the desk top. Astonishing, Kling thought.

“Is there a Detective Weeks here?” someone said.

They all turned toward the slatted wooden railing that divided the squadroom from the corridor outside. A female police officer was standing there. She was holding a manila envelope in her right hand. The wordEVIDENCEwas printed across the face of the envelope.

“I’m Detective Weeks,” Ollie said.

“Officer Gomez,” she said, and opened the gate in the railing and walked over to the desk. She was trying to learn attitude. Fresh out of the Academy, her uniform trimly tailored, the buttons all shiny and bright, even her shield looking glistening new, she walked with a sort of sidelong gait that tried to negate her obvious femininity while emphasizing the authority of the Glock on her hip.

“I was asked to bring this over,” she said, and placed the envelope on the desk. “You have to sign the Chain of Custody tag.”

“I know, honey,” Ollie said.

“It’s Officer Gomez, Detective,” she said, firmly but politely correcting him.

“Oh my, so it is,” Ollie said, glancing at the name tag pinned above her perky left breast, which readP.GOMEZin white on black. He signed for the envelope, hefted it on the palm of his hand, and said, “Would you happen to know what’s inside here, Officer Gomez?”

“Yes, sir,” Gomez said. “I was there when it was recovered at the scene.”

“And where would that have been, this scene, Officer Gomez?”

“In the alley outside the auditorium at King Memorial. Down the sewer there, sir.”

“I see, ah yes,” Ollie said, and opened the envelope.

Someone diligent seemed to have retrieved what looked like a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver.

• • •

OLLIE WAS JUST LEAVINGthe squadroom at a quarter to six that evening when the call from Ballistics came. The detective calling had a thick Hispanic accent. Ollie could hardly understand him. He wondered why these people didn’t learn to speak English. He also wondered why every time you called a movie theater to find out what was playing or what time the show went on, the person on the recorded message was somebody who’d learned English in Bulgaria. You had to call the number two, three times to get the message played all over again because you couldn’t figure out if it was Meg Ryan in the damn picture or Tom Cruise. He figured this was some kind of dumb-ass equal-opportunity program. If you had to record a telephone message essential to your business, what you did was choose the person in your company who couldn’t speak English at all. The thing was, Ollie hadn’t realized till now that this practice had spread to the Police Department.

From what he could gather, the .32 Smith & Wesson recovered from a sewer in the alley off the western end of the King Memorial auditorium either was or was not the pistol that had fired the fatal shots into Lester Henderson. From what he could gather further, a pistol bearing the serial numbers of the recovered weapon either was or was not registered to someone in this city.

“Listen,” Ollie said, “is there somebody there speaks English?”

The dope got insulted and hung up.

Ollie dialed back at once.

Another guy who couldn’t speak English answered the phone.

“What is this?” Ollie asked. “Did Castro invade the United States?”

“Quien es?”the guy asked.

“Detective/First Grade Oliver Wendell Weeks,” Ollie said. “Give me somebody speaks English down there.”

He heard the phone rattling onto a counter top down there. Probably dangerous weapons all over the place down there, nobody could speak English.

“Detective Hogan,” somebody said.

“Hooray,” Ollie said.

“Who’s this?”

“Weeks, the Eight-Eight. You got an evidence piece we sent down for Comp and ID, I’m tryin’a get a report on it.”

“Didn’t somebody call you?”

“Somebody called me.”

“So?”

“So nowI’mcallinyou.Did you test-fire the piece, and if so did you get a match?”

“Test bullets were positive for the evidence weapon, yes,” Hogan said. “Anything else?”

Ollie figured he was pissed off cause his spic buddies couldn’t speak English too good. “If it’s not too much trouble,” he said sweetly, “can you perhaps tell me if you ran a computer check on the evidence weapon?”

“Serial numbers were obliterated,” Hogan said. “Anything else?”

“Yes. What’s your first name, Hogan?”

“Why?”

“Cause I don’t like your attitude is why. I’m investigating a homicide here, of acouncilmanno less, and you happen to have in your possession themurderweapon. So if you don’t mind, Mr. Hogan, and if it ain’t too much trouble, what I’d like you to do isrestorethose numbers for me and then run the piece to see who mightownthe thing. Do you think you might know how to do that, Mr. Hogan? First you clean the site of the numbers…”

“I know how to do it,” Hogan said. “So do my partners.”

“Well, good, maybe the numbers are written in Spanish. After you bring ’em up, let me know what you find in the system, okay? I’ll be waiting. So will the Mayor’s Office, cause Lester Henderson wasn’t just some punk on the street, you know?” He paused for emphasis. “I wouldn’t be bothering you with all this, Mr. Hogan, cause I know how valuable your time is, but it so happens the only prints on the weapon were smeared, and we got nothing to go on. Which is why your expertise in the matter is so urgently demanded, ah yes,” Ollie said.

“The numbers were filed deep,” Hogan said. “Gonna be tough to bring ’em up.”

“Well now, gee, that’s your job, ain’t it?” Ollie said, and hung up.

ANDY PARKERdidn’t particularly like being partnered with women, especially any woman who’d been hurt on the job. The way he understood it, Eileen Burke had been slashed while serving as an undercover decoy in a case she’d been working with the Rape Squad. Blue wisdom maintained she’d also been violated at the time, so to speak, but nobody talked about that because Burke had friends with short tempers, among them Bert Kling who Parker knew for a fact had been going steady with her when all this occurred. What went on between them—or even between her legs, for that matter—was none of his business. What happened on the job when you were partnered with someone who’d been cut or shot was another matter. They were never the same again, he knew that for a fact, too.

The man they were talking to this Wednesday night was a person Parker had been working with ever since February. His name was Francisco Palacios, and he owned and operated a cozy little shop that sold medicinal herbs, dream books, religious statues, numbers books, tarot cards, and other related items.