Ed McBain - Fat Ollie's Book

“I’ll bet he’s after all those blood diamonds Livvie is locked up with in that basement,” Emilio said, and suddenly looked very sober, though he wasn’t. “Do you think it was her?” he asked. “Do you think she got out of that basement somehow? Do you think she might be somehow involved in the big dope deal going down? Though I have to say I didn’t see no dope down there, did you see any dope down there?”

“You know I didn’t.”

“Are you sure you heard the address right? 3211 Culver?”

“I’m sure I heard what I heard,” Aine said.

“Maybe we should check out that bar you located,” Emilio said.

“What do you think, Aine?”

“You got any more of that grass?” Aine said.

THE MINUTE OLLIEwalked through the door of his apartment, the phone started ringing. He ran across the room, and was breathless when he picked up the receiver. Fats Donner was on the other end.

“I found your opera singer,” he said. “Where can we meet?”

Ollie named a pizzeria on Culver and Sixth; what the hell, he thought, kill two birds with one stone.

“And don’t bring your kindergarten class,” he said.

“I’ll pretend I don’t understand that,” Donner said, and hung up.

Ollie grabbed a bite from the fridge before heading out.

IF DONNER WASremembering correctly, this was the same pizzeria where two hitters shot and killed Danny Gimp not too very long ago. This made him uneasy. He dimly recalled that the killing had had nothing at all to do with the profession he and Danny shared, but it still made him nervous to be sitting here in a public place with a cop as conspicuously large as Ollie, especially since he himself was not all that invisible. Such a pair could easily attract attention, he figured, and wished he’d asked Ollie to meet him at The Samuel Baths again.

“So who is she?” Ollie asked.

“How’d you make out with Herrera?”

“So far, he ain’t worth the deuce I paid you, and I ain’t all over him like fleas, either.”

“Maybe you’re not such a good detective, dad.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe it’s your information that stinks.”

“Then maybe you don’t want to know who this opera singer is.”

“Maybe you’d like to give me her name free of charge, considering the Emilio Herrera stuff wasn’t worth shit.”

“He’s out there, all you have to do is find him. Do you want this on the opera singer, or do I walk?”

“Let’s have a pizza,” Ollie said.

They ordered two pizzas, not for nothing were they men of considerable girth. Ollie ordered another one, which they split. Donner was thinking Ollie would try again for a free ride here. He was right.

“So tell me her name,” Ollie said.

“I’ll need a hundred.”

“I already gave you two.”

“This is fresh information.”

“Like the last information was fresh, huh? Who has no record in the files and who I still can’t find on the street.”

“Maybe you’re looking on the wrong street.”

“Tell me why I should trust this new stuff?”

“Sure, dad. Number one, sheisan opera singer. Number two…”

“Shewhat?”

“She’s an opera singer. In fact, she’s currently doing a recital at Clarendon Hall. Are you familiar with Clarendon Hall?”

“Where the terrorists hit around New Year’s?”

“The very.”

“She’s singing there?”

“Right now.”

“Thanks,” Ollie said. “Then I won’t need her name.”

“You aced me, you fat hump,” Donner said, and bit into his pizza.

• • •

VERONICA D’ALLESANDROwas still onstage when Ollie got to Clarendon Hall at ten-thirty that night. He showed the manager his police identification and told him it was urgent that he speak to Miss D’Allesandro as soon as she came off. The manager thought this was about another terrorist attack.

Ever since the Israeli violinist was killed by a suicide bomber here last December, everyone in the city was on edge. The World Trade Center attacks hadn’t helped much, either. Nor had what happened at the Pentagon. This was a nation of people walking on eggs. You saw anybody who looked like an Arab, you wanted to call the FBI. Ollie hated Arabs as much as he hated Jews or anybody else in this world. Ollie was an equal opportunity bigot. He felt anyone who didn’t look or sound the way he himself did deserved a swift kick in the ass. The manager’s name was Horowitz, which Ollie would have considered a major coincidence if he’d been at all familiar with classical music, which he wasn’t. All he heard was a money-lending Jewish name, and suspected Horowitz would charge admission to go backstage. He was surprised when the man took him at once to the singer’s dressing room.

Veronica D’Allesandro looked like that lady in all the Marx Brothers films, Geraldine Dumont or whatever her name was. A pouter pigeon chest with pearls hanging down its front, her hair clipped close to her head in what used to be called a bob, a pretty face for a woman her age. Ollie told her how much he’d enjoyed her performance, which he hadn’t even heard, and then asked her if perchance she had purchased from a Jewish pawnbroker named Irving Stein a tan pigskin Gucci dispatch case…

“Why yes!” she said, her eyes opening wide in surprise.

Ollie figured he’d impressed her.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Miss Doll-a-sandri,” he said, “but that case was stolen and is…”

“No!” she said.

“Ah, but yes,” he said. “It is evidence sought in an auto smash-and-grab that took place on April twenty-second, the day before you purchased it.”

“Oh dear,” she said.

“I’m afraid I must reclaim that case,” Ollie said. “Would you happen to…?”

“But I paid for it!”

“Seven dollars, if I’m correct.”

He was already reaching for his wallet.

“Yes, seven dollars,” she said, shaking her head in wonder.

Ollie figured he was still impressing her.

“The Department is required to reimburse you for reclaimed evidence,” he said, which wasn’t true. “Would you happen to have the case here with you?”

“Yes. I bought it for my music. I was carrying my music in it.”

“An appropriate use, ah yes,” Ollie said, and counted out seven singles and handed them to her. “I hope you haven’t handled it too much, we’ll be looking for fingerprints.”

“Oh dear,” she said again.

“Yes, dear,” Ollie said, and smiled cordially. “The case, please.”

The Rêve du Jour Underwear Factory was a squat brick structure nestled among a line of similar but taller buildings on Riverview Place, at the edge of the River Dowd. I know you are familiar with many languages, Commish, this being a rainbow coalition city of many desperate or even disparate tongues. But in case you do not know what “Rêve du Jour” becomes when it is translated from the original Spanish, which runs rampant in this city, then let me give you a bit of assistance.

“Rêve du Jour” means “River of Joy.”

It was my guess, as I approached the building, that perhaps the owner or owners had derived the name from the proximate closeness of the factory to the river, but that was mere speculation, and detectives are not paid to speculate. Besides, a person—even a Spanish person—would never in a million years consider the Dowd a “river of joy,” since it was more polluted than an Irishman on St. Patty’s Day—no offense, Commish, just a little metaphor there, or perhaps a simile.

A girl with short black curly hair and dark brown eyes was sitting behind the reception desk. She was not wearing a bra, which was surprising to me since this was an underwear factory. I must tell you that it is very difficult for a girl to find a proper bra these days, which is perhaps why the young lady behind the desk wasn’t wearing one. The trick is to find something that enhances and supports simultaneously, but that also makes it look like you’renotwearing a bra. At the same time, it can’t be too revealing. That is to say, it shouldn’t show your nipples and all through your outer garments. That may sound like mere girl talk, but believe me, I spend half my off-duty time searching for the right bra to enclose and enfold my not inconsiderate breasts. What I’m saying is that either the girl behind the desk was not wearing a bra, or else she was wearing a very good bra that made it look as if she wasn’t wearing one.