Carol O’Connell - Killing Critics

Jack Coffey was suddenly very alert. There was something not right about this man. All his instincts told him a likely suspect was the one who tried to insinuate himself into the investigation. Well, maybe the attraction to the case was something as simple as Mallory’s pretty face.

She was staring at the man as though he had just crawled out of a sewer. “Quinn, I’m sure you told me everything you knew.”

The implication was What use are you to me ?

“Well, I expect you’ll be taking the case in new directions. You may have new questions,” said Quinn. “I’m at your disposal. Ask whatever you want of me.”

“All right,” said Mallory. “I want to know who your sister’s friends are. I want to know all the places where Sabra hung out before she disappeared.”

Now Coffey saw regret in Quinn’s eyes. The man had not foreseen this. Twelve years ago, he had gone to a great deal of trouble to keep the police away from his family. And now that he had given Mallory carte blanche, how would he get out of this?

He wouldn’t.

Suddenly, Coffey understood that Mallory had spent the last few minutes digging a deep hole for Quinn and covering it over with twigs and branches. And now she had him. It was the old man’s style. Markowitz would have been proud.

And what’s this? Plaid trousers? Flared ? Andrew Bliss leaned over the wall, bullhorn at the ready, target in his sights.

“You down there, the man with the plaid clown suit!”

The man stopped.

“Yes, you ! The sixties are done. Get yourself a life. Men’s-on the first floor-and hurry, for God’s sake.”

It was afternoon when he saw Annie on the sidewalk. She was smiling up at him and making the round “okay” with thumb and forefinger. Bless Annie, she had worn black pumps for the occasion. Now she gestured to the mobile news unit pulling up to the curb. More publicity, and hallelujah. Annie was motioning with a sweeping gesture which encompassed the small crowd massing at the foot of the building, and then she blew him a kiss.

Throughout the day, crowds gathered and dispersed, as he periodically retired into a bottle to rest his voice and kill the pain of the previous night’s bottles.

There was one small horror, realized on his second day out: he had no shampoo, deodorant, soap, none of the little niceties. And today, he was down to his last bottle of designer water for his morning espresso. He had thought to cart up two potted trees, but no toothbrush or paste. Though he had many changes of clothing, his body had begun to stink. His hair had become greasy and matted. Experimental bathing in champagne had only brought down a plague of flies. And then there was nothing for it but to get drunk and drunker, until he could no longer feel the flies running barefoot through his hair.

A fat dollop of water splashed the bridge of his nose, calling his attention to the sky and the coming rain. He began picking through the mounds of material, sheets, towels and silk pajamas, searching for the rope with which to make his canopy of raincoats. Now he uncovered a woman’s hand, and he drew back too quickly, losing his footing and landing on his rear end with a look of dumb surprise. On all fours, he crept close to the hand protruding from the pile of cloth. It was a mannequin, of course, but why had he brought it up to the roof?

He uncovered the mannequin woman with raven hair, a silver dress and dancing shoes. He dragged it off to a far corner of the roof and put a sheet over it. He retreated and sat down with his back against the opposite retaining wall, arms hugging his knees. He began to rock from side to side. Now that the mannequin was laid out and draped like the dead, it frightened him even more.

A small bell tinkled over the door as Mallory and Quinn passed under the amber light of the old Tiffany lamp. “That lamp was purchased in the early fifties,” said Quinn. “Every stick of furniture can be dated to that era. This place was Sabra’s favorite hangout.”

They settled at one end of the bar. There were patrons up and down the length of mahogany. Mallory picked up a cocktail napkin and stared at the logo for the Hilda-Godd Bar. “I thought it was called Godd’s Bar?”

“Well, Mike Godd died twenty years ago. Hilda Winkler is still alive, but she might as well be a ghost. Her name just dropped out of use. See that old woman over there? Even the bartender doesn’t know this, but that’s Hilda, the owner.”

An old woman sat in the far corner of the room, and tipped back a sherry glass. In the way of a specter, she kept to the darkest shadows of the place.

“Regulars of ten years’ standing have no idea who she is. The bartender only knows that the old lady drinks sherry and never pays a tab. She’s there when he comes to work in the afternoon, and still there when he leaves at closing time.”

The phone was ringing, and the bartender moved up the length of the bar to answer it.

“Watch the old woman now,” said Quinn.

The bartender picked up the phone and said, “This is Godd, whaddaya want?” and the old woman shuddered when he did this, as though she might be wondering if she was the ghost, and not her long-dead partner, whose name lived on.

Quinn looked toward the lineup of drinkers at the bar and then over his shoulder to the scattering of patrons among the polished tables. “Almost all of these people are painters or photographers.”

A young man dropped a coin into the jukebox, an elaborate art deco piece of ornate zigzag lines and curls of bright, colored lights. The music pouring out of the box was the big-band sound from a time when the old woman had been younger, prettier, more alive than the other permanent fixtures of Godd’s Bar. Mallory recognized the music from Markowitz’s record collection in the basement of the old house in Brooklyn.

When she was a child, Markowitz had played the old records for her and taught her how to swing to the big-band music which had filled the basement with a fifty-piece orchestra. The dancing lessons had begun with the waltz, leading into bebop and then on to rock’n‘roll- the old man’s real passion. But she suspected Markowitz had harbored a special feeling for the early fifties. He would have loved this place.

She was intent on the bartender’s back, waiting for him to turn around. When he did turn, he read her lips as she ordered a scotch and soda. He smiled and nodded at her, added a word each to two different conversations, mixed a tray of drinks for the cocktail waitress and splashed her scotch into a glass without a spill or a wasted motion. It was a magic act. He moved up the length of the bar, dancing to the music from the jukebox. One hand ringed a twist of lemon around the rim of the glass as he set the napkin in place on the bar. The glass appeared to settle there of its own accord, so sly was the hand. Long dark hair grazed his shoulders and he seemed to have no bones. Now he produced a bottle of sipping whiskey from the backbar and poured a neat shot without Quinn having to ask for it. The bartender was introduced as Kerry.

“Thanks again for the gig at Koozeman’s,” Kerry said to Quinn. “The opening is gonna be a big night. He packs a lot of money into those crowds. It’s a networker’s dream.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Quinn. “I did it for selfish reasons.” Turning to Mallory, he said, “Kerry is one of my best sources for news in the art community.”

Now Kerry was pointing to a patron sitting alone at the other end of the bar. “He just got the commission to shoot the plaza of Gilette’s new building. Gilette’s bringing down the wooden construction-site walls so they can photograph the place before the sculpture is installed.”

Quinn turned to Mallory. “Every time a building goes up, the architect is obliged to let the city put its own sculpture in the plaza. It’s usually something pretty awful. The architect always likes to get the before shot so he can remember it the way it was meant to be.”