Fiddlers

7.

HE THOUGHT AT first the girl in bed with him was Sharyn. Opening his eyes, first thing that registered was black. Then he realized her scent was different, her hairstyle was different, her face was different, this girl was not Sharyn Cooke. Oh, Jesus, he thought, and felt immediate guilt.

Almost ashamed to look at her.

But kept looking at her.

Black hair in corn rows. Ripe lips, free of lipstick now. Fast asleep, breathing lightly. Looked like a shiny angel. Earrings on the night table beside her. Clothes draped on a chair across the room. The clock on his side of the bed read 6:15 A.M. He was due in the squadroom at 7:45.

Was she a hooker?

In the bar last night… hadn’t there been some talk about money?

He couldn’t even remember which bar it was.

He kept looking at her.

She was quite beautiful.

She couldn’t be a hooker, could she?

Her name was…

Sally?

Sophie?

Whatever her name was, whatever her occupation, she should not be here in his bed this morning. Was someone in Sharyn’s bed this morning?

As if the bed were suddenly on fire, he got out of it fast, and virtually ran across the room to the bathroom. He closed and locked the door. He looked at himself in the mirror.

Maybe you didn’t do anything but sleep together, he told himself.

Buy that one, and I have a good bridge I can sell you.

He kept looking at himself in the mirror. Then he got into the shower, and ran it very hot, and kept thinking over and again, What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?

* * * *

She was sitting up in bed when he came back into the room, a towel around his waist.

‘Hi,’ she said, and got out of bed immediately. ‘Gotta tinkle,’ she said, and rushed past him to the bathroom, long legs flashing, tight little ass, cute little boobs, the door closed behind her. He could hear her peeing inside there. He did not want this intimacy. This intimacy was reserved for Sharyn. But Sharyn wasn’t here, this girl was here, whatever her name was.

He pulled on a pair of undershorts, trousers, threw on a shirt. Should he offer her coffee? Who was she, anyway? Had he paid her for last night? He hoped he hadn’t paid her, he hoped she wasn’t a hooker. He went to the dresser, picked up his wallet, thinking to check the bills there, see if he was now a hundred or so short.

The bathroom door opened.

She stood there naked, hands on her hips.

‘Anything missing?’ she asked.

Smile on her face.

‘You still believe it, don’t you?’

He said nothing.

‘The fun I was having with you last night. In the bar.’

He still said nothing.

‘You still think I’m a hooker, don’t you? My, my,’ she said. ‘Just how drunk were you, Bert?’

‘Pretty drunk. I’m sorry. Forgive me if I…”

‘Do you remember my name?’

‘I’m sorry, no.’

‘Sadie,’ she said. ‘Sadie Harris.’

He nodded.

‘Librarian,’ she said.

He nodded again.

‘Really,’ she said, ‘I’m a librarian. Last night didn’t cost you a nickel. Go ahead, count your money.’

‘Well,’ he said, and put the wallet back on the dresser.

‘How much of last night do you remember, by the way?’

He spread his hands helplessly.

‘Well, I enjoyed it,’ she said. ‘Have you got a robe I can put on? Or are you going to kick me out without breakfast?’

He went to the closet, took a robe from its hanger, carried it to her, held it for her while she shrugged into it. His earlier guilt was changing to something else. He was beginning to feel rotten for the girl. If she really was a librarian, then…

‘So where do you work?’ he asked. ‘Which library?’

‘Still don’t believe me, huh?’ she said, and walked familiarly to the cabinets over the sink, and opened one of them, and found a tin of ground coffee. ‘Chapel Road Branch, uptown near the old Orpheum Theater. I have to be in at nine, by the way. And I still have to go home to change into my librarian threads.’

‘I have to be in at seven forty-five.’

‘So we still have time,’ she said, and raised one eyebrow. ‘For breakfast,’ she added.

* * * *

This time, he was cold sober.

This time, he was wide awake.

When she let his robe fall from her shoulders, he opened his arms wide to her and drew her close to him, and when she raised her face to his, he kissed her fiercely on the mouth. And then he lifted her off the floor and into his arms, and carried her to the bed.

* * * *

‘You still think I’m a hooker, don’t you?’ she said afterward. She was lying beside him, cradled in his arms. One hand was on his chest. Long slender fingers. Bright red painted fingernails.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’re a hooker.’

‘Then why did I behave so sluttily last night in that bar?’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘Cause I liked what I saw,’ she said. ‘And librarians don’t get out much.’

‘You seemed to know the bartender pretty well,’ he said.

‘Louis. Yes, I do know him. I live right around the corner from there.’

‘Do you play that game often? Pretending to be a hooker?’

‘Depends what I’ve been reading that week. Sometimes I pretend to be a rich Jewish girl from the suburbs.’

‘Are you really a librarian?’

‘How many times I got to tell you, man? You want me to ‘splain the Dewey Decimal System to you?’

‘Is that another role?’

‘The Dewey… ?’

‘No, the li’l cornpone black girl.’

‘I can talk white, black, whatever suits you, dollink,’ she said, suddenly going Jewish. Then, for some reason, she reached up to touch his mouth. Her hand lingered there, her long fingers tracing his lips. ‘You have a beautiful mouth,’ she said. ‘I think I’m in love with you,’ she said. ‘Oh, pshaw,’ she said. ‘I got that expression from a British spy novel. Oh, pshaw. Man named Sykes keeps saying that to his assistant. “Oh, pshaw, Shaw,’ which is the assistant’s name. Ask Louis. Two months ago I walked in talking British and being a spy. But I do believe I’m seriously in love with you,’ she said, and sat up, and leaned over him, and kissed him on the mouth. She pulled her own mouth away, looked him full in the face. ‘What’s my name?’ she asked.

‘Sadie,’ he said.

‘I’ve got a BA from Radmore U,’ she said. ‘I’m thirty years old. How old are you?’

‘Thirty-three,’ he said.

‘Well now, that’s nigh on perfect, ain’t it?’ she said.

‘Is that black?’ he asked.

‘That’s white trash,’ she said. ‘Am I your first black girl?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘You’re my first white man.’

‘Was I okay?’

‘Oh my dear boy!’ she said, and kissed him on the mouth again.

They both looked at the bedside clock again.

‘I can’t get enough of you,’ she said.

‘Sadie…”

‘Don’t tell me you’re married, or engaged, or even dreaming of having a relationship with anyone else,’ she said. ‘Because right now, you are going to make love to me again, and then we are going to discuss our future together, you unner’stan whut I’m sayin, white boy?’

‘Sadie…’

‘Now just hush,’ she said.

He hushed.

* * * *

‘We’re beginning to get overwhelmed here,’ Byrnes said.

‘I told you. The garbage can of the DD,’ Parker said.

‘Where’d this one go down?’ Hawes asked.

‘The Three-Eight. In Majesta. Old lady and her dog.’

‘How old?’ Carella asked.

‘Seventy-three.’

‘He’s upping ages,’ Meyer said.

‘Softer targets.’

‘Same Glock?’ Brown asked.

‘Identical. Shot the dog for good measure.’

‘Killed him, too?’

‘Her. A bitch.’

‘The dog, I mean.’

‘Right. A female.’

‘Where’d you get that?’

‘From the Three-Eight’s report. They sent us their paper soon as Ballistics confirmed.’

‘Sure,’ Parker said knowingly.

‘What kind of dog was it?’ Genero asked.

‘We already went by the dog, Richard.’

‘I’m curious.’

‘A golden,’ Byrnes told him.

‘That’s a nice dog, a golden.’

‘Some people get very offended when dogs are killed,’ Hawes said. He was sitting by the window, his red hair touched by sunlight, looking on fire. ‘You can kill all the cats in the world, they don’t care. But kill a dog? They march on City Hall.’

‘Goldens?’ Genero asked. ‘Or all dogs?’

‘Point is we’re overwhelmed here,’ Byrnes said. ‘Five homicides now…”

‘Plus the dog, don’t forget,’ Genero said.

‘Fuck the dog,’ Parker said.

‘Eileen, Hal? What are you guys working?’

‘The liquor store holdups on Culver.’

‘Can you take on the dog lady?’

‘Don’t see how,’ Willis said. ‘We’re sitting four stores alternately.’

‘Me and Andy’ll take the dog lady,’ Genero said.

‘We’ve already got the cosmetics lady,’ Parker reminded him.

‘I like dogs,’ Genero explained.

‘How’re you doing with your professor?’ Byrnes asked.

‘Getting nowhere fast,’ Brown said.

‘Where’s Kling, anyway?’ Byrnes said.

Brown shrugged.

Everyone looked up at the clock.

‘So what do we do here?’ Byrnes asked. ‘Cotton? You want to fly solo on this one?’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Who caught it up the Three-Eight?’

‘Guy named Anderson. We’ve got all his paper.’

‘I’ll give him a call.’

‘Ask him what the dog’s name was,’ Genero said.

* * * *

According to Helen Reilly’s neighbors, the dog’s name was Pavarotti. A female. Go figure. Apparently, Helen was single when she was killed, but she’d been married twice before. This from several sources in her building, but primarily from her closest friend, a woman who lived across the street at 324 South Waverly. Hawes didn’t get to her until almost three that Saturday afternoon.

Her name was Paula Wellington, and she was in her early fifties, he guessed, some twenty years younger than the dog lady. Good-looking woman with a thick head of white hair she wore loose around her face. Blue eyes. She told Hawes almost at once that three months ago she’d weighed two hundred pounds. Right now, she looked fit and trim.

‘Helen and I used to walk a lot together,’ she said. “We were friends for a long time.’

‘How long would that have been?’ Hawes asked.

‘She moved into the neighborhood, must’ve been three years ago. She was a lovely woman.’

‘Where’d she live before this, would you know?’

‘In Calm’s Point. She was a recent widow when she moved here.’

‘Oh?’ Hawes said.

‘Yes. Her husband was killed in a drive-by shooting.’

‘Oh?’ he said again.

‘Gang stuff. He was coming home from work, just coming down to the street from the train station, when these teenagers drove by shooting at someone from another gang. Martin was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the right time.’

‘Would you know his last name?’

‘It was a gang thing,’ Paula said.

I’d like to check it, anyway.’

‘Martin Reilly. Well, Reilly. He was her husband, you understand.’

‘Of course,’ Hawes said, but he wrote down the name, anyway.

‘They were very happily married, too. Unlike the first time around.’

‘When was that, would you know?’

‘Had to’ve been at least fifty years ago. Her first marriage. Two kids. She finally walked out after twelve years of misery.’

‘Walked out?’

‘So long, it’s been good to know you.’

‘Were they ever divorced?’

‘Oh, I’m sure. Well, she remarried, right?’

‘Right. What was her first husband’s name, would you know?’

‘No, I’m sorry. Luke Something?’

‘Ever meet him?’

‘No.’

‘He wouldn’t have tried to contact her ever, would he?’

‘I don’t think so. No. I’m sure she would’ve told me. It was strictly good riddance to bad rubbish.’

‘The children? Would you know their names?’

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Were they boys or girls?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know.’

‘Well, thank you, Ms. Wellington, I appreciate your time.’

‘You wouldn’t care for a cup of tea, would you?’ she said. ‘It’s about that time of day, you know.’

Hawes hesitated a moment.

Then he said, ‘I have to get back.. Maybe some other time.’

Paula nodded.

* * * *

Fat Ollie Weeks did not like religion in general and priests in particular, but he hoped no one would write him letters on the subject because he simply would not answer them. He could not say he particularly disliked Father Joseph Santoro, except that the man appeared to be in his late seventies, and Ollie had no particular fondness for old people, either.

Why a man at such an advanced age hadn’t yet tipped to the fact that wearing a long black dress and a gold necklace and cross might be considered somewhat effeminate was beyond Ollie. But he was not here to discuss sexual proclivities or the peculiar dress habits of the Catholic priesthood. He was here to learn what Father Joseph Santoro had seen or heard on the night Father Michael Hopwell was shot twice in the face, he being the last person to have seen his dead colleague alive, ah yes, except for the killer.

The retirement center at six P.M. that Saturday was just serving dinner to its fifty or so resident retired priests and nuns. Ollie knew these religious people had all taken vows of chastity and poverty, which he surmised included not eating too terribly much, or screwing around at all after hours, wherever it was they slept. Hence the somewhat gaunt and hungry appearance of many of the men and women seated around long wooden tables in the center’s dining room. He was not expecting any kind of decent dinner, and was surprised to find the food both plentiful and quite delicious.

Sitting opposite Father Joseph, grateful that Patricia Gomez was not present to scold him about breaking his diet, Ollie dug into a roast beef cooked a little too well for his taste, string beans steamed to crispy perfection, and small roasted potatoes browned on the outside and flaky white on the inside. It was several moments before he remembered why he was here.

‘So tell me what you and Father Michael talked about that night,’ he said.

‘Mostly about his coming retirement,’ Father Joseph said.

He was eating like a bird, had to watch his girlish figure, Ollie supposed, the old faggoty fart.

‘How’d he feel about that?’ Ollie asked.

‘Not too happy.’

‘Tell you about anything- else that might be troubling him? Quarrels with his parishioners? Disputes within the Church hierarchy? Anything that might have presaged his murder?’

Good word, Ollie thought, presaged. He doubted Father Joseph here had ever heard such a word in his life, presaged. The curse of being a literary man, ah yes.

‘He was very well liked by everyone,’ Father Joseph said.

‘How long have you known him?’

‘We go back to our first ministry together.’

‘At St. Ignatius?’

‘No. Our Lady of Grace. In Riverhead.’

‘When was that?’

‘Fifty-some odd years ago.’

‘Everybody love him to death back then, too?’

Father Joseph looked at him.

‘Do I detect a touch of sarcasm there?’ he asked.

‘None at all. Just repeating what you told me earlier.’

‘I never said he was loved to death.’

‘You said he was very well liked by everyone.’

‘Yes. But I did not say he was loved to death.’

‘Wasn’t he?’

‘There were naturally disagreements. There are disagreements in any ministry.’

‘Like about what? Molly wants an abortion, Father Michael says, “Nay, that’s against Church Law”?’

‘Sometimes. Yes. Abortion can become an issue, even among the faithful.’

‘How about sex before marriage?’

‘That can be another issue, yes.’

‘Or marrying outside the faith?’

‘All issues that could possibly come up between a priest and his congregation, yes. That’s why we’re there, Detective Weeks. To offer guidance and direction.’

‘Think any of these issues might have come up during Father Michael’s time in the priesthood?’

‘I feel certain they would have.’

“He mention any threats he may have received…”

‘None.’

‘… regarding one or another of these issues that may have come up…”

‘No.’

‘… at any time during his long priesthood?’

‘Nothing. He was worried about retiring. He thought he’d have nothing to do once he retired.’

‘No more issues to deal with, right?’

Father Joseph said nothing.

‘What time did you leave Father Michael the other night?’ Ollie asked.

‘It must’ve been around ten o’clock.’

‘To go where?’

‘The bus stop on Powell and Moore. I catch the L-16 bus there. It’s a limited-stop bus, gets me back here in half an hour.’

‘Hear anything while you were waiting for the bus? Any shots? Any loud voices? Anything like that?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So you got back here at around ten thirty, is that right?’

‘I didn’t look at a clock.’

‘You said it was a half-hour ride…”

‘Yes, but…”

‘Or didn’t you come directly here, Father Joseph?’

‘I came directly here.’

‘So you must’ve got here around ten thirty, quarter to eleven, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Closer to eleven.’

‘When did you learn of Father Michael’s death?’

‘Later that night. Sister Margaret called to inform me.’

‘You don’t think she could’ve shot him, do you?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Who do you think might have shot him, Father?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘No one specific parishioner who might have disagreed violently with Father Michael’s guidance or direction… ?’

‘I know of no such…”

‘Either at St. Ignatius

‘No.’

‘Or before that? At Our Lady of Grace?’

‘I can’t think of anyone like that,’ Father Joseph said.

‘Where’s Our Lady of Grace, anyway?’ Ollie asked. ‘Might be worth a visit, see if anybody up there has a longer memory than yours. Are you going to eat your dessert, Father? It’s a sin to let food go to waste, you know.’

* * * *

According to Paula Wellington, her good friend Helen Reilly was a recent widow when she’d moved from Calm’s Point, three years ago. Husband the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting. Biggest part of the city, Calm’s Point. The area map showed two or three dozen precincts there - well, thirty-four, when Hawes actually counted them. By his modest estimate, at least that many drive-bys took place in Calm’s Point every day of the week. Well, that was probably exaggeration. But trying to pinpoint a drive-by that had taken place more than three years ago… when there were thirty-four precincts to check…

Well, he supposed he could just run the name MARTIN REILLY through his computer, go back some five years or so, do a HOMICIDE check, he’d probably get lucky that way. But it would probably be easier and quicker, wouldn’t it, to just talk to Ms. Paula Wellington again? Sure it would. So he called her at four that Friday afternoon, and asked if he might stop by, few questions that had come up, wondered if she could help him. She told him it was probably still tea time, anyway, so why not drop in, did he remember the address? He remembered the address.

* * * *

South Waverly Street downtown was packed with humanity when Hawes got there at a quarter to five. Kids in swimsuits running through the spray from open fire hydrants; this was now four days after the official start of summer. Men in tank-top undershirts playing checkers or chess on upturned orange crates. Dozens of women in cotton housedresses knitting on front stoops like so many Mesdames Defarges. White ice-cream trucks trolling the streets like predators. Tweeny girls flashing long legs in short skirts, precipitate breasts in recklessly low-cut tops. Macho young men strutting their testosterone. And the cotton was high.

Hawes climbed past three women on Paula’s front stoop. They gave him the once-over, figured him for a cop, and went back to their gossip. On the third floor, he knocked on the door to apartment 31. Paula called, ‘Just a sec,’ and then came to open it.

He wondered what the hell he was doing here.

She was wearing lime-colored bell-bottomed cotton pants and a white cotton tank top, no shoes. White hair pulled back into a ponytail fastened with a ribbon the color of the pants. Lipstick, no other makeup.

‘You’re early,’ she said. ‘Come on in.’

‘Sorry to break in on you this way.’

‘Hey, you gave warning,’ she said, and led him into the living room. It was decorated in what he guessed was Danish modern, all blond woods and nubby fabrics. A big mirror on the wall behind the couch made the room appear to be twice its size. ‘Did you really want tea?’ she asked. ‘Or would you prefer a drink?’

‘I’m still on duty,’ he said.

‘So tea it is,’ she said, and went to where a kettle was already steaming on the stove. He watched as she prepared two cups. Outside, he could hear the street sounds of summer. She brought the tea and a tray of cookies to where he was sitting on the couch. In late afternoon sunlight, they sipped their tea and nibbled at their cookies.

‘What I wanted to know,’ he said, putting down his cup, ‘when I was here earlier, you mentioned a drive-by shooting

‘Yes.’

‘Said Helen Reilly’s husband was killed coming down the steps from a train station…”

‘Yes, the elevated station on Cooper and Duane.’

‘Cooper and Duane. That would make it the Nine-Seven Precinct.’

‘If you say so,’ Paula said, and smiled. ‘Is the tea all right?’

‘Delicious,’ he said, and picked up his cup again.

‘You said some questions had come up…”

‘Yes. Well. Actually, that was the question. I wanted to know in which precinct the incident had occurred. The shooting. The murder, actually.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yes.’

‘So I guess it was easier to find out by coming here to ask me,’ Paula said. ‘Instead of going to the computer or whatever.’

‘Well, then I wouldn’t have got the tea and cookies.’

‘I suppose not. Is that why you came here, Detective Hawes? For the tea and cookies?’

‘No, I came here to ask if you’d like to have dinner with me tonight.’

‘I see.’

‘Would you?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

* * * *

Dutch Schneider was the Nine-Seven detective who’d caught the drive-by shooting three years ago. His precinct, and his squadroom, were in the shadow of the elevated structure that carried emerging subway trains from the city proper out here to Calm’s Point. Every few minutes, a train would rumble past the open squadroom windows, reminding both detectives of the city’s constant rattle and roar, causing Schneider to pause in his recitation and roll his eyes heavenward.

‘At first, we thought Reilly himself was the target,’ he told Hawes. ‘Guy coming down the steps from the train platform, all at once a car zooms by, and bango, he’s dead on the sidewalk? We figured the perp was somebody familiar with his habits, knew he was taking the train to the city that day, knew when he’d be coming back, was waiting to ambush him. Matter of fact, for a while we considered the wife herself a suspect. Thought maybe she’d hired somebody to ace the husband when he got off the train…’

‘How’d that turn out?’ Hawes asked.

‘Loved him to death. Second marriage for her, the first was a lemon. Couldn’t have been happier than she was with this guy, no reason at all to want him dead. We got off that kick right away.’

‘When did you figure it for a gang drive-by?’

‘Not for a while, actually. I mean, this wasn’t a bunch of street hoods sitting on a front stoop, flaunting their colors, rival gang drives by, opens fire. The shooting wasn’t directed at anything but the steps coming down from the platform. And Reilly was the only vie. So we concentrated on the usual suspects for a long time.’

‘Who would they be?’

‘Guys he used to work with… this was an old fart, you understand, seventy-eight years old, retired. Other guys he played poker with. Nobody had any reason to kill him. Then, out of the blue-’

Then, out of the blue, a train rattled by on the tracks outside the squadroom windows. Schneider rolled his eyes, tapped his fingers impatiently on the desktop. Hawes was suddenly grateful for the relative peace and quiet of his own turf.

‘Where was I?’ Schneider asked.

‘Out of the blue,’ Hawes prompted.

‘Out of the blue, this little Spanish girl comes up the squadroom, tells us somebody’s gonna kill her boyfriend. Turns out this is right out of West Side Story, only it’s two Puerto Rican gangs, not one white, one Spanish. But the same Romeo-Juliet plot, you understand? The girl’s boyfriend is a member of the Royals and her brother is a member of the Hearts. Her brother warned her to break it off with him, she refused, so now they’re gonna kill him. Well, who gives a shit? Why bother us with this gang shit? Figure it out for yourselves, okay? One less Royal on earth, gee what a pity. But, oh ho,’ Schneider said, and glanced toward the windows, as if expecting another interruption from the rapid-transit system.

‘Oh ho,’ he said again, when he realized the coast was clear, ‘she then tells us that six months earlier, they tried to get her boyfriend when he was coming home from the city…’

‘And this tied in with the Reilly shooting, right?’

‘Same date, as it turned out, February twelfth, blood all over the snow. Her boyfriend was on the same train as Reilly, coming down the same steps as Reilly when he caught it. The boyfriend ran like hell cause he knew it was him they were after.’

‘Case closed.’

‘I wish,’ Schneider said. ‘Thirty-six guys in that gang, all of them with alibis a mile long. We hassled them from here to Sunday, but we couldn’t break any of them. Whoever shot Reilly is still out there someplace.’

‘Bearing a grudge maybe?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘For being hassled?’

‘This was three years ago. They’re all either dead or in jail by now.’

‘You think one of them might have gone after Reilly’s widow? Out of spite?’

‘I’d put nothing past these jack-off gangs. But why would they bother going after an old lady? They’re all into dealing drugs nowadays, these gangs. They got no time for settling petty grievances.’

Drugs again. Two drug busts already in this case.

‘Who’s your gang guy up here?’ he asked. ‘I’d like to talk to some of these kids.’

* * * *

Kids, they weren’t.

Talkative, they weren’t, either.

‘Why should I talk to you?’ Everado Rodriguez told Hawes. ‘I done something wrong in your precinck? I done something wrong in this city? What is it I done wrong, you mine tellin me, you come all the way out here to Calm’s Point seekin me?’

‘I want to know if the name Martin Reilly means anything to you,’ Hawes said.

‘Oh, Jesus, that shit again?’ Everado said. ‘The cops from the Nine-Seven were all over us about that, three years ago. We’re back to that again?’

It was seven o’clock that Saturday night, and they were in the basement room the Hearts euphemistically called their ‘clubhouse.’ Everado was the so-called president of the so-called club. He was perhaps twenty-four years old, wearing blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and a blue bandanna Hawes assumed to be the gang’s colors. There wasn’t too much gang activity in the Eight-Seven these days; he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with this twerp.

‘You’re clean on that one, right?’ he said.

‘Which one ain’t I clean on?’ Everado asked, and grinned, and turned for applause to one of his three henchmen lined around the room with their arms folded across their chests. They all grinned back. Hawes felt like smacking all of them across the mouth.

‘There’s an old lady who got shot twice in the face last night,’ he said. ‘Her name’s Helen Reilly.’

‘So?’ Everado said.

‘Martin Reilly was her husband.’

‘So?’

‘So the Nine-Seven gave you a rough time after Reilly was shot in a drive-by

‘That’s water under the bridge, man. We’re all grownups now.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning my sister’s married now, with two kids already. Why should I care about a crush she had on somebody from the Royals?’

‘Maybe because it was your sister who went to the cops.’

‘She knows better now.’

‘Still pisses you off, though, doesn’t it?’

Nope. For what purpose should I still be angry? Everything’s cool now, man. Why you comin aroun here, stirrin up trouble?’

‘Know anybody named Alicia Hendricks?’

‘No.’

‘Max Sobolov?’

‘No.’

‘Christine Langston?’

“Who are all these people?’

‘They wouldn’t have come up here buying dope, would they?’

‘Oh, we gonna talk dope now? This club is not involved in dope, no way, no how.’

‘I’ll check with Narcotics, you know.’

‘So check. They’re our best buddies, Narcotics,’ Everado said, and grinned at his henchmen again. They all grinned back. ‘You’re on the wrong block, mister.’

Hawes figured maybe he was.

* * * *

She was wearing for their Saturday night out a simple black dress, white hair loose around her face, black high-heeled sandals. Her only piece of jewelry was a gold ring with a red stone, on the ring finger of her right hand, echoing the color of her lipstick. Hawes wondered if she’d ever been married. Beautiful woman, fifty-something years old, hadn’t she ever been married? He also wondered fifty what?

‘So where’d you get the white streak?’ she asked.

She was drinking a Bombay martini on the rocks. He was drinking bourbon and soda. She was referring to the white streak in his otherwise red hair, just over the left temple.

‘I was investigating a burglary, talking to the vic,’ he said, making it short; he’d only been asked a hundred times before. ‘The super rushed in with a knife, mistook me for the perp, cut me. The hair grew back white.’

‘Bores you, right?’

‘Sort of. How old are you, Paula?’

‘Wow! Right between the eyes! Fifty-one. Why? How old are you?’

‘Thirty-four.’

‘Makes me old enough to be your mother. Une femme d’un certain age, right?’

‘Well, it’s something we should talk about, I guess.’

‘I debated it, you know. For about thirty seconds.’

‘Me, too.’

‘There’s enough trouble making a relationship work, we don’t need the age thing.’

‘Exactly my reasoning.’

‘I just got out of a relationship that didn’t work…”

‘Me, too.’

‘So there’s that, too.’

‘Catching each other on the rebound.’

‘Right.’

‘So what are we doing here?’

‘I guess we want to be here.’

‘I know I do.’

‘Me, too. How old was this other woman? The one that just ended?’

‘Late twenties? I never asked.’

‘Ah. But you asked me.’

‘Only because you’re so beautiful.’

‘Nice save.’

‘How old was your guy?’

‘Mid-fifties.’

‘More appropriate, right?’

‘I guess. But somehow you don’t seem inappropriate.’

‘Neither do you.’

‘So what shall we do here, Cotton?’

‘Let’s eat,’ Hawes said. ‘I’m starved, aren’t you?’

* * * *

So she ordered the roasted peppers with anchovies and mozzarella to start, and then the veal piccata as her main dish, and he ordered the bruschetta to start, and then the linguine puttanesca. He asked if she would like a white wine with her veal, but she said she really preferred red with everything, and so he ordered a bottle of their best Merlot. As the waiter uncorked it, and poured it, Paula said, ‘There’s a genuine benefit to drinking red wine, you know. Other alcoholic products weaken the immune system and leave the body vulnerable. But they say red wine fights heart disease and cancer.’

The waiter nodded in agreement, and padded off.

Hawes raised his glass.

‘What shall we drink to, Paula?’ he asked.

‘I dunno,’ she said, and looked into her glass. ‘Depends on how old the wine is, don’t you think?’

He caught her little quip, smiled, looked into his own glass, pondered a moment, and then nodded and looked across the table at her.

‘Age cannot wither her,’ he said, ‘nor custom stale her infinite variety,’ and clinked his glass against hers.

‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘But let’s make a deal, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Let’s never talk about the difference in our ages again.’

‘Never is a long, long time.’

‘I hope so,’ she said.

They clinked glasses again, drank.

‘Mmm,’ she said.

‘Delicious,’ he said.

‘How come you’re quoting Shakespeare at me?’ she asked.

‘We just had a case where the perp was fond of doing that.’

‘The perp,’ she said, and nodded. ‘I guess I’ll have to get used to cop talk, too.’

‘I guess,’ he said.

Over dessert, she told him that she’d been married for six years when her husband was called up from the National Guard to serve in the first Gulf War. He was killed in action a month after he arrived in Saudi Arabia. She’d been working at the time as an interior decorator, had since held a job at a house-and-garden-type magazine, and then in a department store’s design section, and was now working for a small art gallery in downtown Isola. Hawes told her he’d never been married. He told her he’d been in the Navy during his particular war. He told her he liked police work most of the time. He promised he would not bore her with tales of the cases he was working, though at the moment…

And they both laughed when he started telling her about the four unrelated murder victims they were now investigating.

When their laughter ebbed, she said, ‘Cotton?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m old enough to have been at Woodstock,’ she said.

‘I thought we promised

‘I’m making a different point. Back then, I ran around in beads and feathers, no bra. Back then, I went to bed with a lot of different guys. This was the sixties. That’s what we did. Said hello and jumped right into bed.’

He was listening.

‘I’m not that impetuous nowadays,’ she said.

‘Okay.’

‘What I’m saying is, we’re not going to bed with each other tonight.’

‘Okay.’

She sipped at her coffee. He sipped at his. ‘Are you angry?’ ‘Disappointed,’ he said. ‘Me, too,’ she said.