Romance, p.17
Romance, page 17
“A black neighborhood all the way uptown,” Josie said.
Kling wondered why she’d felt it necessary to comment on the racial breakdown of the neighborhood. He wondered, too, how Sharyn might react to such an observation. Or was Josie merely establishing that the neighborhood, black or otherwise, was all the way uptown?
“Yes,” he said. “A black neighborhood.”
“Which doesn’t mean a black person killed her,” Josie said.
“That’s true,” he said.
“But who did?” she asked, and opened the brown eyes wide. “If not Johnny, and not some black junkie burglar … ”
Black again, he noticed.
“… breaking into her apartment and killing her …”
Which wouldn’t have been a bad supposition, except that there’d been no signs of forcible entry, something they hadn’t reported to the media, and something she could not possibly have known unless Michelle had unlocked the door for her and opened it on a knife.
“Then who?” she asked.
Kling said nothing. Carella said nothing. They both knew when somebody more talented was taking the spot-light.
“Me?” she asked.
They still said nothing.
“Was I in Diamondback on Tuesday night at seven-thirty, eight o’clock? Was I on Carter and Stein?” she asked. “All the way uptown?”
They waited. Sometimes, if you waited long enough, they outsmarted themselves.
“Was I up there doing Michelle in her own bed?”
Michelle had been killed in the doorway to her apartment. Nowhere—not in the papers, not on television—had it even been suggested that she’d been killed in bed.
“Were you?” Kling asked.
“I was taking a singing lesson,” she said, and smiled. “All the way downtown.“
“All the way downtown where?” he asked.
“In the Quarter. On Sampson Street,” she said. “My teacher’s name is Aida Renaldi, I’ve been taking from her for four years, I go every Tuesday night at seven—unless there’s a performance or a rehearsal. On Tuesday, we quit rehearsing at five. I was downtown at ten to seven. My lesson started at seven and ended at eight. I went directly home afterward. I’ll give you Aida’s card if you like.”
“Thank you,” Kling said.
She searched in her purse, decided she didn’t have a card after all, and wrote down an address all the way downtown. Carella had just come from all the way downtown. He did not feel like going all the way downtown again.
“Call her first,” Josie said. “She’s very busy.”
“I will,” he said.
“I didn’t kill Michelle,” Josie said. “In fact, I feel very sorry for her.”
She looked suddenly mournful.
“But at the same time,” she said, “I feel happy for myself.”
Aida Renaldi was delighted that one of the detectives visiting her was Italian She didn’t know that Carella thought of himself as American, perhaps because he’d been born in the United States and had never been informed otherwise. Aida, on the other hand, had been born in Milan, Italy, and rightfully considered herself Italian since she was still an Italian citizen here in the country on a work visa. In fact, she planned to go back to Italy as soon as she’d saved enough money to finance an operatic career interrupted by marriage, childbirth and divorce, not necessarily in that order.
Aida was forty-six years old and she weighed a hundred and eighty-seven pounds, which qualified her as a diva in at least one respect. Her hair was dyed a midnight black and she was dressed like a Gypsy when Carella and Kling arrived at her studio later that night. Both detectives figured she had just done a performance of Carmen. Instead, she had just given a lesson to a girl who did not know Verdi from Puccini, but who—like Aida—was hefty enough to entertain operatic aspirations. The girl smiled at Kling on the way out. Carella noticed that a lot of girls smiled at Kling. He wondered again who Sharyn might be.
During the interview with Aida, the teacher sat at the piano and sang an impromptu aria from Butterfly, discoursed mightily on the benefits of knowing both French and Italian if one desired to sing opera …
“German no matter too much, eh?” she said.
… told them she far preferred Domingo to Pavarotti, and incidentally confirmed that Josie Beales …
“Nize-a girl …”
… had been there for a singing lesson on Tuesday night between seven and eight o’clock.
“Nize-a voice,” she said.
“So what’s this all about?” Carella asked out of the blue.
This was now a little past ten that night, and they were eating what cops always ate whenever they had a chance, hamburgers and fries, in a coffee shop on Avery and West, a block from Aida Renaldi’s studio apartment.
“What’s what all about?” Kling asked, and bit into a hamburger dripping with ketchup and mustard.
“I always thought we could talk about …”
“We can … ”
“… anything together. I always felt … ”
“So do I … ”
“Like a goddamn older brother to you …”
“Yes, me, too, but … ”
“So what’s this about you’re dating a black girl and you can’t tell me about her? I mean, goddamn it, Bert, what the hell is that about, you can’t tell me about a black girl you’re dating, you have to tell Artie about her, you can’t tell me about her? What the hell do you think I am, some kind of racist.jackass? What the hell is this, Bert?”
“Wow!” Kling said.
“Yeah, wow, shit!” Carella said.
“I just didn’t know how you’d feel,” Kling said.
“Oh, terrific!” Carella said. “Compound the felony, tell me you don’t know how I’d feel about a black-white relationship, tell me … ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Sure, kid, terrific!”
“I just don’t know how I feel myself!” Kling said, and both men looked at each other in startled surprise, and just then the bigot of the universe walked in.
“I’ve been tracking you all over this fuckin city,” Fat Ollie Weeks said, and shoved his way into the booth. “Hey, miss!” he yelled, and ordered three hamburgers and a side of fries. “My lieutenant says if it turns out Johnny Milton done the girl, the Eight-Eight definitely wants the homicide collar.”
“So take it,” Carella said. “If it turns out that way.”
“Sure. Meanwhile, when Nellie indicts next Tuesday … ”
“If she indicts.”
“She’ll indict. And by then we’ll have a strong case to back her up.”
“What do you mean?”
“My loot wants me to keep digging.”
“Forget it!” Carella snapped.
“What’s wrong with you?” Ollie asked, looking offended. “If Milton done this, you should be glad we’re lendin a hand here.”
“No, we’ve got two different agendas here,” Carella said. “We want to catch whoever killed Michelle Cassidy. All you want to do is nail Milton.”
“That’s one and the same person, pal.”
“We don’t think so.”
“Who don’t think so? Your lieutenant? Nellie? I was there, remember? You’re the only one don’t think so. They’d both be grateful if I came up with something makes the case stronger. If I can get people who’ll testify … ”
“What people? What are you talking about?”
“People who knew both Milton and the girl. People who can say … ”
“Ollie, stay away from this! The people who knew them are the people we’re already talking to. If you screw this up …
“Hey, come on, screw it up! What’s the matter with you?”
“You hear me, Ollie? Keep out of it. Come on, Bert.”
“Where you going? What’s the matter with you?”
“Enjoy your hamburgers,” Kling said.
Whenever Mark Riganti played a detective, which was often, he prepped for the role by wearing a fake pistol in a shoulder holster day and night. The gun was weighted to give it heft and it had come from the factory in the same bluish-black color as a real .38 Smith & Wesson. Riganti had purchased it before toy manufacturers realized that somebody shoving a fake gun into a shop owner’s face could cause him to wet his pants and open his cash register as easily as a real gun could. This gun looked real and it felt real and it made Riganti feel like a real cop. Truth was, even without the gun, he’d played so many detectives in his lifetime that sometimes he felt more like a cop than he did an actor.
Riganti had played a detective in the movie Fuzz which had been about policemen in Boston, and he had played a detective in the movie Without Apparent Motive which had been about policemen on the French Riviera, and he had played a detective in the movie Blood Relatives which had been about policemen in Toronto, and he had played a detective, albeit in Asian disguise, in the movie High and Low, which was about policemen in Yokohama. In the play Romance, which was about policemen in New York, he played a detective investigating the stabbing of an actress performing in a play called Romance, go figure it. A fake play called Romance in a real play called Romance, where nobody gets to kiss the girl.
At eleven o’clock that night, he was sitting barefooted at his kitchen table, wearing his fake gun in a real leather shoulder holster, and real faded blue jeans, and a white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the way detectives everywhere rolled them up, he supposed. Open on the table before him was his script for Romance, which now included several new scenes typed on blue paper by their illustrious playwright and handed to the cast at rehearsal this afternoon. If anything, the new stuff made the play even worse than it had been. Riganti figured they were all lucky Michelle had been killed.
This was a shame in one respect, though, since before her death Riganti had considered her a likely prospect for a bedmate if the play enjoyed a long run. One of the reasons Riganti had become an actor was that you got to meet a lot of good-looking women and in some plays you got to kiss them and in some instances you got to lay them. Offstage. In many instances, in fact. In fact, Riganti was willing to give two-to-one odds that actors in plays got laid more often than detectives in police stations. Which was neither here nor there. What was here at the moment was this terrible play with its rotten new scenes Riganti had to memorize before tomorrow’s rehearsal at nine A. M. Usually, Riganti got this or that aspiring young actress to run lines with him, the better to entice her into the bedroom. But there was no time for fooling around tonight. Tonight, there was only the drudgery of having to learn all this uninspired crap from Freddie.
THE DETECTIVE
Did you ever once think you might get
the part?
THE UNDERSTUDY
No, I didn’t .
THE DETECTIVE
It never occurred to you that if the
actress in the leading, role …
Riganti hated speeches with underlined words in them.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Never.
THE DETECTIVE
… got killed. …
He also hated interrupted speeches. The hardest thing to do onstage was to interrupt another actor and make the interruption seem convincing.
THE UNDERSTUDY
Never, never, never!
THE DETECTIVE
… then you, as her understudy …
THE UNDERSTUDY
How many times do I …
THE DETECTIVE
… might inherit the role?
THE UNDERSTUDY
… have to tell you?
THE DETECTIVE
You as understudy might most
naturally replace her?
THE UNDERSTUDY
I never entertained such an
ambit …
A knock sounded on the door.
Startled, Riganti looked first at the locked door and next at the clock on the kitchen wall.
Ten minutes past eleven.
He had been burglarized twice since moving into this apartment eight months ago. Now some son of a bitch was at the door at ten minutes past eleven.
“Who is it?” he yelled.
“Mr. Riganti?” a voice yelled back.
“Who is it?”
“Police,” the voice said.
Yeah, bullshit, Riganti thought.
He got up from the table, went to the door, and placed his ear to the wood, the way he had done many times before while playing a cop. Simultaneously, he slipped the fake pistol from its shoulder holster, holding it alongside his free ear, the barrel pointed up at the ceiling, the way cops did in plays and in movies. He could hear nothing but heavy breathing in the hallway outside. Another knock sounded on the door, close to where his ear was pressed to it, causing him to jump back a step. His heart was pounding.
“You hear me in there?” the voice said.
“I hear you. How do I know you’re a cop?”
“Open the door, I’ll show you my shield.”
Shield. That was a good sign. Riganti had been in many plays and movies where you could tell a fake cop because he called his shield a badge. Only civilians called a police shield a badge. Riganti turned the thumb bolt, made sure the night chain was in place, and opened the door a crack. He was looking out at a very fat man holding up a gold-and-blue-enameled detective’s shield.
“Detective Oliver Weeks,” the man said, “Eighty-eighth Detective Squad. I’m investigating the murder of Michelle Cassidy, would you please open the door?”
“Let me see your ID card,” Riganti said.
The fat man made an exasperated sound, and then took out his wallet and fished through it for a laminated card which he held up to the crack in the door. The seal of the city’s police department was on the card, and so was a color photograph that looked very much like the person holding up the card, and there was also the name he’d just given Riganti, typed across the face of the card, DETECTIVE/FIRST GRADE OLIVER WEEKS, with a matching signature below it.
Riganti figured the guy was really a detective.
He took off the night chain, and opened the door wide, forgetting that the fake pistol was in his right hand and not back in its holster. Ollie saw the gun and immediately reached for his own very real pistol in a clamshell holster on his right hip. Riganti realized at once what was happening. He yelled, “It’s fake, I’m an actor, for Christ’s sake I’m an actor!” Ollie remembered that the man he was here to see was, in fact, an actor. But he’d been a cop for too long a time now, so he immediately barked, “Drop the gun!” which Riganti was only too tickled to do. Ollie kicked it across the kitchen floor.
“I almost shot you,” he said.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Riganti said.
He was having a little difficulty breathing.
“You got a permit for that piece?” Ollie asked.
“I told you. It’s fake.”
“It looks real.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Why you packing a fake gun?”
“I told you. I’m an actor.”
“Yeah?” Ollie said.
“I play a detective in this play we’re doing.”
“Oh, yeah, right.”
“You scared the shit out of me,” Riganti said.
“Me, too,” Ollie said. “You got anything to drink here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something medicinal?”
“Like booze, do you mean?”
“Yeah, like booze, beer, wine, whatever.”
“Are you allowed to drink on duty?”
“No,” Ollie said, and sat at the kitchen table.
“I think I have some beer in the fridge,” Riganti said.
“Yeah, beer’ll be fine.”
“That’s very interesting,” Riganti said, going to the refrigerator and opening it. “You’re not allowed to drink on duty, but you’re accepting a beer from me.”
“Yeah, that’s very interesting, all right,” Ollie said. “What kind of beer is it?”
“Heineken.”
Ollie watched as he popped the caps off two green bottles. Riganti handed him a glass and one of the bottles.
“I almost blew your fuckin head off,” Ollie said. “Cheers.”
He drank straight from the bottle. Riganti poured his beer into a glass, and then sat opposite Ollie at the table.
“So what do you know about this creep who killed her?” Ollie said.
“Who do you mean?”
“Her agent. Johnny Milton.”
“I don’t know him too well.”
“How about the girl?”
“Michelle?”
“Yeah. How well did you know her?”
“Well, we were in rehearsal together for three weeks when she …”
“What does that mean? Were you boffin her?”
“No. Certainly not.”
“Why certainly not? Are you gay?”
“Of course not.”
“Why of course not? Lots of actors are gay.“
“But not me.”
“Did you know he was living with her? The agent?”
“That’s what we began to realize.”
“Who’s we?”
“All of us. The cast, the crew. It got to be pretty evident.”
“That they were living together,”
“Yes.”
“Why do you think he killed her?”
“I’m not sure he did.”
“You think there might’ve been some other guy she was involved with?”
“Do you always conduct an interrogation this way?”
“This ain’t an interrogation.”
“Then what is it?”
“Two guys sittin around talkin, havin a few beers.”
“No, really, I’m interested in the process. I play a lot of detectives, you see.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Casting directors think I look like a cop.”
“They do, huh?”
“You think I look like a cop?”
“I think you look a little faggoty to be a cop.”
“I already told you … ”
“I’m not sayin you are a fag. I’m only sayin you look like one. For a cop, anyway.”
“Well, casting directors find me authentic-looking.”
“Do I look like a cop?” Ollie asked.
“No.”
“What do I look like?”
