87th Precinct - The Last Dance Part 33

"How'd you feel when you read the story?" he asked.

"Well, I shouldn't have wanted the woman to die, certainly," Palmer said. "But I must admit we're all much better off this way." And raised his eyebrows again, and widened his eyes, no grin this time, just a look that said Well, don't you agree? He closed the lid on his suitcase, jiggled the numbers on the combination lock, and dusted his hands in dismissal.

"There," he said.

"What time do you leave on Sunday?" Brown asked.

250.

"The eight o'clock flight." "Then there's still time." "Oh? For what?" To nail you, Brown thought. "Catch a matinee," he said. "Lots of Sat.u.r.day matinees here."

"London, too," Palmer said, almost wistfully.

The person in charge of giving out the keys to the project's recreation room was an old black man who introduced himself solely as Michael, no last name. People seemed to have no last names these days, Ollie noticed, not that he gave a d.a.m.n. But it seemed to him a person should be proud of his last name, which was for Chrissake only his heritage. Instead, you got only first names from every jacka.s.s in every doctor's office and bank. And now this keeper of the keys here, telling him his name was Michael, served him right he'd been born a shuffling old darkie.

"I'm looking for a Jamaican got a knife scar down his face, a tattooed star on his p.e.c.k.e.r, that plays the saxophone," Ollie said.

The old man burst out laughing.

"It ain't funny," Ollie said. "He maybe killed two people."

"That ain't funny, all right," Michael agreed, sobering.

"See him around here? Some lady told me he played his saxophone in here."

"You mean the guy from London?" Michael asked.

They were all sitting in the squadroom, around Carella' s desk, drinking the coffee Alf Miscolo had brewed in the Clerical Office. Ollie was the only one there who thought the coffee tasted vile. Over the years, the others had come 251.

Ed McBain to believe the coffee didn't taste too bad at all, was in fact the sort of gourmet coffee one might find in little sidewalk cafes in Paris or Seattle. Ollie almost spit out his first sip.

He was there to tell them what he had learned downtown at Rockfort. The four detectives listening to him were Carella, Brown, Meyer, and Kling, who'd been d.o.g.g.i.ng various aspects of this case for what seemed forever but was in actuality only since October 29. Ollie felt somewhat like a guest on a talk show. Carella was the host, and the others were earlier guests who'd moved over to make room for Ollie when he'd come on to exuberant whistling and thunderous applause. Brown and Meyer were sitting on chairs they'd pulled over from their own desks. Kling was sitting on one corner of Carella's desk.

This was a nice cozy little talk show here, with the temperature outside hovering at somewhere between twenty and twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, which came to six or seven below zero Celsius, more or less, good to be inside on a night like tonight. The clock on the squadroom wall read a quarter past five, or 1715, depending on your point of view. Ollie had called from downtown right after he'd spoken to Mr Michael and then again to the lady who'd offered him another banana, asking Carella to wait for him, he'd be right there. That had been at ten to four. The snow had delayed Ollie, what can you do, an act of G.o.d, he explained. It was still snowing, the flying flakes spattering against the squadroom windows like ghosts desperately seeking entrance.

"The way I understood it," Ollie said, "Bridges was there with his cousin for a week or so at the beginning of November. Rec room guy remembers him coming in to practice his saxophone. I figure this was after he done the Hale murder and before he flew back home."

"The rec room guy told you all this?"

252.

"Not about the murder, that's my surmise. He didn't know anything about that."

"Then what?"

"The cousin, the sax, him flying back home."

"Did you talk to the cousin?"

"Knocked on the door, no answer. But I figured this was important enough to get moving on it right away. Which is why I'm here."

"Who told you the sax player's name was John Bridges?"

"The rec room guy."

"And told you he'd flown back home to Houston?"

"Yes and no," Ollie said, and grinned.

"Let us guess, okay?"

"He did not fly home to Houston, Texas."

"Then where did he go?"

"Euston, England. Sounds the same, ah yes, but it's spelled different. E-U-S-T-O-N. That's a locality, is what they call it in London. I went back to my lady who cooks fried bananas . . ."

"Huh?" Carella said.

"A lady in the project, her name is Sarah Crawford, she cooks great fried bananas."

Ollie felt he now had their complete attention.

"She's Jamaican, she told me all about Euston and also King's Cross-which is a nearby ward, is what they call it in London-where there are lots of hookers, drug dealers, and train stations. She didn't know Bridges personally, but his cousin told her he lived in Euston. So that's it, ah yes," Ollie said. "You know anybody else from London?"

They were waiting outside the Ferguson Theater when Gerald Palmer showed up for the eight o'clock performance that night. He was wearing a dark blue overcoat 253.

Ed McBain over the brown suit, canary-colored, white-collared s.h.i.+rt, and brown silk tie they'd seen on his bed earlier that day. His hair and the shoulders of the coat were dusted with snow. He opened his blue eyes wide when he saw Carella and Brown standing there near the ticket taker, waiting for him. There was a blond woman on his arm. She looked puzzled when the detectives approached.

"Mr Palmer," Carella said, "would you mind coming along with us?"

"What for?" he asked.

"Few questions we'd like to ask you."

As if trying to impress the blonde-or perhaps because he was merely stupid-Palmer a.s.sumed the same wide-eyed, smirky, defiant look they'd seen on his face earlier.

"Awfully sorry," he said. "I have other plans."

"So do we," Brown said.

The blonde accepted Palmer's gracious offer to go see the play alone while he took care of this "silly business," as he called it, still playing the Prime Minister dealing with a pair of cheeky reporters. All the way uptown, he kept complaining about the police in this city, telling them they had no right treating a foreigner this way, which of course they had every right in the world to do, the law applying equally to citizens and visitors alike unless they had diplomatic immunity. They read him his rights the moment he was in custody. These were vastly different from those mandated in the UK, but he had no familiarity with either, as he explained to them, never having been in trouble with the law in his life. In fact, he could not understand why he seemed to be in police custody now, which was the same old song they'd heard over the centuries from ax murderers and machine-gun Kellys alike.

254.

Out of deference to his foreign status, they sat him down in the lieutenant's office, which was more comfortable than the interrogation room, and offered him some of Miscolo's coffee, or a cup of tea, if that was his preference. In response, he affected his Eyes Wide Open, Eyebrows Raised, Lips Pursed in Indignation look again, and told them there was no need to presume stereotypical behavior, in that he rarely drank tea and in fact much preferred coffee as his beverage of preference, redundantly sounding exactly like the sort of Englishman he was trying not to sound like.

"So tell us, Mr Palmer," Carella said. "Do you know anyone named John Bridges?"

"No. Who is he?"

"We think he may have killed Andrew Hale."

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to know who Andrew Hale is?"

"You're supposed to know only what you know," Carella said.

"Ah, brilliant," Palmer said.

"He's from Euston."

"Andrew Hale?"

"John Bridges. Do you know where Euston is?"

"Of course I do."

"Know anyone from Euston?"

"No."

"Or King's Cross?"

"Those aren't neighborhoods I ordinarily frequent," Palmer said.

"Know any Jamaicans in London?"

"No."

"When did you first learn Andrew Hale was being difficult?"

"I don't know anyone named Andrew Hale."

"He's Cynthia Keating's father. Did you know he once owned the underlying rights to Jenny's RoomT 255.

Ed McBain "I don't know anything about him or any rights he may have owned."

"No one ever informed you of that?"

"Not a soul."

"Then you're learning it for the first time this very minute, is that right?"

"Well ... no. Not precisely this very minute."

"Then you knew it before now."

"Yes, I suppose I did. Come to think of it."

"When did you learn about it?"

"I really can't remember."

"Would it have been before October twenty-ninth?"

"Who can remember such a long time ago?"

"Do you remember how you learned about it?"

"I probably read it in a newspaper."

"Which newspaper, do you recall?"

"I'm sorry, I don't."

"Do you remember when that might have been?"

"I'm sorry, no."

"Was it a British newspaper?"

"Oh, I'm certain not."

"Then it was an American paper, is that right?"

"I really don't know what sort of paper it was. It might have been British, I'm sure I don't know."

"But you said it wasn't."

"Yes, but I really don't remember."

"How well do you know Cynthia Keating?"

"Hardly at all. We met for the first time a week ago."

"Where was that?"

"At Connie's party."

"The Meet 'N' Greet?"

"Why, yes."

"Never talked to her before then?"

"Never. Am I supposed to have spoken to her?"

"We were just wondering."