Paulie shook his head, pitying his pal. “That was Led Zep. Man, you are toasted.”
“That was Robert Plant. He opened for The Who. They came on after him.”
“Did we stay?”
“Apparently, you didn’t.”
“Dude!”
Bob looked at the detective in abject fear. “What’s gonna happen to us?”
Paulie, smiling, looked at his friend, “What happened?”
And so it went. Most of the witnesses, the coherent ones at least, had noticed Will (identified using the picture his father had provided) throw the bottle. Three husbands and one wife remembered the kid storming out soon afterwards. A similar mix of “witnesses” remembered that one or more people followed Will out.
Only two people (besides Will’s friends) remembered a guy writing on index cards. One, Dr. James Flynn, was an exceptionally tall, angry podiatrist working out of Gramercy Park, whose wife had purchased the tickets as his birthday present. The doctor remembered their suspect as being on the short side. That was the most positive thing he had to say.
“He was a measly little geek. How is he important enough to interrupt my medical practice, precisely?”
“We are investigating the death of the young man who threw a bottle at the concert, doctor,” Mallory said. “We know you sat near that young man, as did the guy writing on the cards. We could use your help.”
“Look, I’m a good practicing Catholic, so God rest the annoying kid’s soul and all, but I certainly didn’t retain anything specific about either of them, and I need to return to my patients. Good day, gentlemen.”
With that, the doctor turned back into his small box of an inner office. The detectives were sure they heard him laughing softly to himself, a soft, nervous laugh they noted but refrained from pursuing right then. This left the detectives standing over a permanently intimidated receptionist named Grace Kernan. One look confirmed for Mallory that Gunner liked the good doctor as a possible suspect. He also knew his partner wanted to work on Grace; probably thought she was cute. Of course he would; she met all his requirements: she had her limbs, a pulse, at least one working eye. Mallory faded into the background, taking notes, letting Gunner work his improbable magic.
“Pleasant guy, ain’t he?” Gunner smiled at her, sort of like a shark smiling up at a swimmer’s leg.
“This is one of his better days.” Grace’s smile didn’t last quite as long as an eye blink, and was aimed at her sensible shoes. “He pays me extra if I work late. And he’s never been fresh.” She chanced a peek off the floor, almost made eye contact with Gunner, then stared at her shoes some more. “He… he just doesn’t like it when things don’t go the way he expects them to.”
Gunner squatted down, trying to catch her eye, but she had shyness down to an art, turning her head just far enough to continue avoiding his gaze. “Hey, lemme ask ya, did he ever discuss The Who concert with you?”
“With me? Are you kidding?” She giggled at the thought. “But he was on the phone to his analyst all the next day, screaming about how untheraputic it had been. He wanted the guy to reimburse him for the tickets.”
Gunner’s chuckle rang only hollow enough for Mallory to notice. “I’m glad he knows to take it out on his analyst, and not you. Does he work here every day?”
“Three days a week. He takes Tuesdays and Fridays off, which are my best days.”
“Does he stop by on those days to check on you? I could imagine him doing that.”
“When I first started he did, but he saw that stuff was done on time and efficiently, so it wasn’t worth his time. No, Tuesdays and Fridays I’m in heaven. The other days, I offer up to God as penance,” she smiled, her eyes glancing up for a second, catching Gunner’s, then darting back down. “I even get to go to lunch on those days.”
Gunner squatted down to eye-level, placed a white square onto her desk, spoke quietly. “My card, should you think of anything else. Maybe we can go to lunch one Tuesday or Friday, so I can make sure he’s doing the right thing by you, okay, Ms. —?”
“Annmarie,” That smile peaked out again, as her hand slid over Gunner’s card. “And… okay.”
Outside, Mallory eyed his partner. “The Brooklyn Mom isn’t enough? Callabuffo not on your list any more?”
“This is all business. You’re not the only one who gets gut instincts. He might be our guy. And now that he knows we’re sniffing around, it could get to him. If Dr. Foot Fetish in there gives her a hard time maybe she’ll call a nice guy like me with more details.”
“Okay. So now he’s our guy, along with Daddy Man Farrington?”
“You’re gonna hold Daddy Man against me? C’mon, I’m allowed to be human, ain’t I? And my thoroughness led to this guy, so I’m still on the money. Sort of.”
“And this secretary is strictly business?”
“Unless he proves a dead end, then I’d have to be careful.”
“You’d have to be careful? Of Ms. Shyness?”
Gunner nodded sagely. “It’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for. She’s probably so wild in bed she’d snap my back.”
The only other witness to their suspect’s writing obsession was a petite blonde, twice-divorced, self-published poet in her mid-40s living on Haven Place off Columbia Avenue in the East Village. She went to the show with her brother and seemed interested in every aspect of the interview, especially Mallory.
Maria Tallarico was a very small person with a long nose and a long chin. She talked a little through her nose, but always soothingly, “Yes, detectives, please come in.” She lived in a little apartment piled with laundry, a side job she did for neighbors to earn money, she explained. She was a poet, an artist, no matter how much laundry she did. She lived in the same rent-controlled apartment she’d been raised in; city living was expensive. Life is a challenge and not for the shy and retiring, she said, explaining that she’d learned that cold lesson the hard way, repeatedly, and had forced herself to change for the better. All of this information was offered within minutes of their meeting, though the detectives had asked for none of it.
She insisted on providing them with cool drinks. “I’d get you nice cold beers, but I know you’re on duty,” Maria smiled, staring right into Mallory’s eyes. “Hopefully, another time.”
Mallory blew it off, asked Maria the usual questions until she mentioned someone writing before the show. When Mallory asked her to elaborate, she purred, eyes closing, a smile curling for the detective. “He wrote with his left hand, in big, bold strokes, quickly but with confidence.” She raised an eyebrow at that, liking her own description. “He wrote both before the show, when it seemed like he was writing sentences, paragraphs, and during the show, when it seemed the writing was short phrases, a few words at a time, like he was taking notes. I’d guess a song list. I had a lover used to do that. Do you make lists, Detective?”
Mallory refused to bite. “Can you describe the person doing the writing?”
“A man. Tall, and quite handsome, much like yourself, Detective.”
“Right,” Mallory exhaled, making a quick note. “Anything else?”
“Oh, I always have more. Lots more.” She looked away, then refocused on Mallory, her eyes taking slow inventory. “He was on the thin side, not meaty, as I prefer.” She tilted her head to the side, openly considered Mallory’s trunk, her gaze dallying at his crotch. “He had no ass to speak of, sorry to say. A man needs to have a little something for us girls to work with, am I right?”
“Of course you are, ain’t she, Mal?”
Maria’s stare took a slow stroll up Mallory’s body, finally rejoining his crimson face. She nodded at him just once, from the chin. Mallory’s stomach clenched. “But his movements were cool, graceful, confidant in the confines of his world. A man is never more alluring than when he is in his element, don’t you think, Detective Mallory?”
Mallory ignored the icy fist in his gut, remained purely professional. “What about the boy, the one who thre
w the bottle?”
She dismissed this topic with a wave of her hand. “The papers say he was killed after the concert. Someone did him a favor, the way I look at it. Had no idea of what is important in life. If he did, he would have soaked up some history that night.”
Mallory offered his card. “Thank you, Ms. Tallarico. Would you consider calling me should you think of anything else that could help us?”
“It will be my pleasure, detective, believe me.”
He paused a second, then seemed to notice something on the card in her hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. I gave you an old one.” He took the card back, holding it by the edges, slipping it into a shirt pocket. Pulling out what seemed to be a different set, he offered a new card. “I wouldn’t want to miss your call.”
“I wouldn’t want you to either, Detective.”
In the car, it was Gunner’s turn to eye his partner. “That old trick?”
“Worked didn’t it? We’ll run the print, see what pops up.”
“Thought our suspect was a guy?”
“You catch that nod?”
“Like our hotel shooter. But she’s about a foot shorter.”
“Who says she’s working alone?”
“Holy complications, Batman! We’re facing Catwoman and The Riddler?”
“Who’s next, joker?
Gunner glanced at the list, shook his head. “Now you get your wish. We’re going to check out your prime suspect.”
THIRTY-ONE
With just one more stop on the list, the detectives found themselves pursuing a tallish short man who was either paunchy and in his 30s or an athletic 40 to 45. He had blue or green or brown eyes, and apparently wore glasses, but only while one male witness was looking at him.
But the detectives expected this; always happened with multiple witnesses. It was the details numerous witnesses agreed on that always proved helpful. In this case, a key few noted that their guy wrote before and during the show, stopped only when Will threw the bottle, and left immediately after. Neither overwhelming evidence, nor a signed confession, but the beginning of any pattern was usually a good sign.
Or so they thought.
This lead the detectives, six marginally productive hours later, to their only location outside of Manhattan, a music store in The Bronx. Music’N’Thangs sat at the bottom of Westchester Square, the squat storefront sagging morosely under the elevated Six train tracks. The nearby “square” (actually a triangle) served as an MTA bus checkpoint for half a dozen routes. The surrounding blocks formed a low-end hub of commerce for area neighborhoods.
Mallory remembered the store from when he was a kid; he had bought dozens of albums there. He remembered buying each of Springsteen’s first four albums on consecutive days during one fevered week of rock’n’roll revelation over 25 years ago. He’d purchased so many life-sustaining albums there; it was weird to be back after all these years. The shop itself had not changed much, now offering mostly hip-hop and heavy metal CDs, but the array of T-shirts, posters, and, not all that well hidden in the back, a counter where pipes, bongs, and other drug paraphernalia was sold: all of that remained more or less the same.
Mallory and Gunner approached the register/ticket counter just a few feet into the store. An older woman sitting on a high stool by the register didn’t flinch when they displayed their badges. “We got licenses for all the merchandise in here. Nothing illegal.”
Mallory smiled. “Sounds great, but we are not here to give you a hard time. In fact, we need your help.”
“That’s something new.” The woman smiled like one used to disappointment. Her lips had disappeared long ago, maybe sometime during years of holding in what she thought of people. Her clear green eyes were aggressive, her gaze reminded Mallory of a show he recently watched with Max about eagles on the hunt.
“We’re investigating the murder of a young man who was followed from The Who concert—”
“I read he was from Brooklyn.”
Gunner strolled toward the little head shop in the back. “You two are getting along so well, I’m gonna do some shopping. Need a new bong.”
The woman’s mouth disappeared completely. She seemed just one more annoyance away from a scowl, really. “He’s not fooling anyone. Neither of you scare me one iota, so forget the good-cop-bad-cop bullshit.”
Mallory shrugged. “It’s more like mediocre cop, sloppy mess cop. Guy smokes like a fiend. One of the department’s more embarrassing secrets, really.”
Refining the tiny crag under her nose, deepening the lines, adding nuanced creases around the tight crevice where her lips had once been, the woman scrutinized the back end of Gunner sticking out into the aisle as he leaned over the paraphernalia counter. “Big secret.”
“All those munchies,” Mallory raised and dropped his shoulders. He lifted a hand, palm out, a ‘hold on’ gesture. “We know where the victim picked up his ticket. We know where everyone in the vicinity of the victim picked up their tickets. We’re just tracking each of them down in hopes of gaining information. Maybe they saw something, remember something. That’s all. One of the tickets was sold here. All we’re hoping is that you might know who purchased it.”
“I sell a lot of tickets, Detective. How am I to remember one sale?”
Mallory lifted his hands, shrugged his shoulders again: Detective Doofus. “I know, I know. Probably wasting everybody’s time. But the job is what it is, you know? We have to follow every lead.”
The woman eyed Gunner, squeezing behind the counter now, pushing past some Latino kid with bolts of electric blue in his long feminine hair. She swallowed hard. “Sorry I couldn’t help you. Now if you will excuse me—”
Too late. Gunner was heading toward them now, the kid’s narrow shoulder swallowed in one meaty paw, a clear glass crack pipe in the other. Definitely contraband. Gunner held it up as if he was gesturing hello. “Hey, how’s the interview going?”
Mallory smiled at the woman. “Just improved, I think.”
Her jaw was now threatening to follow her lips down her throat. “Come on, I’m wise to cops planting evidence.”
Gunner grinned. The kid was holding a foot long cardboard box. Gunner shook the kid’s shoulder. Glass tinkled from inside the box. “Yeah, but we didn’t enter with a whole box of illegal paraphernalia, which is what Blue Streak has here, my most thoroughly busted sister.”
Mallory’s smile broadened. He leaned across the counter, close to the woman now, casually in her face, staring down those eagle eyes. “Thanks for offering your help. You see, I’m hoping you do remember who bought that ticket, because he kind of makes an impression on people. The customer we’re interested in might carry index cards? You might even have seen him writing on them?”
The woman’s relief was so thorough her lips reappeared, purple and thin, like withered grapes run over by a truck. “You’re talking about Dante. Been coming here for over 20 years, since he was in high school.”
Mallory stood up, giving her some room. “You think this Dante is the writer?”
“He uses 3 by 5 cards. Always white. Pen has to be black, right?”
“Three points for you. You remember him buying Who tickets?”
“He bought only one Who ticket. Just like he bought only one for Jethro Tull a week later. He also goes to the Allman Brothers every March. Sees Yes every summer. Always the old bands. Always one ticket. Always buys them here. Has since high school.”
“And you’ve known him since when?”
She seemed more nostalgic than nervous now, reaching way back. “We were just open… probably ‘78, ‘79. Back around then.”
“I was a customer here back then, but I don’t remember you.”
“You came in here right after school, right?”
“You remember me?”
“No offense, but nah. Playing the odds. The place would get mobbed at that time, boys just like you coming in, plaid tie and all. I figured you for one of them.”
“Something like that,” Ma
llory leaned across the counter again, offering his sincerest gaze. “Tell us about this Dante. Please.”
“Back then? He was just like all the rest. No, that’s not true. More than half the kids who came in here spent equal money on albums—it was still LPs back then—and the stupid stuff in the back. You buy a bong back then, detective?”
“I was purely a beer guy. Please continue.”
“Or they’d buy an album and a T-shirt. Not Dante. All his money went for music. Every week, he’d buy two, three albums. Like clockwork, and I mean for years. He probably bought over 900 albums from us.”
“And how many bongs?” Gunner smirked.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t know what he or any of them ever did outside this store. But I remember the regular customers; who buys what. And this kid? Not a single other item, for years. Nothing but albums back then. And he always came in looking for specific stuff. Like he was on a mission. He’d be obsessed with Zeppelin one summer, The Allman Brothers that fall. He wanted all sorts of specific stuff. New York Dolls. MC5. Genesis. Early Genesis, with Peter Gabriel. Used to say that Phil Collins was the AntiChrist—”
“See,” Gunner quipped. “We are dealing with a fierce intellect here.”
The crone scowled at him, apparently a fan of Phil’s. “Always knew the artist he was after, the exact album he wanted. Bugged me for weeks to order Steppenwolf’s Monster. Had a more thorough knowledge of rock music than anyone I ever seen come into this store. He wrote the lyrics to songs on those cards of his. He did that with a lotta lyrics. Dylan, Townsend, Yes lyrics. He could quote them too.”
Mallory waited for the other shoe to drop. “And how would you describe him nowadays?”
“He really buried himself in the music then. And he’s still stuck in the 70s now, still obsessive about it. More so, I think. The only difference is that, for the past ten years or so, he’s been buying tickets to shows. Always stars from that era, and always just one ticket per show.”
“Does he ever pay by credit card?”
The woman laughed now. “No way. Cash. Nothing larger than a five. Usually all in ones. He’s gotten odder as the years gone by.”
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