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  Strollers were parked out front of Vinny’s Toyland like horses in front of a saloon. My neighborhood is known not only for art thieves but also for moms with strollers, at least during the day. They refer to these women as stroms, and by midmorning it’s like an army of them have invaded the streets. It can be hard to get around on foot. They not only push around tots but pretty big kids, too, ones that can walk, I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just easier to get around with a restrained kid on wheels. That way the tykes don’t wander into traffic or stick a finger in a dog poop. I waded through half a dozen preschoolers and their moms on the way to the back counter.

  Vince is maybe sixty, stooped, his hair dyed red to cover up the gray. The part in his hair was always straight and white, on the left, with the hair neatly pasted down on either side. For some reason he’d chosen to give up on regular clothes and wear jumpsuits. I guess it is easier to put on one piece of clothing than two, and you don’t need belts, either. That day’s jumpsuit was tan. He had a pink monkey puppet on his hand and was making it dance on the counter for a drooling toddler strapped to the front of a pageboy strom.

  Vince was like the Mister Rogers of shylocks. You’d expect a Brooklyn leg breaker to be a goombah sipping espresso in a dark corner of an Italian pastry store, not doing Sesame Street. It’s been my experience, though, that people aren’t always what you expect them to be, and that likewise people don’t always do what you expect them to. Pop used to say people are like the moon—you only see one side but there’s another in shadow you never see.

  Vince sees me, and the pink monkey looks my way and says, “Wowee, it’s Tommy! Hello, Tommy!” The pink monkey spoke in a high voice like you would expect. He was waving at me. The pageboy strom with the tot drifted back to her tribe.

  So I says to the monkey, “Hello, Pink Monkey. I have something for Vince.”

  The monkey clapped his hands. “You have the money? I’d hate to see anything happen to you.”

  I tried looking at Vince. He was looking at the monkey, but messing with me. So I looked at the monkey. “Whoa, monkey, easy. I said I have the money.”

  So the monkey puts his hands together like he’s praying. “Poor Johnny One-Ball got his head blown off. They’re saying you were there and that the shooter took a shot at you. Vince thought you might be in some kind of jam. If you take a bullet, he doesn’t get his money and bad things happen.”

  “I’m really touched by your concern, Pink Monkey.” I slipped a white envelope from inside my overcoat and handed it to the monkey, who accepted it with open arms. Inside was thirty thousand bucks in hundreds, the last of my cash reserves except for the couple hundred spending money on me. I was tapped out.

  The monkey made the envelope vanish under the counter and reappeared.

  “Thank you, Tommy! I’ll see Vince gets the money. It better be all there. Don’t think you can get out of your obligation by dying, Tommy. Your friends and family will suffer even if they don’t know why.”

  I don’t like threats, even from a pink monkey. They give off bad energy. Still, it doesn’t pay to beat up hand puppets, especially if they’re attached to a shylock. So instead of yanking Vince’s arm out of his torso and beating him to death with the pink monkey, I said, “You and me will be square next week, monkey.”

  I pushed my way through the stroms and made for the door.

  Outside, I crossed Court Street and went down the block to Donut House.

  I stopped in front of the place, right where Jo-Ball had the top of his head exploded, and saw it all happen again. Kind of funny that the last thing he said to me was something about getting shot in the nuts, that he had a right to be nervous about being tweaked. I don’t think it’s possible to have illustrated his point better than by what happened next. He couldn’t have been more right, but I’d bet he wished he weren’t quite that right.

  My tongue swelled with a bitter taste. I could picture Johnny One-Ball’s tongue waving around in the air, the top of the head missing. Then him falling against the car and the blood gushing into the gutter. Then the bloody toupee sliding down the town car windshield. Christ. There are things I wish I never saw, but that topped the list—first, second, and third. I made a mental note to pick up more brandy to make sure I went to sleep fast and hard that night.

  You could see the sidewalk had been scrubbed, but dark blood splatter was still visible on the concrete. I turned. The dent was there in the light pole, the one the second bullet made.

  Yeah, more brandy would be necessary.

  I looked up the block toward where the bullet must have come from. I say “must” because the Jo-Ball splatter went the same direction the bullet was traveling. Unless you want to start getting into some weird whiplash theory like with the Kennedy assassination, which I don’t. The shooter wouldn’t have been out in the open, but the shot must have come from some distance because there was nobody standing nearby. It stood to reason that the shooter, then, had to brace the gun against something to make an accurate shot like that. There was only one stoop on that block of Court Street, and I counted thirty strides from the point of impact to the stoop. That’s about a hundred and twenty feet. Some marksmanship. Like I said, I’m not into guns, a little rule I had, but it doesn’t take an expert to realize that this must have been a difficult shot done with something more than a handgun. I looked from the stoop back to the point of impact, and at the light pole. I’m sure the police did the same thing. There was little doubt that the shooter was standing where I was, his rifle resting on the stoop. I was curious how he disguised the rifle so nobody passing looking that way would notice. Also why there was no gunshot. I didn’t hear any. Then again, Court Street was a commercial strip with all kinds of noises, anything from trash trucks and backfires to buses and construction work. Still, I thought I would have heard a gunshot.

  I walked back to Donut House and pushed through the doors. The only customer there was the old man with no teeth. Only he had a cup of coffee in front of him, and didn’t seem in any hurry to finish it.

  Garrison was behind the counter. Like I said, he was a thin black guy in his thirties with eyes that don’t exactly look the same direction. He’d poured me a cup of coffee the morning before.

  He says, “Here’s a black cat!” He spat on the floor and crossed himself. “You come back here after what happened yesterday? Tom Davin, of all people?”

  I sat at a stool. “You still serve coffee in your place, Garrison?”

  He poured me a cup, carefully, like I was a pit bull. “You know, Jo-Ball may have just ruined my business.”

  “I’m sure it was nothing personal, Garrison. Look, there was a woman here Sunday morning having breakfast with Johnny. Just before he got shot he told me about it. Did you see her?”

  His eyes wandered around the room a little, like each was watching a different fly buzz the room.

  “You shaved, Tom. You look almost friendly.”

  “Know who she was?”

  “I seen her, sure, with Jo-Ball.”

  Garrison was not part of any crew, and not a goofball, and as far as I knew had no idea that Jo-Ball was anything other than maître d’ at Dominic’s.

  I dumped four sugars in my coffee. “How often she and Jo-Ball have a sit-down?”

  Garrison shrugged. “Hell, I dunno. I only seen her that once. Say, what do you care about this gal, anyway?”

  “I have a special interest in what they were talking about.”

  “You work for insurance companies, don’t you?”

  “I do.”

  “This for his life insurance or some shit?”

  “Can you describe her?”

  His eyes went looking for the flies in the room again. “I don’t think so.”

  “Was she white or black or Hispanic or Chinese or—”

  “White.” It almost sounded like he was guessing an answer on a game show.

  “So she was white. Tall, small, fat, thin—”

  “Medium.”


  “Hair?”

  “I think she was wearing a hat.”

  “Red, white, black, pink—”

  “Man, I dunno.”

  “Eye color?”

  “Man, I dunno.”

  “Did she say anything to you?”

  “Nuh uh. I think Jo-Ball ordered for both, the way he does. Did.”

  “Can you at least tell me what she was like? Did she remind you of anybody?”

  “Man, I dunno.”

  As any cop will tell you, eyewitness accounts can be insanely screwy. I remember once in high school the NYPD came in and were trying to interest seniors in joining the force. We were in the auditorium, and they staged an incident in which a student ran through and stole the policeman’s cap and ran out. Then the cop called on us to describe what we saw, what the hat thief looked like. I got it a hundred percent right, and it made me think that maybe I had what it took to be a cop, except I wanted to be a painter. Anyhow, nobody else in the room could agree on what color hoodie the thief was wearing (purple) or if he was wearing a hat (he was, a white visor) or if the guy was ethnic (he was Bobby Chin from my English lit class—even with the sunglasses I recognized the lucky dragon ring on his left hand). It was kind of amazing nobody could even agree on how tall or short he was, though he did a little jump to snatch the hat off the cop. Witnesses are terrible witnesses. Garrison was worse.

  So I says, “So you never seen her before anywhere, or since?”

  He says, “Nope.”

  We stared at each other. I looked at one of his eyes, and then the other. Neither was lying. Considering his eyesight may not have been that great, I could hardly bust his shoes much more on the girl.

  “OK, but if you remember anything more, there’s twenty bucks in it for you.”

  “Tommy, I’d tell you if I remembered. All I know is she came in here and had breakfast with Jo-Ball on Sunday, over there, and then took the car service that was idling out front. There’s always one there waiting for a call. They like my coffee.”

  I looked up at him over my coffee cup, squinting. “Twenty if you know the car service.”

  “Had the company card in the window. Shit.” Garrison covered his face with his dish rag, thinking as hard as he could. “Blue diamond-shape card…”

  I smiled. “Blue Diamond Car Service?”

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  I STEPPED OUT OF THE diner, and you know where I was headed.

  For the second time in two days there was a surprise waiting for me outside Donut House.

  Two police detectives approached. Same two who interviewed me the day before. This was no cause for worry. Normally.

  I apologize in advance to the cops in their private lives, where I’m sure they’re good people with positive energy. I hope so for their wives’ sake, anyway. Maybe my profession makes cops hostile toward me in particular, and that has altered my perception of them. They don’t like anyone muscling in on their business, coming between them and what they consider crime. Plus maybe they don’t like my size. I’m harder to intimidate.

  I’m just saying, but police are not my favorite people, and I don’t think that I’m totally alone in that department.

  I guessed these two were heading into Donut House to further interrogate Garrison.

  One of these detectives was a heavyset Chinese, with blue eyes, freckles, and thinning hair swept back. His name was Doh. His smile was always forced and out of practice, his eyes long-suffering and probably focused on retirement. The other detective was a short, bald Italian with a bushy black unibrow. His name was Crispi, and he looked like he could get angry at a buttercup.

  Doh says to me, “Just the guy we wanted to see.”

  Those are words you never want to hear from a cop.

  So I says, like a hello, “Detectives.”

  Crispi folded his arms. “What’re you doing here, Davin?”

  “Coffee.”

  Doh showed me his forced smile. “We hear things about you, Davin. In the neighborhood.”

  “Good things, I’m sure.”

  Crispi refolded his arms. “We hear Scanlon has his hooks in you.”

  “He sells toys.”

  “Not all he sells.” Doh leaned in like this was big news. Everybody in Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill knew Vince Scanlon was the local shylock. Well, maybe not all the hipsters that were gentrifying the neighborhood. True locals and goofballs knew.

  Doh hadn’t asked a question, so I had no response. He finally continued. “If there’s a connection with Johnny One-Ball’s murder, we’ll find it.”

  I glanced down at the blood spatter on the sidewalk, then pointed at the dent in the light pole where the second bullet hit. “Serve and protect. Any idea who took a shot at me, and why?”

  “Police business,” Crispi said, his jaw muscles rippling.

  “Detectives, just so you two remember, I’m a victim of attempted murder. Part of your job is to apprehend and prosecute whoever it was that took a shot at me.”

  I turned and went down Court Street.

  Doh calls after me, “Davin…”

  I kept going.

  Pop used to say, Just because someone asks you a question, doesn’t mean you have to answer. That goes double for cops. The only words you need to say to a cop are “I want my lawyer present.”

  Blue Diamond Car Service was north on Smith near Atlantic and was sort of famous in the neighborhood. Interesting story. Back when, some screwball decided to try to extort the Transit Authority by firebombing the subway. So he was sitting there with his first bomb, a jar of gasoline I think, in a paper bag on the floor between his legs, and it went off. Yeah, while he was still sitting there. He was badly injured; likewise some people in the subway car got injured and killed. Somehow this screwball survived, though worse for wear, and escaped down a subway tunnel. He came out at the Bergen Street stop at Smith Street and walked into the Blue Diamond Car Service, which was run by Arabs. Picture this guy, burned pretty much to a crisp, and he walked into the car service looking for a car. The Arabs freaked out—they came here to escape a war-torn Middle East. First year in business, and who came in but some guy who looks like he’s been torched by a car bomb. They called the cops; the ambulance took him away. I can’t remember if the screwball lived, but if he did he probably wished he hadn’t.

  Cut to three years later. My dentist, he’s on Court Street. Enter another screwball, one in a puffy down coat who came into his office and confronted the nurse with a gun, forced her and my dentist into a corner. Nobody else was there. The desperado rummaged the receptionist desk looking for cash. Apparently, this latest dummy thought dentists got paid mostly in cash as opposed to insurance claims. It was at this point that my dentist pulled a gun from his sock. To tell you the truth, I had no idea my dentist carried, but I later learned that he and a bunch of other dentists have this gun club. Because he has precious metals in his office, like gold, he was able to get a carry permit. Anyway, the burglar took a shot at my dentist. My dentist, in turn, unloaded his entire magazine of nine shots at the screwball, who dropped his gun and ran out after being hit in what my dentist thought was the hand. At first he thought he’d missed the guy, because the burglar hadn’t fallen down or anything, like on TV. Then he sees the blood and figures he’d hit him in the hand. So this screwball ran all the way down to Smith Street, and where do you think he ended up?

  You got it. At the Blue Diamond Car Service. He stood there with blood pouring out from under his down coat asking for a car to Bay Ridge. My dentist actually put eight slugs in the guy’s chest but somehow missed the heart. (My dentist now has a bigger gun with bigger bullets.)

  The Arab dispatcher behind the counter, Sammy, was once again faced with the walking wounded. Sammy yells at the screwball, “Why do you people keep coming here!”

  Now you had Johnny One-Ball getting his head exploded onto a Blue Diamond town car parked at Donut House. It was like I should have guessed it would have been them.
/>   Gruesome stories, but the repetition says something about life. Maybe it’s that irony thing, one of life’s circles.

  Sammy is pretty old now, his black hair with a lot of gray in it, thinning some in back, but still thick as a rug everywhere else. I don’t know what kind of Arab he is. I’d seen him and knew who he was, but he didn’t know me from a lamppost.

  Car services are humble establishments that are all pretty much the same. A small paneled waiting area the size of a large rug sits in front of a counter. In front of the counter are some beat-up chairs and beat-up magazines. Behind the counter is a large map of New York City, a list of rates to the airports, a CB-type radio to talk to the cars, and in this case a wary Arab.

  “You Sammy?” Of course I knew it was Sammy, but it was a way to break the ice.

  He looked at me like I might burst into flame, and didn’t answer me, waiting for what might come next.

  “My name is Tommy Davin. I’m a neighborhood guy. I was at Donut House yesterday when that thing happened. I was standing right in front of one of your cars when it happened.”

  Still Sammy said nothing. He didn’t even blink. These were eyes, I think, that had seen it all, and were sure they would see more. Sadly.

  I almost expected him to shout, “Why do you people keep coming here!”

  “Horrible thing, what happened. I was a friend of the victim. I’ll tell you why I’m here. I want to give you fifty bucks to tell me who hired one of your cars on Sunday morning, the day before this happened. One of your drivers out front of Donut House was hired by a woman.”

  Sammy looked down his big brown Arab nose at the Grant I had set on the counter. Then at his big logbook next to it. Finally, he says, “The TLC forbids me to release such information.” TLC is the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which polices car services and taxicab companies.