Free The Last Dance by Ed McBain Page A

walked in late that Tuesday morning, Fat Ollie Weeks was sitting alone in a booth at the rear of the diner, totally absorbed in his breakfast. Acknowledging their presence with a brief nod, Ollie stabbed a sausage with his fork and hoisted it immediately to his mouth. A ribbon of egg yolk dribbled from the sausage onto Ollie’s tie, where it joined a medley of other crusted and hardened remnants of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners devoured in haste. Ollie always ate as if expecting an imminent famine. He picked up his cup, swallowed a huge gulp of coffee, and then smiled in satisfaction and at last looked across the table at the two visiting cops. He did not offer his hand; cops rarely shook hands with each other, even during social encounters.
    â€œSo what brings you up here?” he asked.
    â€œThe murder yesterday,” Carella said.
    â€œWhat murder?” Ollie asked. Here in Zimbabwe West, as he often referred to his beloved Eighty-eighth Precinct, there were murders every day of the week, every minute of the day.
    â€œAn informer named Danny Gimp,” Carella said.
    â€œI know him,” Ollie said.
    â€œTwo shooters marched into Guido’s Pizzeria while we were having a conversation,” Carella said.
    â€œMaybe they were after you,” Ollie suggested.
    â€œNo, I’m universally well-liked,” Carella said. “They were after Danny, and they got him.”
    â€œWhere’s Guido’s?”
    â€œCulver and Sixth.”
    â€œThat’s
your
turf, man.”
    â€œLewiston isn’t.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll bite.”
    â€œA pal of Danny’s was in a poker game a week ago Saturday,” Meyer said. “On Lewiston Avenue.”
    â€œMet a hitter from Houston who later treated him to a little booze, a little pot, some casual sex, and a strip of roofers.”
    â€œUh-huh,” Ollie said, and signaled to the waitress. “So what’s that got to do with me?”
    â€œLewiston is up here in the Eight-Eight.”
    â€œSo? I’m supposed to know every shitty little card game in the precinct?” Ollie said. “Give me another toasted onion bagel with cream cheese,” he told the waitress. “You guys want anything?”
    â€œJust coffee,” Meyer said.
    â€œThe same,” Carella said.
    â€œYou got that?” Ollie asked the waitress, who nodded and walked off toward the counter. “You think this card game’s gonna lead you to the shooters?”
    â€œNo, we think it’s gonna lead us to the hitter from Houston.”
    â€œWorld’s just
full
of hitters these days, ain’t it?” Ollie said philosophically. “You think your Houston hitter and the two pizzeria shooters are connected?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen what are you …?”
    â€œDon’t you work in the Eight-Three?” the waitress asked, and put down Ollie’s bagel and the two coffees.
    â€œI
used
to work in the Eight-Three,” Ollie said. “I got transferred.”
    â€œYou want more coffee?”
    â€œAh, yes, m’dear,” Ollie said, doing his world-famous W. C. Fields imitation. “If it’s not too much trouble, ah, yes.”
    â€œYou like it here better than the Eight-Three?” the waitress asked, pouring.
    â€œI like it better wherever
you
are, m’little chickadee.”
    â€œSweet talker,” she said, and smiled and walked off, shaking her considerable booty.
    â€œPeople ask me that all the time,” Ollie said. “Don’t you work in the Eight-Three? As if I don’t know where the fuck I work. As if I’m making a fuckin mistake about where I work. The world’s full of people playin
Gotcha!
They got nothin to do with their time but look for mistakes. Ain’t your middle name Lloyd? Hell, no, it’s Wendell. Oliver Wendell Weeks, I don’t know my own fuckin middle name? If I told you once it was Lloyd or Frank or Ralph, I was