Ollie checked his bus schedules and discovered there was a bus that stopped on the corner of Stemmler and Lowell at 2:05 each weekday morning, which bus Althea probably couldn’t have caught since the stop was three blocks from the club, which Ruby said she’d left at 2:00 A. M. approximate. There was another bus twenty-one minutes later at 2:26 A. M. which she could have caught easily enough. So Ollie went downtown three weeks after the murder of Althea Cleary, and stood in the bitter cold on the corner of Stemmler and Lowell, waiting for the 2:26 A. M. bus. There was one other person at the bus stop, a man carrying a black lunch pail. Ollie figured him at once for a regular. Guy carrying a lunch pail at two-thirty in the morning, was he going to a baseball game? No, he was going to work. And if he was going to work at this hour on a Tuesday night, chances are he was also going to work on a Tuesday night three weeks ago. Ollie waited till the bus arrived and they’d both boarded it before he struck up a conversation with the man.
“My name is Oliver Wendell Weeks,” he said. “I’m a detective,” and showed his shield.
The man said nothing.
Looked at the shield.
Nodded.
Said nothing.
“You ride this bus every night at this time?” Ollie asked.
“Mornings, actually,” the man said. “This time of night, it’s morning already.”
“On my block,” Ollie said, “if it’s still dark, it’s nighttime.”
“Who can argue with that?” the man said. “My name’s Jimmy Palumbo, I’m a short-order cook in a deli in Riverhead. We start serving at six, I have to be there at four-thirty to set up. I’m afraid to ride the subways, so I take a bus to work. Takes me two hours to get there from where I live.
But at least I get there alive, am I right?”
Who asked you? Ollie wondered.
“Were you on this bus, at this time, three weeks ago?” he said.
“On a Tuesday, you mean? “Yes. Three weeks ago tonight.”
“I’m on this bus every Tuesday at this time. I’m prompt and punctual.
I also make the best hash browns in the business. You want to know the secret of making great hash browns?”
“No,” Ollie said. “I want to know do you remember seeing this girl on this bus three weeks ago at this time.” He took from his jacket pocket a black-and-white print the Photo Unit had made from a picture recovered in Althea’s apartment. “Black girl,” he said, “nineteen years old, five-seven or eight, weighed about a nun’ fifteen. Recall seeing her that Tuesday?”
“No,” Palumbo said. “Why? What’d she do?”
“Did you ever see her on this bus? At any time?”
“Not that I recall. Usually the bus is empty till it hits the stop near the Sands Spit Bridge. Lots of people connect there. They come over the bridge, make the connection. Of course, when I say empty, I don’t mean literally empty. I mean just a handful of people. Most people prefer the subway, but I value my life too highly. Two hours later, I’d risk it. But two-thirty in the morning? No way.”
Who asked you? Ollie thought again.
“Where would she have got off, this girl?” Palumbo asked.
“What difference does it make where she got off,” Ollie asked, “if she didn’t get on in the first place?”
“Cause maybe I noticed her getting off, but not on,” Palumbo said.
“Lots of times, people don’t notice things till later.”
“She woulda got off at Hanson Street. Or maybe she signaled the driver to let her off between Slade and Hanson.”
“I don’t even know where that is. Hanson Street.”
“It’s up in Diamondback.”
“That where you work?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that precinct up there?”
“The Eight-Eight.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
“You know it?”
“No.”
Ollie figured there was no use talking to this jackass. He changed his seat and watched the silent city passing by outside. This was the time of day he liked best, the empty hours between midnight and dawn, a time when the sleepless city lay coiled with menace and surprise. If he were not a cop, he would never venture outdoors at this time of night, however safe the Mayor said it was. Let the Mayor take a little stroll out there where blurred figures clustered under street lamps and cars cruised slowly past on the night. Let him.
Through his own image reflected darkly in the window, he could see the city beyond, changing from white to Latino in the wink of an eye, and then Latino to black as the bus lumbered farther uptown through forsaken streets where steam drifted up from sewer lids and rats scurried in packs from sidewalk to sidewalk. Let the Mayor take his stroll, the fuck.
He signaled for a stop where he supposed Althea would have if she’d taken the bus home that night. It was close to three-thirty. The short-order cook was dozing as Ollie made his way to the front of the bus. The door opened. The driver asked, “You be all right up here, man?”
“I’m a cop,” Ollie said, and stepped out into the night.
