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Detective RousseauNYPD |
This picture was taken by an American woman on the back steps of my family's place in the old country, in Provence, near Aix. Somebody else owns it now, but they know me. I have carte blanche. Ou sont les neiges d'antan? Vive la difference. L'amour fou. Il faut souffrir pour etre belle.
I got it on the sly, from a stoolie who used to be his errand boy, that Johnny is a big-time criminal and that his command center is that office upstairs where he spends the day.
He doesn't come down until dinnertime, and then it's like a pro wrestler stepping into the ring -- Step back! Make way!
He's fresh from the shower, his hair is combed straight back and packed with mega-gel, he's got a crisp, starched collar, a sterling collar clasp, a flashy but slightly restrained tie, and he shoots his shirt cuffs out to check the fold and to see that his sterling and onyx cufflinks are in place.
He won't wear gold. He says gold is vulgar on a man. Johnny's got standards. He's discriminating. Johnny's also a cartoon, but I don't hold this against anyone.
I have no idea what I'll do when I fill the file on him. I'm not even trying very hard. If I didn't like him, he'd have been in jail six months ago. Eight months ago.
I'm good at the takedown and all that leads up to it, but the truth is, I go after somebody non-stop only if I don't like him. Then, it's look out. I always make it a personal thing. It's the only way I can work, since sometimes it's no justice, sometimes it's rough justice, and with some money you get a better form of justice. This attitude is unprofessional, and it's my shortcoming as an officer of the law.
Listen, I've let outlaws go. Some of them are high-quality human beings. Some aren't. It's like every group of people. Once I told a killer to just disappear. I was in his apartment and we were talking. I had him smacked and he knew it. But I liked him, I understood him, so I told him to take the next jet out of town and never come back. He did it.
So I like this bartender here . . . Jefferson; we have a good time. And this is my kind of place -- women come and go, supreme jukebox, jukebox deluxe, good food, and good company most of the time.
I picked every selection on this jukebox, by the way. I did an overhaul. Johnny asked me if I'd do the job, and I said yes. So it's the best music on earth . . . from all decades. There's not a dog CD to be found on . Select anything; you can't lose. Play it blindfolded.
I had it wired so you can go straight to signature songs. Just punch a button and you get a readout on the screen. Take your pick. You can do this blindfolded too.
Johnny can't stand to hear "Damn Your Eyes." Sung by anyone. It doesn't make any difference. It drives him crazy. Sometimes he loses it. It reminds him of Linda, the one he was with in his senior year of high school, the one he saw on and off for the six years she was away at the university for two degrees in Music, the one who bolted because she wanted to get married and have children, the one who gave him the ultimatum, the one who married someone else, the one who married a suit.
"Johnny," I told him, "you're a suit."
He ignored me. "I've never told anyone that," he said. He was surprised at himself.
Linda came in here one night two years ago and took Johnny upstairs, where they stayed until after dawn. Johnny had breakfast brought in. He hadn't seen her since she got married, and he hasn't seen her since that morning, the morning she said on her way out the door, "I will always love you, Johnny."
So, anybody singing "Damn Your Eyes" is the only source of trouble between Johnny and me. Once, when Ruth Brown was halfway into the first verse, he went over and ripped the plug. I told him I wanted music. We got in each other's face and did a few chest and shoulder hits. But that was it -- just some rooster strutting and posturing.
But right now I've got a situation. Lee's in here. She breezed in about half an hour ago. She walks into Johnny's. It's been eleven years.
I heard her voice through the music and the talk before I saw her. She was asking Wanda about her nylons. Her voice is fuller now.
I didn't see her face, but I knew the walk.
Johnny wants to know what I'm going to do about her. He came over here about five minutes ago and got involved. Johnny had questions and ideas and opinions and he had this one-sided discussion with me.
My first impulse was to send her a note, but there's really only one thing to do. Johnny's right. Half right. We're going to dance, and I'll take the next song, whatever it is.
It might be fast, it might be slow, it might be French, it might be Spanish, it might have lyrics, it might be an instrumental, it may be the blues, it may be big band. The jukebox can do the job for me.
I get up slowly in those six seconds between songs, but it's Little Richard, "The Girl Can't Help It," so I sit back down. Little Richard pounds the piano and shouts "the girl can't help it, she was born to pleeeeez" at the top of his inspired wild lungs.
The next one is all trumpet and sax so I make the move as soon as I hear the first bar. Down two steps, out of the shadows, toward the jukebox, past it, and I'm there. She's at the table to my left.
I look at her, she looks at me, there's a silence for a moment, and then she says, "Docmandu."
I forget about dancing and sit down across from her. I tell her she looks good, which she does.
I have this feeling that we have lots of time, but I ask her how much.
"I have some time," she says.
"Well, then," I say, "let's get a bottle of champagne."
She says no, she doesn't want champagne. She likes what she's drinking now. So I order the usual.
We start talking about Johnny's and what we've been doing. Then Roxanne walks by, says nothing, but gives Lee and me a quick hit with her eyes.
"Who's she?" Lee asks.
"Her name's Roxanne. She comes in here sometimes."
"How well do you know her?" Lee wants to know.
"We talk sometimes. That's it. She has some photographer boyfriend."
Lee smiles brightly at me and I'm looking at her shoulders and her arms here at this table. What causes this is a mystery. Maybe it's sub-nuclear transference. That or the hit and miss nature of pheromones. Or imprints that occur in childhood, or throughout the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.
