The taxi U-turned, went back to Pacific Avenue and headed south with just the cop now. Where was he going? Teddy followed. They drove along through early evening traffic to where Pacific petered out and Atlantic Avenue curved down to become the main thoroughfare, and kept going, Atlantic City to Ventnor, out of one and into the other without even knowing it, unless you were a native. Teddy was getting a feeling now that told him where the cop was going. Yeah, Surrey Place. The taxi turned off, came to a stop in front of the condo on the corner, where Iris had taken her swan dive. Teddy pulled to the curb on Atlantic Avenue. He couldn’t help looking up at that top floor, way, way up there, then watched through traffic going by as the cop got out of the taxi and went in the building.
Wasn’t that like a cop? Didn’t trust the local fuzz, had to come here and see for himself. “Well,” Teddy said out loud, “good luck.”
At first Vincent believed the building security guard was at least seventy. Jimmy Dunne. Bald with a thin, clean look, alert, bright-eyed, an old man who’d never grown up. “Haven’t had a drink in thirty years.” Just coffee, but plenty of it. “You want some more? Here. All I gotta do is ring Norma, she’ll bring me down another thermos.” Sitting behind his clean desk in the lobby Jimmy Dunne lined up the clipboard registration pad exactly in front of him. He’d taken this job to be doing something. He liked people, liked to chat, but didn’t get much company when he worked nights. It was a shame, that poor little girl. Captain Davies-or was it in the paper said she was from Puerto Rico? Jimmy Dunne said he was down there with the U.S. army in 19-and-19. Two years later he was playing trumpet with the Victor Herbert Band out on the Steel Pier and had been here ever since. Loved Atlantic City. Vincent revised the man’s age, pushing it up from seventy to somewhere in the mid-eighties. Jimmy Dunne said they’d had him in a nursing home a few years ago over there in Somers Point, but he’d broke out with his trumpet and was now living with this woman friend of his, Norma, right here in the building. The tenants’ association told him he could have this job if he promised not to play his horn anymore. Well, he had lost his lip anyway. He said, “What else can I do for you?”
They sat in black leather director’s chairs Norma had bought him, drinking coffee out of thick pottery mugs, each with a big J baked into the glazed surface.
“Captain Davies was wondering,” Vincent said, “if any of the tenants are Puerto Rican.”
Jimmy Dunne said, no, mostly they were Jewish, but nice folks. He said your Puerto Ricans were all up there by the Inlet.
“You gave the captain a list of visitors.”
“Yes sir, they have to sign in right here or they don’t go upstairs.”
“How about deliveries?”
“We gave ’em a list. Florist, dry cleaners, ones the day man saw. On nights you don’t have many deliveries aside from maybe a restaurant, you know, like an order from the White House Sub Shop. There was a delivery from there. Fella had an extra cheese steak sub he gave me. Nice fella.”
“Did you know him?”
“Yeah, he looked familiar. But you get a turnover, those restaurant delivery boys, they don’t make a lot of money. You see ’em a couple weeks, they’re gone.”
“How about the night before?”
“The night before…” Jimmy Dunne sipped his coffee.
“The night of the day before. You give the captain a list of visitors?”
“Well, we musta talked about it.”
“You’re not sure if you did?”
“I guess I did, you know, if he asked.”
“Were you on the night before?”
“Well, I’m always around here, you know, since I live up in two-oh-nine. That’s why the tenants’ association, they know they can count on me.”
“Who was on the night before?”
Jimmy Dunne sipped his coffee. “The night before… You know when we switch off, change from days to nights, there’s a time in there I’m not sure if I worked that day or that night. See, cuz I’m here seven days a week.”
“Just two of you work it?”
Jimmy Dunne paused. “Well, they’re substitutes, you know, like one of us gets sick.”
“Maybe that night before, somebody else was working.”
“Gee, I don’t know…”
“Could you look it up? It was only a few days ago.”
“Well, we don’t punch in or anything… you know.”
“Jimmy, this is pretty serious. Girl was killed…”
“Listen, I know it is. This town, it can happen. I love this town but… well, you got an influence here now you didn’t have in the old days, it’s different. The old days this’s where you brought your son to get his first piece a ass. You know, so there was plenty of action. But you had everything. You had your classy places, lot a big money had homes here. You had your shoobies, people’d bring their lunch in a shoebox, eat on the Boardwalk or out on the beach, never spend a dime. You had, I mentioned Victor Herbert, you had Sousa, ‘Stars and Stripes Forever,’ you had all kinds a entertainment. Horse that dove off the pier… Then people stop coming, I don’t know why. They’re watching color TV or something. Stores’re going out a business, hotels closing. So they bring in casino gambling to pick up the economy… Boy, people like to gamble, don’t they? Twenty-four hours a day, some of ’em.”
“I thought the casinos closed-what, four in the morning?”
“Four A.M. weekdays, six A.M. Saturday and Sunday, open again at ten. But this’s a twenty-four-hour town. You want something, say you want a game, no matter what time a day it is. You know what I mean? You can’t find it, you can arrange it.”
“Yeah?… I bet you’ve got some stories.”
“Make your hair stand up. Like I ‘magine you could tell a few yourself.”
Vincent paused. “Jimmy, I’m not with the police.”
“You’re not?” Wide-eyed. “But you said-”
“What I mentioned was, I talked to Captain Davies and he told me what they had. No, I’m not with Atlantic County.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m a good friend of the girl that was killed. No, I came up from Puerto Rico to make the funeral arrangements.”
“Oh, I see.”
“I talked to the cops… but you know how they are. They’re good guys, we got along fine. But they only want facts, they’re not interested in any ideas, you know, you might have. Any theories or guesses.”
“Oh, I know it,” Jimmy Dunne said. “Just the facts, ma’am. ‘Member that show? Sergeant Friday? Yeah, I know what you mean. They don’t want you playing detective on ’em.”
“Just tell what you know.”
“Exactly.”
“See, what I’m wondering-” Vincent paused. “This is just between you and me.”
“And the gatepost. I gotcha.”
“I was wondering, what if she went up to that apartment the night before it happened and was there all day and nobody knew it? And that’s why you didn’t see her.”
“Uh-huh.” Jimmy Dunne was thinking, re-aligning his clipboard registration pad, getting it just right.
“I wouldn’t want to bother the cops with it,” Vincent said, “it’s just, you know, an idea. But I could ask the guy that was on duty that night, see what he says.”
“Uh-huh.”
“For my own peace of mind more than anything else.”
Jimmy Dunne stared at his clipboard.
“He says he doesn’t know anything, well, at least I’ve tried.” Vincent paused. “Guy just works once in a while, huh?… Jimmy?”
“Yeah, he’ll come in certain times.”
“Cops didn’t talk to him.”
“Well now, they might’ve. I don’t know.”
“But if you didn’t tell ’em this guy was working… Jimmy, this’s just between you and me. You understand? I won’t even tell the guy where I got his name. I give you my word on it.”