They settled at one end of the bar. There were patrons up and down the length of mahogany. Mallory picked up a cocktail napkin and stared at the logo for the Hilda-Godd Bar. “I thought it was called Godd’s Bar?”
“Well, Mike Godd died twenty years ago. Hilda Winkler is still alive, but she might as well be a ghost. Her name just dropped out of use. See that old woman over there? Even the bartender doesn’t know this, but that’s Hilda, the owner.”
An old woman sat in the far corner of the room, and tipped back a sherry glass. In the way of a specter, she kept to the darkest shadows of the place.
“Regulars of ten years’ standing have no idea who she is. The bartender only knows that the old lady drinks sherry and never pays a tab. She’s there when he comes to work in the afternoon, and still there when he leaves at closing time.”
The phone was ringing, and the bartender moved up the length of the bar to answer it.
“Watch the old woman now,” said Quinn.
The bartender picked up the phone and said, “This is Godd, whaddaya want?” and the old woman shuddered when he did this, as though she might be wondering if she was the ghost, and not her long-dead partner, whose name lived on.
Quinn looked toward the lineup of drinkers at the bar and then over his shoulder to the scattering of patrons among the polished tables. “Almost all of these people are painters or photographers.”
A young man dropped a coin into the jukebox, an elaborate art deco piece of ornate zigzag lines and curls of bright, colored lights. The music pouring out of the box was the big-band sound from a time when the old woman had been younger, prettier, more alive than the other permanent fixtures of Godd’s Bar. Mallory recognized the music from Markowitz’s record collection in the basement of the old house in Brooklyn.
When she was a child, Markowitz had played the old records for her and taught her how to swing to the big-band music which had filled the basement with a fifty-piece orchestra. The dancing lessons had begun with the waltz, leading into bebop and then on to rock’n‘roll- the old man’s real passion. But she suspected Markowitz had harbored a special feeling for the early fifties. He would have loved this place.
She was intent on the bartender’s back, waiting for him to turn around. When he did turn, he read her lips as she ordered a scotch and soda. He smiled and nodded at her, added a word each to two different conversations, mixed a tray of drinks for the cocktail waitress and splashed her scotch into a glass without a spill or a wasted motion. It was a magic act. He moved up the length of the bar, dancing to the music from the jukebox. One hand ringed a twist of lemon around the rim of the glass as he set the napkin in place on the bar. The glass appeared to settle there of its own accord, so sly was the hand. Long dark hair grazed his shoulders and he seemed to have no bones. Now he produced a bottle of sipping whiskey from the backbar and poured a neat shot without Quinn having to ask for it. The bartender was introduced as Kerry.
“Thanks again for the gig at Koozeman’s,” Kerry said to Quinn. “The opening is gonna be a big night. He packs a lot of money into those crowds. It’s a networker’s dream.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Quinn. “I did it for selfish reasons.” Turning to Mallory, he said, “Kerry is one of my best sources for news in the art community.”
Now Kerry was pointing to a patron sitting alone at the other end of the bar. “He just got the commission to shoot the plaza of Gilette’s new building. Gilette’s bringing down the wooden construction-site walls so they can photograph the place before the sculpture is installed.”
Quinn turned to Mallory. “Every time a building goes up, the architect is obliged to let the city put its own sculpture in the plaza. It’s usually something pretty awful. The architect always likes to get the before shot so he can remember it the way it was meant to be.”
Style, thy name is Kerry. She watched the bartender dance away to pour another round for a patron. Without facing Quinn, she asked, “Why were you at the old East Village gallery on the night of that double murder?”
“Don’t you ever shift out of the interrogation mode? I told Markowitz. I’m sure he left-”
“I don’t care what you told him. I can place you in each of Koozeman’s galleries at the time of two different homicides. That’s bound to make me curious, isn’t it? Now talk to me.”
“I was told to meet Aubry there. A message was left at the newspaper in her name. Later, I figured that I’d been set up. The killer wanted to be critiqued, or that was your father’s thought.”
“Was it? I don’t think you cared what Markowitz thought.”
“Pardon?”
“I think you spent all your time steering the old man in the direction you wanted him to take. I think you were obsessed with your own theories.”
“You’re interrogating me, aren’t you?”
“Cops do that.”
“Are you considering me as a suspect? You think I murdered Starr? That’s ridiculous. The only kind of artist a critic can kill is a good one. Mediocrity is indestructible. You can step on it and flush it down the toilet, if you like. Not only will it survive, it actually flourishes in the crap.”
While she quietly ruminated over his toilet metaphor, he signaled Kerry for another round of drinks.
The jukebox was playing a tune from the late forties. All the records were perishable vinyl, played with needles to grooves. Mallory understood to the penny at what great cost these collectible recordings were rounded up, played until worn and replaced with others.
She listened to the clear, sweet notes of the girl singer and wondered who she might have been. It was a distinctive voice, but she didn’t recognize it from Markowitz’s collection. She left the bar and walked to the jukebox. The song was ended, the record slowed and stopped. The singer’s name was on the record label below the name of the band, and in very small type-Hildy Winkler, the owner of the bar. So Quinn had missed that, or else he would have thrown it into the tour ramble. What else might he have missed?
Hilda Winkler was shaking her head slowly as she waved one hand at the wide plate-glass window. Mallory caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. The old woman’s face swiveled quickly back toward the bar, and she was surprised to see Mallory staring at her. It was guilty surprise, a look Mallory knew well. She smiled at the elderly bar owner, just the line of a smile to ask, What are you up to, old woman?
Mallory turned to the window in time to see the back of an old hag dragging a wire cart down the sidewalk.
So that was it. Just waving off the riffraff. Move along, was all the old woman on the inside meant to say to the crone on the outside, No loitering, no rest for you-not at my door.
Charles rang the bell again. Punctuality was her religion. He was genuinely stunned that Mallory was not at home. They had agreed to meet at eight o’clock, and it was ten of the hour now.
He stood outside Mallory’s door as people passed by him on the way to a party in the apartment at the end of the hall. And every passerby looked at the man with the flowers, the tuxedo and the foolish smile. He was so transparently in love, they could read the plaque bearing Mallory’s apartment number through his soul.
The elevator announced itself with a metallic ping. The doors opened and Mallory appeared, striding down the hall, a canvas tote bag slung over one shoulder. “Hi, Charles.”
“You’re not dressed.”
“You said eight o’clock.” She looked at her watch. “It’s only ten of eight now.”
He followed behind her as she pressed through the door, dropped her tote bag on the rug and disappeared into her bedroom. “Clock me,” she called back to him as the door was closing.