The white cinder-block building occupied a corner lot opposite a hardware store and a place selling cowboy-styled apparel — big Stetson hats, shirts with pearl snaps on the cuffs and down the front, and wide leather belts with ornate brass buckles. The parking lot outside the dry-cleaning store was potholed and cracked, and it was often used by customers of the hardware and clothing stores, much to Mr. Barish’s annoyance. Bloom later told me Barish had complained about this the moment the detectives entered the store. They were driving an unmarked sedan and he didn’t know they were cops at first, and since he didn’t recognize them as customers coming to claim an article of clothing, and since they weren’t carrying over their arms either jackets, skirts, or slacks, he automatically assumed they wanted to buy a pair of jeans or a screwdriver, and he bawled them out at once for ignoring the signs outside. The signs, Bloom told me, warned that the parking lot was for the exclusive use of customers of Albert Cleaners.
Barish, from what Bloom reported, was a feisty little guy who resembled and sounded like a delicatessen owner Bloom had known in Brooklyn. He was wearing a Hawaiian print sports shirt and green slacks, and he was carrying a bundle of clothing to the back of the shop when Rawles and Bloom entered. Barish turned immediately when he heard the bell tinkling over the front door, and then said at once, “If you’re for the hardware or the cowboys, you can’t park here. Read the signs, for Chrissake!”
Bloom showed Barish his shield and ID card, and Barish looked at both carefully and then turned his attention to Rawles, wanting to know if he was a cop, too. Rawles, who hadn’t expected to be put through the trouble of identifying himself after Bloom already had, reluctantly dug out the leather case to which his shield was pinned, and flipped it open to the Lucite-enclosed ID card. Barish nodded. Bloom later learned that Barish was, in fact, originally from New York, and in New York it doesn’t hurt to be too careful — even my partner Frank would agree to that.
“So what is it?” Barish said. “I got my girl out sick today, I’m all alone here, I’m busy. What do you want?”
Rawles put a large manila folder on the countertop. The folder was printed with the word EVIDENCE. He unwrapped the white string that was fastened to one little brown cardboard button and wound around another. He lifted the flap on the evidence envelope, reached into it, and pulled out the red dress Jane Doe had been wearing.
“Recognize this?” he said to Barish.
“It’s a dress,” Barish said. “You know how many dresses I get in here every day of the week?”
“Red dresses like this one?” Bloom said.
“Red dresses, green dresses, yellow dresses, dresses all colors of the rainbow I get. What’s so special about this dress?”
“A dead girl was wearing it,” Rawles said.
“Hoo-boy,” Barish said.
“Your dry-cleaning mark is in it,” Bloom said.
“I get it,” Barish said at once. “You want to know who was wearing this dress, right?”
“Right,” Rawles said.
“Let me see this dress,” Barish said. “Is it okay if I look at this dress?”
“Sure,” Bloom said.
“Okay to pick it up, to handle it? I won’t be accused of murder?”
Bloom smiled.
Barish picked up the dress, looked at the label, said, ‘That’s my mark, all right,” and then began turning the dress this way and that. “Badly faded, this dress,” he said, examining the hem and the armholes and the stitching across the bodice. “A cheap dress, this dress, you could get it for fifteen dollars on sale. You see how cheap it’s made? Look how it’s falling apart.” He looked across the counter at the detectives. “How am I supposed to tell you who was wearing this cheap dress? You think I’m a mind reader?”
“Don’t you keep records?”
“I give a customer a receipt, it’s a pink piece of paper — here, you see this pad here? On the top part there’s a number and on the bottom part there’s the same number — you see this perforated line? That’s where I tear off the bottom part to give to the customer. On the top part I write the customer’s name and telephone number and what kind of garment it is. You see here where all the different kinds of garments are listed? I just check the box alongside the garment — slacks, jacket, skirt, blouse, dress, whatever the garment is. Then I tear off the bottom part that has the number on it the same as the top part, and I give that to the customer for when he comes back to get the garment.”
“What do you do with the top part?” Bloom asked.
“I pin it to the garment. You put the top part and the bottom part together, you know which garment belongs to which customer. Also, because I got the telephone number on the top part, if somebody doesn’t come back for a long time, I give him a call and say, ‘Hey, you want these slacks or should I give them to the Salvation Army?’ That’s how it works.”
“After a person claims an article of clothing,” Bloom said, “what do you do with the receipt?”
“The top part and the bottom part both, I throw them in the garbage. What do I need them for if a person already came back to get his garment?”
“Then there aren’t any records, right?” Rawles said.
“Right. Not after somebody comes back to get a garment. If I saved all these pink pieces of paper, I’d have no room for clothes here anymore. The whole place would be full of pink pieces of paper. The parking lot outside would be full of pink pieces of paper, nobody from the hardware or the cowboys would be able to park in it, those bastards.”
“Take another look at the dress,” Rawles said.
“What for?”
“See if there’s anything you might recognize about it. Any places where it was fixed, anything like that.”
“Fixed? What do you mean, fixed?”
“Patched. Repaired.”
“I don’t do repair work here. I’m not a tailor, I’m a dry cleaner.”
“Maybe somebody else patched it,” Bloom said, “and maybe you’ll recognize that you saw the patch before.”
“What patch?” Barish said. “You see a patch anyplace on this dress? There’s no patches on this dress. This dress is the same as when this girl bought it for fifteen dollars on sale. You know what you can do with a shmatte like this? You can wipe up the floor with it.”
“The girl didn’t think so,” Rawles said. “The girl was wearing it when she died.”
“That’s all this dress is good for,” Barish said. “To wear when you maybe expect to be dying.”
“Take your time,” Rawles said. “Look it over again.”
“I looked at it already,” Barish said. “How many times can I look at it when I got my girl out sick and I’m all alone here?”
“Just take your time with it,” Rawles said.
“He keeps telling me to take my time with it,” Barish said to Bloom, “when the one thing I ain’t got today is time.”