If I Should Die Before I Die by Peter Israel

way he told it, he’d resigned from the NYPD because you couldn’t be a New York cop in the 1980s unless you were on the take. Other people, who knew something about what had happened, told other versions. He’d worked for a time for Fincher Associates, which was where I’d met him, but then he’d gone out on his own. He looked equally at home in Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers—one reason I’d picked him for the job. For his part, he assumed he was working for the Counselor even when I asked him to bill me direct, and he’d guessed our clients were McCloy’s parents. I hadn’t led him to believe that, but I hadn’t exactly told him he was wrong either.
    â€œYou’re going to get billed double-time on this one, Philly,” he’d said when we met for breakfast that morning.
    We’d gone up to the Roosevelt, the last of the great West Side cafeterias, where you can sit all morning on one mug of coffee and they serve the best honeybuns in town. My kind of place, in sum.
    â€œI’ve been up … let’s see …,” he said, checking a notebook, “three A . M . one night, one-thirty another—that was the early bird, last night—and the grand finale, that was on Staten Island: seven-thirty in the morning. He and his buddies picked up three broads at Melchiorre’s on Third Avenue, danced the night away, and took them home. Six studs, three broads. They live in a condo over there, the three broads. They’re secretaries down on Wall Street. Not bad either. What they did in there is your guess, but two of the studs came out at 6:45, including your boy Carter, and his buddy drove him home. Drives an Alfa. How the rest of them got home I don’t know, or if the broads ever made it to the office. D’you know Melchiorre’s, Philly?”
    â€œBy name,” I said.
    â€œYeah,” Bobby Derr said, chuckling, “you’d stick out like a sore thumb there. Too old. Even me, I just manage to get by. It’s kind of a singles joint for the preppy set, y’know what I mean? Most of the customers are under age, ‘specially the broads. That’s how I got Alfie to tell me a thing or two.”
    â€œWho’s Alfie?”
    â€œAlfie Leonard. Owns the joint, bought it from the Melchiorres a couple of years ago. I know some people he pays, and he knows I know. So even though he made me, he lets me sit around, tells me a thing or two. I’ve slipped him a few bucks, it’s on the bill.”
    â€œWhat did he tell you about McCloy?”
    â€œAlfie says he’s okay. Drinks too much but quiet, nonviolent. No problem. Not like some of his crowd. Alfie thinks he might be gay, closet-fag variety. They use the joint like a kind of club, anywhere from six to a dozen of them.”
    â€œYou mean they’re there every night?”
    â€œMost nights anyway, according to Alfie. He lets them run tabs. Sometimes they eat there, though Alfie himself says the food’s terrible, but anyway, they show up and drink till they pick up some action. Then they hit the discos, Rosebud’s mostly. Some nights they close up Melchiorre’s, some nights not. D’you know Rosebud’s, Philly?”
    â€œNo,” I said.
    This made Bobby laugh, a white-toothed laugh that could have passed in a toothpaste commercial.
    â€œShows your age, ole buddy. It’s down off the Bowery, used to be a stage theater of some kind. They gutted the insides, put in lights, mirrors, bars, a coat room as long as Grand Central Station, and all the latest electronics shit. Big screens all around. It’s a kind of Rocky Horror Show environment. The kids lap it up. They’re not too particular who they let in, ’cept for the over-thirties. You gotta have an ID proves you’re under thirty. I doubt you’d make the cut, Philly.”
    He thought that was pretty funny too.
    â€œAny drugs?” I asked