Fat Ollie's Book Read Free Page B

councilman got shot?”
    â€œI was standing near the podium there.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œI heard shots. And he was falling.”
    â€œHeard shots from the wings there?”
    â€œNo. From the balcony.”
    â€œTell me what happened, Chuck. In your own words.”
    â€œWho else’s words would I use?” Mastroiani asked.
    â€œThat’s very funny, Chuck,” Ollie said, and grinned like a dragon.
    â€œTell me.”
    The way Mastroiani tells it, the councilman is this energetic little guy who gets to the Hall at about a quarter to nine, dressed for work in jeans and a crewneck cotton sweater, loafers, real casual, you know? He’s all over the place, conferring with his aide and this kid he has with him looks like a college boy, giving directions to Mastroiani and his crew, arms waving all over the place like a windmill, running here, running there, going out front to check how the stage looks every time a new balloon goes up, sending the college kid up to the balcony to hear how the sound is, then going up there himself to listen while his aide talks into the mike, then coming down again and making sure the podium is draped right and the sign is just where he wants it, and checking the sound again, waving up to the kid in the balcony who gives him a thumbs up signal, and then starting to check the lights, wanting to know where the spot would pick him up after he was introduced…
    â€œThat’s what he was doing when he got shot. He was crossing the stage to the podium, making sure the spot was following him.”
    â€œWhere were you?”
    â€œAt the podium, I told you. Looking up at the guy in the booth, waiting for the councilman to…”
    â€œWhat guy in the booth?”
    â€œThe guy on the follow spot.”
    â€œOne of your people?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThen who?”
    â€œI have no idea. My guess is he works here at the Hall.”
    â€œWho would know?”
    â€œYou got me.”
    â€œI thought you supplied everything. The sound, the lighting…”
    â€œThe onstage lighting. Usually, when we do an auditorium like this one, they have their own lighting facilities and their own lighting technician or engineer, they’re sometimes called, a lighting engineer.”
    â€œDid you talk to this guy in the booth? This technician or engineer or whatever he was?”
    â€œNo, I did not.”
    â€œWho talked to him?”
    â€œMr. Pierce was yelling up to him—Henderson’s aide—and so was the councilman himself. I think the college kid was giving him instructions, too. From up in the balcony.”
    â€œWas the kid up there when the shooting started?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œWell, didn’t you look up there? You told me that’s where the shots came from, didn’t you look up there to see who was shooting?”
    â€œYes, but I was blinded by the spot. The spot had followed the councilman to the podium, and that was when he got shot, just as he reached the podium.”
    â€œSo the guy working the spot was still up there, is that right?”
    â€œHe would’ve had to be up there, yes, sir.”
    â€œSo let’s find out who he was,” Ollie said.
    A uniformed inspector with braid all over him was walking over. Ollie deemed it necessary to perhaps introduce himself.
    â€œDetective Weeks, sir,” he said. “The Eight-Eight. First man up.”
    â€œLike hell you are,” the inspector said, and walked off.

2
    WHEN OLLIE GOT BACK to his car, the rear window on the passenger side door was smashed and the door was standing wide open. The briefcase with Report to the Commissioner in it was gone. Ollie turned to the nearest uniform.
    â€œYou!” he said. “Are you a cop or a doorman?”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œSomebody broke in my car here and stole my book,” Ollie said. “You see anything happen, or were you standin here pickin your