Sinner's Ball by Ira Berkowitz Page B

checks?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œGet lost,” she said, slamming the door.
    I didn’t have much better luck at the bodega next door.
    There were a couple of bikers all decked out in their colors, a burnout trying to keep warm, a Hispanic guy leafing through the porn magazines, a few women with spiked rainbow hair and so many piercings their faces looked like pincushions. It was as if I had stumbled into a rest stop for the freak parade.
    I walked up to the counterman.
    â€œSeen Rickie around lately?”
    â€œRickie who?”
    â€œRickie, the pimp,” I said. “Lives upstairs.”
    He shook his head. “Cleared out about a week ago,”he said. “Was real quick. One day he’s here. Next day he’s gone.”
    â€œWhat happened to his girls, Dawn and Gloria?”
    â€œHis bitches? Guess they went with him.”
    â€œYou said it was real quick.”
    â€œYeah. Couple of guys came in asking about Dawn. Told’ em where she lived.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œNext morning Rickie came in and I mentioned that some guys were looking for Dawn. Cleared out that day.”
    â€œWhat’d they look like?”
    â€œThe guys? White. Didn’t take a picture of ’em for my memory album.”
    â€œRickie say where he was going?”
    He made a big show of searching the counter. “Must’ve lost his itinerary.” he said. “Look, I’m busy. Go bother someone else.”
    T he door to Another Chance was locked. I looked in the window. It was dark.
    I walked across the street to talk to my favorite doorman. He was out in traffic trying to hail a cab for a blue-haired woman swathed in fur. She was standing under the canopy looking at her watch and tapping her toe.
    â€œHey,” I said. “How’re you doing?”
    â€œWonderful!” he said. “The guy who almost cost me my pension.”
    â€œWhat’re you talking about?”
    â€œSaid all I’m gonna say.”
    â€œWhat do I have to do with your pension?”
    He waved his arm, took a deep breath, and blew his whistle.
    â€œCabs are like cops,” he muttered. “Can’t get ’em when you need’em.”
    â€œTalk to me about your pension.”
    He looked at me. “You still here?”
    â€œDid someone threaten you?”
    He put his arm down and turned to face me.
    â€œYou gotta understand the situation,” he said. “The wife has emphysema real bad. To boot, the sack of shit my daughter married ditched her. Now she and her two kids live with us in a one-bedroom. And I had a triple bypass a year ago.”
    â€œSorry for your troubles.”
    â€œThanks, but it don’t pay the bills,” he said. “This shit job and my pension do. And without them I’m fucked. Get the picture?”
    â€œTell me who threatened you, and I’ll take care of it.”
    â€œYou ain’t got the juice.”

18
    T he gods of fortune are a whimsical, capricious lot. When they’re not playing Whac-A-Mole with your future, they’re dreaming up other ways to have a good belly laugh. But every now and again, just to keep you in the game, the sadistic bastards throw you a bone.
    On my way home from a thoroughly unsatisfying day of detecting, I dropped by Feeney’s. To my utter delight, Ennis and Riley, the two heavies from Martine’s office, were sitting at the bar.
    I jerked my chin in their direction. “How long have they been here?”
    â€œMaybe a half hour,” Nick said. “Said they knew you. Wanted to know what time you usually came in.”
    â€œReally.”
    â€œYour eyes are getting all nuts. Is there a problem?”
    â€œFor them, maybe.”
    A couple of steelworkers in hard hats sat at the end of the bar getting an early start on the weekend. At the other end, Frank Ennis and John Riley were drinking beer straight from the bottle and doing a pretty good job of ignoring me. Two