Fat Ollie's Book Read Online Free PDF

so it ain’t exactly unlikely that he was offed by some irate person of color, as they sometimes refer to themselves, ah yes.”
    â€œWhat is it you’d like me to do?” Carella asked.
    He was watching Fat Ollie eat, an undertaking of stupendous proportions to anyone not himself a glutton. Ollie had ordered three hamburgers to start, and was devouring them with both hands and a non-stop mouth, consuming simultaneously a huge platter of fries with ketchup, and drinking his second chocolate milk shake, a perpetual-motion, eating, drinking, slurping, slobbering, dripping, incessant ingestion machine.
    â€œI want you to go up Smoke Rise,” Ollie said, signaling to the waitress, “talk to the councilman’s widow, see you can find out did he have any enemies besides the usual suspects…yes, darling, here’s what I’d like if you could be so kind,” he said to the waitress. “Bring me another shake, that’s chocolate, and another hamburger, and that apple pie—is it apple?—looks good, too, with some vanilla ice cream on it, please, make it two scoops, is it apple?”
    â€œActually, it’s strawberry peach,” the waitress said, looking already weary at twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but Ollie appreciated women who appeared beaten and defeated.
    â€œYum, strawberry peach sounds good, too,” he said, “two scoops of ice cream, okay?”
    â€œYes, sir.”
    â€œAnd that uniform is very becoming,” Ollie said, “ah yes, m’dear, have you ever considered modeling?”
    The waitress smiled.
    Ollie smiled back.
    Carella bit into his grilled cheese sandwich.
    â€œI’d like to take a look at the Hall,” he said. “See what happened there before I go talking to any widow.”
    â€œWhat’s one thing got to do with the other?” Ollie asked.
    â€œWell, a woman’s husband gets shot, maybe she’d like to know some of the details.”
    â€œI can tell you everything you need to know right now, you don’t have to waste time. He was up there getting the lay of the land, helping his people set the stage for what was supposed to be a big rally last night. Somebody plugged him from the wings, or the balcony, or wherever—I’m still waiting for information on trajectory, flight curve, all the other garbage, from both the ME and Ballistics. I got three different acoustics reports from witnesses at the scene. One said…”
    â€œWho were the witnesses?”
    â€œGuy named Alan Pierce, who’s Henderson’s aide, and a guy from the company supplying the balloons, the bunting, all the other shit, both of them standing right next to the councilman when the bullets took him.”
    â€œWhat’d they hear?”
    â€œPierce says the shots came from the wings. The other guy—his name is Chuck Mastroiani, one of your paisans, ” Ollie said, and grinned as if he were telling a dirty joke, “says the shots came from the balcony. Neither of them know Shinola from bow-waves, they were prob’ly talking about muzzle reports. Third guy, this young college twerp, was actually sitting in the balcony, which is maybe why he told me the shots came from downstairs. Wherever the shots came from…”
    â€œHow many?” Carella asked.
    â€œSix. Ballistics says they were fired from a .32 Smith & Wesson, which means the shooter emptied the gun at him. Betokens rage, mayhap? Leading back to the possibility that a jig done it—oops, forgive me, I know you don’t appreciate slang.”
    â€œSome people might consider your ‘slang’ racist,” Carella said.
    â€œPip, pip, my good fellow,” Ollie said, trying to imitate a British member of Parliament, but sounding instead like either W. C. Fields or Al Pacino. “There’s a vast difference between being politically incorrect and being racist.”
    â€œExplain the difference to Artie Brown