Mike glanced at me a moment then focused back on Mrs. Quadrelli. “And why do you think these men would want to burn down Enzo’s shop?”
“They wanted to buy his place,” she explained. “Maybe two months after they opened the club, they began making offers. They were very insistent, if you know what I mean—threatening, that’s what Enzo said. You can ask him; he’ll tell you. They kept it up, too, even after Enzo dug in his heels and told them absolutely not.”
Mike leaned in a bit. “Why did they want him out so badly?”
“So they could double the size of that nightclub of theirs. When Enzo wouldn’t give in, they expanded in the other direction, after Mr. Ganzano moved his real estate office to that new building on Broadway. I think they forced him out. Did you know he left his wife after thirty-one years of marriage? I hear he has a Dominican floozy stashed in an apartment near LaGuardia Airport—”
“But they stopped bothering Enzo, right?” I said. “It sounds like these men got what they wanted. They were able to expand in the other direction?”
“Yes—and then the club doubled in size. Oh, the noise! My goodness the noise on that block was terrible! They kept the music blaring until three, sometimes four, in the morning. There were people crowding the sidewalk, fights every night! And the street was always jammed with cars!”
“Did Enzo complain?” I asked. “Get them into trouble?”
“Oh, no. After a time, there was no need to. All that noise and trouble went away.”
“Why is that?” Mike asked. “The club’s still there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but the crowds aren’t. The place used to have lines around the block. But then the economy took a nosedive and a lot of the young people lost their jobs, thank goodness! Now very few of them have money for overpriced night-clubs, so it’s a quiet street again.”
A dying business, in other words. Mike raised an eyebrow at me. He was thinking the same thing. Here was the perfect motive for a torch job—and what better way to make yourself look innocent than to start the blaze in the business next door?
Mrs. Quadrelli kept talking, but nothing else seemed as promising a lead as these Red Mirage guys. As she chattered on, I continued forcing myself to drink the vending machine coffee.
About a hundred years ago cowboys used to heat ground coffee in a sock placed in a pot of simmering water. When their campfire coffee was ready, they’d pour it into a tin cup. I’d never tasted boiled cowboy sock coffee, but I was absolutely sure it tasted better than this.
“So I told him he should call our city councilmen and complain. Those children of hers make such a racket; they should be made to play someplace else, not to mention that barking dog. Don’t you agree it’s a public nuisance? And what do you think about the lack of response from 311? Isn’t that a disgrace, Detective?”
Mike’s cop-neutral expression remained as firmly fixed as ever, but I could tell—from the deepening grooves around his eyes and mouth—that even the most patient detective in the NYPD was becoming exasperated.
“I think I got what I need for now, Mrs. Quadrelli . . .” He glanced at me, a trace of pleading on the edge of it. Are we done now, Detective Cosi?
With a twinge of guilt, I said. “Just one more thing, Officer—”
“Not officer!” Mrs. Q reminded me with a correcting tsktsk . “This man is a detective, remember?”
“Yes, of course.” I cleared my throat. “Detective, weren’t you asking me earlier about Lucia? Maybe Mrs. Quadrelli here can help.” I turned to her. “How well do you know Enzo’s daughter?”
“Oh, very! She and I have so much in common. We just love to shop! She has such a good eye for shoes and jewelry, that one. We also have the same hairdresser—Gustave Flaubert—”
“Flaubert?” I said. “The nineteenth-century novelist?”
“You know him?” She asked. “He works on Fifth at Jean Michel Dubonnet—”
Mike caught my eye. Dubonnet on the rocks, he mouthed, and I nearly choked on the last dregs of my coffee (which would have been appropriate since I’d been gagging the stuff down for the past fifteen minutes).
“That’s where we met,” the woman continued. “It was Lucia who introduced me to her father, said it was time he started dating again—”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” I interrupted as I shot Mike