It was another very good question. I was about to tell him I had no idea when some guy with a badge hooked to his belt stood on a chair and introduced himself as Detective Mark Ford. That was followed by a bit of good news, if you could call it that. He and his partner wanted to take statements from people according to how close they had been sitting to the initial murder.
“We’ll do this table by table,” he said. “As soon as you’re done, you can go.”
I glanced over at Dwayne, expecting him to be relieved at the news. We’d be among the first to be interviewed.
Except Dwayne wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. He’d just up and disappeared.
Gone.
Again.
IT TOOK ANOTHER two hours before I finally got out of Lombardo’s. While I was being interviewed by one of the detectives, I kept waiting to be asked about Dwayne’s disappearance. The question never came. That probably explained how he was able to escape Lombardo’s undetected – there were just too many people for the police to control, too much commotion. It was truly a mob scene.
A prophetic choice of words, as I’d soon discover.
Anyway, the last thing I felt like doing later that night was go to a party, but Courtney wouldn’t take no for an answer, not even under the circumstances.
“You’re coming, and that’s that. You promised me,” she told me over the phone. “Besides, you need to get your mind off what happened today. Compartmentalize, Nick. Just stuff it into a box for a little while.”
I had to chuckle. Compartmentalize? Stuff it into a box? That was Courtney at her best. And worst, I guess.
Since I first met her ten years ago at the National Magazine Awards banquet, I’ve yet to meet anyone who could – for lack of a better word – compartmentalize better than she could. Like any normal person she was shocked and horrified to hear what had happened at Lombardo’s that afternoon. But she was also a born and bred New Yorker and knew the importance of being able to get on with your life, no matter what had happened to you.