The manager of Ninotchka was a wiseguy named Dominick La Paglia. Not a made man, but mob-connected, with a string of arrests dating back to when he was seventeen. Served time on two separate occasions, once for assault with intent, the other for dealing drugs. He insisted the club was clean, you couldn't even buy an inhaler in the place."We get an older crowd here," La Paglia said. "Ninotchka is all about candlelight and soft music. A balalaika band, three violinists wandering from table to table during intermission, the old folks holding hands when they're not on the floor dancing. Never any trouble here, go ask your buddies up Narcotics.""Tell us about Max Sobolov," Carella said.This was now eleven P.M. on Wednesday night, the sixteenth day of June. The three men were standing in the alleyway where the violinist had been shot twice in the face."What do you want to know?" La Paglia asked."How long was he working here?""Long time. Two years?""You hired a blind violinist, right?""Why not?""To wander from table to table, right?""Place is dark, anyway, what difference would it make to a blind man?" La Paglia said. "He played violin good. Got blinded in the Vietnam War, you know. Man's a war hero, somebody aces him in an alleyway.""How about the other musicians working here? Any friction between Sobolov and them?" Meyer asked."No, he was blind," La Paglia said. "Everybody's very nice to blind people."Except when they shoot them twice in the face, Carella thought."Or anybody else in the club? Any of the bartenders, waitresses, whoever?""Cloakroom girl?""Bouncer? Whoever?""No, he got along with everybody.""So tell us what happened here tonight," Carella said."Were you here when he got shot?""I was here.""Give us the sequence," Meyer said, and took out his notebook.The way La Paglia tells it, the club closes at two in the morning every night of the week. The band plays its last set at one thirty, the violinists take their final stroll, angling for tips, at a quarter to. Bartenders have already served their last-call drinks, waitresses are already handing out the checks . . ."You know the Cole Porter line?" La Paglia asked. "'Before the fiddlers have fled'? One of the greatest lyrics ever written. That's what closing time is like. But this must've been around ten, ten thirty when Max went out for a smoke. We don't allow smoking in the club, half the geezers have emphysema, anyway. I was at the bar, talking to an old couple who are regulars, they never take a table, they always sit at the bar. It was a slow night, Wednesdays are always slow, they were talking about moving down to Florida. They were telling me all about Sarasota when I heard the shots.""You recognized them as shots?"La Paglia raised his eyebrows.Come on, his look said. You think I don't know shots when I hear them?"No," he said sarcastically. "I thought they were backfires, right?""What'd you do?""I ran out in the alley. He was alre Excerpted from Fiddlers by Ed McBain All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.