Darlene, Please Write

Just finished Peter De Jonge's second, and so far last Darlene O'Hara detective novel, 'Buried On Avenue B.'  Darlene, using her usual mixture of alcoholic beverages and a definite lack of home cooked meals, sinks the eight ball off a three cushion carom. She is a legend in the making.

I'm beginning to understand why the population might have missed Sherlock Holmes after Conan Doyle shoved him off the falls. Mr. De Jonge is only two novels into the character, so my hope and my guess is that he's not tired of her. And she's certainly not too old. She doesn't even have her time in yet to retire from the NYPD. Lucky for us.

The 'Avenue B' book finds Darlene slowly caught up in the world of New York Gypsies. This by itself is inspired writing, since they are the subject of so little. My own knowledge and experience with Gypsies is pretty limited. I never took any of the flowers any of their young adults, or kids were offering in Times Square in the 70s. This was a technique to slow you down, beg, and maybe even pick your pocket. The characters I see in Times Square these days seem to wear action figure, or animal costumes and hug you for money and a picture.

There certainly aren't as many fortune tellers as I seem to remember. Shallow storefronts lit by purple neon, whose fronts were separated from the back by a dingy curtain. The buildings have changed, and the rents are too high, even for charlatans. When I was recently working I was amazed there was a fortune teller storefront on 25th Street, between Park Avenue South and Madison Avenue, in a fairly new apartment house. Every lunch hour a young, blond, Russian-looking woman from the parlor would stand on the corner and hand out small cards advertising the madame's services. Just half a block west from where she was standing.

Gypsies in New York were known for their metal work and their ability to do body work, to a certain degree, on cars in the 50s, 60s and 70s, when there was more metal used in cars. They would approach you in the parking lot, and if you happened to be deemed attached to something dented, they would offer to fix it for you. Rates varied widely.

I had one such encounter in the Sears parking lot on Fordham Road in the Bronx when two Gypsies approached our car, a functioning, but somewhat dinged 1969 Chevy Nova, and offered to smooth out those fenders. We declined. They went away.

One can't read about Darlene and the Gypsies she encounters and not think of Joseph Mitchell's masterpiece, 'King of the Gypsies,' a long form story published in 1942. Mr. De Jonge is surely familiar with it. Joseph Mitchell lived downtown, as well.

Comparing both works, the Romany words are in each: krisa, gajo, gadje, patchiv, o boro, dukkerers, diwano, pomanas, ofisa, diklo, kasa, marime. The Gypsy proverb about the one-eyed being king amongst the blind applies to both stories. And Darlene, with two eyes open after an 8:00 A.M. round at Milano's, is the Queen on the chess board.

So, where will Darlene find herself next? The NYC homicide rate is plummeting, and Darlene just made homicide detective and has been assigned to a slow squad. She's apparently in Homicide South, (below 59th Street) which is nicknamed Homicide Soft because there just aren't a lot of cases. She literally dug up the last one. Darlene may have to put a corpse on the downtown 6 train and yank it off at 33rd Street in order to get her next case.

We'll leave that to Mr. De Jonge's fertile imagination, and his contacts in the NYPD. Surely Darlene might stumble onto something at the Spanish-Portuguese cemetery, or see a loose icon at St Sava's, the Serbian cathedral with a bust of Nikola Tesla in front. They are all in her district. And she's already been paired with a detective of Armenian descent.

Maker's Mark, one of Darlene's favorite alcoholic beverages, has just announced it is not lowering its proof rate from 90 to 84. I'm rooting for Darlene. She should be fine form for the next case.

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