In the Midst of Death

And that was the kind of thing a cop could have run down. The police department had two things that made that sort of investigation work for them- the manpower and the authority. And you needed both to bring it off. One man working alone was not going to get anywhere. One man, with not even a junior G-man badge to convince people they ought to talk to him, would not even begin to accomplish anything that way.

Especially when the police would not even cooperate with him in the first place.Especially when they were opposed to any investigation that might getBroadfield out of the hot seat.

So my approach had to be a very different one, and one that no policeman could be expected to approve. I had to find out who had killed her, and then I had to find the facts that might back up what I'd already doped out.

But first I had to find somebody.

A small person, Kenny had said. Short, slender.Hollow cheeks.A great deal of forehead and an appalling absence of chin.A tentative beard. No mustache. Heavy horn-rimmed glasses …

* * *

I dropped by Armstrong's first to check. He wasn't there and hadn't been in yet that morning. I thought about having a drink but decided I could tackle DouglasFuhrmann without one.

Except that I didn't get the chance. I went to his rooming house and rang the bell, and the same slatternly woman answered it. She may have been wearing the same robe and slippers. Once again she told me she was full up and suggested I try three doors down the street.

"DougFuhrmann ," I said.

Her eyes took the trouble to focus on my face. "Fourth floor front,"

she said. She frowned a little. "You were here before.Looking for him."

"That's right."

"Yeah, I thought I seen you before." She rubbed her forefinger across her nose, wiped it on her robe. "I don't know if he's in or not. You want to knock on his door, go ahead."

"All right."

"Don't mess with his door, though. He's got this burglar alarm set up, makes all kinds of noise. I can't even go in there to clean for him. He does his own cleaning, imagine that."

"He's probably been with you longer than most."

"Listen, he's been here longer than me.I been working here what?A year? Two years?" If she didn't know, I couldn't help her out. "He's been here years and years."

"I guess you know him pretty well."

"Don't know him at all. Don't know any of 'em. I got no time to get to know people, mister. I got problems of my own, you can believe it."

I believed it, but that didn't make me want to know what they were.

She evidently wasn't going to be able to tell me anything aboutFuhrmann , and I wasn't interested in whatever else she might tell me. I moved past her and climbed the stairs.

He wasn't in. I tried the knob, and the door was locked. It probably would have been easy enough to slip the bolt, but I didn't want to set the alarm off. I wonder if I would have remembered it if the old woman hadn't reminded me.

I wrote a note to the effect that it was important he get in touch with me immediately. I signed my name, added my telephone number, slipped the piece of paper under his door. Then I went downstairs and let myself out.

THERE was aLeonManch listed in theBrooklyn book. The address was onPierrepontStreet , which would put him inBrooklynHeights . I decided that was as good a place as any for a toilet slave to live. I dialed his number, and the phone rang a dozen times before I gave up.

I triedPrejanian's office. No one answered. Even crusaders only work a five-day week. I tried City Hall, wondering ifManch might have gone to the office. At least there was someone around there to answer the phone, even if there wasn't anyone present named LeonManch .

The phone book hadAbnerPrejanian listed at 444Central Park West. I had his number half-dialed when it struck me as pointless. He didn't know me from Adam and would hardly be inclined to cooperate with a total stranger over the telephone. I broke the connection, retrieved my dime, and looked up ClaudeLorbeer . There was only oneLorbeer inManhattan , a J.Lorbeer onWest End Avenue . I tried the number, and when a woman answered I asked for Claude. When he came to the phone I asked him if he had had any contact with a man named DouglasFuhrmann .

"I don't believe I've heard the name.In what context?"

"He's an associate ofBroadfield's ."

"A policeman?I don't believe I've heard the name."

"Maybe your boss did. I was going to call him, but he doesn't know me."

"Oh, I'm glad you called me instead. I could call Mr.Prejanian and ask him for you, and then I could get back to you. Anything else you'd want me to ask him?"

"Find out if the name LeonManch rings any kind of a bell with him. In connection withBroadfield , that is."

"Certainly.And I'll get right back to you, Mr. Scudder."

He rang back within five minutes. "I just spoke to Mr.Prejanian .

Neither of the names you mentionedwere familiar to him.Uh, Mr.

Scudder? I'd avoid any direct confrontation with Mr.Prejanian if I were you."

"Oh?"

"He wasn't precisely thrilled that I was cooperating with you. He didn't say so right out, but I think you understand what I'm getting at.

He'd prefer that his staff pursue a policy of benign neglect, if I can revive that phrase. Of course you'll keep it between us that I said as much, won't you?"

"Of course."

"You still remain convinced thatBroadfield is innocent?"

"More now than ever."

"And this manFuhrmann holds the key?"

"He might. Things are starting to come together."

"It sounds fascinating," he said. "Well, I won't keep you. If there's anything I can do, just give me a ring, but do let's keep it confidential, shall we?"

A little later I called Diana. We arranged to meet at eight-thirty at a French restaurant onNinth Avenue

, the Brittany duSoir . It is a quiet and private place where we would have a chance to be quiet and private people.

"I'll see you at eight-thirty then," she said. "Have you been making any headway? Oh, you can tell me when you see me."

"Right."

"I've done so much thinking, Matthew. I wonder if you know what it's like. I've spent so much time not thinking, almost willing myself not to think, and it's as though something has been unleashed. I shouldn't say all this. I'll just frighten you."

"Don't worry about it."

"That's what's strange. I'm not worried. Wouldn't you say that was strange?"

ON my way back to the hotel I stopped atFuhrmann's building.

The manager didn't answer my ring. I guess she was busy with some of the problems she'd alluded to. I let myself in and climbed the stairs.

He wasn't in and evidently hadn't been in- I could see the note I'd left him under his door.

I wished I'd taken down his phone number. Assuming he had a phone- I hadn't seen one on my visit, but his desk had been cluttered. He could have had a phone under one of those piles of paper.

I went home again, showered, shaved,straightened up the room.

The maid had given it a cursory cleaning, and there wasn't much more I could do. It would always look like what it was, a small room in an unprepossessing hotel.Fuhrmann had chosen to transform his furnished room into an extension of himself. I had left mine as I found it. Initially I had found its stark simplicity somehow fitting. Now I had long since ceased to noticeit, and only the prospect of entertaining a guest within it made me aware of its appearance.

I checked the liquor supply. There looked to be enough for me, and I didn't know what she preferred to drink. The store across the street would deliver until eleven.

Put on my best suit.Dabbed on a little cologne. The boys had given it to me for a Christmas present. I wasn't even sure which Christmas and couldn't remember when I'd used it last.Dabbed some on and felt ridiculous, but in a way that was not unpleasant.

Stopped at Armstrong's.Fuhrmannhad been in and out an hour or so earlier. I left him a note.

CalledManch , and this time he answered the phone.

I said, "Mr.Manch , my name is Matthew Scudder. I'm a friend of Portia Carr's."

There was a pause, a long enough one to make his reply unconvincing. "I'm afraid I don't know anyone by that name."

"I'm sure you do. You don't want to try that stance, Mr.Manch . It's not going to work."

"What do you want?"

"I want to see you.Sometime tomorrow."

"What about?"

"I'll tell you when I see you."

"I don't understand. What did you say your name was?"

I told him.

"Well, I don't understand, Mr. Scudder. I don't know what you want from me."

"I'll be at your place tomorrow afternoon."

"I don't- "

"Tomorrow afternoon," I said."Around three. It would be a very good idea for you to be there."

He started to say something, but I didn't stay on the line long enough to hear it. It was a few minutes past eight. I went outside and walked down Ninth toward the restaurant.

Chapter 13

We sat in a booth. She wore a simple black sheath and no jewelry.

Her perfume was a floral scent with an undertone of spice. I ordered dry vermouth on the rocks for her and bourbon for myself. The conversation stayed light and airy through the first round of drinks. When we ordered a second round we also gave the waitress the dinner order- sweetbreads for her, a steak for me. The drinks came, and we touched glasses again, and our eyes met and led us into a silence that was just the slightest bit awkward.

She broke it. She extended her hand and I took it, and she lowered her eyes and said, "I'm not terribly good at this. Out of practice, I guess."

"So am I."

"You've had a few years to get used to being a bachelor. I've had one little affair, and it wasn't really very much of anything. He was married."

"You don't have to talk about it."

"Oh, I know that. He was married, it was very casual and purely physical, and to be honest it wasn't even that wonderful physically. And it didn't last very long." She hesitated. She may have been waiting for me to say something, but I remained silent. Then she said, "You may want this to be, oh, casual, and that's all right, Matthew."

"I don't think we can be casual with each other."

"No, I don't suppose we can. I wish- I don't know what I wish."

She lifted her glass and sipped. "I'm probably going to get a little bit drunk tonight. Is that a bad idea?"

"It might be a good idea. Shall we have wine with the meal?"

"I'd like that. I suppose it's a bad sign, having to get a little drunk."

"Well, I'm the last person to tell you it's a bad idea. I get a little bit drunk every day of my life."

"Is that something I should be worried about?"

"I don't know.It's damned well something you should be aware of, Diana. You ought to know who you're getting involved with."

"Are you analoholic ?"

"Well, what's an alcoholic? I suppose I drink enough alcohol to qualify. It doesn't keep me from functioning.Yet. I suppose it will eventually."

"Could you stop drinking? Or cut down?"

"Probably.If I had a reason."

The waitress brought our appetizers. I ordered a carafe of red wine.

Diana impaled a mussel with a little fork, paused with it halfway to her mouth. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this yet."

"Maybe not."

"I think we feel the same about most things. I think what we want is the same, and I think our fears are the same."

"Or pretty close, at least."

"Yes. Maybe you're no bargain, Matthew. I think that's what you've been trying to tell me. I'm no bargain myself. I don't drink, but I might as well. I just found a different way to retire from the human race.

I gave up being me. I feel- "

"Yes?"

"As if I've got a second chance.As if I had that chance all along, but you only have it when you know you have it. And I don't know if you're a part of that chance or if you just made me aware of it." She put her fork on her plate, the mussel still gripped by the tines. "Oh, I'm enormously confused. All the magazines tell me I'm just the right age for an identity crisis. Is that what this is or am I falling in love and how do you tell the difference? Do you have a cigarette?"

"I'll get some. What brand do you smoke?"

"I don't smoke. Oh, any brand.Winstons , I guess."

I got a pack from the machine. I opened it, gave her a cigarette, took one for myself. I struck a match and her fingers fastened around my wrist as she got her cigarette going. The tips of her fingers were very cool.

She said, "I have three young children. I have a husband in jail."

"And you're taking up drinking and smoking. You're a mess, all right."

"And you're a sweet man. Have I told you that before? It's still true."

I saw to it that she had most of the wine with dinner. Afterward she had a pot of espresso and a little snifter of brandy. I went back to coffee and bourbon. We did a lot of talking and shared a lot of long silences.

These last were as communicative in their own way as our conversations.

It was close to midnight when I settled the tab. They were anxious to close, but our waitress had been very decent about letting us alone. I showed my appreciation of her forbearance with a tip that was probably excessive. I didn't care. I loved the whole world.

We went out and stood onNinth Avenue drinking the cold air. She discovered the moon and shared it with me. "It's almost full. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes I think I can almost feel the pull of the moon. Silly, isn't it?"

"I don't know. The sea feels it. That's why there are tides. And there's no denying that the moon influences human behavior. All cops know that. The crime rate changes with the moon."

"Honest?"

"Uh-huh.Especially the weird crimes. The full moon makes people do odd things."

"Like what?"

"Like kissing in public."

A little later she said, "Well, I don't know that that's odd. I think it's nice, actually."

AT Armstrong's I ordered coffee and bourbon for both of us.

"Because I like the feeling I'm getting Matthew, but I don't want to get sleepy. And I liked the way it tasted the other day."

When she brought the drinks, Trina handed me a slip of paper. "He was in about an hour ago," she said. "Before then he called a couple of times. He's very anxious for you to get in touch with him."

"I unfolded the slip of paper.DougFuhrmann's name and a telephone number.

I said, "Thanks. It's nothing that can't wait until morning."

"He said it was urgent."

"Well, that's one man's opinion." Diana and I poured our bourbon into our coffee, and she asked me what it was about. "A guy who's been close to your husband," I said. "He was also getting close to the girl who was murdered. I think I know why, but I want to talk to him about it."

"Do you want to call him? Or see him for a while? Don't pass him up on my account, Matthew."

"He can wait."

"If you think it's important- "

"It's not. He can wait until tomorrow."

EvidentlyFuhrmann didn't think so. A little later the phone rang.

Trina answered it and made her way to our table. "Same caller," she said. "Do you want to talk to him?"

I shook my head. "I was in," I said. "I got his message and said something about calling him in the morning. And then I had a drink and left."

"Gotcha."

Ten or twenty minutes later we did leave. Esteban was swinging the midnight-to-eight shift at the desk of my hotel. He gave me three messages, all of them fromFuhrmann .

"No calls," I told him."No matter who. I'm not in."

"Right."

"If the phone rings I'll figure the building's on fire because otherwise I don't want any calls."

"I understand."

We rode up in the elevator, walked down the hallway to my door. I opened it and stood aside to let her in. With her at my side the little room looked starker and more barren than ever.

"I thought of other places we could go," I told her. "A better hotel or a friend's apartment, but I decided that I wanted you to see where I live."

"I'm glad, Matthew."

"Is it all right?"

"Of course it's all right."

We kissed. We held each other for a long time. I smelled her perfume and tasted the sweetness of her mouth. After a time I released her. She moved slowly and deliberately around my room, examining things, getting a sense of the place. Then she turned to me and smiled a very gentle smile, and we began undressing.

Chapter 14

All through the night one of us would wake and awaken the other.

Then I woke up for the last time and found I was alone. Pale sunlight filtered by bad air gave the room a golden cast. I got out of bed and picked my watch up from the bedside table. It was almost noon.

I had almost finished dressing when I found her note. It was wedged between the glass and the frame of the mirror over my dresser.

Her handwriting was very neat and quite small.

I read:

Darling-

What is it that the children say? Last night was the first night of the rest of my life. I have so much to say, but I am in no condition to express my thoughts well.

Please call me. And call me, please,

YourLady

I read it through a couple of times. Then I folded it carefully and tucked it into my wallet.

There was a single message in my box.Fuhrmann had called a final time around one-thirty. Then he had evidently given up and gone to sleep. I called him from the lobby and got a busy signal. I went out and had some breakfast. The air, which had looked to be polluted from my window, tasted clean enough on the street. Maybe it was my mood. I hadn't felt this well in a long time.

I got up from the table again and calledFuhrmann again after my second cup of coffee. The line was still busy. I went back and had a third cup and smoked one of the cigarettes I had bought for Diana.

She had had three or four the previous night, and I had smoked one each time she did. I burned up about half of this one, left the pack on the table, triedFuhrmann a third time, paid my check, and walked over to Armstrong's just to check if he was there or had been in yet. He wasn't and hadn't.

Something hovered on the edge of consciousness, whining plaintively at me. I used the pay phone at Armstrong's to call him again.

The same busy signal, and it sounded different to me from the usual sort of busy signal. I called the operator and told her I wanted to know if a certain number was engaged or if the telephone was simply off the hook.

I got a girl who evidently didn't speak much English and wasn't sure how to perform the task I'd asked of her. She offered to put me in touch with her supervisor, but I was only half a dozen blocks from Fuhrmann's place, so I told her not to bother.

I was quite calm when I set out for his place and extremely anxious by the time I got there. Maybe I was picking up signals and they were coming in stronger as the distance decreased. But for one reason or another I didn't ring the bell in his vestibule. I looked inside and saw no one around, and then I used my piece of celluloid to slip the lock.

I climbed the stairs to the top floor without running into anyone.

The building was absolutely silent. I went to Fuhrmann's door and knocked on it, called his name, knocked again.

Nothing.

I took out my strip of celluloid and looked at it and at the door. I thought about the burglar alarm. If it was going to go off I wanted to have the door open by the time it began to make noises so I could get the hell out of there.Which ruled out slipping the bolt back. Subtlety has its uses, but sometimes brute force is called for.

I kicked the door in. It only took one kick because the dead bolt had not been set. You need the key to set the dead bolt, just as you need a key to set the alarm, and the person who had last left Fuhrmann's apartment had not had those keys or had not troubled to use them. So the alarm did not go off, which was all to the good, but that was all the good news I was going to get.

The bad news was waiting for me inside, but I'd known what it would be from the instant the alarm had failed to sound. In a sense I'd known before I even reached the building but that was instinctive knowledge, and when the alarm stayed quiet it became deductive knowledge, and now that I could see him it was just cold, hard fact.

He was dead. He was lying on the floor in front of his desk, and it looked as though he had been leaning over his desk when his killer took him. I didn't have to touch him to know he was dead. The left rear portion of his skull was pulped, and the room itself reeked of death.

Dead colons and bladders divest themselves of their contents. Corpses, before the working of the undertaker's art, smell as foul as the death that grips them.

I touched him anyway to guess how long he'd been dead. But his flesh was cold, so I could only know that he'd been dead a minimum of five or six hours. I'd never bothered to pick up much knowledge of forensic medicine. The lab boys handle that area, and they're reasonably good at it, if not half so good as they like to pretend.

I went over to the door and closed it. The lock was useless, but there was a plate for a police lock on the floor, and I found the steel bar and set it in place. I didn't intend to stay long but wanted no interruptions while I was there.

The phone was off the hook. There were no other signs of a struggle, so I assumed the killer had taken the phone off the hook to retard discovery of the body. If he was that cute, there weren't going to be any prints around, but I still took the trouble not to add any of my own or smear any that he might inadvertently have made.

When had he been killed? The bed was unmade, but perhaps he didn't make it every day. Men who live alone often don't. Had it been made up when I'd visited him? I thought about it and decided I couldn't be certain one way or the other. I recalled an impression of neatness and precision, which suggested it had indeed been made up, but there was also an impression of comfort, which would mesh well enough with an unmade bed. The more I thought about it, the more I decided it didn't make any difference one way or the other. The medical examiner would fix the time of death, and I was in no rush to know what I would learn from him soon enough.

So I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at Doug Fuhrmann and tried to remember the precise sound of his voice and the way his face had looked.

He had tried to reach me. Over and over again, and I wouldn't take his calls.Because I was a little peeved with him for holding out on me.

Because I was with a woman who was using up all my attention, and that was such a novel experience for me that I hadn't wanted it diluted even for a moment.

And if I'd taken his call? Well, he might have told me something that he would never tell me now. But it was more likely that he would only confirm what I had already guessed about his relationship with Portia Carr.

If I'd taken his call, would he be alive now?

I could have wasted the whole day sitting on his bed and asking myself that sort of question. And whatever its answer, I had already wasted enough time.

I unlocked the police lock, opened the door a crack. The hallway was empty. I let myself out of Fuhrmann's room and went down the stairs and out of the building without encountering anyone at all.

Midtown North- it used to be the Eighteenth Precinct- is on West Fifty-fourth just a few blocks from where I was. I rang them from a booth in a saloon called the Second Chance. There were two wine drinkers at the bar and what looked to be a third wino behind it. When the phone was answered I gave Fuhrmann's address and said that a man had been murdered there. I replaced the receiver while the duty officer was patiently asking me my name.

I was in too much of a hurry to take a cab. The subway was faster.

I rode it to theClark Street station just over the bridge inBrooklyn . I had to ask directions to get to PierrepontStreet .

The block was mostly brownstones. The building where Leon Manch lived was fourteen stories tall, a giant among its fellows. The doorman was a stocky black with three deep horizontal lines running across his forehead.

"Leon Manch ," I said.

He shook his head. I reached for my notebook, checked his address, looked up at the doorman.

"You have the right address," he said. His accent was West Indian, andthea's came out very broad.

"You come the wrong day isall the problem."

"I'm expected."

"Mr.Manch , he is not here no more."

"He moved out?" It seemed impossible.

"Hedoan ' want to wait for the elevator," he said. "So hetake a shortcut."

"What are you talking about?"

The jive, I decided later, was not flippancy; it was an attempt to speak around the edges of the unspeakable. Now, abandoning that tack, he said, "Hejump out the window.Land right there." He pointed to a portion of the sidewalk that looked no different from the rest. "Heland there," he repeated.

"When?"

"Las' night."He touched his forehead,then made a sign similar to genuflection. I don't know whether it was a personal ritual or part of a religion with which I was unfamiliar. "Armand was working then. If I am working and man jump out window, I do an ' know what I do."

"Was he killed?"

He looked at me. "What you think, man? Mr.Manch , he lives on fourteen. What you think?"

The nearest precinct house, and the one that figured to have the case, was on Joralemon near Borough Hall. I got lucky there- I recognized a cop named Kinsella whom I'd worked with some years back. And I was lucky a second time because he evidently hadn't heard I'd gone to work for Jerry Broadfield , so he had no reason not to cooperate with me.

"Happened last night," he said. "I wasn't on when it happened, but it looks to be pretty clear cut, Matt."

He shuffled some papers, set them down on the desk. "Manch lived alone. I suppose he was a fruit. A guy living alone in that neighborhood, you can draw your own conclusions. Nine out of ten he's gay."

And one out of ten he's a toilet slave.

"Let's see now. Went out the window, did a header, dead on arrival at Adelphi Hospital . Identification based on contents of pockets and clothing labels plus which window was open."

"No identification by next of kin?"

"Not that I know of.Nothing listed here. Any question that it's him?

If you want to go take a look at him it's your business, but he landed head-first, so- "

"I never saw him, anyway. He was alone when he went out the window?"Kinsella nodded."Any eyewitnesses?"

"No. But he left a note. It was in a typewriter on his desk."

"Was the note typewritten?"

"It doesn't say."

"I don't suppose I could have a look at the note?"

"Not a chance, Matt. I don't have access to it myself. You want to talk to the officer in charge, that's Lew Marko, he'll be coming on duty sometime tonight. Maybe he can help you out."

"I don't suppose it matters."

"Wait a minute, the wording's copied down here.This help you at all?"

I read:

Forgive me. I cannot go on this way. I have lived a bad life.

Nothing about murder.

Could he have done it? A lot depended on when Fuhrmann was killed, and I wouldn't know that until I found out what the medical examiner learned. Say Manch killed Fuhrmann , came home, was overtaken by remorse, opened his window-I didn't like it much.

I said, "What time did he do it, Jim? I don't see it listed."

He looked through the records, frowning. "There ought to be a time here. I don't see it. He was DOA at Adelphi at eleven thirty-five last night, but that don't tell us what time he went out the window."

But then again it didn't really have to. Doug Fuhrmann made his final call to me at one-thirty, an hour and fifty-five minutes after a physician pronounced Leon Manch dead.

I liked it better that way the more I thought about it. Because everything was starting to fall into place for me, and the way it was breaking Manch wasn't Fuhrmann's killer or Portia Carr's killer, either.

Maybe Manch was Manch's killer, maybe he'd typed a suicide note because he couldn't find a pen,maybe his remorse was compounded of disgust with the life of a toilet slave. I have lived a bad life- well, who the hell has not?

For the time being, it didn't matter whether Manch had killed himself or not. Maybe he'd had help, but that was something I couldn't know yet and didn't have to know how to prove.

I knew who had killed the other two, Portia and Doug. I knew it in much the same way that I had known before reaching his building that Doug Fuhrmann would be dead. We call such knowledge the product of intuition because we cannot precisely chart the working of the mind. It goes on playing computer while our consciousness is directed elsewhere.

I knew the killer's name. I had some strong ideas about his motive.

I had more ground to cover before it would all be wrapped up, but the hard part was over. Once you know what you're looking for, the rest comes easy.

Chapter 15

It was another three or four hours before I got out of a cab in the West Seventies and gave my name to a doorman. It was not the first taxi I'd taken since I got back from Brooklyn . I had had to see several people. I'd been offered drinks but hadn't accepted any. I had had some coffee, including a couple of cups of the best coffee I'd ever had.

The doorman announced me, then steered me to the elevator. I rode upstairs to the sixth floor, found the appropriate door, knocked. The door was opened by a small, birdlike woman with blue-gray hair. I introduced myself and she gave me her hand. "My son's watching the football game," she said. "Do you care for football? I don't find it of any real interest myself. Now you just have a seat and I'll tell Claude you're here."

But it wasn't necessary to tell him. He was standing in an archway at the rear of the living room. He wore a sleeveless brown cardigan over a white shirt. He had bedroom slippers on his feet. The thumbs of his pudgy hands were hooked into his belt. He said, "Good afternoon, Mr.

Scudder. Won't you come this way? Mom, Mr. Scudder and I will be in the den."

I followed him into a small room in which several overstuffed chairs were grouped around a color television set. On the large screen an oriental girl was bowing before a bottle of men's cologne.

"Cable,"Lorbeer said."Makes for absolutely perfect reception. And it only costs a couple of dollars a month. Before we signed up for it we just never got really satisfactory reception."

"You've lived here a long time?"

"All my life.Well, not quite. We moved here when I was about two and a half years old. Of course my father was alive then. This was his room, his study."

I looked around. There were English hunting prints on the walls, several racks of pipes, a few framed photographs. I walked over to the door and closed it.Lorbeer noted this without commenting.

I said, "I spoke to your employer."

"Mr.Prejanian ?"

"Yes. He was very pleased to hear that Jerry Broadfield will be released soon. He said he's not sure how much use he'll get out of Broadfield's testimony but that he's glad to see the man won't be convicted of a crime he didn't commit."

"Mr.Prejanian's a very generous man."

"Is he?" I shrugged. "I didn't get that impression myself, but I'm sure you know him better than I do.

What I sensed was that he's glad to see Broadfield proved innocent because his own organization doesn't look so bad now. So he was hoping all along that Broadfield would turn out to be innocent." I watched him carefully. "He says he'd have been glad to know earlier that I was working for Broadfield

."

"Really."

"Uh-huh. That's what he said."

Lorbeer moved closer to the television set. He rested a hand on top of it and looked down at the back of his hand. "I've been having hot chocolate," he said. "Sundays are days of complete regression for me. I sit around in comfy old clothes and watch sports on television and sip hot chocolate. I don't suppose you'd care for a cup?

"No, thank you."

"A drink? Something stronger?"

"No."

He turned to look at me. The pairs of parenthetical lines on either side of his little mouth seemed to be more deeply etched now. "Of course I can't be expected to bother Mr.Prejanian with every little thing that comes up. That's one of my functions, screening him from trivia.

His time is very valuable, and there are already far too many demands on it."

"That's why you didn't bother to call him yesterday. You told me you'd spoken with him, but you hadn't. And you warned me to route inquiries through you so as to avoid antagonizing Prejanian ."

"Just doing my job, Mr. Scudder. It’s possible I committed a judgmental error. No one is perfect, nor have I ever claimed perfection."

I leaned over, turned off the television set. "It's a distraction," I explained. "We should both pay attention to this. You're a murderer, Claude, and I'm afraid you're not going to get away with it. Why don't you sit down?"

"That's a ridiculous accusation."

"Have a seat."

"I'm quite comfortable standing. You've just made a completely absurd charge. I don't understand it."

I said, "I suppose I should have thought about you right at the beginning. But there was a problem.

Whoever killed Portia Carr had to connect up with Broadfield in one way or another. She was killed in his apartment, so she had to be killed by someone who knew where his apartment was, somebody who took the trouble to decoy him out of it first and send him off to Bay Ridge on a wild-goose chase."

"You're assuming Broadfield is innocent. I still don't see any reason to be sure of that."

"Oh, I knew he was innocent for a dozen reasons."

"Even so, didn't the Carr woman know about Broadfield's apartment?"

I nodded. "As a matter of fact, she did. But she couldn't have led her killer there because she was unconscious when she made the trip.

She was hit on the head first and then stabbed. It stood to reason that she'd been hit elsewhere. Otherwise the killer would have just gone on hitting her until she was dead. He wouldn't have stopped to pick up a knife. But what you did, Claude, was knock her out somewhere else and then get her to Broadfield's apartment. By then you'd disposed of whatever you'd hit her with, so you finished the job with a knife."

"I think I'll have a cup of chocolate. You're sure you wouldn't care for some?"

"Positive. I didn't want to believe a cop would kill Portia Carr in order to frame Broadfield . Everything pointed that way, but I didn't like the feel of it. I preferred the idea that framing Broadfield was a handy way to get away with murder, that the killer's main object was to get rid of Portia. But then how would he know about Broadfield's apartment and phone number? What I needed was somebody who was connected to both of them. And I found somebody, but there was no motive apparent."

"You must mean me," he said calmly."Since I certainly had no motive. But then I didn't know the Carr person either, and barely knew Broadfield , so your reasoning breaks down, doesn't it?"

"Not you. Douglas Fuhrmann . He was going to ghostwrite Broadfield's book. That's why Broadfield had turned informer- he wanted to be somebody important and write a bestseller. He got the idea from Carr because she was going to go the Happy Hooker one better.

Fuhrmann got the idea of playing both ends and got in touch with Carr to see if he could write her book, too. That's what tied the two of them together- it has to be- but it's not a murder motive."

"Then why am I elected? Because you don't know of anyone else?"

I shook my head. "I knew it was you before I really knew why. I asked you yesterday afternoon if you knew anything about Doug Fuhrmann . You knew enough about him to go over to his house last night and kill him."

"This is remarkable. Now I'm being accused of the murder of a man I never heard of."

"It won't work, Claude. Fuhrmann was a threat to you because he'd been talking with both of them, with Carr and with Broadfield . He was trying to reach me last night. If I'd had time to see him, maybe you wouldn't have been able to kill him. And maybe you would have, because maybe he didn't know what he knew. You were one of Portia Carr's clients."

"That's a filthy lie."

"Maybe it's filthy. I wouldn't know. I don't know what you did with her or what she did with you. I could make some educated guesses."

"Damn you, you're an animal." He didn't raise his voice, but the loathing in it was fierce. "I will thank you not to talk like that in the same house with my mother."

I just looked at him. He met my eyes with confidence at first, and then his face seemed to melt. All the resolve went out of it. His shoulders sagged, and he looked at once much older and much younger.

Just a middle-aged little boy.

"Knox Hardesty knew," I went on. "So you killed Portia for nothing. I can pretty much figure out what happened, Claude. When Broadfield turned up at Prejanian's office, you learned about more than police corruption. You learned through Broadfield that Portia was in Knox Hardesty's pocket, feeding him her client list in order to escape deportation. You were on that list and you figured it was just a question of time before she handed you over to him.

"So you got Portia to press charges against Broadfield , accusing him of extortion. You wanted to give him a motive for killing her, and that was an easy one to arrange. She thought you were a cop when you called her, and it was easy enough for her to go along with it. One way or another, you managed to scare her pretty well. Whores are easy to scare.

"At this point you had Broadfield set up beautifully. You didn't even have to be particularly brilliant about the murder itself because the cops would be so anxious to tie it to Broadfield . You decoyed Portia to the Village at the same time that you sent Broadfield off to Brooklyn .

Then you knocked her out, dragged her into his apartment, killed her, and got out of there. You dropped the knife in a sewer, washed your hands, and came on home to Mama."

"Leave my mother out of this."

"That bothers you, doesn't it? My mentioning your mother?"

"Yes, it does." He was squeezing his hands together as if to control them. "It bothers me a great deal.

That's why you're doing it, I suppose."

"Not entirely, Claude." I drew a breath. "You shouldn't have killed her. There was no point to it.

Hardesty already knew about you. If he'd thrown your name into the open at the beginning, a lot of time would have been saved and Fuhrmann and Manch would still be alive. But- "

"Manch?"

"Leon Manch . It looked as though he might have killed Fuhrmann

, but the timing was wrong. And then it looked as though you might have set it up, but you would have done it better. You would have killed them in the right order, wouldn't you? First Fuhrmann and thenManch , and not the other way around."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

And this time he evidently didn't, and the difference in his tone was obvious. "Leon Manch was another name on Portia's client list. He was also Knox Hardesty's pipeline into the mayor's office. I called him yesterday afternoon and arranged to see him, and I guess he couldn't handle it. He jumped out a window last night."

"He actually killed himself."

"It looks that way."

"He could have killed Portia Carr." He said it not argumentatively but thoughtfully.

I nodded. "He could have killed her, yes. But he couldn't have killed Fuhrmann because Fuhrmann made a couple of telephone calls after Manch had been officially pronounced dead. You see what that means, Claude?"

"What?"

"All you had to do was leave that little writer alone. You couldn't know it, but that was all you had to do.Manch left a note. He didn't confess to murder, but it could have been interpreted that way. I would certainly have interpreted it that way and I would have done everything possible to pin the Carr murder on Manch's dead body. If I managed it, Broadfield was clear. If not, he would stand trial himself. Either way, you would have been home free because I would have settled on Manch as the killer and the cops had already settled on Broadfield and that left nobody in the world hunting for you."

He said nothing for a long time. Then he narrowed his eyes and said, "You're trying to trap me."

"You're already trapped."

"She was an evil, filthy woman."

"And you were the Lord's avenging angel."

"No.Nothing of the sort. You are trying to trap me, and it won't work. You can't prove a thing."

"I don't have to."

"Oh?"

"I want you to come over to the police station with me, Claude. I want you to confess to the murders of Portia Carr and DouglasFuhrmann

."

"You must be insane."

"No."

"Then you must think I'm insane. Why on earth would I do something like that? Even if I did commit murder- "

"To spare yourself, Claude."

"I don't understand."

I looked at my watch. It was still early, and I felt as though I'd been awake for months.

"You said I can't prove anything," I told him. "And I said you were right. But the police can prove it.

Not now, but after they've spent some time digging. Knox Hardesty can establish that you were a client of Portia Carr's. He gave me the information once I was able to show him how it was bound up in murder, and he'll hardly hold it back in court. And you can bet that somebody saw you with Portia in the Village and somebody saw you on Ninth Avenue when you killed Fuhrmann . There's always a witness, and when the police and the district attorney's office are both putting in time, the witnesses tend to turn up."

"Then let them turn up these people if they exist. Why should I confess to make things easier for them?"

"Because you'd be making things easier for yourself, Claude.So much easier."

"That doesn't make sense."

"If the police dig, they'll get everything, Claude. They'll find out why you were seeing Portia Carr.

Right now nobody knows. Hardesty doesn't know, I don't know, no one does. But if they dig, they'll find out. And there will be insinuations in the newspapers, and people will suspect things, perhaps they'll suspect worse than the truth- "

"Stop it."

"Everyone will know about it, Claude." I inclined my head toward the closed door. "Everyone," I said.

"Damn you."

"You could spare her that knowledge, Claude. Of course a confession might also get you a lighter sentence. It theoretically can't happen in Murder One, but you know how the game is played. It certainly wouldn't hurt your chances. But I think that's a secondary consideration as far as you're concerned, Claude. Isn't it? I think you'd like to save yourself some scandal. Am I right?"

He opened his mouth but closed it without speaking.

"You could keep your motive a secret, Claude. You could invent something. Or just refuse to explain.

No one would pressure you, not if you'd already confessed to homicide. People close to you would know you had committed murder, but they wouldn't have to know other things about your life."

He lifted his cup of chocolate to his lips. He sipped it, returned it to its saucer.

"Claude- "

"Just let me think for a moment, will you?"

"All right."

I don't know how long we remained like that, me standing, him seated before the silent television set.

Say five minutes. Then he sighed, scuffed off his slippers, reached to put on a pair of shoes. He tied them and got to his feet. I walked to the door and opened it and stood aside so he could precede me through it into the living room.

He said, "Mother, I'll be going out for a little while. Mr. Scudder needs my help. Something important has come up."

"Oh, but your dinner, Claude.It's almost ready. Perhaps your friend would care to join us?"

I said, "I'm afraid not, Mrs.Lorbeer ."

"There's just no time, Mother," Claude agreed. "I'll have to have dinner out."

"Well, if it can't be helped."

He squared his shoulders, went to the front closet for a coat. "Now wear your heavy overcoat," she told him. "It's turned quite cold outside.

It is cold out, isn't it, Mr. Scudder?"

"Yes," I said. "It's very cold out."

Chapter 16

My second trip to the Tombs was very different from my first. It was about the same hour of the day, around eleven in the morning, but this time I'd had a good, full night's sleep and very little to drink the night before. I'd seen him in a cell the first time. Now I was meeting him and his lawyer at the front desk. He had left all that tension and depression in his cell and he looked like the conquering hero.

He and Seldon Wolk were already on hand when I walked in.

Broadfield's face lit up at the sight of me.

"There's my man," he called out. "Matt, baby, you're the greatest.Absolutely the greatest. If I did one intelligent thing in my life, it was getting hooked up with you." And he was pumping my hand and beaming down at me. "Didn't I tell you I was getting out of this toilet?

And didn't you turn out to be the guy to spring me?" He inclined his head conspiratorially, lowered his voice to a near-whisper. "And I'm a guy knows how to say thank you so you know I mean it. You got a bonus coming, buddy."

"You paid me enough."

"The hell I did. What's a man's life worth?"

I had asked myself the same question often enough, but not in quite the same way. I said, "I made something like five hundred dollars a day. That'll do me,Broadfield ."

"Jerry."

"Sure."

"And I say you got a bonus coming. You met my lawyer?

SeldonWolk ?"

"We've spoken," I said.Wolk and I shook hands and made polite sounds at each other.

"Well, it's about that time,"Broadfield said. "I guess any reporters who're gonna show up are already waiting out there, don't you think? If any of 'em miss out, it'll teach 'emto be on time next shot. Is Diana out there with the car?"

"She's waiting where you wanted her to wait," the lawyer told him.

"Perfect. You met my wife, didn't you, Matt? Of course you did, I gave you that note to take out there.

What we gotta do, you get a woman, and the four of us'll have dinner one of these nights. We ought to get to know each other better, all of us."

"We'll have to do that," I agreed.

"Well," he said. He tore open a manila envelope and shook out its contents on the top of the desk. He put his wallet into his pocket, slipped his watch onto his wrist, scooped up and pocketed a handful of coins.

Then he put his tie around his neck and under his shirt collar and made an elaborate performance of tying it. "Did I tell you, Matt? Thought I might have to tie it twice. But I think the knot looks just about right, don't you?"

"It looks fine."

He nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I think it looks pretty good, all right.

I'll tell you something. Matt, I feel good. How do I look, Seldon ?"

"You look fine."

"I feel like a million dollars," he said.

HE handled the reporters pretty nicely. He answered questions, striking a nice balance between sincere and cocky, and while they still had questions to ask him he flashed the number-one grin, gave a victorious wave, and pushed through them and got into his car. Diana stepped on the gas, and they drove down to the end of the block and turned the corner. I stood there watching until they were out of sight.

Of course she'd had to come to pick him up. And she would take it easy for a day or two, and then she'd let him know how things stood.

She'd said she didn't expect much trouble from him. She was certain he didn't love her and that she had long since ceased to be important in his life. But I was to give her a couple of days, and then she would call.

"Well, that was pretty exciting," a voice behind me said. "I figured maybe we were supposed to throw rice at the happy couple, something like that."

Without turning I said, "Hello, Eddie."

"Hello, Matt. Beautiful morning, isn't it?"

"Not bad."

"I suppose you're feeling pretty good."

"Not too bad."

"Cigar?"Lieutenant Eddie Koehler didn't wait for an answer, put the cigar in his own mouth and lit it. It took him three matches because the wind blew out the first two. "I oughta get a lighter," he said. "You check out that lighter Broadfield was using before? Looked expensive."

"I think it probably is."

"Looked like gold to me."

"Probably.Though gold and gold plate look pretty much the same."

"They don't cost the same, though. Do they?"

"Not as a general rule."

He smiled, swung out a hand, and gripped my upper arm. "Aw, you son of a bitch," he said.

"Lemme buy you a drink, you old son of a bitch."

"It's a little early for me, Eddie.Maybe a cup of coffee."

"Even better.Since when is it ever too early to buy you a drink?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll take it a little easier on the booze, see if it makes a difference."

"Yeah?"

"Well, for a while, anyway."

He eyed me appraisingly. "You sound like your old self a little, you know that? I can't remember the last time you sounded like this."

"Don't make too much out of it, Eddie. All I'm doing is passing up a drink."

"No, there's something else. I can't put my finger on it, but something's different."

We went over to a little place on Reade Street and ordered coffee and Danish. He said, "Well, you sprung the bastard. I hate to see him off the hook, but I can't hardly hold it against you. You got him off."

"He shouldn't have been on in the first place."

"Yeah, well, that's something else, isn't it?"

"Uh-huh. You ought to be glad the way things worked out. He's not going to be a tremendous amount of use to Abne Prejanian because Prejanian's going to have to keep a low profile for the next little while.

He doesn't look too good himself now. His assistant just got nailed for killing two people and framing Abner's star witness. You were complaining that he loved to see his name in the papers. I think he's going to try to keep his name out of the papers for a couple of months, don't you?"

"Could be."

"And Knox Hardesty doesn't look too good, either. He's all right as far as the public is concerned, but the word's going to get around that he's not very good at protecting his witnesses. He had Carr, and Carr gave him Manch , and they're both dead, and that's not a good track record to have when you're trying to get people to cooperate with you."

"Of course he hasn't been bothering the department, anyway, Matt."

"Not yet. But with Prejanian quiet he might have wanted to come on in. You know how it goes, Eddie.

Whenever they want headlines they take a shot at the cops."

"Yeah, that's the fucking truth."

"So I didn't do so badly by you, did I? The department doesn't wind up looking bad."

"No, you did all right, Matt."

"Yeah."

He picked up his cigar, puffed on it. It had gone out. He lit it again with a match and watched the match burn almost to his fingertips before shaking it out and dropping it into the ashtray. I chewed a bite of Danish and chased it with a gulp of coffee.

I could cut down on the drinking. There would be times when it got difficult. When I thought abou tFuhrmann and how I could have taken that call from him.Or when I thought about Manch and his plunge to the ground. My phone call couldn't have done it all by itself. Hardesty had been pressuring him all along, and he'd been carrying a load of guilt for years. But I hadn't helped him, and maybe if I hadn't called-Except you can't let yourself think that way.What you have to do is remind yourself that you caught one murderer and kept one innocent man out of prison. You never win them all, and you can't blame yourself whenever you drop one.

"Matt?" I looked at him. "That conversation we had the other night. At that bar where you hang out?"

"Armstrong's."

"Right, Armstrong's. I said some things I didn't have to say."

"Oh, the hell with that, Eddie."

"No hard feelings?"

"Of course not."

Pause. "Well, a few guys who knew I was gonna drop down today, which I was doing, figuring you'd be here, they asked me to let you know there's no hard feelings toward you. Not that there ever was in a general sense, just that they wished you weren't hooked up with Broadfield at the time, if you get my meaning."

"I think I do."

"And they hope you got no bad feelings toward the department, is all."

"None."

"Well, that's what I figured, but I thought I'd get it out in the open and be sure." He ran a hand over his forehead, ruffled his hair. "You're really figuring to take it easier on the booze?"

"Might as well give it a try.Why?"

"I don't know. You think maybe you're ready to rejoin the human race?"

"I never resigned, did I?"

"You know what I'm talking about."

I didn't say anything.

"You proved something, you know. You're still a good cop, Matt.

It's what you're really good at."

"So?"

"It's easier to be a good cop when you're carrying a badge."

"Sometimes it's harder. If I'd had a badge this past week, I would have been told to lay off."

"Yeah, and you were told that, anyway, and you didn't listen, and you wouldn't have listened, badge or no badge. Am I right?"

"Maybe.I don't know."

"The best way to get a good police department is to keep good policemen in it. I'd like it a hell of a lot to see you back on the force."

"I don't think so, Eddie."

"I wasn't asking you to make a decision. I was saying you could think about it. And you can think it over for the next little while, can't you? Maybe it'll be something that starts to make sense when you don't have a skin full of booze in you twenty-four hours a day."

"It's possible."

"You'll think about it?"

"I'll think about it."

"Uh-huh." He stirred his coffee. "You hear from your kids lately?"

"They're fine."

"Well, that's good."

"I'm taking them this Saturday. There's some kind of father-son thing with their Scout troop, a rubber-chicken dinner and then seats for the Nets game."

"I could never get interested in the Nets."

"They're supposed to have a good team."

"Yeah, that's what they tell me. Well, it's great that you're seeing them."

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe you and Anita- "

"Drop it, Eddie."

"Yeah, I talk too much."

"She's got somebody else, anyway."

"You can't expect her to sit around."

"I don't, and I don't care. I've got somebody else myself."

"Oh.For serious?"

"I don't know."

"Something to take it slow and see what happens, I guess."

"Something like that."

THAT was Monday. For the next couple of days I took a lot of long walks and spent time at a lot of churches. I would have a couple of drinks in the evening to make it easier to get to sleep, but to all intents and purposes I wasn't doing any serious drinking at all. I walked around, I enjoyed the weather, I kept checking my telephone messages, I read the Times in the morning and the Post at night. I began wondering after a while why I wasn't getting the phone message I was waiting for, but I wasn't upset enough to pick up the phone and place a call myself.

Then Thursday around two in the afternoon I was walking along, not going anywhere in particular, and as I passed a newsstand at the corner of Fifty-seventh and Eighth, I happened to glance at the headline of the Post. I normally waited and bought the late edition, but the headline caught me and I bought the paper.

Jerry Broadfield was dead.

Chapter 17

When he sat down across from me, I knew who it was without raising my eyes. I said, "Hi, Eddie."

"Figured I'd find you here."

"Not hard to guess, was it?" I waved a hand to signal Trina. "What is it, Seagram's? Bring my friend here a Seagram's and water. I'll have another of these." To him I said, "It didn't take you long. I've only been here about an hour myself. Of course the news must have hit the street with the noon edition. I just didn't happen to see a paper until an hour ago. It says here that he got it around eight this morning.

Is that right?"

"That's right, Matt. According to the report I saw."

"He walked out the door and a late-model car pulled up at the curb and somebody gave him both barrels of a sawed-off shotgun. A school kid said the man with the gun was white but didn't know about the man in the car, the driver."

"That's right."

"One man's white and the car's described as blue and the gun was left at the scene. No prints, I don't suppose."

"Probably not."

"No way to trace the sawed-off, I don't guess."

"I haven't heard, but- "

"But there won't be any way to trace it."

"Doesn't figure to be."

Trina brought the drinks. I picked mine up and said, "Absent friends, Eddie."

"Sure thing."

"He wasn't your friend, and though you may not believe it, he was less my friend than yours, but that's how we'll drink the toast, to absent friends. I drank your toast the way you wanted it, so you can drink mine."

"Whatever you say."

"Absent friends," I said.

We drank. The booze seemed to have more of a punch after a few days of taking it easy. I certainly hadn't lost my taste for it, though. It went down nice and easy and made me vitally aware of just who I was.

I said, "You figure they'll ever find out who did it?"

"Want a straight answer?"

"Do you think I want you to lie to me?"

"No, I don't figure that."

"So?"

"I don't suppose they'll ever find out who did it, Matt."

"Will they try?"

"I don't think so."

"Would you, if it were your case?"

He looked at me. "Well, I'll be perfectly honest with you," he said after a moment's thought. "I don't know. I'd like to think I'd try. I think some- I think, fuck it, I think a couple of our own must of done it.

What the hell else can you think, right?"

"Right."

"Whoever did it was a fucking idiot. An absolute fucking idiot who just did the department more harm than Broadfield could ever hope to do. Whoever did it ought to hang by the neck, and I like to think I'd go after the bastards with everything I had if it was my case." He lowered his eyes. "But to be honest, I don't know if I would. I think I'd go through the motions and sweep it under the rug."

"And that's what they'll do out in Queens ."

"I didn't talk to them. I don't know for a fact that's what they'll do.

But I'd be surprised if they did anything else, and so would you."

"Uh-huh."

"What are you going to do, Matt?"

"Me?" I stared at him. "Me? What should I do?"

"I mean, are you going to try and go after them? Because I don't know if it's a good idea."

"Why should I do that, Eddie?" I spread my hands palms up. "He's not my cousin. And nobody's hiring me to find out who killed him."

"Is that straight?"

"It's straight."

"You're hard to figure. I think I got you pegged, and then I don't."

He stood up and put some money on the table. "Let me buy that round,"

he said.

"Stick around, Eddie. Have another drink."

He hadn't done more than touch the one he'd had. "No time," he said. "Matt, you don't have to crawl into the bottle just because of this. It doesn't change anything."

"It doesn't?"

"Hell, no.You still got a life of your own. You got this woman you're seeing, you got- "

"No."

"Huh?"

"Maybe I'll see her again. I don't know. Probably not. She could have called by this time. And after it happened, you would think she'd have called if it was real."

"I don't follow you."

But I wasn't talking to him. "We were in the right place at the right time," I went on. "So it looked as though we might turn out to be important for each other. If it ever had a chance, I'd say the chance died this morning when the gun went off."

"Matt, you're not making sense."

"It makes sense to me. Maybe that's my fault. We might see each other again, I don't know. But whether we do or don't, it's not going to change anything. People don't get to change things. Things change people once in a while, but people don't change things."

"I gotta go, Matt. Take it a little easy on the booze, huh?"

"Sure, Eddie."

SOMETIME that night I dialed her number in Forest Hills . The phone rang a dozen times before I gave up and got my dime back.

I called another number. A leftover voice recited,

"Seven-two-five-five. I am sorry, but no one is at home at the moment.

If you will leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, your call will be returned as soon as possible. Thank you."

The tone sounded, and it was my turn. But I couldn't seem to think of anything to say.

THE END

About the Author

The prolific author of more than fifty books and numerous short stories, Lawrence Block is a Mystery Writers of American Grand Master, a four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe and Shamus Awards, and the recipient of literary prizes from France ,Germany , and Japan .

Block is a devout New Yorker who spends much of his time traveling.

Bad cop Jerry Broadfield didn't make any friends on the force when he volunteered to squeal to an ambitious D.A.. about police corruption. Now he's accused of murdering a call girl. Matthew Scudder doesn't thinkBroadfield's a killer, but the cops aren't about to help the unlicensedp.i . prove it- and they may do a lot worse than just get in his way.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17