Small Town

eleven

From the moment he’d found Marilyn dead in her apartment, the very apartment he’d been so blithely cleaning, opening doors ceased to be a carefree enterprise for Jerry Pankow. He couldn’t turn a key without at least a quiver of anxiety over what he might find on the other side of the door.

Not so much with his commercial clients, the three bars and the whorehouse. But when he called on his once-a-week residential clients, he couldn’t entirely banish the fear of finding a dead person on the premises. He rang the doorbell first, as he had always done, and then he knocked, as always, and then he turned the key in the lock and opened the door and called out Hello! once or twice, and stood still listening for a response.

And after that, after he’d assured himself that there was no one conscious within, he was very careful to survey the entire apartment, to look in every room. Not until he’d determined that he was alone did he set about doing his job.

So far the most unnerving moment had come one afternoon when, after he’d done his routine of ringing and knocking and helloing, he’d walked through a silent apartment to find Kyle Lanza, who worked downtown all day every day, not only home but sprawled flat on his back on his bed, his eyes closed, his arms at his sides. He was wearing sweatpants and a Bad Dog T-shirt — and, Jerry noticed, just in time to keep from losing it altogether, a giant set of earphones. Roused, he was full of apologies. And, thank God, alive.

Time passed, and the apartments he cleaned kept not having dead bodies in them, and he kept up the precautions but lost the apprehension. It was possible to walk in on a dead client, it had in fact happened once, but that didn’t mean it was likely to happen again.

Nor did that July morning come equipped with premonitions. All he felt was fine, and the sun was out and the sky was clear, and he didn’t have a residential customer today, so he’d made a date with himself — after breakfast he’d be stretched out on a towel on the roof of his building, wearing nothing but sunscreen and Speedos.

He was looking forward to it as he mounted the half-flight of steps to the building on East Twenty-eighth. He gave a wave to the Korean woman in the nail shop, opened the door of the vestibule for the three upstairs floors, rang the third-floor bell, rang again, used his key. There was a bell beside the door leading to the apartment, and he rang that as always and knocked as always and used his other key, and as soon as he opened the door he knew this was going to be a bad day, and he could forget about working on his tan.

The smell hit him the instant he cracked the door. He probably would have noticed it under any circumstances, but he knew what death smelled like and recognized it immediately. He went in anyway and closed the door and threw the bolt, which was ridiculous, because he didn’t have to fear the outside world, where the sun was shining and people were alive. Anything fearful was here, and he’d just gone and locked himself in with it.

Every odor was particulate. He’d heard or read this somewhere, and it was information he wished he didn’t have, because it meant that, if you could smell it, you were breathing it in, you were taking it into your system. But in fact it wasn’t that overpowering, it wasn’t enough to make you gag. It was knowing what it was that made it so upsetting.

And then seeing it. One on the parlor floor, her face unrecognizable, and two in one of the bedrooms, one crumpled at the other’s feet.

God, couldn’t he just go? He’d been there only a few minutes, he hadn’t touched a thing or met a soul, so couldn’t he just slip out and rejoin the world of the living? This job, like all the jobs, was off the books, and he doubted that Molly (with her skull literally smashed in, Christ, who could have done a thing like that?) even knew his last name.

He’d waved to the Korean woman in the nail shop.

But would she remember? And what could she possibly say? Yes, I see boy come to clean. He wave to me sometime. He nice boy. She couldn’t exactly tell them anything that would have them making a beeline for his door.

Lois would know what to do.

But he didn’t need to call her to know what she would tell him. For God’s sake, Jerry, be a grown-up. You’re a citizen and you just discovered three dead bodies, so what the hell do you think you’re supposed to do? Butch up and make the call.

He reached for the phone, saw that the receiver was off the hook. That might be important, he thought. It might be a clue, there might be fingerprints or trace evidence on the phone.

God, he didn’t want to do anything wrong.

He let himself out, found a pay phone at the corner of Third Avenue. It would be easy to keep walking, but he heard Lois’s voice in his head, telling him to butch up, and he dialed 911 and gave his name and the address of the crime scene, and told the operator what he’d found. Yes, he said, he’d wait for the officers at the scene.

The responding officers were two uniformed cops from the local precinct, a man and woman his own age or younger, and he answered their questions but held back the part he didn’t want to mention. He’d have to, he knew that, but he might as well wait for the detectives to get there. Otherwise he’d only have to go through it a second time.

The detectives were older than he was, which was at once reassuring and intimidating. One was black and one was white, and both were balding and out of shape and looked uncomfortable in their suits and ties.

They went over the same ground the uniforms had covered, but more thoroughly. They wanted to know the routine at the apartment — when did they open, what time did they shut down, how many girls worked there, and did anybody stay on the premises overnight. He answered what he could, explaining that all he did was come in and clean the place when nobody was around. He didn’t even know for sure what sort of establishment it was, insofar as no one had ever come right out and told him, although it did seem pretty obvious to him. They agreed that it seemed obvious, all right.

Then they wanted to know where he’d been during the past twenty-four hours, and how they could verify his whereabouts. He told them all that, and the black cop made notes, and the white cop said, “Pankow, what’s that, Polish? You grow up in Greenpoint, by any chance?”

Hamtramck, he told them. And where was that, somewhere out on the Island? No, he said, it was a suburb of Detroit, and predominantly Polish.

A lot of Polish people lived in Greenpoint, the cop said, and he agreed that they did. You ought to go there for pierogi and kielbasa, the cop said. He sometimes did, he said, when he got the chance.

Then he said, “There’s something else you ought to know.”

Oh?

God, he didn’t want to do this. But he’d already started, and besides they’d find out themselves and wonder why he hadn’t said anything.

“Last month,” he said. “I had a client in the Village, I used to clean her apartment once a week. Somebody strangled her, and I was the one who discovered the body.”

They stared at him, and the black cop said, “The woman, she sold real estate? And they got the guy, some kind of writer. Aren’t you the guy who—”

“Destroyed the evidence,” he said. “She was in the bedroom so I started in the living room. I thought she was sleeping.”

“Well, they got the guy,” the black cop said, and the white cop said he hoped he hadn’t done any cleaning this time. He assured them he hadn’t.

“These women here,” the white cop said, “you wouldn’t make that mistake. You’d know right away they’re not sleeping.”

The black cop’s name was Arthur Pender. His partner was Dennis Hurley. Pender said, “That is one hell of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say? You think you’re hiring somebody to mop your floors, turns out he’s the angel of death.”

“They already got somebody for the one in the Village,” Hurley said.

“Maybe it gave the kid ideas. Maybe he liked the attention he got finding a body and decided he’d like to find a couple more.”

“He seem to you like somebody who was enjoying the attention?”

“Looked like he wished the floor would swallow him. Can’t see him doing it, either, gentle guy like him.”

“You’re saying that ’cause he’s gay.”

“Well, yeah, I guess so.”

“That don’t make him gentle,” Hurley said. “He’s got that wiry kind of build, he could be a lot stronger than he looks. He could be a ballet dancer, and they’re real strong.”

“Ballet dancer. You’re just sayin’ that on account of he’s gay.”

“You think he killed them, Arthur?”

“No.”

“We’ll check his alibi, but what do you bet it holds up?”

“No bet. One in the Village was strangled, wasn’t she?”

“And these three were beaten and stabbed.”

“And besides,” Pender said, “they already got the writer for the one in the Village.”

“If he did it.”

“Yeah, the man could be innocent. You ask him, bet that’s what he says he is.”

“As a newborn baby. Arthur, you see any connection between the two cases besides the Warsaw Whiz? Where’d he say he was from, Ham Sandwich or something?”

“Hamtramck. Don’t ask me how to spell it.”

“Outside of Detroit, he said.”

“Inside of Detroit. It’s an autonomous area within the bounds of the City of Detroit.”

“How do you happen to know that?”

“No idea. One in the Village sold real estate?”

“Something like that.”

“Be an easy thing to say you did.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just looking for a connection besides Mop & Glo. Any chance she could have been a working girl?”

“Lived in the Village and tricked on Curry Hill? Be interesting to know.”

“And not too hard to find out,” Pender said, and reached for the phone.

“No record of prostitution, no rumors she was ever in the game. Marilyn Fairchild didn’t just call herself a real estate agent, she made a good living at it. Commissions in 2001 exceeded $150,000, and ninety percent of that must have been in eight months, because how many co-ops changed hands after 9/11?”

“It was worth a call,” Hurley said.

“Plus she had a reputation for going out and dragging men home with her, which is the story on how she and Creighton wound up together.”

“That’s his name. It was driving me nuts I couldn’t think of it.”

“And working girls aren’t like musicians, they don’t finish up their paid gigs and then jam all night for free.”

“You know what we’re going to get, Arthur? It was some fucking john, he went with one girl and she didn’t want to do what he wanted her to do—”

“ ‘No, no, not in the ass, what kind of a girl do you think I am?’ ”

“Or he planned it from the jump, whatever it was, but either way he went batshit. He killed everybody and went home.”

“Must have planned it. Used a hammer and a chisel, according to the ME. You don’t find those layin’ around in your average whorehouse.”

“Unless it’s some kind of special whorehouse for carpenters. I’d say he brought his tools with him. Came late, too, after the other girls called it a night.”

“Right.”

“Probably fixed it so he was the last customer. Only had women to kill that way.”

“Another reason why it’s not the Polack. You kill what you want to fuck, basic principle of lust murder.”

“If that’s what this was.”

“What else could it be? Madam wasn’t paying the right people and this was to teach her a lesson?”

“Some lesson. How’s she gonna pay now?”

“Even if someone in one of the families is pissed at her, nobody’d do it like this. A hammer and chisel?”

They batted it around, thinking out loud, trying out theories.

“I hate the coincidence part,” Hurley said. “Creighton goes home with Fairchild and strangles her. Our perp—”

“The Feebs’d call him the unsub.”

“Our perp goes to a quiet little whorehouse, picks up a hammer and chisel and thinks he’s a kid again in shop class. And both premises, Fairchild’s apartment and our whorehouse, have the same ballet dancer come by to do a little dusting and cleaning.”

Pender said, “About Creighton.”

“What about him?”

“They have an argument, he’s half in the bag, next thing you know she’s dead.”

“So?”

“Lot more people get drunk than kill somebody.”

“Where you going with this, Arthur?”

“Meaning he’s most likely leaning that way from the start.”

“Leaning toward murder.”

“I been drunk a whole lot of times,” Pender said. “I never once wound up with my hands around nobody’s neck.”

“So he killed Fairchild, and then what? He finds out he likes it?”

“Happens like that, sometimes.”

“Yeah, but don’t forget he got arrested. You figure they let him out nights so he can go get laid?”

“He’s in a cell? Do we know that?”

Maury Winters said, “Talk to him? Ask him questions? No way I’m gonna let that happen.”

“Sir, three women were killed last night, and—”

“I’m sorry to hear that. If it was up to me everybody would live forever, and that goes double for women. The Mets lost, did you happen to notice? Mo Vaughn struck out three times and hit into a double play. You want to ask my client anything about the game?”

“Was he there?”

“What, at the game? They’re on the road, they were in Houston. He’s on bond, he had to surrender his passport, so how could he go to Texas?”

The lawyer had the cops grinning. Creighton, under strict instructions not to open his mouth, found the spectacle entertaining. At least until you considered the content, which was that they were trying to hang another killing, a triple murder, on him.

The white one, Dennis Hurley, big red-haired guy, map of Ireland on his face, said, “Mr. Winters, let me just tell you where we’re coming from. We got a case with a possible link to Mr. Creighton here, and we’d like to rule him out.”

“Go right ahead. Rule him out. While you’re at it, tell your buddies to rule him out for Fairchild.”

“If he can account for his time last night—”

“Why the hell should he? He’s charged with one crime, he’s under no obligation to help you with another one.”

“That’s understood.”

“So?”

“If he was at the ball game,” Arthur Pender said, “not in Houston, but did the Yankees play at home last night?”

“Against the Brewers, and Soriano homered twice. You fellows should follow the game. It’s America’s pastime, in case nobody told you.”

“Nobody tells us anything,” Pender said. “If he was there, with Senator Clinton on one side and Cardinal Egan on the other—”

“Isn’t there a joke starts like this?”

“—then we could cross him off our list and be on our way.”

“This was last night? What hours are we looking at?”

“Ten to midnight.”

“Ten p.m. to midnight? The medical examiner working with a stopwatch these days?”

“There’s more than medical evidence,” Pender said. “That’s our window, those two hours, and if your client can establish where he was during that time period we’ll thank you for your time and leave you alone.”

“Which I think you’ll do regardless,” Winters said, “because I don’t know where he was last night. To find out I’d have to ask him, and do you know why I’m not going to do that?”

“I bet you’ll tell us,” Hurley said.

“Because if I ask him,” Winters said, “and he can’t prove where he was, and I tell you to go screw yourselves, I’d be telling you in the process that he can’t establish an alibi, and why should you have any such information? Whereas if I tell you right off the bat to go screw yourselves, that’s all I’ll be telling you, and you can do it or not as you see fit.”

“Do what or not?”

“Screw ourselves,” Pender said. He shrugged, got to his feet. “It was worth a try. If you do talk to him, and if he does have an alibi you want to tell me about—”

“I never liked sentences with ifs in them,” Winters said. “Tell me something. Why are you looking at him in the first place?”

“Can’t tell you that.”

“You don’t give nothing, my friend, you’re not gonna get nothing. You’re telling me this man’s a suspect but you can’t tell me why he’s a suspect?”

“He’s not a suspect.”

“He’s not a suspect but you want to know has he got an alibi. Lovely. Why are you looking at him?”

The cops exchanged glances. At length Pender shrugged, and Hurley said, “The body was discovered by the same kid who discovered Fairchild.”

“What, the faygeleh? That’s your connection?”

“Same guy is first on the scene twice in a couple of weeks? What are the odds on that?”

“At the moment, my friend, they’re a hundred to one in favor of it, because it already happened. I’m not saying it’s a coincidence. There’s a connection, but what it connects is Fairchild to the dead women, and can we stop pretending we don’t know who they are? I listen to the news the same as everybody else. This was in the East Twenties, if I’m not mistaken, in what the girl announcer didn’t quite call a whorehouse, but I got the distinct impression.”

“East Twenty-eighth,” Hurley said. “And yeah, it was a whorehouse.”

“Three hookers?”

“Two and the madam.”

“Ah, Christ, what a world. They said bloodbath, but they generally do with a multiple homicide. They exaggerate.”

“Not this time.”

“Without asking what the murder weapon was, may I conclude the women weren’t strangled? Which I’d have concluded anyway, because for one man to strangle three women one after the other is a neat trick.”

“They weren’t strangled.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Winters said, “which sounds like a Dickensian law firm, doesn’t it? Never mind. I’ve enjoyed this, believe it or not, but I think we’re finished, so—”

He said, “Maury?”

All three of them turned to look at him, as if surprised that he could talk, or that he was there at all.

“If I could talk to you privately,” he said.

“They were just leaving, which would have given us all the privacy anyone could want. But why don’t you fellows wait in the hall for a moment?”

When they were out of the room with the door closed he said, “I was here last night.”

“I’m not surprised. You’re home all the time, from what you’ve told me. Home Alone is a movie, not an alibi. I don’t suppose you had company?”

“No,” he said, “but I think I can prove I was here. The window is ten to midnight, isn’t that what they said?”

“Ten to midnight.”

“I had a couple of deliveries somewhere around that time. Must have been close to ten when I called and had Two Boots send up a pizza. And I called the deli a little after that and ordered up a sandwich and a six-pack of Beck’s.”

“You had a pizza and a sandwich at the same time?”

“I was out of beer and I wanted one with the pizza. I don’t like to call the deli just for beer.”

“What, they’ll think you’re a drunk?”

“You’re right, it’s stupid, but I was just as happy a couple of hours ago when I had the sandwich for lunch. They should both have records of the delivery.”

“They should.”

“While I was eating the pizza,” he said, “my agent called. She’s working on a deal, she wanted to discuss strategy. She can confirm that we were on the phone for ten minutes, maybe closer to fifteen.”

“And this was when?”

“Say ten-thirty.”

“That leaves plenty of time for you to get in a cab and kill three women in a whorehouse. If I’m going to show anything to Frick and Frack, I’d like to show ’em enough to cover you past midnight.”

“I was online,” he said.

“What, the computer? They can take those things apart and find out what you had for breakfast, but—”

“No,” he said, “I was online, Maury. This was after I got off the phone with Roz.”

“Your agent.”

“Right. Something she said, it doesn’t matter, but I wanted to check something on Amazon. I logged on, I checked my e-mail, and I went to their website.”

“How can we prove this?”

“I have a dedicated phone line for the computer. It’s a local call to AOL when you log on. Won’t there be a record?”

“Very good.”

“And I wound up buying a couple of books from Amazon. I always do, it’s impossible to visit the site without remembering some book you think you have to have, especially in the middle of the night. A couple of clicks and it’s in the mail two days later.”

“They’d have a record of a purchase.”

“They send you an e-mail confirming it, with time and date on it. I downloaded that, it’s on my hard drive.”

Winters went over and opened the door.

“You’ll confirm all this,” the lawyer told the two detectives, “in about a minute and a half, give or take. You’ll pull the LUDS and that should be enough, but you can go as far as you want. Put one of your computer people on it, talk to the pizza place, the deli.”

“We had to check him out,” Arthur Pender said.

“And you checked, and he’s out. But as far as I’m concerned, you boys are on to something.”

They looked at him.

“Fairchild and the three last night,” Winters said. “They’re as linked as they ever were. The same boy finds all the bodies, that was too good a coincidence twenty minutes ago and it’s no different now.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Ernest Hemingway here didn’t do either of them. You just cleared him on one, you should go ahead and clear him on the other.”

“Not our case,” Hurley said.

“So why not talk to your friends at the Sixth, tell them talk to the geniuses in the DA’s office.”

“Yeah, right. I’m sure they’d love to hear from us.”

“How could you not tell them? You just looked at this gentleman in connection with a homicide and cleared him a hundred percent. You don’t think that’s information they ought to have?”

“I suppose we could make a call.”

“Of course you could,” Winters said. “Thanks for coming, fellows. You’ve been very helpful.”

Winters stayed and chatted with him after the two detectives had left. After the lawyer’s departure, Creighton called his agent.

“Talk about highs and lows,” he said. “I started out thinking I was going to be charged with three murders. Next minute Maury’s talking about getting the original charges dropped.”

“Really?”

“But he told me privately that’s not going to happen. The DA’s not going to withdraw an indictment just because I’ve been cleared in a case that may or may not be related to the original crime I’m charged with. They’ve still got the same evidence they had before. She still picked me up at the Kettle and I still went home with her.”

“And she’s still dead.”

“The poor woman. You know, I’ve been angry at her all along, for getting me into this mess in the first place. Like it’s her fault. But all she wanted was to get laid, and she wound up dead, and how is any of that her fault?”

“You’re not angry with her anymore.”

“No, and I can’t understand why I was in the first place.”

“You were afraid, sweetie.”

“And now I’m not, because I’m beginning to see daylight. This won’t get charges dropped, according to Maury, but what it should do is create a little doubt in the minds of Reade and Slaughter.”

“The arresting officers?”

“Right. Even if they’re still completely convinced I did it, they’ll want to cover their asses in case it becomes clear I didn’t. Which means they might look a little harder for witnesses who might steer them in the direction of another suspect.”

“That would be wonderful. The only thing...”

“What?”

“This is going to sound like St. Augustine. ‘Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.’ ”

“You lost me.”

“Look, you and I both know you didn’t do this thing, right? And we know you’re going to be cleared.”

“It’s beginning to look that way.”

“Well, that’s the important thing, in fact it’s the only thing that matters, but all things being equal...”

“What?”

“I’d just as soon it doesn’t all clear up today or tomorrow,” she said. “Or even next week or next month. God, that sounds terrible, doesn’t it?”

“It might, except I think I see where you’re going.”

“The best thing for our purposes is if you’re an accused murderer awaiting trial when we make the deal. Then, when the book comes out, you’re a guy who was falsely accused of a horrible crime and has since been completely exonerated. I know you’d like to be off the hook as soon as possible, but I’m your agent and I used to be your publisher and I can’t help seeing it from that standpoint.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m writing all the time these days, Roz. I’m completely into the book, and of course I want it to do everything it can. If I’m cooped up in my apartment for the time being, well, it’s worth it. And I’d be cooped up anyway, putting words on the screen.”

“And it’s going well?”

“It’s going beautifully.”

“I turned down a couple of preempts, sweetie. One yesterday and one this morning.”

“What were the numbers?”

“I’m not going to tell you. I’m auctioning on Friday. I told Esther at Crown what I want for a floor bid. That’ll give them topping privileges. She’s supposed to get back to me later this afternoon.”

“What do you want for a floor?”

“I’m not going to tell you that, either, until I find out if I get it. Oh, that reminds me, I was going to call you about this. Esther had a suggestion, and whether or not we wind up going with them, I think it’s worth thinking about. How would you feel about a name change?”

“You mean a pseudonym?”

“Jesus Christ, no! We’ve got all this publicity, why would we want to shitcan it?”

“That’s what I thought, but—”

“You’ve always used Blair Creighton, but all the news stories have referred to you as John Creighton, so Esther suggested bylining the books, all of them, old and new, as by John Blair Creighton. Which I think has a very nice ring to it.”

“I should have done it that way from the beginning,” he said. “I’ve had the thought off and on for years.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“An emphatic yes.”

“Jeez, that was easy. Every client I have should be like you, baby.”

“Under indictment, you mean?”

“Get back to work,” she said.

He thought he’d have trouble getting back into the book, but he looked at the last sentence he’d written and remembered what he’d planned to write next, and once he’d put the words down there were more words to follow them.

He was on a break, cracking a fresh pack of cigarettes, when she called again to report Esther Blinkoff at Crown had come up with the floor bid. In return, she got to make a final offer when all the other participants had finished bidding.

“US and Canada only,” she said, “because my guess is we’ll get the same dollars with or without foreign, so why not keep them for ourselves? Everybody’s going to think the book won’t do much overseas, because who gives a shit in Frankfurt if some woman gets strangled in New York? What they’ll forget is you’re a novelist with a following overseas, and we’re not selling true crime, we’re selling literature. They might not get much abroad, but I will.”

“What’s the floor?”

“I was coming to that. One point one.”

“Million.”

“Duh.”

“Jesus. Well, I guess my personal Philip Marlowe can order doubles if he wants. It sounds like I’m going to be able to afford to cover his tab. One million one hundred thousand. Where’d the point one come from?”

“It’s coming from Crown, but it was my idea and I was ready to fight for it. An even million sounds preemptive, even if everybody jumps up and down and calls it a floor. The extra hundred thousand makes the whole number sound like a step in the right direction.”

The extra hundred thousand was substantially higher all by itself than his highest previous advance.

“Plus,” she said, “if all the other players keep their hands in their pockets, we’ve got a hundred thousand more than we’d have otherwise.”

“There’s that.”

“You know what’s a shame? The world never knew you were a suspect in the whorehouse murders, and now they don’t get to learn you’ve been cleared.”

“It’ll probably come out. Everything seems to, sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but after the auction.”

“Ah,” he said. “Not necessarily.”

“Oh?”

“Not if somebody leaked it.”

“Holy shit. Now why the hell didn’t I think of that myself? I know Liz Smith well enough to call her...”

“Or Page Six.”

“Page Six first, to tell them the police have talked to you in connection with the triple killing, di dah di dah di dah, and then Liz Smith so she can rush to your defense and tell the world yes, they talked to you, and they cleared you. I’ll call right now. Wait a minute. Will I be breaking any laws?”

“You’ll be pissing a few people off,” he said, “but I can’t see where you’ll be doing anything illegal. They didn’t even ask us not to talk to anybody.”

“I’m sure they never thought they had to. What about your lawyer? Is he one of the people I’ll be pissing off?”

“What do you care? Anyway, he’ll figure the cops leaked it.”

“And they might, so I’d better get cracking. Bye, sweetie.”

He put down the phone and went over to the window. Below his window, a black man in camo fatigues went through the blue garbage can, selecting aluminum cans for redemption. Recycling didn’t seem to work in New York, all the trash wound up in the same landfill, but the law requiring you to separate it at least made things easier for the can collectors.

Across the street, a man with a clipboard was leading a dozen people on a walking tour of the Village. Willa Cather had lived on this block, and maybe he’d tell them as much and point out the house. They shuffled on by, leaving Creighton with a view of the old man leaning in the doorway.

He’d seen him before, in his plaid shirt and the pants from an old suit. Homeless, he guessed, or the next thing to it, but too proud or not desperate enough to root around in garbage cans.

Maybe he’d go downstairs, take the old fellow to the Corner Bistro and buy him a burger. One point one, Jesus, he could damn well afford it.

He went back to the computer first, to tinker with the last sentence he’d written, and when he looked up an hour had gone by and he’d written a page and a half. He stood up, rubbed his eyes, yawned.

One point one. He ought to call somebody, but who was there to call? And what kind of conversation could he have with someone he hadn’t talked to since before Marilyn Fairchild’s death had changed his life?

He could call Karin, tell her her money was safe, tell her the kids weren’t going to have to worry about money for college. But shouldn’t he wait until after the auction?

He was hungry, he was thirsty, he’d done a good day’s work, and damned if he wasn’t on the verge of genuine success. Blair Creighton had managed to get by, and that was no mean accomplishment in the field he’d chosen, but John Blair Creighton...

Look out, Grisham. Not so fast, Clancy. And you better watch your ass, Steve King.

He grabbed his cigarettes, checked to make sure he had his wallet, and got the hell out of there. When he hit the street he looked around for the old guy he’d seen earlier, but he’d drifted off, missing out on his chance for a Bistro Burger. And the Bistro could wait, because why not take the bull by the horns?

He started walking, and when people looked his way he looked right back at them.

Eddie Ragan looked up when the door opened, and he figured his face showed about as much as it did when he played poker. All in all, he did pretty well at poker.

“John,” he said. “Been a while.”

“Well, I’ve been busy, Eddie. Better let me have a Pauli Girl.”

“You got it.”

And he sat where he always sat and got a cigarette going and looked at the TV, where Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio were duking it out on the classic sports channel. Basilio was bleeding so bad he must have needed a transfusion afterward, and even in black and white it was pretty gruesome. Nowadays they’d stop it, but this was from before the sport got so candy-ass.

Creighton drank some beer, looked around, saw Max the Poet. “Max,” he said.

Max looked up from his book, looked over the tops of his glasses at Creighton, said, “John. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“No, it’s been a while,” Creighton agreed.

“Well, you didn’t miss much,” Max said. “Everything jake with you, John?”

“Jake indeed. And with you, Max?”

“Oh, I can’t complain,” said Max the Poet.

I love this job, Eddie thought.