Third man out

17

I phoned Sandifer from the Parmalee Plaza lobby and asked him if he would like to spend the night at our place again. He said no, a friend from New York had come up; the two of them would stay at the house in Handbag and he would be okay. He sounded less desperate than he had been earlier in the day, and I was relieved to hear it.

Jay Gladu's number was unlisted. I phoned the Fountain of Eden on Route 5 between Albany and Schenectady. The desk clerk wouldn't tell me Gladu's home phone number but said I could leave a message, which I declined to do. I asked when Gladu was likely to show up in person and was told between nine and ten in the morning. This was probably to pick up the overnight receipts.

I reached Bub Bailey at his office in Handbag. He said, "How's your investigation going, Mr. Strachey?"

" 'Investigation' is too grand a word for it, Chief, but I'm doing what little asking around I can."

"That's nice of you. Have you been able to pick up anything yet?"

"Nothing to speak of. How about you? I missed the six o'clock news tonight."

"I have had one piece of good luck," Bailey said mildly. "Two of my officers were combing the driveway area of the Rutka house and they came up with something the abductor may have left behind-a piece of a mud flap from his car. It broke off somehow, or was ripped off, and my officers came across it. It's not from Rutka's car, and Edward Sandifer says no other cars have parked in the driveway to his knowledge. Most park at curbside. So this may be our first real break."

"Can you tell what kind of car it came from?"

"Big, probably American, maybe GM or Chrysler. That's as close as we can get. I'm not making news of the mud flap public, and I'm sure you can understand why. The killer would simply replace his damaged flap and we'd be back where we started. And I can't ask every department in the capital district to go crawling around under all the big American cars looking at mud flaps. That wouldn't make me too popular. But I wanted you to know."

"Thank you, Chief."

"One of my officers will be in Albany this evening and if you'd like, he could stick a photocopy of the mud flap slice in your mailbox-just in case."

"That can't hurt. Thanks." I gave him my street address.

"The bad news is," Bailey said, "that the state lab couldn't find any fingerprints on the note left at the fire scene. Whoever wrote it was being very careful. And the only prints on John's wallet were his own. This all fits in with what we already know about the killer-that he seems to be cold-blooded and methodical."

I said, "I guess I'm not surprised. It seems as though you're looking for someone who's been so unhinged by John's outing campaign that he'll actually kill for revenge, but not so unhinged he wasn't able to go about it in a businesslike way."

"It would certainly help," Bailey said, "if I could get hold of those files John kept. Edward Sandifer says they were sent to Utica for safekeeping but he claims he doesn't know the name of the person out there who has them."

"I'm sure he'd give you the name if he had it, Chief. Eddie wants John's killer caught more than anybody."

"Well, he did give me a list of people who threatened John, and I'm piecing together what I can with copies of Cityscape and Queerscreed and through interviews. Plus, I'm picking up the odd unsolicited tip here and there. I've had two anonymous phone calls, for instance, telling me I'd better check out this Bruno Slinger and find out where he was last night at the time of the abduction and murder. I drove down to the capitol this afternoon and Mr. Slinger wasn't too happy to see me. He had the gall to tell me that he had an alibi for yesterday evening but it was none of my business what it was and I'd just have to take his word for it that he had nothing to do with the murder."

"That sounds like Bruno. He works for a very powerful man, and he sees himself as a kind of prince."

"Since I have no other evidence beyond the anonymous calls and the unsubstantiated allegation that Mr. Slinger threatened John several months ago," Bailey said, "there's nothing more I can do with him at this point. We discreetly located and checked the mud flap on his car, and the mud flap section found at the Rutka house was not Mr. Slinger's. But if I can come up with anything else on him at all, I'll see what I can do to get him in and depose him. You wouldn't have any information on Mr. Slinger that you're holding back, would you, Mr. Strachey?"

"Chief, I wish I did. I mean, not that I'd hold it back. I just wish I knew anything that could help out, and that I could pass along."

A silence. This guy had my number-had had it for probably twenty-four hours.

I said, "Anyway, I'll keep in touch."

"I'm counting on that," he said, and it began to dawn on me that that was exactly what he was doing, counting on me.

I phoned the house and Timmy was out-probably, I figured, at Albany Med. I punched in the code and listened to the single message that had been left on my machine. A male voice I did not recognize, and that I was reasonably certain I had never heard, said, "If you want to find out who killed John Rutka, ask Bruno Slinger who he was with last night." Click. That was all.

At first I was irritated. I was weary of all the secrecy and duplicity and dreary bitchery and I was also fed up with people like Nathan Zenck who seemed to deserve all the secrecy and duplicity and dreary bitchery. And my first impulse was to dismiss the call, as well as the anonymous calls Bub Bailey had received, as useless backstabbing-one or more of Bruno Slinger's hundreds of enemies setting him up to be harassed and humiliated in public.

Then it occurred to me, why was I receiving an anonymous call? Word could not have spread far that I was working on the case and it seemed likely that only truly knowledgeable people would know that I was the man to call with a hot tip.

Plus, something about the caller's words made me wonder. He hadn't said, "Slinger did it-I saw him," or "Slinger's the killer he'll confess under torture." The caller had said, "If you want to find out who killed John Rutka, ask Bruno Slinger who he was with last night." As if Slinger hadn't done it, but somehow he could provide the key to who had done it by telling me who he'd been with while the murder was taking place. Slinger wasn't the key, but his alibi was.

Or maybe this was just more duplicity. I'd have to find out.

Slinger was unlisted in the Albany phone book, though I knew where he lived on Chestnut Street, around the corner from our place on Crow. I phoned a friend of Timmy's in the legislature who I knew would have Slinger's home number, and he gave it to me on the condition that I not mention where I'd gotten it. I dialed.

"Yes?"

"Don Strachey, Bruno. I'm a private investigator and I'm doing some work for someone on the John Rutka case. I have Rutka's files. You're in there. We should talk."

A pause. Then: "You're scum."

"For the time being, I am. But these things work themselves out ethically in the end, I'm told. Could I drop by?"

"No, you could not. I'm on my way out. What do you want from me?"

"Just to talk and to ask a couple of questions, and maybe to reassure you regarding the ultimate disposition of Rutka's files."

"Are you going to demand money?"

"Would you pay it if I did?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"So, now that neither of us feels so threatened by the other, what's a good time for me to drop by? I live in your neighborhood and I stay up late. Around eleven?"

"I know exactly who you are and I know exactly where you live. Do you mean eleven o'clock tonight?"

"If a passerby spotted a known homosexual like me knocking at your door, I'd just tip my hat and say I was a neighbor dropping by to borrow a cup of sulphuric acid."

"Don't get funny with me. It's not a good idea. All right, eleven o'clock." He hung up.

On my way out of the Parmalee Plaza, the desk clerk shrank back when I glowered at him menacingly.

"I feel like J. Edgar Hoover," I told Timmy in the corridor outside room F-5912. "I lie to people, I bully and threaten and manipulate people, I invade their privacy- and all for some higher cause." I had just given him a rundown on the day's events.

"Hoover never did anything for a higher cause. He was an evil psychopath, nothing more."

"Oh, thank you. Now I feel better."

"No, I know why you're doing it. To solve the murder and then destroy the files. But you don't have to use Hoover's methods-or John Rutka's."

"But these are the kind of people it turns out I'm dealing with, evil Hoovers and screwed-up Rutkas. The Hoovers are so repulsive I'm almost enjoying hoisting them on their own petards."

He said, "I think you might even be starting to look a little like Hoover. You should get some rest-and food. Have you not eaten again?"

"I'll agree not to look like Hoover if you agree not to look like Clyde."

"I promise not to for the next ten years or so. After that-hey."

"No, I haven't eaten," I said. "I'm going over to Bruno Slinger's after I leave here, so I could use some coffee and a Mars bar or whatever people dine on around here after the cafeteria closes. Where can I pick something up?"

"Why don't you go in and see Mike and Stu and I'll scrounge up what I can?"

"Thanks. I'll provide you with some unsatisfying, undernourishing repast someday."

"I'm sure you will."

Timmy went down the corridor after a phalanx of priests who'd just come out of Bishop McFee's room and I went into room F-5912 past the skeletal comatose man nobody paid any attention to. Stu Meserole lay amidst the machinery, which looked like some droll array of bleeping and gurgling nonsensical equipment from one of the Ealing comedies of the early fifties.

Stu had discovered the Ealing gems in a video store during his last year of consciousness and they had filled him with delight.

Timmy and I were with him when Stu watched The Lavender Hill Mob and The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit for the second or third time. Now I half expected a demented-looking Alec Guinness to rise up from behind Stu's machinery wielding a smoking beaker that would turn out to contain a cure.

But he didn't. Rhoda Meserole said, "Hello, Donald. It was good of you to come."

"How is he?"

"Oh, the same. All we can do is pray."

Al Meserole was inexplicably missing, freeing up the most comfortable chair for Rhoda. Mike was in his customary seat, and stood up when I came in. He signaled for me to step outside the room, which I did after briefly grasping Stu's limp hand.

"Al's gone," Mike whispered. "He went back to work."

"But Rhoda's still here all the time?"

"Yes, but she's letting down her guard. The woman is human, after all. She goes to the john, she goes to the cafeteria. Sometimes she's gone for half an hour at a time. I could do it. All I need is the drug. You're going to get something for me, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"What did the doctor say today?"

"The same as yesterday. I asked him again just to be certain. The part of Stu's brain that made him human doesn't exist anymore. Stu is dead. It's a travesty what's going on in that room. When can you get me something? I'll pay you whatever it costs."

"I'll have to call someone in New York. You might have to go down and pick it up."

"I can't."

"Why?"

"Rhoda would be suspicious. When I got back, she'd never leave Stu out of her sight."

"I'm kind of tied up around here. And Timmy-he'll have to be told, but he won't want to be involved. He'll accept it, but he won't be able to bring himself to participate. I can get it Fed-Exed up, I guess."

"When can you get it?"

"I'll call New York tonight and let you know tomorrow."

"Don't put it off, okay?"

"I won't."

He squeezed my hand and went back into the room.

When Timmy came back, he said, "Don't tell me. I do understand, but don't tell me."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, and we left it at that. end user