"Why did she come here, Kenny?"
"To meet someone."
"Broadfield?"
"That's what I assumed, but the man who ultimately met her was a far cry indeed fromBroadfield . It was hard to believe they were both members of the same species."
"And he was the one she was waiting for?"
"Oh, absolutely.He walked in looking for her, and she had been looking up every time the door opened." He scratched his head for a moment. "I don't know if she knew him or not. By sight, I mean. I have a vague feeling that she didn't, but I'm just guessing. This wasn't long ago, Matt, but I didn't really pay too much attention."
"How long were they together?"
"They were together here for perhaps half an hour.Maybe a little longer than that. Then they left together, so they may have spent hours on end in one another's company. They didn't see fit to take me into their confidence."
"And you don't know who the guy was."
"Never saw him before or since."
"What did he look like, Kenny?"
"Well, he didn't look like much, I'll tell you that. But you want a description rather than a critique, I would suppose. Let me just think."
He closed his eyes, drummed his fingers on thebartop . Without opening his eyes he said, "A small person, Matt. Short, slender.Hollow cheeks.A great deal of forehead and an appalling absence of chin.Wore a rather tentative beard to conceal the lack of chin. No mustache. Heavy horn-rimmed glasses, so I didn't see his eyes and couldn't really swear that he had any, although I would guess that he did, as most people generally do. A left one and a right one, conventionally, although now and then- is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Ken."
"Do you know him?"
"Yeah.I know him."
I left Kenny's shortly after that. Then there's a stretch of time I don't remember clearly. I probably hit a bar or two. Eventually I found myself in the vestibule of JerryBroadfield's building onBarrow Street .
I don't know what led me there or why I thought I ought to be there. But it must have made some sort of sense to me at the time.
A strip of celluloid popped the inner lock, and did the same job on the door to his apartment. Once inside his apartment, I locked the door and went around turning on lights, making myself at home. I found the bottle of bourbon and poured myself a drink, got a beer from the refrigerator for a chaser. I sat sipping bourbon and chasing it with beer.
After a little while I turned on the radio and found a station that played unobtrusive music.
After some more bourbon and some more beer I took off my suit and hung it neatly in his closet. I got out of the rest of my clothes and found a pair of his pajamas in the bureau drawer. I put them on. I had to turn up the trouser bottoms because they were a little long on me. Aside from that they weren't a bad fit. A little loose, but not a bad fit.
Sometime just before I went to bed I picked up the telephone and dialed a number. I hadn't dialed it in a few days, but I still remembered it.
A deep voice with an English accent."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."
A gradual process, death.Someone had stabbed her to death forty-eight hours ago in this very apartment, but her voice still answered her telephone.
I called two more times just to hear her voice. I didn't leave any messages. Then I had another can of beer and the rest of the bourbon and crawled into his bed and slept.
Chapter 12
I woke up confused and disoriented, chasing the traces of a formless dream. For a moment I stood beside his bed in his pajamas and did not know where I was. Then memory flooded back, fully and completely. I took a quick shower, driedoff, put my own clothes back on again. I had a can of beer for breakfast and got out of there, walking out into bright sunlight and feeling like a thief in the night.
I wanted to get moving right away. But I made myself have a big breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and coffee at Jimmy Day's onSheridan Square and drank a lot of coffee with it and then took the subway uptown.
There was a message waiting for me at my hotel, along with a lot of junk mail that went straight into the wastebasket. The message was fromSeldonWolk , who wanted me to call him at my convenience. I decided it was as convenient as it would ever be, and I called him from the hotel lobby.
His secretary put me through right away. He said, "I saw my client this morning, Mr. Scudder. He wrote out something for me to read to you. May I?"
"Go ahead."
" 'Matt- Don't know anything aboutManch in connection with Portia. Is he a mayoral assistant? She had a few politicians in her book but wouldn't tell me who. I am not holding out on you anymore. I held out aboutFuhrmann and our plans because I didn't see how it mattered and I like to keep things to myself. Forget all that. Thing to concentrate on is two cops who arrested me. How did they know to come to my apartment? Who tipped them? Work that angle.' "
"That's all?"
"That's it, Mr. Scudder. I feel like a messenger service, relaying questions and answers without understanding them. They might as well be in code. I trust the message makes some sense to you?"
"Some. How didBroadfield seem to you? Is he in good spirits?"
"Oh, very much so.Quite confident he'll be acquitted. I think his optimism is justified." And he had a lot to say about various legal maneuvers that would keepBroadfield out of jail, or get his conviction reversed on appeal. I didn't bother listening, and when he slowed down a little I thanked him and said good-bye.
I stopped at the Red Flame for coffee and thought aboutBroadfield's message. His suggestion was all wrong, and after thinking about it for a while I realized why.
He was thinking like a cop. That was understandable- he had spent years learning to think like a cop, and it was hard to reorient yourself immediately. I still thought like a cop a lot of the time myself, and I'd had a few years to unlearn old habits. From a cop's point of view, it made very good sense to tackle the problem the wayBroadfield wanted to. You stayed with hard data and you worked backward, tracking down every possible avenue of approach until you found out who had called in the homicide report. The odds were that the caller was also the murderer.
If not, he'd probably seen something.
And if he hadn't, somebody else had. Someone may have seen Portia Carr enter theBarrow Street building on the night of her death.
She hadn't entered it alone. Someone had seen her walk in arm in arm with the person who subsequently killed her.
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.