I told her about the hours I’d spent at Grogan’s, and recapped the part of our conversation that had to do with Glenn Holtzmann. And I told her how the two of us had watched the sky turn light, and how we’d gone to St. Bernard’s for the butchers’ mass.
“But Mick was the only man there in a white apron,” I said. “It was pretty much just us and the nuns.”
“You thought he’d killed Holtzmann,” she said.
“I was afraid of it. It was one of the first thoughts that struck me when I finally reached somebody in Altoona who could tell me where the money for law school came from. Here was Holtzmann, a career rat, and here was my friend Mick, with his car and his home and his place of business all deeded to other people so the government couldn’t seize them. And he talked about it all the time, how they’d confiscate your assets if they could prove you had any, how his lawyer wanted him to make sure he didn’t lose the farm if his tenants died on him and willed it to somebody else.
“I ran into Glenn once at Grogan’s. I was drinking a Coke at the bar and he thought it was a glass of Guinness, which shows how well he blended in at your basic Hell’s Kitchen saloon. But he knew who owned the place, and he was full of questions about Butcher Ballou until I told him it was bad form to ask them. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have asked other people, and he might have learned something, and might have tried to use what he’d learned.
“Now it didn’t really make sense to figure Mick killed him. Glenn did what he did in the shadows, and the two people he screwed that we know about never even knew what hit them. He certainly wouldn’t have exposed himself to a man known to all as a stone killer. And if Mick did somehow get wind of what he was up to, it would have been the easiest thing in the world to warn him off.
“Here’s where I went wrong,” I said. “Instead of thinking it through, I shut down. I grabbed hold of the idea that my work was complete because I’d done all I could for both my clients. Lisa Holtzmann’s money was safe and there was nothing more I could do for George Sadecki. And I had no leads to the real killer, so I could stop looking for him.
“Meanwhile, it gnawed at me. I couldn’t stay out of Grogan’s. I was seeking out Mick’s company every couple of days, and I would sit up with him and never talk about what was foremost on my mind. And, as far as that goes, it wasn’t foremost on my mind, not consciously, because I wasn’t letting myself think about it.
“Then Nicholson James shot Roger the Dodger. And I read the goddamn story, and it didn’t even register.”
“And then you went and talked with Mick.”
“I went and talked with him,” I said, “and somehow the subject of Glenn Holtzmann came up.” No need to say how that had come about. “And what he said made it abundantly clear that I’d let my anxiety keep me from thinking straight. And, miraculously, I began to remember that I’d read something recently that rang a bell. I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was something.”
“Funny how minds work.”
“You said it.”
“Suppose he’d done it,” she said.
“Mick?”
She nodded. “Suppose he admitted it, or suppose you came across some evidence that was absolutely unequivocal. Then what?”
“You mean what would I have done about it?”
“Uh-huh.”
I didn’t have to think it through. “I wouldn’t have done a thing,” I said. “The case was closed and I was through with it.”
“It wouldn’t have bothered you that he was getting away with murder?”
“I’d hate to guess how many murders Mick has gotten away with,” I said. “I was an eyewitness to one of them and he’s told me about plenty of others. If I can swallow all that, why should one more killing stick in my throat?”
“Even if it’s one that involves you?”
“How am I involved? Because I was vaguely acquainted with the victim? Because the case dropped into my lap after the fact? It’s not as though he would have killed somebody close to me, or as if the act itself were particularly reprehensible. If he had killed Glenn, I’d have said he had good reason.”
“So suspecting him didn’t change how you felt toward him.”
“Not really, no.”
“And it didn’t affect your relationship.”
“Why should it?”
“But you went to mass with him this morning,” she said. “And you haven’t done that in a long time.”
“You Jewish girls,” I said. “You don’t miss a trick.”
“Well?”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “I guess I wouldn’t allow myself to participate in that little ritual of ours as long as I suspected him. And once the suspicion was lifted I guess I felt a need to mark the occasion.”
“And then you remembered the news item.”
“I remembered that there was an item, and that it was recent. I read through back issues until I found what I was looking for. Then I started digging. The minute Julia mentioned a pimp named Zoot, I thought of the one person I remembered seeing in a zoot suit. That was Nicholson James, and I’d seen him talking with Danny Boy when I was working that abduction case. Kenan Khoury’s wife. You remember.”
“Of course.”
“I talked to Danny Boy afterward, and he didn’t even know there was bad blood between the two pimps, so it was good luck that Julia happened to know. But this whole business hasn’t exactly been overflowing with good luck, so I’ll take it.”
“I don’t blame you,” she said. “God, you look tired, honey. I’d offer you more coffee but that’s probably the last thing you need.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I’m tired myself,” she said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”
“I know.”
“I got scared when you called. Saying you’d been up all night and that you needed to talk to me. I was afraid of what you were going to say.”
“I just wanted to tell you what happened.”
“I know.”
“And I didn’t want to go to sleep by myself.”
“Well, you don’t have to,” she said.
When I got into bed the thought came to me that, tired as I was, I was going to have trouble drifting off. The next thing I knew, sunlight was streaming in the bedroom window and the smell of fresh coffee permeated the apartment.
I was having my second cup when the phone rang. Elaine answered it, and I looked over at her and watched her face change. “Just a moment,” she said. “He’s right here.”
She covered the mouthpiece and said, “It’s for you. It’s Janice Keane.”
“Oh?”
She handed me the phone and stalked out of the room. I’d have gone after her but I had the goddamn telephone in my hand. I said, “Hello?”
“Matthew, I’m sorry, I picked a bad time, didn’t I?”
“It’s all right.”
“Do you want to call me back?”
“No,” I said. “It’s okay.”
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Because it’s nothing urgent, except insofar as everything has acquired a certain urgency. I had a moment of what I’d have to call enlightenment yesterday, not long after you left. I almost called you then but I wanted to sleep on it and see if it was still there in the morning.”
“And is it?”
“Uh-huh. And I wanted to share it with you, because it involves you, sort of.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not going to kill myself,” she said. “I’m not going to use that gun you brought me.”
“Really.”
“Yes. Do you want to know what happened? After you left I looked in the mirror, and I couldn’t believe how lousy I looked. And I thought, well, so what? I can live with it. And I suddenly realized that I could live with whatever came along, for as long as I had to. I might not be able to do anything about it, but I could live with it, I could endure it.