apartment after trying Elaine Albee's telephone number again.
'We didn't actually have a date,' said Lowry. 'I said something this morning about a movie, but nothing definite.'
He settled back in the seat disconsolately. They had missed Flythe at his office and it was beginning to look as if the Graphic Games rep had his own plans for the evening.
'Let's give him another twenty minutes and then, call it a day,' suggested Eberstadt, rummaging in the bottom of the bag which had held their greasy cheeseburgers for the last stray french fry. His kids were teenagers, his wife on half a dozen church committees, so he was in no hurry to get home; but he remembered how it used to be.
Even as he spoke, they saw Ted Flythe swing down from a city bus on the corner and head toward them, jingling his door keys.
They got out of the car. 'Mr. Flythe? NYPD. About the Maintenon case.'
'Yeah?' He stood with his key ring dangling from his index finger. 'I remember you guys. What's happening?'
'We wondered if we could ask you a few more questions.'
'Sure. Come on up.'
Flythe's apartment was not all that different from his, thought Jim Lowry, looking around. A little bigger maybe, a little neater, but definitely the space inhabited by a man living without a woman. He'd never quite understood why a woman's apartment differed froma man's. It was the same sort of furniture, the same rugs on the floor, and sometimes the same stacks of newspapers and magazines and dirty dishes piled just as high; and yet there was always something. Lamps maybe? Light always seemed softer in a woman's place.
'How about a beer?' asked Ffythe from the kitchen.
'Sure,' said Eberstadt.
'Nothing for me, thanks,' said Lowry, prowling the living room restlessly. Should he call Lainey again? It wasn't like her not to leave a message.
'So, gentlemen,' said Flythe as he opened their beers. 'What would you like to know?'
'More routine,' said Eberstadt, co-opting the most comfortable chair in the room. There were no coasters on the end table, so he used a magazine for his beer can. 'Just getting the loose ends straight. This was your first tournament with Graphic Games?'
'Right.' Flythe blotted the foam from his neat Vandyke beard and repeated what he'd told them before: how long he'd been with Graphic Games, a bit ofh is previous history. He seemed almost as relaxed.as Matt Eberstadt.
Jim Lowry was still roaming the room and he paused before a framed diploma over the stereo. ' Carlyle Union College,' he read, then peered closer at the faded ink. 'June 1967.'
'You were probably just entering grade school,' said Flythe. 'You sure I can't get you a drink?'
'No, thanks. We were wondering about Sunday morning.'
'What about it?'
'Did you know the kid that was killed? Pernell Johnson?'
'Not by name. I'd seen him ground all weekend though.'
'Talk to him much?'
Flythe shook his head. 'No need to. Miss Baldwin and the room steward-What's his name? George? They kept that side of the tournament running smoothly. I'll say that for the Maintenon. Graphic Games got its money's worth. Lucienne Ronay runs a class operation. Those fancy ballrooms.'
'We heard you liked the bedroom, too,' said Eberstadt, with a slow winkt hat was a visual nudge.
Flythe gave an airy man-of-the-world wave of his hand. 'No point letting opportunity knock and not get up to answer,' he grinned.
'The last time anyone seems to have seen Johnson alive was about the middle of the break on Sunday morning,' said Lo wry. 'About 10:41. Did you run into him after the break began?'
'Nope, can't say that I did.' Flythe drained his glass and looked at Eberstadt's. 'Ready for another suds?'
'No, thanks. Let me get this straight, now. When you left the tournament, you went out the back exit, right?'
'Right. There's an elevator behind the one in the lobby and I took it up to my room. Had to change my shirt because of one of those ditsy kids. I didn't even know she was there. I turned around right after the break started and she had one of those goddamned permanent markers in her hand-getting ready to make someone a new name tag she said-and put a black line three inches long right across the front of a new forty-five-dollar shirt. And don't think
'Did the girl go up with you?' asked Eberstadt, with an insinuating smile. 'Help you find a fresh shirt or something?'
'Naw. I didn't have time for a long hunt.' He laughed.
'So in fact,' said Lowry, 'you were away from the Bontemps Room from, shall we say, 10:25 to 10:55? With no one to confirm your movements?'
'Hey, wait a minute! What the hell are you playing at?'
'Oh, we're not playing, Mr. Flythe. Pernell Johnson was killed sometime between 10:41 and eleven o'clock A.M. and you can't seem to prove where you were.'
'Jesus H. Christ!' groaned Flythe. 'I'll show you the goddamn shirt!'
Lowry followed him to the bedroom, his hand inconspicuously close to the gun under his jacket. But Flythe rummaged through a basket of dirty laundry and came up with a crumpled shirt. It did indeed have a long black ink stain across the front.
'You think I'd lie about a dumb thing like this?'
'I don't know,' said Eberstadt from the doorway, where he stood with the framed diploma in his big hands. 'You lied about a dumb thing like a college, why not murder?'
'What the bloody hell-?'
'Knock it off, Flythe,' said Lo wry impatiently. 'Alfred Theodore Flythe
– the
– graduated in 1907. If you look closely, you can see where you changed the zero to a six. You never went to Carlyle. Why did you lie about it?'
Ted Flythe sank down on his unmade bed and put a pillow over his head. They heard a steady string of muffled heartfelt curses, and they waited till he started repeating himself.
'Who's Alfred Theodore Flythe?' asked Eberstadt.
Flythe sat up. 'Me. And my grandfather. I was named for him. Look, you gotta understand: every job you go into today, doesn't matter how sharp you are, how much chutzpah you've got, the first thing they want to know is, have you got yourc ollege degree? You think it takes a college education to handle a bloody cribbage tournament? So I tell 'em I graduated from this little college that went bankrupt in the seventies, show 'em the old sheepskin, and I'm in. They're never going to look it up. They don't really care. They're just checking off boxes on their questionaire.'
The went back into the living room. Eberstadt accepted another beer and they turned Flythe inside out, but got nothing further out of him. He insisted that he'd never seen John Sutton before that first chance encounter last Wednesday and that the only place he'd gone during the Sunday morning break was straight upstairs to his room for a fresh shirt and back down again.
It was only seven o'clock when they gave up. Lowry borrowed Flythe's phone and rang Elaine Albee's apartment again.
Still no answer.
29
