Silent Treatment

'Now?'

'It doesn't open for another couple ofhours, but there'll be some musicians there, playing or just hanging out. Thisis actually the time I like it there the most. It's dark and quiet and. .well, sort of like a womb. You know, I just remembered that Andy Barlow oncecame in there to hear me play. .'

Harry's thoughts again entered thedarkened hospital room on Alexander 5 and locked on the thin face staringlifelessly at the ceiling. From the moment he had heard Maura's thick speech onthe phone, he had been holding on by the thinnest of threads. Now, he felt thatthread snap, and himself begin to slide down a sheer glass wall.

'. . The lunatic admitted it, Maura,' hesaid, pacing across the room and back. 'He just called up and admitted killingAndy like. . like he was admitting he stole the morning paper off my frontstoop. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Not one goddamnthing. What am I supposed to do? I'm like a toy for him. Jump, Harry. Rollover. Play dead. How am I ever going to stop this? Who's next?'

'Harry, let's go,' Maura said suddenly,taking his hand. 'Let's get out of here right now. The club might do you somegood, too.'

'I don't know,' he said. 'Listen, let mefind out what this page is all about. Then we can decide what we want to do.'

Harry dialed his answering service. He wasn'ton for his coverage group, so the call had to be something they couldn't dealwith. The answering service operator, usually chatty and ebullient, soundedformal and cool. Apparently, she had joined the ranks of those certain thatHarry was guilty of murdering his wife. It seemed as if word about him wasspreading like toxic fog.

'Dr. Corbett, you got a call from a Mr.Walter Concepcion,' she said, making no effort to pronounce the name theSpanish way. 'He said that he's a patient of yours, but that this isn't amedical problem. He said that no one else but you can help.'

Harry scratched down the number, checkedthat it was the same as the one Mary had given him at the office, and dialed. Awoman answered on the fifth ring.

'- Diga?'

'Buenas tardes,' Harry said. '- Esta WalterConcepcion, por favor?'

Over his two decades of medical practiceon the fringe of Spanish Harlem, he had evolved about a second grader's fluencyin the language, although his accent was closer to preschool.

'Un momento.'

He heard her set the phone down andenvisioned a woman in a print house dress walking to the foot of a flight ofwell-worn oak stairs.

'Oye, Walter!' she called out as if on cue. 'WalterConcepcion! Telefono!' Harry's image this time was of his gaunt, twitchynew patient, slipping his feet into a pair of threadbare slippers, opening oneof several doors on the second floor of the dingy boarding house, and paddingdown the stairs.

'Hola,' he said, at almost the momentHarry expected him to.

'Mr. Concepcion, it's Dr. Corbett.'

'Oh, hey, thanks for calling back soquickly, Doc,' he said. 'Your office gal told me about what happened after thatcall came in. I'm sorry you're having so much trouble. I … I was calling tosee if there might be a time for me to speak with you about it.'

'Actually, I was going to call you.'

He glanced over at Maura and motioned thathe wouldn't be long. He wanted to get to know Walter Concepcion better beforeturning his phone number over to Albert Dickinson. He also wanted to preparethe man for the sort of degrading grilling he could expect from the detective.But another thought had occurred to him as well. Concepcion spoke proudly ofhaving kicked a drug and alcohol habit. On external appearances alone he wasn'texactly a ringing endorsement for abstinence. But he was intelligent in astreetwise sort of way, and did seem to take his recovery seriously. If MurphyOates wasn't at the club, Concepcion might be another voice of hope for Maura.

'Would you be free in, say, an hour?'Harry asked, guessing that the one-time detective would probably be free almostany hour.

'Just say where, Doc, and I'll get there.'

Harry hesitated a moment and then gave himthe address of the club.

C.C.'s Cellar was a 120-seathole-in-the-wall on Fifty-sixth Street west of Ninth Avenue. The scarred brickwalls were covered with signed, black-framed photos of jazz greats, many ofwhom had spent their entire lives in obscurity, enmeshed in a vicious cycle ofpoverty, addiction, and pain. C.C., Carl Cataldo, had died years before, andhad left the club to his niece, Jackie. As far as Harry could tell, except fora few more photos on the walls and a state-of-the-art speaker system, not muchhad changed in the place since Carl opened it decades ago.

There were four people in the dimly litmain room when he and Maura arrived. Jackie, expansive in a stained whiteapron, was getting ready behind the bar. A gnarled old janitor who had beenwith the place since day one was sweeping out the small private-party room. Twomusicians, both guitarists, were trading licks on the stage. One of them calledto Harry.

'Hey, Doc, how about comin' up an'knockin' out a little bass line for us.'

'Later, maybe, Billy.'

'Hey, whenever, my man.'

'Any idea where Murphy is?'

The man shook his head and then ran offseveral incredibly melodic bars of 'I Remember You.' Except for expressinggrief about Harry's loss, no one at the club had even hinted by word or mannerthat they were upset by the publicity surrounding him. They trusted his music,they trusted him. It was that simple. And in a city of eight million or so,this was the only spot where he felt truly safe and accepted.

'Go ahead and play if you want to,' Maurasaid, sipping soda water. 'I'll be fine.'

'Thanks, but I don't think so. I thought Imight want to when we left the apartment, but right now I just want to sit withyou and. . Maura, he simply walked past everyone on Alexander Five, intoAndy's room, and then out again. How could he have done that without a singleperson noticing? Not one.'

'How did he just walk into our room thenight he killed Evie? He knows how to move around hospitals. That's all thereis to it. If you were evil enough and set your mind to it, you could do it justas well. There's so much stress and tension in hospitals that I'll bet most peoplewho work there are totally focused on not making mistakes. There are probablytimes when you could march an elephant through the halls and no one wouldnotice. The guy just knows how to do it.'

'I guess.'

'Harry, I wish I could say something tohelp. I really do.'

'You can, dammit. You can say you won'tpick up a drink again.'

Her eyes sparkled at his curtness. It wasthe first time he had spoken to her that sharply.

'I'll try my best,' she said. 'How'sthat?'

'It'll do for now.'

She stared into her glass.

'So,' she said, brightly, 'tell me aboutthis guy who's meeting us here. You said he's a private detective?'

'Was. He got into trouble with booze andcocaine. I don't know what he did to lose his license, but now he's trying toget it back.'

'Well, I think that may be him overthere.'

Walter Concepcion was getting a soda waterfrom Jackie, who nodded towards where they were sitting. He was wearing alightweight plaid sports jacket and looked more businesslike than he had in Harry'soffice. Harry studied him as he approached the table, wondering what sort ofimpression he might make on Albert Dickinson. He moved well enough, and carriedhimself like someone who had once had some athletic ability. But even dressedup, he still looked wasted and chronically ill. Dickinson would never believehis claim that he had been off crack for years. Harry introduced him to Maura.

'Three soda waters on the perfectpitcher-of-beer day,' Concepcion said, motioning to their three drinks. 'Could itbe that I'm not the only one on the wagon?'

Harry was impressed.