'He's in Manhattan,' she said. 'Perhaps he has a phone, and perhaps it's in the book. You could look it up. I know you'll excuse me if I don't offer to look it up for you.'
'Certainly.'
'I'm sure it's important,' she said. 'Police business always is, isn't it?'
THERE was no Manhattan telephone book at the drugstore so I let the Information operator look for me. She found a Burton Havermeyer on West 103rd Street. I dialed the number and no one answered.
The drugstore had a lunch counter. I sat on a stool and ate a grilled cheese sandwich and a too-sweet piece of cherry pie and drank two cups of black coffee. The coffee wasn't bad, but it couldn't compare with the stuff Jan had brewed in her Chemex filter pot.
I thought about her. Then I went to the phone again and almost dialed her number, but tried Havermeyer again instead. This time he answered.
I said, 'Burton Havermeyer? My name's Matthew Scudder. I wondered if I could come around and see you this afternoon.'
'What about?'
'It's a police matter. Some questions I'd like to ask you. I won't take up much of your time.'
'You're a police officer?'
Hell. 'I used to be one.'
'So did I. Could you tell me what you want with me, Mr.-?'
'Scudder,' I supplied. 'It's ancient history, actually. I'm a detective now and I'm working on a case you were involved with when you were with the Six-One.'
'That was years ago.'
'I know.'
'Can't we do this over the phone? I can't imagine what information I could possibly have that would be useful to you. I was a beat patrolman, I didn't work on cases. I-'
'I'd like to drop by if it's all right.'
'Well, I-'
'I won't take up much of your time.'
There was a pause. 'It's my day off,' he said, in what was not quite a whine. 'I just figured to sit around, have a couple of beers, watch a ball game.'
'We can talk during the commercials.'
He laughed. 'Okay, you win. You know the address? The name's on the bell. When should I expect you?'
'An hour, hour and a half.'
'Good enough.'
* * *
THE Upper West Side is another neighborhood on the upswing, but the local renaissance hasn't crossed Ninety-sixth Street yet.
Havermeyer lived on 103rd between Columbus and Amsterdam in one of the rundown brownstones that lined both sides of the street. The neighborhood was mostly Spanish.
There were a lot of people sitting on the stoops, listening to enormous portable radios and drinking Miller High Life out of brown paper bags. Every third woman was pregnant.
I found the right building and rang the right bell and climbed four flights of stairs. He was waiting for me in the doorway of one of the back apartments. He said, 'Scudder?' and I nodded. 'Burt Havermeyer,'
he said. 'Come on in.'
I followed him into a fair-sized studio with a Pullman kitchen. The overhead light fixture was a bare bulb in one of those Japanese paper shades. The walls were due for paint. I took a seat on the couch and accepted the can of beer he handed me. He popped one for himself, then moved to turn off the television set, a black and white portable perched on top of an orange crate that held paperback books on its lower two shelves.
He pulled up a chair for himself, crossed his legs. He looked to be in his early thirties, five-eight or -
nine, pale complected, with narrow shoulders and a beer gut. He wore brown gabardine slacks and a brown and beige patterned sportshirt.
He had deep-set brown eyes, heavy jowls and slicked-down dark brown hair, and he hadn't shaved that morning. Neither, come to think of it, had I.
'About nine years ago,' I said. 'A woman named Susan Potowski.'
'I knew it.'
'Oh?'
'I hung up and I thought, why's anybody want to talk with me about some case nine or ten years old?
Then I figured it had to be the icepick thing. I read the papers.
They got the guy, right? They made a lap and he fell in it.'
'That's about it.' I explained how Louis Pinell had denied a role in the death of Barbara Ettinger and how the
