'Returning my call?'
'There's a message that you called Monday.'
There was a pause. Then she said, 'Matt, we spoke Monday night.
You called me back. Don't you remember?'
I felt a chill, as if someone had just scraped a piece of chalk on a blackboard. 'Of course I remember,' I said. 'But how did this slip get back in my box? I thought you'd called a second time.'
'No.'
'I must have dropped the message slip and then some helpful idiot returned it to my box, and it got handed to me just now and I thought it was another call.'
'That's what must have happened.'
'Sure,' I said. 'Anita, I'd had a couple drinks when I spoke to you the other night. My memory's a little vague. You want to remind me what we talked about in case there's anything I forgot?'
We had talked about orthodontia for Mickey. I'd told her to get another opinion. I remembered that part of the conversation, I assured her. Was there anything else? I had said I was hoping to send more money soon, a more substantial contribution than I'd made lately, and paying for the kid's braces shouldn't be any problem. I told her I remembered that part, too, and she said that was about all, except that of course I'd talked to the children. Oh, sure, I told her. I remembered my conversation with the boys. And that was all? Well, then, my memory wasn't so bad after all, was it?
I was shaking when I hung up the phone. I sat there and tried to summon up a memory of the conversation she had just described and it was hopeless. Everything was a blank from the moment just before the third drink Sunday night to the time I'd come out of it in the hospital.
Everything, all of it, gone.
I tore up the message slip, tore it in half again, put the scraps in my pocket. I looked at the other message. The number Chance had left was his service number. I called Midtown North instead. Durkin wasn't in but they gave me his home number.
He sounded groggy when he answered. 'Gimme a second, lemme light a cigarette,' he said. When he came back on the line he sounded all right. 'I was watching teevee,' he said, 'and I went and fell asleep in front of the set. What's on your mind, Scudder?'
'That pimp's been trying to reach me. Chance.'
'Trying to reach you how?'
'By phone. He left a number for me to call. His answering service.
So he's probably in town, and if you want me to set him up—'
'We're not looking for him.'
For an awful moment I thought I must have spoken to Durkin during my blackout, that one of us had called the other and I didn't remember it. But he went on talking and I realized that hadn't happened.
'We had him over at the station house and we sweated him,' he explained. 'We put out a pickup order but he wound up coming in on his own accord. He had a slick lawyer with him and he was pretty slick himself.'
'You let him go?'
'We didn't have one damn thing to hold him on. He had an alibi for the whole stretch from several hours before the estimated time of death to six or eight hours after. The alibi looks solid and we haven't got anything to stack up against it. The clerk who checked Charles Jones into the Galaxy can't come up with a description. I mean he can't say for sure if the man he signed in was black or white. He sort of thinks he was white. How'd you like to hand that to the D.A.?'
'He could have had someone else rent the room. Those big hotels, they don't keep any track of who goes in and out.'
'You're right. He could have had someone rent the room. He also could have had someone kill her.'
'Is that what you figure he did?'
'I don't get paid to figure. I know we haven't got a case against the son of a bitch.'
I thought for a moment. 'Why would he call me?'
'How would I know?'
'Does he know I steered you to him?'
'He didn't hear it from me.'
'Then what does he want with me?'
'Why don't you ask him yourself?'
It was warm in the booth. I cracked the door, let a little air in.
'Maybe I'll do that.'
'Sure. Scudder? Don't meet him in a dark alley, huh? Because if he's got some kind of a hard-on for you, you want to watch your back.'
'Right.'
'And if he does nail you, leave a dying message, will you? That's what they always do on television.'
'I'll see what I can do.'
