She took my number, and within ten minutes the phone rang.
'Marty McGraw,' he said. 'Matthew Scudder, you're the detective Whitfield hired, right? I think we might have met once.'
'Years ago.'
'Most of my life is years ago. What have you got for me?'
'A question. Did the letter run verbatim?'
'Absolutely. Why?'
'No cuts at all? Nothing held back at the cops' request?'
'Now how could I tell you that?' He sounded aggrieved. 'For all I know, you could be Will yourself.'
'You're absolutely right,' I said. 'On the other hand, if I were Will, I'd probably know whether or not you cut my copy.'
'Jesus,' he said, 'I'd hate to be the one to do something like that. I know how I get when that mutt at the big desk cuts my copy, and I'm not a homicidal maniac.'
'Well, neither am I. Look, here's what I'm getting at. As far as I can tell, there's nothing in the letter to disprove the suicide theory.'
'There's Will's word on the subject. He says he did it.'
'And he's never lied to us in the past.'
'As far as I know,' he said, 'he hasn't. With Roswell Berry in Omaha he refused to confirm or deny, but he was being cute.'
'He mentioned that Berry'd been stabbed, if I remember correctly.'
'That's right, and that was information the police had held back, so that certainly suggested he'd had a hand in it.'
'Well, is there anything like that in the latest letter? Because I couldn't spot it. That's why I wondered if anything had been cut.'
'No, we ran it verbatim. I wasn't kidding when I said I'd hate to be the one to cut his copy. I'm already getting more attention than I want from the guy.'
'I can see where it must have cost you a lot of readers.'
His laugh was like a terrier's bark. 'In that respect,' he admitted,
'it s a fucking godsend. My only regret is he didn't get this rolling before my recent contract negotiations. Same time, a person gets nervous being Will's window on the world. I have to figure he's reading me three times a week. Suppose he doesn't like what I write? Last thing I want to do is piss off an original thinker like him.'
'An original thinker?'
'Case in point. While I'm saying the sentence, the phrase I've got in mind is 'nut job.' And the thought strikes me that maybe he's got my phone tapped and he'll resent me for casting aspersions on his state of mind. So I do a spot edit in midsentence, strike out 'nut job' and pencil in
'original thinker.'
'The journalistic mind at work.'
'But on second thought I don't really believe he has my phone tapped, and what does he care what I call him? Names will never hurt him. I'm not sure sticks and stones will, either. What makes you think he's lying about getting Whitfield?'
'The amount of time it took him to write. It's been a full week since Whitfield died.'
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, 'That's what proves it.'
'Proves what? That he did it? Because I don't see how.'
'We just got this,' he said, 'or it would have run along with the rest of the story. So I don't want to say anything over the phone because we'd like to be first with it tomorrow. You right here in the city? You know where the News is, don't you?'
'Thirty-third between Ninth and Tenth. But if you hadn't asked I might have gone to the old place on East Forty-second. That's still the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the News.'
'What's the zip code?'
'The zip code? You want me to write to you?'
'No, not particularly. Look, you haven't got anything against tits, have you? There's a joint called Bunny's Topless on Ninth and Thirty-second that's quieter than a sulky Trappist this time of day. Why don't you meet me there in half an hour?'
'All right.'
'You won't have any trouble recognizing me,' he said. 'I'll be the guy with a shirt on.'
* * *
I don't know what Bunny's Topless is like at night. It would almost have to be livelier, with more young women displaying their breasts and more men staring at them. And it's probably sad at any hour, deeply sad in the manner of most emporia that cater to our less-noble instincts.
Gambling casinos are sad in that way, and the glitzier they are the more palpable is their sadness. The air has
