trouser bottoms because they were a little long on me. Aside from that they weren't a bad fit. A little loose, but not a bad fit.
Sometime just before I went to bed I picked up the telephone and dialed a number. I hadn't dialed it in a few days, but I still remembered it.
A deep voice with an English accent.'Seven-two-five-five.I am sorry, but no one is at home at the moment. If you will leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, your call will be returned as soon as possible. Thank you.'
A gradual process, death.Someone had stabbed her to death forty-eight hours ago in this very apartment, but her voice still answered her telephone.
I called two more times just to hear her voice. I didn't leave any messages. Then I had another can of beer and the rest of the bourbon and crawled into his bed and slept.
Chapter 12
I woke up confused and disoriented, chasing the traces of a formless dream. For a moment I stood beside his bed in his pajamas and did not know where I was. Then memory flooded back, fully and completely. I took a quick shower, driedoff, put my own clothes back on again. I had a can of beer for breakfast and got out of there, walking out into bright sunlight and feeling like a thief in the night.
I wanted to get moving right away. But I made myself have a big breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast and coffee at Jimmy Day's onSheridan Square and drank a lot of coffee with it and then took the subway uptown.
There was a message waiting for me at my hotel, along with a lot of junk mail that went straight into the wastebasket. The message was fromSeldonWolk , who wanted me to call him at my convenience. I decided it was as convenient as it would ever be, and I called him from the hotel lobby.
His secretary put me through right away. He said, 'I saw my client this morning, Mr. Scudder. He wrote out something for me to read to you. May I?'
'Go ahead.'
' 'Matt- Don't know anything aboutManch in connection with Portia. Is he a mayoral assistant? She had a few politicians in her book but wouldn't tell me who. I am not holding out on you anymore. I held out aboutFuhrmann and our plans because I didn't see how it mattered and I like to keep things to myself. Forget all that. Thing to concentrate on is two cops who arrested me. How did they know to come to my apartment? Who tipped them? Work that angle.' '
'That's all?'
'That's it, Mr. Scudder. I feel like a messenger service, relaying questions and answers without understanding them. They might as well be in code. I trust the message makes some sense to you?'
'Some. How didBroadfield seem to you? Is he in good spirits?'
'Oh, very much so.Quite confident he'll be acquitted. I think his optimism is justified.' And he had a lot to say about various legal maneuvers that would keepBroadfield out of jail, or get his conviction reversed on appeal. I didn't bother listening, and when he slowed down a little I thanked him and said good-bye.
I stopped at the Red Flame for coffee and thought aboutBroadfield's message. His suggestion was all wrong, and after thinking about it for a while I realized why.
He was thinking like a cop. That was understandable- he had spent years learning to think like a cop, and it was hard to reorient yourself immediately. I still thought like a cop a lot of the time myself, and I'd had a few years to unlearn old habits. From a cop's point of view, it made very good sense to tackle the problem the wayBroadfield wanted to. You stayed with hard data and you worked backward, tracking down every possible avenue of approach until you found out who had called in the homicide report. The odds were that the caller was also the murderer.
If not, he'd probably seen something.
And if he hadn't, somebody else had. Someone may have seen Portia Carr enter theBarrow Street building on the night of her death.
She hadn't entered it alone. Someone had seen her walk in arm in arm with the person who subsequently killed her.
And that was the kind of thing a cop could have run down. The police department had two things that made that sort of investigation work for them- the manpower and the authority. And you needed both to bring it off. One man working alone was not going to get anywhere. One man, with not even a junior G-man badge to convince people they ought to talk to him, would not even begin to accomplish anything that way.
Especially when the police would not even cooperate with him in the first place.Especially when they were opposed to any investigation that might getBroadfield out of the hot seat.
So my approach had to be a very different one, and one that no policeman could be expected to approve. I had to find out who had killed her, and then I had to find the facts that might back up what I'd already doped out.
But first I had to find somebody.
A small person, Kenny had said. Short, slender.Hollow cheeks.A great deal of forehead and an appalling absence of chin.A tentative beard. No mustache. Heavy horn-rimmed glasses …
* * *
I dropped by Armstrong's first to check. He wasn't there and hadn't been in yet that morning. I thought about having a drink but decided I could tackle DouglasFuhrmann without one.
Except that I didn't get the chance. I went to his rooming house and rang the bell, and the same slatternly woman answered it. She may have been wearing the same robe and slippers. Once again she told me she was full up and suggested I try three doors down the street.
'DougFuhrmann ,' I said.
