'I always thought she went toNew York to find herself. Not to be an actress, it never seemed that important to her. But to find herself. And now my fear is that she's lost.'
I had lunch at a pizza stand onEighth Avenue . I got a thick square of the Sicilian and shook a lot of crushed red pepper onto it and ate it standing up at the counter, washing it down with a small Coke. It seemed quicker and more predictable than, say, walking down to the Druid's Castle and finding out for myself what toad-in-the-hole was.
There was a noon meeting Tuesdays at St. Clare's Hospital, and I remembered that Eddie had mentioned it as one he want to fairly regularly. I got there late but stayed right through to the prayer. He didn't show up.
I called my hotel to see if there were any messages. Nothing.
I don't know what made me go looking for him. Cop instinct, maybe. I'd been expecting to see him atSt.
Paul 's the night before and hadn't. He could have changed his mind about doing his fifth step with me, or might simply have wanted more time to weigh the idea, and might have stayed away from the meeting to avoid encountering me before he was ready. Or he might have decided he wanted to watch something on television that night, or gone to another meeting, or for a long walk.
Still, he was an alcoholic and he'd been troubled, and those conditions could have inclined him to forget all the fine reasons he knew for staying away from a drink. Even if he'd started drinking, that was no call for me to go after him. The only time to help somebody is when he asks for it. Until then, the best thing I could do for him was leave him alone.
Maybe I was just tired of trying to cut the cold trail of Paula Hoeldtke. Maybe I went looking for Eddie because I figured he'd be easy to find.
* * *
Even so, it took some doing. I knew what street he was on but I didn't know the building, and I didn't much feel like going door-to-door trying to read the nameplates on doorbells and mailboxes. I checked a phone book to see if he was still listed in spite of his phone having been disconnected. I couldn't find him.
I called an Information operator and identified myself as a police officer and made up a shield number.
That's a misdemeanor, but I don't suppose it's the sort of thing you can go to hell for. I wasn't asking her to do anything illegal, just trying to get her to do me a favor she'd probably have denied a civilian. I told her I was trying to find a listing a year or two old. It wasn't in her computer, but she found an old White Pages and looked it up for me.
I'd told her I was looking for an E. Dunphy in the 400 block ofWest Fifty-first Street . She didn't have that, but she showed a P. J.
Dunphy at 507 West Fifty-first, which could put him three or four doors west ofTenth Avenue . That sounded likely. It had been his mother's apartment, and he wouldn't have bothered to change the way the phone was listed.
Number 507 was like its neighbors, an old-law tenement six stories tall. Not all of the bells and mailboxes had nameplates, but there was a slip of white cardboard in the slot next to the bell for 4-C
with dunphy hand-lettered on it.
I rang his bell and waited. After a few minutes I rang it again and waited some more.
I rang the bell marked super. When the buzzer sounded in response I pushed the door and let myself into a dim hallway that smelled of mice and cooked cabbage and stagnant air. Down at the end of the hall a door opened and a woman emerged. She was tall, with straight shoulder-length blond hair secured with a rubber band. She wore blue jeans that were starting to go at the knee and a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow and the top two buttons unbuttoned.
'My name's Scudder,' I told her. 'I'm trying to locate one of your tenants. Edward Dunphy.'
'Oh, yes,' she said. 'Mr. Dunphy's on the fourth floor. One of the rear apartments. I think it's 4-C.'
'I tried his bell. There was no answer.'
'Then he's probably out. Was he expecting you?'
'I was expecting him.'
She looked at me. She'd appeared younger from a distance but at close range you could see that she had to be crowding forty. She carried the years well enough. She had a high broad forehead with a sharply defined widow's peak, a jawline that was strong but not severe. Good cheekbones, interesting facial planes. I had kept company with a sculptor long enough to think in those terms, and the breakup had been too recent for me to have lost the habit.
She said, 'Do you think he's upstairs? And not answering his bell?
Of course it's possible that it's out of order. I fix them when the tenants report them, but if you don't get many visitors you wouldn't necessarily know that your bell wasn't functioning. Do you want to go up there and knock on his door?'
'Maybe I'll do that.'
'You're worried about him,' she said. 'Aren't you?'
'I am, and I couldn't tell you why.'
She made up her mind quickly. 'I have a key,' she said. 'Unless he's changed the lock, or put on an extra one. God knows I would, in a city like this one.'
She returned to her own apartment, came back with a ring of keys, then double-locked her own door and led the way up the stairs. Other smells joined the mouse and cabbage scents in the stairwell. Stale beer, stale urine. Marijuana. Latin cooking.
'If they change the locks, or add new ones,' she said, 'I'm supposed to get the key. There's actually a clause to that effect in the lease, the landlord has the right of access to all apartments. But nobody pays any attention to
