that it makes much sense for either of us.'
'Oh, God.'
I let her think about it. The hook was set now, and there was no way she was going to shake it loose.
She said, 'Today's impossible. Some friends are coming over for coffee, they'll be here any minute.'
'Tonight?'
'No. Gerry'll be home. Tomorrow?'
'Morning or afternoon?'
'I have a doctor's appointment at ten. I'm free after that.'
'I'll be at your place at noon.'
'No. Wait a minute. I don't want you coming to the house.'
'Pick a place and I'll meet you.'
'Just give me a minute. Christ. I don't even know this area, we just moved here a few months ago. Let me think. There's a restaurant and cocktail lounge on Schuyler Boulevard. It's called the Carioca. I could stop there for lunch after I get out of the doctor's.'
'Noon?'
'All right. I don't know the address.'
'I'll find it. The Carioca on Schuyler Boulevard.'
'Yes. I don't remember your name.'
'Scudder. Matthew Scudder.'
'How will I recognize you?'
I thought, I'll be the man who looks out of place. I said, 'I'll be drinking coffee at the bar.'
'All right. I guess we'll find each other.'
'I'm sure we will.'
MY illegal entry the night before had yielded little hard data beyond Marcia Maisel's name. The search of the premises had been complicated by my not knowing precisely what I was searching for. When you toss a place, it helps if you have something specific in mind. It also helps if you don't care whether or not you leave traces of your visit. You can search a few shelves of books far more efficiently, for example, if you feel free to flip through them and then toss them in a heap on the rug. A twenty-minute job stretches out over a couple of hours when you have to put each volume neatly back in place.
There were few enough books in Wendy's apartment, and I hadn't bothered with them, anyway. I wasn't looking for something which had been deliberately concealed. I didn't know what I was looking for, and now, after the fact, I wasn't at all sure what I had found.
I had spent most of my hour wandering through those rooms, sitting on chairs, leaning against walls, trying to rub up against the essence of the two people who had lived here. I looked at the bed Wendy had died on, a double box spring and mattress on a Hollywood frame. They had not yet stripped off the blood-soaked sheets, though there would be little point in doing so; the mattress was deeply soaked with her blood, and the whole bed would have to be scrapped.
At one point I stood holding a clot of rusty blood in my hand, and my mind reeled with images of a priest offering Communion. I found the bathroom and gagged without bringing anything up.
While I was there, I pushed the shower curtain aside and examined the tub.
There was a ring around it from the last bath taken in it, and some hair matted at the drain, but there was nothing to suggest that anyone had been killed in it. I had not suspected that there would be. Richie Vanderpoel's recapitulation had not been a model of concise linear thought.
The medicine cabinet told me that Wendy had taken birth-control pills. They came in a little card with a dial indicating the days of the week so that you could tell whether you were up-to-date or not.
Thursday's pill was gone, so I knew one thing she had done the day she died.
She had taken her pill.
Along with the birth-control pills I found enough bottles of organic vitamins to suggest that either or both of the apartment's occupants had been a believer. A small vial with a prescription label indicated that Richie had suffered from hay fever. There was quite a bit in the way of cosmetics, two different brands of deodorant, a small electric razor for shaving legs and underarms, a large electric razor for shaving faces. I found some other prescription drugs-Seconal and Darvon (his), Dexedrine spansules labeled For Weight Control (hers), and an unlabeled bottle containing what looked like Librium. I was surprised the drugs were still around. Cops are apt to pocket them, and men who would not take loose cash from the dead have trouble resisting the little pills that pick you up or settle you down.
I took the Seconal and the Dex along with me.
A closet and a dresser in the bedroom filled with her clothes. Not a large wardrobe, but several dresses had labels from Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor.
His clothes were in the living room. One of the closets there was his, and he kept shirts and socks and underwear in the drawers of a Spanish-style kneehole desk.
The living-room couch was a convertible. I opened it up and found it made up with sheets and blankets. The sheets had been slept on since their last laundering. I closed the couch and sat on it.
A well-equipped kitchen, copper-bottomed frying pans, a set of burnt-orange enameled cast-iron pots and pans, a teak rack with thirty-two jars of herbs and spices. The refrigerator held a couple of TV
