'So you won't be losing much. Then in a month or so you'll start getting the kind of clientele you want.'
'What a devious mind you have, Matthew. I think it might work, at that.'
'It should. And don't give me too much credit. It's done all the time.'
'You say fifty dollars should do it?'
'It ought to. It would have when I was on the force, but everything's been going up lately, even bribery. If Koehler wants more, he'll let you know about it.'
'I don't doubt it. Well, it's not as if I never gave money to New York's Finest. They come around every Friday to collect, and you wouldn't believe what Christmas cost me.'
'Yes, I would.'
'But I never gave them money in the hope of anything beyond being allowed to remain in business. I didn't realize you could ask favors in return.'
'It's a free-enterprise system.'
'So it seems. I just might try it, and I'll buy you a drink on the strength of it.'
He poured a generous shot into my glass. I picked it up and eyed him over the top of it. 'There's something else you could do for me,' I said.
'Oh?'
'Ask around a little about Richie Vanderpoel. I know you don't want to give me any names. That's reasonable. But see if you can find out what he was like. I'd appreciate it.'
'Don't expect much.'
'I won't.'
He ran his fingers through his beautiful blond hair. 'Do you really care what he was like, Matt?'
'Yes,' I said. 'Evidently I do.'
MAYBE it was a reaction to too many visits to bars that were gay in name alone. I'm not sure, but on my way to the subway I stopped at an outdoor phone booth and looked up a number in my notebook. I dropped in a dime and dialed it, and when she answered I said, 'Elaine? Matt Scudder.'
'Oh, hi Matt. How's it going?'
'Not too bad. I was wondering if you felt like company.'
'I'd love to see you. Give me a half hour? I was just getting into the shower.'
'Sure.'
I had coffee and a roll and read the Post. The new mayor was having trouble appointing a deputy mayor. His investigative board kept discovering that his prospective appointees were corrupt in any of several uninteresting ways. There was an obvious answer, and he would probably hit on it sooner or later. He was going to have to get rid of the investigative board.
Some more citizens had killed each other since yesterday's edition went to press. Two off-duty patrolmen had had a few drinks in a bar in Woodside and shot each other with their service revolvers.
One was dead, the other in critical condition. A man and woman who had served ninety days each for child abuse had sued successfully to regain custody of the child from the foster parents who had had the kid for three and a half years.
The nude torso of an adolescent boy had been discovered on a tenement roof on East Fifth Street. Someone had carved an X into the chest, presumably the same person who had removed the arms and legs and head.
I left the newspaper on the table and got a cab.
She lived in a good building on Fifty-first between First and Second. The doorman confirmed that I was expected and nodded me toward the elevator. She was waiting at the door for me, wearing royal-blue hip-huggers and a lime-green blouse. She had gold hoop earrings in her ears and she smelled of a rich, musky perfume.
I draped my coat over an Eames chair while she closed the door and fastened the bolt. She came into my arms for an openmouthed kiss and rubbed her little body against me. 'Mmmm,' she said. 'That's nice.'
'You're looking good, Elaine.'
'Let me look at you. You don't look so bad yourself, in a rugged, rough-hewn sort of a way. How've you been?'
'Pretty good.'
'Keeping busy?'
'Uh-huh.'
There was chamber music stacked on her stereo. The last record was just ending, and I sat on the couch and watched as she walked to the turntable and inverted the stack of records. I wondered whether the hip wiggle was for my benefit or if it came naturally to her. I had always wondered that.
I liked the room. White wall-to-wall shag carpet, stark modern furniture more comfortable than it looked, a lot of primary colors and chrome. A couple of abstract oils on the walls. I couldn't have lived in a room like that, but I enjoyed spending occasional time in it.
'Drink?'
'Not just now.'
