I got a couple days' work out of it.'
'Uh-huh. Who took the car and what did they do with it last night?'
'Destroyed public property.'
'Huh?'
'They knocked over a parking meter on Ninth Avenue, then got the hell away in a hurry.'
'And you just happened to be there, and so you just happened to catch the license number, and naturally you figured the car was stolen but you wanted to check because you're a public-spirited citizen.'
'That's close.'
'It's crap. Sit down, Matt. What are you into that I oughta know about?'
'Nothing.'
'How does a stolen car tie into Spinner Jablon?'
'Spinner? Oh, the guy they took out of the river. No connection.'
'Because you were just looking for this woman's husband.' I saw my slip then, but waited to see if he'd caught it, and he had. 'It was his girlfriend looking for him last time I heard it. You're being awful cute with me, Matt.'
I didn't say anything. He picked his cigar out of the ashtray and studied it, then leaned over and dropped it in his wastebasket. He straightened up and looked at me, then away, then at me again.
'What are you holding out?
'Nothing you have to know.'
'How do you get tied into Spinner Jablon?'
'It's not important.'
'And what's with the car?'
'That's not important either.' I straightened up. 'Spinner got dropped in the East River, and the car sheared off a parking meter on Ninth between Fifty-seventh and Fifty-eighth. And the car was stolen uptown, so none of this has been going on in the Sixth Precinct. There's nothing you've got to know, Eddie.'
'Who killed Spinner?'
'I don't know.'
'Is that straight?'
'Of course it's straight.'
'Are you playing tag with somebody?'
'Not exactly.'
'Jesus Christ, Matt.'
I wanted to get out of there. I wasn't holding out anything he had a claim on, and I really couldn't give him or anybody else what I had. But I was playing a lone hand and ducking his questions, and I could hardly expect him to like it.
'Who's your client, Matt?'
Spinner was my client, but I could see no profit in saying so. 'I don't have one,' I said.
'Then what's your angle?'
'I'm not sure I have an angle, either.'
'I hear things to the effect that Spinner was in the dollars lately.'
'He was well dressed the last time I saw him.'
'That so?'
'His suit set him back three hundred and twenty dollars. He happened to mention it.'
He looked at me until I averted my own gaze. In a low voice he said, 'Matt, you don't want people driving cars at you. It's unhealthy. You sure you don't want to lay it all out for me?'
'As soon as it's time, Eddie.'
'And you're sure it's not time yet?'
I took my time answering. I remembered the feel of that car rolling at me, remembered what actually happened, and then remembered how I dreamed it, with the driver taking the big car all the way to the wall.
'I'm sure,' I said.
AT the Lion's Head I had a hamburger and some bourbon and coffee. I was a little surprised that the car had been stolen so far uptown. They could have picked it up early on and parked it in my neighborhood, or the Marlboro man could have made a phone call between the time I left Polly's and the time he found his way into Armstrong's. Which would mean there were at least two people in the thing, which I had already decided on the basis of the voice I'd heard over the telephone.
Or he could have—
No, it was pointless. There were too many possible scenarios I could write for myself, and none of them was
