the Par Central Motel.
'What did he do with them?' William asked, because he was kind of curious about this kind of thing, pictures and playacting, and if she was going to kiss and tell, he might as well sit and ask.
'Them?'
'The pictures?'
'How do I know? Kept them, I guess.'
'I guess,' thinking that's what he'd do, keep them, wondering now what Eat Your Heart Out looked like in the big picture that was her, like lipstick on a new handkerchief, that red.
'Hey look'-a kind of defensiveness crept into her voice now-'he didn't want me to beat him, okay. He didn't want me to piss on him, or dress him up like a sissy. He didn't want me to fuck him either. As far as I'm concerned, that made him a prince.'
Okay, William thought, Prince Jean.
'I think it's time to go,' he said. 'I think I've done enough damage for one night,' alluding to the patchwork quilt of towels, alluding also to himself, because he felt damaged too, though not exactly sure in which way.
'Nice seeing you,' she said, but even with her smile back, that smile, it was devoid of conviction; it would be nice seeing him leave.
He lifted himself up off the couch, not an insubstantial feat given all the drinks, all the drinks taken and all the drinks given back, and given the pain too which was dancing the hokey-pokey in his shoulder and threatening to make him cry.
'Another retired detective you've been more than kind to.' A nice closing line, a suitable amount of gentility and humble pie, a line just right.
'But he wasn't retired,' she said, as if lightly correcting a guest's grammar.
William only half heard her. He was thinking if he shouldn't perhaps offer her money again for the carpet. He was thinking about the odds of making it home without falling down. He was definitely thinking that it had been a big mistake coming here like this, and that the only way to undo that mistake was to leave. Yet while half of him didn't hear her, half of him did, and so he echoed her, buying time while the part of his mind that was already out the door tiptoed back in.
'… wasn't retired?'
'Right. He wasn't retired.'
'What's that supposed to mean?' William said.
'It means he wasn't retired.'
'Do you know how old he was?'
'Yeah. About as old as you.'
William winced. 'What makes you think he wasn't retired?'
'He told me,' she said. 'And told me.'
'That he was still working?'
'Yeah. On a real case too. No more chasing runaways.'
'Runaways?'
'Right. Runaways.'
'Who hired him to do that?'
She laughed-okay, more like yuk-yukked. 'He hired himself. He'd go down to the Port Authority and wait for them to get off the bus. Then he'd race the pimps to get there first. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he'd call up their daddies for the reward.'
Jean wasn't retired and Jean had chased runaways. But then he'd stopped chasing runaways-because he got a real case.
'This real case? What was it?' It was a little like old times, wasn't it-rattling off questions he didn't really want the answers to.
'The biggest case of his life,' she said.
William didn't think he'd heard her right. Was sure he hadn't.
'What?'
'The biggest case of his life.'
Now what was he supposed to make of that? You think about it and tell me you wouldn't want to double over with laughter.
'Okay,' William said, 'and what was the biggest case of his life?'
'Look.' She was bored with this-with him. 'He was an old man. He said he had a case. I said what case. The biggest case of my life. I said that's nice-what is it? I can't tell. You can't even tell me a little bit? No. I can't even tell you a little bit. But it's the biggest case-I know, I said, of your life. I'm glad for you. Then I changed the subject. Okay?'
She was bored with him-she walked over to the door.
'Thanks for dropping in,' she said.
Outside in the hall, then later as he walked past the doorman, who seemed to admonish him with a dour shake of his head, and even later as he walked to the subway in the sticky summer heat, he tried to picture his day tomorrow. Breakfast at the luncheonette: two eggs over easy and some OJ. Then the paper: racing first, Yankees second, Mets who cares. He tried to picture it, but his day seemed to pale before his eyes, a Polaroid in reverse. The biggest case of his life. He tried to remember if he had a token. Had he bought two on the way over-or just one? The biggest case of his life. He'd lied to her. A washed-up detective down to picking clients off milk cartons and so he'd lied to her. The biggest lie of his life. Even she thought so. And even if it wasn't a lie, who cares. What did it matter now? But he had lied to her. He had. Of course he had.
EIGHT
The Mustang's air-conditioning was still broken; the Florida sun was still brutal. And so far, so was his day.
He'd managed to cover two more addresses. Two more names on the list, and though he hadn't found them, he'd continued to find someone else.
Hello Jean.
He was pulling backup again-that's what he was doing. It was the old days all over again, and he was following one of the other Three Eyes around in the dark because they were going in blind and needed some protection. Only this time he was the blind one and the Three Eye he was following was dead.
The first stop of the day had been 1610 Beaumont Street, a tenement only days away from demolition, its only remaining tenants a pair of emaciated crack addicts who shared a first-floor apartment-and who at first refused to answer the door, thinking, perhaps, that William was a narc. Only a close-up view through the peephole, in this case, an actual hole big enough to put a fist through, was able to rid them of that particular notion. William, after all, was too old to be anything but what he said he was-someone looking for a friend.
However, they'd never heard of this friend, although one of them thought the name-Mr. Shankin-sounded suspiciously like his third-grade teacher.
'Thank you,' William said.
The second address, third of the trip, belonged to a pet shelter.
'Are you here for a cat?' the fuzzy-haired girl asked him at the front desk.
'No,' William replied. 'I'm here for Mrs. Timinsky.'
But Mrs. Timinsky, needless to say, wasn't there-and as far as the girl could ascertain, never had been.
Yet someone else, of course, had. Just as he'd been at Magnolia Drive and at Beaumont Street too.
Samuels to Shankin to Timinsky to…
'Someone else was here looking for that woman,' the girl behind the counter said.
Yes, William thought, Mr. Samuel's brudda. And at Beaumont Street, one of the junkies had sung the same sad refrain.
'Sorry about not opening the door,' he said, 'but we get hassled. Someone came here about a month ago
