“Thanks for clearing that up. She didn’t have to pick you, you know. She could have dragged Richard upstairs.”
“Richard’s gay.”
“You think that would have stopped her?”
“Jim—”
“All right, I’ll grant that you’re a little more available than Richard, and a little more suitable. You’re not in love with her, are you?”
“With Donna? No. I like her, but—”
“No fantasies about moving in?”
“No.”
“Good, because that’s not what she wants either. Donna’s got a good job, makes decent money. She works downtown somewhere, doesn’t she?”
“She’s at an investment bank. I don’t know exactly what she does there.”
“Whatever it is, it pays well. And the next man she hooks up with, and it’s not going to be anytime soon, won’t be a guy like Vinnie, a knockaround guy from South Brooklyn who stays sober between drunks. And you know who else he won’t be?”
“An unlicensed private eye living in a hotel room.”
“There you go. You had a good time, and you didn’t have to spend Saturday night alone.”
“Right.”
“And you came out of it two hundred dollars to the good. What’s the matter?”
“Is that what the money was for?”
“No, of course not. The money was so that she wasn’t sleeping with you to pay you back for helping her out. Merry Christmas, kiddo.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t know the joke? Mailman brings the mail to this one house and the wife invites him in, gives him a fresh-baked brownie and a cup of coffee. Next thing he knows she’s taking him upstairs to the bedroom. Afterward she hands him a dollar.
“And he says, ‘Hey, what’s this?’ And he tries to hand it back, but she won’t take it. ‘It’s for you,’ she says. ‘It was my husband’s idea.’ ‘Your husband’s idea?’ ‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I asked him what should we do for the mailman for Christmas, and he said,
We went to the meeting at St. Clare’s, and afterward I walked him back to his place. On my way home I remembered that I’d walked right past the desk earlier without seeing if any of my callers had left messages. This time I checked, and there was nothing. I went upstairs, picked up the phone, put it down without dialing anybody’s number, and went to bed.
XXIX
MONDAY MORNING I called Greg Stillman first thing after breakfast. There was no answer, so I left a message on his machine. I knew better than to call Donna, and I wasn’t ready to call Jan. I found the number for Dennis Redmond, and someone else at the precinct answered his phone. I left my name and number.
Redmond and I played phone tag for a day and a half. I was never in my room when he called, and he was never at his desk when I called him back. I went to Fireside for the Monday noon meeting, and to St. Paul’s that night. I thought I might run into Donna, but wasn’t surprised when I didn’t.
Jim wasn’t there either, but I found some other people to have coffee with, and it was past eleven when I got home from the Flame. No messages, but Jacob informed me that I’d had a call. “But he didn’t leave no name,” he said, “nor no number neither.”
Nohow, I thought.
I was surprised Greg hadn’t returned my call, and decided it wasn’t too late to call him. I got the machine again, so either he was out wolfing down strawberry-rhubarb pie or he’d turned in for the night. I hung up without leaving another message and went to bed.
Tuesday afternoon my phone finally rang when I was there to answer it. It was Jan, just calling to say hello. We had a curiously hollow conversation, where what didn’t get said was more significant than what did. Neither of us said anything about the past Saturday night, or about the coming one. I didn’t say any of the several things I had on my mind, and I don’t think she did either.
So it wasn’t much of a phone call, but it broke the logjam, because after I got off the phone with her I called Redmond, and this time he was there to answer.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to get back to you. I did call a couple of times.”
“I’ve been hard to reach myself,” I said. “I was just wondering if it was you who picked up Jack Ellery’s possessions.”
He didn’t know what I was talking about. I explained that someone had collected Ellery’s belongings from the super, and thought it might be him.
“Jesus,” he said. “Why would I do that?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“The super said it was me?”
“I never talked to him,” I said. “Gregory Stillman went over there, and he got the impression some police officer had picked up the stuff.”
“What stuff? The long-lost loot from the Brinks Job?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “Stillman thought there might be some notebooks, some AA keepsakes.”
