“No,” I said, “I figure it’s almost certainly a coincidence. But I figure it’s worth the price of a hat to rule out the possibility that it’s not.”
A hat, in police parlance, is twenty-five dollars. A coat is a hundred. I have no idea what a hat actually costs these days, I can’t remember the last time I went out and bought one, but argot outlasts its origins. A pound is five dollars, and once upon a time that’s what a British pound sterling was worth in American money. I don’t suppose you can get much of a hat for five pounds.
And a hat was what I’d be buying Joe Durkin. He was a detective at Midtown North, on West Fifty-fourth, and Gramercy Park was well out of his range, but I didn’t know anybody in the precinct where Sattenstein had lived and died, and didn’t want to draw attention by making myself known to whoever had caught the case. Easier to ring Joe and get him to make a couple of phone calls.
Which had led to my sitting across a Formica-topped table from him in a coffee shop on Eighth Avenue. He was there because he was doing me a favor, but we both knew it was the sort of favor a person got paid for.
“For the sake of argument,” he said, “let’s say it wasn’t a coincidence, and whoever killed him had a reason. What would that reason be?”
To keep him from telling me something, I thought. Which he might have been ready to do, if I’d had the brains to call him back.
I said, “No idea, Joe.”
“None at all?”
“Well, he had a history. I don’t know if he’s got a yellow sheet, and my guess is he doesn’t, but for a period of time he was a receiver.”
“Not on the Jets, I don’t suppose.”
“I don’t know if you’re familiar with a man named Selig Wolf, but—”
“Jesus, of course I am. A wide receiver if there ever was one.”
“Well, Mark’s uncle Selig taught him the business.”
“Selig was his uncle?”
“His mother’s brother. Younger or older, I forget which.”
“Woman’s got a brother, he would pretty much have to be younger or older.”
“He could be a twin.”
“One’s born first, even with twins. Why are we even having this conversation? Jesus, Selig Wolf. You couldn’t want a better teacher.”
“So I gather. He followed in his uncle’s footsteps for a few years, he got wiped out in a burglary, and the whole mess had the effect of scaring him straight.”
“And at the time of his death he was teaching mentally challenged children how to tie their shoes. A tough way to make a living, but a noble calling indeed.”
“No, he was working as a bookkeeper for a couple of small firms.”
“And cooking the books for them.”
“Maybe a little.”
“You gotta love this city. You really do. He told you all this in an hour?”
“So? I just told you the whole thing in about ten minutes.”
“But that he went and opened up about it.” He shrugged. “So maybe you’re not bad at what you do. You know, if he never took a bust, odds are there’s nobody in the One-Three that knows he was a fencing master. I might feel obliged to pass the word.”
“You wouldn’t have to say where you heard it.”
“A snitch,” he said. “A generally reliable source.”
“That’s me, all right.” I passed him the two bills I’d palmed earlier, a five and a twenty. “I appreciate this, Joe. And you could use a new hat.”
“Hats I got a whole rack of. What I could use is a coat. Oh, man, the look on your face! Worth the price of admission right there. I’m glad to have the hat, my friend, and glad for the chance to sit down with you for a couple of minutes. Things working out for you?”
“I get by.”
“All we can ask,” he said. “All anybody can ask.”
I was back in my room, running it through my mind, when the phone rang. It was Joe, resuming our conversation as if it had never ended. “This Sattenstein,” he said. “Perp might have sized him up as a soft target. On account of he had a bandaged hand.”
“It was like that when I saw him.”
“You spot a man with a bandaged hand, you’re not worried he’ll fight back. But how’d he hurt the hand? Maybe he hit somebody. So maybe he’s a man with a short fuse, type who’d be apt to take a swing at a guy tries to hold him up.”
“With his other hand.”
“Whatever. So the perp slams him with whatever he brought along to hit people with. Your traditional blunt instrument.”
“It’s possible,” I said. “You just thought this up?”
