“I don’t know what you’re talking about. ‘Killing a girl.’ First you say I kill Menti, and then you say I kill some girl. You’re crazy, in the head.”
“I’ve already admitted that possibility, today.”
“Who is this man you talked to about the paintings?”
“I have to have a few secrets of my own.”
Fletch stood and neatly put his chair back under the table.
“Thanks for the drink, Sylvia.”
“You not paying?”
“You invited me. It’s a whole new world, babe. You pay.”
Sixteen
“I guess it’s a pretty good job,” Fletch said. “I can’t read the shit through the paint.”
“It’s a nice job if you like hearses,” the manager said. “What will a black truck do for your plumbing business?”
“I don’t know,” Fletch said. “Might improve it.”
“Neighbors will think you’re carrying out a body.”
Friday morning was cool and cloudy again.
The manager said, “Did you get down to the Registry?”
Fletch said, “I brought cash for you.”
“I’ll get the bill.”
Fletch paid him off and took the keys to his black panel truck.
“Okay, fella,” the manager said. “You get stopped in that truck and the registration don’t match, don’t say where you got it painted.”
“I’ll get to the Registry tomorrow,” Fletch said. “Saturday.”
When he was getting into the truck, the manager said, “Don’t suppose you got a spare minute?”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Leak. In the men’s room.”
“No, thanks,” said Fletch. “Don’t need to.”
Seventeen
“Will you tell Mister Saunders that Mister Ralph Locke is in the lobby waiting to see him?”
The smile of the woman at the reception desk was a widow’s smile. In her fifties, she had learned to smile again, after a funeral, after someone had given her a job, a new but lesser life. Fletch guessed she was the widow of a journalist—perhaps one of those later names inscribed in a long plaque on the lobby wall, starting with 1898 and dribbling through years of war, collisions with fire trucks, and accidents with demon rum.
“A copy boy will be right down to get you,” she smiled.
In mid-afternoon, Fletch had gone down to the Ford Ghia parked at the curb.
There were six parking tickets under the windshield wipers.
Knowing the two men in the car across the street were plainclothesmen assigned to watch him, he tore the six parking tickets up and dropped the pieces in the street.
They did not arrest him for destruction of public records, contempt, or littering.
So he led them to the
It was a wet, graystone building in the bowels of the city, The narrow streets around it were clogged with
Fletch found, two places to park.
He drove the Ghia into one.
And waved the policemen into the other.
A copy boy led him through the huge, smelly old city room.
Jack Saunders was waiting for him near the copy desk.
Fletch said, “I see the publisher has paid off the mortgage.”
Shaking hands, Jack looked around the large, yellow room. A hundred years of nicotine had attached itself to the walls, ceiling, and floor.
“I think he’s almost got it paid off. Another few payments.”
In the morgue, Jack said to the young help behind the counter, “Randy, this is Ralph Locke,
“I know your by-line, Mister Locke,” the kid said.
“Ah, shit,” said Fletch.
Jack laughed. “Show him around, will you, Randy?”
Fletch knew the alphabet. He also knew left from right.
Very shortly he got rid of the young hypocrite.
First the regional
An item on page 208 read:
Connors, Bartholomew, lawyer; b. Cambridge, Mass. Feb. 7, 1936; s. Ralph and Lillian (Day) C.; B.A. Dartmouth, 1958; Harvard Law, 1961; m. Lucy Aureal Hyslop, June 6, 1963; Tullin, O’Brien and Corbett, 1962—; partner, 1971. Harvard Club, Boston; Harvard Club, New York. Boylston Club; Trustee, Inst. Modern Art; Director Childes Hospital, Control Systems, Inc., Wardor-Rand, Inc., Medical Implements, Inc. Home: 152 Beacon St., Boston. Office: 32 State St., Boston.
An item on page 506 read:
Horan, Ronald Risom, educator, author, art dealer; b. April 10, 1919, Burlington Vt.;‘s. Charles N. and Beatrice (Lamson) H.; B.A. Yale, 1940, U.S. Navy, 1940-45 (Commander); M.A. Cambridge, 1947; Ph.D Harvard, 1949; m. Grace Gulkis, Oct. 12, 1948 (d. 1953); Harvard fac. 1948—; ass’t. prof., dept Fine Arts, 1954—. Cont. ed.,
There was no item in
There was little in the newspaper clipping files directly concerning either Connors or Horan.
Connors was represented by a single clipping. Once he had issued to the press and public the recent tax statements of a then-gubernatorial candidate, a client and Harvard Law School classmate, who did not win.
The story referred to Connors as “senior partner of the State Street law firm, Tullin, O’Brien and Corbett and son of former U.S. Ambassador to Australia, Ralph Connors.”
Connors’ photograph showed a fair-sized, athletic-looking man.
The file on Ambassador Ralph Connors apparently had been cleaned out, except for the obituary. Until becoming Ambassador, he had been Chairman of the Board of Wardor-Rand, Inc. He died in 1951.
There was no photograph of Ronald Risom Horan.
The only news item concerning Horan reported an attempted burglary of the Horan Gallery in 1975. From the way the item was written, Fletch guessed it had been taken straight from a police spokesperson. There was no actual confirmation. There was no follow-up story.
The obituary of Grace Gulkis Horan preceded her husband’s folder in the file. A graduate of Wellesley College and heiress to the Gulkis fortune (Gulkis Rubber), she was mostly noted for being owner of the Star of Hunan jade. She was a victim of leukemia.
There were perhaps forty-five clippings under Francis Xavier Flynn’s name—all dating within the last eighteen months.
Fletch did not read through all the reports, but he noticed they followed a pattern.
