'Showers or drizzle later tonight,' Timmy said. 'It's supposed to clear late tomorrow and get cold again.'
'Crap.'
Brigit's new husband and his four daughters were moving into our old place in Latham, and they needed the room where I had my books stored. The Rabbit wasn't going to do the job, and Timmy drove a little Chevy Vega.
I said, 'Brigit means business about the books. We'll either have to make six trips or rent a U-haul.'
'We?'
'Would you help me move the books, please?'
'Yes.'
'She says noon tomorrow, then she chucks them out. She's a sweetheart.'
'Right, you've been so busy for the past month.' He dropped a brick of frozen peas into a saucepan.
I said, 'The heart has its reasons.'
'For not picking up a load of books?'
'Don't confuse the issue. Brigit hasn't been nice.'
'It's a diabolical retribution-books.'
'One does what one can.'
'It's the final break. That's why you've been putting it off. This is really the end and you won't face it.' He took the chicken out of the oven and set it on the trivet on the table.
'Not true. The final break was three years ago. In a courtroom with portraits of two Livingstons, a Clinton, and a Fish.' I began hacking away at the chicken with a bread knife. Timmy winced.
'Why don't you let me do that? You carve the mashed potatoes.' I went looking for a serving spoon. 'The final final break,' Timmy said, 'will come when Brigit smiles warmly and shakes your hand and says, 'Heck, Don, at least we had seven wonderful years. I understand and sympathize and there'll be no hard feelings on my part.' That's the final break you're waiting for, except it's not going to happen.'
'I can't find a spoon.'
'Middle drawer.'
'How come I keep getting mixed up with people who devote their lives to explaining me to me?
Brigit did that. It's a powerful force to constantly contend with.'
'Nature abhors a vacuum.'
'Like the poet said, fuck you. Anyway, I make my way in the world. I understand enough of what's going on. I do all right.'
'That you do.'
'You don't make it easier.'
'Of course I do.'
I said, 'You're right. You do. Let's eat.'***
Over dinner I told Timmy about my two visits with Billy Blount's friends and what I'd found out about Blount. 'It turns out he's not so morbidly attached to the duke and duchess as I thought he was. That's just how they see it-or want others to see it. In fact, he seems reasonably stable and in control of his life. And sufficiently resourceful that he knew just where to go when trouble happened. He went somewhere you can fly to for two hundred forty bucks.'
That could be just about anywhere these days. You can get to London for under a hundred and fifty.'
'Not from La Guardia. That'd be JFK. I've got to find somebody who can check passenger manifests. Deslonde says Blount once had friends on the West Coast. He could be out there.'
'Maybe he flew under another name. It's easy.'
'Could be. He was thinking.'
The cops could check. Are you going to tell them?'
'Later. In due course. Are there more rolls?'
'In the oven.'
The people who know Blount best speak well of him. Everybody says he's likable and fun to be around, though a bit verbose and dogmatic. But he's got no real hangups that get to people, and certainly no violent streak. He does have some private grief he keeps inside-an irrational, or possibly entirely rational, fear of being shut in or locked up. Something that happened to him once. Huey and Mark and Frank Zimka all mentioned it. I'll have to check that out with the Blounts. It would explain his panic to get away, even if he hadn't committed the murder.'
'Or even if he had.'
'Yeah. There's that.'
'He didn't tell Zimka anything about how it happened?'
'Not much. Either that, or Zimka is holding something back-or even making the whole story up. This is possible; Zimka's brain couldn't have survived its owner's life unscathed. Zimka may lie as naturally as he blinks. Anyway, for what it's worth, Blount was there, Zimka said, but he didn't actually see the stabbing or the person who did it.'
'He was in the bathroom. Had to piss.'
'How long does that take?'
'Or brush his teeth.'
'When you used to trick, did you carry a toothbrush?'
'That was too long ago. I don't remember. How about you?' He looked up at me from his plate and then down again.
'And another thing is, I can't figure out Blount's connection with Zimka. His other friends, so far, are nice wholesome folks. Like Deslonde, for instance.'
'Right,' Timmy said. 'Like Mark.'
'I liked Huey and Mark and saw what Blount saw in them. Zimka, on the other hand, is badly screwed up-not entirely lacking in the decenter instincts, but he's a slave to some unholy habits, and when he's down off his pills, his outlook on human life is decidedly gloomy. Why did Blount hang around a guy like that? There's a side to Billy Blount I don't understand yet.'
'Money. You said the guy had ready cash. Blount used him.'
'For what? Blount had no expensive habits. None that I know of.' I looked at my empty plate.
'Coffee?'
'Yeah, I guess. And the knife attack on Huey what's-his-name last night. It probably doesn't have anything to do with Blount or the Kleckner killing, but still-have you ever heard of a white burglar operating in Arbor Hill?'
'That might be a first.'
'Mm. It might.'
'So. What's next?'
'There's a guy by the name of Chris I have to check out. And there's a woman Blount evidently was close to. Huey saw them together once.'
'Ahh, a mystery woman. In an evening gown and black cape? Maybe it was Megan Marshak.'
'In a VW bug. That's all I know about her. This one might slip through my ordinarily ubiquitous dragnet.'
'Oh, I doubt that. You know, you're going to an awful lot of trouble to find Billy Blount, when the fact is, everybody who knows him well is convinced he's not a killer. If Blount didn't do it, shouldn't you be giving some thought to who did?'
'I'm doing that.'
'Ideas?'
'None worth mentioning. Not yet.'
Timmy got up and started clearing the table. 'What are we doing tonight? Working or playing?'
'Let's make the regular stops and see what turns up.'
When we left the Terminal at nine forty-five, a light rain was falling. I went back in and called U-Haul on the pay phone and reserved a van for eleven-thirty the next morning. Then I called Brigit and told her to expect us around eleven fifty-nine.
We made our way up Central, paying the usual Saturday-night calls, and drove out to Trucky's just after
