didn't find what I wanted in the garbage cans, so I grabbed a tire iron and pried open the trunk of the T-bird. There was the red spray paint. This was circumstantial, but Joey Deem seemed so shaky that he'd tell all once Ned Bowman dropped by, said boo, and asked for a sample of the kid's handwriting. Lacking a satchel of foam pellets, I tossed the can in the back of my car.
The tension at Dot Fisher's place had dissipated into a prickly listlessness. Bowman's unmarked car sat in the driveway by the barn, where the fresh white paint glistened stickily in the wet heat.
The red graffiti still showed through; another coat of white was going to be needed. A young sergeant in a sweatshirt and baseball cap sat in the passenger seat listening to the staticky jabbering of the police radio, to which he occasionally jabbered back. Above the house, stars were popping out across a blackening sky.
Dot was at the sink furiously scouring a pot as I went inside. Bowman gave me thumbs up.
I said, 'What's that for?'
'We're set,' he said, and winked.
Dot suggested I help myself to the mint tea, which I did.
'Where's McWhirter?'
'Asleep. Assaulting a police officer can wear you out.'
'Maybe I'll do the same. Sleep, I mean. First things first.'
He sniffed, tried to look surly.
I said, 'Your people visited Mel Glempt. I saw him too. He struck me as a reliable witness.'
'So I'm told. Except the man he saw was no police officer. I've looked into that. We're exploring other possibilities.'
'Uh-huh. Maybe it was a bus driver. Has Timmy called?'
'Timmy?'
'Timothy J. Callahan. My great and good friend.'
'No. You think I'm running a dating service around here, Strachey? Doing social work among the perverts?'
'I just asked if he'd phoned, Ned. Anyway, I'd never accuse the Albany Police Department of social work. Or even, in a good many cases, police work.'
'Yeah, well, if you and all your fruitcake pals would Dot slammed down her pot and wheeled toward Bowman. 'Officer Bowman,' she said, looking 64 gaunt, overheated, deeply exasperated. 'Officer Bowman, please. I realize you are helping us, and I do appreciate your being here and doing everything you can for us and for poor Peter. But, really! I must ask you not to make anti-homosexual remarks in my home. You have a right to your opinions. But sometimes you really can be such an extremely rude man!'
Bowman apparently had not in recent years been called 'rude' by a grandmother scouring a pot.
He stood there for a moment looking uncharacteristically helpless, his mouth frozen in a little O.
I said, 'Actually, rudeness is one of Detective Bowman's finer points, Dot. Don't knock it entirely. He has a foul mouth, but he's no hypocrite. There's a genuineness to his malice that some of us find intermittently refreshing in a city government full of burnt-out phonies.'
Bowman glowered but just shifted about nervously. He would have liked to issue me a couple of obscene threats but didn't want to be called rude again by an old lady bent over a kitchen sink.
'Sorry, ma'am,' he muttered to Dot. 'When I talk like that, I certainly don't mean you, or your… or Mrs. Stout.'
'I don't care who you mean. That talk is discourteous and insensitive and unbecoming of a public servant. Also, I might add, it betrays a narrowmindedness that is certainly discouraging to behold in this day and age. So much of the time, Mr. Bowman, you just seem to be so… so… full of baloney!'
I would have phrased it a little differently, but probably to less good effect.
Bowman actually blushed. 'Well, I have to admit, Mrs. Fisher, that I'm… still learning.' He was crimson now, looking as if he feared Dot might have him write 'No More Fag Jokes' five hundred times on the blackboard.
'We're all still learning,' Dot said. 'And I congratulate you on being big enough to admit it.'
Bowman relaxed a little, no longer worried that he might get sent to the principal's office.
The phone rang. Bowman, relieved, lunged for it. 'Let me get that!'
Dot glanced at me and rolled her eyes.
'For you, Strachey. It's your- It's Mr. Callahan.' He handed me the sweat-drenched receiver.
'I found out about Wilson,' Timmy said.
'This line is not private,' I told him quickly. 'I'll call you back in fifteen minutes. Where are you?'
'At the… you know. On Delaware.'
'Fifteen minutes.'
I hung up and asked Bowman to accompany me outside. We stood under a pear tree and I told him about Joey Deem.
'I figured that,' he said. 'One of my men stopped by the Deem place earlier, and the kid took off with a friend when my man arrived. Out the back door, zip-zip. The kid's mother was defensive when asked about her boy's state of mind and activities, but in due course she allowed as how her son might conceivably be capable of criminal matters on a limited scale. We'll pay the lad a visit tomorrow morning and squeeze him. He'll own up.'
'I don't doubt it, Ned. Not with irresistible you conducting the interview. Or have you mellowed after getting roughed up in there by Mrs. Fisher? 'Rude.' That's the word, all right. Dot put her finger on it.'
His little eyes narrowed like those of the Ned Bowman I'd known five minutes earlier. 'Don't you push my face in it, Strachey, I'm warning you! I've got a list and you're at the head of it.
Sure, I'll lay off the informal talk when I'm around Mrs. Fisher from now on. Hell, I've got nothing against two broads doing it, even a couple of old dames like those two. I'm broad-minded.
I've never disapproved of that. In fact, the idea of it has always kind of turned me on. But two 65 men? That is sicko stuff, Strachey, and you'll never convince me otherwise.'
Bowman the Bunny Hutch philosophe.
'Glad to hear you talk that way again, Ned. You had me worried for a minute. I was afraid word of your newly benign outlook might get around and your career in Albany city government would be jeopardized.'
'Thanks for the sentiment.'
'Tell me, are all those bushes out there in the dark full of your guys?'
'They will be by midnight. The go team is gathering now in my office.'
'I'll be behind a bush too. You might want to alert your people. Just how crowded is it going to get out there?'
'Crowded enough. If they drop off the Greco guy, twenty men will be on top of them in nothing flat. If they just snatch the ransom and take off, there'll be unmarked radio cars doing relays a block behind them till they get where they're going. Just to be on the safe side, we've got a homing transmitter sewn into the bottom of the money case. When they get to where they've got Greco, we'll move in fast. They'll never know what hit 'em.'
'Sounds close to being foolproof. It'd better be. Here's the rest of the cash.'
I tugged Trefusis's envelope out of my back pocket and shoved it toward Bowman. He grinned.
I drove over to Central and went into a Grandma's Pie Shop. Grandma wasn't there that night, but the cashier, a comely grandson whom I'd seen around, directed me to a pay phone. I dialed the apartment.
'Hello?' His voice was scratchy, distant.
'It's me. I love you.'
'Don't be manipulative. I'm in no mood for it. This will be a non-personal conversation. I obtained the information you requested regarding William Wilson.'
'I apologize. Really. It'll rarely happen again. Hardly ever. Not often at all.'
'Do you want this information or don't you?'
'Once every three months, about. That'd be it. And only in other cities. Never in Albany or any contiguous municipality. Doesn't that sound reasonable? Short of storing my nuts in a jar of vinegar, which you would keep locked in your desk drawer, that's the best I can do. I think you'll have to agree that it's fair, given certain chemical imbalances in my frontal lobe. So. Are we friends again? Lovers, at least?'
Cutesy sniveling got me nowhere. He didn't even pause. 'Here is what I have learned. Are you listening?'
