'There's a good chance that that's the case. What could Jack have been involved in that you would have found immoral?' He thought this over, then shook his head. I said, 'Run through the Ten Commandments. Which ones do you feel most strongly about?'
He smiled sheepishly. 'This is embarrassing. I can only remember a few.
It's been a while.'
'Go for the hard-core stuff, the foundations of Judeo-Christian ethics.'
Without hesitation he said, 'Stealing.'
'Thou shalt not steal.'
'I've always believed strongly that people should earn anything of value they received, or be given it because they need it or deserve it. For a person to take something that doesn't belong to him disgusts me. It's the beginning of anarchy. Jack knew how deeply I feel about that. Is it possible? Do you think Jack stole something?'
'Could be,' I said. 'Though if he did, he didn't consider it stealing, I think.
Not in the usual strict sense of the word.'
'But I would have. And he knew it.'
'There's a good possibility of that.'
'What was it that you think he stole?'
'Money. There is evidence that it was money.' Now he placed both feet on the floor and leaned forward. 'But how could that be right? How could Jack consider stealing money a moral act?'
'I don't know yet. I'm curious too. Did Jack know anyone who owned a lot of money, or had access to it?'
'How much money?'
'A vast amount. A fortune.'
'Not that I can think of-no one in Albany. Except drug dealers perhaps.
But it wouldn't be that, I'm sure.'
'Did any of Jack's former business associates ever come here, or phone?'
'Absolutely not. I was firm about that. Anyhow, I think they were all in jail.'
'All of them?'
'As far as I know. According to Jack, he was the only one of that bunch who wasn't convicted. The rest of them were locked up for twenty years.'
'Jack must have had a terrific lawyer.'
'Oh, he did-the best. Thomas Pelligrinelli came up from New York to handle his case.'
'Really? Pelligrinelli has to be one of the most expensive criminal lawyers in the state of New York. Jack must have been paying him off right up to the day he died.'
'Oh no, Jack's mother paid for the lawyer. He told me that. I think it was one of the reasons he never intended to get in trouble with the law again.
His acquittal had cost his mother so much.'
'Is she wealthy? What does she do?'
'Mrs. Lenihan's a nurse. I don't know, maybe she took out a loan, or has rich friends. Jack never went into that. But the day after the trial ended she wired him twenty thousand dollars and he paid off Pelligrinelli.'
'She didn't attend the trial?'
'No, Jack said she detested Albany and never intended to set foot in it again. Her life here was awfully unhappy. Though I got the idea she's doing much better now.'
'It sounds that way.'
'She must be taking Jack's death very hard.'
'Corrine told me she was, yes.'
'I guess Ill finally meet her at the funeral,' Slonski said, and lifted his mug.
I said, 'She's not coming.'
'She isn't?' The mug hung in the air.
'She's gone to bed, sick with grief.'
'That's terrible, just terrible. Jack told me his mother had never been sick a day in her life. She never missed a single day of work. He said she was made of iron.'
'She sounds like quite an unusual lady.'
'The Lenihans are an unusual family,' Slonski said, and I was only just beginning to understand that that was putting it mildly.
I told him I had to leave for my dinner engagement, thanked him for his candid remarks about Jack and their relationship, and said I understood his initial skepticism about me.
'Oh, no problem. But you still haven't explained to me exactly what your connection with Jack was.'
'It was professional on my part, which makes it confidential. I'm sorry I can't tell you more.'
'You know, I miss him more than ever,' Slonski said in a shaky voice. 'I still can't quite believe that he actually left me. And that he's never coming back.'
'I'm wondering about something, Warren. What was it about Jack Lenihan that evoked such an emotional response in you? He was sweet-natured and had his other virtues, but he wasn't a particularly attractive man physically. You seem to have a keener than normal appreciation for that which appeals to the senses. I would have expected you to bed down with a man who was-well, more like yourself.'
He flushed and looked away. 'The thing is,' he said after a moment, 'I've always gone for men who are less attractive than I am. I guess they-make me look better. And feel better. And the chances are, they're not going to leave me. It's a way of controlling the situation, I suppose you could say, of protecting myself. For instance, you really turn me on. But I would never make a direct move with somebody like you. You might turn me down.'
Now it was out in the open, a slight relief. 'But if I did turn you down-and reluctantly I would-it wouldn't have anything to do with you. It would be the fact that I have a lover, my deep and entirely rational fear of AIDS, and my already-too-elastic professional ethics. It wouldn't be personal at all.'
His face fell. 'There. You see what I mean?'
I started to laugh, but didn't when he didn't. I would have liked to hang around and attempt first aid on Slonski's damaged soul. Five years earlier, such acts of warmhearted crisis intervention were not uncommon for me, and I always got as much as I gave, often more. But my life had its complications now, and Slonski's needed a few, none of which I was in a position to provide.
He put some Wagner on the stereo, and I went out and rubbed snow on my face before driving off. The islands beckoned again briefly, but that was not where I was headed. From a pay phone I reached a friend at the Times
Union who provided me with background information on the three men I was about to dine with. By the time I hung up, I thought I had figured out what Jack Lenihan's morally ambiguous project was.
If I was right, then Lenihan had been correct in his prediction that I would approve of it. We had spent only ten minutes together one summer afternoon, yet he knew me that well. I would have liked to ask him how he'd done that.
EIGHT
I was led to the last available table for four at Queequeg's, a restored artrdeco diner-all streamlined aluminum glitz on the outside, goldenly glowing carved wood paneling on the inside, as in a wagon-lit-that had been turned into a kebab, salad and beer joint for the youngish trendies who lived and worked around Albany Medical Center.
The food at Queequeg's was good and cheap, and the owners had managed to conjure up an illusion of authentic fast-lane city life by packing a large number of eaters and drinkers into an area of severely constricted square footage. The music-jazz, disco, fusion-was sufficiently loud, as were frequently the customers, so that, amidst the atmosphere of boozy congestion, it was possible to converse without being overheard, or even, if your diction was sloppy or you were a little bit shy, heard at all.
Sim Kempelman was the first to arrive at five till seven. I'd never met him, but I watched for a middle-aged
