He was relentless. He went on in this sententious vein for some minutes, as Toot sat there nodding and occasionally blanching at particularly breathtaking examples of my lunatic behavior. 'On the other hand,' Timmy sweetly concluded, 'Don is a loyal friend, a stimulating social companion, and a great fuck. It's just that he's sloppy around the house and unable to abide sloppiness outside it. As you can see, this makes life complicated for him-and for just about everybody who crosses his path.'
I winked at Toot and said, 'Timmy likes to think of himself as my Boswell, but what he is is the National Enquirer of my soul. In his reporting on me, zany exaggerations and lurid distortions abound.'
Toot shrugged and said, 'I've only known you for half a day, but it all sounded pretty accurate to me. Of course, I wouldn't know about the 'great fuck' part,' he added and lowered his eyes shyly.
These two were meant for each other. I left them, borrowed a bathing suit from Teddy, and went out for a swim in the small pool, which at the Golden Grapefruit was gonococ-cus-shaped.
The three of us descended on Gail Tesney at her table in the hospital employees' cafeteria. She was seated alone, and if she wanted company, her look suggested we were not it. She greeted Toot with what warmth she could muster and offered me a faint hello. I introduced Timmy, who immediately said, 'Don here means well, but don't let him push you around.' I wanted to pick up Tesney's plate of chicken tetrazzini and push it in Timmy's face.
Gail said coolly, 'I can take care of myself, Mr. Callahan. I've been doing it for many years.' He seated himself, chastened for the moment.
I sat across from her and said, 'Jack Lenihan is not coming back and I can't do anything about that. But what I can do is finish the admirable job Jack started.' For ten minutes I described in what seemed to me irresistibly gut-wrenching detail the horrors of Albany city government and how two and a half million dollars in the right hands might change all that.
Throughout my dissertation, Timmy and Kyle sat stiffly, gazing at the walls.
When I concluded my remarks, Timmy's stomach rumbled loudly and he said, 'Sorry.'
Gail peered at me solemnly across her tetrazzini and said, 'You want me to get information from Joan, is that it? Sneak around, perhaps read her mail, browbeat her, threaten to leave her-do whatever it takes to find out what happened to all that money-and then pass the information on to you. Do I understand you correctly, Mr. Strachey?'
'No, not exactly. I just thought if you happened to break through the wall of secrecy Joan has built up around herself, you would be happier, she would be happier, and it could only strengthen your relationship and clear the tension out of it. And if in the process you managed to convince Joan to share her knowledge of the history of Jack's money with a trustworthy, well-meaning third-party-that would be me- then so much the better.'
She looked at me as if her tetrazzini were not agreeing with her. She said,
'You are the most arrogant and smugly presumptuous man I have ever met.'
'People have been saying that about me lately.'
'Well, I'm not surprised.' She tilted her head and gave it a quick shake, as if she'd been swimming and wanted to dislodge some water from her ear.
'You are something out of-I don't know what.'
'Joseph Conrad? I sometimes fancy myself that way.'
'No, Judith Krantz, I think.'
'Oh.'
'In any case, you won't be needing my help in your quest to alter history in the Hudson Valley.'
'I won't?'
'No, you won't. Joan has agreed to speak with you.'
'Well now-good for her!'
'Joan phoned me a while ago. She called in sick for her shift, and while she was at home some obnoxious policeman from Albany came to the apartment. She couldn't stand him. He reminded her of the type of man who had made her life miserable twenty years ago. She didn't tell him anything, but she realizes that someone has got to clear up the confusion and find Jack's killer if she is ever to have any peace of mind again, and she has decided to take a chance on you. Jack trusted you, she said, so Joan is going to risk trusting you too. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if Jack was in his right mind when he got mixed up with you.'
On the way out of the hospital, Timmy said, 'Mr. Charm strikes again.'
Toot added, 'Back east you must be considered the David Susskind of your profession.'
I insisted on going off to see Joan Lenihan alone and dropped Timmy and Kyle off at the motel. But I was beginning to suspect that they might be on to something. Inept attempts at psychological torture were not among my usual bag of tricks. But then this situation was special, wasn't it? I had to drive the beasts from the city. I had a quest, a mission. Everybody thought I was nuts, but what I was was inspired.
Aflame, I drove over to Scotsmont Avenue, where I was certain Joan Lenihan would add fuel to the holy fire. But that is not what she did at all.
THIRTEEN
'I have returned the money to its rightful owners, Mr. Strachey. I hate to disappoint you, but I really had no choice in the matter.'
I glanced into the dining room, where the five suitcases were no longer stacked up. 'It was in those bags that were in there when I was here earlier, right?'
'No. The cash was in trash bags in our storage area in the basement of this building. Now it's in the suitcases and on its way back to the people it belongs to. I just returned from the Air Freight office a few minutes ago.'
Air Freight. I briefly considered a grand heist but figured pantywaist Timmy would consider armed robbery going too far. I said, 'Why?'
She lit a cigarette and stuck it up under her overbite. She was wearing a Yucatecan huapili white shift with fancy blue and green embroidery and she was barefooted. Her toenails were cracked and painted fuchsia. She said, 'My son took something that didn't belong to him. He was killed because of it. I don't want anyone else to be hurt- you, or your friend-or Gail, or me. Or Corrine. Poor Corrine, she's so unsophisticated and innocent, and who knows what people might suspect. No, it's not worth it.
What Jack wanted to do-what you want to do with the money-I admire it.
Truly, I do. When Jack first told me about it, I had to laugh. I admit it, I laughed.' Her eyes brightened at the thought of it, then went gray again.
'But you cannot- cannot — get away with something like that. Not when the people you are dealing with are savages.'
'And who are these savages?'
'I think you must know.'
'No.'
She looked at me carefully and said, 'Dope pushers. Surely in your line of work you must have heard the type of people they are.'
'Which dope pushers?'
'The ones Jack was arrested with. Robert Milius and- I've forgotten the names of the others. Jake something, I think.'
'They're still in prison, aren't they?'
'But they have friends on the outside. People who were protecting the money for them until their release. Jack somehow got hold of the money and came up with this crazy pipe dream of his. And they found out he had taken it.'
'Precisely who was keeping the money in what place, and how did Jack manage to take possession of it?'
She coughed out some smoke and said, 'Oh, I wouldn't know that. Jack never went into the details. He just said they could never prove he'd taken it, and he had all these alibis worked out, he said, and-I just don't know all
