'I've met Jack's mother. Yes, I liked her too and wish that she wasn't so full of bitterness about so many things.'
'She's a cheap slut!' His look was smug as he said it. 'You want to know why I'm not gonna call the cops, and you're still gonna give me my money back, and you're not gonna ask me any more nosy questions, and then you're gonna keep your mouth shut? You know why? Huh?'
'No. You tell me, Mr. Lehihan.'
'You ask Joanie. You go home and you call her up, and then you bring me my money. You'll do it. Oh yes, you will. You'll do as I say, all right.' His eyes got big and he sat smirking and making fists. My impulse was to walk over and pull his plug, but his vital malevolence was fueled only from within, so that was not possible.
I said, 'Who killed Jack? Who bludgeoned your grandson and placed his dying body in my car?'
The clenched fists opened and stayed open. He stared at me blankly for a moment, and then his face collapsed and trembled violently. A surge of rage went through him, and he bleated, 'Perverts! Pansies and perverts!
Jack laid down with perverts and one of those filthy animals killed him.
Wipe em out! That's the only way our boys are gonna be safe! Castrate 'em!
Gas 'em! Lock 'em up and fry 'em!' His whole body shook.
I said, 'Is that what you wanted to happen to Jack? Jack was gay. Is that what you wanted? For Jack to be wiped out?'
Suddenly deflating, Lenihan slumped in his seat and looked confused.
'No,' he said after a moment. 'No, not Jackie. Jackie was a good, strong boy. Jackie had spunk. Jackie had a head on his shoulders. Jackie could have amounted to something. Jack was-oh, my Jesus, how I miss that boy!' Tears flowed. With a sudden jerk, he wiped them away with his sleeve and said, 'G'wan, get outta here. And gimme my goddamn money back!'
He covered his eyes with one hand and waved me away with the other.
'Jack had good plans for that money,' I said. 'I think he would have wanted me to carry them out.'
In a split second, the woe and tenderness vanished and the harsh anger came back. Giving me the evil eye again, he said, 'You talk to Joanie, mister. And then you bring me my money. Today. You hear what I'm telling you?'
I stood up. 'Is city hall in on this with you? Do they know what you're doing?'
He grunted. 'City hall knows what city hall knows, and I know what I know.
Now get outta here and get me my money.'
Unsummoned, Mrs. Clert promptly appeared. 'It looks like you've ruffled Dad's feathers, Mr. Strachey. Is that right, Dad, did the gentleman get your feathers mussed?'
'Don't you start in on me,' he snapped, as she led me to the front door.
'Maybe we'll see you again sometime,' Mrs. Clert said with her blank smile.
'I think Dad would like that.'
'That's the impression I have,' I said, zipping up my coat in the doorway.
'In fact, he mentioned specifically that he'd like me to visit again soon.'
'Oh, did he? Well, that would be nice. Oh, it's so cold and damp out there.
Don't catch your death now.'
She shut the door and I stood looking at the abandoned Immaculate Conception School across the street. The chain-link fence around it had been ripped from its steel posts in three places and most of the windowpanes had been smashed. One of the fading graffiti on the red brick wall of the building read simply IMAGINE. I gazed at the word for a minute or so, and I began to imagine. As I did so, I knew that I had to speak with Joan Lenihan fast.
As I headed south on Pearl, the two Dodges trailed along a block behind me. When it became clear that I was not being followed by anyone else, I pulled over, got out, and signaled for the cop cars to pull alongside.
Bowman, being chauffeured in the front car, rolled down his window.
'Jumpin' Jesus, Strachey, was that Pug Lenihan s house you went into back there?'
'Yeah.'
'Well, what kind of half-assed stunt is this anyway? Criminy, man. If word got back I was up here poking into Pug Lenihan's business without him asking, I'd be hung by the gimmeys in Capitol Park at high noon. Now goddamn it, when and where is this attack on you supposed to happen? If you want my cooperation on this, you're just gonna have to fill me in before you get a single 'nother iota of my valuable time.'
I said, 'Forget it.'
'What?'
'Let's skip it for now. I have to check on a couple of things and then I'll get back to you.'
'Don't bother,' he said, thrusting his gray squid up at me. 'The next time we meet, I'll be bothering you- plenty.' He rolled up the window and they left me standing in the slush.
I drove back toward the Hilton. I was not being followed and I could not understand why. Mrs. Clert certainly would have notified Terry Clert presumably her son, or husband, or great-nephew twice removed-as well as Mack Fay of my appointment at Pug Lenihan's. It would have been their first certain knowledge of my whereabouts since Timmy and I had abandoned our house the previous week. Why would they let the opportunity to get at me slide by? Had they been tipped by someone in Bowman's crew that the cops would be surveilling me? That possibility made me unhappy.
Or did Fay and Clert know that Pug would insist that I return to his house with the money later in the day, and that after I spoke with Joan Lenihan I was sure to do as I was told? Although Pug had seemed genuinely unaware of Fays recent efforts to retrieve the money for him- if those efforts had been on Pug's behalf at all. Fay and Clert, it now appeared, had been running their own scam to make off with the two and a half million diddling Pug while he thought they were helping him.
But if that was the case, how could they hope to snatch the money from me if not at Pug's house? If they had been tipped that I would arrive with the cops in tow on my first visit, how could they be sure that I wouldn't also have Bowman with me on any subsequent visit? Mrs. Clert had seemed relaxed, confident, secure-not the demeanor of a woman whose family's elaborate act of larceny was in serious jeopardy.
In room 1407 I bolted the door, dragged the five bags out of the closet, unlocked each one, and opened them. The two and a half million was intact. I locked the bags and stacked them back in the closet.
I dialed Joan Lenihan's number in Los Angeles. After twenty rings there was no answer. I called my New York Telephone contact, who told me that three calls, each lasting approximately four minutes, had been made from Pug Lenihan's number to Joan Lenihan's phone in LA during the previous thirty-six hours. The most recent call had been at 6:15 the evening before. I hung up and tried LA again. No answer.
It was just after noon in Albany, nine in LA. I figured both Joan and Gail were working seven to four, or they'd worked the night before and had unplugged the telephone and gone to bed. I'd try again in the late afternoon, and if that didn't work, ask Kyle Toot to track Joan down and ask her to call me. I figured I now knew what the key was to trigger Joan Lenihan's cooperation, and the thought of it made me sick.
Before heading out for lunch, I checked my answering service, which had what was described as 'an extremely urgent' message from Timmy. The message was: I am in the company of Messrs. Fay and Clert involuntarily.
Bring the you-know-what to our house at midnight tonight, but do not come accompanied by you-know-who. This is no joke. I repeat, this is no joke.
Sorry about this.
Now I had done it. They had done it. And I had done it. 'Did he say where he was calling from?'
'All he said was to take down his message carefully and to get it to you as soon as possible. But you didn't leave a number. We didn't know where to reach you.'
Timmy knew though. And he hadn't told them about our room at the Hilton.
They didn't have to have the information, because they had him, which they knew was as good as having me and the money. Still, he hadn't told them.
