afterwards, so that's what I did.'
'Ronnie wasn't hurt?'
'Just shook up. He had some scratches but he was- well, he was underneath at the time the mirror fell. The other guy was the one who really got clobbered.'
'The mystery man was fucking Ronnie when it happened?'
'That's what Ronnie said.'
'How long did it take after Ronnie phoned for help for somebody to show up?'
'Ten, fifteen minutes maybe.'
'Were there other customers here at the time? Were there other witnesses to what happened next?'
'There were people here but I don't think anybody even took notice. People don't come here to mind other people's business.
They come here to take care of their own business and they're usually busy with whatever that business is- very personal.'
'Who arrived? How many? In what vehicle or vehicles?'
'I watched out the window from the office,' Royce said, glancing around to see if anyone was looking our way. 'Ronnie said I should stay away and what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me. There was just one car, with three men in it. I didn't get a very good look at them- they stayed down by unit fifteen where it happened- but it was a cool night and I could see they had on long coats with their collars turned up. Nice dress coats like businessmen would wear, or gangsters. All of a sudden it hit me while I'm standing there looking out the window that these guys might be from the mob! And the guy who's fucking Ronnie every Wednesday night is some friggin' godfather or something. For a minute I just sat down and didn't even look. But then I got curious again and I looked.'
'What did you see next?'
'Well, they sent Ronnie over with the two hundred and said this was for keeping my mouth shut, and I said sure, okay. They never came to the office themselves. They just loaded the boyfriend into the back seat of this big white Chrysler they came in, and one of them drove the car the boyfriend brought-his usual shiny blue Olds-and then they left. Ronnie left in his car, and I went in and wiped up the blood-there wasn't a whole lot-and then I locked up the unit until I told Jay the next day that the mirror in fifteen fell after Ronnie left.' He gave me a pleading look. 'You aren't going to tell Jay I lied, are you?'
'I don't see why. You've been honest with me, so I guess I can do you a favor and be dishonest with Jay.'
'Thanks. He's a real schmuck. Are you really blackmailing him?'
'Yup.'
'Well, good luck. He deserves it.'
'I'm doing my best.'
'Swell.'
I said, 'Did you get the license-plate number of the Chrysler? Everybody out here seems to be pretty thorough about that.'
'Nope. I didn't. I tried.'
'Why couldn't you?'
'Because the plates were taped over, front and back. Whoever these people were, they sure went to a lot of trouble to make sure they weren't identified. Do you have any idea who they were?'
I said no, and for once that day I was telling somebody the truth. I didn't know who the men in the nice dress coats had been, but I thought Art Murphy probably would. end user
21
Flint Street ran for two blocks off Washington and dead-ended at a medical-records warehouse. The street was shady and quiet, and the frame houses were set close together in a way that probably felt neighborly to some of the people who lived there and claustrophobic to some of the others.
Number 37, like all the houses on the block, was a two-story job with a deep, boxy front porch and a small patch of sparse lawn that didn't get much sunlight or rain. No car was parked in the narrow driveway and none of those on the street fit the description
— a shiny blue Olds-or bore the license-plate number of the car the Mega-Hypocrite had driven out to the Fountain of Eden every Wednesday night until the mirror fell on him.
The main front door was open at number 37, with only a screen door to keep out the insects and the blackmailers. I got the feeling Art Murphy wasn't home, and this was confirmed when I drove over to a convenience store with a pay phone, on Washington. Murphy was listed in the Albany directory, and I dialed the number on Flint Street.
A female voice, not young, a tad nasal. 'Hello?'
'Art Murphy, please?'
'Oh, Arthur isn't at home at this hour. He'd be at work.'
'This is Jim Smith and I'm in town and Art asked me to get in touch. May I have his work number, please?'
'Yes, that would be Byrne Olds-Cadillac,' she said, and recited the number.
'Thank you-Mrs. Murphy?'
'Why, yes.'
'Have a nice day.'
I dialed the number. 'Good morning. Byrne Olds-Cadillac.'
'Is Art Murphy over there today? Don't ring him-I want to drop by.'
'Art's in the showroom. He'll be around, I'm pretty sure.'
'Thanks.'
I drove back over to Central and west toward Colonic Byrne Olds-Cadillac was one of the patriotic GM dealers that hadn't taken on a Japanese line to keep the customers coming, but had clung to a tattered domestic respectability untouched by Asia's peculiar ways and well-made economical vehicles. A gigantic American flag hung from a pole next to the entrance, and the place looked proud but not busy.
No one rushed out to pound my Mitsubishi with a sledgehammer as I pulled in; I parked on the far side of the lot where the other parked cars had no sales stickers and appeared to belong to employees. I found the shiny blue Olds in no time at all, checked the license plate, which matched the one Jay Gladu had given me for the mysterious Wednesday-night motel visitor's car, and then checked the mud flaps, front and rear. All were intact and none seemed newly replaced. I crawled around a second time and examined them. The two front flaps were identical, and appropriately worn, as were the two rear flaps.
So this was probably not the murder car. But its owner, I was confident, would know whose was.
I went into the showroom and approached a middle-aged man in a mint-green blazer with slicked-back gray hair.
'Art Murphy?'
'Yessir.'
'I'm Don Strachey and I'd like to talk to you about a car. Somebody told me that you're the man to see.'
'I'd like to think I know a little bit about cars. What would you be interested in, Mr.-Straker?'
'Strachey.'
'Sorry about that.'
'There's one particular car I'd like to discuss with you. The blue Olds out in the lot that belongs to you and that was driven out to the Fountain of Eden Motel every Wednesday night for nearly a year. Could we go somewhere private and talk about that car?'
We were standing alongside a Cadillac that didn't at all resemble the boatlike ostentatious vessels the name has always evoked and will always evoke for North Americans born before a certain year. But this Cadillac was big enough to hold Art Murphy up when he fell back as if he'd been struck and then leaned against it trying to catch his breath.
