Koko

weekends, but he gave the crowd a long look anyhow. He had to assume that Spitalny knew about the apartment, and that he was staying in it.

Poole had been shaken that afternoon, in more than one way. The appearance of Victor Spitalny had forced him to delay thinking about it, but something had shown itself to him—had revealed itself—before Robbie’s grave. Of course it had been a hallucination. Stress, anxiety, and guilt had pushed him over the edge of rationality. The wonderful odor that had seemed to accompany the appearance of a supernatural being had been the scent of early wildflowers. Still it had been a wonderful experience. In the midst of his pains and troubles he had momentarily seen everything as if for the first time. The internal weight of every particle of being had seized him with its own seriousness and power. He wished that he could describe this experience to someone who might understand it or have shared it.

He wanted to talk about it with Tim Underhill.

Poole gave a last look down at busy Water Street, and went back into the empty room. Conor’s jacket was not on the hook inside the front door. Michael went to the dining table and finally saw what he should have seen as soon as he entered. It was a small rectangle of paper torn from the pad beneath the phone in Conor’s little galley kitchen and on it was printed MIKEY.

Poole smiled and turned it over to read Conor’s message: Going up to Ellen’s place to be with her a couple days. You understand. Good luck in Milwaukee. Love, Conor. PS. She liked you. PPS. Here’s the number in case you have to call. A 203 number had been scrawled at the bottom of the note.

He took the playing card from his pocket and set it down next to the note on Conor’s table. I have no home. Koko had seen Beevers’ flyers. I am Esterhaz. This revealed that Spitalny had read Tim Underhill’s best book, and it also answered the phrase “We who know your real name.” And maybe it was a declaration that Spitalny intended to kill himself, as Esterhaz had done. If he felt like Esterhaz, Spitalny was in torment: like Esterhaz, he had killed too often and was becoming conscious of what he had done. Poole wanted to believe that Koko’s appearance in the cemetery had been a kind of farewell gesture, a last look at someone from his old life before he slit his wrists or put a bullet in his brain and found life eternal.

Backwards and forwards was still the locked door of a madman’s private code.

On another of the white message sheets from beneath Conor’s telephone Michael copied out the three lines of the message. Then he took a plastic baggie from a drawer, inserted the original with a tweezers, and folded down the flap. The paper fit neatly into the baggie. He dropped the little pin into the baggie.

He wrote a message to Lieutenant Murphy on another sheet of paper: I wanted to get this to you as soon as possible. It was pinned to a tree in the woods behind Memorial Park Cemetery in Westerholm. Koko must have followed me there when I went to a patient’s funeral. I am going out of town tomorrow, will call when I return. This note has been handled only by its edges. Dr. Michael Poole. He would buy a manila envelope before going to the airport, and mail everything to Murphy’s precinct.

Next he dialed Saigon’s telephone number to talk to Tim Underhill.

7

“So you escaped from Harry.”

“It just kind of made sense to move over here,” Underhill said. “There isn’t much room, but I can get out of Harry’s way, and I can get on with what I’m writing.” He paused. “And I can see my old friend Vinh, which is pure amazement. I couldn’t even be sure he was alive anymore. But he got out of Vietnam, made it to Paris, got married, and came here after a bunch of his relatives who were already living here made it possible. His wife died giving birth to his daughter, Helen, and he’s been raising her ever since. She’s a charming kid, and she took to me right away, too. I’m a sort of uncle, or maybe I should say auntie. She really is a dear little thing. Vinh brings her over here nearly every day.”

“Vinh isn’t living there with you?”

“Well, I’m just in a little room off the kitchen—the police still haven’t unsealed Tina’s loft. Vinh moved into the apartment where Helen had been staying. He had been staying there most nights anyhow, which is why he wasn’t around the night Tina was killed. One of his sister’s boys got married and moved to Astoria, so there’s an extra bedroom. Anyhow, I started writing again, and I’m about a hundred pages into a book.”

“You’re still planning to come to Milwaukee?”

“More than ever,” Underhill said. “I gather we will have Maggie’s company.”

“I hope so,” Poole said. “There’s something you ought to know about, which is the real reason I called.” He told him about seeing Koko and finding the card, and read its three lines aloud.

“He’s pretty confused. Something got to him. Maybe he regained enough sanity to want to quit what he’s doing. Being back in America would give him a whole series of shocks, if I can go by my own example. Anyhow, that mention of Hal Esterhaz makes me all the more interested in going to Milwaukee.”

Poole arranged to meet Tim at the airport at ten-thirty the next morning.

Then he called Conor, told him about seeing Koko, and advised him to stay at Ellen Woyzak’s house until their party returned from Milwaukee. Before he hung up he gave Conor the telephone number of the hotel where he had booked rooms for the next three nights.

“The Pforzheimer?” Conor asked. “Sounds like a brand of beer.”

He called Westerholm, but Judy was still refusing to speak to him. Michael told Pat Caldwell to switch on the elaborate yard lights he had installed the year after Robbie’s death and to be sure to call the police if she saw anyone near the house or heard any noises. He did not think that Koko would go after the women, but he wanted them to be prepared. He also told Pat about a shotgun he had taken down into his basement about the time he had stopped switching on the arc lights around his house every night, and gave her the number of the Pforzheimer Hotel. Pat asked him if all this was related to the man they had tried to find in Singapore, and Michael told her that it was not as simple as that, but that she was more right than wrong. Yes, he was going to Milwaukee to try to search for the man, and yes, he thought everything would be over soon.

When he hung up he walked to the window, looked again at the parade of people passing between the ice cream stores and the restaurants, then left the window and packed a couple of days’ clothing into a suitcase. Then he called his house again. Pat answered immediately.

“Are you sitting next to the phone?”

“Well, you didn’t exactly reassure me the last time you called.”

“I probably over-reacted,” Poole said. “This guy isn’t going to come out to my house. He has never attacked women alone. It’s people like Harry and me that he wants. Did you turn on those yard lights?”

“It looks like we’re opening a gas station.”

“When I put them in, I wanted to make everything as bright as possible. No hiding places.”

“I see what you mean. Haven’t the neighbors ever complained?”

“I kept them on for a few months a couple of years ago, and they never said anything about it. I think the trees screen everything pretty well. How’s Judy?”

“She’s okay—I told her I was humoring you.”

Judy still would not speak to him, so he and Pat said goodbye.

Finally he telephoned Harry Beevers.

“I’m here,” Beevers answered.

“It’s Michael, Harry.”

“Oh. You. Something on your mind? You’re still going, aren’t you?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. Just checking. You hear about Underhill? What he did to me? The man moved out. It wasn’t enough for him that I gave him room and board and totally respected his privacy—it wasn’t enough that while he was here that crazy junkie was able to write whenever he wanted—I’m telling you, be careful around that guy. You can’t trust him. What I think—”

“Hold on, Harry. I know about that, but—”

“You know about that, huh?” Beevers’ voice had gone small and cold.

“Yes, Harry.”

“You should know about it, Michael. Who opened his mouth to a little girl, and told