'Hey,' he said, 'when I think of all the pleasure you guys have brought me on the screen, how could I turn you down?' He grinned, then turned serious. 'Are you trying to bust a porn ring? Is that what this is all about?' When I hesitated he assured me that he understood if I couldn't talk about it. But would I at least drop by when it was all over and tell him how it had turned out?
I said I would.
I had twenty-six names, only eleven with phone numbers. I tried the phone numbers first, because it's so much easier when you can do this sort of thing without walking all over the city. It was frustrating, though, because I couldn't seem to complete a call, and when I did I succeeded only in getting a recording. I got three answering machines, one with a cute message, the others simply repeating the last four digits of the number and inviting me to leave a message. Four times I got the NYNEX computer-generated voice telling me that the number I had reached was no longer in service. On one occasion it supplied a new number; I wrote it down and called it, and nobody answered.
When I finally got a human voice I barely knew how to respond. I looked quickly at my list and said, 'Uh, Mr. Accardo? Joseph Accardo?'
'Speaking.'
'You're a member of the video-rental club'- what was its name?- 'at Broadway and Sixty-first.'
'Broadway and Sixty-first,' he said. 'Which one's that?'
'Next to Martin's.'
'Oh, right, sure. What did I do, not bring something back?'
'Oh, no,' I said. 'I just noticed there's been no activity in your account in months, Mr. Accardo, and I wanted to invite you to come in and check out our selection.'
'Oh,' he said, surprised. 'Well, that's very nice of you. I'll be sure and do that. I got in the habit, going to this place near where I work, but I'll stop by one of these nights.'
I hung up the phone and crossed Accardo off the list. I had twenty-five names left and it looked as though I was going to have to do them on foot.
I called it a day around four-thirty, by which time I'd managed to cross off ten more names. It was a slow process, slower than I might have expected. The addresses were all pretty much within walking distance, so I could get around without too much trouble, but that didn't mean I could establish whether or not a particular person still lived at a particular address.
I was back in my hotel room by five. I showered and shaved and sat in front of the TV. At seven I met Elaine at a Moroccan place on Cornelia Street in the Village. We both ordered the couscous. She said, 'If the food tastes as good as the room smells, we're in for a treat. What's the best place in the world to get couscous?'
'I don't know. Casablanca?'
' Walla Walla.'
'Oh.'
'Get it? Couscous, Walla Walla. Or, if you wanted couscous in Germany, you'd go to Baden-Baden.'
'I think I get the premise.'
'I knew you would, you've got that kind of mind. Where would you get couscous in Samoa?'
' Pago Pago. Excuse me, will you? I'll be back in a minute, I have to make peepee.'
The couscous was terrific and the portions were large. While we ate, I told her how I'd spent the day. 'It was frustrating,' I said, 'because I couldn't just check the doorbells to determine whether or not the person I was looking for lived there.'
'Not in New York.'
'Of course not. A lot of people leave the slot next to their bell blank on general principles. I suppose I should understand that, I'm in a program that places a premium on anonymity, but some people might find it a little strange. Other people have names on the doorbell but the names aren't theirs, because they're living in an illegal sublet and they don't want anybody to find out. So if I'm looking for Bill Williams, say-'
'That's William Williams,' she said. 'The couscous king of Walla Walla.'
'That's the guy. If his name's not on the bell, that doesn't mean he's not there. And if his name is on the bell, that doesn't mean anything either.'
'Poor baby. So what do you do, call the super?'
'If there's a resident super, but in most of the smaller buildings there isn't. And the super's no more likely to be home than anybody else. And a superintendent doesn't necessarily know the names of the tenants, as far as that goes. You wind up ringing bells and knocking on doors and talking to people, most of whom don't know much about their neighbors and are very cautious about disclosing what they do know.'
'Hard way to make a living.'
'Some days it certainly seems that way.'
'It's a good thing you love it.'
'Do I? I suppose so.'
'Of course you do.'
'I guess. It's satisfying when you can keep hammering away at something until it starts to make sense. But not everything does.' We were on dessert now, some kind of gooey honey cake, too sweet for me to finish. The waitress had brought us Moroccan coffee, which was the same idea as Turkish coffee, very thick and bitter, with powdery grounds filling the bottom third of the cup.
I said, 'I put in a good day's work. That's satisfying. But I'm working on the wrong case.'
'Can't you work on two things at once?'
'Probably, but nobody's paying me to investigate a snuff film. I'm supposed to be determining whether or not Richard Thurman killed his wife.'
'You're working on it.'
'Am I? Thursday night I went to the fights, with the excuse that he was producing the telecast. I established several things. I established that he's the kind of guy who will take off his tie and jacket when he's working. And he's spry, he can climb up onto the ring apron and then drop down again without breaking a sweat. I got to watch him give the placard girl a pat on the ass, and-'
'Well, that's something.'
'It was something for him. I don't know that it was anything much for me.'
'Are you kidding? It says something if he can play grab-ass with a tootsie two months after his wife's death.'
'Two and a half months,' I said.
'Same difference.'
'A tootsie, huh?'
'A tootsie, a floozie, a bimbo. What's wrong with tootsie?'
'Nothing. He wasn't exactly playing grab-ass. He just gave her a pat.'
'In front of millions of people.'
'They should be so lucky. A couple hundred people.'
'Plus the audience at home.'
'They were watching a commercial. Anyway, what would it prove? That he's a coldhearted son of a bitch who puts his hands on other women while his wife's body has barely had time to settle in the grave? Or that he doesn't have to put on an act because he's genuinely innocent? You could see it either way.'
'Well,' she said.
'That was Thursday. Yesterday, relentless fellow that I am, I drank a glass of club soda in the same gin joint with him. It was a little like being at opposite ends of a crowded subway car, but we were both actually in the same room at the same time.'
'That's something.'
'And last night I had dinner at Radicchio's, on the ground floor of his apartment building.'
'How was it?'
'Nothing special. The pasta was pretty good. We'll try it sometime.'
'Was he in the restaurant?'
'I don't even think he was in the building. If he was home he was sitting in the dark. You know, I called his apartment this morning. I was making all those other calls so I called him.'
