'I wasn't doing that.'
'Fuck you weren't. That what they teach you at those meetings? How to be a pain in the ass when another man wants to have a quiet couple of drinks?'
'No.'
'Just because you're some kind of candyass who can't handle it anymore doesn't mean God appointed you to sober up the rest of the fucking world.'
'You're right.'
'Sit down. Where you going? For Christ's sake sit down.'
'I think I'll get on home now,' I said.
'Matt? I'm sorry. I was out of line there, okay? I didn't mean anything by it.'
'No problem.'
He apologized again and I told him it was fine, and then the booze took him back in the other direction and he decided he didn't like the tone of what I'd said. 'Hang on one second,' I told him. 'Stay right where you are, I'll be back in a minute.' And I walked out of there and headed home.
He was drunk, with the better part of a bottle still sitting there in front of him. He had his service revolver on his hip and I thought I recognized his car parked at the curb alongside a fire hydrant. It was a dangerous combination, but God hadn't appointed me to sober up the rest of the fucking world, or to make sure everybody got home safe, either.
Chapter 20
When I went to sleep that night the videocassette was on the table next to the clock, and it was the first thing my eyes happened to hit the next morning. I left it there and went out to meet the day. That was Thursday, and while I didn't chase out to Maspeth to watch the fights that night, I did get home in time to catch the main event on television. Somehow it wasn't the same.
Another day passed before it occurred to me that the cassette belonged in my safety-deposit box, and by then it was Saturday and the bank was closed. I saw Elaine Saturday; we spent the late afternoon browsing through art galleries in SoHo, ate at an Italian place in the Village, and listened to a piano trio at Sweet Basil. It was a day of long silences of the sort possible only for people who have grown very comfortable together. In the cab home we held hands and didn't say a word.
I had told her earlier about my conversation with Joe, and neither of us returned to the topic that afternoon or evening. The following night Jim Faber and I had our standing Sunday dinner date, and I didn't discuss the case with him at all. It crossed my mind once or twice in the course of our conversation but it wasn't something I felt the need to talk about.
It seems odd now, but I didn't even spend that much time thinking about it for those several days. It's not as though I had a great deal of other things on my mind. I didn't, nor did sports provide much in the way of diversion, not in that stretch of frozen desert that extends from the Super Bowl to the start of spring training.
The mind, from what I know of it, has various levels or chambers, and deals with matters in many other ways than conscious thought. When I was a police detective, and since then in my private work, there have not been that many occasions when I sat down and consciously figured something out. Most of the time the accretion of detail ultimately made a solution obvious, but, when some insight on my part was required, it more often than not simply came to me. Some unconscious portion of the mind evidently processed the available data and allowed me to see the puzzle in a new light.
So I can only suppose that I made an unconscious decision to shelve the whole subject of the Stettners for the time being, to put it out of my mind (or, perhaps, into my mind, into some deeper recess of self) until I knew what to do about it.
It didn't take all that long. As to how well it worked, well, that's harder to say.
TUESDAY morning I dialed 411 and asked for the number for Bergen Stettner on Central Park South. The operator told me she could not give out that number, but volunteered that she had a business listing for the same party on Lexington Avenue. I thanked her and broke the connection. I called back and got a different operator, a man, and identified myself as a police officer, supplying a name and shield number. I said I needed an unlisted number and gave him the name and address. He gave me the number and I thanked him and dialed it.
A woman answered and I asked for Mr. Stettner. She said he was out and I asked if she was Mrs. Stettner. She took an extra second or two to decide, then allowed that she was.
I said, 'Mrs. Stettner, I have something that belongs to you and your husband, and I'm hoping that you're offering a substantial reward for its return.'
'Who is this?'
'My name is Scudder,' I said. 'Matthew Scudder.'
'I don't believe I know you.'
'We met,' I said, 'but I wouldn't expect you to remember me. I'm a friend of Richard Thurman's.'
There was a pronounced pause this time, while I suppose she tried to work out whether her friendship with Thurman was a matter of record. Evidently she decided that it was.
'Such a tragic affair,' she said. 'It was a great shock.'
'It must have been.'
'And you say you were a friend of his?'
'That's right. I was also a close friend of Arnold Leveque's.'
Another pause. 'I'm afraid I don't know him.'
'Another tragic affair.'
'I beg your pardon?'
'He's dead.'
'I'm very sorry, but I never knew the man. If you could tell me what it is you want-'
'Over the phone? Are you sure that's what you want?'
'My husband's not here at the moment,' she said. 'If you would leave your number perhaps he'll call you back.'
'I have a tape Leveque made,' I said. 'Do you really want me to tell you about it over the phone?'
'No.'
'I want to meet with you privately. Just you, not your husband.'
'I see.'
'Someplace public, but private enough that we won't be overheard.'
'Give me a moment,' she said. She took a full minute. Then she said, 'Do you know where I live? You must, you even have the number. How did you get the number? It's supposed to be impossible to get an unlisted number.'
'I guess they made a mistake.'
'They wouldn't make that sort of mistake. Oh, of course, you got it from Richard. But-'
'What?'
'Nothing. You know the address. There is a cocktail lounge right here in the building, it's always quiet during the day. Meet me there in an hour.'
'Fine.'
'Wait a minute. How will I recognize you?'
'I'll recognize you,' I said. 'Just wear the mask. And leave your shirt off.'
THE cocktail lounge was called Hadrian's Wall. Hadrian was a Roman emperor, and the wall named for him was a fortified stone barrier built across the north of England to protect Roman settlements there from barbarous tribes. Any significance the name may have had was lost on me. The decor was expensive and understated, running to red leather banquettes and black mica tables. The lighting was subdued and indirect, the music barely
