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 audible.
I got there five minutes early, sat at a table and ordered a Perrier. She arrived ten minutes late, entering from the lobby, standing just inside the archway and trying to scan the room. I stood up to make it easier for her and she walked without hesitation to my table. "I hope you haven't been waiting long," she said. "I'm Olga Stettner."
"Matthew Scudder."
She held out her hand and I took it. Her hand was smooth and cool to the touch, her grip strong. I thought of an iron hand in a velvet glove. Her fingernails were long, and the scarlet polish matched her lipstick.
In the video she'd had the same color on the tips of her breasts.
We both sat down, and almost immediately the waiter was at our table. She called him by name and asked for a glass of white wine. I told him he could bring me another Perrier. Neither of us said a word until he had brought the drinks and gone away again. Then she said, "I've seen you before."
"I told you we'd met."
"Where?" She frowned, then said, "Of course. At the arena. Downstairs. You were skulking around."
"I was looking for the men's room."
"So you said." She lifted her wine glass and took a small sip, really just wetting her tongue. She was wearing a dark silk blouse and a patterned silk scarf, fastened at her throat with a jeweled pin. The stone looked like lapis and her eyes looked blue, but it was hard to tell colors in the dimly lit lounge.
"Tell me what you want," she said.
"Why don't I tell you what I have first."
"All right."
I started by saying that I was an ex-cop, which didn't seem to astonish her. I guess I have the look. I had met a man named Arnold Leveque when we'd pulled him in on a sweep designed to clean up Times Square. Leveque had been a clerk in an adult bookstore, I said, and we'd arrested him for possession and sale of obscene materials.
"Later on," I said, "something came up and I had occasion to leave the NYPD. Last year I heard from Leveque, who got the word I was working private. Well, I hadn't seen Arnie in years. He was the same. Fatter, but pretty much the same."
"I never knew the man."
"Suit yourself. We got together, and he was being cagey. He told me a story about making a film in somebody's basement, a home movie with a professional touch in that they hired him to be the cameraman. Personally I don't think I could get into the mood with a creepy guy like Arnie watching, but I guess it didn't put you off stride, did it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
I wasn't wearing a wire, but I could have been miked like a soundstage and it wouldn't have made any difference. She wasn't giving away a thing. Her eyes made it very clear she was following everything I was saying, but she was very careful not to get caught speaking for the record.
"Like I said," I went on, "Arnie was cagey. He had a copy of the tape and he was making arrangements to sell it for a lot of money, but of course he was careful not to say how much. At the same time he was afraid the buyer might pull a fast one, and that was where I came in. I was supposed to back him up, make sure the buyer didn't take him out."