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She was leaning over me and whispering my name. I tried to sit up, and managed on the third try. I was in my own bed.

“Ed,” she said. “What happened to you?”

Then I remembered. “I forgot to duck when the guy yelled fore.”

She attempted a smile, but the attempt wasn’t very successful. She got up and went into the kitchen and came back with a glass of ice water. It tasted better than Moet amp; Chandon. Nothing tasted as good as New York City water when you were thirsty.

“I think we have a good line on Jergens,” I said. “There’s a real possibility he killed Alicia, or had her killed.”

She put her hand on my shoulder. “You don’t have to talk now. You can tell me about it later, after you feel better.”

“I never felt better. I just look like hell.”

She gave me a dubious stare.

“The problem is that it’s tough to get to Jergens,” I said. “You know who he is?”

“He’s in real estate, isn’t he?”

“He’s one of the biggest developers in the country. All the banks come to him, begging him to take their dough. They shovel it out the door at him.”

She looked puzzled. “But why would someone like that want to kill Alicia?”

“She had something on him. She might even have been blackmailing him.”

“Alicia would never do that,” she said with a shake of her head.

How could I explain the dirty facts of life to this innocent? “The problem, sweetheart, was that she got herself in too deep. Alicia was tough, but she was playing with the big boys and they had a different rulebook.”

She gripped my hand tightly. “But what are you going to do? I’m worried about you. Look what they did. They might kill you too.”

I shook my head. “They haven’t got a prayer. I’ll just break some more of their golf clubs with my head.”

She laughed. It was a sweet laugh, warm and trusting. “How will you find out?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Jergens is tougher to get to than the crown jewels. He lives on the top floor of the Plaza and he has a security set-up Willie Sutton couldn’t get through. The windows are soundproofed and sealed with sheets of opaque plastic. Short of landing a helo on the roof, there’s no way to get to him. He always has a couple of bodyguards with him. And he hasn’t been returning my phone calls.”

She smiled. I reached over and kissed her on the cheek. “I may look like hell but I feel like hell warmed over. Let me get some shuteye.” I lay back down in bed. “Help yourself to some beer.”

She wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t like beer.”

“Good,” I said.

Tanner called me that night while I was watching the news. “Nobody on the street knows what the hell happened to Wheelock. He vanished clean as a whistle, old buddy. It’s like he de-materialized.”

“What about that guy Murdoch used to work with Wheelock at Merrill?”

“Yeah, I thought of him. Only problem is he moved to Vegas.”

“They have phones out there?” I asked.

Tanner chuckled. “Guess they must. I’ll see if anyone has his number. I’ll get back to you.”

He hung up.

I managed to get to the bathroom. I did look like hell warmed over. And my suit, or what was left of it, didn’t look so great either. I took the hottest shower I could and stood there letting the scalding water run over my aches and pains long after I’d finished washing, wondering why I wanted it to be Wheelock and not anyone else.

CHAPTER XXXI

The hallway was long and hushed, like a cathedral. The wallpaper was understated and expensive and the carpeting was thick underfoot. There were maybe thirty rooms behind heavy wood doors opening onto the corridor. The muted sounds of a TV talk show filtered out from behind one of the doors. It was mid-afternoon and my guess was that most of the rooms were empty.

The hallway ended in a right angle. I edged along the wall, crouched down and stuck my head out a little.

Thirty feet from me was a man sitting in a folding metal chair, reading some kind of comic book. From where I was, it looked like the X-Men. If he’d looked up, he would have seen me in the right-angle mirror over my head. At his feet were a can of Coke, a bag of popcorn and a walkie-talkie. I could smell the popcorn. Behind him was the door that would get me in to see Jergens.

I stood up, loosened my tie, opened my collar button, mussed my hair and put on the goofiest grin I could manage. Then I turned the corner and staggered toward the guy.

“Yo, buddy,” I boomed. “Where’s the can? Ah gotta piss or ah’m gonna bust a kidney.”

He looked up at me with his jaw wide open and dropped the comic book. “There ain’t no bathroom here, asshole. Go down to the lobby.”

He was as big as me and a little heavier, but his muscles had turned to flab a long time ago. He rose and stood his ground.

“Ah cain’t go to the lobby. Ah got no time. Ah got to piss right now.” I staggered once again.

He started to come toward me, completely unaware of what was happening.

I turned sideways, unzipped my fly and put the palm of my left hand on that lovely wallpaper.

When he saw what I was doing, he roared, “Oh no, you can’t piss here, asshole.”

He clamped his beefy hand on my shoulder. He was off-balance. Dumb and off-balance.

I leaned forward and brought my right elbow back sharply into his solar plexus. He let out a deep sigh and tried to inhale but he couldn’t draw the air into his lungs. His arms were flapping like useless chicken wings. His face became red and puffy.

I took half a second to zip my fly back up. You never knew who you would meet, and I always liked to make a good first impression. Then I gave him a one-two to the right and left temples. A final rabbit punch to the back of the neck was enough to put him down.

I pulled off my jacket and tossed it over the security camera and hoped no one had seen our little charade. They could always play the tape later at their leisure and get a big chuckle out of it.

I took some duct tape out of my pocket and tied his hands and feet together behind his back, then sealed his mouth.

He was carrying a Smith amp; Wesson. 38 and he had a set of handcuffs looped through the belt of his brown polyester pants. I rolled him over and went through his pockets. There was nothing worthwhile.

The door was heavy-duty steel with two Medeco locks. And this turkey didn’t have the keys.

I searched him again even though I knew it wouldn’t do any good. “Christ,” I said under my breath.

There was no way I could open this sanctorum.

I kicked the goddam door a couple of times, then picked up the walkie-talkie.

I pushed transmit and said, “Open the door.”

Static filled the air. “That you, Junior?” it squawked. “We can’t see nothing. What the fuck is going on?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” I said. “Open the door.”

Static again. “You gotta use the password, I told you a dozen times.”

“Open the fucking door,” I muttered through cupped hands.

“The password, Junior.”

“You mudda wears combat boots.”

“That ain’t the password, Junior. You gotta learn it, I told you a hundred times.”

I flung the walkie-talkie against the steel door and walked away down what seemed like the longest corridor in the developed world.

I put in a call to Laura when I got back to the office that afternoon, but she wasn’t home. I left a message on her machine telling her that I hadn’t been able to get to Jergens but I’d keep on trying. Then I called Tanner to see if he had any luck in locating Wheelock.

“I tried an on-line search through Nexis to get an address change on his driver’s license and his broker’s license, but all I came up with was a dead end,” I told him.