“From what?” Reardon asked.
“From being dragged into this case. Quite frankly, I didn’t come forward before because I dreaded such a possibility. My reputation could be endangered if that connection were made public.”
“Keep talking,” Reardon said without emphasis.
“You see,” Cardan said slowly, lowering his voice, “I did know the young women in question.” He paused. “Rather well, actually.” He looked at Reardon but said nothing.
“How well?” Reardon asked.
“You might say that I employed them from time to time.”
“Employed them how?”
“That is the delicate point. You see, some friends of mine and I have a circle, you might say.”
“What kind of circle?”
“An entertainment circle.”
“You want to explain that?” Reardon asked coldly.
“It’s not material.”
Reardon stopped walking. “I’ll decide what’s material. You just answer the questions. You’re the one who called me out here to the goddamn Sheep Meadow, remember?”
Cardan looked shaken, as if he was being shot at by a high-caliber pistol at point-blank range. “Sorry,” he said meekly. “Of course I did. But I had hoped that all the details might not be necessary.”
“This is a murder investigation,” Reardon said bluntly. “That means that every detail is material.”
Beads of sweat began to form on Cardan’s upper lip, just above the little mustache. His hands fidgeted in his coat pockets. “Well,” he said, “what I want to prove to you is simply that I could not have murdered those two women. My name could come up in the investigation and I simply need someone in the Department, the Police Department, to be aware of the fact that I could not possibly have been involved.”
“In what way did you employ Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald?” Reardon asked.
“In an unusual capacity.”
“How?”
“Are you aware that Miss Ortovsky and Miss McDonald were lesbians?”
“Yes,” Reardon said. He did not see how that mattered one way or the other.
“They also had another trait,” Cardan said, “which turned out to be a profitable one for them.”
“What?”
“Exhibitionism.”
Reardon nodded.
“Some people are exhibitionists and some people are voyeurs,” Cardan said.
“What’s the point?” Reardon asked. He could guess that it was going to get pretty squalid now, and he wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. Such testimony always made him feel as if he was leaning over window sills into darkened bedrooms.
“Well,” Cardan said, “some people in this city like to enjoy the… well, you might call them… you might call them performances. They enjoy seeing various sexual acts performed in front of them.” Cardan smiled what Reardon took to be an ugly, leering smile.
“What does that have to do with murder?” Reardon asked.
“I don’t believe it has anything whatsoever to do with murder.”
“Did Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald give sexual performances?”
“Yes. They were not prostitutes, you must understand. They performed only with each other.”
“For money?”
Cardan smiled. “For a great deal of money.”
Reardon said nothing, letting his silence draw Cardan on.
“The point is,” Cardan continued hesitantly, “I sometimes acted as their agent.”
“For whom?”
“For certain people who desired their services.”
From the way he talked, Reardon thought, you might have taken Cardan for a jewelry clerk at Tiffany’s. “Wealthy people?” Reardon asked.
“Very wealthy people,” Cardan replied. “Not the usual porno crowd.”
Reardon did not understand the distinction. “Go on,” he said.
“Simply this,” Cardan said. “It will not be hard for the police assigned to the case to associate me with Miss Ortovsky and Miss McDonald. I knew them very well. I know a lot of people very well. But I could not have had anything to do with their murder. I was very saddened by it, as a matter of fact. But I was in California when it happened.”
“Who did you arrange these performances for?”
“That’s confidential.”
“This is a murder case,” Reardon said. “Nothing is confidential.”
“I can assure you personally that none of my clients could possibly have had anything to do with the murders.”
“You arranged for Karen Ortovsky and Lee McDonald to perform sexually for money, is that right?”
“I have already said that,” Cardan said.
“You’re under arrest.”
Cardan was thunderstruck. His eyes widened in frenzied disbelief. “What!”
“You have a right to remain silent,” Reardon began.
“You can’t do that,” Cardan exclaimed, his whole body trembling.
“Who are your clients?”
“No! I can’t tell you that!”
“You have a right to an attorney,” Reardon began again, his voice growing louder.
Cardan’s eyes filled with tears. “That will ruin me,” he pleaded. “For God’s sake, I’m an attorney.”
“Who are your clients?” Reardon asked again.
“Please! Please!” Cardan sputtered.
Reardon stopped. “Who are your clients?” he asked menacingly.
Breathlessly Cardan replied, “No more than ten or twelve people, that’s all.”
“I want them all,” Reardon said.
Cardan frantically pulled a notebook from his coat pocket and began scribbling down the names. When he had finished he tore out the page and handed it to Reardon. “Here,” he said.
Reardon grabbed the paper from his hand and looked at it. “This had better be all of them.”
“It is,” Cardan assured him, unnecessarily straightening his tie.
“If I find out that you left anybody off this list, I’ll break your ass,” Reardon said. “I’ll hang you out to dry, do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“No one is left off,” Cardan said. “You have my word.”
“You may be hearing from me again,” Reardon said, “after each of these people has been contacted.”
“Wait!” Cardan exclaimed. “You can’t contact them!”
Reardon began to walk away.
Cardan grabbed Reardon’s arm and forcefully pulled him around. “You have to keep this in confidence. You said this would be in confidence!”
Reardon grabbed Cardan by his collar and pulled his face close to his own. “Sue me!” he said angrily, and threw Cardan backward with such force that the man stumbled to the ground.
As Reardon walked back across the Sheep Meadow he looked at the list Phillip Cardan had given him. One name gaped before him like a bloody mouth: Wallace Van Allen.
“Wallace Van Allen? Are you crazy?” Mathesson said in a voice so loud that several people in the precinct house turned toward him.
Reardon waited for the people in the precinct house to return their attention to whatever they had been doing before Mathesson’s outburst. Then he handed Mathesson the list Cardan had given him.
Mathesson took the list and stared at it expressionlessly for a moment. He seemed to be studying it. Finally he looked up from the paper and glanced quickly left and right to make sure that he and Reardon could not be overheard.
“So what?” he said. “There are nine or ten other names on this list.”
“But it’s a connection,” Reardon said.
“Bullshit,” Mathesson said. “It’s just a coincidence. Nothing else. But we’ve got a solid case against that little Petrakis creep.”
“What about the women?”
Mathesson laughed. “So Wallace Van Allen gets his jollies by watching a couple of broads eat each other out. So what? There’re so many guys like that, they’d have to hold their convention in Yankee Stadium.” He looked at the list in Reardon’s hand. “Those fucking names don’t mean a goddamn thing.”
“Are you telling me you don’t believe the women and the deer were killed by the same man?”