A double bed sat in the corner, its veneer headboard against the rear wall, its left side next to a wall with a ground-level window. The bedding had been removed and I could see the big dark blotch on the mattress. I crawled onto the bed, raised the yellowing window shade, and lifted the sash; its weights clanged down inside their casing and the sash went up easily. I breathed in the fresh air from the alleyway. I groped around between the bed and the wall and pulled up the adjustable window screen that probably would have been in use on the night of the killing.
Access to the bathroom was through a door on the bedroom's right wall. I looked inside, then went back to the living room, took Anita Ward's "Ring My Bell" from the record shelves and placed it on the turntable. I waited for the amplifier to warm up, then played the record at high volume. A second set of speakers fed the sound into the bedroom.
I went back to the bathroom, closed the door securely, turned on the shower in the metal stall, and stuck my head inside. I stayed out of the direct line of spray but still got a wet face from the ricochet. I listened. I could hear an occasional bass note and, just barely, a distant thump-thump-thump. But I had to work at it. Mass carnage could have taken place in the bedroom outside and I might or might not have heard it.
I shut off the shower, dried my face with a towel on the rack by the little sink, then went out to stop the music.
The landlady was standing in the doorway. "That stuff gives me a headache," she said. "The new guy, I gottim from the deaf school. I figger, they can't hear, they won't play no loud music. I hadda do it, see. That stuff gives me a headache."
Back at the office, I called Ned Bowman. I said, "You've got the murder weapon. What kind of a knife was it? The papers just said 'kitchen.'"
"First you tell me what you're doing, Strachey. Account for your activities for the past six hours.
Then I might bend the rules a bit and reveal official police information. Remember, I said might."
"Jesus, you know what gay life is like, Ned. It's constantly a lot of raunchy stuff you really wouldn't want to hear about. Like, I spent the earlier part of the afternoon getting fondled by a drag queen who thinks she's Rita Hayworth. That kind of craziness. You want to hear more?"
"Strachey, your credibility with me is just about zilch! I'm seriously thinking of cutting you off.
Or maybe arranging for you to have a wee licensing problem. How would you go for that?"
I said, "St, Louis."
"Tell me more."
"So far, that's all I know. Check St. Louis. St. Louis, Missouri."
A dribble of sweat ran down my ribs. I'd checked the St. Louis number on Chris Porterfield's business phone bill and reached another travel agency.
"I'll check it out," he said. "I'll have to alert the St. Louis department to watch for the Hertz car from Wyoming. It'll take time."
Right, it would. I said, "The knife, then. Please describe it."
He said, "A carving knife. Wooden haft. Long, thin, stainless-steel blade. Fourteen inches end to end. Sheffield."
"That sounds expensive. Kleckner's other kitchenware is junk. Do you think Blount carried a carving knife with him that night? In a violin case?"
A pause. "I concede that there exist certain questions relating to the alledged murder weapon. All that'll be cleared up once I've had the opportunity to chat with William Blount. Of that, Strachey, I am certain."
"I don't think Blount would have had a knife like that either," I said. "One of the disadvantages of being young and gay, Ned, is that you don't get any wedding presents. People with Sheffield cutlery are well off, or married, or both. Also, you still haven't explained how someone else's prints were on the knife, not Blount's. You're heading the wrong way, Ned, admit it."
"I'll admit no such thing. In fact, if you want to know the truth of it-not that truth is anything you'd care that much about-the truth of it is, I'm now working out a theory that Blount had an accomplice-the guy who busted into Blount's apartment and made off with his phone book."
"Guy?"
"We went out to Blount's place and found a witness to the break-in you reported. A woman on the first floor let somebody in the front door behind her around eleven o'clock Friday night and a bit later heard the door get busted in. Ten minutes after that she sees the guy out her window getting into a gold-colored car. Ring a bell with you?"
Friday night. The night I'd been in Blount's apartment around seven, answered the phone, and heard the caller wait and then hang up. I said, "A gold-colored car? Nope, haven't run across that one. How come the woman didn't report the break-in?'
"She-well, she did."
"Let me guess-"
"Fuck you, Strachey."
I said, "A patrolman checked it out, wrote it up on some forms, and you weren't told. Right?"
"I retire in six years, two months, and twenty-six days. In the big picture that's not a long time.
It'll pass. Time flies when you're having fun."
"Describe the man-the lock smasher."
"It's blurry. Twenties, light hair, light blue sweater. Carried a gym bag of some kind, probably with the tools in it. Big, new gold-colored car. Keep an eye out among your fag friends, will you?"
It could very well have been Zimka, though he struck me less as a gym-bag type than a paper-bag type. I said, "I'll be on the lookout. He's probably one of us. The light blue sweater is a code.
It means he's into ice cubes."
"Ice cubes? Kee-rist!"
"You don't want to hear it, Ned. It's pretty kinky. Real Krafft-Ebing."
"Kinky, you call it! You people draw some pretty fine distinctions."
"It's a way of life," I said. "Just another way of life." He muttered something. "I'll be in touch, Ned. You too, okay?"
"Sure, I will."
He hung up, still muttering.
I called PBS in New York, got the name of its Denver affiliate, KRNA, Channel Six, then phoned out there and asked what programs the station had run on Monday night. I was told the Paul Robeson special had been on from eight to ten, local time, and at ten o'clock Monty Python came on. That would have been midnight, eastern time. Just right.
I phoned American Airlines in Albany and made a reservation for a 9:50 A.M. flight on Thursday, changing at O'Hare for a Continental flight to Denver.
I looked up Huey Brownlee's place of employment in my notes, then called Burgess's Machine Shop. The woman who answered put me on hold; a male voice came on the line, then I listened to five minutes of roaring and grinding sounds before Huey answered.
"Donald, my man, how's it shakin'?"
"Huey, I've got a funny question."
"You want a funny answer to it or a see-ree-yus answer, baby?"
"It's serious. I haven't found Billy Blount yet, but I'm getting close to him, and meanwhile I'm trying to verify something. Did Billy always take a shower after sex?"
He laughed. "At first, I kinda took it personal. I never knowed anybody to do that-except for this married dude from Selkirk who used to drop by wunst and a while. Damn Billy'd spend ten minutes in there washin' me off him, even when he slept over. I kidded him, and he said it was just a habit he always had, so I gave it no mind after a while. Why you want to know that?"
"Because Billy told someone that he was in Steve Kleckner's shower at the time of the killing. It makes sense."
"I'd believe that. Spic 'n' Span Billy."
"Thanks, Huey, you've helped me a lot. Hey, one thing- did you get that window lock fixed?"
"Sposed to be fixed today, Donald. Landlady said she'd see to it."
"And you haven't gotten any more weird phone calls?"
"I wouldn't know, baby. I ain't been home the last coupla nights. Don't ask me where I was,
'cause I ain't sure I could tell ya. Rotterdam, it might of been. Anyways, I'll be back home tonight