They watched me, not moving, their pulses visible at a variety of pressure points.
"Jack's plan was he wanted the opposite of business as usual. Let me guess-open bidding on all city contracts? Professionals instead of party hacks running the departments? Property tax rate equalization? More blacks on the city payroll? A police civilian review board? Maybe even a gay rights ordinance. Hey, I'll bet that's it. That's where you began to hem and haw, Larry, am I right? Jack naively wanted all this in writing, and his agenda was a bit on the socially enlightened side for your tastes. So you hesitated over gay rights, and Mr. Prell, you couldn't stomach the police civilian review board or any sort of quotas on minority hiring, and it was very likely the forward-looking Mr. Kempelman here who just about had it sewed up in the end.
"Except none of you knew where you stood. Each of you knew that Jack was bargaining with other factions, and one of you suddenly felt panicky, and you killed him to keep him from financing one of the other groups, and with the hope that you could then snatch the big money or pry it out of me.
The one of you who did it then arranged for me to be threatened into turning over the money to some thugs you hired, a matter that I am giving serious consideration to, on account of my wanting to keep my skull intact.
On the other hand, I might not. I'm thinking it over."
Kempelman had sat sighing and shaking his head through all this. Prell's alpaca was molting, his haircut down to $7.50. Dooley had barely contained his fury, and now he let loose. "Listen, you faggoty-maggoty sack of shit, I don't have to put up with this type of insulting treatment! In fact, I've had about as much of your lip as I'm going to take! Screw the money, and I'm not through with you either!"
I said, "Larry, your demeanor here tonight represents a breach of protocol that is beyond my capacity to endure. Some of your dandruff dropped into my beer just now, and therefore there is no chance that you will ever receive the money."
Dooley's eyes went wild. He stood up and made for the exit, flinging voters aside hither and thither as he went. I called after him, "Have a nice evening, Councilman Dooley!"
"That man is a disgrace," Prell muttered. "How he continues to be reelected is beyond my comprehension."
Kempelman waved a forkful of chicken and green pepper. "Oh, come on, kid. You know exactly how he does it, and so do I. They got the dough, they got the jobs, they got the contracts. Larry's on the outs with the machine boys this month, but after the primary he'll be back in, for the simple reason that for a man like Larry there is no place else to go. It's all he knows and all he wants to know. It was foolish of Jack Lenihan to approach Dooley, who is as much of a reform politician as I am a rock and roll singer."
"Yes, Sim, you're such an expert on firmly gripping the reins of government in Albany," Prell said. "Is it true you're planning on running a Unitarian minister for mayor this year on a nuclear-freeze platform?"
"That issue will come up," Kempelman said mildly, mouthing a chunk of chicken. "What issue could possibly be more important than the survival of the human species?"
I listened for several minutes while they went at each other in their cordially disrespectful way, each of them a martyr keeping his martyrdom beautiful through distance from the other martyrs. Then I nailed them down on precisely when and where each had last spoken with Jack Lenihan, and exactly what was said by whom. I asked Kempelman when I could pick up the documents showing the legality of Lenihan's "inheritance," and he pulled a thick envelope out of his breast pocket.
"Use them in good health."
Prell produced an identical set and handed it over. "Are you, by chance, the executor of Lenihan's will?" he asked.
"No will has turned up yet. Informally, though, it looks as if I'm it."
Prell's Scotch arrived and he went at it with a shaky hand. He said, "Mr.
Strachey, you don't really believe that Sim, Larry, or I killed Jack Lenihan, do you? That's a horrible thing to suggest, you know."
"Horrible questions often suggest horrible answers. Don't be offended, Mr.
Prell. It looks as if I'm in this even deeper than you are."
"Don't forget to give Officer Bowman a call," Kempelman said, wiping his mouth. "I promised him that if I ran into you I'd put you two sleuths in touch with each other."
"Sure."
"And don't lose track of that two and a half million, will you? Is it in a good safe place, I hope?"
"None safer," I said, and figured it was time to drop by the Hilton and find out how reliable the bellhops were.
NINE
I exited Queequeg's through the kitchen and went up a snowy alley to the side street where I'd parked the rental car. The night air was still now, frozen in place, it seemed, and a scattering of stars hung in a remote black sky. I had to remove a glove to insert the key in the Chrysler's ignition, and when I did so the front seat did not explode, blowing my lower torso into disgusting pulpy fragments. That was a relief.
My breath froze on the windshield, so while the car warmed up I tuned in the all-news radio station and learned that Albany police had no suspect in the Tuesday slaying of a Swan Street man, but that they had developed a number of leads and were searching for the Albany private investigator in whose car the body had been found and who was now believed to be in possession of "additional information." I also was informed that a gorilla in Woodside, California, had given birth to a single gray kitten, though by that time I was headed down Madison and on the lookout for cop cars, so I might have gotten the gorilla story wrong.
I left the rental car outside the Hertz office and dropped the keys through the night-return slot. Bowman would soon have a make on any car rented locally in my name, if he hadn't already, and I wanted to steer clear of him a while longer. Like so many people I kept running into, he would have his nosy questions concerning the whereabouts of Jack Lenihan's two and a half million, except Bowman's manner of inquiry would be ruder than that of the others and I chose to avoid it.
Up in room 1407 Timmy had the TV on and was watching a 20/20 report on a chemical animal feed factory built in 1983 next to an army base where all the soldiers soon grew breasts. The feed company's lawyers said it was a coincidence.
"We're going to where it's warm," I told him, kissing his bare ankle, which was propped atop one of Jack Lenihan's five fat suitcases.
"I don't think so. What's in these bags anyway? I just picked up a toothbrush, some underwear and a couple of shirts. You look as though you've settled in for the decade."
"The bags are Jack Lenihan's. They arrived by bus from Los Angeles and they contain two and a half million dollars."
He removed his ankle. "Did you steal them?"
"No, they were addressed to me-sent by Jack on Monday. As it said in the letter, I'm supposed to keep them safe until I hear from Jack."
He stared at the suitcases with his baby blues, which began to flutter arrhythmically.
"But you're not going to hear from Jack,'
"No. I'm not."
I flopped onto the bed as he sat on the edge of his chair shaking his head.
"It's not yours," he said. "I don't know whose it is, but it's not yours. I want no part of this."
"Part of what? Of course the money's not mine."
"You said we were going somewhere warm. You didn't mean Rio, did you, along with those five suitcases?"
"Nah."
"Then what did you mean?"
"Los Angeles. It's hardly Antigua, but it'll do for now. If I can prove that Lenihan came by this money legitimately, I can go ahead and carry out the project he was planning that was so important to him. Take the day off you've got one coming-and we'll leave in the morning."