Two questions nagged. Why had Jack Lenihan trusted Mack Fay to the extent that Lenihan could phone Fay from LA and ask him to meet his plane? And why, if she knew that Fay could well have been the man who killed her son- and she must have suspected him-did Joan Lenihan turn over the money to Fay instead of notifying the police? She had been vague and unconvincing on that topic, giving me opinions about the wickedness of Albany that lacked illuminating specifics.
I decided there was a lot more I had to find out before I went to Bowman.
He might conceivably identify and even arrest, charge, and convict Jack Lenihan's killer, but the two and a half million might end up in the state's coffers and get spent on bridge repairs and new hats for fish wardens, both worthy expenditures, but Jack Lenihan had a better idea and I was high with the fever to carry it out. I was going to change history, make improvements on it.
I made a plan of action and set out. First, I went back to the pay phone. It was just after six in Los Angeles and I caught Timmy at Kyle Toot's place.
They had just come in from taking the Universal Studios tour, where Timmy said he had witnessed Hump Finkley of Chompin Choppers drinking from a carton of chocolate milk. I said I was sorry I'd had to leave early and miss it.
It took me twenty minutes to convince the two of them to drive to the LA airport and get on the first flight with an O'Hare connection to Albany. But after I described my own plans for the night and promised to cover all expenses from a special account I planned to open soon, they took mild grudging pity and agreed to do it.
I shut off the car, locked it, and explored the neighborhood, which was quiet except for the plop of wet snow plummeting from utility lines. I glanced up at Flo Trenky's heavily curtained front windows, then went around the block and down an alley, counting houses as I went. The snow in the alley was heavy and deep. My feet were cold. I kept wiping my nose and wished Timmy were there to produce a hanky from his sleeve, stitched with the seal of the New York state legislature.
The Trenky property, like its neighbors, had a crumbling board fence walling off the alley from a narrow yard. The gate of the Trenky fence was ajar, lodged in a snowdrift, which I was glad to take note of. I entered the yard, slogged through the drifts, and crouched below the decrepit three-story back porch, which clung to the rear wall of the house feebly, as if it would soon lose its benumbed grip and tumble away. Stairs ran up to the second floor of the porch and on to the third.
I now knew how I could distract Fay and get inside the house. It seemed to me he was making it too easy for me, but I had to admit to myself that I did not know what kind of awful security devices Fay might have arranged for the two and a half million inside the house.
For just an instant it went through my mind that maybe the five suitcases contained no millions at all, but actually held Fay's summer wardrobe or his leather-bound indexed complete set of Hustler magazine, or fifty stolen car stereos, or-could it be? — three hundred copies of Fridays edition of the Los Angeles Times. I tried hard to push these pessimistic and additionally confusing thoughts out of my head.
I moved rapidly back to the Cumberland Farms store, bought another cup of black vinegar along with four plain yogurts and a packet of plastic spoons, and climbed back into the car. I set the heater on medium and tuned in The Jazz Decades on WAMC. I watched Flo Trenky's front door. If Mack Fay went any place, I wanted to know what he was taking along. If he had the bags, I'd follow. If he didn't, I'd stay put. I cranked my seatback down a couple of notches and sat there watching, waiting for help to arrive from across the continent.
FIFTEEN
Fay came out the door and down the front steps at 1:12
Sunday afternoon. The sky had cleared again, and despite my blurred vision resulting from lack of sleep, I got my first good look at him. The hood of his parka was down and he wore a black watch cap in its place.
He had on dark-blue dress pants and what looked like the bulk of a suit jacket or sport coat under the parka. Cleanshaven now, his face was wide and incipiently jowly with a set, turned-down mouth and hard dark eyes. He glanced at the bright sky, then up and down the street. The five bags were nowhere in sight.
Muttering, Fay kicked at the snow heaped up alongside his truck. He climbed into the pickup, started it up, and rocked it around until it bounced clear of the frozen ruts. I slid down in my seat as he made another U-turn in the intersection and drove south on Third Avenue. I edged up and watched him go. This time I did not follow.
Instead I drove over to a gas station on First Avenue, filled the gas tank, used the men's room, and went back to Cumberland Farms, where I purchased a hearty breakfast of the store's famous dark brew, a Frooty-Tooty pie-baked with the fresh-picked produce of the frooty-tooty tree and a side of six Twinkies. Civic reform is not for finicky eaters.
At 11:55 another Ford, a sibling of the one I was sitting in, moved slowly up Third Avenue, then swung in beside me. They both climbed into my car and I said, "Howdy."
"Have you really been sitting here since you called yesterday?" Timmy leaned toward me for a greeting but caught a whiff of my frooty-tooty breath and gave me a gentlemanly handshake.
Toot said, "How come you didn't freeze to death? This place is some kind of no-man's land!" He was wearing an old heavy topcoat of Timmy's and had a red knit scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face. His rubber galoshes, mine, were three sizes too big.
"Hasn't Timmy explained to you how the climate here enriches character and hones intelligence? For instance, you might have noticed how Reagan, since he moved east, seems to have grown wiser and wiser. He used to be a real bub-blehead in California. But back here-hell."
Timmy said, "We got here as fast as we could. We made it to Chicago, then had to sleep on the floor at O'Hare until the Albany plane left at ten this morning. We stopped at the house to pick up some warm clothes for Kyle along with the other things you said we should bring. Incidentally, our house-"
"Your face is the color of iceberg lettuce. I've never seen you do that before."
"It's probably gangrene," Toot said, and peered in awe at the landscape around him.
"Who did it?" Timmy asked gravely. "Who was the person who entered my home and did that?"
"Hankie-mouth. His name is Mack Fay, the guy I told you about on the phone. He lives over there. Are you two ready to make his life miserable?"
Timmy, his jaw tight, nodded.
Toot said, "Will we have to get out of the car and walk around outside?"
Timmy sat beside me and watched as Toot drove the other rental car over to Flo Trenky's house, parked, went up the front steps, and rang the bell.
The door was soon opened and after a moment Toot went in, shutting the door behind him. Five minutes later he emerged, glanced our way, opened the car's hatch, and took out five gray canvas suitcases that belonged to Timmy and carried them into Mrs. Trenky's rooming house.
"How long are we going to sit here?" Timmy said. "However long it takes. If Toot locates Fay's room in ten minutes, I'm all for it. But it might take longer. Hours, days, weeks. I hope you brought your toothbrush." "I wish you'd brought yours. God." "How was the Chicano Krapp's Last Tape?"
"We never got there. We came here instead."
"Well, you missed out on another day of warm sunshine, but you still get the theater of the absurd."
"You're telling me. Kyle's a little nervous about this, so I hope you know what you're doing."
"I'm sure he's done improvisational theater before. He'll shine in the part. I can tell."
"He says he prefers the classics. Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov. "
"How about Willy Loman? That would stand him in good stead."