"That's my business card."
"Yeah, isn't it, though. Your business card — 'Donald Strachey, Private Investigations'-in amongst the papers of the man who died by murder in your car. Now then. You are about to assist with this homicide investigation instead of obstructing it. You are going to explain to me what was your connection with John C. Lenihan. I'm all ears. Go."
I said, "When I met Lenihan last summer I must have given him my card and he kept it-for whatever reasons. And lately he's been throwing my name around without my knowledge or consent-also for reasons unknown. Lenihan apparently told somebody that I have something of his.
Or theirs. But I don't."
He shifted irritably, the hand leaving the prune-juice glass and making a quick pass at the nose. "Something of whose? Who told you that?"
"I received an anonymous telephone call last night from a man with a tablecloth in his mouth who said I had something that didn't belong to me and he wanted it."
"Dope?"
"I don't know. The caller offered no specifics. He said I could see how serious he and his people were, and I took this to mean that they had killed Jack and left him in my car."
"Keep talking."
"That's it. I'm trying to figure it all out myself. Lenihan must have gotten me confused with someone else. There's been a misunderstanding apparently."
"A pack of stinking lies from beginning to end. Anonymous caller my ass."
"Not at all. Ned, do us both a favor and search my house. And my office too. Here are my keys, you wont need a warrant. Maybe I do have something of Lenihan's-some stuff that was left in my house when we bought it last year, or whatever. Send some of your guys out there and turn the place inside out-not too crudely, please-and see what you can turn up. If you can find a connection between me and Jack Lenihan, I'm the one who'd most like to hear about it. Will you do it?"
As I spoke, Bowman scratched energetically away on a legal pad, his nose substitute. He said, "You're setting me up, aren't you?"
"For what? What would the point be?"
"Maybe waste my time, buy time for yourself."
"I've got all the time in the world. I'm thirty-six years old and have most of my life ahead of me."
"You're no friggin' thirty-six. You're older."
"I meant forty-six, whatever. The point is, I want this craziness cleared up as badly as you do. If I have become inadvertently involved with criminals, I want to extricate myself. I have to, I have a license to keep. I know I've behaved pretty shittily with you on a couple of occasions, Ned, and you don't owe me a damn thing. But I also know that in spite of everything you still believe that people are basically good at heart, and I'm a person."
"Huh?"
"Help me out. Help me get out of this."
"And search your house?"
"If there's something there, I want to know what it is."
"Why don't you search it yourself?"
"Because I'm not going home for a while. I don't want to risk being spotted by the anonymous caller. Timmy and I are staying at the Americana."
"You want me to go over to your place and put on a big show, is that it?"
"Yes."
"You're scared, aren't you?"
"Yes, I am."
He tried to suppress a sneer. "When push comes to shove, you people just haven't got what it takes, have you? It looks to me like you're finally going to have to admit that, Strachey."
"If by 'you people' you mean Presbyterians, Ned, I have to warn you that it might not be a good idea to generalize from my particular situation.
Eisenhower was a Presbyterian, and I think MacArthur too. I don't know about Patton. Or McGeorge Bundy."
He scratched at the pad, sniffed with his nose. "Sure, I'll search your house. Maybe I'll find more than you think I'm going to find."
"Could be. And while you're over there, would you mind picking up a few things? I'll leave you a list."
"Don't be ridiculous."
"What did the ME have to report on Lenihan?"
"That is confidential police information."
I flipped a dime onto his desk. "Here-your first bribe."
He actually laughed. And pocketed the dime. "It'll be released to the media today anyway, so what the hell. Lenihan was hit hard at least five times most of the blows from behind-with a blunt object, probably hard metal.
Whatever it was left no residue. He died soon after, in your car, between ten o'clock Tuesday night and one A.M. Wednesday. The forensic indications were that he had not put up much of a struggle, so the second or third hit probably knocked him out. He might've been snuck up on, or maybe the killer was a person he knew and trusted. Since he'd made some attempt to defend himself, it's hard to tell."
"So he was actually dumped in my car while it was still on Crow street."
"Your car wasn't towed until after three. I talked to the crew who hauled it out to Faxon's and they didn't notice anything, but then they wouldn't have, because your windows were all frosted up from what are presumed to have been Lenihan's last breaths. Or maybe when you parked your car that night you let one rip. We didn't analyze the window moisture."
"When had Lenihan last eaten?"
"Dinner that night, it looked like. Some kind of creamed-chicken shit."
"Creamed chickenshit?"
"Creamed chicken."
"What about Lenihan's car? Has it turned up?"
"He didn't own one. His friends say he rode the bus."
"What about my car? Was there anything helpful in it?"
"No prints, if that's what you mean. Just yours, which the state of New York wisely keeps on file. Whoever touched anything wore gloves. These are pros we're dealing with here, Strachey, it is plainly evident."
"Everybody's wearing gloves this month. It's cold out. When can I get my car back?"
"Tomorrow maybe. We'll see."
"Lenihan wore glasses. Have they been found?"
"Nah. They must have been knocked off wherever he got conked."
"Lenihan was away from his apartment over the weekend. Have you been able to track where he went?"
"Not yet. We're talking to his family and the people he knew, but nobody's been very goddamn helpful. There are a couple of them I might have to go back and lean on a little." He wrinkleld his nose as if to try to make it scratch itself.
I said, "This looks like a dopers' execution, doesn't it? Is that the angle you're pursuing?"
"You know what Lenihan's record was. Of course that's what it is. I think you know that, Strachey. I think you know a whole lot more about this than you're letting on, that's what I think."
"Well, you're going to think what you're going to think." I passed him my spare set of house and office keys. "It's 218 Crow Street, and you know where the office is. If you want to use searchlights and bullhorns that's okay, but once you're inside try not to get any fingerprints on the Millie Jackson records. That's all I ask."
He gave me his demented-dunce look. "Just keep yourself available, Strachey. I mean it. I want you at my beck and call."
"I'm always at your beck and call, Ned. Especially your beck. If you need me for anything, just press your lips together and-beck."
"Take care of yourself. You want protection of some kind?"
"Nah, I'm cool."
"You're at the Sheraton?"
"Americana."
"Oh, yeah."
As I went out the door I thought I caught him out of the corner of my eye dunking his nose in the glass of prune juice, but that couldn't have been.
The blue Dodge with two of Bowman's junior dicks in it stayed a block behind me up Pearl. On the snowy roadway I fishtailed into the maze of old colonial streets downhill from the capitol and lost them in ninety seconds.
Back in my room at the Hilton I reread Lenihan's letter, laid it and my notes out on the desk, and studied what I had. I concluded that the people who murdered Jack Lenihan were either very smart or very dumb, were certainly very desperate, and were to be avoided for as long as was necessary, but not a split second longer than that.