I managed to drag in a breath. “I'm beginning to get your point."
The cops on the other side of the street had turned their backs.
Rowley stood up and took a step back.
"One thing," I said.
He placed his hands on his knees and bent toward me. His face was a black, featureless pane.
I took another breath. "When I opened that package, I thought we had an arrangement."
"An arrangement."
“I thought a hundred bucks would keep me from getting kicked in the side."
Rowley snapped to his feet and walked away.
•When I put my key in the front door the back of my neck tingled, and I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to find Rowley summoning me into the back of a patrol car. All I saw was Frenchy La Chapelle twitching up Chester Street. Frenchy checked the number on an apartment building, then glanced at me. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, wandered to the curb, and looked down the street as if waiting for a ride. After another glance in my direction, he shifted into his usual sidewalk boogaloo and slid around a corner into Hatchtown.
•64
•At 10:00a.m. on Sunday morning, there was a rap on my door while I was trying to persuade Laurie Hatch to drive Posy Fairbrother into town to retrieve the Mercedes. “I have a visitor," I said.
"Get rid of herand come to my house. I'll give you a tremendous brunch."
The knock came again, in triplicate. “I think it's a cop who doesn't like me very much."
"Put down the phone and let him in, so I can hear what happens. Then let him know you're talking to me."
Helen Janette's voice came through the door. "Mr. Dunstan, if you don't open up, I'll do it myself."
Clustered behind my landlady were Captain Mullan, Lieutenant Rowley, Officer Treuhaft, the human totem pole who had come with Rowley to Nettie's house, and, so close to Rowley that they could have held hands, Stewart Hatch. Stewart was wearing white trousers and a blue double-breasted blazer over a polo shirt with an upturned collar. All he needed was a yachting cap.
"This is the last straw, Mr. Dunstan," said Helen Janette, and barged away.
Captain Mullan said, "May we come in?"
"Be my guest. I'm on the phone."
The four men pushed past me. Hatch started walking around and smirking at my surroundings, and the other three watched me sit on the bed and pick up the telephone.
“I have to hang up. Captain Mullan, Lieutenant Rowley, Officer Treuhaft, and a gentleman who appears to be Mr. Stewart Hatch just came in."
"Stewart's there?"
Hatch turned around when he heard his name. "Who are you talking to?"
"My attorney," I said.
Hatch looked at Mullan. “I take that as an admission of guilt."
"The great Roy Cohn," I said. "A little dead, a little moldy, but still vicious as all get-out."
Mullan smiled, and Hatch spun around and opened my closet. "Step back, Mr. Hatch," Mullan said.
"Should I talk to him?" Laurie asked.
"Probably not a good idea," I said, and put down the telephone.
“I want this man arrested for auto theft, Mullan," Hatch said. "This time, keep him in a cell while we work on the other charges."
"Sit down, please, Mr. Hatch," Mullan said, giving a disgusted look at Rowley. "You're an interested party, not a police officer."
"Mr. Hatch is the victim here, Captain," said Rowley.
Mullan stared at Hatch until he dropped into the chair near the window. "Mr. Dunstan," Mullan said, "do we have your permission to search your room?"
"Please do," I said. "But if this is about Mr. Hatch's Mercedes, you're wasting your time. It's not here."
Treuhaft unzipped my knapsack and turned it upside down over the bed. Rowley pulled out dresser drawers and rummaged through my socks and underwear.
"Mr. Dunstan," Mullan said, "did you remove a Mercedes 500SL from a garage at the residence at 4825 Blueberry Lane in Ellendale between the hours of midnight and twoa.m. this morning and transport it to Harry Street, around the corner from this building?"
"Of course he did," Hatch said.
"Of course I did," I said. "At the request of Mrs. Hatch."
"Ask him what he was doing there in the first place."
Mullan looked back at me. I said, "Mrs. Hatch invited me to dinner. I don't have a car, so she came in and picked me up. During and after dinner, we had several glasses of wine. At the end of the evening, she asked if I would mind driving myself back in a car her husband had left in her garage."
I looked over at Hatch. “It's a beautiful car, Mr. Hatch." His eyes went flat. To Mullan, I said, "This morning, I suggested to Mrs. Hatch that she and Posy, the nanny, come in together, so that Posy could drive the Mercedes back to Ellendale."
"Posy," Hatch said. He made it sound like the name of a poisonous insect.
"This guy always gets his alibis from women, have you noticed?" Rowley came over to the bed. "Why did you conceal the car?"
“I didn't conceal it. I parked around the corner so my landlady wouldn't see me getting out of a Mercedes."
Rowley picked up the scrapbook and dropped it back on the table. "You have the keys?"
I took them out of my pocket and offered them to Mullan, who looked at Stewart Hatch. "Do you want us to call your wife? Frankly, I don't think there's any point."
"Okay," Hatch said. "Let's stop farting around and get to the point." He stood up and came forward, extending his left hand. I held out the car keys. Hatch stepped closer than I had expected and grasped my wrist. He snatched the keys with his right hand, rammed them into a pocket, and bent down to inspect my fingertips.
"Let go of him," Mullan said. "Now."
Hatch dropped my wrist and wiped his hands on his white trousers.
"Mr. Dunstan has been fingerprinted," Captain Mullan said. "And if I see any more initiative out of you, Mr. Hatch, I'll have Officer Treuhaft escort you out."
I remembered what Officer Boyd Burns had told a reporter about "Ottumwa Red," and Rowley saying to a young cop,"Blanks? No ridges?"
The knowledge of who had broken into the Cobden Building and beaten an elderly guard made me feel sick to my stomach. Stewart Hatch pointed at me. "This man is in league with my wife, that's obvious. Who drove him into town? Who has he been seen with, for God's sake?"
"You must be desperate," I said.
"How much are they giving you?" he asked me. "Or are you in it for something besides money?"
"Shut up, the two of you," Mullan said, and turned to me. "Do you have any interest in Mr. Hatch's legal affairs?"
"None at all."
"Your relationships with Assistant D.A. Ashton and Mrs. Hatch are purely social and grew out of accidental encounters?"
"That's right," I said.
"From our viewpoint, you understand, that's a little hard to accept. If you bear no animosity against Mr. Hatch, why did you go out of your way to insult his friend and associate Mr. Milton, on Friday night?"
"Mr. Milton insulted me first. Ask the doorman."
"And you had nothing to do with the break-in at the Cobden Building early this morning?"