Ebsen said, “You think he’d give me three grand?”
“Ebsen, look, I—”
“See you tonight.”
He hung up.
“That was Harold Ebsen?” she said. She was over by the chair where she’d laid her jeans and sweater, getting dressed. In the Christmas tree lights, her young body was more lovely than ever. “The creep?”
“He sure seems to have a lot of fans.”
“He doesn’t deserve any fans. Not after what he did to Dunphy.”
“I heard. About the shotgun microphone?”
“Oh, not just that, Tobin. Not just that. He even started following Dunphy’s friends around. He sent several of them cassette tapes that read ‘With compliments of Richard Dunphy.’ ”
“Why would he start taping people?”
“Power.”
“Power?”
“When you start following people around — and he followed a lot of people and audio-taped them — then you have power. Or you think you do. Sometimes he’d just tape people indiscriminately.”
Tobin sat up in bed. “How do you know all this stuff?”
“I heard Dunphy and him arguing in Dunphy’s office one night. Dunphy sounded ready to punch him out.”
“Why didn’t Dunphy go to the police?”
She shrugged. “I guess I couldn’t help you there.”
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.”
“He wants money from you, doesn’t he?”
“Three thousand dollars.”
“That creep. He really is.” She glanced at her watch. “Well, I’d really better be going. Mom’s baking cookies tonight. She likes having me sit in the kitchen with her and smell them bake. She says it reminds her of when I was a little girl.” She smiled. “Sometimes it makes me smile.”
“Your red mittens make me smile,” Tobin said, going over in his underwear and kissing her tenderly.
“My red mittens?”
“Red knit mittens. Little-girl red knit mittens. They’re sweet.”
She held them up for inspection. “This is what my mom does when she’s not baking cookies.”
Then she returned his kiss. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Tobin. Just be careful with Ebsen. I wouldn’t trust him at all.”
“Funny,” Tobin said, “I got the same impression for some reason.”
22
11:26 P.M.
After Marcie Pierce had left, Tobin worked out on his rowing machine, took a shower, and then put The Lady in Red on the VCR. He was writing a piece on John Sayles for American Film and he considered the Sayles script for Lady his absolute best.
Then it was time for Harold Ebsen to show up.
Tobin paced around the large, drafty apartment. Several times tonight he had considered calling Detective Huggins and telling him all the things he’d learned in the past twenty-four hours — but he knew that Huggins would offer no help in following up his leads. He already had his killer — Tobin.
Around eleven-thirty Tobin, curious and tense now from the waiting, decided to go downstairs to the vestibule to see if the bell was out of order or something.
When he reached the vestibule, the door was flung back and the young married couple from across the hall came tripping in under the burden of their Christmas packages. Tobin stuck his head out the door — looked left and right, seeing nothing — then helped the couple carry some of their load upstairs.
Back in his apartment, he looked up Harold Ebsen’s phone number in the book and dialed it. Busy. He went in the john and whizzed and came back and tried again. Still busy. For some reason Harold Ebsen had decided not to keep his appointment.
Tobin needed to know why.
23
Friday 12:23 A.M.
“I’ll be right back,” Tobin told the cabdriver.
Even the Christmas decorations on Ebsen’s street were dark this time of night. Tobin got out of the cab, drawing his topcoat collar up around him. It was three degrees above zero.
There had been a snowfall earlier tonight, so Ebsen’s unshoveled walk was slicker than it had been the past morning. He inched along, staring ahead at the small house. It was as black as the rest of the street. If Ebsen was on the phone, why were there no lights?
Tobin went up and tried to peer through the painted-over windows, but that was useless. Then he stood on tiptoe and tried to look in through the front door. That proved hopeless too.
He decided to do the unlikely thing, knock.
He raised his hand and brought it down in a sharp knock. He was surprised by the sound of something being scraped across the bare wood floor inside.
His knock had apparently startled somebody who had inadvertently made a noise.
He stood there, his nostrils getting frosty, shrinking inside his topcoat from the cold. He listened very carefully for any other evidence of somebody inside, but there was nothing. Then he got an idea and carefully made his way off the porch and down the walk and back into the cab.
“Back home?” the cabbie asked.
“No. Around the block. Then go in the alley.”
He watched the cabbie’s eyes fill the rearview mirror. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I don’t want no trouble.”
“There won’t be any.” Tobin smiled. “It’s my wife. I think she’s got a boyfriend.”
“Long as the boyfriend doesn’t have a gun.”
“He’s her hairdresser.”
“Oh, hell, then. No sweat.” Here was a guy who obviously believed everything he read in the Post.
All the way around the block Tobin wished he could just stay in the back seat of the cab. It felt safe and warm in here. The glow of the dashboard lights. The radio low with Nat “King” Cole’s beautiful “Christmas Song.” The houses that were so shabby during the day were now almost beautiful, tucked in against a backdrop of snow. If he never had to leave the cab, he could spend the rest of his life happily just riding around, maybe coast to coast, or maybe somebody would build a highway across the ocean and he could visit London and Paris, just sitting in the back of the cab, safe from Detective Huggins and safe from his past.
“Here we are,” the cabbie said.
The alley was a tunnel formed by long flanks of tiny one-stall garages, many of which leaned dramatically left or right in various stages of collapse. The moonlight here seemed bright.
“Now we wait.”
“You think she’s gonna come out the back?”
“She’ll have to.”
“Why?”
“There’s her car.”
And so there was. A car. A new gray Mercedes sedan. Parked at an angle in front of Ebsen’s closed one-stall garage. He knew, of course, who owned the car.
“Think I’ll have some coffee. If I had an empty cup, I’d offer you one,” the cabbie said.
“That’s fine. I’m going in.”
“You going to walk in on them?”
“Isn’t that the best way?”
“Man, I don’t know. Seeing your old lady all tangled up in somebody else’s bed. Man, I don’t know if you could ever get that sight out of your mind.”
“It’s the only way,” Tobin said solemnly.
“Well, good luck.”
“Thanks.”
So Tobin got out and started up to the house. The moonlight cast long shadows from a naked elm. Wind whipped up a fine silty snow that was not unlike frozen cocaine. He was cold within a minute of leaving the cab.
On his way he saw a fenced-in area of chicken wire with what appeared to be an oversized doghouse appended to the garage. This was where Ebsen kept his chickens. They were down for the night. Abreast of their house he smelled chicken droppings on the stark night air.