Dailey said, “You know that we wish you the best.”
“We, Michael?”
“Jane and I.”
“Oh. Yes. Sure.”
“We do. I mean, in case you were being sarcastic. And I hope you wish us the best, too.”
Tobin sighed. “Michael, don’t ask me to be good-hearted at the moment, all right?”
He had just taken what he hoped was his final morbid look at Ebsen’s corpse and was getting ready to head back outdoors, when the phone rang.
For three rings Tobin and Dailey just stood by the phone and stared at it. Then Tobin went to the phone, putting a finger over his mouth to shush Dailey.
Tobin lifted the receiver, said nothing.
“Did you get the money?”
Now he knew what it was like to be in the electric chair. At the moment the man threw the switch.
He recognized the voice. Of all the voices in the world, why did it have to be this one?
Again, “Did you get the money?” Then, “Damn, Ebsen, are you playing games or what?”
Then, “Shit, that isn’t you, is it, Ebsen?”
Then the line went dead.
“Who was it?” Dailey asked.
“Nobody important,” Tobin said.
Five minutes later he was in the back seat of the cab giving directions.
24
1:47 A.M.
Tobin stopped at an outdoor phone booth and called his answering service and had the woman look up a certain address in the phone book.
By cab he was half an hour away. When he arrived he found himself on the fringe of Soho. The building he wanted was a two-story warehouse that had been converted to apartments, as had most of the other buildings surrounding it. There was one difference. The windows of the building he wanted glowed with light and music and laughter. Party.
When he reached the front door, he saw that there was an entranceway inside, so he tried the doorknob and walked straight in. A couple was entangled just outside an apartment door, the party was furious inside. Tobin envied them. It was always fun at parties to stand in the hall and neck. Over the man’s shoulder the woman’s eyes opened and crinkled a smile at Tobin in recognition. The party had probably just been upgraded from B to A with the arrival of a small-time celebrity.
She pulled away from her boyfriend. “Look. It’s him.”
Her boyfriend, obviously not much giving a damn who anybody was at the moment, turned angrily around and said, “Whoop — fucking — ee.”
“Don’t you know who he is?”
“Of course I do. Now ask me if I give a shit.”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Tobin said.
“Then leave,” the boyfriend said. He was trying awfully hard to look like a beach bum who’d been washed up on chill Atlantic shores. He wore an eye-punishing Hawaiian shirt so he could show off all his chest hair and his biceps.
Tobin looked at the woman. “Does Marcie Pierce live here?”
“Upstairs. But I’m not sure she’s home. I thought I saw her go out a few minutes ago.”
“How about her mother. Is she home?”
The woman seemed confused. “Her mother? Marcie lives alone. Are you sure this is the right Marcie?”
“From Hunter? A film student?”
“Yes, that’s Marcie.”
“But her mother doesn’t live with her?”
The boyfriend decided to put his hands on his hips and have a go at looking threatening. “That’s about enough.”
Tobin was ready. His blood and his brain were about to transform him into “Yosemite Sam.” The guy who took a punch at his partner. The guy who dragged his motorcycle up five flights of stairs to a party. The guy who pushed a dishwasher downstairs. Hitting Michael earlier tonight had felt wonderfully good. But it had only been a slap, and slaps rendered only so much satisfaction. This jerk would render a great deal of satisfaction. Tobin knew the guy would eventually beat his head in, but Tobin would have a great time losing.
The girlfriend wisely set herself between the two men. “Marcie’s parents died in a car accident when she was fifteen. She’s lived alone since then.”
“Oh. I see.”
“Is that all?”
Tobin smiled at the woman. “You seem like a pretty decent woman. You could do a lot better than this jerk.”
She had to hold back her boyfriend till Tobin got out of the door. “I really like your show,” she called as he hit the cold again. “Merry Christmas.”
25
12:28 A.M.
The first person he met at Hunter was a security guard who could have doubled as a villain in a pro wrestling setup. “I can’t let you in,” he told Tobin.
Tobin said, “I’ll be up-front with you, all right?”
The guy stood there fifty pounds overweight in his uniform, just outside the doors leading to the film department, and said, “All right, but it won’t do any good.”
“Being up-front, being honest, showing you myself as one human being to another won’t do any good?”
“That’s right,” the guard said.
“You see that?”
The guard angled his head to see what Tobin was nodding at. “What?”
“On the street corner over there.”
“The streetlight over there?”
“No. What’s on the streetlight.”
“The Santy Claus.”
“Right. The Santy Claus.”
“What about it?”
“Well, it’s that time of year.”
“What time of year?”
Tobin hoped he’d never have to go on a game show with this guy as his partner. “It’s holiday time. Giving time. Helping-each-other-out time.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“So how about helping me out?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I’m in some trouble and I’ve got a feeling that somebody who helped get me in trouble is inside that building.”
“Then why don’t you call the police?”
“Because they won’t believe me. They don’t give a damn about it being that time of year when people help each other out.”
“I don’t either.”
“Well, you were right.”
“I was?”
“Yeah. You said that even if I was up-front with you, even if I showed you myself as one human being to another, it wouldn’t do any good.”
“At least I didn’t lie.”
So Tobin took out his wallet and said, “I suppose you’d get pissed off if I offered you a bribe.”
“Like you said, it’s that time of year when people help each other out,” the guard said.
Tobin knew the guy was going to call the police, then deny that he’d ever let Tobin in, and certainly deny that he’d taken a bribe. He had to move quickly.
His footsteps were hollow echoing down the dark halls. He could smell cleaning solvent. Moonlight fell in tiny amoeba shapes on the floor. He turned several corners, his breathing ragged, his face covered with sweat. He could still hear her voice on the phone. He had been so stupid.
When he reached the corridor leading to the film lab, he moved even faster. Then he was there.
A desk lamp burned in the outer office. He first checked the editing room. Empty. Then he tried all the inner office doors. Locked. He moved to the secretary’s desk and consulted her list of room numbers. He found the main production room number and headed there.
Another corridor. Another right angle. He stood in front of the production room, putting his ear to the door. Nothing.
He jerked open the door and stood there looking around. One wall was filled with TV sets used as monitors. Another contained various small tape recorders and three-quarter-inch video cameras. The east wall held small editing tables for both audio and video. This was where he found her.