Timmy caught this and gave me a look. Here was an education for this sunny, optimistic fellow who had spent much of his adult life in the more wholesome and uncomplicated atmosphere of the back rooms of the state legislature.
Bowman did say he was sending two of his own men out to interview Glempt to get his
"confused account of the abduction," and Bowman further announced that he now had half the detective bureau working on the case and needed more information on Greco's background and recent activities, as well as Dot's and Edith's. I convinced McWhirter that I would personally follow up on "the cop Mel Glempt saw"-this made Bowman writhe with indignant disgust-so for half an hour, over lunch, a tense, snappish interrogation went forward.
It yielded nothing. Greco's family had moved to San Diego eleven years earlier and he had no known remaining Albany connections other than Tad Purcell. Nor could Dot come up with names of any "enemies" of hers or Edith's-former students, colleagues, relatives, neighbors beyond the ones we already knew about: the Wilsons, Deems, and Crane Trefusis.
Bowman said he had detectives out at that moment checking into the activities of Dot's Moon Road neighbors and would personally interview Crane Trefusis, which struck me as a wonderfully droll waste of time. Bowman allowed as how his bureau was also looking at some of the notorious local "hate groups," although he was clearly disinclined to investigate further the particular hate group which the only evidence we had pointed to.
"Lieutenant Bowman," Dot said. "You're not eating your Senegalese soup. Could I get you something else?"
"No, no, I'm fine. What's in this?"
"Tons of fresh vegetables straight from our garden. The herbs and spices are from Edith's little plot."
"Nnn. Looks good." He contemplated the greenish-yellow curried soup.
There was a light rap at the door and Dot heaved herself up.
"It's for you, Don. A man with a beautiful suitcase."
I went outside and watched Whitney Tarkington, in white ducks and a burgundy Calvin Klein polo shirt, place a Gucci bag on the terrace. He unsnapped it and held it open.
"It's all here, Donald. One hundred thousand-soon to become one hundred ten thousand-big ones."
"Dollars, you mean."
"Of course, dollars. What else?"
"In that bag it might have been lira."
"Ha-ha."
I peered into the bag and did a double take. "I see dollars, yes. I also see… Checks?"
"Twenty-eight thousand in cash, seventy-two thousand in checks. Best I could do on a Saturday, Donald. God, I had to bust my carefully toned buns just to come up with this on three hours' notice. I mean, a hundred grand in cash? You think I'm Grams or somebody?"
"Checks, Whitney? You think kidnappers are going to accept checks for a ransom payment?"
"They're good. Really they are."
"Crap. That's hardly the point. Crap."
"I mean, all of them will be good first thing Monday morning. They'll be covered, for sure. You can bet your life on it, Donald."
"Not my life, Whitney. Peter Greco's life. Thanks anyway. "
"That's quite all right. I owed you one, didn't I? Now we're even. Or will be, when you hand me a 53 hundred and ten thousand dollars-U.S. currency, please-seventy-two hours from this second."
He grinned dazzlingly and touched his perm.
"Of course," I said. "See you Tuesday, Whitney. Same time, same place. I might even return the bag."
"Just have it dry-cleaned if it's smudged," he said. "Toodle-ooo." He climbed back into his canary yellow sports car and drove off.
Timmy looked out. "Is that a Porsche nine-eleven? You don't see those around here too often."
"Looks like a Gloria Vanderbilt to me," I said, and went inside.
I phoned Crane Trefusis again. "I have to cash a number of checks. Seventy-two thousand dollars' worth. They're good. But the banks are closing, and Price Chopper revoked my We-Do-More-Club card last March over a minor incident involving a rib roast, a bunch of asparagus, and a smallish check the State Bank of Albany inexplicably declined to take seriously. You'll help me out, of course."
A pause. "Of course. Have you found the culprits yet?"
"Which ones?"
"Any of them."
"Not yet."
"You will."
"You bet, Crane. Have you come across any information that might help me in my labors?"
"I'm sorry, but I haven't. I don't actually spend a great deal of time with criminals in my business, Strachey."
"How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much time do you spend with criminals in your business? An hour a week? Three days?
Forty-five minutes? What?"
"None that I'm aware of. Not that I'll ever convince a professional skeptic like you."
"Just keep your ear to the ground, Crane. That's all I ask. You never know."
"Of course."
We worked out details for the check cashing and I rang off.
Bowman had neglected his Senegalese soup but was finishing off a second sandwich.
I said, "Hey, Ned. What if the kidnappers are hiding out at the bottom of that soup bowl?"
He blew me a tiny kiss. Dot, a woman of apparently limitless reserves of charity, shook her head, embarrassed for Bowman, a man very hard to be embarrassed for, if not about.
McWhirter was pacing again.
"I've got the money," I said. "Part cash and part in checks that I'll cash and get back here in plenty of time."
McWhirter stared at the bag With fear in his eyes, as if it might contain eight pounds of severed appendages.
Dot said quietly, "Thank you."
Bowman said, "Wish I had friends like yours, Strachey. Good work. Looks like we're all Set. I'll get a man out here to mark the bills and record serial numbers."
"What do we do now?" Timmy asked. "Just wait? I could use some sleep."
"Come on," I said, removing the checks from the valise and stuffing them into a bread bag I snatched from the kitchen counter. "You can sleep tomorrow. When this is all over. Right now we've got places to go, people to see."
"Where? Who?"
"You'll find out. We're both going to be busy. I've got a little list."
"Now don't you get in the way of my people," Bowman warned. "And if you hear anything I need to know, I want to know it goddamn quick. You got that, Strachey?"
I said, "Got it, Ned. You know me. For sure." end user
12
Passing the Deems' house, I told
Timmy, "I'll stop back here later. I don't think the Deems are the main problem in all of this.
Maybe none at all. But there's something I want to check. You can help me out by looking into another nagging matter."
As we bumped past the Wilsons' I explained to Timmy what I wanted him to find out about Bill Wilson.
"I'll do what I can," he said, "but this whole thing is starting to scare the hell out of me. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this rough stuff. It started out as some homophobic vandalism, which was sickening enough. And now people are actually getting hurt. Mutilated."
"I don't like it either."
"Imagine having your lover's finger arrive in a box. Of course, it could have been worse."
"It wasn't his," I said.
We turned onto Central.
"It- What wasn't whose?"
"That finger wasn't Greco's."
"Come on. Really? How do you know? I thought McWhirter told Bowman it was."
"Greco has thick black hair on the tops of his fingers. I know. He touched my face. It tickled a little. The finger in that box was slender like Greco's but practically hairless. And what little hair there was was lighter than Greco's."
"He touched your face? Kee-rist, Donald." He undulated awkwardly in his seat belt. "Do you want to describe the circumstances, lover, or should I just draw my own sensational conclusions and stick it all in your 'Seven Since June' file? Crimenee. You're just-incredible."