“Positive.”
“And came into the restaurant a few minutes before then?”
“Yes. Well, I took Mollie’s call at five after, and he hadn’t yet come in, I didn’t see him standing at the door with Gerard till a few minutes later. If I had to make a guess, I’d say he got here about ten after.”
“Ten after seven.”
“Yes. And Gerard went through the greeting routine, and the shaking of hands, and all the maitre d’ bullshit, and then brought him to the table and sat him down at a quarter past seven on the dot. Which is when I looked at the clock, and said goodbye to Mollie, and hung up.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stiles.”
“De nada,” he said, and grinned.
He had been on the phone with Mike the Whiner for almost forty minutes, and then had got involved in what seemed like a hundred subsequent phone calls, and then had gone out for a meeting with a producer who was doing a revival of a play called The Conjuror, which he’d seen at the University of Michigan some twenty-five, twenty-six years ago, but which had never made it to Broadway… or anywhere else, for that matter. Why the producer wanted to revive it was something beyond Johnny’s ken, but he listened patiently as the play was outlined and then took notes on the actors and actresses required for the cast. He got back to the office at a little past five, called the theater and was told by the stage door guy that everyone had already quit for the day. So he’d called Michelle at the apartment and got no answer there, and kept trying every ten minutes or so until finally he reached her at close to six o’clock. She told him she’d just walked in the door.
“I was starting to get worried,” he said.
“Why?”
“The cops were here to see me,” he said.
The door to his office was closed, but Lizzie was still outside at her desk, and she had ears like a rabbit, so he automatically lowered his voice to a whisper.
“When?” Michelle asked.
“This afternoon,”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did. As soon as I could. You’d already left the theater.”
“I didn’t leave the theater till five o’clock!”
“I had a meeting.”
“What’d they want?”
“Fishing expedition,” he said, and shrugged. “They think I’m the one who stabbed you.”
He heard her catch her breath. There was a long silence on the line. Then she said, “They accused you?”
“No, no, they’re not stupid. But they were asking how long we’ve known each other, how we got along…”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, what time I ate dinner, what time I found out you’d been stabbed…”
“This is very bad, Johnny.”
“No, I think I covered it nicely.”
“Don’t you see what they were trying to find out?”
“Oh, sure. They were running a timetable in their heads. Trying to figure did I have time to stab you and then run over to O’Leary’s.”
“Which is just what you did.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’d you tell them?”
“I told them I had a seven o’clock reservation. Which, by the way, I did.”
“What’d they say?”
“They wanted to know what time I got there, never mind what time the reservation was for.”
“Johnny, we’re in trouble.”
“No, no. I told them I got there a little before seven.”
“They’ll check. We’re in trouble, Johnny.”
“Who’s gonna remember exactly what time I got there? Come on, Meesh.”
“Someone’ll remember. You shouldn’t have lied, Johnny. It would’ve been better to tell the truth.”
“The restaurant is my alibi!“
“Some alibi, if you weren’t there.”
“What’d you want me to say? That I didn’t know where I was? You’re getting stabbed in a fuckin alley, and I can’t account for where I was?”
“You could’ve said you were home. Getting ready to go to the restaurant. Or you could’ve said you were trying to catch a cab to the restaurant. There’s no way they can check on a man standing on a street corner waving at taxis. Anything would’ve been better than telling them you were already in the restaurant, which they can check in a minute. They’ll be back, Johnny, you can bet on it. They’re probably on their way back right this minute.”
“Come on, Meesh, stop tryin’a get me nervous.”
“You’d better start thinking up another story. For when they come back and ask you how come the people at the restaurant don’t remember seeing you there at seven.”
“I’ll tell them my watch was running fast.”
“Then you better set it fast right this minute.”
“Meesh, you’re really getting all upset about nothing. They bought my story. There’s no reason for them to…”
“How do you know they bought it?”
“They both thanked me for my time.”
“And that means they bought your story, huh?”
“What I’m saying is they didn’t seem suspicious.”
“Then why were they asking you all those questions?”
“Routine.”
“What else did they ask you?”
“Who remembers?”
“Try to remember.”
“They wanted to know where we live, and how long you’d…”
“Did you tell them?”
“Yes.”
“You gave them the address here?”
“I told them Carter and Stein.”
“Oh, Jesus, they’ll find me! They’ll come here!”
“No, no.”
“What else did you tell them?”
“I told them you’d been my client since you were ten years old, and that we’ve known each other for thirteen years. They wanted to know if either of us was seeing anyone else…”
“That’s good.”
“It is?”
“Sure. It means they were thinking it could’ve been somebody else. Not you, a third party. What’d you tell them?”
“That it was the same as being married, and that we had a very good relationship.”
“Good.”
“Yeah, I thought so. And then they wanted to know did I have any clients who did Jack Nicholson, and why you’d waited so long to go to them about the calls, you know…”
“Yeah.”
“… and how it was my idea that you go see them. They wanted to know…”
“That was stupid.”
“What was?”
“Telling them it was you who sent me to the police. Makes it sound like you masterminded the whole fucking thing. Johnny, we’re in trouble, I know it.”
“No, they were just trying to find out who the guy was, the guy making the calls. Wanted to know if I’d ever talked to him…”
“Sure, because they were already thinking the calls were bullshit…”
“No. No, I don’t think so.”
“Was all this before or after they asked about the restaurant?”
“Before.”
“Sure, they were closing in.”
“No.
“They’ll be back, Johnny.”
“I’m telling you no.”
“I’m telling you yes.”
“Why would they? When I asked them were they gonna catch this guy, the blond one — you remember the blond one?”
“What about him?”
“He said he hoped so. That they’d catch him.”
“Yeah, you. He was talking about you.”
“No, he was talking about the guy who stabbed you in the alley.”
“Yeah, who was you.“
“Yeah, but they don’t know that.”