“As long as you don’t smoke the same brand as Manny.”
“Aw, the hell with Manny. So he’s a bum. So that doesn’t make me a bum, does it?”
“No.”
“That’s better. I like to be appreciated.” Lopat lit a cigarette, scraping the match against his thumbnail. “I keep my ear to the ground, and that way I catch a lot of dirt. Like about this snatch. How I heard it, the names got a little mixed up — Goodyear instead of Goodfield — but I added two and two and here I am.”
“Think you can identify this Mrs. Willett Goodfield?”
“Sure I could.”
“Good.” Greer flipped the switch of the com box on his desk. “Daley? Get me a copy of that picture just going out on an APB.”
“An APB,” Lopat repeated. “She’s really flown the coop, eh?”
“You figure it out.”
“I’m trying.”
“Don’t strain yourself. At your age it shows.”
The picture was brought in, a small, candid shot of a young woman in profile looking into the window of a store.
Lopat gazed at it a long time with the air of a connoisseur. “She’s not dolled up the way I saw her last night, but that’s Mrs. Goodfield for sure. Not a very good likeness of her, though.”
Greer agreed. The picture had been taken by Ortega without the knowledge of the subject; and it wasn’t a very good likeness of Ethel Goodfield because the young woman looking into the store window was Ada Murphy. Ortega had lent Greer the picture earlier in the day, handing it over with pained reluctance as if he realized that all he’d ever have of Murphy was a creased snapshot and a few fading memories.
Lopat passed the picture back across the desk and Greer looked at it again, for the twentieth time that day. The features were clearly Murphy’s, the posture and the haughty tilt of the head unmistakable.
“She’s a nice-looking girl,” Lopat said. “Funny she’d do a thing like that.”
“Yes.”
“What gets into some women, I wonder? They got everything, looks, class, money, only nothing’s ever enough.” Lopat broke off with an embarrassed little laugh. “Didn’t know I went in for philosophy, did you, Captain?”
“No. It’s quite a shock.”
“Well, I do. I’m what you might call a real philosopher, a guy who figures out what’s the matter with the world and then doesn’t do a damn thing about it.”
“What is the matter with the world, Lopat?”
“People, Captain. Just people.”
Greer rose, heavily. Some days he felt his weight, some days he did not. This afternoon he felt massive and inert, like a stone imbedded in mud at the bottom of a river. “Daley will take your statement in the next office and you can sign it.”
“All right.”
“Thanks for coming in, Lopat.”
“Don’t mention it, Captain. On the other hand, don’t forget it either. The next time you send a couple of your boys to pick up Manny, see that he gets roughed up a little. Nothing that’ll show — the wife would blame me, always does. Just see the kid gets a lesson, understand?”
“I think so.”
“And if any reward is offered for this old lady that disappeared — well, you know how tough it is these days to operate a small business like mine.”
“See that it stays small, Lopat. Go reaching out too far and somebody’ll slap your wrist.”
“I’m not reaching. A little reward money, that’s different. A soft buck is a soft buck. Just don’t forget me, is all I ask.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, so long, Captain. Don’t think it ain’t been charming.”
“I’ll try not to.” He flipped on the com box again. “Daley? Vince Lopat wants to make a statement. Four carbons, and send one of them right out to Barrett. I think he’s still at the Goodfield house.”
“He’s still there,” Daley said. “He phoned in a few minutes ago. One of his boys found some new evidence he wants you to look at.”
“Okay. Make up Lopat’s statement and I’ll take a copy of it down with me.”
“Don’t I get any lunch?”
“Chew a couple of paper clips.”
“Oh, for—”
“And cheer up, Daley. Another nineteen years and you can retire on a pension and have lunch every hour on the hour.”
“By that time they’ll be feeding me through a tube. Malted milks and raw eggs.”
“By that time nobody’ll be able to afford steaks anyway.”
“Captain—”
“You have your orders.”
“Yes sir.”
Greer reached for his hat.
Barrett let him in at the front door of the Goodfield house. “You got here fast, Captain.”
“It’s not far. What’s the news?”
“About the old lady, none. No trace of her. But certain other things have come up. A couple of maps.”
“What kind of maps?”
“Ordinary kind they give away at service stations. Road maps. Come on upstairs and I’ll show you.”
Barrett led the way up the wide staircase and down the hall to Mrs. Goodfield’s bedroom. He was a small man with an oversized head that gave him a faint resemblance to a cartoonist’s version of a man from Mars. Barrett had started out as a doctor, switched to medical jurisprudence, and ended up with the F.B.I. as an expert on paper; paper of all kinds, from its origin in the forests of Quebec, North Carolina, Oregon, to its final form, a dollar bill, a newspaper, a child’s toy, a will, a crumpled wad in a garbage can or a bit of ash in an incinerator.
The paper this time was in the form of two maps. One of them showed all forty-eight states and a fringe of Canada and Mexico; the other was a more detailed map of California with four inserts containing the street layouts of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco.
“Carbonaro found them wedged between the headboard of the bed and the mattress,” Barrett said. “I can’t see that they have any connection with the kidnapping but I thought you might be interested.”
“I am.”
“Apparently the family traveled pretty extensively. Notice the routes and the stopovers are all marked in ink.”
Greer noticed more than that. In the left-hand margin of the California map were two penciled, vertical lists: American League — New York Yankees, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Athletics, St. Louis Browns, Boston Red Sox. The second column was headed National League, and underneath it were listed the Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, Boston Braves, Philadelphia Phils, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Giants.
The margins of the other map were also crammed with writing. They contained a variety of names and dates and comments: Phil, Sept. 27. Cleve, Oct. 8, Gary, Oct. 14, Paul and Minnie, Oct. 29. Pierre, Nov. 13, Billings, Nov. 20 (cold) S.L.C., Nov. 30, Vegas, Dec. 5, Tucson, Dec. 10 (Palace Hotel, Redlands Hospital), Col. Sprs., Feb. 19 (Westcott Clinic, Dr. George Sampson, diet, complain), L.A., May 2, Town House.
Greer folded the maps and put them in his pocket. There was no doubt at all that they were Rose’s maps, the same ones that Mrs. Cushman had seen in her room and that had disappeared after her death. A birthday memo, Mrs. Cushman had called the writing in the margin. It was a memo, not of birthdays but of cities. Greer still did not know what the writing meant or even if Rose herself had done it. But he was sure of one thing, that he now had conclusive proof that Rose had been involved with the Goodfields, had probably been a visitor in this very room.
She may have died here, Greer thought. They may both have died here, Rose and old Mrs. Goodfield.
Yet it was Mrs. Goodfield herself who had most vehemently denied knowing Rose, and denied that Willett knew her. “I’ve never allowed Willett to have any truck with actresses,” she had told Greer. “I explained all about actresses to him when he was eighteen.”