But it hadn't. "Forty-seven thirty West Fifty-second," he said, reading off the address.
"Uh-huh," Abrams grunted. "Would you mind telling me your name?"
"Ah—I'd rather not. I don't really want any of the spotlight."
"Yeah," Abrams said. "Did you actually see Lake at this address?"
This was starting to get awkward. "No, I didn't," Radley said, searching desperately for something that would sound convincing. "But I heard it from a—well, a pretty reliable source," he ended lamely.
"Yeah," Abrams said again. He didn't sound especially convinced. "Thanks for the information."
"You're—" The phone clicked again. "Welcome," Radley finished with a sigh.
Hanging up, he closed the phone book onto his thumb again and turned back to face Alison.
She was still sitting on the couch, staring at him over the back. "Well?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they won't bother to check it out."
She stared into his face a moment longer. Then, dropping her gaze, she got to her feet. "It's getting late," she said over her shoulder as she started for the door. "I'll talk to you tomorrow."
He took a step toward her. "Alison—"
"Good night, Radley," she called, undoing the locks. A minute later, she was gone.
For a long moment he just stood there, staring at the door, an unpleasant mixture of conflicting emotions swirling through his brain and stomach. "Come on, Alison," he said quietly to the empty room. "If this works, think of what it'll mean for cleaning up this city."
The empty room didn't answer. Sighing, he walked to the door and refastened the deadbolts. She was right, after all; it was late, and he needed to be at work by seven.
He looked down at the phone book still clutched in his hands. On the other hand, Pete would be in by seven, too, and it didn't hardly take two of them to get the place ready for business.
And he really ought to take the time to sit down with the book and find out just exactly what this miracle was that had been dropped on his doorstep.
It was nearly one-thirty before he went to bed... but by the time he did, he'd made lists of every murderer, arsonist, and rapist in the book.
The next time one of those listings changed, he wouldn't have to wait for the news reports to find out who was guilty. He got to the shop just before the seven-thirty opening time, feeling groggy but strangely exhilarated.
"Morning, Mr. Grussing." Pete Barnabee nodded solemnly from up at the counter as Radley closed the back door behind him. "How you doing?"
"I'm fine, Pete," Radley told him. "Yourself?"
"Pretty tolerable, thank you."
It was the same set of greetings, with only minor variations, that they'd exchanged every morning since Radley had first hired Pete two months ago.
"So.
The place ready for business?" he asked the other.
"All set," Pete confirmed. "You seen the new phone book yet?"
"Yeah—mine came yesterday," Radley nodded, resisting the urge to tell Pete about the strange Yellow Pages that had come with his. "The new ad looks pretty good, doesn't it?"
"Best of the bunch," Pete said. "Oughta bring in whole stacks of new business."
"Let's hope so." Radley looked at his watch. "Well, time to let the crowds in," he said, walking around the counter and unlocking the front door.
"Incidentally, you didn't happen to catch any news this morning, did you?" he added as he turned the "Closed" sign around.
"Yeah, I did," Pete answered. "They didn't mention our ad, though."
"Very funny. I was just wondering if the cops found that guy they were looking for in the Cordler murder."
"Oh, yeah, they did," Pete nodded. "Marvin Lake or something, right? Yeah, they found him holed up somewhere on West Fifty-second last night."
Radley felt a tight smile crease his cheeks. "Did they, now?" he murmured, half to himself. "Well, well, well."
Pete cocked an eyebrow at him. "You know the guy?"
"Me? No. Why do you ask?"
Pete shrugged. "I dunno. You just seem..." He shrugged again.
Again, Radley was tempted. But he really didn't know Pete well enough to trust him with a secret like this. "I'm just happy that scum like that is off the street," he said instead. "That's all."
"Oh, he's still on the street," Pete said, squatting down to fuss with the loading tray on one of the presses. "Made bail and walked right out."
Radley made a face. That figured. The stupid leaky criminal justice system.
"They'll get him again."
"Maybe. Maybe not. You don't get many volunteer stoolies after the first one bites it."
Radley stared at him, his throat tightening. "What are you talking about?"
"Oh, it's just that an hour after Lake walked out of the police station the guy who lent him that apartment turned up dead. Shot twice in the face." Pete straightened up, brushed off his hands briskly. "Ready for me to start on the Hammerstein job?" Somehow, Radley made it through the morning. At lunchtime he rushed home.
"Detective Abrams," he told the person who answered the phone. "Tell him it's the guy who gave him Marvin Lake's address last night."
"One moment." The line went on hold.
Wedging the phone between shoulder and ear, Radley hauled the phone book onto the table and opened it to the Yellow Pages. The M's... there. Mo, Mu—
"This is Abrams." The other man sounded tired.
"This is Ra—the guy who told you where Marvin Lake was last night," Radley said.
He had the Murderers listing now. Running a finger down it...
"Yeah, I recognize the voice," Abrams grunted. "You know where he's gone?"
Radley opened his mouth... and froze. The Marvin Lake listing was gone.
"You still there?" Abrams prompted.
"Uh... yeah. Yeah. Uh..." Frantically, Radley scanned the listing, wondering if he'd somehow been looking at the wrong place. But the name wasn't under the L's, or under the M's, or anywhere else.
It was just gone.
"Look, you got something to say or don't you?" Abrams growled. "If you do, spit it out. If you don't, quit wasting everyone's time and get off the phone, okay?"
"I'm sorry..." Radley managed, staring at the spot where the Marvin Lake listing should have been. "I thought—well, I'm sorry, that's all."
"Yeah. We're all sorry for something." Abrams sounded slightly disgusted.
"Next time just write me a postcard okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he hung up.
Blindly, Radley groped for the hook and hung up the handset, his eyes still on the page. "This," he announced to himself, "is crazy. It's crazy. How can it be here one day and gone the—"
And right in mid-sentence, it hit him. "Oh, real smart, Radley," he muttered.
"What are you using for brains, anyway, oatmeal? Of course Marvin Lake's not here anymore—if he had any brains he'll have left town hours ago. And soon as he leaves town..."
He sighed and closed the book, the ail-too familiar tastes of embarrassment and frustration souring his mouth. "Doesn't matter," he told himself firmly.
"Okay.
So this one got away. Fine. But the next one won't. There's still gotta be a way to use this thing. All you have to do is find it." He returned to the shop and got back to work.
If the new display ad had helped at all, it wasn't obvious from the business load. For Radley the day turned out to be an offset copy of the previous one, with the added secret frustration of knowing that a double murderer had slipped through his fingers.
And then he got home, to find Alison waiting for him.