"No, and neither was what they did to the body."
"Aside from removing the face and burning off the prints, what else?"
"There was this gouge mark on the inside of the right thigh. About as big as a half dollar."
"C'mon, you have to do better than that. You haven't seen a half dollar in twenty years."
"You want the exact measurements?"
Jude flipped through his notebook.
"What's that? — that sound?" asked Raymond.
"Nothing. Just my notebook."
"He let you watch. He let you take notes — who is this guy?"
"His name's McNichol. Something McNichol."
"Norman McNichol."
"Yeah. How did you know? Do you know him?"
"Know him, shit. Everybody knows him. He's a kook. The ghoul of Ulster County."
Raymond dropped his voice half a notch and added: "Between you and me, let me tell you something — don't trust the guy. He's a number one weirdo, and he can put you on the wrong path in no time."
"Here it is. The hole measured exactly 3.6 centimeters in diameter. It was almost perfectly round."
"So what's that prove? They opened him up like a bottle of wine?"
"McNichol thought it had something to do with a distinguishing mark."
"He would. Listen, kid, it could be anything. Some kind of wound he got before, an accident transporting the body. I wouldn't pay it too much attention."
"Could it be a Mob hit?"
"Could be. Who the hell knows? If they cut off his dick and stuffed it in his mouth, I'd say you got something. But a little jab to the thigh? It doesn't tell you a helluva lot."
"Will you check it out on your end? See if you've got anything at all?"
"Will do, but don't get your hopes up. And anything involving McNichol's bound to be fucked up."
"Thanks. That's what I needed to hear right now."
"Hey, kid, let me ask you — you recording this conversation?"
"You know I am. Standard operating procedure on all my stories."
"Well, it's not standard fucking operating procedure on my end. So cut it out."
"Okay, next time it'll just be you and me and whoever else is listening in on your end."
"Very funny, kiddo. I'll get back to you."
"See you."
"Right."
The line went dead.
Jude's curiosity had been pricked, and he wondered: could he have misheard? He removed the wire from the receiver, reached into the drawer for the recorder and rewound the type, listening through earplugs. It took him four or five stabs to find the place he wanted. But soon enough, there it was, in Raymond's twangy accent: "Aside from removing the face and burning off the prints, what else?"
That's strange, he thought to himself, and he played the tape from the beginning to make sure. I never told him that the prints were burned off. 1 just said they were missing.
He shrugged. It could have been just a lucky guess. But it didn't make Jude feel very comfortable about all these mysteries that seemed to be cropping up around him. In fact, he felt the opposite. Definitely spooked.
Jude wrapped himself in a paisley print bathrobe from El Corte Ingles in Madrid, slipped on rope-bottom sandals from an Eritrean shop in the Village, and padded off to the refrigerator in search of more wine. He was feeling pretty good.
Their lovemaking had been even better this time. She had been anything but restrained, even wild at times, tossing her long hair with such abandon that twice it had whipped him across the face. For his part, he had let himself go and plunged into a state of surrender that combined a dreamy vagueness with sharp-eyed focus; it shut out everything but their two bodies, turning and moving together perfectly. He shook his head in amazement, as he collared a half-filled bottle of chablis with one hand and pinched together two glasses with the other.
Damn. He had not lost himself like that for some time.
When he returned, Tizzie was propped up against the headboard, looking sphinxlike. Standing beside her, he poured them each a half glass, and as she reached for hers, the blanket slid down to reveal her breasts, small but perfectly rounded with the nipples erect. He gave an appreciative nod and raised his glass in a toast.
"Here's looking at you, kid."
She reached over to pull the tie on his bathrobe, which fell open, revealing his nakedness, and returned the toast.
"And you, Louie," she said. "This could be the start of a beautiful friendship."
He smiled and walked around the bed and sat down beside her, shoulder by shoulder. She asked about the objects in the room, and so he explained the artifacts of his life — where he had gotten them and why he liked them. There were paintings and odd pieces of sculpture and knickknacks from flea markets. She was inquisitive and seemed interested, and he found he enjoyed talking about the objects and noted again that he felt at ease with her. But he couldn't help thinking that this was not the intimate postcoital conversation he had expected.
"And how about that?" she asked, gesturing toward the half-opened closet, where a black negligee hung. It was Betsy's.
"That's the remnant of something that probably never should have happened and in any case is over."
"Don't think I'm jealous," she said. "Because I'm not."
"Not that type or just not now?"
"Neither." She sipped the wine, looking thoughtful. "She must have been pissed off if she didn't come back to get it."
"You're right about that."
"A critical mistake — leaving clothes behind. You never know who might end up wearing them. It might fit me, for example."
"Be my guest," he said.
"Actually, it's not yours to give away, is it?"
It sounded like a rebuke, and he was quiet, choosing instead to put his arm around her. With his free hand he traced the outline of her body, following the curves and dips until he encountered something; it felt like a seam. He lowered the blanket and looked at her side, where there was a long scar, raised and white.
"What's that from?" he asked.
"An operation."
"I figured that much. What for?"
"Years ago, many years ago, I was sick and I lost a kidney."
"A kidney — how?"
"I was given an antibiotic that didn't agree with me. Gentamycin, it's called — it's fairly common. You get it for a urinary infection, which is what I had. Anyway, in some very few cases, it causes nephrotoxicity. It wipes out the kidneys. So I got a new one."
"Christ."
"It's no big deal. It happened long ago. I don't even think about it anymore. I even like the scar."
"I like it," he said. And he leaned over to kiss it.
After another glass and some small talk, he was surprised to find that he was aroused, more aroused than he had been for a long time. He reached over to caress her back, and she immediately turned and moved on top of him. They made love again.
Afterward, he was daydreaming. His mind flitted over the day's events. He thought of telling Tizzie about Bashir's strange warning and the phone call to Raymond, but it all seemed silly and inconsequential now. Something much more significant was happening to him.
He wanted to hold her in his arms, but she pulled away after a short while. She couldn't sleep that way, she explained.
The next morning, Friday, Jude had a set-to with Jenks Simons.
Simons was one of those insufferable, cocky types — every paper has one — who make it a point of pride to know everything that is going on, not in Bosnia or City Hall or some other hot spot, but in the newsroom. He lived not for news, but for gossip. He was rumored sometimes to omit the most compelling morsel from his stories — such as the police knew the murderer to be a man because a bloody fingerprint was found on the underside of the toilet seat — because he enjoyed serving it up at a dinner table. He liked being the center of attention. To make things worse, and to add a firm foundation to the general disregard in which he was held, he was talented.