"Yeah, yeah, I follow you."
"So?"
"It's more than that."
"Why does it have to be more? Look, maybe he did set up Cruz andwhatsisname -"
"Hernandez."
"No, not Hernandez.What the hell's his name?"
"Angel. Angel eyes."
"Herrera. Maybe he set them up to go in, rob the place. Maybe he even had it in the back of his mind she might get in the way."
"Keep going."
"Exceptit's too iffy, isn't it? I think he just feels guilty for wishing she'd get killed, or being glad of it after the fact, and you're picking up on the guilt and that's why you like him for the murder."
"No."
"You sure?"
"I'm not sure that I'm sure of anything. You know, I'm glad you'regettin ' paid. I hope you'recostin ' him a ton."
"Not all that much."
"Well, soak him all you can. Because at least it'scostin ' him money, even if that's all it'scostin ' him, andit's money he doesn't have to pay.Because we can't touch him. Even if those two changed their story, admitted the killing and said he put 'emup to it, that's not enough to put him away. And they're notgonna change their story, and who would ever hire them to commit murder anyway, and they wouldn't take a contract like that. I know they wouldn't. Cruz is a mean little bastard but Herrera's just a stupid guy, and- aw, shit."
"What?"
"It just kills me to see him get away with it."
"But he didn't do it, Jack."
"He'sgettin ' away with something," he said, "and I hate to see it happen. You know what I hope? I hope he runs a red light sometime, in that fucking boat of his. What's it, a Buick he's got?"
"I think so."
"I hope he runs a light and I tag him for it, that's what I hope."
"Is that what Brooklyn Homicide does these days? A lot of traffic detail?"
"I just hope it happens," he said. "That's all."
Chapter 12
Diebold insisted on driving me home. When I offered to take the subway he told me not to be ridiculous, that it was midnight already and I was in no condition for public transportation.
"You'll pass out," he said, "and somebum'll steal the shoes off your feet."
He was probably right. As it was I nodded off during the ride back toManhattan, coming awake when he pulled up at the corner of Fifty-seventh and Ninth. I thanked him for the ride, asked him if he had time for a drink before he went back.
"Hey, enough's enough," he said. "I can't go all night like I used to."
"You know, I think I'll call it a night myself," I said.
But I didn't. I watched him pull away, started walking to my hotel, then turned and went around the corner to Armstrong's. The place was mostly empty. I went in, and Billie gave me a wave.
I went up to the bar. And she was there at the end of the bar, all alone, staring down into the glass on the bar in front of her. Carolyn Cheatham. I hadn't seen her since the night I'd gone home with her.
While I was trying to decide whether or not to say anything, she looked up and her eyes met mine. Her face was frozen with stubborn old pain. It took her a blink or two to recognize me, and when she did a muscle worked in her cheek and tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. She used the back of her hand to wipe them away. She'd been crying earlier; there was a tissue crumpled on the bar, black with mascara.
"My bourbon-drinking friend," she said. "Billie," she said, "this man is a gentleman. Will you please bring my gentleman friend a drink of good bourbon?"
Billie looked at me. I nodded. He brought a couple of ounces of bourbon and a mug of black coffee.
"I called you my gentleman friend," Carolyn Cheatham said, "but that has an unintentional connotation." She pronounced her words with a drunk's deliberate care. "You are a gentleman and a friend, but not a gentleman friend. My gentleman friend, on the other hand, is neither."
I drank some of the bourbon, poured some of it into the coffee.
"Billie," she said, "do you know how you can tell that Mr. Scudder is a gentleman?"
"He always removes his lady in the presence of a hat."
"He is a bourbon drinker," she said.
"That makes him a gentleman, huh, Carolyn?"
"It makes him a far cry removed from a hypocritical scotch-drinking son of a bitch."
She didn't speak in a loud voice, but there was enough edge to her words to shut down conversations across the room. There were only three or four tables occupied, and the people sitting at them all picked the same instant to stop talking. For a moment the taped music was startlingly audible. It was one of the few pieces I could identify, one of theBrandenburg concertos. They played it so often there that even I was now able to tell what it was.
Then Billie said, "Suppose a man drinks Irish whiskey, Carolyn. What does that make him?"
"An Irishman," she said.
"Makes sense."
"I'm drinking bourbon," she said, and shoved her glass forward a significant inch. "God damn it, I'm a lady."
He looked at her,then looked at me. I nodded, and he shrugged and poured for her.
"On me," I said.
"Thank you," she said. "Thank you, Matthew." And her eyes started to water, and she dug a fresh tissue from her bag.
She wanted to talk about Tommy. He was being nice to her, she said. Calling up, sending flowers. But it just wouldn't do if she made a scene around the office, and he just might have to testify how he spent the night his wife was killed, and he had to keep on the good side of her for the time being.
But he wouldn't see her because it wouldn't look right. Not for a new widower, not for a man who'd been virtually accused of complicity in his wife's death.
"He sends flowers with no card enclosed," she said. "He calls me from pay phones.The son of a bitch."
"Maybe the florist forgot to enclose a card."
"Oh, Matt.Don't make excuses for him."
"And he's in ahotel, of course he would use a pay phone."
"He could call from his room. He as much as said he didn't want the call to go through the hotel switchboard, in case the operator's listening in. There was no card with the flowers because he doesn't want anything in writing. He came to my apartment the other night, but he won't be seen with me, he won't go out with me, and- oh, the hypocrite.The scotch-drinking son of a bitch."
Billie called me aside. "I didn't want to put her out," he said, "a nice woman like that,shitfaced as she is. But I thought I wasgonna have to. You'll see she gets home?"
"Sure."
First I had to let her buy us another round. She insisted. Then I got her out of there and walked her around the corner to her building. There was rain coming, you could smell it in the air, and when we went from Armstrong's air conditioning into the sultry humidity that heralds a summer storm it took some of the spirit out of her. She held my arm as we walked, gripped it with something on the edge of desperation. In the elevator she sagged against the back panel and braced her feet.
"Oh, God," she said.
I took the keys from her and unlocked her door. I got her inside. She half sat, half sprawled on the couch. Her eyes were open but I don't know if she saw much through them. I had to use the bathroom, and when I came back her eyes were closed and she was snoring lightly.
I got her shoes off, moved her to a chair,struggled with the couch until I managed to open it into a bed. I put her on it. I figured I ought to loosen her clothing, and while I was at it I undressed her completely. She remained unconscious throughout the operation, and I remembered what a mortician's assistant had told me once about the difficulty of dressing and undressing the dead. My gorge rose at the image and I thought I was going to be sick, but I sat down and my stomach settled itself.
I covered her with the top sheet, sat back down again. There was something else I'd wanted to do but I couldn't think what it was. I tried to think, and I guess I must have dozed off myself. I don't suppose I was out for more than a few minutes, just time enough to lose myself in a dream that fled from me the minute I opened my eyes and blinked it away.