Текст книги "On the Other Hand, Death"

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

I described the Deems and Wilsons and their interest in Dot's being forced to sell her property. I said it was possible, of course, that the kidnapping had no connection whatever with the Millpond situation, but that Greco himself had no known enemies in Albany—with the unlikely exception of the feckless Tad Purcell, who in any case was otherwise occupied Saturday night–and that anybody who disliked McWhirter enough to kidnap his lover must also have known him well enough to realize that his bank balance couldn't have been much above twelve dollars.

The Millpond-Dot Fisher state of affairs seemed to me to be the most promising avenue to explore, I said, and suggested that the Thursday night graffiti artist—Joey Deem? Bill Wilson?—ought to be quickly run down and looked at too, and either investigated further or eliminated as a suspect in the kidnapping. I did not voice my earlier suspicion about the night squad detectives, who

struck me as much too crude a lot to pull off anything so sophisticated as a kidnapping.

Dot Fisher had sat quietly listening to all of this as Bowman grimaced and shifted about and made notes. When I'd finished, Dot calmly announced, "I'm going to sell the house."

I said, "No. No need."

Bowman watched us.

"Why, of course I will. What kind of person would I be if I didn't?" Her hands were trembling and she jammed them in the pockets of her shift. "From what you say, it's plain as day that I got Peter and Fenton into this dreadful mess, so I'll just have to get them out of it." She blinked repeatedly as she spoke, and her eyes were wet.

Bowman said, "You've decided to pay the ransom?"

"Why, my heavens, it never occurred to me not to! Peter's life is in danger. Just think how frightened he must be. It gives me the shivers. And I know he would do the same for me without giving it a thought."

"I'm sure he would, Dot. But really, it's not necessary."

"You shush! I phoned my attorney, Dave Myers, as soon as the ransom note arrived. I didn't explain the reason for my change of heart and he tried to talk me out of it, dear David, but I was adamant. He said he was going to wait until two o'clock before he called Crane Trefusis to accept Millpond's offer, and that I should think it over seriously in the meantime. I haven't had to think it over. What's to think about beyond getting Peter safely back here with us again?"

Bowman said, "It's five to two."

"Call Myers," I said. "Or I'll call him and tell him to forget it. I've got the money, the hundred. Or soon will have."

Bowman's eyebrows went up. "You? Where'd you

ever get a hundred grand, Strachey? You dealing coke?"

Talk big money these days and nobody ever thinks of U.S. Steel or General Motors anymore. A new America: computer chips, video games, and cocaine.

Dot said, "Oh, Don, that's extremely thoughtful of you, but I could never—"

"Not my money," I said. "Someone's lending it to us just in case it's needed. The kidnappers are not at all coming across as slick pros, and I'm reasonably certain that even if we have to hand over the hundred at all, we'll have it back in our grasp within minutes, or at most hours. It's just a precaution. A tool. Bait. The cash will be delivered here at three o'clock. Then we'll be ready for whatever comes next."

Dot opened her mouth to speak, then didn't.

Bowman, suppressing a grin, said, "I agree entirely, Mrs. Fisher. Mr. Strachey has thought the situation through very nicely. A tidy job of work he's done, I'd say. Oh, yes. Yes, if I were you, Mrs. Fisher, I would definitely take this man's money."

Dot hesitated again, then glanced at the kitchen clock. She rose quickly, came around, bent down and kissed me on the cheek, and moved for the phone.

I said to Bowman, "I'm counting on the Albany Police Department's full assistance in this delicate matter, Ned. I'm sure that under these rather special circumstances you won't let me down. Right?"

His eyes glazed over serenely and he looked deeply unconcerned. He shrugged. He attempted a yawn, but it caught on his uvula and he gave a little cough.

Trying hard to ignore the small mammals bouncing about in the pit of my stomach, I said, "I figure, Ned, that we have to buy time. When the kidnappers contact Dot, she stalls them. Agree?" Agree.

"I figure too that the amateurs we appear to be dealing with here might well be panicked by undue publicity, and that the whole business should be kept quiet for at least the next twenty-four hours. Agree?"

"Agree."

"Swell. Now, just so we both know where we stand with each other, Ned, you tell me what we disagree on– beyond the obvious and enduring. Do us both a favor, lay it out now, and avoid a lot of hostile confusion later on."

"Oh, not much, I guess. I was just wondering whether or not you and your fag pals are perpetrating some kind of outrageous con job in order to make the Albany Police Department look bad. Tell me, Strachey. Is that a possibility? Is it now? The thought keeps nagging at me."

Maybe it was the heat, or my exhaustion, or both, but Bowman was starting to get to me. I said, "Gee, Ned. You mean some diabolical scheme to reveal to the voters that the criminal justice system in Albany County is essentially confused, inept, misguided, cynical, frightened, defensive, and riddled with ignorant hacks and cronies whose only interest beyond pushing faggots and black people around is in getting re-elected, reappointed, tenured, and properly positioned for a fair share of the grifts, graft, perks, and payoffs? Is that what you suspect, Ned? Nah. We wouldn't do that."

He glared. "I have my doubts."

"The machine's secret is safe with us, Ned. We'll never tell."

He was leaning close to me and about to let loose with some tiresome empty threat when the door opened and they all charged in at once: Timmy, McWhirter, Edith, two burly types in jackets who appeared to be the junior police detectives Bowman had phoned for earlier, and, in the midst of them, her great hips thundering out a five-plus on the nearest Richter scale, Kay Wilson. Kay held

out a small package, which Dot Fisher, who had just completed the phone call to her lawyer, accepted.

"Why, thank you, Kay. Thank you so much."

"Somebody left this in our mailbox, Dot honey, but it's addressed to you, and I figured I better drag my old bones down here right away, 'cause you can see right there it says, 'Deliver immediately—life or death.'"

"Oh. Oh, my."

We all gawked at the small package. It was wrapped in a cut-up brown paper bag, and measured about eight inches by four inches by one inch.

Bowman gently pried up the lid and flipped it onto its back.

She did so. The handwriting was the same as that on the ransom note but again not the same as on Friday's threatening letter. "Immediately" was spelled "immeatetly."

Bowman asked for and was provided a pair of vegetable tongs and a paring knife. Without touching the package with his fingers, he slit through the cellophane tape holding the paper on and slid the wrapping aside. The cardboard box was fire truck red, the type a Christmas gift might arrive in, a wallet or fancy handkerchief. A sheet of notebook paper, folded in quarters, was taped to the top of the box.

Bowman asked Kay Wilson, Edith, Timmy, and me to step outside. They shuffled out. I stayed. Bowman went huff-huff, but he otherwise ignored my insubordination for the moment and went on with his duties.

The paper, unfolded, revealed these words: "Put $100,000 dollars in Mrs. Fishers mailbox tonight at 3 a.m. in the morning, or we will send Petes hart. If you follow the car Pete will die."

We stared at the box.

McWhirter, trembling, said, "Open it."

Bowman gently pried up the lid and flipped it onto its back.

McWhirter clutched the tabletop and groaned. Dot whispered, "My lord!" Bowman shook his head in disgust.

The object that lay damply, crazily, grayly atop a bed of soft white tissue paper was unmistakably a human finger.

10

• McWhirter, his voice breaking, barely

audible, said, "We have to pay them."

Dot groaned. "Yes, of course, of course."

I said, "The money will arrive here at three. But we'll get it back, don't worry."

"Yeah," Bowman said grimly. "I guess we better have the cash ready. Just in case. Jesus, these people aren't fooling around." He sat gazing at the finger, tapping two of his own on the table. He looked up at McWhirter now and said, "Mr. McWhirter, I've heard of kidnappers who have . . . Well, let me just put the question to you directly. Are you certain that the finger in that box belongs to your friend Peter Greco?"

McWhirter blanched, looked away, and said quietly, "Yes. Oh, God, yes."

Bowman grimaced, in part no doubt at the thought that one man could know another's finger that intimately. Then he dispatched one of the junior detectives to retrieve some equipment from his car.

I said, "Obviously, we've got to get Greco away from these people fast. How do we set this up? We've got thirteen hours to do it in."

"Unless they're even dumber and sloppier than I think they are," Bowman said, "they'll arrive minus Greco in a stolen car, snatch the money, and off they'll go, thinking we won't dare follow so long as they've still got a hold of

Greco. I'll have to have this place totally covered, plus the other end of Moon Road, Central Avenue out to Colonie, and back as far as Everett Road. I'll order up a chopper too."

"At three in the morning?"

"No!" McWhirter croaked. "Just give them the money. Don't I have anything to say about this? You people are just going to get Peter killed, the way you're talking. Look at what these people are capable of. Just look at that." We looked. "Just . . . give them the money, and I'll . . . I'll pay it back."

"Mr. McWhirter," Bowman said, "I think I can understand how you feel—sort of." He shot me a warning look, apparently fearing that I might begin to think of him as human. "By that I mean," he sputtered on, "I can see, Mr. McWhirter, how you might be pretty scared and upset at this point. But believe me, the chances that we'll get your friend back in one piece—" We all looked down at the finger again. "I mean, by that I mean . . . the best way to make sure we get your friend back here alive is to not let these people slip away at the one time we can be sure we know where they are. You get what I'm saying? We let them run off with that hundred grand, and they might just get cocky and start thinking they can get away with anything. If you follow my meaning."

McWhirter screwed up his face in agonized confusion. His mouth tried to make words, but he couldn't get them out.

I said, "Lieutenant Bowman has experience with these things, Fenton. He's right. You can be sure it'll be done with all the finesse the Albany Police Department is capable of."

Bowman looked my way, waiting for any qualifications I might be going to add, and when I offered none—nauseating flattery was called for here—he said, "You bet."

Dot Fisher's small fist suddenly hit the table. "Now, you people are just the absolute limit! Whom was that letter addressed to, may I ask? And the package. Whom was that sent to? Well?"

No one had yet called the finger a finger. It was just "it." Or "the package." I said to Dot, "The ransom note and the package were both sent to you."

"Exactly! So it seems to me that I should have some say in all this. And what I say is, you are all putting Peter in terrible, terrible danger. Well, I won't stand for it! The decision is mine to make, and I've decided. We will pay the kidnappers what they've asked for and let them go their way. And then, when Peter is safely back here with those who love him, then I will expect all of you to do everything within your power to retrieve that money and put those reprehensible savages in the penitentiary where they belong!"

Bowman said, "But—"

"And one other thing," Dot went on, waving Bowman into silence. "If the money is not returned to Mr. Strachey within seven days, I will sell my property and repay him promptly. No one can stop me, and that is that."

My options had now doubled in number. If the hundred grand somehow slipped away, I could then decide whether I wanted to be a monumental deadbeat or a mere son of a bitch.

Bowman had begun shaking his head and yammering on about how Dot would be making a big mistake by simply handing over the ransom, and it was out of her hands anyway, and it was well known among professionals that in seven out of ten cases it turned out that. . . .

Dot sat rigid, the lavender veins in her neck pulsing wildly.

I caught Bowman's eye. "She wants to do it her way,

Ned. It's Mrs. Fisher's decision to make. Not ours."

He glowered at me, and while Dot and McWhirter cringed and waited for him to pop off irrelevantly, I looked back at Bowman and lightly winked. He immediately got the point.

"Well," he said, throwing his hands up. "If that's the way you want it, Mrs. Fisher. If you insist, you go ahead and pay the ransom, and then we'll do all we can to track down these vicious perverts—sorry, no offense, Strachey —and then we'll get your money back. Or what's left of it."

McWhirter had been gazing fixedly at the finger, and now suddenly he reached toward it and touched it lightly. He moaned and flung himself out of his chair, across the kitchen, and down the hall. I guessed that the sound of a door slamming came from the downstairs bathroom.

The two junior detectives had entered the room during the discussion, and now one of them opened a plastic case full of foam pellets. He flipped the lid back onto the finger box and, using tongs, lifted the entire business, wrapping and all, into the case of pellets. The other detective opened a fingerprint kit and prepared to take the prints of those of us who had handled the ransom note and package. I was about to go outside and fetch Kay Wilson for the fingerprinting session when the telephone rang and Dot went to answer it.

Bowman came over to me and whispered, "I'll have fifty men out here tonight. We'll get 'em."

I said, "I have lied to my friends, Ned. That's not one of my usual bad habits. You guys hadn't better slip up."

"No sweat. And congratulations, pal. It's the first time I've known you to be all the way on the side of the law. I may shed a tear."

Dot slammed down the receiver. "Now this is just beyond endurance!"

"Who was that?" Bowman snapped.

"It was . . . that voice again. 'You dykes better get out of there. You dykes leave or die.' If I ever get my hands on—"

The phone rang yet again.

"You got an extension?" Bowman asked.

"In our bedroom upstairs. The front, southwest corner.

Bowman said, "Pick up when I do," and trotted off down the hall. I placed my hand on the receiver. Midway in the fifth ring the phone fell silent and I lifted the receiver and passed it to Dot.

"Y-yes. Hello?"

We waited, watched her breath catch, then flow slowly out of her.

"It's for Timmy." She sighed. "It's not the voice. It's a man for Mr. Callahan. Oh me, oh my."

I said, "Did the first caller mention Peter?"

"Why no," Dot said. "He didn't. Or she. I'm still not certain whether it's a man or a woman."

Bowman came back. I said, "I think we've got two of them. Two separate people, or groups."

"Yeah. Or thirty-five. I've gotta get a tap and trace rig on this phone number, but fast."

Out in the yard, Kay Wilson had Timmy backed into a lilac bush and was singing the praises of Crane "Quite-a-Guy" Trefusis. Timmy's eyes were open, but I suspected he was nonetheless napping lightly. I'd seen him do it before at cocktail parties put on by insurance industry lobbyists. Edith was off by herself over by the peonies, gingerly emptying the Japanese beetle traps.

"Phone call," I said, ambling up to Timmy and Kay.

Kay turned. "For me? It must be Wilson, wants his lunch. Tell him I just left."

"No, it's for Mr. Callahan."

"Oh, your boyfriend, huh?"

"This is the man."

She snickered. "Hey, Bob. Tell me somethin', then. Which one of you's the boy and which one's the girl?"

Timmy quickly walked by me toward the house, his eyes raised heavenward.

I said, "Wouldn't you like to know. To tell you the truth, Kay, only our chiropractor knows for sure."

"Your what?"

I said, "What's your hubby up to today, Kay? Bill Wilson make you rich yet?"

"Hah! You pullin' my leg, kiddo? The day that bozo gives me more'n a lotta lip'll be the day Charles Bronson sends me a dozen roses and a case of Jack Daniel's. Say, don't you just love Dot's flower garden? Hey, what are you doin' over there, Mrs. Stout? Mealybugs chewin' up your tulips?"

"Eh? What's that, Mrs. Wilson?"

"I asked if you got chigs on your posies? Looks like you got 'em, all right. Up to your left tit. I got a can of Raid down to the house if you want to try a shot of that. That stuff'll fix 'em."

I said, "Kay, you're needed in the house for a few minutes. The police need a set of your fingerprints. So they can tell yours from those of whoever else handled that package you delivered."

Her eyes got big as we turned toward the house. "Hey, Bob, what the Sam Hill is goin' on around here, anyways? Police dicks crawling all over the place. This used to be a respectable neighborhood. What was in that package anyhow? Your lover boy wouldn't tell me what was goin' on. What's the big secret?"

I said, "One of Dot's houseguests is missing. The police are helping locate him. He'll turn up, though, don't worry."

"Maybe he was snatched," she said eagerly. "And they're sending him back here a piece at a time. I read in the paper how the Mafia does it like that. Is that what was in the package? Some poor clown's tongue, or left ear, or pecker? Hell, nobody's safe anyplace anymore. They're gonna getcha, they're gonna getcha."

I went queasy but didn't reply as we stepped into the house. Timmy was off the phone now and Bowman was on the line with, judging by his civil tone, a superior in the department. I presented Kay Wilson to the fingerprint man, and Timmy pulled me aside.

"Mel Glempt just called. You don't know him. At least I think you don't. One of the Green Room bartenders I phoned earlier ran into him a while ago and told him Peter was missing. Just missing, no more. That's all anybody knows so far. Glempt saw something last night, and the barkeep had him call me and tell me about it. Glempt saw some kind of fight or scuffle in the Green Room parking lot last night just before midnight. He'd just pulled in."

"And?"

"And . . . well, this must have been it. A young man—a 'kid,' Mel said, but it must have been Peter—this young man was shoved into a car. He seemed to be resisting, but a guy wrapped a bandage or something around his head so he couldn't see, and got him into the back seat of this car—some kind of big old dark green job—and then the car drove away fast. There were two men, the shover and the driver."

"And Glempt didn't report this to anybody? Shit." Timmy said nothing." Well, did he at least get a make and model on the car?"

"No."

"Did he recognize the people doing it?"

"No."

"Can he describe them?"

"One of them, he said. The one who was outside doing the grabbing, but not the driver."

"Which way did they go?"

"Out Central. West."

"We'd better clue Bowman in right away. Have his people talk to Glempt. I'll want to talk to him too."

I turned toward Bowman, who was still on the phone. Timmy said, "Wait."

He looked grim, his cornflower blue eyes taking on the November gray cast they had whenever he was apprehensive about something, or frightened.

Timmy said, "At least one of the two—the one outside the car, the one Mel got a quick look at—was a cop. A cop in a uniform. That's why Mel didn't call the police. He thought it was the police."

I looked over at Bowman, who, catching me watching him, turned his back to me as he spoke quietly into the telephone.

11

• I phoned Mel Glempt, who repeated to me what he had told Timmy. I asked him to tell his story to Bowman's people, and he eventually agreed, though, with considerable trepidation.

My service reported no messages. I reached Patrolman Lyle Barner at home and set up a meeting with him for three-thirty. He said, "You coming alone?"

I said no and asked him if he'd turned up anything in his check of the night detective squad. He said he hadn't. I told him he might need to check again.

Bowman's two assistants drove off, one of them to carry the finger and the two notes to the crime lab, the

other to interview the Deems, Wilsons, and Tad Purcell.

I got Bowman off in a corner and described to him what Mel Glempt had seen outside the Green Room the night before.

Bowman said, "This is a con. You're setting me up. You're lying."

I shook my head. A setup was not out of the question, but I knew it wasn't mine.

He asked for the name of the witness. I told him and provided Glempt's address and phone number. I added, "He'll talk to you and your people, but he won't talk to the night squad guys and would rather they did not know his identity."

"How come? Why's that?"

"Because," I said, "certain elements of the Albany Police Department cannot be trusted to do what's right a good part of the time. Or even what's legal. Face it, Ned, that's the sad truth."

He threw his head back and snorted in disbelief, as if I had tried to convince him that the world was an ovoid slab supported by a three-pronged stick.

Bowman knew what I meant, though. He walked to the telephone and hesitated. Then, making sure his back was to me, he dialed a number.

Dot Fisher was fixing club sandwiches and Senegalese soup and setting out more iced tea. She moved about the kitchen muttering under her breath and forcing a wan smile whenever anyone addressed her.

McWhirter returned to the room and resumed his pacing. He had questions: "Has the FBI been called?" "Why don't you arrest this Trefusis mobster? He must be the one behind all this." "When could they have taken Peter? How?"

Watching McWhirter carefully, I told him what Mel Glempt had seen. He stood trembling for a moment,

then slumped into a chair and buried his head in his hands.

Bowman completed his call and ambled back to the table. He was shaking his head, clear-eyed, his movements a tad jauntier than the occasion, as I saw it, required. He looked at me coolly and said simply, "Uhn-uhn." As if that was the end of that: Glempt had been mistaken about the cop he saw, or lying.

Timmy caught this and gave me a look. Here was an education for this sunny, optimistic fellow who had spent much of his adult life in the more wholesome and uncomplicated atmosphere of the back rooms of the state legislature.

Bowman did say he was sending two of his own men out to interview Glempt to get his "confused account of the abduction," and Bowman further announced that he now had half the detective bureau working on the case and needed more information on Greco's background and recent activities, as well as Dot's and Edith's. I convinced McWhirter that I would personally follow up on "the cop Mel Glempt saw"—this made Bowman writhe with indignant disgust—so for half an hour, over lunch, a tense, snappish interrogation went forward.

It yielded nothing. Greco's family had moved to San Diego eleven years earlier and he had no known remaining Albany connections other than Tad Purcell. Nor could Dot come up with names of any "enemies" of hers or Edith's—former students, colleagues, relatives, neighbors—beyond the ones we already knew about: the Wilsons, Deems, and Crane Trefusis.

Bowman said he had detectives out at that moment checking into the activities of Dot's Moon Road neighbors and would personally interview Crane Trefusis, which struck me as a wonderfully droll waste of time. Bowman allowed as how his bureau was also looking at some of the notorious local "hate groups," although he was clearly disinclined to investigate further the particular hate group which the only evidence we had pointed to.

"Lieutenant Bowman," Dot said. "You're not eating your Senegalese soup. Could I get you something else?"

"No, no, I'm fine. What's in this?"

"Tons of fresh vegetables straight from our garden. The herbs and spices are from Edith's little plot."

"Nnn. Looks good." He contemplated the greenish-yellow curried soup.

There was a light rap at the door and Dot heaved herself up.

"It's for you, Don. A man with a beautiful suitcase."

I went outside and watched Whitney Tarkington, in white ducks and a burgundy Calvin Klein polo shirt, place a Gucci bag on the terrace. He unsnapped it and held it open.

"It's all here, Donald. One hundred thousand—soon to become one hundred ten thousand—big ones."

"Dollars, you mean."

"Of course, dollars. What else?"

"In that bag it might have been lira."

"Ha-ha."

I peered into the bag and did a double take. "I see dollars, yes. I also see . . .Checks?"

"Twenty-eight thousand in cash, seventy-two thousand in checks. Best I could do on a Saturday, Donald. God, I had to bust my carefully toned buns just to come up with this on three hours' notice. I mean, a hundred grand in cash? You think I'm Grams or somebody?"

"Checks, Whitney? You think kidnappers are going to accept checks for a ransom payment?"

"They're good. Really they are."

"Crap. That's hardly the point. Crap."

"I mean, all of them will be good first thing Monday morning. They'll be covered, for sure. You can bet your life on it, Donald."

"Not my life, Whitney. Peter Greco's life. Thanks anyway. "

"That's quite all right. I owed you one, didn't I? Now we're even. Or will be, when you hand me a hundred and ten thousand dollars—U.S. currency, please—seventy-two hours from this second."

He grinned dazzlingly and touched his perm.

"Of course," I said. "See you Tuesday, Whitney. Same time, same place. I might even return the bag."

"Just have it dry-cleaned if it's smudged," he said. "Toodle-ooo." He climbed back into his canary yellow sports car and drove off.

Timmy looked out. "Is that a Porsche nine-eleven? You don't see those around here too often."

"Looks like a Gloria Vanderbilt to me," I said, and went inside.

I phoned Crane Trefusis again. "I have to cash a number of checks. Seventy-two thousand dollars' worth. They're good. But the banks are closing, and Price Chopper revoked my We-Do-More-Club card last March over a minor incident involving a rib roast, a bunch of asparagus, and a smallish check the State Bank of Albany inexplicably declined to take seriously. You'll help me out, of course."

A pause. "Of course. Have you found the culprits yet?"

"Which ones?"

"Any of them."

"Not yet."

"You will."

"You bet, Crane. Have you come across any information that might help me in my labors?"

"I'm sorry, but I haven't. I don't actually spend a great deal of time with criminals in my business, Strachey."

"How much?"

"How much what?"

"How much time do you spend with criminals in your business? An hour a week? Three days? Forty-five minutes? What?"

"None that I'm aware of. Not that I'll ever convince a professional skeptic like you."

"Just keep your ear to the ground, Crane. That's all I ask. You never know."

"Of course."

We worked out details for the check cashing and I rang off.

Bowman had neglected his Senegalese soup but was finishing off a second sandwich.

I said, "Hey, Ned. What if the kidnappers are hiding out at the bottom of that soup bowl?"

He blew me a tiny kiss. Dot, a woman of apparently limitless reserves of charity, shook her head, embarrassed for Bowman, a man very hard to be embarrassed for, if not about.

McWhirter was pacing again.

"I've got the money," I said. "Part cash and part in checks that I'll cash and get back here in plenty of time."

McWhirter stared at the bag With fear in his eyes, as if it might contain eight pounds of severed appendages.

Dot said quietly, "Thank you."

Bowman said, "Wish I had friends like yours, Strachey. Good work. Looks like we're all Set. I'll get a man out here to mark the bills and record serial numbers."

"What do we do now?" Timmy asked. "Just wait? I could use some sleep."

"Come on," I said, removing the checks from the valise and stuffing them into a bread bag I snatched from the kitchen counter. "You can sleep tomorrow. When this is all over. Right now we've got places to go, people to see."

"Where? Who?"

"You'll find out. We're both going to be busy. I've got a little list."

"Now don't you get in the way of my people," Bowman warned. "And if you hear anything I need to know, I want to know it goddamn quick. You got that, Strachey?"

I said, "Got it, Ned. You know me. For sure."

12

• Passing the Deems' house, I told

Timmy, "I'll stop back here later. I don't think the Deems are the main problem in all of this. Maybe none at all. But there's something I want to check. You can help me out by looking into another nagging matter."

As we bumped past the Wilsons' I explained to Timmy what I wanted him to find out about Bill Wilson.

"I'll do what I can," he said, "but this whole thing is starting to scare the hell out of me. I'm not sure I'm cut out for this rough stuff. It started out as some homophobic vandalism, which was sickening enough. And now people are actually getting hurt. Mutilated."

"I don't like it either."

"Imagine having your lover's finger arrive in a box. Of course, it could have been worse."

"It wasn't his," I said.

We turned onto Central.

"It– What wasn't whose?"

"That finger wasn't Greco's."

"Come on. Really? How do you know? I thought McWhirter told Bowman it was."

"Greco has thick black hair on the tops of his fingers. I know. He touched my face. It tickled a little. The finger in that box was slender like Greco's but practically hairless. And what little hair there was was lighter than Greco's."

"He touched your face? Kee-rist, Donald." He undulated awkwardly in his seat belt. "Do you want to describe the circumstances, lover, or should I just draw my own sensational conclusions and stick it all in your 'Seven Since June' file? Crimenee. You're just—incredible."

"He did it once standing in Dot's front yard and once standing in the parking lot outside the Green Room. It's a habit Greco has. Touching faces. He's a sweet, affectionate, uninhibited guy. It's no automatic High Homintern cocktail-party-kiss kind of thing. It's just something he can't help doing. Unconventional, but winning. Not that there's anything calculating in the gesture. You can't not like him."