A Long Line of Dead Men

"That's your phone number under the picture."

"So it is," I said. "But if the picture's supposed to be me, I'd have to say it's a lousy likeness."

He reached to take the card from me, looked at me, looked at it, looked at me again. "Somehow," he said, "I don't think it's you."

"Neither do I."

"Whoever it is," he said, "I got a snitch tells me the guy's picture's all over the street. Nobody knows who he is or why somebody's looking for him. So I figured I'd call the number and ask."

"And?"

"And I'm asking."

"Well," I said, "it's in connection with a case I'm working on."

"No kidding."

"And the subject of the sketch might be an important witness."

"Witness to what?"

"I can't say."

"What did you do, take holy orders? You're bound by the seal of the confessional?"

"I was hired by an attorney," I said, "and what was told to me comes under the umbrella of attorney-client privilege."

"Who hired you?"

"Raymond Gruliow."

"Raymond Gruliow."

"That's right."

"Hard-Way Ray."

"I've heard him called that, come to think of it."

He took another look at the sketch. "Guy looks familiar," he said.

"That's what everybody says."

"What's his name? That can't be confidential."

"If we knew his name," I said, "he'd be a lot easier to find."

"A witness saw him and sat down with an artist, and that's where the sketch came from."

"Something like that."

"I understand there's a reward."

I looked at the palm card. "Funny," I said. "It doesn't say anything here about a reward."

"I heard ten grand."

"That's a lot of money."

"It seems like a lot to me," he said, "when I think of what I've done for the price of a hat. What's funny is you never brought the sketch around here."

"I didn't think you'd recognize him. You don't, do you?"

"No."

"So there wouldn't have been much point in showing you the sketch."

He gave me a long look. He said, "When there's that much of a reward for somebody, it's generally somebody who doesn't want to be found."

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "What about that little boy who disappeared in SoHo? There were reward posters all over the place."

"That's a point. There aren't any posters with this fellow, are there?"

"I haven't seen any."

"Just cards you can tuck away out of sight. Nothing on the lampposts or mailboxes, nothing tacked up on bulletin boards. Just a lot of cards circulating quietly around the neighborhoods."

"It's a low-budget operation, Joe."

"With a five-figure reward."

"If you say so," I said, "but I still don't see anything here about a reward."

"No, neither do I. This is good coffee."

"I'm glad you like it."

"Last time we talked," he said, "you were looking into all these old cases. That painter and his wife, that gay guy who got more than he bargained for, that cabbie who picked up the wrong fare. Remember?"

"As if it were yesterday."

"I'll bet. This guy here tied in with them?"

"How could he be?"

"Why do you always answer a question with a question?"

"Do I have to have a reason?"

"Fucking smartass. What's the status of those old cases, anyway?"

"As far as I can tell," I said, "they're all still dead."

* * *

The waiting was hard to take.

We got the word out on the street a good ten days before I heard from Joe Durkin. I started with a few people like Danny Boy Bell who are professionally adept at spreading and gathering information, and I gave each of them a sheaf of palm cards bearing Severance's likeness and my phone number. TJ went to work on Forty-second Street, spreading the word among the people he knew on and around the Deuce and working the cheap hotels and SRO rooming houses in the neighborhood. Gruliow made a few phone calls and sent me off to see various criminals and political outcasts he'd defended over the years. Of one he said, "This one hugged me after the trial and said to call him if I ever wanted somebody killed. I've been tempted a few times, believe me. It's a good thing I don't believe in capital punishment, not even for ex-wives."

I was pretty sure he'd go to ground in Manhattan. If he'd ever lived outside the borough, I didn't know about it. In all the months he'd stalked Alan Watson, patrolling his streets in a Queensboro-Corona uniform, even (if he was telling the truth) having an affair with Watson's wife, he'd chosen to live in Manhattan. He could have found a cheaper and more comfortable room a few blocks from the Q-C offices, or within easy walking distance of Watson's Forest Hills home. But he'd moved instead to East Ninety-fourth Street. He'd have had to take two trains to get to work, and two more to get home.

So I centered the manhunt in Manhattan, and I put the most energy into those parts of town where someone like Severance wouldn't stick out like a white thumb. I hit the places that called themselves hotels or rooming houses, and I went to lunch counters and drugstores and asked if they knew where I could find a room for rent, because every neighborhood has some SRO hotels that don't hang out a sign.