Even the Wicked

He said something else, but I didn't catch it. I was off chasing an errant thought, trying to run it down. I said, "No private meetings."

"Come again?"

"I wouldn't see anyone," I said, "without your bodyguards present in the room."

"Not even a fat old newspaperman, eh?"

"Not even the cardinal."

"Really? There's something about the guy that inspires confidence.

I guess it's the red hat, makes him look like one of the Guardian Angels."

He laughed and I laughed with him, and he told me to relax. "The cardinal hasn't called," he said, "and Marty didn't want a meeting, just a phoner. Five minutes of my time, and could I please hand him something his and his alone that he could make a column out of. I don't think I gave him anything, but he can always spin a column out of thin air. He's done it often enough in the past."

We told each other good-bye and I hung up the phone and turned off the TV without finding out what the silent figures were chattering about. I had an idea, and I sat there and let myself play with it. It seemed farfetched, and it struck me as something the police would have long since ruled out, but you never know. If nothing else, it gave me something to do.

* * *

As it turned out, a few hours on the telephone put me right back at square one. You couldn't say it was pointless, in that I was now able to let go of a stray thought that had come my way, but neither could I get much feeling of accomplishment out of it.

Meanwhile Marty McGraw did manage to conjure up a column out of what Adrian had given him, a ruminative piece on the pluses and minuses of celebrity status. Another columnist in the same paper started out musing on the fate of Byron Leopold, but after a paragraph or two he went on to something else, and so did I. I could hardly claim close ties with Byron, I hadn't even known his last name, and the apprehension of his murderer was the responsibility of the fellows at the Sixth Precinct.

They could handle it just fine without any help from me.

Except they didn't, not right away, and I found myself being drawn in for no good reason. On Thursday, two days after the murder, I realized in my wanderings that I was a five-minute walk from the murder scene. I went over there and sat on a park bench for half an hour.

I got into a couple of conversations, then went over and exchanged a few words with the doorman at Byron's building.

Saturday afternoon there was a memorial service for him at St.

Luke's on Hudson Street. People who had known him during the years he was sober shared reminiscences. I listened as if for clues.

Afterward I had a cup of coffee with Ginnie. "It's funny," she said.

"I keep having the feeling that I ought to hire you."

"To find the guy who shot Byron? The cops can do a better job of that than I can."

"I know. The feeling persists all the same. You know what I think it is? I'd be doing something for him, Matt. And there's nothing else I can do for him."

* * *

Later that day I had a call from Adrian Whitfield. "You know what?" he said. "I've figured out how the son of a bitch is going to get me. He's fixing it so I die of boredom."

"You hear about people dying of boredom," I said, "but you don't see it listed as 'cause of death' on a whole lot of autopsy reports."

"It's a cover-up, like the Catholics do with suicide. People who die of boredom can't be buried in hallowed ground. Did you ever know a fellow named Benedetto Nappi?"

"I think I saw a couple of his paintings at the Frick."

"Not unless there's a side to the man that I don't know about.

Benny the Suitcase is what they called him, although I couldn't tell you why. The story goes that he had a job starting Tony Furillo's car. He'd warm up the engine, and then if there was no explosion that meant it was safe for Tony to go for a ride."

"Like a food taster."

"Exactly like a food taster. You turned the key in the ignition and when nothing happened you went back home and watched cartoons.

Benny did this for a couple of months and then quit. Not because he couldn't take the pressure. I don't think he noticed any pressure. 'Nothing ever happens,' he complained.

Of course if anything ever did happen you'd have had to pick him up with a sponge, but all he knew was the boredom was too much for him."

"And you know how he feels."

"I do, and in point of fact I've got less right to complain than Benny ever had. I could gripe about having to wear body armor during a heat wave, but the truth of the matter is that I go from an air-conditioned apartment to an air-conditioned limo to an air-conditioned office. It's hotter than hell on the street, but I don't get to spend enough time out there to matter."

"You're not missing a thing."

"I'll take your word for it. I don't know that Kevlar flatters my figure much, and it's not the last word in comfort, but it's not like a hair shirt. So here I am living my life and waiting for the bomb to go off, and when it doesn't I start feeling cheated. What about you? Are you getting anywhere at all?"