Even the Wicked

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I've been thinking about sending you your money back."

"Why's that?"

"Because I can't think of a good way to earn it. I've put in some hours, but I don't think I've learned anything I didn't already know, and I'm certainly in no position to improve on the official investigation."

"And?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"There's something else, isn't there?"

"Well, there is," I said, and I told him about Byron Leopold.

He said, "He's what, a friend of a friend?"

"Essentially, yes. I knew him, but just to say hello to."

"But not so closely that you can't sleep as long as his killer walks the streets."

"I'm surprised there hasn't been an arrest by now," I said. "I thought I'd give it a couple of days, but I've already got a client."

"You've never worked more than one case at a time?"

"Occasionally, but—"

"But you think I'll feel cheated. I'm walking around under sentence of death and you ought to be earning the money I paid you, not moonlighting while the sun shines. The friend wants to hire you?"

"She mentioned it. I wouldn't take her money."

"You'd be working pro bono."

"You lawyers and your Latin phrases."

"A man sits on a bench in a pocket park with a cup of coffee and the New York Times. Another man walks up, shoots him, runs off. And that's it, right?"

"So far."

"Victim had AIDS. What is it, homophobia?"

"Byron was straight. He used to shoot dope, he got AIDS sharing needles."

"So maybe the killer was an ill-informed homophobe. Or it's the other way round, some kind of mercy killing. Is that how you're thinking?"

"Those are some of the possibilities."

"Here's another. You figure there's any possible connection between this incident and our friend Will?"

"Jesus," I said. "That never crossed my mind."

"And now that it has?"

"Crossed it and kept right on going," I said. "If there's a connection, I can't say it leaps out at me. He didn't announce it first or claim credit for it afterward. And the victim was the furthest thing from a public figure. Where's the connection?"

"It's so random," he said. "So pointless."

"So?"

"Whereas Will's hits are all very specific. He addresses his target directly and tells him why he's got it coming."

"Right."

"His official hits, that is."

"You think he's doing some unannounced killing?"

"Who knows?"

"What would be the point?"

"What's the point of any of it?" he said. "What's the point of killing me, for God's sake? Maybe he likes killing and he can't get enough of it.

Maybe he's planning to shoot me and he wants to practice on an easy target, somebody who's not expecting it and isn't surrounded by bodyguards. Maybe the little pas de deux in Jackson Square was a dress rehearsal."

It was an interesting idea. It seemed farfetched, but it was sufficiently provocative so that I found myself suggesting other possibilities. We kicked it around for a few minutes, and then Whitfield said, "I don't think there's any connection and neither do you. But I don't see why you can't spend a couple of days looking for one. Don't send me my money back. You'll find a way to earn it."

"If you say so."

"I say so. What I'm paying you is small change compared to what Reliable's getting from me for guarding my body. Forty-eight man-hours a day, plus the limo and the driver, plus whatever extras get tacked on to the bill. It doesn't take long to add up."

"If it keeps you alive—"

"Then it's worth it. And if it doesn't, then paying the tab becomes somebody else's headache. What a deal, huh? How can I lose?"

"I think you're going to be all right."

"Tell you something," he said. "I think so, too."

5

The next day was Sunday, and I didn't have a hard time talking myself into taking the day off. I watched an hour or so of preseason football on television, but my heart wasn't in it, which gave me something in common with the players.

I have a standing dinner date on Sundays with Jim Faber, my AA sponsor, but he was out of town for the month of August. Elaine and I caught a movie across the street from Carnegie Hall, then had dinner at a new Thai place. We decided we liked our regular Thai place better.

I got to bed fairly early, and after breakfast the next morning I went down to the Village. My first stop was the Sixth Precinct station house on West Tenth, where I introduced myself to a detective named Harris Conley. We wound up having coffee and Danish around the corner on Bleecker Street, and he told me what he knew about the murder of Byron Leopold.

From there I went to Byron's building on Horatio, where I once again spoke with the doorman. He'd been on duty when the shooting occurred, and he was thus able to tell me more than the man I'd exchanged a few words with earlier. He couldn't let me in, but he summoned the building superintendent, a stocky fellow with an Eastern European accent and the stained fingers and strong scent of a heavy smoker. The super listened to my story, looked at my ID, and took me up to the fifteenth floor, where he opened Byron's door with his passkey.