The Sins of the Fathers

I paid the check and left, heading down Broadway and back to the hotel. A panhandler, red-eyed and ragged, blocked my path. He wanted to know if I had any spare change. I shook my head and kept walking at him, and he scuttled out of the way. He looked as though he wanted to tell me to fuck myself if only he had the nerve.

How much deeper did I want to go with it? I could fly to Indiana and make a nuisance of myself on the campus where Wendy had learned to define her role in life. I could easily enough learn the name of the professor whose affair with her had had such dramatic results. I could find that professor, whether he was still at that school or not. He would talk to me. I could make him talk to me. I could track down other professors who had slept with her, other students who had known her.

But what could they tell me that I didn't know? I was not writing her biography. I was trying to capture enough of the essence of her so that I could go to Cale Hanniford and tell him who she was and how she got that way. I probably had enough to do a fair job of that already. I wouldn't find out much more in Indiana.

There was only one problem. In a very real sense, my arrangement with Hanniford was more than a dodge around the detective licensing laws and the income tax. The money he gave me was a gift, just as the money I'd given Koehler and Pankow and the postal clerk had been. And in return I was doing him a favor, just as they had done me favors. I was not working for him.

So I couldn't call it quits just because I had the answers to Cale Hanniford's questions. I had a question or two of my own, and I didn't have all the answers nailed down yet. I had most of it, or thought I did, but there were still a few blank spaces and I wanted to fill them in.

VINCENT was at the desk when I walked in. He had given me a hard time awhile back, and he still wasn't sure how I felt about him. I'd just given him a ten for Christmas, which should have clued him in that I harbored no ill feelings, but he still had a tendency to cringe when I approached. He cringed a little now, then handed me my room key and a slip of paper that informed me Kenny had called.

There was a number where I could reach him.

I called it from my room. "Ah, Matthew," he said. "How nice of you to call."

"What's the problem?"

"There is no problem. I'm just busy enjoying a day off. It was that or go to jail, and I'm none too fond of jails. I'm sure they would bring back unpleasant memories."

"I don't follow you."

"Am I being terribly oblique? I talked to the good Lieutenant Koehler, just as you suggested. Sinthia's is scheduled to be raided sometime this evening.

Forewarned is forearmed, to coin a phrase, so I took the precaution of engaging one of my bartenders to mind the store this afternoon and evening."

"Does he know what's coming?"

"I'm not diabolical, Matthew. He knows he'll be locked up. He also knows that he'll be bailed out in nothing flat and charges will be dropped in short order.

And he knows he'll be fifty dollars richer for the experience. Personally, I wouldn't suffer the indignity of an arrest for ten times that sum, but different strokes for different folks, to coin another phrase. Your Lieutenant Koehler was most cooperative, I might add, except he wanted a hundred dollars instead of the fifty you suggested. I don't suppose I ought to have tried bargaining with him?"

"Probably not."

"That's what I thought. Well, if it works out, the price is a pittance. I hope you don't mind that I mentioned your name?"

"Not at all."

"It seemed to afford me a certain degree of entr‚e. But it leaves me owing you a favor, and I'm delighted to be able to discharge my obligation forthwith."

"You got a line on Richie Vanderpoel?"

"I did indeed. I devoted quite a few hours to asking pertinent questions at an after-hours place. The one on Houston Street?"

"I don't know it."

"Quite my favorite blind pig. I'll take you there some night if you'd like."

"We'll see. What did you find out?"

"Ah, let me see. What did I find out? I talked to three gentlemen who were willing to remember taking our bright-eyed boy home for milk and cookies. I also talked to a few others who I would happily swear did the same, but their memories were clouded, sad to say. It seems I was quite right in thinking that he hadn't been hustling a buck. He never asked anyone for money, and one chap said he'd tried to press a few bob on Richie for cabfare home and the lad wouldn't take it. Sterling character, wouldn't you say?"

"I would."

"And all too rare in this day and age. That's it in the hard-fact department.

The rest is impressions, but I gather that's what you're most interested in."

"Yes."

"Well, it seems Richard wasn't terribly sexy."

"Huh?"