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“But gosh, Harry, I hope I don’t sound as if I’m suggesting that either one of them might have—”
“It’s just routine,” I told her. “One of them might remember something, or know things you don’t. Anymore?”
The only other one she could tag was an Arthur Leeds. She thought he was a musician and she gave me another Village address, on Jones Street this time. I told her to get some sleep.
Coffey had been checking the addresses in my directory when I repeated the names. “No women, huh?” Bra
“There wouldn’t be.”
“This Kline girl. She came home at eleven, was there all night until she called you?”
“For crying out loud, Nate—”
“Just asking. She’ll have to make a statement anyhow, this afternoon will be good enough. I’ll see her then.” He took the phone and dialed headquarters about something. I went into the bedroom and dug out a.38 Police Special and a shoulder holster to replace the empty Luger sheath. Dan followed me in.
“I got all the time in the world if you want anything,” he said quietly.
I’ll call you.”
“Be at the office. Don’t strain it, huh, fella?”
I stood there a minute after he went out. I took out Ethan J. Spragway’s card and looked at it. Spragway spelled backward was Yawgarps. I stuck the card in a drawer. The sour-faced plainclothesman from outside was just coming up when I went back out front.
“The wagon will be here any minute, Waterman,” Bra
I tossed them over. Waterman dropped them. He bent to pick them up with the same sick-of-it-all expression that he probably had when he made love to his wife. Bra
“All right,” he said, “Fa
“You got any questions or are you just learning to like it here?”
“Nuts,” Coffey said. He started for the door, threw Bra
I looked at Bra
“What the hell is all that?” I asked him. “You guys give him white mice to play with when he wants them, too?”
“Tell you later,” he muttered. “Let’s go, huh?”
I stood there a minute after he was gone, then I knelt next to the door and lifted the raincoat away. Woodsmoke would have had more color than her face. Waterman was watching me. I went downstairs.
The stenographer had taken one of the cars. Coffey was just pulling out in the second one and Bra
Bra
“The Perry Street apartment’s in the block between Fourth and Bleecker,” I told him.
He’d had the car idling. He gri
“You were going to tell me about Coffey,” I said after a while. “What the hell, he walks around as if he knows where the department hides the bodies.”
He stopped the shenanigans with the car when I asked him that, punching his tongue into the side of his cheek for a minute before he answered. “Coffey’s all right,” he said then. “His wife and kid were killed in an auto smash up near Poughkeepsie about two months ago. Son of a bitch driving the other car was drunk as a calf and walked away without a bruise. They booked him on vehicular manslaughter but I don’t suppose that helps Coffey much.”
“He’s going to work it off, you think?”
“Either that or he’ll walk in on some trigger-happy junkie one afternoon and not get his own gun out in time, and who’s going to know whether he was really trying or not? I talked it over with the day chief. At least he still gets things done. He’s thorough.”
“He would be,” I said meaninglessly. I sat there remembering how I’d needled him.
We cruised through the Village slowly. Bra
“He’ll be back,” I said.
“You got reasons?”
“Two. He still doesn’t know she’s dead. Also he won’t be expecting badges. He thinks I’m in it alone. I’m the same kind of grafter he is.”
We had made the turn from Hudson Street and I could see Sally’s building up ahead. I pointed it out but Bra
We stopped next to the Ford. The detective named Turner was being busy with a day-old Journal but he had spotted us before we came alongside. He gave Bra