"I'm not a scorekeeper, darling. And we've had quite the turnover here these past few months. Most of the old crowd has gone off in search of greener pastures. We're getting a lot of smarmy little leather boys lately." He frowned at the thought, then remembered that frowning gives you lines and willed his face to return to its normal expression. "I don't much adore the crew we've been attracting lately. Motorcycle boys, S-and-M types. I don't really want anyone killed in my bar, you know. Most especially my estimable self."

"Why not do something about it?"

"To be horribly candid, they scare me."

I finished my drink. "There's an easy way for you to handle it."

"Do tell."

"Go over to the Sixth Precinct and talk to Lieutenant Edward Koehler. Tell him your problem and ask him to raid you a few times."

"You've got to be kidding."

"Think about it. Slip Koehler a couple of bucks. Fifty should do it. He'll arrange to raid you a few times and give your leather crowd a hard time. There won't be any charges against you, so it won't screw you up with the SLA. Your liquor license won't be in jeopardy. The motorcycle boys are like everybody else. They can't afford hassles. They'll find some other house to haunt. Of course your business will fall off for a couple of weeks."

"It's off, anyway. The little cunts are all beer drinkers, and they don't leave tips."

"So you won't be losing much. Then in a month or so you'll start getting the kind of clientele you want."

"What a devious mind you have, Matthew. I think it might work, at that."

"It should. And don't give me too much credit. It's done all the time."

"You say fifty dollars should do it?"

"It ought to. It would have when I was on the force, but everything's been going up lately, even bribery. If Koehler wants more, he'll let you know about it."

"I don't doubt it. Well, it's not as if I never gave money to New York's Finest. They come around every Friday to collect, and you wouldn't believe what Christmas cost me."

"Yes, I would."

"But I never gave them money in the hope of anything beyond being allowed to remain in business. I didn't realize you could ask favors in return."

"It's a free-enterprise system."

"So it seems. I just might try it, and I'll buy you a drink on the strength of it."

He poured a generous shot into my glass. I picked it up and eyed him over the top of it. "There's something else you could do for me," I said.

"Oh?"

"Ask around a little about Richie Vanderpoel. I know you don't want to give me any names. That's reasonable. But see if you can find out what he was like. I'd appreciate it."

"Don't expect much."

"I won't."

He ran his fingers through his beautiful blond hair. "Do you really care what he was like, Matt?"

"Yes," I said. "Evidently I do."

MAYBE it was a reaction to too many visits to bars that were gay in name alone. I'm not sure, but on my way to the subway I stopped at an outdoor phone booth and looked up a number in my notebook. I dropped in a dime and dialed it, and when she answered I said, "Elaine? Matt Scudder."

"Oh, hi Matt. How's it going?"

"Not too bad. I was wondering if you felt like company."

"I'd love to see you. Give me a half hour? I was just getting into the shower."

"Sure."

I had coffee and a roll and read the Post. The new mayor was having trouble appointing a deputy mayor. His investigative board kept discovering that his prospective appointees were corrupt in any of several uninteresting ways. There was an obvious answer, and he would probably hit on it sooner or later. He was going to have to get rid of the investigative board.

Some more citizens had killed each other since yesterday's edition went to press. Two off-duty patrolmen had had a few drinks in a bar in Woodside and shot each other with their service revolvers. One was dead, the other in critical condition. A man and woman who had served ninety days each for child abuse had sued successfully to regain custody of the child from the foster parents who had had the kid for three and a half years. The nude torso of an adolescent boy had been discovered on a tenement roof on East Fifth Street. Someone had carved an X into the chest, presumably the same person who had removed the arms and legs and head.

I left the newspaper on the table and got a cab.

She lived in a good building on Fifty-first between First and Second. The doorman confirmed that I was expected and nodded me toward the elevator. She was waiting at the door for me, wearing royal-blue hip-huggers and a lime-green blouse. She had gold hoop earrings in her ears and she smelled of a rich, musky perfume.

I draped my coat over an Eames chair while she closed the door and fastened the bolt. She came into my arms for an openmouthed kiss and rubbed her little body against me. "Mmmm," she said. "That's nice."

"You're looking good, Elaine."

"Let me look at you. You don't look so bad yourself, in a rugged, rough-hewn sort of a way. How've you been?"

"Pretty good."

"Keeping busy?"

"Uh-huh."

There was chamber music stacked on her stereo. The last record was just ending, and I sat on the couch and watched as she walked to the turntable and inverted the stack of records. I wondered whether the hip wiggle was for my benefit or if it came naturally to her. I had always wondered that.

I liked the room. White wall-to-wall shag carpet, stark modern furniture more comfortable than it looked, a lot of primary colors and chrome. A couple of abstract oils on the walls. I couldn't have lived in a room like that, but I enjoyed spending occasional time in it.

"Drink?"

"Not just now."

She sat on the couch next to me and talked about books she had read and movies she had seen. She was very good at small talk. I suppose she had to be.

We kissed a few times, and I touched her breasts and put a hand on her round bottom. She made a purring sound.

"Want to come to bed, Matt?"

"Sure."

The bedroom was small, with a more subdued color scheme. She turned on a small stained-glass lamp and killed the overhead light. We got undressed and lay down on the queen-size bed.

She was warm and young and eager, with soft, perfumed skin and a tautly muscled body. Her hands and mouth were clever. But it was not working, and after a few minutes I moved away from her and patted her gently on the shoulder.

"Relax, honey."

"No, it's not going to work," I said.

"Something I should be doing?"

I shook my head.

"Too much to drink?"

It wasn't that. I was far too completely locked into my own head. "Maybe," I said.

"It happens."

"Or maybe it's the wrong time of the month for me."

She laughed. "Right, you got your period."

"Must be."

We put our clothes on. I got three tens from my wallet and put them on the dresser. As usual, she pretended not to notice.

"Want that drink now?"

"Uh-huh, I guess. Bourbon, if you have it."

She didn't. She had Scotch, and I settled for that. She poured herself a glass of milk, and we sat on the couch together and listened to the music without saying anything for a while. I felt as relaxed as if we had made love.

"Working these days, Matt?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, everybody has to work."

"Uh-huh."

She shook a cigarette out of her pack, and I lit it for her. "You got things on your mind," she said. "That's what's the matter."

"You're probably right."

"I know I'm right. Want to talk about anything?"

"Not really."

"Okay."

The telephone rang, and she answered it in the bedroom. When she came back I asked her if she had ever lived with a man.

"You mean like a pimp? Never have and never will."

"I meant like a boyfriend."

"Never. It's a funny thing about boyfriends in this business. They always turn out to be pimps."

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. I've known so many girls. 'Oh, he's not a pimp, he's my boyfriend.' But it always turns out that he's between jobs, and that he makes a life's work out of being between jobs, and she pays for everything. But he's not a pimp, just a boyfriend. They're very good at kidding themselves, those girls. I'm lousy at kidding myself. So I don't even try."

"Good for you."

"I can't afford boyfriends. Busy saving for my old age."

"Real estate, right?"

"Uh-huh. Apartment houses in Queens. You can keep the stock market. I want something I can reach out and touch."

"You're a landlady. That's funny."

"Oh, I never see tenants or anything. There's a company manages it for me."

I wondered if it was Bowdoin Management but didn't bother asking. She asked if I wanted to try the bedroom again. I said I didn't.

"Not to rush you, but I'm expecting a friend in about forty minutes."

"Sure."

"Have another drink if you want."

"No, it's time I was on my way." She walked me to the door and held my coat for me. I kissed her goodbye.

"Don't be so long between visits next time."

"Take care, Elaine."

"Oh, I will."

Chapter 10

Friday morning came clear and crisp. I picked up an Olin rental car on Broadway and took the East Side Drive out of town. The car was a Chevrolet Malibu, a skittish little thing that had to be pampered on curves. I suppose it was economical to run.

I caught the New England Expressway up through Pelham and Larchmont and into Mamaroneck. At an Exxon station the kid who topped up the tank didn't know where Schuyler Boulevard was. He went inside and asked the boss, who came out and gave me directions. The boss also knew the Carioca, and I had the Malibu parked in the restaurant's lot at twenty-five minutes of twelve. I went into the cocktail lounge and sat on a vinyl stool at the front end of a black Formica bar. I ordered a cup of black coffee with a shot of bourbon in it. The coffee was bitter, left over from the night before.

The cup was still half full when I looked over and saw her standing hesitantly in the archway between the dining room and the cocktail lounge. If I hadn't known she was Wendy Hanniford's age, I would have guessed high by three or four years. Dark, shoulder-length hair framed an oval face. She wore dark plaid slacks and a pearl-gray sweater beneath which her large breasts were aggressively prominent. She had a large brown leather handbag over her shoulder and a cigarette in her right hand. She did not look happy to see me.

I let her come to me, and after a moment's hesitation she did. I turned slowly to her.

"Mr. Scudder?"

"Mrs. Thal? Should we take a table?"

"I suppose so."

The dining room was uncrowded, and the head waitress showed us to a table in back and out of the way. It was an overdecorated room, a room that tried too hard, done in someone's idea of a flamenco motif. The color scheme involved a lot of red and black and ice blue. I had left my bitter coffee at the bar and now ordered bourbon with water back. I asked Marcia Thal if she wanted a drink.