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"They let you sleep there?"

"No, but how are they going to stop you? She goes there during the day and catches four or five hours at a time that way"

"That must be awful"

"It's safer than a shelter, and a lot es her clothes there, and there's a coin laundry in the neighborhood when she needs to do a load of wash"

"How does she wash herself? Don't tell ot a shower in there"

"She cleans up as well as she can in public rest rooot friends who'll occasionally let her shower at their place It's hit or miss A shower isn't necessarily a daily occurrence in her life"

"Poor thing"

"If she stays sober," I said, "she'll have a decent place to live sooner or later"

"With a shower of her own"

"Probably But you get a lot of different lifestyles in this town There's a fellow I knoho got divorced six or seven years ago, and he still hasn't got his own place"

"Where does he sleep?"

"On a couch in his office That'd be a cinch if he was self-employed, but he's not He's some kind of mid-level executive at a firuess he's ih to have a couch in his office"

"And when so on it-"

"He yawns and tells them how he stretched out for alate and s to a fancy gym two blocks froht after his Nautilus circuit"

"Why doesn't he just get an apartment?"

"He says he can't afford it," I said, "but I think he's just being neurotic about it And I think he probably likes the idea that he's getting over on everybody He probably sees hi in the belly of the beast"

"On a leather sofa from Henredon"

"I don't know if it's leather or who made it, but that's the idea In the rest of the country people with no place to live sleep in their cars New Yorkers don't have cars, and a parking space here costs as much as an apartment in Sioux City But we're resourceful We find a way"

In theI deposited Adrian Whitfield's check and tried to think of so I could do to earn it I spent a couple of hours reviewing press coverage of the case, then spoke to Wally Donn and checked the security arrange in the , but not before Wally'd seen a paper, so he'd known right ahat the call was about

"Let uy and steered him over here, which incidentally I appreciate We're basically looking at him in three places, the courtroom and his home and his office In court it's a crowded public place, plus you have to go through a et in"

"Which doesn't mean somebody couldn't wheel in a howitzer"

"I know, and this is a guy alks through walls, right? Has he used a gun yet? He arroted Patsy S and as it the right-to-lifer got, a coat hanger around the neck?"

"First he'd been stabbed"

"And what's-his-nauy Except that doesn't count on account of his own man did it Skippy, whatever his nauns The point is he's not afraid to work close, and he always onna havein anywhere by hi, for exaot Patsy, isn't it? In a toilet?"

"That's right"

"His MO's all over the place," he said, "which is a pain in the neck You're right about the abortion guy, he got stabbed first, and Vollot his head beat in, if I rele way of doing it, which means you can't rule out a rifle shot froainst"

"It's close to ireed, "but there's still precautions you can take I got hi but it's still a lotfro an arot two men with him at all times, plus the driver who never leaves the vehicle"

He went on to run it all down for me I couldn't think of a way to ih a door," he said "Makes no difference if it's a rooo Before he walks in, soain"

"Good"