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"No, he had a policy on his own life He took it out years ago because soood investe all those years?"

"He said it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to him There were stretches when he didn't have the ot to send in the preainst the cash value So when he got sober it was still in force, and he went on paying the premiums"

"Who was his beneficiary?"

"I think it was probably his wife originally Then for years he had his mother as beneficiary, and then when she died-"

"Yes?"

"I'et the words out I didn't know it at the tiuess he had to put someone"

"You said you were close"

"Close," she said "You kno I found out? I had to be notified when he cashed in the policy The company had a requiren I didn't have to consent to it, but he was required to notify me"

"A lot of them have that rule," I said "In case the insured is required to e, say as part of the teretic, Matt 'I' to be a rich lady after all, Ginnie I' to need the money myself' "

"How much was the policy for?"

"It wasn't a fortune Seventy-five thousand dollars? Eighty? Under a hundred, anyway I don't kno ot for it"

"That would depend on the cash surrender value of the policy"

"Oh," she said "Well, I wouldn't know anything about that Whatever it was, it had to last him the rest of his life"

"I don't know much about it myself," I admitted, "beyond the fact that it's based on what you've paid in preradually build up a cash value for the policy, depending on the type of policy you've got With straight life you pay high preradually over tie your premiums are lower but you don't build up any cash value And there are soories, too"

"I don't knohat kind he had"

"It couldn't have been terainst tere stayed in force when he stopped paying preainst the cash value, yes"

"So you said Of course the cash value's reduced by any outstanding loans against the policy"

"He would have paid those back, though Wouldn't he?"

"Not necessarily The interest rates are very low, since what you're essentially doing is borrowing your own money Say you've borrowed a couple of thousand dollars that way Why pay it back out of your own pocket? What's the incentive? If you just put it off they'll deduct whatever's outstanding froet less than he would otherwise, but you Won't be around to hear him whine about it"

"Well, I don't kno much Byron's loans amounted to," she said, "or if he paid it back I don't really know very much about life insurance"

"Neither do I"

"He probably had soot the nu Oh, and that reminds me Did you say you were actually inside his apartment? You didn't happen to see a little brass elephant, did you?"

She'd given it to hi sober His memory had been unreliable then, as is not infrequently the case in early sobriety He could never remember phone numbers, or where he put his keys This is the elephant that never forgets, she'd told hi between the, and it wouldn'tto anybody butto him," I said "He didn't have a lot in the way of knickknacks, and he gave it a place of honor on top of the TV I'm sure that's why I happened to notice it The super told me to put it in my pocket"

"And did you?"

"No, dammit, I put it back where I found it It's funny, too, because I had the iet it"

"I hate to ask you to ," I said "It's no trouble at all"

The hard part was finding the super He was fixing a leaky faucet on the seventh floor, and it took the door in Byron's apartment It seemed to me that the scent of AIDS was more palpable on my second visit There is a particular musky odor that seems to be associated with the disease Earlier I'd noticed it when I'd looked in his closet-clothing holds the smell-but this time the entire apartment was full of it I took the little elephant and left

6

Forty-eight hours later I'dI'd knocked on a lot of doors and talked to a great assortment of people The police had already spoken toto talk to ood neighbor, he mostly kept to himself, and as far as they knew he didn't have an enemy in the world I heard a host of different theories about the killing, most of which had already occurred to me

Wednesday afternoon I met TJ and compared notes, and was not too surprised to learn that he wasn't doing any better than I was "Elaine wants ot to check with you first"

"Go ahead and ettin' noplace on the street"

I rode the Eighth Avenue bus uptown and got off when it got mired in traffic around Fortieth Street I walked the rest of the way home, and I was across the street in my office when Ray Gruliow called