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"He had all that cash in the closet, didn't he? How does that apply to Adrian Whitfield?"

"It doesn't"

"Then-"

"Soar," I said

I don't re dreamed Elaine and I went home and finished e'd started in her shop, and I slipped right off into a deep sleep and didn't stir until dawn

But there had been a thought nagging at me before ent to bed, and it was still there when I woke up I took it out and exa I had to devote my time to I had a second cup of coffee after breakfast and considered the h there were too reater clai better to do

And the only reason not to pursue it was for fear of what I ht find out

I made haste slowly I went to the library first to checkdown dates and times in my notebook I spent a couple of hours at that, and then I went outside and sat on a bench in Bryant Park and went overof a crisp apple They'd been forecasting rain, but you didn't even have to look at the sky to know that it wasn't going to rain that day It felt in fact as though it would never rain, or turn any colder than it was now The days wouldn't get any shorter, either It felt like eternal autu out in front of us until the end of tioing to last forever And it never does

Enough time had passed since Whitfield's death for them to have taken the NYPD seals off the door All I had to do was find someone with the authority to let me in I don't know precisely where that authority was vested-Whitfield's heirs, the executor of his estate, or the co-op's board of directors I' superintendent's decision to make, but he took it upon himself to make it, his resolution buttressed by the portrait of US Grant I palered at the door while I poked around in drawers and closets After a while he coughed discreetly, and when I looked up he askedI'd be I told him that was hard to say

"Because I'll have to let you out," he said, "and lock up after you, only I got a few things I have to be doing"

He jotted down a phone nureed to call him I felt a lot less pressed for time once he was out of there, and it's better if you're not in a hurry, especially when you don't knohat you're looking for or where you're likely to find it

It was close to two hours later when I used the phone in the bedroom to call the number he'd left me He said he'd be up in a minute, and while I waited for him I retraced the route from the phone, the one Whitfield had used to call ht, into the roouess they'd re for lab tests-but the bar was there, and I stood where he'd have stood to make himself his last drink, then stepped over to where he hen he collapsed There was nothing on the carpet to indicate where he had lain, no chalk outline, no yellow tape, no stains he'd left behind, but it seemed to ave hi The bonus surprised him, but only a little It also seemed to reassure him that I hadn't appropriated any property of Whitfield's during his absence, although he still felt co, I told hi from Whitfield's office, either, nor did I find anyone to let me in Whitfield had shared an office suite and secretarial and paralegal staff with several other attorneys in an old eight-story office building on Worth Street I went to a noonon Chambers Street the day after my visit to his apartment, then walked over to Worth and checked out his offices frohed a few possible approaches and found theot out of there and walked clear up to Houston Street and saw a elika When it broke I called Elaine and told her I'd get dinner on my own

"TJ called," she said "He wants you to beep hi had a number on it Most of them have had their nue to worm the nuood; NYNEX has rigged the bulk of their pay phones so that they can no longer receive incos, and its twin effects, as far as I can tell, have been a momentary inconvenience for the dealers, all of whoht but irreversible decline in the quality of life for everybody else in town

I had a plate of jerked chicken and peas and rice at a West Indian lunch counter on Cha on Worth It was past five o'clock so I had to sign in with the guard downstairs I scribbled soible on the sheet and rode up on the elevator There were lights on in the law offices and a quick glance in passing showedaway at co on the phone

I wasn't surprised Lawyers keep late hours I walked the length of the corridor and tried the men's room door It was locked The lock seened, after all, to keep out the homeless, not to protect the croels On the other hand, if I was going to coht to be able to spend the next couple hours in a pleasanter spot than a lavatory

At the opposite end of the hall I found the one-room office of one Leland N Barish His na with "CONSULTANT" The lock looked to be the building's original equipment, shaped to take a skeleton key I've carried a couple on h I'd be hard put to tell you the last time I had occasion to use one of theer of the two and it turned the lock

I letto shoho Barish was or who'd want to consult with hiazines, had a coating of dust that looked a good teeks old A stack of glassed-in bookshelves held only a few ht or ten paperback science fiction novels There was a wooden chair on casters that ith the desk, and an overstaffed array-beige walls showed rectangles and squares of a lighter shade, indicating where a previous tenant had displayed pictures or diplo of his own, not even a calendar

I'd have gone through the desk drawers out of the idle curiosity that is an old cop's stock in trade But the desk was locked, and I left it that way, unable to think of a reason to break in

I'd switched the light on when I entered, and I left it on No one could lass, but even if they could I had little to worry about, because it was odds-on nobody in the building had seen enough of Barish to reuess was that "consultant" hat it so often is, a euphemism for "unemployed" Leland Barish had lost a job and took this little office while he looked for another one By now either he'd found so

Maybe he'd found eapore, and had left without bothering to clear out his office Maybe he'd stopped paying renthim

Whatever the actual circu in his office for a couple of hours I thought of TJ and decided to beep hi it was perfectly safe for hiht for Barish's phone to ring I lifted the receiver and couldn't get a dial tone, which tended to confirazine, a ten-week-old issue of The New Yorker, and settled uess just what had becoot interested in an article about long-haul truckers and forgot all about hi frouessed that it would unlock the door to the ht I used the John, and checked Whitfield's office going and co It was still occupied