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"That's what he heard? Pop pop?"

"What he heard was gunshots What else you gone hear when sounshots," I said, "and even if they hadn't the bullets in Leopold's body are fairly strong evidence that a couple of shots were fired So if all this fellow did was hear the shots-"

"Ain't all he heard"

"Oh"

"That was all the man heard, you think I'd be botherin' you with it?"

"Sorry What else did he hear?"

"Heard the dude say, 'Mr Leopold?' Then he didn't hear nothin', so either Byron just nodded or his voice didn't carry Then he heard the dude say, 'Byron Leopold?' An' maybe he looked up an' maybe he didn't, but the next he heard the dude was bustin' caps"

"Pop pop"

"Like that"

"When can I see this witness?"

"He ht be pretty slow to talk to you He already missed a few chances to talk to the police"

"I don't suppose the gentleman's a vice president at IBM"

"He in the park sellin' product," he said, "an' soon as the dude commences to shoot, he ready to call it a day hisself I can maybe put you 'cross a table froone talk to you 'Sides, what you gonna axe him that I didn't axe him already?"

" 'Mr Leopold? Byron Leopold?' "

"Don't sound to me like he's makin' it up"

"No," I said, "it doesn't"

An hour later I atching him eat french fries at a Fourteenth Street coffee shop His cheeseburger was but a y jeans and a deni His railroader's cap was on the seat beside hiotten Byron Leopold

"Why's that?" he wondered "You come to the conclusion he died of natural causes?"

"When I thought about it at all," I said, "which wasn't often, I suppose I figured he'd been taken for solybench orperson And he had AIDS, and he was far enough along so that the disease was visible Maybe somebody had an AIDS phobia and decided the best cure lay in killing off the victims"

"Like the dudes who set bums on fire"

"As a quick cure for the problem of hoh, because that kind of killer doesn't act once and then go off and enter a monastery"

"He repeats"

"Usually" The waitress ca The coffee wasn't very good, but there was plenty of it I said, " 'Mr Leopold? Byron Leopold?' "

"Like that"

"Making sure he's got the right person"

"Person he's supposed to shoot Like he knows the naht? Battin' ideas back and forth?"

"Soreed "He sounds hired, doesn't he?"

"The killer? You 's too raggedy-ass for a pro Here's a ular life, hasn't set up any security systeet close to him in private, so ould a professional hitman kill him in front of witnesses?"

"Only reason I said a pro, Joe, is you said hired"

"An amateur," I said, "hired by another amateur It pretty much takes a pro to hire a pro You need to be connected, you can't look up contract killers in the yellow pages Ordinary citizens hire killers all the ti terribly professional about the people ork for them"

"An' it don't alork out the way it s'posed to," he said "Like the other day in Washington Heights"

I knew the one he was talking about It had been all over the papers the past few days A Do at her father's strict discipline, had engaged a pair of local hard cases to kill thethebox in the closet, considering it ever so much safer than the bank

So they showed up at the house one night and she let theave them the money, and then they were supposed to wait for Daddy to co, and it occurred to theht be armed, and there was an easier way to close the account So they took the girl who started the whole thing and shot her twice in the head, and they did the sa mother and brother while they were at it, and then they went home The father caone I bet his car wouldn't start, either

"In Washington Heights," I said, "everybody had a reason The girl was mad at her father, and the killers wanted the money"

"So who had a reason to kill Byron?"

"That's what I ondering"