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They were all going to carry on bravely, but that didn't mean they were ready to make Will's work easier for hiuarded by a thuggish phalanx of husky well-are Rome accepted the NYPD's offer and supplemented their ranks with sohters (This struck some people as curious, and a Post reporter quoted an unnamed source: "If Will really wants to kill Harold Rois Kilbourne also took the police protection, and, at each of the openings and previews he attended, his co women he favored, but a burly plainclothes cop with a five o'clock shadow and an expression of bored be three proh all by itself to keep the story hot for a week orbefore it had a chance to die down, McGraw broke the news that Adrian Whitfield, already famous as Will's most recent victiators to have been Will himself (One of the TV news shows hit the air with a news flash hours before the Daily Neas on the street with it, but Marty was the first to have all the details)

While nobody knew quite what to make of it, everybody remained determined to make the most of it I'd hoped the cops would keep me out of it, and they may have done what they could, but there was just too much media attention for anyone to slip by unnoticed After the first phone call we learned to let the answeringvia the service entrance, which kept to a ht up with h the lobby, however, and that hen they were apt to corner me, sometimes with microphones and cameras, sometih, shouldering wordlessly past the, not even a s I was visible for less time than it took an off-camera voice to identify me as the Manhattan-based private detective, foration into his client's death had led to Whitfield's unreat," Elaine said "You could very easily look angry or iuilty or embarrassed, the way people do when they won't talk to the press But instead you e to look sort of harried and oblivious, like a et off a crowded subway car before they close the doors"

I've been in the lih it's never shined that brightly onI've never cared for it and I didn't like it any better this time around Fortunately it didn't seesabout you in the papers," they ht" I would deflect the re, and nobody pursued the subject The greater portion of my AA acquaintances couldn't make a connection between the PI nauy Matt who usually sat in the back row They ht know my story, but relatively few of them knew my last na, perhaps because Iany fuel to the fire ainst Adrian Whitfield, which got a little stronger and solider day by day If there'd been roo bits of hard evidence to fill it in Airline and hotel employees had ID'd his photo, and NYNEX records had turned up some calls that didn't ad two to a residential hotel on upper Broadway There was no way to guess what hotel guest he'd talked to, but Richie Vollistered under an alias, and both calls were logged the day before Richie's death

The clearer it becarew around Will 2 A whole string of deaths had given the first Will a grim credibility A threat, after all, has a certain undeniable authority when it's uttered by a man with blood on his hands

But when the threat comes from a copycat, and when everybody daht do you attach to it? That was a question that was getting asked a lot, on TV and in the papers, and I can only assu it themselves As far as anyone could tell, the man (or woman, for all anyone kneho'd written out a death sentence for the unlikely partnership of Tully, Ro the case, how er was he? And what did you do about it?

You had to do sos when some joker phones in a bomb threat, even when they know it's aloes off, the fact notwithstanding that most calls turn out to be false alar down most of their red streetcorner call boxes when statistics showed that virtually all alarms called in from the street were the work of pranksters But they had to physically disnore the alarms)

Meanwhile, everybody waited to see ould happen next The three men naency than the rest of the public, but even they probably found the a little less attention as the days passed and nothing untoward took place

Like Benny the Suitcase, bored to tears with the job of starting Tony Furillo's car everyever happened

One day I caught a noonand spent an hour or two in the stores, trying to get an early start onto buy, and I just wound up feeling overwhelmed by the season

It happens every year Even before the Salvation Ar with the hohosts of Christely coe, withup the wreckage of the past" is what they call that ritual in AA, and it's a process you neglect at your peril

I'd done all that,hosts of my own history I didn't rush into it the way so at it over ti talks with ht and a certain amount of action And I would have to say it worked Here was so that had haunted me for years, and now it doesn't

Except when it does, and that is most apt to happen around the tiet shorter and shorter, the sun gives less and less light, and I start to reuht I found a reason to stay in the city instead of hauling my sad ass home to Syosset

So when I'd walked ho spree I went not to the Parc Vendфme but to the hotel across the street I told auntlet in the lobby, but in fact I had no reason to expect to encounter one The reporters had understandably lost interest in the felloalked through theet off the subway

I said hello to Jacob behind the desk and exchanged nods with a felloho spendshours in the Northwestern's faded lobby The poor bastard moved into the hotel years before I did, and sooner or later he'll die there I don't suppose he standsacross the street

I went up to my room I put the TV on, took a quick tour of the channels, and switched it off again I pulled a chair over to theand sat there, looking out at everything and nothing

After a while I picked up the phone,"Faber Printing" in the gruff voice in which I have coood to hear his voice now, and I said asyour number made me feel better"