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"I don't see how All s point to a classic textbook case of autoerotic asphyxiation I'd guess he took his sleeping pill not too long before he died Maybe he was planning to go right to sleep, then changed his mind and decided to squeeze in a hand of sexual solitaire Or hea pill first, so that he could just slip right off to sleep as soon as he finished his fun and games Either way, I don't think the chloral would have had any real effect You knoorks?"

"More or less"

"They do it," he said, "and they get aith it They have their heightened orgasular practice of it Even when they know about the dangers, their survival seeht way to do it"

He took off his glasses, polished the is," he said, "there is no right way to do it, and sooner or later your luck runs out You see, a little pressure on the carotid"- he reached across to touch the side of ers a reflex that slows the heartbeat way down That evidently has soasm, but what it can also do is make you lose consciousness, and you have no control over that When that happens, gravity tightens the noose, and you can't do anything about it because you're out of it, you don't knohat's happening Trying to be careful doing it is like exercising caution during Rus-sian roulette No ot the sa it the next time The only careful way to do it is not to do it at all"

I had taken a cab don to see Sternlicht I took a couple of buses back, and got to Willa's just as she was on her way out

She earing a pair of jeans I hadn't seen before, paint-sed at the cuffs Her hair was pinned up and tucked out of sight behind a beige scarf She earing a man's white button-down shirt with a frayed collar, and her blue tennis shoes were paint-spattered to ray es

"I ," she said "That's why I dressed I've got a pluency across the street"

"Don't they have a super over there?"

"Sure, and I's to take care of besides this one That way I don't just have a place to live, I also have so to live on" She shifted the toolbox from one hand to the other "I can't stand and chat, they'll have a full-scale flood over there Do you want to come watch or would you rather make yourself a cup of coffee and wait for me?"

I told her I'd wait, and she walked inside with me and let me into her apartment I asked her if I could have Eddie's key

"You want to go up there? What for?"

"Just to look around"

She worked his key off her ring, then gave et back in," she said "It's the top lock, it locks autoet to double-lock the door upstairs when you're through"

Eddie's s had been wide open ever since Andreotti and I had opened therown faint, and wasn't really unpleasant unless you happened to recognize it for what it was

It would be easy enough to get rid of the rest of the sone, once the furniture and clothing and personal effects were out on the street for the trash pickup, you probably wouldn't be able to s Swab down the floors and spray a little Lysol around and the last traces would vanish People die every day, and landlords clean up after them, and new tenants are in their place by the first of thefor chloral hydrate, but I didn't knohere he kept it There was no medicine cabinet The lavatory, in a tiny closet off the bedroo in a holder above the kitchen sink, and there was half a tube of toothpaste, neatly rolled, on theledge nearby In the cupboard nearest to the sink I found a couple of plastic razors, a can of shaving foam, a bottle of Rexall aspirin, and a pocket tin of Anacin I opened the aspirin bottle and dumped its contents into rain aspirin tablets I put the the rear corners as indicated Getting it open was enough to give you a headache, but all I found for my troubles were the white tablets the label had proe crate beside his bed held a stack of AA literature- the Big Book, the Twelve & Twelve, so Sober There was a Bible, the Douay Rei it had been a first coe, a family tree indicated that Mary Scanlan had been married to Peter John Dunphy, and that a son, Edward Thomas Dunphy, had been born a year and four h the Bible and it opened to a chapter in Second Chronicles where Eddie had stashed a pair of twenty-dollar bills I couldn't think what to do with them I didn't want to take the ave the whole question a good forty dollars worth of thought, then returned the bills to the Bible and put the Bible back where I'd found it

His dresser top held a sle shoelace, an ee, and a pair of subway tokens The dresser's top drawer contained loves, ith leather palms, a Colt45 brass belt buckle, and a plush-lined box of the sort cuff-link sets coold-plated tie bar, and a single cuff link with three sarnet but it was gone

The underwear drawer contained, along with shorts and T-shirts, a Gruen atch with half its strap uessed they'd been bagged and tagged and taken along as evidence, and they'd probably spend eternity in a warehouse somewhere I didn't come across any other erotica, or any sex aids, either

I found his wallet in his trousers pocket It held thirty-two dollars in cash, a foil-wrapped condom, and one of those all-purpose identification cards they sell in schlock shops around Tiht by people ant fake ID, although they wouldn't fool anyone Eddie had filled his out legitimately with his correct name and address and the sa with height and weight and hair and eye color It seemed to be the only ID he had No driver's license, and no Social Security card If they gave hi on to it

I went through the other drawers in the dresser, I checked the refrigerator There was so to turn and I poured it out I left a loaf of Roman Meal bread, jars of peanut butter and jelly I stood on a chair and checked the closet shelf I found old newspapers, a baseball glove that must have been his when he was a kid, and an unopened box of votive candles in s in the pockets of the clothes in the closet, or in the two pairs of shoes or the rubber overshoes on the closet floor