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"Slept soot what I needed"

"Uh-huh"

"And I was just there, you know?" He walked over to the wall, took a staringraphical location, the purpose of the erprints on it," he said "Well, that's okay You can tell 'e for theht as well tell the truth Wouldn't want to get caught in some nasty old little white lie" He smiled at the last phrase "Little black lie," he said "Whyn't you make that call?"

Chapter 23

It wasn't half the hassle it ht have been I didn't know either of the cops who caone much smoother if I had We answered questions on the scene and went back to the station house on West Eighty-second to give our statements The on-scene medical evidence all seemed to be consistent e'd reported The cops were quick to point out that Chance should have called in as soon as he found the dead girl, but they didn't really ju in on an unexpected corpse is a shock, even if you're a pimp and she's a whore, and this, after all, was New York, the city of the uninvolved, and as remarkable was not that he'd called it in late but that he'd called it in at all

I was at ease by the tiot to the station house I'd only been anxious early on when it occurred to ht occur to the the gun and the two knives I'd taken froal weapons The gun was that and possibly more; God only knehat kind of a provenance it had But we'd done nothing to rate a frisk, and, happily, we didn't get one

"Whores'll kill the they do, and this one had a history You saw the wrist scars? Those were a few years old, according to the report What you ht not know is she tried the pill route a little less than a year ago A girlfriend took her over to St Clare's to get her sto in the note She hoped she had enough this tiot her wish"

We were at the Slate, a Tenth Avenue steak house that draws a lot of cops froe and Midtown North I'd been back atplaces to stow the weapons and soest I buy hiht I'd hit you up for a irls are dead and your expense account gets tririll and drank a couple of Carlsbergs with it I ordered the chopped sirloin and drank black coffee with my meal We talked a little about Sunny's suicide but it didn't carry us very far He said, "If it wasn't for the other one, the blonde, you wouldn't even think to look at it twice All the medical evidence fits in with suicide The bruises, that's easy She was groggy, she didn't knohat she was doing, she fell and bus Same reason she was on the floor instead of the bed There was nothing special about the bruises Her prints here they belonged- the bottle, the glass, the pill bottles The note uy's story, she was even in a locked rooure that for the truth?"

"His whole story sounded true to me"

"So she killed herself It even fits with the Dakkinen death teeks ago They were friends and she was depressed by what happened to her friend You see any way it was anything but suicide?"

I shook e What do you do, stuff the pills down her throat with a funnel? Make her take theunpoint?"

"You can dissolve the contents, let her take the it But they found traces of the Seconal capsules in the stoet that It's suicide"

I tried to remember the annual suicide rate in the city I couldn't even couess, and Durkin was no help I wondered what the rate was, and if it was on the rise like everything else

Over coffee he said, "I had a couple of clerks go through the registration cards at the Galaxy Doner since the first of the year Pulling the block-printed ones Nothing ties into the Jones registration"

"And the other hotels?"

"Nothing that fits A batch of people called Jones, it's a conatures and credit cards and they look bona fide Waste of time"

"Sorry"

"Why? Ninety percent of what I do is a waste of ti If this had been a big case, front-page stuff, top brass putting pressure on, you can believe I'd have thought of it hs How about you?"

"What aboutanywhere with Dakkinen?"

I had to think "No," I said, finally

"It's aggravating I went over the file again and you knohat got stuck in my throat? That desk clerk"

"The one I talked to?"

"That was alike that No, the one who checked the killer in Now here's a guy co it, and pays cash Those are two unusual things for a person to do, right? I mean, who pays cash in front for a hotel nowadays? I don't mean in a hot-pillow joint, I hty dollars for a roo's plastic nowadays, credit cards, that's the whole business But this guy paid cash and the desk clerk doesn't remember shit about him"