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The drugstore had a lunch counter I sat on a stool and ate a grilled cheese sandwich and a too-sweet piece of cherry pie and drank two cups of black coffee The coffee wasn't bad, but it couldn't compare with the stuff Jan had brewed in her Cheht about her Then I went to the phone again and alain instead This time he answered

I said, "Burton Havermeyer? My name's Matthew Scudder I wondered if I could come around and see you this afternoon"

"What about?"

"It's a police matter Some questions I'd like to ask you I won't take up much of your time"

"You're a police officer?"

Hell "I used to be one"

"So did I Could you tell me what you ith me, Mr-?"

"Scudder," I supplied "It's ancient history, actually I' on a case you were involved hen you ith the Six-One"

"That was years ago"

"I know"

"Can't we do this over the phone? I can't iine what information I could possibly have that would be useful to you I was a beat patrolman, I didn't work on cases I-"

"I'd like to drop by if it's all right"

"Well, I-"

"I won't take up much of your time"

There was a pause "It's my day off," he said, in as not quite a whine "I just figured to sit around, have a couple of beers, watch a ball gahed "Okay, you win You know the address? The name's on the bell When should I expect you?"

"An hour, hour and a half"

"Good enough"

THE Upper West Side is another neighborhood on the upswing, but the local renaissance hasn't crossed Ninety-sixth Street yet Havermeyer lived on 103rd between Columbus and Amsterdam in one of the rundown brownstones that lined both sides of the street The neighborhood wason the stoops, listening to enorh Life out of brown paper bags Every third wo the right bell and cli for me in the doorway of one of the back apartments He said, "Scudder?" and I nodded "Burt Havermeyer," he said "Come on in"

I followed him into a fair-sized studio with a Pullht fixture was a bare bulb in one of those Japanese paper shades The walls were due for paint I took a seat on the couch and accepted the can of beer he handed me He popped one for himself, then moved to turn off the television set, a black and white portable perched on top of an orange crate that held paperback books on its loo shelves

He pulled up a chair for his He looked to be in his early thirties, five-eight or -nine, pale cout He wore brown gabardine slacks and a brown and beige patterned sportshirt He had deep-set brown eyes, heavy jowls and slicked-down dark brown hair, and he hadn't shaved thatNeither, coo," I said "A wo up and I thought, why's anybody want to talk with ured it had to be the icepick thing I read the papers They got the guy, right? They made a lap and he fell in it"

"That's about it" I explained how Louis Pinell had denied a role in the death of Barbara Ettinger and how the facts appeared to bear hiet it," he said "That still leaves soh to put hier wohter"

"And that's your job" He whistled softly "Lucky you"

"That's about it" I drank a little beer from the can "I don't suppose there's any connection between the Potowski killing and the one I', but they're both in Brooklyn and maybe Pinell didn't do either of them You were the first police officer on the scene You reht to"

"Oh?"

"I left the force because of it But I suppose they told you that out in Sheepshead Bay"

"All they said was unspecified personal reasons"

"That right?" He held his beer can in both hands and sat with his head bowed, looking down at it "I re I was going to walk in on so really bad, and then the nextdown at the body One of the kids is hanging ontothe way kids do, you kno they do, and I'ain and the picture doesn't change She was in a whatchacallit, a housecoat It had like Japanese writing on it and a picture of a bird, Japanese-style art A kiuess you call it a kie, with black triain "The housecoat was open The kimono Partially open There were these dots all over her body, like punctuation ot her with the icepick Mostly the torso She had very nice breasts That's a terrible thing to re there noticing all the wounds in her breasts, and she's dead, and still noticing that she's got a first-rate pair of tits And hating yourself for thinking it"

"It happens"

"I know, I know, but it sticks in your , and noises outside At first I don't hear any of the noise because the sight of her just blocks everything else Like it deafens you, knocks out the other senses Do you knohat I mean?"

"Yes"