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By this tiet the box from the vault He handed it to ether, and Guzik closed and locked the door The room struck me as rather cramped for sex, but I understand people do it in airplane lavatories, and this was spacious in coirl

"Oh, we told the bank not to press charges, or all it would do was give every streetwalker in the business the same idea We told them to refund her box-rental fee and tell her they didn't want her business, so I guess that's what they did She probably walked across the street and started doing business with another bank"

"But you never got any ot a friend at Chase Manhattan" He laughed hard at his own line, then chopped it off abruptly "Let's see what's in the box, Scudder"

I handed it to him "Open it yourself," I said

He did, and I watched his face while he looked through everything He had soave the writtenThen he looked up suddenly

"This is all the stuff on the Ethridge dame"

"Seeuess these safe-deposit vaults aren't as foolproof as they're supposed to be So else"

"You son of a bitch"

"You've got everything you need, Guzik No more and no less"

"You took a different box for each one How many others are there?"

"What difference does it uard how many other boxes you have here, and we'll take a look at all of them"

"If you want I can save you a little time"

"Oh?"

"Not just three different boxes, Guzik Three different banks And don't even think about shakinga check on the banks, or anything else you ood idea if you stopped calling ht decide not to cooperate in your investigation I don't have to cooperate, you know And if I don't, your case goes down the drain You can possibly tie Ethridge to Lundgren withouta DA is going to want to take to court"

We looked at each other for a while A couple of tiured out that it wasn't a particularly good idea Finally soed in his face, and I knew he'd decided to let it go He had enough, and he had all he was going to get, and his face said he knew it

"The hell," he said, "it's the cop in s No offense, I hope"

"None at all," I said I don't suppose I sounded very convincing

"They probably hauled Ethridge out of bed by now I'll get back and see what she's got to say It shouldOr maybe they didn't haul her out of bed These pictures, you'd have et any of that, Scudder?"

"No"

"I wouldn't mind a taste myself Want to coo anywhere with hie

"I'll pass," I said "I've got an appointment"

Chapter 17

I spent half an hour under the shoith the spray as hot as I could stand it It had been a long night, and the only sleep I'd had had been when I dozed off briefly in Birnbau killed, and I had killed thefor ren He'd have been thirty-one next er than that, twenty-six or so Of course, I'd never seen hiht

It didn't botherto kill me and had seemed pleased at the prospect He had killed Spinner, and it wasn't unlikely that he'd killed other people before He , but it see with the knife, and the boys who like to use knives usually get a sexual thrill out of their weaponry Edged weapons are even uns

I wondered if he'd used a knife on Spinner It wasn't inconceivable The Medical Exa There was a case a while ago, a then-unidentified floater they fished out of the Hudson, and she was processed and buried without anyone's noticing that there was a bullet in her skull They found out only because some yoyo severed her head before burial He wanted the skull for a desk ornament, and ultimately they found the bullet and identified the skull fro from her home in Jersey for a couple of months