Page 15 (1/2)

Wendy Hanniford She had a thing for older men, and if you wanted to you could run a trace on it all the way back to unresolved feelings for the father she never saw At college she realized her oer and had affairs with professors Then one of them fell too hard for her and a wheel came off, and by the time it was over she was out of school and on her own in New York

There were plenty of older men in New York One of them took her to Miami Beach The same one, or another, provided her with a job reference when she rented her apart the line there must have been plenty of older men to take her to dinner, to slip her twenty dollars for taxi fare, to leave twenty or thirty or fifty dollars on the bureau

She had never needed a roo considerably less than half the rent It was likely she had subsidized Richie Vanderpoel as well, and it was just as likely she had taken him as a roommate for the same reason she'd taken Marcia in, the same reason she had wanted Marcia to stick around

Because it was a lonely world, and she had always lived alone in it with only her father's ghost for coot, the ed to other woh with her She wanted someone in that Bethune Street apartment who didn't want to take her to bed Soood company First Marcia-and hadn't Wendy perhaps been a little disappointed when Marcia agreed to go along on dates with her? I guessed that she had, because at the saained a companion on dates she lost a companion who had been not of that brittle world but of a piece with the innocence Marcia had sensed in Wendy herself

Then Richie, who had probably made an even better companion Richie, a timid and reticent hoourmet meals androohts on the convertible couch And she in turn had provided Richie with a ho the sexual challenge another woht have constituted He ay bars

I paid the check and left, heading down Broadway and back to the hotel A panhandler, red-eyed and ragged, blocked e I shookat hih he wanted to tell me to fuck myself if only he had the nerve

How o with it? I could fly to Indiana and make a nuisance of myself on the campus where Wendy had learned to define her role in life I could easily enough learn the name of the professor whose affair with her had had such dramatic results I could find that professor, whether he was still at that school or not He would talk to me I could make him talk to me I could track down other professors who had slept with her, other students who had known her

But what could they tell raphy I was trying to capture enough of the essence of her so that I could go to Cale Hanniford and tell hih to do a fair job of that already I wouldn't find out much more in Indiana

There was only one probleee around the detective licensing laws and the incoift, just as the iven Koehler and Pankow and the postal clerk had been And in return I was doing hi for him

So I couldn't call it quits just because I had the answers to Cale Hanniford's questions I had a question or two of my own, and I didn't have all the answers nailed down yet I had ht I did, but there were still a few blank spaces and I wanted to fill theiven me a hard time awhile back, and he still wasn't sure how I felt about hiiven him a ten for Christmas, which should have clued his, but he still had a tendency to cringe when I approached He cringed a little now, then handed me my room key and a slip of paper that informed me Kenny had called There was a number where I could reach him

I called it from my room "Ah, Matthew," he said "How nice of you to call"

"What's the proble a day off It was that or go to jail, and I' back unpleasantterribly oblique? I talked to the good Lieutenant Koehler, just as you suggested Sinthia's is scheduled to be raided so Forewarned is forear one of "

"Does he knohat's co?"

"I'm not diabolical, Matthew He knows he'll be locked up He also knows that he'll be bailed out in nothing flat and charges will be dropped in short order And he knows he'll be fifty dollars richer for the experience Personally, I wouldn't suffer the indignity of an arrest for ten times that sum, but different strokes for different folks, to coin another phrase Your Lieutenant Koehler was ht add, except he wanted a hundred dollars instead of the fifty you suggested I don't suppose I ought to have tried bargaining with hiht Well, if it works out, the price is a pittance I hope you don't mind that I mentioned your naree of entrйe But it leaves e ot a line on Richie Vanderpoel?"

"I did indeed I devoted quite a few hours to asking pertinent questions at an after-hours place The one on Houston Street?"

"I don't know it"

"Quite ht if you'd like"

"We'll see What did you find out?"

"Ah, let entleht-eyed boy home for milk and cookies I also talked to a few others who I would happily swear did the same, but their ht in thinking that he hadn't been hustling a buck He never asked anyone for money, and one chap said he'd tried to press a few bob on Richie for cabfare ho character, wouldn't you say?"

"I would"

"And all too rare in this day and age That's it in the hard-fact departather that's what you're most interested in"

"Yes"