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There was a coffee shop on the building's first floor, just a long counter with stools and a takeoutI sat over coffee and tried to assess what I had

She had a boyfriend No question Soht her that jacket, counted out hundred dollar bills, kept his own name out of the transaction

Did the boyfriend have a machete? There was a question I hadn't asked the fur salesuy in a hotel room with the blonde Let's say he wants to chop her What does he use? An axe? A cavalry saber? A ive me your iht? He'd probably use a pen A Pilot Razor Point, deadly as a sword in the hands of a samurai Zip zip, take that, you bitch

The coffee wasn't very good I ordered a second cup anyway I interlaced ers and looked down at h but nothing else did What kind of accountant type went batshit with a machete? Granted, anyone could explode that way, but this had been a curiously planned explosion, the hotel room rented under a false name, the murder performed with no traces left of the murderer's identity

Did that sound like the saht the fur?

I sipped ot of the boyfriend jibe with theThe fellow in the lumber jacket had been muscle, pure and si more with that muscle than flex it Would a mild-mannered accountant command that sort of muscle?

Not likely

Were the boyfriend and Charles Owen Jones one and the same? And why such an elaborate alias, middle name and all? People who used a surname like So with it Charles Owen Jones?

Maybe his name was Charles Owens Maybe he'd started to write that, then changed his mind in the nick of ti it to a middle name Did that make sense?

I decided that it didn't

The goddaated properly Durkin had said he was in a fog, and evidently he was South Alish But he'd have had to be reasonably fluent to get hired by a decent hotel for a position that put him in contact with the public No, the problem was that nobody pushed him If he'd been questioned the way I questioned the fur sales Witnesses always remember more than they think they remember

The room clerk who checked in Charles Owen Jones was named Octavio Calderуn, and he'd worked last on Saturday when he was on the desk froht Sunday afternoon he'd called in sick There had been another call yesterday and a third call an hour or so before I got to the hotel and braced the assistant er Calderуn was still sick He'd be out another day, er

I asked as the hed and shook his head "I don't know," he said "It's hard to get a straight answer out of these people When they want to turn evasive their grasp of the English language weakens considerably They slip off into the convenient little world of No comprendo"

"You lish?"

"No, no Calderуn's fluent Soain "He's a very diffident young man, 'Tavio is I suspect he reasoned that if he had a friend make the call, I couldn't intimidate him over the phone The ih to get froather he lives in so house with the telephone in the hallway Someone with a much heavier Latin accent than 'Tavio made the call"

"Did he call yesterday?"

"Someone called for him"

"The same person who called today?"

"I'm sure I don't know One Hispanic voice over the phone is rather like another It was a male voice both times I think it was the same voice, but I couldn't swear to it What difference does it make?"

None that I could think of How about Sunday? Had Calderуn done his own telephoning then?

"I wasn't here Sunday"

"You have a phone nus in the hall I doubt that he'll come to the phone"

"I'd like the nu with an address on Barnett Avenue in Queens I'd never heard of Barnett Avenue and I asked the assistant er if he knehat part of Queens Calderуn lived in

"I don't know anything about Queens," he said "You're not going out there, are you?" He h I'd need a passport, and supplies of food and water "Because I'm sure 'Tavio will be back on the job in a day or two"

"What ood job," he said "He'll lose it if he's not back soon And he must know that"

"How's his absenteeism record?"

"Excellent And I'h Probably one of those viruses that runs its course in three days There's a lot of that going around"

I called Octavio Calderуn's nu for a long tis, before a woman answered it in Spanish I asked for Octavio Calderуn

"No estб aquн;," she told me

I tried to form questions in Spanish Es enfer myself understood Her replies were delivered in a Spanish that was very different in inflection fro around New York, and when she tried to accolish her accent was heavy and her vocabulary inadequate No estб aquн;, she kept saying, and it was the one thing she said that I understood with no difficulty No estб aquн; He is not here

I went back to hs in my room and I looked up Barnett Avenue in the Queens index, turned to the appropriate page and hunted until I found it It was in Woodside I studied thein an Irish neighborhood

Barnett Avenue extended only ten or twelve blocks, running east fro at Woodside Avenue I had my choice of trains I could take either the E or F on the Independent line or the IRT Flushing Line

Assuain fro time This time a man answered it I said, "Octavio Calderуn, por favor"

"Mo sound, as if he let the receiver hang froainst the wall Then there was no sound at all except that of a radio in the background tuned to a Latin broadcast I was thinking about hanging up by the time he came back on the line

"No estб aquн;," he said, and rang off before I could say anything in any language

I looked in the pocket atlas again and tried to think of a way to avoid a trip to Woodside It was rush hour already If I went now I'd have to stand up all the way out there And as I going to acco ride jammed into a subway car like a sardine in a can so that someone could tell me No estб aquн; face to face What was the point? Either he was taking a drug-assisted vacation or he was really sick, and either way I didn't standout of hied to run him down, I'd be rewarded with No lo se instead of No estб aquн; I don't know, he's not here, I don't know, he's not here-

Shit

Joe Durkin had done a follow-up interrogation of Calderуn on Saturday night, around the tier-on I could find That saer and Sunny Hendryx washed down a load of pills with vodka and orange juice