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It was Joe Durkin "I don’t even know if this is worth passing on," he said, "but you were brooding about that ht you’d like to knoas just what it looked like A ot the guy?"

"In the act," he said "Well, not in the act of hitting your guy Saperstein?"

"Sattenstein"

"Close enough He wasn’t the first person ed in that part of town, just the first who died from it, so they used a decoy from Street Crimes, put him in plain clothes, poured so like he was half in the bag"

"I don’t knohy I never got assignments like that"

"It must have been a treat," he said, "to see the look on the skell’s face when the perfect victiun What I hear, they’re about to clear ten or a dozen cases Guy’s confessing to everything they’ve got"

"Including Sattenstein?"

" ‘Oh, the poor man as killed? No, that one I didn’t do’ But he’ll cop to it too, by the ti listed in the plea agree left to cos were just what they appeared to be Gregory Stiller

I got out of there and headed off to anotherin a synagogue on Seventy-sixth Street a few doors west of Broadway I’d never been there before, and when I walked in ain, because Donna was there I stayed, and ere cordial to each other, and she thankedher out the previous Saturday, and I said I’d been happy to help, and it was as if we’d never been to bed together

I hai dinner, and we didn’t talk about Jan or Donna or the state ofstories fro days, and back before his first drink, back in his childhood I got caught up in what he had to say, and it wasn’t until later that I realized he’d purposely avoided discussing as going on into spare hirateful

We went to St Clare’s, and then I walked him ho confused I asked him as the matter

"Your brother called," he said

"My brother?"

"Or maybe it was your cousin"

"My cousin," I said I was an only child I had a couple of cousins, but we’d long since lost touch with one another I couldn’t think of one as likely to call

"It was a man," he said "Have to be, if it was your brother, wouldn’t it?"

"What exactly did he say?"

"Says he calling Mr Scudder I ask would he like to leave his name Scudder, he says Yessir, I know it’s Mr Scudder you calling, but ould your na like theuys?"

"You know Theuys"

"Abbott and Costello"

"Yeah, them two So I say, lemme see now, you’re also Mr Scudder And he say, I am the Scudder"

" ‘I am the Scudder’ "

"Yeah, just like that So I say, then you and Mr Scudder be brothers And he say how allway too weird for ine why"

"Say what?"

"Nothing He leave a number?"

"Say you have it"

"I have his number"

"What he say"

"All men are brothers, and he’s the Scudder, and I have his nuht," he said, "but man like that don’t make it easy"

"You did fine," I told him

XXXV

I RODE UP in the elevator, feeling pleased with ure out whoI’d done in longer than I cared to remember