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"I have no idea Anyway, he’s the claier I don’t know that he sold the policy in the first place"
"Oh Soht I saw that somewhere on one of the forot pro questions?" she said snap-pishly
"Uh, well, actually I’m not Did Andy know any of the Woods personally? I don’t think you told me that"
"How do I knoho he knew?"
"Just thought I’d take a flyer," I said "It puzzles one, what, four days? I’d be frantic"
"I guess that’s the difference between us," she said
"Maybe I’ll check out at his place again You never know He ht have stopped back at the apartment to pick up his clothes and his mail"
She just stared at o," I said, cheerfully "You’ve really been a peach"
Her goodbye was brief Tords, one of which started with the letter "F" Her ht her to be ladylike any ht me I decided to drive back out to Andy ’s place because, frankly, I couldn’t think what else to do
23
I headed out to the condooing to have to type up a report on the day’s events The truth was, I had no plan afoot, no strategy whatever for wrapping this business up I didn’t have a clue to as going on I was driving rando that I could shake so the gendarmes at my door with a warrant forlinks Soned an elaborate scheineers at Wood/ Warren Andy had facilitated the fradom come, he must have decided to blon himself If I could pinpoint the connection be-tween Andy Motycka and the person who’d suckered hiure out what the payoff was The electronic gates at The Copse stood open, and I passed through without attracting ars A tall, fair-haired wo an apricot poodle, but she scarcely looked at me I parked my car in the slot Andy had left in the wake of his depar-ture I trotted up to the second-floor landing and let myself in with the front-door key, which I knew from past experi-ence he kept hidden on the cornice above the front door I confess I sniffed the air apprehensively as I let ht have ended up in the san and the dust that had settled on the empty bookshelves attested to the fact that no one had been here for days
I did a quick pass through the apart-glass door, peered into each bedroo rooht gloom with curiosity Andy lived on such spartan terms that his place had looked abandoned even when he was in residence Noever, the emptiness had the aura of a vacant lot, the wall-to-wall carpeting littered with paper scraps In situations like this, I always long for the obvious-crypticwhere the one The various bits of paper on Andy ’s floor were none of the above and I was no wiser for having crawled around onthenities
The medicine cabinet in his bathrooear were gone Wherever he was, he’d be clean-shaven and sone and the blue plastic crates had been emptied of their con-tents One tatty pair of boxer shorts remained, ith fuchsia exclamation marks I’uess such things by looking at their sober three-piece suits? He’d left behind his bicycle, rowingcartons There were still a few poorly folded sheets in the linen closet, one package of pizza rolls in the freezer He’d taken the bottle of aquavit and the Milky Way bars, perhaps anticipating his life on the road as an endless round of sugar and alcohol abuse
The card table was still in place, the answering ma-chine on top, aluuests for a banquet of Lean Cuisine I sat down, propped my feet up on the adjacent chair and surveyed Andy ’s makeshift office There were still sou machine turned out to be a duplicate of mine I reached over and flipped open the side panel where the "oft-dialed" numbers were penned in Of the sixteen spaces allotted, only six were filled Andy was real iinative Fire, Police, California Fidelity, his ex-wife, a liquor store, and a pizza joint with free delivery