Part 35 (2/2)

'You can't have everything.'

'For sure. If she blew him, you'd think she could have wound up with a hair or two between her teeth. Whole trouble is she's too ladylike.'

'That's the trouble, all right.'

'And my trouble is I'm starting to believe there's a case here, with a killer at the end of a rainbow. I got a desk full of s.h.i.+t I haven't got time for and you've got me pulling my chain with this one.'

'Think how good you'll look if it breaks.'

'I get the glory, huh?'

'Somebody might as well.'

I had three more hookers to call, Sunny and Ruby and Mary Lou. Their numbers were in my notebook. But I'd talked to enough wh.o.r.es for one day. I called Chance's service, left word for him to call me. It was Friday night. Maybe he was at the Garden, watching a couple of boys. .h.i.t each other. Or did he just go when Kid Bas...o...b..was fighting?

I took out Donna Campion's poem and read it. In my mind's eye all the poem's colors were overlaid with blood, bright arterial blood that faded from scarlet to rust. I reminded myself that Kim had been alive when the poem was written. Why, then, did I sense a note of doom in Donna's lines? Had she picked up on something? Or was I seeing things that weren't really there?

She'd left out the gold of Kim's hair. Unless the sun was supposed to cover that base. I saw those gold braids wrapped around her head and thought of Jan Keane's Medusa. Without giving it too much thought I picked up the phone and placed a call. I hadn't dialed the number in a long time but memory supplied it, pus.h.i.+ng it at me as a magician forces a card on one.

It rang four times. I was going to hang up when I heard her voice, low pitched, out of breath.

I said, 'Jan, it's Matt Scuddder.'

'Matt! I was just thinking of you not an hour ago. Give me a minute, I just walked in the door, let me get my coat off... There. How've you been? It's so good to hear from you.'

'I've been all right. And you?'

'Oh, things are going well. A day at a time.'

The little catchphrases. 'Still going to those meetings?'

'Uh-huh. I just came from one, as a matter of fact. How are you doing?'

'Not so bad.'

'That's good.'

What was it, Friday? Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. 'I've got three days,' I said.

'Matt, that's wonderful!'

What was so wonderful about it? 'I suppose,' I said.

'Have you been going to meetings?'

'Sort of. I'm not sure I'm ready for all that.'

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