Detective

had served the summons. The limo pulled into the driveway and stopped. I eyed the street number on the mailbox as I drove by. I kept on going. It was late, I was tired, and stopping would have been risky. I’d done enough for one night. I had Pluto’s address now. Like Golden and Dursky, he wouldn’t get away.

16.
    I O VERSLEPT THE N EXT M ORNING , which wasn’t surprising, since it had been nearly six when I finally got home and sneaked back into bed. I woke up in a terrible mood, had a screaming argument with my wife over nothing at all, and stormed out of the apartment. I had breakfast at a greasy spoon on Broadway, and tried to pull myself together. When I finished it was after nine, so I stopped by the bank and deposited $200 of Albrect’s money in our account. Now I had a $200 withdrawal and a $200 deposit that weren’t reflected in the checkbook, but at least the balance would be the same.
    I took the subway down to my office. I fell asleep, and overshot my stop, which isn’t easy to do standing up, but I was really tired. I woke up at 34th Street, thinking I was at 42nd Street, and started to get off the train. I immediately knew something was wrong. The Penn Station stop is like no other stop on the entire subway system. It is the only express station where you cannot transfer directly from the express to the local, even though the trains stop right next to each other. You have to go downstairs from one, and back upstairs to the other. At Penn Station, you get out the local side of the local train, rather than the express side. There is no platform between the two trains. There is, however, a platform between the uptown express and the downtown express, so it is perfectly easy to transfer from one of those trains to the other, though there is no reason at all why anyone would ever want to do so, unless, of course, they had missed their stop.
    I had missed my stop, but I was on the downtown local, which didn’t help me at all. As soon as the door opened on the local side, I knew I’d screwed up, so I decided to stay on the train. I took it down to Chambers Street and walked over to the Department of Buildings.
    I gave the address of Rosa’s connection to a young man at a computer, who punched it in and gave me the block and lot number for the building. I filled out a form requesting information on the ownership of the building with that block and lot number, handed it in, and sat down to wait. Fifteen minutes later my name was called and I was presented with a computer printout of the ownership and tax record of the building. For the past ten years the building had been owned by a Mr. Alan Donaldson, who also listed it as his permanent address. Bingo. Another of the players-to-be-named-later identified.
    Of course, it would have been more valuable to have identified Pluto, a Most Valuable Player, than Donaldson, a utility infielder, but to do that I would have had to drive to the County Clerk’s office in Nassau County. I’d never done an investigation there, so I wasn’t even sure where the County Clerk’s office was, but anywhere in Nassau County was further than I felt like driving.
    I took the subway back uptown to my office. I paid attention this time, and managed to get off at the right stop. When I got to the office, I called up Fred Lazar, the guy who’d gotten me the job with Richard in the first place, and reminded him how I’d once taken a signed statement for him when he was busy with some girl or other, and how he’d always promised to return the favor. He remembered the incident because he remembered the girl, and was only too willing to help. I told him it was a big favor I wanted, that I needed an address checked in Nassau County. He laughed and said that was no big deal, he could do it with one phone call. I wanted to kill him—if there was some way to trace property ownership without going through all the shit I usually went through, I was going to feel like a real fool. Fortunately there wasn’t. He just happened to be screwing some girl in the County Clerk’s office.
    I told him I’d be out for the day, but just to leave the info on my answering machine.
    I hung up and checked the answering machine for messages. There were none, which wasn’t surprising, since I’d forgotten to turn the thing on. I did so now. I turned my beeper on too, since I’d also forgotten about it. It seemed like I was forgetting everything these days.
    I also turned the telephone ring off.