Detective

cheaper rental agencies, a mid-size car, not too expensive, not too cheap, nothing to attract attention. I threw the cartons in the trunk and drove out to Woodmere, to Pluto’s house.
    It had been five days since I’d tracked Donaldson out there. During those five days I’d been busy. The first two, I was mainly busy sleeping, something I sorely needed to do. After that came a lot of thinking and planning, followed by a lot of research and practice. I spent a day with Fred Lazar, which was kind of tough, seeing as how I couldn’t let him know why I was interested in the things I was asking him about, but, although he was understandably curious, I managed to pull it off. I spent another day alone, practicing the things I had learned. I also spent a day working for Richard, which actually consisted of six cases spread out over the five days. So, as I said, I’d been busy.
    Now, all my preparations having been made, there was nothing left to do but do it.
    I pulled my car into the curb a half a block from Pluto’s house, got out, and looked around.
    I had been afraid in a ritzy neighborhood like this that all of the telephone wires would be underground, but I was in luck. There was a pole by his driveway from which the phone line ran straight to his house. The pole was unobtrusive, hidden by trees. It was perfect.
    I had my telephone repair outfit in the trunk. I was all set, except for one thing. Suddenly I knew how Superman must have felt looking for a phone booth. Where the hell was I going to change?
    I got back in the car and drove back to a less posh neighborhood. Still no place to change. I cruised around and finally found a McDonald’s on the strip. It was about ten in the morning and the place wasn’t too busy. I took the package out of the trunk, went in, and headed for the men’s room.
    I am well acquainted with fast-food bathrooms. They are a staple of my profession. When you drive around New York City and vicinity all day, one of the biggest problems you come up against is where to take a piss. There really are no public restrooms in New York City. You have to improvise. Regular restaurants are no good, because the minute you walk into one, a waitress with a menu will try to guide you to a table, and when they find you only want to use the bathroom, you become slightly less popular than pond scum.
    So fast-food restaurants are the ticket. No one gives a damn about you there, and no one’s even going to attempt to wait on you unless you shove your way up to the counter and shout over twenty or thirty other people trying to get served. In my six months on the job, I’ve probably visited over half the McDonald’s and Burger King restrooms in the city. Some of them are better than others, and it has nothing to do with what chain of restaurants they are; it simply has to do with their location and type of clientele. Some of them are spotless. Some turn the stomach. A swollen bladder has made me impervious to most filth. I only pass up a bathroom if, as is often the case, it is out of order and closed, or, as sometimes happens, I find hanging out in it a rather strung-out junkie who looks at me as if slowly realizing I might be his next fix.
    This McDonald’s restroom fell in the mid-range. It was open, a plus; unoccupied, a double plus; and filthy, a small minus. I went into the toilet stall and locked the door, another plus.
    The toilet was full and unflushed. I would have liked to flush it, but that seemed just as likely to flood the floor as to empty the toilet, so I decided to let well enough alone. I unwrapped the package and changed as quickly as possible, trying to keep the various articles of clothing from going on the floor, or worse, dipping into the toilet. It was hard without a hook to hang anything on and considering how cramped it was in there, but I managed. In less than five minutes my suit was packed in the box, and I was dressed as a telephone repairman, complete with hard-hat and tool belt. I put the box under my arm and left the bathroom.
    If the sight of a telephone repairman emerging from a bathroom that had been entered by a businessman in a suit startled anyone, nobody showed it; no one looked at me. I walked out of the place, got in my car and drove off. I felt pretty good about the whole thing until I realized that, in my haste to change, I’d forgotten to take a piss.
    I drove back to Pluto’s. I parked the car about a block away. It would have been much better if I