Fall Guy

if anything was wrong. I told him no, I was crossing the street, I said, and I hadn't noticed a car coming. He told me to go home, get some rest. I said I would. I could hear someone yelling in the background, someone totally out of control.
    „Fred?“ I said. „You're sure that's the name he gave you?“
    „That's what he said. 'I went out to meet this guy Freddy, but he never showed.' That's a quote.“
    I felt a little prickle at the back of my neck and on my arms.
    „Rachel?“
    „Oh, yeah, sorry. You're right. I think it's all catching up with me. I'm on my way home to get j some sleep. I can't think straight anymore.“
    „We're taking care of this, Rachel. Do you under stand?“
    „I was just thinking, that's all,“ I said into the phone, remembering Irwin telling me, „Don't try to kid a kidder, doll.“ The line was still open. „I'll talk to you later,“ I said, taking the phone away from my ear and pressing end before Brody had the chance to respond.
    The phone still in my hand, I dialed a number I knew by heart now, waiting for the desk clerk to pick up.
    „Freddy Baker, please.“
    „Hold on,“ he said, „I'll ring him.“
    I hung up without waiting for an answer. I no longer needed the names I'd hoped to get from Irwin's address book. There was something much more urgent now. I headed home, crossing against the lights, not a minute to lose.

CHAPTER 29
    Standing across the street from the Hotel Riverview, I waited for someone familiar to exit. I didn't know which of the men I'd met it would be, or even if the person calling himself Freddy Baker was someone I'd ever seen. Anyone in New York City might have heard any of Parker's stories, meaning any of Tim's as well.
    Even if Tim had never said a word about the incident at Breyer's Landing, why not tell the Freddy Baker stories? „Look,“ he might have said, „I used to lie and steal and do stupid, hurtful things and I straightened myself out. It can be done,“ thinking they'd be grist for the mill, that they might inspire Parker to change.
    And how might Parker have reinterpreted What he'd heard? As comedy, no doubt, how this guy he lived with and his brothers and cousins had successfully hoodwinked their parents; his father a cop, too. That must have been the best part, putting one over on a cop, making him believe a terrible accident was the work of a kid Who didn't even exist, for God's sake. It was an unbeatable story, one someone like Parker would not have been able to resist telling anytime he got the chance. And then there was the kicker: how this guy, the one he lived with, was a cop himself, and how he, Parker, kept putting one over on him. Priceless.
    And what about the rest of it? Lying in the dark, one of those terrible nights when Tim couldn't sleep for remembering, had he hinted that he'd done worse, far worse than lying and stealing? Parker might have said, „Hey, man, who didn't? I could tell you some stories of my own.“ And then what? Did Tim say, „No, you don't understand,“ thinking no one could, least of all Parker, ending the conversation right there. He might have told the Freddy Baker stories, that made sense, but he never would have told Parker what was keeping him up in the first place. He never would have told him about what really happened at Breyer's Landing.
    How often, I wondered, had Parker told the Freddy Baker stories, perhaps mixing in some details of his own invention, entertaining his fellow miscreants in bars, at the poker game, sitting and shooting the bull in Abingdon Square Park, where he'd talked to me, confiding, confessing, getting the attention he needed with someone else's pain. Didn't we all do that at one time or another? Wasn't that what we called gossip, not all of it harmless?
    The sky was overcast and it was as dark as it gets in New York City, not very. But there was light under the canopy of the Hotel Riverview and none across the street where, behind the row
    of cars parked on the south side of Jane Street, I was leaning against the chain-link fence of the parking lot, not knowing if I'd recognize anyone, hoping no one would recognize me.
    Of course, since Parker had probably told Tim's stories to dozens of people I'd never met or seen, chances were good that no one would recognize anyone. That aside, my whole damn theory could be wrongheaded. One foot behind me, slouching so that I could see under the canopy, I watched the throngs of people heading up the stone steps to see