Away from the press of the crowd she said, “That has to be the biggest jackass this side of anywhere.”
“What happened?” Turner asked.
The security director, Mabel Henshaw, told them. “He called us about an hour ago. I think he called the media first. They got here awful goddamn quick. He claims three guys broke into his room. Two of them held him down while the other burned his manuscript. I think it’s all just a publicity stunt. Who ever heard of an author keeping one copy of their book?”
Fenwick said, “I’ve read about this guy. Supposedly it’s true. He only keeps one copy. He takes it with him on his tours. Sort of like a security blanket.”
“At any rate,” Henshaw said, “I can’t see it being important enough for you guys to be here.”
Turner explained briefly about trying to find connections between odd problems far-right-wing people had been having lately. “Did these guys talk to him?” he asked.
Henshaw said, “I haven’t had two minutes alone with him to ask. He started going nuts when the first camera showed up, and he hasn’t stopped. You guys can question him if you want.”
With Henshaw’s assistance they got Bennet away from the cameras. They returned to his hotel room to talk to him.
“How did they get in here?” Turner asked.
“I called room service.” Bennet paced up and down the room throughout the conversation, frequently punctuating his statements with wild gestures. “They must have intercepted the call, or the guy with the cart. They came in, grabbed me, and threw me down on the bed.”
“How many were there?” Fenwick asked.
“Three. All wore dark sport coats. One was very tall and exceptionally thin. The others were of medium height. They found my manuscript, held it in front of my face, and then burned it. One of them disconnected the smoke alarm before they started. They used the cover of the serving tray to put the ashes in.”
“Did they say anything?” Turner asked.
“Yeah. ‘Sorry now, aren’t you?’ What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“How did they get away?”
“They knocked me out with cholorform. I used it in three or four of my books, and I know the smell. I was out just a few minutes.”
“Who would do this kind of thing to you?” Fenwick asked.
“How should I know?”
“Does anyone have reason to dislike you? Have you gotten any threats lately?” Turner asked.
“I always get nasty letters from bleeding-heart liberals. Last year I suggested we create a funeral pyre of all the legislators who opposed the flag-burning amendment to the Constitution. A couple of people have filed suits over the years claiming I slandered them in my books. Just because they see their pet liberal causes or politicians made fun of, they get all huffy. Bleeding-heart wimps can’t take it.”
“Any specific causes or groups lately?” Turner asked.
He thought a minute. “Nope, nobody lately.”
“Was that really your only copy of the next book?” Turner said.
“Yes. I keep only one copy.”
“What will you do?” Fenwick asked.
“Find the bastards and torture them as they scream for mercy.”
Fenwick said, “I meant about the book.”
“I’ll have to write it again. The whole goddamn thing.”
In the hallway waiting for the elevator Turner said, “Same three guys?”
“Got to be,” Fenwick said. He shook his head, “I can’t believe that the liberals organized a terrorist group.”
“Maybe the meek got tired of waiting,” Turner replied. When the elevator reached the first floor he said, “Let’s talk to room service.”
Down in the kitchen area they found that everything about the order for Bennet had been very normal. He’d called down. They’d made the breakfast and Feliz took the order up to the room. He’d never come back and never delivered the food. The head of the kitchen whispered to them. “Feliz Milta is an illegal. I don’t want trouble. We hire some of them to give them a break. Not because it’s cheaper. We pay everybody the going wage. He has no green card. He probably saw trouble and ran.”
They obtained Feliz’s address from payroll and drove to Eighteenth and Ashland.
Feliz answered the door of his fourth-floor walk-up apartment. He saw their stars and shoved the door in their faces. Fenwick caught it and threw it back at him. Feliz staggered and then tried to run. Turner caught him halfway down a hallway. Feliz struggled briefly but Turner, younger and stronger, subdued him in less than a minute.
They cuffed him and sat him down on a kitchen chair. Feliz spoke accented English; he was about five foot five, with cropped black hair. Turner guessed him to be in his late forties.
Feliz refused to look at them when they asked questions. Finally Turner said, “Feliz, we don’t want to send you back to Mexico. We just want to find out why you didn’t bring up that tray this morning.”
“Why should I believe you?” Feliz asked.
Turner said, “Look at me.”
The man raised his brown eyes to look at Turner.
“I give you my word. You tell us what we want to know, and we leave. We forget we ever knew you.”
Feliz gazed at Turner for over a minute, weighing his chances. Finally he said, “If I don’t talk?”
“We bust your ass,” Fenwick said.
Feliz shrugged. “I get a lousy deal, or I got to trust you? Some choice.”
Turner did something genuinely shocking. He caught Feliz’s eyes and said, “Please.”
Feliz Milta’s jaw dropped in disbelief.
Turner asked, “Why didn’t you bring up the tray?”
“Three guys stopped me in the hallway outside the room. They offered me money to let them take care of it. When I heard what happened later, I ran.”
“What did they look like?” Turner asked.
Feliz shut his eyes and thought. “They looked like North Americans. White.”
“Did you notice eye color, height, weight?” Turner asked.
He gave the same general description as Bennet had, and little more. “They offered me a lot of money, and I didn’t bother to notice anything else.”
“How much did they offer?” Fenwick said.
Feliz gazed about nervously.
“We aren’t going to steal it from you,” Turner said.
Feliz said, “A lot of money.” He looked at Turner’s face. “Five hundred dollars.”
Fenwick said, “Not a bad day’s pay.”
“What else did they say?” Turner asked.
“Nothing. They told me there would be no trouble and I could keep the money no matter what. With that much I can help my family here and in Mexico.”
“Did you see them later?” Turner asked.
“No. I took the money and left. I wanted to hide it in case they changed their minds and tried to accuse me of stealing it.”
Turner unlocked the handcuffs.
Feliz eyed them suspiciously. “You are really going to let me go?”
“You haven’t done anything illegal that we need to handle. Be careful with the money,” Turner said. They left.
In the car Fenwick said, “I still can’t believe you said please. Now we ask politely?”
“I thought it might work with this guy,” Turner said, “and it did.”
“We should have busted him, or brought him in to look at mug shots,” Fenwick said.
“Probably, and the money could have some bearing on the case, but my guess is it was all in small unmarked bills. If we need it, we can come back and get it. Mug shots are useless. These guys are new on the block.”
“What if Feliz skips?”
Turner eyed his partner. “We could arrest him. For now I’m willing to take a chance. I doubt we’d find the money. He’s got it hidden. Besides, we promised the guy. I’d rather keep my word.”
Fenwick grunted agreement. “We going to try to track Wilmer’s movements.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been there. A couple of whores rolled him one night. He looked worse than usual. It was after his weekly dousing with perfume. I saw him on the street and took him home. He lives in one of the abandoned buildings down there.”
Fenwick said, “We should have listened to him. I should have listened to him. He must have known something.”
“Or he got rolled by some bored kids who dumped him into the river for the hell of it. Let’s go.”
Two buildings, separated by a narrow gangway, sat amid the debris of a torn-down block on the near West Side. At eleven in the morning they didn’t have the sinister emptiness of midnight fears. El tracks stretched overhead. They banged on the door of the building farther east.
“It’s abandoned,” Turner said.
Fenwick kicked at the door. It fell in on the second blast. Dust motes scattered upward as they climbed the stairs in front of them. Scraps of wood paneling, remnants of what once lined the walls halfway to the top, remained in scattered strips. They heard no rustling of human occupation; no radios or TVs, no other debris of the electronic age, intruded on their trudge up the stairs. Oppressive humidity and closeness surrounded them.
“Why’d he have to live on the top floor?” Fenwick said as they paused on the landing outside his door. “Awful goddamn dark in here,” he added. “I should go back for the flashlight.”
Turner shrugged. He pushed at the door and it opened. A window, smeared with filth to the point of opacity, let in only enough light to prevent a trek down for the flashlight. The paint on the walls of the apartment matched the top half of the ones in the hall—barren, encrusted with dirt and soot, perhaps painted light yellow in a better time.
The one room had no appliances and no bathroom. It stank of piss and shit, although neither were in blatant evidence. The mattress from a twin bed lay in one corner. A tattered blanket sat in a heap in the middle of the bed.
Next to it they found two boxes. From the first one, Turner pulled out a plastic trophy that said Wilmer had been the checkers champion of Crawfordsville, Indiana, when he was in sixth grade. Fenwick pulled out a bag that contained marbles: three steelies and two extra-large cat-eyes, along with fourteen assorted smaller ones. They sifted through the other materials but turned up nothing of value to the investigation.
In the second box Turner found a collection of broken and ruined toy cars. “Poor guy,” Turner said. He explained to Fenwick about Wilmer’s presents for Jeff.
They removed the cars, under which they found a variety of papers. The two men sat on the edge of the mattress. Fenwick moved the tattered blanket out of the way with the tips of two fingers. They each took a stack of papers and examined them carefully.
“I think this is a high-school diploma from someplace in Indiana,” Fenwick said. “Maybe Crawfordsville, but I can’t really make it out.” He turned to the next one. “These are medical notices.”
Turner glanced at them. He said, “These are all from Mother Mary Hospital. We can start there. Most of this is just paperwork. We can take it with us.” At the bottom of the papers they found a faded black-and-white photo. A young child looked out at them in a sailor suit in front of what was probably a zoo cage. Fenwick said, “I wonder if that’s him or his kid.”
Turner peered at the picture. “From the style of the clothes, I’d say it’s him.”
They drove to Mother Mary Hospital, noted throughout the West Side of the city for its charitable work. The vast complex stood near the corner of Ashland and North Avenues. Half of it looked ready to collapse into the nearby slums. The other half looked as if it would be the envy of most of the medical centers in the country.
The nun in charge, Sister Constance, greeted them warmly. Turner explained to her about the autopsy report on Wilmer and showed her the papers they found in the apartment. He concluded, “We’d like to know who his doctor was, especially the names of any friends or even personal contacts among the hospital staff.”
She examined the papers for several minutes. “These do say he tested positive for HIV antibodies.” She frowned and shuffled through them again. “There’s no record here that he ever accepted AZT or any other treatment. Also that he never had any opportunistic infections.” She turned to her computer and pressed keys rapidly for a minute then looked at them. “What you have here is a fairly complete record.”
Turner asked, “Is it strange, that he didn’t accept treatment?”
“It’s a little odd, but some of our older patients refuse treatment. Some of them want to die, or think they do. Often they turn to us when it’s too late.”
“Did he have any family?” Turner asked.
Sister Constance ran her fingers rapidly over the keyboard. “Nothing listed here.”
“Was he seeing any doctor in particular?” Turner asked.
She worked the computer a few seconds, then said, “Dr. Schemeil or Dr. Manfred.”
“Is that George Manfred?” Turner asked.
“Yes, do you know him?” the nun asked.
“We’ve met.”
“He’s one of our best doctors. Spends all his time with the people with AIDS. Does a wonderful job with them and their families. Works incredible hours.”
“Anyone else Wilmer talked to on a regular basis?” Turner asked.
“You can try down in the emergency room. They get to know some of the regulars, and according to the records your Wilmer was in and out. Drunks fall down and hurt themselves often.”
After finding out that Dr. Schemeil was on vacation and Dr. Manfred wouldn’t be in, they interviewed the emergency-room staff. A few vaguely remembered Wilmer, but none knew him well. As Turner and Fenwick got ready to leave, an older nurse, in her sixties and moving slowly as if her feet hurt and there were a million miles to go before the end of her shift, introduced herself as May Worth and said she knew Wilmer. She beckoned for them to follow to a small staff lounge area. She got her coffee and plunked onto a gray couch, then said, “I knew him. Tough old coot. Never wanted anybody to touch him. Didn’t like me because I made him clean up whenever he came in. I washed that old man’s body more time than I care to admit.” She sipped her coffee.
Turner felt that if he ever needed to have a nurse, he wanted to have one exactly like May Worth.
She continued, “I used to talk to him. Did you know he graduated from Harvard?”
Turner said, “A lot of bums make claims.”
“You’re telling me. And you’re saying I can’t tell the difference? I’ve been doing this forty years, since before either of you was born. I’ve seen poor people, rich people, frightened people, dying people, brave people. These old bones have seen a lot of death and dying, and miracles too. I’ve seen people at their best and worst and I’m here to tell you when Wilmer talked to me, I learned the truth. He tried lies. They all do. I have my ways. I listen; most people don’t. You ever stop to listen to him?”
“Not often enough,” Turner said.
“Too bad. You might have learned something.”
Turner cleared his throat. “Did he tell you anything about friends or relatives?”
“I know he was married once. Don’t know where or for how long. Came to Chicago in the early fifties, couldn’t get a job. Used to mumble that Joe McCarthy ruined him. Never had any visitors when he stayed overnight. You might talk to Dr. Manfred. He might have known him better. He’s a good doctor. Has a good relationship with the patients. They trust him.”
“Did Wilmer make friends here at the hospital?” Turner asked.
“A few. He liked to talk. He was most friendly with the most seriously ill PWAs. Many of the ones he used to talk to are dead. Nobody who’s here now.”
In the hall they used the phone at the nurse’s station to call Manfred’s answering service.
“Why do you have his number?” Fenwick said.
“He’s
the guy I met,” Turner said.
“Oh,” Fenwick said, then added, “We’ll have to check the other shifts here.”
Turner agreed. They’d have to come back.
They waited five minutes for Manfred to return his page. While waiting, Fenwick ogled the female hospital personnel.
Manfred greeted Turner effusively when he found out who it was. When he found out what it was, he suggested they meet at Family Care Hospital when Turner made his afternoon visit. “I’ve got a couple of kids I need to stop by and see,” Manfred told him.
Back at Area Ten they tackled the paperwork.
At five Ian called.
“I don’t want to hear this, do I?” Turner asked.
“I’m going with the biggest scoop of my career. No one else has put all these incidents together. Only a gay paper would monitor such things. We watch the conservatives here. Have to, so we know what the opposition is up to. The reverend called another news conference to denounce just about everybody, especially gay people. If it is a gay conspiracy to destroy some right-wing assholes, I have mixed feelings about it. A story like that could be really bad press for the gay community. On the other hand it would make a terrific story. At any rate, I intend to find out the truth, no matter who’s responsible.”
“Be careful,” Turner warned. He understood Ian being torn between loyalty to the community and his journalistic integrity. “The murder is difficult enough to solve without these right wing people trying to blame the gay community for a crime, which I doubt gays committed. These other things you’ve told me about haven’t helped. Murderers do not do pranks.”
“You got a better explanation?”
“Several. All involving coincidences, which doesn’t make a lot of sense either.” He sighed. “I just want to solve the cases.”
“You can have honor and glory forever.”
“I’d rather just do my job,” Turner said.
At six, still mired in paperwork, Turner and Fenwick decided to call it quits. They drove separate cars up to the hospital. Fenwick would drive home right from the interview with Manfred.
In Jeff’s room, Brian perched on the empty second bed, chatting cheerfully on the phone. Several books lay on the bedcovers near Jeff’s right side. Turner saw that one of them was Freddy and the Popinjay by Walter R. Brooks. A game of Monopoly rested on the tray that swung out to be used for eating. Houses and hotels covered numerous properties. Mrs. Talucci sat in a chair reading Descartes’ Philosophical Essays. George Manfred stood by Jeff’s left side, talking animatedly with the boy.
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