Royce, a skinny, bleary-eyed man in his fifties with a stubble of beard, and mouthwash on his breath, looked at me uncertainly and then back at Gladu. "Tell him what, Jay?"

"Anything. Everything. I told you-he'll never live to use any of it against any of us."

"Let's go outside," I told Royce.

Royce didn't like the sound of that. He looked as if he had last been exposed to sunlight in the year of the Watergate break-in, but Gladu beamed contentedly and motioned for Royce to move out.

I carried the Fountain of Eden registration and license — plate files with me, and we sat in my car with both doors open.

"Where you going with those?" Royce asked.

"I'll bring them back eventually," I said, "so not to worry. The only thing you need to concern yourself with, Royce, is doing what Jay said and telling me the absolute truth on all the topics I bring up. Okay?"

"Sure."

"Who got hit with the mirror?"

He'd been looking bewildered up to now, and only vaguely apprehensive, but now his eyes narrowed and he looked at me with suspicion tinged with dread.

"Who are you?" he said. "Are you a cop?"

"No, I'm just a blackmailer. I have tons and tons of incriminating crap on Jay, so you better answer my questions or he'll be ruined and you will too. This is all off the books, and I know you're used to that, Royce, so let's get on with it and everything will be cool. Once again, who got hit with the mirror?"

"How did you know about that? If you were one of the people who came out that night, you'd know who it was. If you're not one of them, how did you know it happened? Jay doesn't know, or even Sandy. Lemmie didn't tell you, did he?"

I said, "Nobody had to tell me. Linkletter and his boyfriend were here every Wednesday night for almost a year, and then the mirror fell and they stopped coming. Jay swallowed your story that the mirror fell after Ronnie and his friend had left because Jay has a lot invested emotionally and financially in believing that that's the way it happened. But it's mighty unlikely that Ronnie's failure to come back to his habitual trysting place ever again is mere coincidence. How much did they pay you to keep your mouth shut?"

"Two hundred dollars," he said, brushing away a sweat bead from the end of his nose with a trembling hand.

"Who was hit? The boyfriend?"

He gulped and nodded.

"Who was he?"

He shook his head. "I never saw him-that night or ever. I don't know who the heck he was."

"Did he die? Was he killed by the falling mirror?"

"I don't know. Ronnie called somebody from the pay phone and they came and carried the guy out and took him away in a car.

They gave Ronnie the money to give to me for keeping my mouth shut, and since I didn't know anything about the man, it was no problem keeping mum. And Ronnie said it was okay, just tell Jay the mirror fell afterwards, so that's what I did."

"Ronnie wasn't hurt?"

"Just shook up. He had some scratches but he was- well, he was underneath at the time the mirror fell. The other guy was the one who really got clobbered."

"The mystery man was fucking Ronnie when it happened?"

"That's what Ronnie said."

"How long did it take after Ronnie phoned for help for somebody to show up?"

"Ten, fifteen minutes maybe."

"Were there other customers here at the time? Were there other witnesses to what happened next?"

"There were people here but I don't think anybody even took notice. People don't come here to mind other people's business.

They come here to take care of their own business and they're usually busy with whatever that business is-very personal."

"Who arrived? How many? In what vehicle or vehicles?"

"I watched out the window from the office," Royce said, glancing around to see if anyone was looking our way. "Ronnie said I should stay away and what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me. There was just one car, with three men in it. I didn't get a very good look at them- they stayed down by unit fifteen where it happened- but it was a cool night and I could see they had on long coats with their collars turned up. Nice dress coats like businessmen would wear, or gangsters. All of a sudden it hit me while I'm standing there looking out the window that these guys might be from the mob! And the guy who's fucking Ronnie every Wednesday night is some friggin' godfather or something. For a minute I just sat down and didn't even look. But then I got curious again and I looked."

"What did you see next?"

"Well, they sent Ronnie over with the two hundred and said this was for keeping my mouth shut, and I said sure, okay. They never came to the office themselves. They just loaded the boyfriend into the back seat of this big white Chrysler they came in, and one of them drove the car the boyfriend brought-his usual shiny blue Olds-and then they left. Ronnie left in his car, and I went in and wiped up the blood-there wasn't a whole lot-and then I locked up the unit until I told Jay the next day that the mirror in fifteen fell after Ronnie left." He gave me a pleading look. "You aren't going to tell Jay I lied, are you?"

"I don't see why. You've been honest with me, so I guess I can do you a favor and be dishonest with Jay."

"Thanks. He's a real schmuck. Are you really blackmailing him?"

"Yup."

"Well, good luck. He deserves it."

"I'm doing my best."

"Swell."

I said, "Did you get the license-plate number of the Chrysler? Everybody out here seems to be pretty thorough about that."

"Nope. I didn't. I tried."

"Why couldn't you?"

"Because the plates were taped over, front and back. Whoever these people were, they sure went to a lot of trouble to make sure they weren't identified. Do you have any idea who they were?"

I said no, and for once that day I was telling somebody the truth. I didn't know who the men in the nice dress coats had been, but I thought Art Murphy probably would. end user

Flint Street ran for two blocks off Washington and dead-ended at a medical-records warehouse. The street was shady and quiet, and the frame houses were set close together in a way that probably felt neighborly to some of the people who lived there and claustrophobic to some of the others.

Number 37, like all the houses on the block, was a two-story job with a deep, boxy front porch and a small patch of sparse lawn that didn't get much sunlight or rain. No car was parked in the narrow driveway and none of those on the street fit the description

— a shiny blue Olds-or bore the license-plate number of the car the Mega-Hypocrite had driven out to the Fountain of Eden every Wednesday night until the mirror fell on him.

The main front door was open at number 37, with only a screen door to keep out the insects and the blackmailers. I got the feeling Art Murphy wasn't home, and this was confirmed when I drove over to a convenience store with a pay phone, on Washington. Murphy was listed in the Albany directory, and I dialed the number on Flint Street.

A female voice, not young, a tad nasal. "Hello?"

"Art Murphy, please?"

"Oh, Arthur isn't at home at this hour. He'd be at work."

"This is Jim Smith and I'm in town and Art asked me to get in touch. May I have his work number, please?"

"Yes, that would be Byrne Olds-Cadillac," she said, and recited the number.