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“Love you, Fresh,” Richie’d say. “You know I love you, man.”

Or Richie’d say, “When the rest of them are all gone, Fresh, who’s gonna be there for you?”

Only now Richie wasn’t there for him. Now Richie was gone.

Ellis sat here in the middle of the night, four o’clock, wanting Richie to be around just for a little while longer, figure one last thing out for him. Four o’clock, invisible the way he said he always wanted to be, but trying to figure out how to make himself uninvisible.

Ellis needed to move.

He went inside and got his cheap-looking Yankee hat, the kind they gave away to kids. Put on the funny sunglasses Dale had given him, ones that took up half his face but really weren’t sunglasses at all, they actually made things brighter. And the fake beard Dale had gotten him. And the baggy windbreaker and the bicycle shorts.

Ellis’s disguise, when he worked up the nerve to take the blue bike out in the night.

Ellis went and got the bike, Dale’s birthday present to him, out of the maid’s room and then went down the back stairs, the secret way out you could have when you had a place like this, Dale’s kind of money, coming out the little alleyway on Seventy-ninth Street.

Thinking on things himself, shit, it was harder than he thought it would be.

It always came back to waiting.

When he didn’t know what else to do, DiMaggio waited.

So he sat in the backseat, listening to the overnight show on WQEW, which he was pretty sure used to be WNEW, but had moved up the dial, changed call letters, for some reason DiMaggio didn’t know about. But then he was often behind the curve on things. Like who the hell Dale Larson was. Now he listened to Rosie Clooney on a station that didn’t even exist when he was in New York last, in the town car across Seventy-ninth Street from Dale Larson’s building, watching the front door.

He had driven straight here from Westchester, not even bothering to stop at the Sherry-Netherland. He had gotten here a little after two, and now it was after four o’clock.

It was only a hunch that Ellis Adair was in there, that Dale Larson the guy had taken in his … what? Lover? Special friend? DiMaggio had a hunch. A feeling. Nothing more. He knew he could be wasting his time.

But then, what was new about that?

What did he have to go on? Boyzie Mays running his jive mouth about Ellis? A. J. Fine? He had nothing is what he had, except a feeling that this was where Ellis had been hiding out all along. Maybe he’d had it ever since the house guy hung up on him, just something about the way the guy did it, like DiMaggio had spooked him even asking to talk to Ellis.

What if Ellis had managed to get himself lost right in the middle of New York?

There were a million ways to get in there. Or at least take a shot. He could wait until eight o’clock or something, fake his way in, use the same moves on the doorman he’d used up at Fine’s place in Westchester. Or give Ted Salter the number, have him talk to the house guy, tell him he was Ellis’s boss and put him on the phone or else.

Or call Hyland, get him in on it, have him bluff his way in with a badge.

Except Hyland had his own problems, trying to find out who stuck Richie.

Rosie Clooney sang “Mack the Knife,” putting some scats in there the way Ella did. The disc jockey then introduced a record by a singer DiMaggio didn’t know, Nancy LaMott. She sang “Moon River.” DiMaggio had never heard it sung better in his life, by anyone. Here he was, behind the curve again. Where did Nancy LaMott come from?

A cab pulled up to Larson’s building. A young stud in a tuxedo got out with his date, looking drunk in her bare feet, holding her high heels in her right hand, laughing like a fool, DiMaggio could hear it from across the street. The doorman came out, held the door for them, they went right in.

DiMaggio knew he could get in sooner or later.

But then what?

Ask Ellis
what
?

Hey, Fresh, don’t answer if you think I’m prying, but are you gay?

What’d it mean if he was? That he couldn’t have raped her?

The books said a lot of gay guys raped.

All along, even before Teresa Delgado showed up to say all Ellis did was watch when Richie Collins raped her in high school, DiMaggio had felt Ellis Adair wasn’t the one here. That maybe he was as much a victim as Hannah, in some way he couldn’t even explain to himself or figure out.

DiMaggio had heard about other big athletes being gay before, the way you heard the stories about movie stars, even before Rock Hudson got AIDS. DiMaggio would hear a name and think, Okay, that guy has made it, he’s a real A-list celebrity now, they were saying he was homosexual. Or she was homosexual.

DiMaggio never cared one way or the other.

He wasn’t looking to out Adair. He just wanted him to talk, once and for all. Maybe if Ellis and Dale Larson were lovers, if Ellis could see DiMaggio had him there, he could get him to tell the truth about Hannah …

It almost made him laugh. Jesus, he was no better than the rest of them. I give you this, you give me
that.
I’ve got something on you. You take care of me. Or else.

He was tired of being here, tired of this case. Tired of these people. Especially tired of waiting. He just wanted to find out what happened that night. Maybe it was tied into Richie Collins’s murder, maybe not. DiMaggio wanted to be back in Jupiter, sitting on the beach, when Hyland cracked that one. If he ever did.

Find Ellis, Salter had said.

So DiMaggio waited.

The overnight disc jockey, a woman, said it was four-fifteen in New York City.

The big guy came out of the alley then across the street, a big black guy, DiMaggio saw, Yankee cap turned around on his head so the mesh was in front. Dressed like one of those psycho bicycle messengers.

Except he was too tall.

And who made deliveries at four-fifteen, even in New York?

The guy checked the traffic on Seventy-ninth and put out his arm, signaling for a left turn even though there wasn’t a car in sight, then
made the left onto Fifth, on the park side, pedaling slowly as he went past the town car.

A guy on his blue bike.

DiMaggio saw the weird-looking sunglasses, the beard. Saw how long the guy’s legs were, almost too long for the sleek bike.

DiMaggio put the car into gear, looking at himself in the rearview mirror. Grinning at himself.

Follow that bike.

Marty’s cameraman, José Pedroza, was also out of San Juan, a pretty little suburb called Rio Piedras. The sound guy was named Andy Forst. Pedroza and Forst waited around the corner with the equipment so as not to draw the attention of the doorman. Marty waited near the hotel entrance for Frank Crittendon to come back from dinner, or wherever he’d been. Pedroza and Forst spotted Crittendon first, walking uptown on Park, west side of the street. They whistled to get Marty’s attention, and Marty stepped out in front of Crittendon before he could walk into the Regency.

Crittendon didn’t even act surprised to see him.

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” he said, taking the little pipe he’d been smoking out of his mouth.

Marty said, “Me specifically?”

“Somebody like you.”

“There’s some things I need to talk to you about.”

“I know,” Frank Crittendon said. “I know.” He stuck the pipe in his mouth and said, “I’m in 804.”

When they were finished with Crittendon, Marty told Pedroza and Forst he’d take the cassette. He’d worked with both of them before and trusted them not to screw with him.

“Randy said I should drop it by his apartment,” Pedroza said. He looked like a wiry lightweight boxer, maybe about five-five, with curly hair and a thick mustache. He always wore one of those khaki bush jackets, no matter what the weather. Lots of pockets. And one of those Indiana Jones fedoras. Marty told him all the time he looked like the spic who’d rolled the great white hunter.

Pedroza said, “He said I should drop it by his apartment, he’d be up.”

“I’ll do it,” Marty lied. “I just want to go over to the
News
, transcribe it first. I figure we have to run this tonight on one of the regular newscasts. I just want to follow it up with a column for the Sunday paper.”

Pedroza said, “Houghton even said something about maybe a special Saturday
Chronicle.
”

They were standing at the corner of Sixty-first and Park. Marty said, “I’ll work it out with Houghton. You guys go to bed. And don’t tell anybody what you heard in there.”

“
Eh viejo
,” Pedroza said. He knew Marty hated being called old, but it was a joke with them now. “Don’t lose that tape, or the next job I get will be back with the
jíbaros
in P.R.”

“You remember Juan Bobo?” he said to Pedroza.

“From the storybooks? Sure.”

“Well, I may be old, but I’m not Juan Bobo,” Marty said.
“No me jodas.”

He just wanted them to go, leave him alone, so he could go get a little bit drunk before he did anything.

Marty was feeling so sick he wanted to throw up.

“Cuidado,”
Pedroza said.

“¡Basta!”
Marty said, faking a smile for both of them, then starting down Park, the tape in his briefcase. Trying to think about the tape, what was on it.

Frank Crittendon sitting there crying …

You got the story, Marty told himself. Wait until Houghton, who
deep down thought he really was an old man, not joking about it all the time the way Pedroza did, sees this. He’d have to convince Houghton to wait until the eleven o’clock newscast, the more Marty thought about it. That way, it would be impossible for the other stations to catch up and Marty could still make a clean newspaper hit in the Sunday paper, a million copies.

“¡Qué tipo!”
Marty said out loud. This was why he got into television in the first place, not just for the money, though the money was a big part of it. But to get them all coming and going.

What a guy.

So why did he feel sick?

He had crossed over to Third at Fifty-fifth. He found himself in front of P. J. Clarke’s. Marty looked at his watch. Three o’clock. But there were still a few people sitting at the bar. Marty opened up his briefcase and got his old New York Giants baseball cap, the one his father had given him, out of there and pulled it down over his eyes. Just in case. He didn’t feel like fucking talking. Playing Marty Perez tonight. He just wanted a couple of drinks. The people at the bar, some old guy in the middle, a drunk couple down at the end, didn’t even look up when he came in the Third Avenue door in front. Maybe there were more people in the backroom. That was the way it used to be in the old days, when Clarke’s was the place, before the newspaper boys and girls started to go to Ryan McFadden’s and Macguire’s.

He didn’t even know the bartender, some kid, who gave him time for two rums and then said, “Mister, I don’t want to rush you, but I got to close it down.”

He walked down Third, taking his time, not even feeling the rum. He kept walking, hoping he could make Frank Crittendon go away, stop thinking about Crittendon breaking down the way he did, Crittendon begging him to keep his daughter out of it, Crittendon swearing to Marty, when Marty hit him with his visit to Richie Collins’s house that night, that he didn’t kill the bastard.…

Marty waited for the light and then crossed Forty-second at Third. Halfway across, he heard the car coming, turned his head just in time, the car right on him, running the light. He dove out of the way at the last second, stumbled, ended up on his ass, back to the street,
sitting on the curb, briefcase lying in a puddle. Marty wheeled around just in time to see the car, one of those Mad Max gypsy cabs with
LIVERY
in the back window, probably some crazed spic behind the wheel, flying toward Second Avenue. Let him drive right into the river, Marty thought. He started to throw his arm into the air at the guy’s taillights, give him the finger, scream some curse at him in the night as he did.

Then Marty caught himself,
looked
at himself, sitting here like he was sitting in the gutter, four o’clock in the morning. Maybe you nearly got what you deserved, Marty Perez thought.

Maybe the fucking cab just tried to blindside you the way you just blindsided Frank Crittendon.

Marty started to laugh.

Like a
viejo
fool. Maybe he was Juan Bobo after all.

It was a very fast bike.

Ellis made a right into Central Park at Sixty-sixth Street, and that was the first time DiMaggio passed him, slowing down then to make sure he missed the light when he came out on Central Park West. Wasn’t this the way he took Hannah when he rescued her from the media horde chasing her from the Vertical Club? It wasn’t even a month ago and already seemed like a year. Ellis was on him when the light changed, passing DiMaggio in his rental, going south, downtown, then making a left when he got to Fifty-seventh. Then a right on Fifth. By then DiMaggio had developed a good rhythm following him, gradually changing sides of the street, missing some lights as long as he kept Ellis in sight, falling in behind the traffic when there was traffic on Fifth, even pulling ahead a couple of times.

They went past all the expensive places on Fifth, Cartier and Bijan and Gucci, Ellis with the bike wide-open now, Ellis hunched down low, not even seeing the windows and names flying past him on his right and left, Dunhill now, Mark Cross, Ellis so low to the bike it was as if he and the blue bike were one piece.

He took a left at Forty-second.

Went past Grand Central Station now, and the Grand Hyatt. Then a Gap store with a huge window that seemed to take up a
whole block. Then Ellis crossed Third, went past some nut in a baseball cap sitting on the curb laughing like a hyena, reaching for a briefcase, and then there was the
Daily News
building on his right, on the south side of Forty-second.

DiMaggio studied Ellis, half a block ahead, pumping his legs hard sometimes, bending them out a little from the bike, gliding when he’d come to a downhill stretch, not ever noticing the town car that had been with him all along, alone with the speed of the bike and the street in front of him, alone, DiMaggio thought, with being alone, a big canvas bag stuffed into the basket behind his seat.