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Salter introduced himself to Stanton.

Stanton shook his hand, said, “I’ve been expecting you.” Then nodded at DiMaggio and said, “Who’s he?”

DiMaggio said, “I’m with the band.”

Stanton, deadpan, said, “Crime-scene wise guys. My favorite.”

Salter said, “His name is DiMaggio. He’s been working on the rape investigation for the Garden.”

Stanton was the wise guy. “How’s that going so far?” he said to DiMaggio.

Over Stanton’s shoulder, the door to 804 was open and the crime-scene people seemed to be finishing up, and Stanton said, “I’ll bumper-sticker this for you?”

Salter said, “Fine.”

Crittendon had left a six o’clock wake-up call. Then a backup for six-fifteen and a third for six-thirty. Salter nodded. “Frank was careful,”
he said. The switchboard got no answer on any of them. The assistant manager, a Brit named Whitaker, knew Crittendon, knew he liked to have an early breakfast by himself in the Regency’s restaurant, a big power-breakfast place, alone with the papers. Whitaker sent a bellman up to knock on the door. Still no answer. Whitaker went up and let himself into Room 804 and found him in bed, the bottle of Seconal on the nightstand next to him, empty.

“Note?” Salter said.

Stanton shook his head.

“Family?”

“Notified. On their way. And I put in a call to the Fulton cops. I don’t know if this has anything to do with the Richie Collins case up there. But they got a right.”

Stanton said, “Whitaker, the assistant manager, he says Crittendon was a good guy.”

In a dead voice Salter said, “Yes.”

A short guy, a little overweight, came past them carrying what looked to be an old-fashioned black doctor’s bag. DiMaggio figured it must be the medical examiner. He reminded DiMaggio, the way he was built, of Frank Crittendon.

DiMaggio walked down the hall, away from 804, and flashed on his first conversation with Crittendon, up in Fulton.

They look at me like I’m garbage, he’d said.

Salter finished with the cops and came down to where DiMaggio leaned against a wall. He didn’t look like the corporate tiger anymore, clapping his hands in the coffee shop, ready to go out and bite the world in the ass.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, leaning back himself, taking a spot next to DiMaggio. “Jesus Christ.”

“Was he sick?”

“I have no idea.”

“When did you talk to him last?”

“Yesterday. He was asking how you were doing on your deal, wondering if there was any chance Ellis might turn up before the game.”

“He seemed fine?”

“He seemed like Frank. A little tired. A little worried about everything.
A little scared that because everything had gotten so out of hand I might blame him. Or the Fukiko guys might tell me to blame him.”

Salter said, “I didn’t tell you this at the coffee shop, not in so many words. But I don’t care anymore about Hannah Carey. I don’t
care
what happened with her and Collins because it’s starting to sound to me like they deserved each other. I mean, sonofa
bitch
, she’s turned this into a career, hasn’t she?”

DiMaggio said, “And your company was going to be in business with her before I told you what I told you this morning.”

“This all started because I was looking out for the company, pal.”

“Is that your defense? Pal.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I’m asking,” DiMaggio said.

Salter started back toward 804, turned around. “See the thing is, this wasn’t ever supposed to be about somebody like Frank. It was supposed to be about
them.
Even when Collins got it, it was still about them, whatever had happened with the three of
them.
But not Frank. Frank Crittendon was decent. I forgot that myself sometimes. I wasn’t very nice to him sometimes. I’m a bad boy. Bad shit happens to me I say, Okay, that comes with the territory, let’s play two. But not Frank, goddamnit!” He was shouting at the end.
“Goddammit!”

“Let’s get out of here,” DiMaggio said.

They waited for the elevator, and DiMaggio said to him, “You don’t know this had anything to do with the rape or Richie.”

“Then why do I have that feeling?”

There was no answer for that one because DiMaggio had the same feeling about Frank Crittendon, not picking up on his three wake-up calls.

They look at me like I’m nothing, he’d said.

What was it about this investigation? What was it about all these invisible people?

The Brit manager took them out the service entrance. DiMaggio wanted to wait around, see if Hyland showed up, but he was afraid
Salter was going to snap, so he stayed with him. They came out between Park and Madison on Sixtieth, away from the press.

“I need to talk to Ellis. If we play the game, I want to tell him how to play it tonight,” Salter said.

“You might not?”

“I need to talk to my Japs before I talk to Ellis.”

“Here’s the number, call him.” DiMaggio took his notebook out, wrote Dale Larson’s number. Salter said, “Where is this?” And DiMaggio said, “Where he is.”

Salter said, “What are you doing right now?”

“Waiting for the Fulton cops to show up. They’re going to want to talk to Ellis, too.”

They had started walking toward Madison. Salter stopped suddenly and said, “What’d I do with the car?” Panicking like somebody who’d lost his car keys or his wallet.

“You told him to wait where he dropped us off, on Sixty-second.”

“I’ll circle around, call Ellis from the car. Maybe the cops can wait, talk to him tomorrow, after the game.”

“Today.”

Salter said, “And why is that?”

DiMaggio said, “Because everything you say you don’t care about anymore, they don’t have that luxury.”

DiMaggio left him there, walked back toward the Regency. He came around on Park and saw that the crowd had gotten even bigger. More vans. More reporters. More onlookers.

He thought, They should sell tickets.

DiMaggio saw Marty Perez maybe a few seconds before Perez, standing in the street, at the back of the crowd, turned his head and saw him. He had some kind of old briefcase in his hand and was wearing an old New York Giants baseball cap.

Perez came walking over. “I was looking for you,” he said. “I called the hotel, you weren’t there, I figured you’d be here.”

DiMaggio said to Perez, “I found out something early in my career with guys like you, Marty. You’re never looking for me to help me.”

“Today’s different, maybe.”

“How so?”

“I couldn’t decide who I should tell. And then I decided on you.
All the people who are in this, from the start, you’re the only one without an angle.”

“There’s the financial angle, Marty. I’m very expensive.”

“It’s always more than money with you, even when you played ball. You always wanted to know.”

“Know what?”

“Whatever.”

“So what is it that you want to tell me and not anybody else?”

“I know who killed that poor bastard.”

“Richie Collins?”

Perez jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the scene in front of the Regency. “Crittendon,” he said.

“Somebody killed him?”

“Me,” Marty Perez said.

Back at the Sherry, Perez asked DiMaggio if there was any rum.

DiMaggio went over to the bar; other than Scotch, he never paid much attention to how they stocked it. Now he saw that they had just about everything, including a new bottle of Bacardi. Marty said that would do him fine. DiMaggio poured some over ice and brought it over to where Perez was sitting with his briefcase, an old satchel, really, in his lap. Perez had taken the Giants cap off, set it on the coffee table. “You hate guys like me more than you ever did, don’t you?” Perez said. “It’s gotten worse since you played ball.”

DiMaggio said, “To tell you the truth, Marty, hate would make you more important in my life than you are. Hate requires some effort.”

“But if you didn’t have to—?”

“I’d never talk to you.” It came out impatient. DiMaggio looked at him and said, “You said you killed Frank Crittendon, what the hell is that supposed to mean exactly?”

Perez took a big hit of the Bacardi, kept the glass right there, took another, and emptied the glass. Then he held the glass out to DiMaggio, meaning another. When DiMaggio came back, Perez told him about Richie and the high school girl and finding out it was Crittendon’s
daughter and how he decided to go for the old man instead of the girl.

“Why not the kid?” DiMaggio said.

“Because she’s a kid.”

“And you have standards.”

“You’re being sarcastic,” Marty Perez said dully, “but, yeah, even I have lines I won’t cross, whether you want to believe that or not.” He drank more rum. DiMaggio wondered when the last time was he’d slept or if he just looked this old and used up all the time. When Perez put his glass down, DiMaggio saw he had the shakes. “Or so I like to tell myself,” he said.

He told DiMaggio about waiting for Crittendon in front of the Regency, how Crittendon hadn’t even acted surprised. In the elevator going up to Room 804, Marty told Crittendon this was about Kelly and Crittendon had answered, “I know, I know,” just as he had on the street.

DiMaggio said, “Doing this to a high school girl’s father, this was on the acceptable side of your line, though.”

“What do you want from me?” Perez said. “It’s a big story. Big stories are what I do. I had this part of it to myself. That’s the game.” The old Marty Perez looked at DiMaggio for a moment and said, “But what you do is pure.”

“It was his daughter, Marty.”

Perez said, “They’re always somebody’s daughter.” He squeezed the sides of the satchel and said, “I needed it, okay?” Nearly whispering, Marty Perez said, “I
needed
it.”

They went up to Crittendon’s room and the crew set up. Maybe if Crittendon had thought it through, Marty Perez said, he would have told them all to get lost, just to buy himself some time. Get his story straight. Or come up with the one that worked. But Crittendon just sat there, very calm, while they set up. Perez said he almost seemed relieved. Crittendon asked how he got proof about Kelly Crittendon’s affair with Collins. Perez said all that mattered was he had it.

They did the interview.

DiMaggio said, “You’ve got the tape, of course.”

Perez patted the bag and said, “With me.”

“Are we going to look at it?”

“In a minute. I’ve cued it up to the part you need to see.”

Crittendon admitted that his daughter had had a relationship with Richie Collins. Perez asked him if it was a sexual relationship and Crittendon just repeated that it was a relationship. He said he found out about it. The family was considering filing statutory rape charges against Collins when Collins was murdered.

Perez said, “Then Crittendon broke down.”

“And now you think it was you who pushed him over the edge?”

“No,” Perez said. “Just listen to me, will you? It was what came next. After I told him what else I knew.”

He reached into his bag and took out the cassette and went over and put it in the VCR sitting on top of DiMaggio’s television. Then hit Play with one of his stubby fingers.

There was Frank Crittendon’s face.

Same face, DiMaggio thought. But it was as if something had happened to every part of it, as if Frank Crittendon had been in a fight, a bad fight, and the eyes were wrong and the mouth was set wrong. DiMaggio looked at the picture and couldn’t tell where Perez was sitting, so he couldn’t tell whether Crittendon’s eyes were unfocused or if he just didn’t know where to look.

He heard Perez’s voice, trying to be helpful.

“There’s a little bit more to it, though, isn’t there, Frank?”

Crittendon shifted in his chair. They were shooting him from the waist up here. Same preppy clothes. Blue shirt with the roll to the collar. Bow tie. Hair brushed straight forward, like he was some sad, pasty-faced Napoleon.

Christ, DiMaggio thought.

Crittendon: “What do you mean? I told you everything. Haven’t I told you enough—?”

“Everything, Frank?”

The camera guy closed in. Crittendon’s eyes were all over the place now.

Crittendon: “Richie. My Kelly …”

He started to get jammed up. Perez had said he broke down once. DiMaggio thought he was ready to go again.

Crittendon: “Jesus, she’s just a kid.”

Looking off to the side, pleading.

Crittendon: “Is it all right if I say ‘Jesus’?”

Frank Crittendon trying to be a gentleman to the end.

You could hear Perez say, “Sure.”

Crittendon: “Where were we?”

Perez hadn’t moved from the television set. He just stood there, dead eyes watching what DiMaggio was watching, listening to himself say, “You were at Richie Collins’s house in Fulton the night he was murdered, weren’t you, Frank? Isn’t that the part you left out?”

Crittendon (smiling now): “No, I was not. That’s crazy.”

He looked around again, as if his eyes were on scan, looking for a way out.

For help.

Looking for help with none coming.

Crittendon: “Why would I go over there?”

On the tape, Perez, trying to be friendly, said, “You tell me.”

Crittendon: “I wasn’t there.”

“I’ve got a witness, Frank. Got a real good one.”

Crittendon’s face smiled suddenly, the mouth going crooked, the whole puffy face turning into a grotesque clown’s mask.

Crittendon: “NO!”

Next to the set, Marty Perez spilled some of his drink, as if the whole room had suddenly shifted underneath him.

Crittendon: “I did not kill him.”

The camera stayed tight.

Crittendon (almost whispering): “He was already dead when I got there.”

Perez started to say something on the tape, DiMaggio couldn’t make it out, but Crittendon didn’t seem to notice.

Crittendon: “I was nothing to people like Richie Collins. You have to know that. You know that, don’t you? They think
you’re
nothing, too. His coach, he had to at least listen to him, whether he liked him or not. Ted Salter, he’s the big boss, the money man. But me? Collins … all of them … looked at me like I was some old
errand
boy. Looked at me with such
contempt.
And all these years, all these punks … I had put up with it, with this shit from these shit people … thinking they run the goddamn world …”