“This was early in the summer?” I asked him.

“In early July, yes.”

“And you haven’t done anything about it since?”

The hand lifted. “I went to both of those addresses on the first day,” he said. “That night I had second thoughts. The girl knows she has a father. I’ve lived in the same apartment all her life. She could have—”

He turned away. There were traffic noises below the window, remote but savage. It was moving up on six o’clock.

“But now something’s come up to change your mind again?”

“I hadn’t quite changed my mind to start with, Mr. Fannin. Not about wanting to see the girl, or to help her if she needs it. Let us merely say — well, that I held the matter in abeyance. About a month ago I asked Fosburgh to look into the question of my ex-wife’s finances. It was something to be discreet about, since it was no business of mine, but evidently there was no will. I assumed Elizabeth had—”

He studied the linoleum. I waited for him.

“Men would have supported her,” he went on. “She was handsome enough to have lived well in concubinage. She might have left some small amount of cash — it would have been like her to keep money lying about her apartment. And she would have told Audrey about it, I’m sure. The superintendent at the building said that two young women had been there frequently during her illness. It was cancer, I believe—”

“One of the two girls was definitely Audrey?”

“The superintendent knew her by name.”

“Any assumptions about the second one?”

“If you mean it might have been Elizabeth’s other child, yes, I’ve thought of the possibility. In any event the second girl would be of no concern to me.” He realized he was still holding that envelope. “This arrived today, special delivery as you can see.”

The envelope was plain bond, addressed to Grant in a southpaw scrawl, with no return address. It had been postmarked at nine that morning in a Village sub-station. It contained two newspaper clippings.

One of them was a two-column photograph of three men and a girl seated at a table. I recognized one of the men before I read the caption:

BEATNIK TO READ: As part of the new trendin nightclub entertainment, the Blue Soldier in Greenwich Village has announced a series of poetry recitations by noted writers of the Beat Generation. Featured this weekend and next will be Peter J. Peters, novelist and poet, left. Also shown are poet Ephraim Turk, painter Ivan Klobb, and Beatchick Audrey Grant.

The shot had been clipped from the top of a page in the Post and the date had been left above it. It had appeared exactly a week ago. Audrey Grant was a brunette and could have been reasonably attractive. Peter J. Peters had a neatly trimmed beard. Ivan Klobb, who looked old enough to know better, had a sloppy one.

The news story I had not seen, but only because I don’t read the Journal. It was one day old:

BEATNIK WRITER

HELD IN MURDER

It said nothing that DiMaggio had not told me on the phone, except that Turk had been officially booked on suspicion. They were still calling me Henry. I frowned at the two pieces, not really thinking about anything.

“No idea who they came from?”

Grant shrugged.

“Fosburgh told you he knew me when he saw them?”

“He phoned the police first, since your name was incorrectly reported. Then it seemed only logical to come here.”

I nodded. “I know a little about the murder, Mr. Grant. Until now it hasn’t been any of my business. It probably still isn’t.”

“I don’t quite follow you.”

“There doesn’t have to be any connection between your daughter and the killing — except insofar as it’s already been made. Someone could simply be using it as an incidental, to point out to a man worth thirteen million dollars that his little girl is pretty chummy with the riffraff.”

“A crank, you mean?”

“You run into any before?”

“Nothing of any consequence. The usual absurd requests.”

“You want me to try and find out who sent the stuff?”

Grant had wet his lips. He stood up. “I don’t care about the clippings, Mr. Fannin. If it seems necessary to investigate their origin in finding my daughter you may do so.” He shook his head. “I have told you a lot about myself, sir. It has not been pleasant for me, nor, I’m sure, especially interesting for you. I would like to speak to Audrey. Merely once. If she desires no further communication I will not trespass in her life again. You may tell her so.”

“I will,” I said. “Before the end of the weekend.”

“It will be that simple?”

I’ve met some of these people. I might be able to find her at that bar tonight — the Blue Soldier — or there’s a chance I can do it on the phone. After all, she’s not missing in the usual sense.”

He nodded thoughtfully. I had come around the desk, but we did not shake hands. ‘“I’ll call you as soon as I get something,” I told him.

“Yes. Thank you.” He turned to the door, stopped a minute, then went out without adding anything.

He’d run out of geese. Talking about his troubles had even given him a shabby sort of dignity. I supposed loneliness could do that, even if money couldn’t.

Philosophical Fannin. I went back to the desk, got out a manila folder, slipped the clippings and the envelope into it. I scribbled William Tecumseh Sherman on the folder and stuck it away. I locked the office and left.

A block away I passed a haberdashery which wasn’t yet closed. I caught Grant out of the corner of my eye, towering over a neat little clerk like a sequoia over a sightseer. The clerk was busily showing him something that might have been a shirt.

CHAPTER 10

Behind the long dark bar in the Blue Soldier a bald Neanderthal type with a six-ply neck put down a wetly chewed cigar to take my order. It was a few minutes after nine. The man was about fifty-five. His shirt was white-on-white with a monogrammed Z over the pocket, his cufflinks were two more outsized Z’s, and his figured silk tie was as wide as the business end of a shovel where it disappeared into his white smock. There would be another initial on the belt buckle down under there. The man himself would have driven a booze truck during prohibition, would have taken some small independent chances in the petty rackets in the thirties, would have made his pile from black-market peddling during the war. Now he owned a chromed, gaudy tourist trap on lower Sixth Avenue, and within five minutes of the start of any conversation he would say something about being legitimate.

I could have been wrong. He was chewing the cigar again before he poured my bourbon. “No poetry reading tonight?” I asked him.

The man stopped pouring. He stared at me. I could not read his expression, but it was considerably like the one I might have gotten from certain good folk if I’d said something nasty about General MacArthur.

“Poets,” he said. “Beatniks. God almighty.”

He turned, started to walk away, stopped, snorted, came back. He put his elbows on the bar and leaned forward until his face was no more than three inches from my own. When he spoke again I had to strain my ears to hear him.

“In answer to your question, friend — no, there ain’t no goddam poetry reading.”

“You’re going to drop ashes in my drink,” I said just as quietly. “Forgive me. I’m sorry I brought it up.”

He backed away with a grimace. “I get something in your drink, you’ll get another drink. Drinks I got.”

“But no poetry readings.”

The man braced himself with both hands gripping the inner rim of the bar. “You really want to know? You’re not just making what you think would be friendly conversation?”

Td like to know.”

“You’ll stop me if I get violent? Sort of put your hand on my arm? I’ve got a touch of blood pressure.”