I now knew how I could distract Fay and get inside the house. It seemed to me he was making it too easy for me, but I had to admit to myself that I did not know what kind of awful security devices Fay might have arranged for the two and a half million inside the house.

For just an instant it went through my mind that maybe the five suitcases contained no millions at all, but actually held Fay's summer wardrobe or his leather-bound indexed complete set of Hustler magazine, or fifty stolen car stereos, or-could it be? — three hundred copies of Fridays edition of the Los Angeles Times. I tried hard to push these pessimistic and additionally confusing thoughts out of my head.

I moved rapidly back to the Cumberland Farms store, bought another cup of black vinegar along with four plain yogurts and a packet of plastic spoons, and climbed back into the car. I set the heater on medium and tuned in The Jazz Decades on WAMC. I watched Flo Trenky's front door. If Mack Fay went any place, I wanted to know what he was taking along. If he had the bags, I'd follow. If he didn't, I'd stay put. I cranked my seatback down a couple of notches and sat there watching, waiting for help to arrive from across the continent.

FIFTEEN

Fay came out the door and down the front steps at 1:12

Sunday afternoon. The sky had cleared again, and despite my blurred vision resulting from lack of sleep, I got my first good look at him. The hood of his parka was down and he wore a black watch cap in its place.

He had on dark-blue dress pants and what looked like the bulk of a suit jacket or sport coat under the parka. Cleanshaven now, his face was wide and incipiently jowly with a set, turned-down mouth and hard dark eyes. He glanced at the bright sky, then up and down the street. The five bags were nowhere in sight.

Muttering, Fay kicked at the snow heaped up alongside his truck. He climbed into the pickup, started it up, and rocked it around until it bounced clear of the frozen ruts. I slid down in my seat as he made another U-turn in the intersection and drove south on Third Avenue. I edged up and watched him go. This time I did not follow.

Instead I drove over to a gas station on First Avenue, filled the gas tank, used the men's room, and went back to Cumberland Farms, where I purchased a hearty breakfast of the store's famous dark brew, a Frooty-Tooty pie-baked with the fresh-picked produce of the frooty-tooty tree and a side of six Twinkies. Civic reform is not for finicky eaters.

At 11:55 another Ford, a sibling of the one I was sitting in, moved slowly up Third Avenue, then swung in beside me. They both climbed into my car and I said, "Howdy."

"Have you really been sitting here since you called yesterday?" Timmy leaned toward me for a greeting but caught a whiff of my frooty-tooty breath and gave me a gentlemanly handshake.

Toot said, "How come you didn't freeze to death? This place is some kind of no-man's land!" He was wearing an old heavy topcoat of Timmy's and had a red knit scarf wrapped around his neck and lower face. His rubber galoshes, mine, were three sizes too big.

"Hasn't Timmy explained to you how the climate here enriches character and hones intelligence? For instance, you might have noticed how Reagan, since he moved east, seems to have grown wiser and wiser. He used to be a real bub-blehead in California. But back here-hell."

Timmy said, "We got here as fast as we could. We made it to Chicago, then had to sleep on the floor at O'Hare until the Albany plane left at ten this morning. We stopped at the house to pick up some warm clothes for Kyle along with the other things you said we should bring. Incidentally, our house-"

"Your face is the color of iceberg lettuce. I've never seen you do that before."

"It's probably gangrene," Toot said, and peered in awe at the landscape around him.

"Who did it?" Timmy asked gravely. "Who was the person who entered my home and did that?"

"Hankie-mouth. His name is Mack Fay, the guy I told you about on the phone. He lives over there. Are you two ready to make his life miserable?"

Timmy, his jaw tight, nodded.

Toot said, "Will we have to get out of the car and walk around outside?"

Timmy sat beside me and watched as Toot drove the other rental car over to Flo Trenky's house, parked, went up the front steps, and rang the bell.

The door was soon opened and after a moment Toot went in, shutting the door behind him. Five minutes later he emerged, glanced our way, opened the car's hatch, and took out five gray canvas suitcases that belonged to Timmy and carried them into Mrs. Trenky's rooming house.

"How long are we going to sit here?" Timmy said. "However long it takes. If Toot locates Fay's room in ten minutes, I'm all for it. But it might take longer. Hours, days, weeks. I hope you brought your toothbrush." "I wish you'd brought yours. God." "How was the Chicano Krapp's Last Tape?"

"We never got there. We came here instead."

"Well, you missed out on another day of warm sunshine, but you still get the theater of the absurd."

"You're telling me. Kyle's a little nervous about this, so I hope you know what you're doing."

"I'm sure he's done improvisational theater before. He'll shine in the part. I can tell."

"He says he prefers the classics. Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov. "

"How about Willy Loman? That would stand him in good stead."

"This feels more like the Ritz brothers. The Ritz brothers with a social conscience, of course."

"I see that you remain skeptical of my efforts toward civic improvement.

You think I'm a loony, a deranged visionary, a crackpot."

He shook his head. "No. As much as anybody could, I admire your intentions. And I have to admit I admire Jack Lenihan for getting it all started. It's just that it won't have been worth it if you-or all of us-are hacked to bits by crazed dope fiends. Martyrdom interests me only when it's somebody else's, preferably having taken place in the fourteenth century. The pain is eased by chronological distance, and if you haven't slept with the person."

"I think I can work it out so that you won't become Poughkeepsie's first saint. Not that Aunt Moira wouldn't be real proud of you if you did."

"How? How will you work that out?"

"I'm giving it a lot of thought."

He said, "I'll be right back. They'd have toothbrushes in there, wouldn't they? And Saratoga water?"

"Probably."

"In this diocese there is no canonization for the orally unkempt."

At 5:25 P.M., under a frozen black sky, Mack Fay returned. He parked the pickup behind the Ford Toot had left in front of the Trenky house and let himself in the front door with a key. Twenty minutes later Toot came out and walked toward the convenience store. I pulled around the corner and out of sight of the house, and Toot climbed in the back seat.

"Fay is in 2-C, second floor rear, next to the bathroom. I'm in 2-A, and I think somebody is in 2-B-I can hear a radio in there playing Jerry Falwell's top hits. If anybody's on the third floor they don't talk or walk. It looks as if the third floor is empty. There's a locked door at the entrance to the stairwell leading up to it."

"Where is Fay now?"

"He came upstairs and went into his room. As soon as I heard footsteps outside my door, I made for the bathroom and passed him while he unlocked the door. I got one quick glimpse of his room but I didn't see any suitcases. After I peed, I went back to my room and listened. A couple of minutes later Fay left his room and went down the stairs. He didn't come outside, did he?"