"Just the words he uses. And the tone. How old was this girl?"
"Twenty-two."
"That sounds very young for this guy."
"You might want to look through some of that stuff in her desk, see if you find anything about anyone named Arthur. I think his name might be Arthur."
"That's your name," Kling said.
"No kidding?"
"You sure you didn't write these letters? Listen to this," Kling said, and began quoting. "And afterward, I'll pour oil onto your flaming cheeks, and should any of this oil accidentally flow into your…"
"Yeah," Brown said.
"Some imagination, this guy."
"Check out the desk, will you?"
Kling folded the letter, put it back into its envelope, retied the bundle, and tossed it onto the coffee table. The desk was on the wall opposite the sofa. The drawer over the kneehole was unlocked. He reached into it for a checkbook in a green plastic cover.
"What makes you think his name is Arthur?" he asked.
"I've been going through her appointment calendar. Lots of stuff about Arthur in it. Arthur this, Arthur that. Arthur here at nine, Arthur at Sookie's, call Arthur . . ."
"That's a restaurant on The Stem," Kling said. "Sookie's. He probably figured the turf up here was safe."
"What do you mean safe?"
"I don't know," Kling said, and shrugged. "He says his office is downtown, so I figure he knows people down there. So up here would be safe. He may even live downtown, for all we know. So up here would be safe from his wife, too. I figure he's married, don't you?"
"Where do you see anything about that?"
"I don't. But if he's single and he lives downtown . . ."
"There's nothing there that says he lives downtown."
"How about him taking a cab when he leaves late at night?"
"That doesn't mean he's going downtown."
"All right, forget downtown. But if he isn't married, then why's he keeping a girl anyplace? Why don't they just live together?"
"Well. . . that's a point, yeah."
"So he's this old married guy keeping this young girl in a fancy apartment till he can get her an even fancier one."
"Is 'Phil' another restaurant?"
"Phil? I don't know any restaurant named Phil."
"It says here 'Arthur at Phil, eight p.m.'"
"When was that?"
"Last Wednesday night."
"Maybe he's a friend of theirs. Phil."
"Maybe."
"You know how much the rent on this joint comes to each month?" Kling said, looking up from the checkbook.
"How much?"
"Twenty-four hundred bucks."
"Come on, Bert."
"I'm serious. Here are the stubs. The checks are made out to somebody named Phyllis Brackett, for twenty-four hundred a shot, and they're marked Rental. Rental March, Rental April, Rental May, and so on. Twenty-four hundred smackers, Artie."
"And he's trying to find her a better place, huh?"
"Must be a rich old geezer."
"Here he is again," Brown said, tapping the calendar with his ringer. "'Arthur here, nine p.m.'"
"When?"
"Monday."
"Day before she caught it."
"I wonder if he spent the night."
"No, what he does is take a taxi home to his beloved wife."
"We don't know for sure that he's married," Brown said.
"Got to be," Kling said. "And rich. I'm clocking five-thousand-dollar deposits every month on the first of the month. Here, take a look," he said, and handed Brown the checkbook. Brown began leafing through it. Sure enough, there were deposits listed for the first of every month, each for an even five thousand dollars.
"Probably won't help us," Brown said. "His letter . . ."
"Cash, I know," Kling said.
"Even if those deposits were checks, we'd need a court order to get copies of them."
"Might be worth it."
"I'll ask the loot. What was that woman's name again?"
"Brackett. Phyllis Brackett. With a double Ton the end."
"Take a look at this," Brown said, and handed Kling the calendar.
In the square for Monday, the ninth of July, Susan had scrawled the name Tommy!!!!
"Four exclamation points," Kling said. "Must've been urgent."
"Let's see what we've got," Brown said, and picked up a spiral book bound in mottled black plastic, Susan Brauer's personal directory.
The only possible listing they found for anyone named Tommy was one under the letter M: Thomas Mott Antiques. 24
Brown copied down the address and phone number and then leafed back to the pages following the letter B. There was a listing for a Phyllis Brackett at 274 Sounder Avenue. A telephone number was written in below the address. He copied both down, and then they read through the calendar and the directory and the checkbook yet another time, making notes, jotting down names, dates, and possible places Susan Brauer might have visited with the elusive Arthur Somebody during the weeks and days before her murder.
They went through every drawer in the desk and then they turned over the trash basket under the desk and sorted through all the scraps of paper and assorted debris that tumbled out onto the carpet. They spread newspapers on the kitchen floor and went through all the garbage in the pail under the sink. They could find nothing that gave them a last name for the man who was paying the rent on this apartment.
