A Walk Among the Tombstones

Page 24

 

  I stopped at an all-night coffee shop on Broadway. Someone had left an early edition of the Times in the booth, and I read it along with my eggs and coffee, but nothing much registered. I was too groggy, and what little mental acuity I had insisted on centering itself on the locations of the six pay phones in Sunset Park. I kept yanking the list out of my pocket and studying it, as if the order and precise locations of the phones held a secret message if one only possessed the key. There ought to be someone I could call, claiming a Code Five emergency. "Give me your access code," I would demand. "Tell me the password. "

  The sky was bright with dawn by the time I got back to my hotel. I showered and went to bed, and after an hour or so I gave up and turned on the television set. I watched the morning news program on one of the networks. The secretary of state had just come back from a tour of the Middle East, and they had him on, and followed him with a Palestinian spokesman commenting on the possibilities for a lasting peace in the region.

  That brought my client to mind, if hed ever been far from my thoughts, and when the next interview was with a recent Academy Award winner I hit the