can call me Jack, if you want. Or John. just not Johnny. Since my mother died, the only one who calls me Johnny is old Prof McGovern."
Old Prof McGovern, Ralph thought. How strange that sounds.
"Okay-John it is. And both of you guys can call me Ralph. As far as I'm concerned, Mr. Roberts is always going to be a Broadway play starring Henry Fonda."
"You got it," Mike Hanlon said. "And take care of yourself."
"I'll try," he said, then stopped in his tracks. "Listen, I have something to thank you for, quite apart from your help today."
Mike raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"
"Yes. You hired Helen Deepneau. She's one of my favorite people, and she desperately needed the job. So thanks."
Mike smiled and nodded. "I'll be happy to accept the bouquets, but she's the one who did me the favor, really. She's actually overqualified for the job, but I think she wants to stay in town."
"So do I, and you've helped make it possible. So thanks again."
Mike grinned, "My pleasure."
As Ralph and Leydecker stepped out behind the circulation desk, Leydecker said: "I guess that honeycomb must have really turned the trick, huh?"
Ralph at first had absolutely no idea what the big detective was talking about-he might as well have asked a question in Esperanto.
"Your insomnia," Leydecker said patiently. "You got past it, right? Must have-you look a gajillion times better than on the day I first met you."
"I was a little stressed that day," Ralph said. He found himself remembering the old Billy Crystal routine about Fernando-the one that went Listen, dahling, don't be a schnook,-it's not how you feel, it's how you look! And you... look... MAHVELLOUS!
"And you're not today? C'mon, Ralph, this is me. So give-was it the honeycomb?"
Ralph appeared to think this over, then nodded. "Yes, I guess that must have been what did it."
"Fantastic! Didn't I tell you?" Leydecker said cheerfully as they pushed their way out into the rainy afternoon.
They were waiting for the light at the top of Up-Mile Hill when Ralph turned to Leydecker and asked what the chances were of nailing Ed as Charlie Pickering's accomplice. "Because Ed put him up to it," he said. "I know that as well as I know that's Strawford Park over there."
"You're probably right," Leydecker replied, "but don't kid yourself-the chances of nailing him as an accomplice are shitty.
They wouldn't be very good even if the County Prosecutor wasn't as conservative as Dale Cox."
"Why not?"
"First of all, I doubt if we'll be able to show any deep connection between the two men. Second, guys like Pickering tend to be fiercely loyal to the people they identify as 'friends," because they have so few of them-their worlds are mostly made up of enemies. Under interrogation I don't think Pickering will repeat much or any of what he told you while he was tickling your ribs with his hunting knife.
Third, Ed Deepneau is no fool. Crazy, yes-maybe crazier than Pickering, when you get right down to it-but not a fool. He won't admit anything."
Ralph nodded. It was exactly his opinion of Ed.
"If Pickering did say that Deepneau ordered him to find you and waste you-on the grounds that you were one of these baby-killing, fetus-snatching Centurions-Ed would just smile at us and nod and say he was sure that poor Charlie had told us that, that poor Charlie might even believe that, but that didn't make it true."
The light turned green. Leydecker drove through the intersection, then bent left onto Harris Avenue. The windshield wipers thumped and flapped. Strawford Park, on Ralph's right, looked like a wavery mirage through the rain streaming down the passenger window, "And what could we say to that?" Leydecker asked. "The fact is, Charlie Pickering has got a long history of mental instability-when it comes to nuthatches, he's made the grand tour: juniper Hill, Acadia Hospital, Bangor Mental Health Institute... if it's a place where they have free electrical treatments and jackets that button up the back, Charlie's most likely been there.
These days his hobby-horse is abortion. Back in the late sixties he had a bug up his ass about Margaret Chase Smith. He wrote letters to everyone-Derry P.D the State Police, the FBI-claiming she was a Russian spy. He had the evidence, he said."
"Good God, that's incredible."
"Nope; that's Charlie Pickering, and I bet there's a dozen like him in every city this size in the United States. Hell, all over the world."
Ralph's hand crept to his left side and touched the square of bandage there.