certainly taking his sweet time, she decided she might as well get some work done while she waited. There was a pay phone directly behind her, against one wall, and a chair was arranged in front of it. Unfortunately, so was a cook. One look from Auntie Lil, however, and he quickly murmured something in Spanish, rang off and hustled back to the safety of the kitchen. He, too, had been working in the neighborhood long enough to know that you never judged a book by its cover, no matter how creased it might be.
Bob Fleming answered the phone on the first ring. "Homefront," he said.
"If you don't sleep there, you might as well," she told him. "This is Lillian Hubbert."
"Of course." He sounded more cheerful than the day before. "I got a good night's sleep in my own bed, actually. Some of my volunteers showed up and we got two kids to call home last night. And one is thinking about entering a resident drug rehab. It looks like it could be a pretty good week after all."
"People still looking at you funny?" she asked.
"Not today. No one's seen me yet. What can I do for you?"
"Did you find Little Pete? Will he talk to me?"
"I think so," he told her. "Stop by later and I'll let you know for sure. I ran into him this morning. He's thinking about it. But he's scared."
"Why is he scared?" Auntie Lil asked.
"He was on the streets a couple of nights ago, three I think, and saw some rich guy in a limo flashing around photos of the old woman, dead. Scared the hell out of him. He said the guy had a mean-looking face, looked like a serial killer or something. Of course, he's a kid and he's got an imagination, so ... I don't know the connection, but that old lady meant something to Little Pete and he's definitely afraid of the man in the limousine."
"A silver limo?" Auntie Lil asked.
"No. He said it was a black car."
She couldn't figure out how a rich man in a black limo could fit into what they knew. "What about Timmy?" she asked Bob Fleming. "Did you get to talk to him?"
"No. He's still avoiding me. Little Pete doesn't know why. But I found out a bit more about the man who's keeping Timmy. According to Little Pete, Timmy's got a regular job with the guy. It's not a sugar daddy thing. Strictly business. I don't know exactly what that means, but I can guarantee you that it doesn't involve Social Security. Maybe you can find out more."
"I will," Auntie Lil decided firmly. "Thank you. I'll see you this afternoon."
She hung up and nursed another third of her Bloody Mary down the hatch. Things were looking up. Little Pete could tell her something about Emily, she was sure of it. She checked the clock. Where was Theodore? On an impulse, she dialed Midtown North and, to her surprise, was connected to Det. George Santos almost immediately.
"Talk fast," the detective said without waiting to hear who it was. "I've got a stack of messages waist high that I have to return."
"We have located The Eagle for you."
"The man who was sitting next to Emily," Santos repeated, obviously recognizing her voice. He wanted to humor her before she started to fill him in with endless details. He sighed again. "Okay, Miss Hubbert, what's the beef?"
"He entered Emily's apartment building at 1:30 a.m. last night and has not left yet."
"The apartment building where you think she lives," Santos corrected her.
"Regardless of whether Emily lived there or not," Auntie Lil conceded, but only because it suited her current purposes, "reliable sources saw The Eagle enter. And he has not yet come back out."
"Look, Miss Hubbert," the detective said. "I know you're trying to help and I know that you care about the woman who died. But I can't keep running off on wild goose chases. I just don't have the time."
"Please, detective," Auntie Lil pleaded with uncharacteristic mellowness, fueled by the hefty Bloody Mary. "I won't ask you to do anything else. Please just have someone check all the apartments there. I know The Eagle is in there. He's a tall black man with an eagle tattoo on one of his upper arms. If you can find him, I can find the witness who saw him leaning over Emily the day she died. I have people looking for him now."