Chapter 24 Chapter Twenty-Four

Most of Tuesday was dedicated to a game of "chase fur". It started when I was half asleep.I had just woken up from a dream, fell asleep right away, and found myself starting to play with images of my meeting with Kim at the Armstrong Bar.It started with a borrowed memory: watching her hitchhike from Chicago to New York, carrying a cheap suitcase in one hand, her denim jacket clung to her shoulder; , inadvertently playing with the buttons on the neck of her fur coat, and the diamond ring on her hand sparkled.She's telling me it's made of mink, but she'd rather go back to the original denim jacket.

After the whole thing played out, my mind turned elsewhere.I went back to the alley in Haarlem, only this time my enemy had a helper.Royal Walden and the messenger from the previous night were at his side.The waking part of me was desperate to get them out of my head so it wouldn't be so weird.Suddenly a thought screamed at me, and I rolled over and sat up, as the dream images hurried back to their original places in my mind. That's not the same jacket. I shower, shave, and head out.I take a taxi to Kim's apartment and check her closet again.The rabbit fur coat inside—dyed rabbit fur that Chance had bought for her—was not the one I'd seen in Armstrong's.This one is longer, with a fuller front and no clasp at the throat.It was by no means the one she was wearing, not the one she described as mink and wanted to trade in for her old denim jacket.

The one I remember can't be found anywhere else in the apartment. I took another taxi to the Midtown North office, where Durkin wasn't on duty.I got a policeman to call his home, and finally got the files through unofficial channels.That's right.The items seized in the room of the Galaxy Hotel were listed, and there was indeed a fur coat inside.I checked the photos in the file, but couldn't find the coat. The subway took me to the police contact center downtown.I talked to a few more people there, then waited - my request had to go through certain channels and avoid others.When I wandered into an office, the person I was supposed to meet had just gone out to lunch.I had the conference directory with me and knew there was no noon meeting at St. Andrew's Church a street away, so I went there to kill an hour.Then I went to a fully booked deli to get a sandwich.Stand up for lunch.

I went back to the police contact center and finally got the fur coat Kim was wearing when he died.I can't swear it's the one I saw at Armstrong's, but it seems to match my memory.I stroke the gorgeous fur and try to replay the tape that was playing in my head that morning.It seems that it should be right.It was the right length, the color, and the neck clasp that her round fingers had fiddled with. A tag sewn into the lining indicated that it was real mink, from a furrier named Alvin Tannenbaum. The Tannenbaum Company was on the third floor of a building on West Twenty-ninth Street, the very center of the fur industry.It would have been easier if I could have taken Kim's coat over there, but New York's police enterprise, official or unofficial, would only go so far.I described the appearance of the coat, obviously not very helpful, so I described Kim's appearance.After checking the sales records, it was found that Kim Duckinen had bought a mink coat six weeks ago, and the name of the salesperson was signed on the sales slip.He still remembers that deal.

The clerk has a round, slightly bald face and cloudy blue eyes beneath heavy lenses.He said, "Tall girl, very beautiful. You know, I saw that name in the newspaper and thought it looked familiar, but I couldn't remember where I saw it. Terrible, such a beautiful girl." She came with a gentleman, he recalled, and the coat was paid for by the gentleman.Pay cash, he remembered.Ah, no, that's not surprising, at least not in the fur business.They don't do much retail, and most of their retail customers are people in the garment industry or people who are familiar with their business.But of course, anyone can walk in and buy something at any time.But most are cash transactions, since customers usually don't want to wait for their checks to clear in order to receive their items.Besides, fur coats are often a luxury item bought for luxurious friends, and customers certainly don't want any records of the transaction.That's why they paid in cash, and the bill of sale was not in the buyer's name, but in Miss Kim Duckinen's.

That transaction, including tax, totaled nearly 2,500 yuan.It's too much to take with you when you go out, but it's not news.Not long ago, didn't I do it myself? Can he describe the gentleman?The clerk sighed.It was easier to describe the woman, he said.He was impressed by her: her blonde braids, her blue eyes, clear and shining.She tried on a couple of coats and looked regal over the leather ones, but the man—thirty-eight, forty, he guessed.Fairly tall, he remembered, but not as tall as a woman. "Sorry," he said, "I don't remember him well. If he had been wearing a fur coat, maybe I could have told you all you wanted to know, but—"

"What is he dressed up for?" ——Bammer School · E Book Group— "A suit, I think, but I can't remember. He was the kind of guy who could wear a suit. It's just that I can't remember what he was wearing." "Will you recognize him if you see him again?" "When I met it on the road, I would definitely not recognize it." "And if I show him to you?" "Then I might recognize it. You mean police identification? Well, I suppose so." I told him he probably remembered more than he thought.I asked him what the man's occupation was.

"I don't even know his name, how can I know what kind of food he eats?" "How do you feel," I said, "is he a car mechanic? A stockbroker? A busker?" "Oh," he said, and then thought, "Maybe an accountant," he said. "Accountant?" "That kind of work. Tax lawyer, accountant. I'm just playing the guessing game, you know—" "I understand. What nationality?" "America. What do you mean?" "British, or Irish, Italian—" "Uh," he said, "I get it. Game on. Jew, Italian, Mediterranean, dark complexion, I think. Because she's blond. You know? Great contrast. I don't actually remember his complexion. , but the contrast is too strong. Maybe the Greeks, or the Spaniards."

"Go to college?" "He didn't show me the diploma." "Sure, but he might have talked to you or her. Does he sound like he went to college? Or does he sound like a street bum?" "Not like a street punk. He's a gentleman, an educated man." "Married?" "Definitely not with her." "Should have a wife, right?" "Don't they all have them? If you are not married, do you need to buy a mink coat for your girlfriend? He may also buy one for his wife to please her." "Did he wear a wedding ring?"

"I don't remember." He touched his gold ring, "Maybe, maybe not. I can't remember." He didn't remember much, and the information I got from him was questionable. It's possible they were true, but it's equally possible that he was just subconsciously providing the answers he thought I needed.I could have asked all the way—"Okay. You don't remember his shoes. But what kind of shoes would you say a guy like him would wear? Riding boots? Casual shoes? Cordovans? Adidas? Which one?" But I couldn't ask any more questions, so I thanked him and left.

There is a coffee shop on the first floor of this building, with only a long bar and a row of high stools.Plus a takeaway window.Holding my coffee, I want to filter the information I get. She had boyfriends, no doubt about it.Someone bought that coat for her.Dozens of hundred-dollar bills were counted, but the transaction could not be recorded in his name. Does this boyfriend have a machete?There is one more question I didn't ask. "Well, use your imagination. Imagine this guy and that blond girl get a hotel room. Let's say he wants to chop her up. What would he use? An axe? A bayonet? Just tell me how you feel." no problem.He's an accountant, isn't he?He may have used a pen with a sharp point like a samurai sword, deadly.Whoosh, whoosh, take it, bitch. The coffee wasn't good, but I ordered one anyway.I look down at my crossed fingers. Here's the problem, my fingers fit perfectly but the clues in my hands don't, what type of accountant would kill with a machete?Yes, anyone can get emotionally out of control, but it's strange that the outage was so well prepared: the hotel room was registered under a false name, and the murder left no trace of the murderer's identity. Does that sound like the same guy who buys leather jackets? I sipped my coffee.The answer is no, I think.The boyfriend mentioned by the clerk was also different from the message he received the night before.The man in the plaid jacket was simple-minded and well-boned—although his muscles were probably just for show.Would a suave accountant need that kind of muscle? Not too possible. Could that boyfriend be the same person as Charles Owens Jones?Why use such a complicated pseudonym again, with Owens in the middle?People with fake surnames like Smith or Jones often pair them with common names like Joe or John.Charles Owens Jones? Perhaps his name was Charles Owens.Maybe he originally planned to write it that way, but changed his mind temporarily, omitted "思" and added a fake surname.Does that make sense?It doesn't make sense to me. That bastard hotel front desk.It occurred to me that the way Deokjin questioned him was wrong.Durkin said that he seemed to be in a fog, and he was obviously a South American, and his English seemed to be not very good.But to work in a high-end hotel to deal with guests, he had to be fluent in English to a certain extent.No, the problem is that no one puts pressure on him.If anyone had dealt with him as I had with the fur clerk, he would have revealed something. Witnesses often remember more than they think they remember. The front desk clerk who checked in Charles Owens Jones was Octavia Calderan.On Saturdays he works the night shift, from four o'clock until midnight.He called in sick on Sunday afternoon.One call yesterday, followed by a third call an hour before I arrived at the hotel to disturb the assistant manager.Calderon is still sick.He'd have to take another day off, maybe longer. I asked what was going on with him.The deputy manager sighed and shook his head. "I don't know." He said, "It's rare for people like them to answer your questions directly. If you want to avoid it, their English will suddenly become very poor. They simply talk nonsense in English and Spanish, and there is nothing you can do about it." .” "You mean you hire someone who doesn't speak English to be the front desk?" "No, no, Calderon is fluent in English. Someone took the leave for him." He shook his head again. "He's timid, Calderan. I guess he thought if he got a friend to do it for him." , I couldn't embarrass him on the phone. Of course, he was also implying that he was too ill to get out of bed and call. The person who called had a much heavier Spanish accent than Calderon." "Did he call yesterday?" "Someone else did it on his behalf." "Is it the same person who hit today?" "How would I know? On the phone, it sounds like all South Americans look alike. It's a man both times. I think it's the same voice, but I can't guarantee it. Does it matter?" I don't know.What about Sunday?Was it Calderon himself calling that day? "I'm not here on Sunday." "Do you have his phone number?" "His phone is in the lobby, and I don't think he will answer it when it rings," "I still need this number." He gave me that, plus an address on Barnett Avenue in Queens. I had never heard of Barnett Avenue, so I had to ask the assistant manager if he knew which part of Queens Calderon lived in. "I don't know anything about Queens," he said. "You're not really going there, are you?" He made it sound like I had to apply for a passport and bring enough food and water. "Because I'm pretty sure Calderon will be back at work in a day or two." "How can you be so sure?" "It's a fat job," he said. "If he doesn't come back right away, he'll lose his job. He knows that." "How's his attendance record?" "Very good. And I dare say it's absolutely legal for him to have the disease. It may be the kind of virus that takes three days to recover, and many people have been infected recently." I made a public phone call directly from the lobby of the Galaxy Hotel to where Calderon lived.It took a long time, nine or ten rings, before a Spanish-speaking woman answered.I asked her to find Octavia Calderon. "NO seta aqui," she told me.he's not here. I tried to make up questions in Spanish. Es enfermo?Is he sick?I don't know if she understands this.The Spanish she answered was very different from the Puerto Rican accent I heard in New York, and when she tried to match my English, she not only had a heavy accent but also a serious lack of vocabulary. NO seta aqui, she kept saying, and that was the only thing I could understand from her words. NO seta aqui.he's not here. I go back to the hotel.I have a pocket map of New York's five boroughs in my room. I looked up Barnett Avenue in the directory of Queens, and I turned to that page and searched carefully.Found it, in the Woodside area.I pored over the map and couldn't figure out why a rental apartment with a lot of Latinos would be located in an area with a lot of Irish. Barnett Avenue has only ten or twelve streets, running from east to west, from Forty-third Street to Woodside Avenue.If you take the subway, there is more than one choice.I can take the E or F line of the independent route, or the IRT Flushing line. If I really want to go there. I called again from the room.The phone still rang for a long time, it was a man. I said, "Octavia Calderon, please." "Momento—" he said wait.Crack, and then there was a thump, as if the microphone had been dropped by him and hit the wall.Then there was nothing but a faint Latin American news broadcast on the radio.I was about to hang up the phone when he came back on line. "NO seta aqui," he said.He hung up before I could speak any words. I looked at the pocket map again and wondered if Woodside had to run this trip? It was rush hour.If you insist on going, you have to stand there all the way.And in doing so, can it really accomplish any great things?I can imagine myself squeezing a can of sardines.Stuffed in the subway car, the purpose is to let people tell me NO seta aqui to my face.What am I trying to figure out?Either he was on LSD vacation or he was really sick.Either way, I had no chance of getting anything out of his mouth.Even if I did find him, it would at most be a substitute for NO seta aqui: No jose.I don't know, he's not here, I don't know, he's not here... Shit. — Stick School · E Book Group — Joe Durkin grilled Calderon on Saturday night while I was running around talking to a bunch of parasites and scoundrels.That was the night I snatched a gun from the robber.Sonia Hendricks mixed vodka and orange juice and swallowed large amounts of sleeping pills. The very next day, Calderon called in sick.The next day, a man in a plaid jacket followed me into an AA meeting and warned me to stop looking into the Kim Dakinen case. The phone rang. It was Chance.He left a message.Apparently he was impatient to wait for my call back. "Just curious," he said, "Any clues?" "Should have. Got a warning last night." "What kind of warning?" "Some guy told me to stay out of trouble." "Are you sure he refers to Jin?" "Sure." "You know that person?" "do not know." "What are you going to do?" I laughed. "I'm going to ask for trouble," I said. "Go to Woodside." "Wooside?" "In Queens." "I know where Woodside is, man. What happened to Woodside?" I decided not to dwell on the matter. "Maybe it's okay," I said. "I wish I could save the trip, but I can't. Kim has a boyfriend." "At Woodside?" "No, Woodside's a different story, but she can't be wrong about having a boyfriend. He bought her a mink coat." He sighed, "I told you, it's just dyed rabbit fur." "I know the dyed rabbit skin, it's still hanging in her closet." "Then why mention mink again?" "She also has a short coat, made of mink. She was wearing it when I first met her. It was the same one she was wearing when she was killed in the Galaxy Hotel. The clothes are currently in a check in the police contact center. Inside the closet." "Why put it there?" "That's evidence." "Prove what?" "No one knew, I found the coat, tracked it down, talked to the person who sold it to her. On record she was the buyer, her name was on the bill of sale, but there was a man with her at the time, it was He paid for it." "How much?" "Two thousand and five." He pondered for a while: "Maybe she hides money from her own house." He said, "It's not difficult to save this little money. She can earn two hundred yuan a week. You know they save some money occasionally. It's hard for me to find out." "It's the man who pays, Chance." "Maybe she gave him money to pay. It's like going to a restaurant to eat. Some women will sneak some money to pay the man to avoid embarrassment." "Why do you just refuse to admit that she has a boyfriend?" "Shit," he said, "I don't give a damn, whatever. I just can't believe it, that's all." I let him go on. "Maybe it's a client, not a boyfriend. Sometimes clients want to pretend that they have different friendships. You don't need to pay, just buy gifts. Maybe he is this kind of client, so she pesters him to buy a leather jacket." "Maybe." "You think he's your boyfriend?" "I think so, yes." "He killed her?" "I don't know who killed her." "The person who killed her asked you to let go of this case?" "I don't know," I said. "Maybe the boyfriend had nothing to do with the murder. Maybe a lunatic did it, as the police wanted, and maybe the boyfriend just didn't want to be drawn into the investigation." "He didn't, and he didn't want to mess with himself, what do you mean?" "almost." "Don't know, man. Maybe you should let it go." "No further investigation?" "Maybe. A warning, damn, you don't want to die for this." "No," I said, "I don't want to." "Then what are you going to do?" "At the moment I'm going to take a ride to Queens." "To Woodside?"' "right." "I can bring the car and take you there." "I don't mind taking the subway." "It's faster to drive. I can wear my driver's hat and you sit in the back." "next time." "Up to you," he said, "Call me when you're done, okay?" "certainly." I ended up taking the Flushing Line to the stop at Roosevelt Avenue and Fifty-second Street.After the train leaves Manhattan, it goes above ground. Because I didn't know where I was, I almost missed the stop sign.The name of the station on the platform was so badly graffitied that it was not legible at all. A flight of steel stairs brings me back to the surface.I checked my pocket map and got my bearings, and headed for Barnett Avenue.I hadn't been walking long before I knew why a Latino rental apartment had come to Woodside.This area is no longer an Irish concentration area.Most of the signs are in Spanish, although there are still a few places called Emerald Liquor, or, and most of the shops are traditional Spanish grocery stores.A travel agency called Terra has several posters in the window: They offer charter flights to Bogota and Caracas. Octavia Calderon lived in a dark two-story wooden building with five or six plastic armchairs lined up on the front porch and a wooden crate upside down with some magazines and newspapers.The chairs were all empty, which is no surprise, it's too cold to sit on the front porch now. I ring the doorbell.nothing happened.I heard conversations inside, and several radios playing.I rang the doorbell again, and a stocky, middle-aged woman answered. "What's the matter?" she asked suspiciously in Spanish, "I'm looking for Octavia Calderon," I said. "NO seta aqui." She could have been the woman who answered the phone when I first called.It's hard to say, and it doesn't matter; I communicate with her through the screen door, in a mix of Spanish and English.She listened for a while and then walked away, bringing with her a tall, thin man with sunken cheeks and a trim mustache.He spoke English and I told him I wanted to see Calderan's room." But Calderon wasn't there, he told me. "NO me importa." I said it's okay.I still want to see his room.But there's nothing to see there, he replied, puzzled.Calderan wasn't there, so what was the point of visiting his room? They're not refusing to cooperate, or even reluctant.They just don't think it's necessary.When it became clear that the only way to get rid of me--and the easiest way--was to take me to Calderon's room, they made a wise decision right away. I followed the woman down a corridor, past the kitchen, to a landing.We climbed the stairs and walked down another corridor.She opened a door without knocking, stood aside, and beckoned me in. On the floor covered with oilcloth, there was an old iron bed with a bare mattress, a golden maple chest of drawers, and a small writing cabinet with a folding chair.At the other end of the room, by the window, was an easy chair covered in a flowered cloth.On the chest of drawers was a table lamp with a patterned paper cover, and two bare light bulbs hung from the center of the ceiling. That's all there is in the room. — Stick School · E Book Group — "Entiende usted ahors? NO me importa. You know now? He's not here." I searched mechanically, reflexively.The room couldn't have been more empty.There was nothing in the small wardrobe except a few iron hangers.The golden chest of drawers and the only drawer in the writing cabinet were also empty. The corners of these drawers are all cleaned up. With the sunken man acting as an interpreter, I began to question the woman.In any language, she was unsatisfactory.She didn't know when Calderon left.Sunday or Monday, she thought.She went into his room to clean it on Monday, only to find that he had moved everything away and left nothing behind, and of course, she thought he had quit the rent.He, like all her tenants, paid his rent in advance by the week.He could actually stay for another two days, but obviously he already had somewhere else to go, oh no, it's not surprising that he didn't inform her before he left.Tenants sometimes do this, even if they are not in arrears with their rent.She and her daughter have cleaned the room thoroughly and it is now ready to be rented to someone else.The room wouldn't be empty for long, her rooms were always rented out quickly. Was Calderon a good tenant?Yes, that's fine, but she's never had any problems with tenants.She rents only to Colombians, Panamas, and Ecuadorians, and has never had a problem with them.Sometimes they have to move out immediately because of immigration issues.Maybe that's why Calderon left without saying goodbye.But it's none of her business, she's only responsible for clearing the room and renting it out to others. Calderon isn't going to get in trouble with immigration, I know that.He is not staying illegally, or he would not work in the Galaxy Hotel, it is impossible for a big hotel to hire foreigners without a green card, He left in a hurry for other reasons. I spent about an hour asking other tenants.The aggregated information was not helpful at all.He hides everything in his heart and is a quiet young man.He works irregular hours, often staggered with other tenants.As far as everyone knows, he has no girlfriend.During the eight months he lived on Barnet Avenue, he had not had a single visitor, male or female, and very few telephone calls.He had lived elsewhere in New York before moving to Barnett Avenue, but no one knew his previous address, or whether it was in Queens. Does he take drugs?Everyone I've talked to has been intimidated by this question.I think the stout landlady must be strict.Her tenants all have regular jobs and lead serious lives.If Calderon smoked marijuana, I was assured by one tenant that he hadn't smoked it in his room.Otherwise, the landlord would have smelled it a long time ago and ordered him to move. "Maybe he's homesick," suggested a young man with dark eyes. "Maybe he flew back to Cartagena." "Where is he from?" "He's Colombian and I remember he mentioned Cartagena." Here's what I got after an hour and a half: Octavia Calderon from Cartagena.But no one is sure about these.