Pierre nodded. Mattingly was a second-string wing. “Elsie’s his wife. Poor girl. If he told her he was going to the Coeur d’Argent she would believe him—just in order not to find out where he really was.”

“So he wasn’t in Quebec with you?”

He shook his head. “Always a new girl, Mattingly. Boom Boom never cared for him—he can’t even play hockey. And he brags, you know.”

The unforgivable male sin—bragging about your success with girls and on the ice—especially when neither was very admirable.

I looked at the letter again, dubiously. It seemed totally unrelated to the mess I was trying to sort out. But it had been important enough that my cousin called, then wrote Bouchard. It must mean something. I’d at least have to try to find out where Boom Boom had been the last few days before he died. The letter was dated the twenty-sixth. He’d died on the twenty-seventh. That meant going back maybe to the twenty-third—when the Lucella had taken water on in her holds. Could Mattingly have been involved in that? I started feeling overwhelmed by the enormous amount of work I had to do, and looked despairingly at my arm attached to the ceiling.

“Do you have a good photo of Mattingly?”

Bouchard fingered his chin. “Publicity picture. Myron could give me one.”

“Could you get me half a dozen copies? I want to see if I can find anyone who can ID him in some out-of-the-way places that occur to me.”

“Sure. Right away.” He got up enthusiastically. Action. That’s what hockey players thrive on. “Maybe you want me to take it around while you’re lying here?”

“Let me think about it … I know who I need to talk to and you might not be able to get to them.”

He took off in a cloud of antiseptic. I looked at my cousin’s calendar again. On the twenty-third he’d seen Margolis. Must have been over at the elevator. On the twenty-fourth, a Saturday, he’d been with Paige. He hadn’t written in any other appointments. On Monday he talked to MacKelvy, the dispatcher at Grafalk, and to two people whose names I didn’t recognize. I’d show Mattingly’s picture to Margolis. Maybe get Pierre to do that.

I looked at my watch, strapped awkwardly on my right wrist. Four-thirty—Paige was probably at the theater. I called, got her answering service, and left a message.

Lotty came in around five, noting the disarray of papers and bedclothes with her thick black eyebrows raised. “You’re a terrible patient, my dear. They tell me you’re rejecting all medication … Now I do not mind if you don’t want the pain pills—that’s your choice. But you must take the antibiotics. I don’t want any secondary infection in the arm.”