“That was a manager, assistant manager, something like that. No, the one who checked the killer in. Now here’s a guy comes in, prints his name instead of writing it, and pays cash. Those are two unusual things for a person to do, right? I mean, who pays cash in front for a hotel nowadays? I don’t mean in a hot-pillow joint, I mean a decent hotel where you’re going to spend sixty or eighty dollars for a room. Everything’s plastic nowadays, credit cards, that’s the whole business. But this guy paid cash and the desk clerk doesn’t remember shit about him.”

“Did you check him out?”

He nodded. “I went and talked to him last night. Well, he’s this South American kid, up from one of those countries. He was in a fog when I talked to him. He was probably in a fog when the killer checked in. He probably lives his life in a fog. I don’t know where his fog comes from, whether he smokes it or snorts it or what he does, but I think he probably comes by it honestly. You know the percentage of this city that’s stoned all the time?”

“I know what you mean.”

“You see ’em at lunch hour. Office workers, midtown, Wall Street, I don’t care what neighborhood you’re talking about. They buy the fucking joints in the street and spend their lunch hour smoking ’em in the park. How does anybody get any work done?”

“I don’t know.”

“And there’s all these pillheads. Like this woman who killed herself. Taking all those pills all the time, and she wasn’t even breaking the law. Drugs.” He sighed, shook his head, smoothed his dark hair. “Well, what I’m gonna have is a brandy,” he said, “if you think your client can afford it.”

I got over to St. Paul’s in time for the last ten minutes of the meeting. I had coffee and a cookie and barely listened to what was being said. I didn’t even have to say my name, and I ducked out during the prayer.