“My guess is you won’t, or else Goldman’ll turn out to be a lawyer or accountant Chance uses to front for him. I’ll tell you this much, Chance doesn’t look like any David Goldman I ever met.”

“You said he was black.”

“That’s right.”

“You met him.”

“That’s right. Now he doesn’t have a particular hangout, but there are several places he frequents.” I ran down the list. “I wasn’t able to learn where he lives. I gather he keeps that a secret.”

“No problem,” Durkin said. “We’ll use the reverse directory. You gave us his phone number, remember? We’ll look it up and get the address that way.”

“I think the number’s his answering service.”

“Well, they’ll have a number for him.”

“Maybe.”

“You sound doubtful.”

“I think he likes to keep himself hard to find,” I said.

“How’d you happen to find him? What’s your connection to all of this, Scudder?”

I felt like hanging up. I’d given them what I had and I didn’t feel like answering questions. But I was a lot easier to find than Chance, and if I hung up on Durkin he could have me picked up in no time.

I said, “I met him Friday night. Miss Dakkinen asked me to intercede for her.”

“Intercede how?”

“By telling him she wanted to get off the hook. She was scared to tell him herself.”

“So you told him for her.”

“That’s right.”

“What, are you a pimp yourself, Scudder? She go from his stable to yours?”

My grip tightened on the receiver. I said, “No, that’s not my line, Durkin. Why? Is your mother looking for a new connection?”

“What in—”

“Just watch your fucking mouth, that’s all. I’m handing you things on a plate and I never had to call you at all.”

He didn’t say anything.

I said, “Kim Dakkinen was a friend of a friend. If you want to know about me there used to be a cop named Guzik who knew me. Is he still at Midtown North?”

“You’re a friend of Guzik’s?”

“We never liked each other much but he can tell you I’m straight. I told Chance she wanted out and he said it was fine with him. He saw her the next day and told her the same thing. Then last night somebody killed her. You still have the time of death figured as midnight?”

“Yeah, but that’s approximate. It was twelve hours later that they found her. And the condition of the corpse, you know, the ME probably wanted to move on to something else.”

“Bad.”