A Fine Line by William G. Tapply Page B

put our drinks in front of us and asked us if we were ready to order.
    Ben glanced at his watch and nodded. “I’ve only got about an hour. Gotta get back to the office.”
    “On a Friday night?” I said.
    He shrugged. “You do business when you can. I got a guy coming in at eight.”
    I ordered the 14-ounce Porterhouse with a baked potato, hold the sour cream, and Ben had a Greek salad. I’d forgotten that he was a vegetarian.
    After the waiter left, Ben said, “That accident out at Quabbin changed Duffy. It pretty much destroyed his life.”
    I nodded.
    “The man goes everywhere, does everything,” he said. “Then the next thing you know, he’s paralyzed, can’t leave his house. And now he falls down and dies in his own backyard?” He shook his head. “Life is full of ironies, isn’t it?”
    Walt had been murdered, of course. But Detective Mendoza had forbidden me to tell anybody.
    When our food came, I told Ben that I’d have to get Walt’s collection appraised in order to settle his estate and was wondering if he’d do it. Ben, with no false modesty, reminded me that he’d traveled all over the country to appraise estates, that he was considered an expert on books, manuscripts and artwork pertaining to nature and wildlife in general and birds in particular, and that it would take him at least a week, so I should give him ample notice.
    I told him that until Ethan showed up, there was nothing much to do, but I’d keep in touch with him.
    After we finished eating, Ben looked at his watch and said, “I hate to eat and run, but . . .”
    “No coffee? No dessert?”
    “I’ve really got to get back.”
    He took out his wallet, but I held up my hand. “I got it. I’ll charge it against Walt’s account.”
    “Well, okay. I guess he can spare it now.”
    I held out my hand to Ben. “We’ll be in touch,” I said.
    He shook my hand, then turned and shambled out of the restaurant.
    I had a slab of lemon meringue pie and a cup of coffee, then walked home through the city.
    When I got there, I watched the end of the ball game, then the news, which did not report on Walt’s death. That left me feeling vaguely sad.
    After the news, I went to bed and called Evie. We exchanged stories about our days and tried to talk dirty, but my heart wasn’t in it, which Evie instantly picked up on. She said she loved me anyway.
    I read a chapter of
Moby Dick
, turned out the light, and smoked the day’s last cigarette in the dark.
    I had to admit it. My place had been feeling empty lately. But without Henry sleeping on the floor beside me, it felt even emptier.

N INE
    T he ringing of the phone dragged me out of a deep black sleep. Ethan, I thought. I fumbled around in the dark, found the receiver on the table beside my bed, put it to my ear, and said, “Ethan? Is that you?”
    A growly, muffled male voice said something that sounded like, “Boomer pierce ever.”
    “Huh?” I said. “Who’s this?”
    There was a hesitation. Then a click. Then nothing.
    I sighed and put the phone back. The alarm clock on my bedside table read 3:50. The darkest hour. If it wasn’t a dog waking me up, it was some crank phone call mumbling nonsense in my ear.
    I lay there and smoked a cigarette in the dark. Two days had passed since Walt Duffy was murdered, and I still hadn’t heard from Ethan. What the hell was going on?
    I was sipping my coffee out on my balcony overlooking the harbor at eight o’clock the next morning, watching the gullsand terns wheeling over the water and the Saturday-morning fishing and pleasure craft cutting white wakes through it when I remembered that phone call, which, in turn, reminded me of the hangups I’d found on my voicemail the night before.
    I went inside, picked up the telephone, and dialed star-69.
    The mechanical voice said, “The number you are trying to call cannot be reached by this method.”
    Oh, well. Some drunk on a cell phone, probably. He’d mumbled his words. They made no sense.