Don't Lie to Me (16 page)

Sitting there, looking out the window at the street, I gradually became aware of the dark museum behind me. There were no lights on at all, no lights anywhere in the building except the one I'd left on far away downstairs in the office, and none of that illumination reached anywhere near where I was. I would turn around every once in a while and look behind me, but the darkness was almost complete back there, the white display walls merely vague gray forms in the black.

I couldn't help thinking about the John Doe, and about the killer carrying him naked from room to room that night last week, following in my wake. I kept visualizing it, and imagining it happening again; I could almost hear the small sounds of his passage.

But of course there was no one behind me, it was simply nerves and an overactive imagination. There were no noises, there was no one carrying a naked dead body from room to room of the museum. Still, my back was tensed and hunched most of the time I was sitting there, and it was sometimes difficult to keep looking out at the street when what I wanted to do more than anything else in the world was spin around and fan the flashlight beam over the full interior of the building.

I never quite did that, though I did come close. But I waited it out, and shortly after six the sky began to lighten slightly, traffic picked up a little, and the first pedestrians began to walk by. Then I could without embarrassment turn around, switch on the flashlight, see the empty room, and make a great deal of noise in dragging the bench back to its original position.

I tried Tynebourne again at six-thirty, this time letting the phone ring thirty times, and once more there was no answer. I called the operator and asked her to check the number and be sure it was functioning, and she said it was.

I was beginning to be afraid that the girl had decided not to talk to me again after all. Whatever connection she and Tynebourne had together, whatever they had discussed, it now seemed they had decided to keep their own counsel. Tynebourne had probably taken her away somewhere for safety from me and anyone else who might want to question her. She did, after all, know that she had slipped and mentioned Tynebourne's name, and that I had picked it up. So it could be that both of them now planned to stay out of sight for a while. In trying to push the girl to tell me more, I might have pushed her into total silence.

I'd have to find them, that's all. They were amateurs at hiding, and amateurs tend to hide with friends. I would find them.

W
HEN I LEFT THE
museum, shortly after seven, I looked around but saw no sign of Willie Vigevano or any of his friends. Of the four, I would remember and recognize Fred Carver and Mort Livingston, but it seemed to me I'd also be able to spot Vigevano. The fourth man, Knox, was the only one I'd be unsure about, but I wouldn't expect him or any of the others to travel alone. Punks like that move in packs.

They also prefer the dark, and we were now into full daylight. After one quick look around to satisfy myself that they'd crawled back into their holes for the day, I put Vigevano and the others from my mind and turned my attention back to Dan Tynebourne and the unnamed girl.

My body was still stiff, but I didn't ache so much any more, and for some reason I wasn't sleepy. The two-hour nap in the office must have helped somewhat, but I think more than that I was refreshed by being free of the museum, able to go out and move, and with definite objects in view.

The first being Tynebourne and the girl. It had occurred to me they might be holed up in his place after all, just refusing to answer the phone, so I hailed a cab and headed for Chelsea.

Tynebourne lived in an apartment building converted from three red-brick townhouses. Two of the entrances had been sealed off, leaving only the one in the middle building. A foyer worthy of a much larger structure had been inserted into this entrance, with the mailboxes and doorbells along the right-hand wall.

Tynebourne, Daniel, was in apartment 3-C. I rang the bell a few times and waited and nothing happened. It wasn't yet seven-thirty in the morning, and I was hesitating over ringing the superintendent's bell when a middle-aged woman came out of the building, apparently on her way to work. I caught the door before it closed behind her; she gave me a quick suspicious look, but I suppose the uniform reassured her, because she didn't say anything.

There was no elevator. I went up the stairs to the third floor, and found the door to 3-C. I rang the bell, and waited some more, and tried the knob, but the door was locked.

I was alone in the hall. I listened and heard no one coming down the stairs, and took out my wallet to get my gasoline credit card, the only credit card I own. It's a thin rectangle of plastic, and in recent years these credit cards have become the burglar's most valuable tool.

And, at the moment, mine. The plastic is strong, but it bends. I inserted it between the door and the jamb and fiddled with it until I'd slipped the door lock open. If there'd been a second lock with a straight bolt, I couldn't have opened the door that way, but a singly locked door can almost always be opened with patience and a credit card.

There were no lights on inside. I didn't want to embarrass anyone by finding people in bed, so after I'd entered the apartment and closed the door behind me, I called, “Tynebourne? Dan Tynebourne?”

No answer. I moved forward, slowly, inspecting the place.

It was empty. Tynebourne had a small place—living room, bedroom, tiny kitchen and bath—and there was no one in it. The second time through I switched on the lights, since little daylight came in through windows facing onto a narrow airshaft, and spent some time looking the place over. I was hoping to find some indication of where Tynebourne and the girl might have gone, or perhaps some indication of the girl's name or the full name of the George who she thought might be our John Doe.

I found neither, but I did see plenty of further evidence of the split in Dan Tynebourne's personality. In his books, Jerry Rubin nestled with Henry James. On his walls, a print of the Unicorn tapestry was hung next to a poster of Che Guevara. His records were an amalgam of Jefferson Airplane and Mozart, and beside his bed I found a heavily annotated paperback copy of Joseph Conrad's
The Secret Agent.
Looking at his marginal remarks, I saw him torn between the nihilism of the terrorists in that book and his own apparently natural love of tradition and heritage and history. He was trying to be in love with both Now and Then, even though the currently accepted way to love Now is by rejecting Then.

On one side of the living room was a desk made of a door on wrought-iron legs. Half-corrected students' papers from his courses at City College were here, plus some tortured writing he had apparently been doing himself in an attempt to resolve the Now versus Then conflict in his head. There was also a telephone, and beside it a personal address book. I looked through it, and found no one named George, nor anyone with an address in Canada.

There weren't, in fact, very many names in the book at all. Phil Crane was there, with both home and office numbers. The museum was there. Perhaps a dozen individuals were listed, not including Ernest Ramsey.

Well, I might as well begin. I sat at Tynebourne's desk, opened his address book, and started calling his friends.

The first was someone named Edward Barber, and I woke him up. He was angry about it, and irritated at my calling him in search of Dan Tynebourne. “What the hell would he be doing here?”

“I think he might be with a friend,” I said.

“Well, he isn't with me. Christ on a crutch.”

“Do you know any friend of his named George? Someone who's been living in Canada?”

“Who the hell are you, fellow?”

“My name is Tobin,” I said. “I'm a friend of Dan's, I work at the Museum of American Graphic Art.”

“That piece of crap,” he said. “I would much rather be asleep.” And he hung up.

Phil Crane was next. I tried him at home, and he was there. “This is Mitch Tobin,” I said. “You know, the night guard at the museum.”

“Yes, sure,” he said. “Captain Cool. How's it shaking?”

“I'm looking for Dan Tynebourne.”

“Dan? What for?”

“I wanted to talk with him. He isn't home, I thought he might be visiting a friend.”

“He's probably gone to work.”

“No, he hasn't been home for several hours.”

“Listen,” he said, “what's going down? You suddenly sound very heavy. What's happening?”

“I'm just looking for him, that's all. It's nothing serious. There was a girl who wanted to talk with me, and she was going to see Tynebourne first, that's all.”

“A girl? Talk to
you?
What girl?”

“It doesn't matter,” I said. I didn't feel like going through a whole explanation every time. “The point is, I want to talk to him, and I want him to know I don't mean to cause any trouble for him, and I thought he might have decided to stay with a friend for a while. So I'm calling his friends.”

“Well, if I see him, I'll tell him to get in touch with you.”

“Thank you.”

“You want to give me your phone number?”

“All right.” I gave him my home number, and he said, “Where's that? In Queens?”

“Yes.”

“Give me the address, too, why don't you? In case he doesn't want to talk on the phone.”

I gave him the address. “I'm not sure when I'll be home.”

“Sure, man, that's okay. If I see him, I'll lay the message on him.”

“Thank you. By the way, do you know of any friend of Tynebourne's named George?”

“George? George who?”

“I don't know the last name. I think he might have lived in Canada for a while.”

“Doesn't ring a bell,” he said. “Maybe a student of his over at City.”

“That's a possibility.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” I said. “That's all.”

“Okay. Later, man.”

“So long.”

The next was Edna Fuller, with an address in Brooklyn. I let it ring a dozen times, but there was no answer. I found scratch paper and pen on the desk, and wrote Edna Fuller's name and address down on it.

I was becoming sleepy. There was something about sitting here in this quiet empty apartment, after my all-night vigil at the museum—despite the two-hour nap—that was soporific, that was making my eyelids heavy and my mind sluggish. I turned to the next name in Tynebourne's address book—William Goldberg, on East 17th Street in Manhattan—but before dialing the number I pushed away from the desk, got to my feet, and went out to the kitchen in search of coffee.

There was a jar of instant coffee on top of the refrigerator. I made a cup, my movements slow and uncoordinated, and carried it back to the desk with me. The aroma helped a little, and while waiting for the coffee to cool sufficiently to be drinkable I called William Goldberg.

I got a woman's voice. I asked for William Goldberg, and she said, “Oh, he's on the Coast right now. He won't be back for another two weeks.”

“I'm looking for a friend of his, mainly,” I said. “Dan Tynebourne. Do you know him?”

“No, I'm subletting here. I don't know many of Bill's friends.”

I said, “Well, just in case he should show up there or call, would you pass a message on for me?”

“I told you, he'll be in L.A. for two more weeks.”

“No, I don't mean Goldberg, I mean Dan Tynebourne.”

“Why would he come here?”

I thought it possible that Tynebourne
was
there. If he was with a friend, the friend would naturally deny it. All I could hope for was that my message would be transmitted, and that Tynebourne would believe it. I said, “It's just a chance he might show up there. If he does, would you tell him Mitch Tobin called? Would you tell him I'm anxious to get in touch with him?”

“Listen,” she said. “You got me out of bed.”

“I'm sorry. I just want Dan Tynebourne to know it's safe for him to—”

“I don't
know
any Dan Tynebourne,” she said. “And I don't know you, and there's no point leaving any messages. I'm sorry, but I'm just subletting here, and I don't want to talk any more.”

Which made the second time I'd been hung up on.

I tried the coffee, and it was still too hot, but I drank some anyway. And reached for the phone to make another call.

Linda Jenkins, with an address in the Bronx. I got her mother, who said Linda had already left for her job at the bank. When I mentioned Dan Tynebourne, she said, “Oh, that was over long ago.”

“Linda isn't a current friend of Dan's?”

“Not for a year or more. Linda has a very nice young man now.”

I wondered what the mother had opposed in Tynebourne; his rudeness, perhaps. On a sudden hunch, I said, “Would a friend of Linda's have been in the Peace Corps recently? In Guatemala?”

“Guatemala? Linda doesn't know anybody like that.”

“Are you sure? Maybe some old school chum.”

“I know Linda's friends,” she said, with such assurance that I felt I had to believe her. So much for that hunch.

But it did divert me for the moment from Tynebourne's address book. If the girl had wanted to talk things over with Tynebourne, the implication was that he must also know the person named George, who might be our John Doe. A photograph of the John Doe, touched up by a police artist to make it look more human, had been circulated among the people connected with the museum, and Tynebourne along with everyone else had claimed not to recognize it, but he might have been lying.

Was Tynebourne the forger?

I suddenly felt very, very stupid. If I hadn't been so tired, and if there hadn't been the distraction of Willie Vigevano—But that didn't matter. The point was, if the girl had wanted to talk to Tynebourne about George, Tynebourne had to know George. If George was the John Doe, Tynebourne had to have lied about not recognizing the photograph that had been passed around. If Tynebourne had lied, he must have had a reason, and what better reason than self-protection? What better reason than that he himself had been George's partner in the forgeries?