“If you know that,” I said, “then you’ve probably done a lot more homework. Why don’t you tell us what you know, so we won’t be repeating stuffy”
“It’s better this way. It’s a check on our own information.”
“And on us.”
“Why not? Memories aren’t flawless. Don’t have such a low boiling point. Your honor isn’t at stake any more,” Max said.
“So ask me something.”
Meyer interrupted. “Gentlemen!” he said. “Let’s all be friends. I think that what I will do at this point is relate the details of a visit by two men to Mr. McGee last Saturday, a visit by one man to Bonnie Brae on Thursday, the thirteenth, some phone calls I made yesterday morning, and a visit to Bonnie Brae which we made yesterday afternoon. But before I get into that narrative, I will first tell you what Gretel Howard told the two of us on the evening of Friday, December seventh. Knowing your area of interest and suspecting the extent of your training, I shall tell this in what may seem like infinite detail, adding my suspicions, inferences, and conjectures as I proceed. Will that be useful?”
The Green Ripper
‘~Very.”
“Before I begin, let me say that I am taking you two on faith. I am assuming your hats are white. Left to my own devices, I would not be so revelatory. But when my friend Travis threw the revolver onto the bed, he was exercising his right to have a hunch, and because I have seen how his hunches usually work, I am following it.”
I moved over to a more comfortable chair. Jake taped the extraordinary performance. Meyer re membered so much more than I did, I wondered if my brain was slowly turning to mush. He spoke in sentences, in paragraphs, in chapters. Marc scribbled a note to himself from time to time. Whenever I thought Meyer was going to leave something out, he came around to it in the next few minutes. When he was through he was slightly hoarse, and we took a break and ordered up a late room-service lunch. Jake intercepted the cart at the door, signed, and wheeled it in.
During lunch there were some obligatory comments about the weather, the price of hotel rooms, the Miami Dolphins’ season, and how much vitamin C you take to ward off the common cold.
After the cart was wheeled out again by Jake and the door closed, Max got up and paced, frowning, chucking his fist into his palm from time to time.
He went back to the desk and looked at his notes. “Give me her description of this Brother Ti tus again, please. As close to her words as you can make it.”
“I can make it exact,” Meyer said.
“How the hell can you do that?”
“Give me a couple of minutes,” Meyer said. He closed his eyes and began to breathe slowly and deeply. His eyelids fluttered. His mouth sagged partly open. I had seen him do it before. It was a form of autohypnosis, and he was projecting himself back to the evening of the seventh.
He lifted his head and opened his eyes. Jake inserted a fresh cassette and punched the tape on again. Meyer spoke in his own voice and diction. “Big, but not fat. Big-boned. About forty, maybe a little less. Kind of a round face, with all of his features sort of small and centered in the middle of all that face.” It made the backs of my hands tingle and the back of my neck crawl It was foretell word choice, phrasing, cadence, pauses. It was Gretel, speaking again through Meyer, telling us whom to look for.
“Wispy blond hair cut quite short. No visible eyebrows or eyelashes. Lots and lots of pits and craters in his cheeks, from terrible acne when he was young. Little mouth, little pale eyes, girlish little nose. He was wearing a khaki jacket over a white turtleneck. He was holding onto the side of the passenger door because of the rough ride. His hands are very big and… well, brutal-looking.”
The Green Ripper
He stopped and gave himself a little shake, and all three of them looked questioningly at me.