127, 1946 CHAPTER ONE I phoned Redfern Motors from a drugstore on Flatbush Avenue. The boss answered. “I just dropped Mrs. Garrity off,” I told him. “She kept listening to the motor as if she knew which end of a car it was on and made me drive her three times around Prospect Park. Then she wondered if she really wanted a car after all.” “Hell with her,” Mr. Redfern said. “We've gotten customers for every car. Somebody was here a few minutes ago asking (questions about you.” “About me?” Over the wire I heard a chair scrape and then a deep sigh as Mr. Redfern settled his bulk into it. Mr. Redfern liked to talk and he liked to sit. “It was like this, Adam,” he said. “He asked were you in. I said no. He didn't ask when you'd be back, like you'd expect a man to if he asked for you in the first place. Fact is, I got the idea he was glad you weren't in so he could question me about you.” “What did he want to know?” “How long you'd worked for me and how long I knew you and things like that.
