"Why did you use the name Kelley?"

"You think I'd use my own name? The Kelley business was Meg's idea, don't ask me why."

"Where did you take Favorite?"

"Times Square. It was New Year's Eve 1943. We dropped him off in the crowd, and he walked out of our lives. So we thought."

"Let's take that one again," I said. "You expect me to buy that after paying twenty-five grand for Favorite you lost him in a crowd?"

"That's the way it happened. I did it for my daughter. I always gave her what she wanted."

"And she wanted Favorite to disappear?"

Krusemark pulled on a terrycloth robe. "I think it's something they cooked up together before he went overseas. Some kind of hocus-pocus they were fooling around with at the time."

"You mean black magic?"

"Black, white, what difference does it make? Meg was always a funny kid. She played with tarot cards before she could read."

"What got her started?"

"I don't know. A superstitious governess; one of our European cooks. You never know what really goes on inside people's heads when you hire them."

"Did you know your daughter once ran a fortunetelling parlor at Coney Island?"

"Yes, I set her up in that, too. She was all I had, so I spoiled her."

"I found a mummified human hand in her apartment. Know about that?"

"The Hand of Glory. It's a charm supposed to open any lock. The right hand of a convicted murderer, cut off while his neck is still in the noose. Meg's has a pedigree. Came from some Welsh highwayman named Captain Silverheels condemned in 1786. She bought it in a Paris junk shop years ago."

"Just a souvenir of the Grand Tour, like the skull Favorite kept in his suitcase. They seem to have had similar tastes."

"Yeah. Favorite gave that skull to Meg the night before he shipped out. Everybody else gave their girl a class ring or a varsity sweater or something like that. He picks a skull."

"I thought Favorite and your daughter had broken things off by then."

"Officially, yes. Must have been some game they were playing."

"Why do you say that?" I flicked an inch-long ash onto the floor.

"Because nothing changed in their relationship."

Krusemark pressed a button next to the door. "Like a drink?"

"A little whisky would taste good."

"Scotch?"

"Bourbon, if you've got it. On the rocks. Did your daughter ever mention a woman named Evangeline Proudfoot?"

"Proudfoot? Can't place it. She might have."

"What about voodoo? Did she talk about voodoo?"

There was a single knock and the door swung open. "Yes, sir," asked the man in grey.

"Mr. Angel will have a glass of bourbon, ice only. Some brandy for me. Oh, and Benson?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Bring Mr. Angel an ashtray."

Benson nodded and closed the door behind him.

"He the butler?" I asked.

"Benson is my private secretary. That's a butler with brains." Krusemark mounted a mechanical bicycle and began methodically pedaling imaginary miles. "What were you saying about voodoo?"

"Johnny Favorite was mixed up in Harlem voodoo back in his skull-giving days. I wonder if your daughter ever mentioned it."

"Voodoo was one she missed," he said.

"Dr. Fowler told me Favorite was suffering from amnesia when you took him from the hospital. Did he recognize your daughter?"

"No, he didn't. He acted like a sleepwalker. Didn't say much. Just stared out the car window into the night."

"In other words, he treated you like strangers?"

Krusemark pedaled for all he was worth. "Meg wanted it that way. She insisted that we not call him Johnny and that nothing be said about their past relationship."

"Didn't that strike you as odd?"

"Everything Meg did was odd."

I heard the faint chiming of crystal outside the door an instant before Benson knocked. The butler with brains wheeled in a portable bar. He poured me a drink and a snifter of brandy for the boss and asked if there would be anything else.

"This is fine," Krusemark said, holding the tulip-shaped glass under his nose like a blossom. "Thank you very much, Benson."

Benson left. I spotted an ashtray next to the ice bucket and stubbed out my smoke.

"I once heard you tell your daughter to slip me a mickey. Said you picked up the art of persuasion in the Orient."

Krusemark gave me an odd look. "It's clean," he said.

"Persuade me." I handed him my glass. "Drink it yourself."

He took several healthy swallows and handed me back the drink. "It's too late for playing games. I need your help, Angel."

"Then play straight with me. Did your daughter ever see Favorite again after that New Year's Eve?"

"Never."

"You sure of that?"

"Of course I'm sure. Do you have reason to doubt it?"

"My business is doubting what other people tell me. How do you know she never saw him again?"

"We had no secrets. She wouldn't hide a thing like that."

"You don't seem to know women as well as you do the shipping business," I said.

"I know my own daughter. If she ever saw Favorite again, it was on the day he killed her."

I sipped my drink. "Nice and neat," I said. "A guy with total amnesia, doesn't even know his own name, wanders off into a New Year's mob fifteen years ago, vanishes without a trace, and then suddenly shows up out of the blue and starts killing people."

"Who else did he kill? Fowler?"

I smiled. "Dr. Fowler was a suicide."

"That's easy enough to arrange," he snorted.

"Is it? How would you go about arranging it, Mr. Krusemark?"

Krusemark fixed me with a steely buccaneer's stare. "Don't go putting words into my mouth, Angel. If I wanted Fowler knocked off, I would have had it done years ago."

"That I doubt. As long as he kept the lid on the Favorite business he was worth much more to you alive."

"It was Favorite I should have had put away, not Fowler," he growled. "Whose murder are you investigating anyway?"

"I'm not investigating anybody's murder," I said. "I'm looking for a man with amnesia."

"I hope to hell you find him."

"Did you tell the police about Johnny Favorite?"

Krusemark rubbed his blunt chin. "That was a tough one. I wanted to point them in the right direction without implicating myself."

"I'm sure you came up with a good story."

"I came up with a dandy. They asked if I knew what sort of characters Meg was romantically involved with. I gave them the names of a couple fellows I remembered hearing her mention, but I said the only really big romance in her life had been with Johnny Favorite. Naturally, they wanted to hear more about Johnny Favorite."

"Naturally," I said.

"So, I told them about their engagement and how weird he was and all that stuff. Stuff that never got into the papers back when he was a headliner."

"I'll bet you laid it on good and heavy."

"They were looking to buy; selling it was a snap."

"Where did you tell mem they could find Favorite?"

"I didn't. I said I hadn't seen him since the war. Said the last thing I'd heard was he'd been wounded. If they can't trace it from there, they ought to look for other work!"

"They'll trace it to Fowler," I said. "That's when their problems will start."

"Forget their problems. What about your problems? Where do you go from New Year's 1943?"

"No place." I finished my drink and set the glass on the bar. "I can't find him in the past. If he's here in the city, he'll surface again soon. Next time, I'll be waiting."

"Think I'm a target?" Krusemark slid off his Exercycle.

"What do you think?"

"I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."

"Might be a good idea if we kept in touch," I said. "My number's in the book if you need me." I wasn't about to hand my business card over to another potential corpse.

Krusemark clapped me on the shoulder and flashed his million-dollar smile. "You got more on the ball than New York's Finest, Angel." He walked me to the front door, exuding charm like a pig sweating blood. "You'll be hearing from me; you can count on that."

THIRTY-NINE.

Krusemark's dynamic-tension handshake stayed with me all the way to the street. "Cab, sir?" the doorman asked, touching his braid-crusted cap.

"No, thanks. I'll walk a few blocks." I needed to think, not discuss philosophy or the mayor or baseball with some cabbie.

Two men were waiting on the corner as I came out of the building. The short, stocky one wearing a blue rayon windbreaker and black chinos looked like a high school football coach. His companion was a kid in his twenties with a d.a. haircut and the wet, imploring eyes of a greeting-card Jesus. His two-button green sharkskin suit had pointed lapels and padded shoulders and seemed several sizes too large.

"Hey, buddy, got a minute?" the coach called, ambling toward me with his hands in his jacket pockets. "I got something to show you."

"Some other time," I said.

"Right now." The blunt muzzle of an automatic pointed up at me from out of the V in the coach's half-zippered windbreaker. Only the front sight was exposed. It was .22-caliber, which meant the guy was good, or thought he was.

"You're making a mistake," I said.

"No mistake. You're Harry Angel, right?" The automatic slid back out of sight into the windbreaker.

"Why ask if you already know?"

"There's a park across the street. Let's you and me take a walk over there where we can talk nice and private."