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once—before Peter, I mean—and that it ended very badly.’’
    ‘‘Now, that I didn’t know.’’
    I relayed the meager information my client had given me, and when I was through, Fielding said, ‘‘Looks like we’ve got another suspect, doesn’t it? Or we will once we can pin a name on this guy.’’
    I left Tim that day feeling somewhat gratified. While I’d been on the receiving end through most of our lunch, I’d finally been able to come up with a piece of information for him. Maybe it wasn’t all that much, but, as I learned a long time ago, it’s important to have something on the credit side of the ledger.
    Chapter 5
    From the coffee shop, I took a cab to Greenwich Village. Finding the Berkeley Theater was an adventure in itself. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that area, but it’s like a maze. It’s not unusual to find a street breaking off at an intersection and then turning up a few blocks north or south of where it was before. Compounding the problem was the fact that my young driver, who was Indian or Paki
    stani or some Middle Eastern nationality, spoke almost no English. I guess the really amazing thing is that we made it to the Village at all.
    We must have circled the same five or six blocks for fifteen minutes, with me instructing Ahmed (that’s what the license said) to stop and ask directions at least half a dozen times and him saying ‘‘Sure, lady,’’ every time and then tossing a quick, beatific smile over his shoulders as he con
    tinued to zip up and down the same damned streets. Fi
    nally, just as I’d more or less made up my mind to get out and see if I could find the place on foot, we stopped for a traffic light alongside another taxi.
    Well, it was worth a try.
    I rolled down my window, sticking my head out so far that most of the rest of me was hanging outside the cab, too. ‘‘Do you know where the Berkeley Theater is?’’ I yelled.
    The light was changing. And it’s a rare New York taxi driver who, sans passengers, will waste much time being helpful. ‘‘Two blocks mmft, ’’ he shouted before zooming off in a cloud of gas fumes. I wasn’t sure whether that last word was ‘‘up,’’ ‘‘down,’’ ‘‘north,’’ ‘‘south,’’ or what. But the finger he dangled out of the window had been pointing left when he said whatever it was he said.
    ‘‘Did you hear that?’’ I asked Ahmed.
    ‘‘Sure, lady,’’ he said, smiling. Just before turning right.
    MURDER CAN RUIN YOUR LOOKS
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    I told him to pull over. He gave me another of those beaming smiles of his, said, ‘‘Sure, lady’’ again, made one more turn, and—astonishingly—we were right in front of the Berkeley Theater.
    I paid the outrageous amount on the meter (and resented
    it like hell, expense account or no expense account). I even added what I thought was a generous tip—under the cir
    cumstances, that is. Just as I was leaving the cab, Smiley gave me one last, blinding smile. ‘‘It was a true pleasure driving you, lady,’’ he said in flawless English. ‘‘And please to have a lovely day.’’
    The Berkeley was a small theater—I don’t think there were more than a hundred seats—and rehearsal was in full swing when I got there. I spotted a man seated in the mid
    dle of about the tenth row, so I tiptoed down the aisle and entered the row behind him. I leaned over, tapped him on the shoulder, and very quietly explained who I was. He responded with a long, loud snore.
    ‘‘Hey, you shouldn’t be in here!’’ someone shouted at me from the stage, as everyone else up there stopped in their tracks and turned to stare. ‘‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’’
    Now, you might think that, being a P.I. for so long, I’d be used to getting thrown out of places by this time. Well, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable right about then. Nevertheless, I marched purposefully up to the stage and even