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“This is a living person, Wells. Have some respect.”
    â€œThanks, Marty.”
    â€œFuck you.”
    I waved as I walked out through the door.
    Next, I went to see Gerard. He gave me an office and let me go through the file. I got a couple of possible witness names, a couple of cops’ names. After that, I went to Bagel Nosh and got a garlic with butter and a cup of coffee.
    It was past two when I got back to the city room. I started making phone calls again, trying to track down the witnesses. I actually caught up with one in Arizona, but she wasn’t talking. “I didn’t see nothing then,” she said, “and I didn’t see nothing now.” She hung up on me.
    After that, I called an attorney who used to be with the D.A.’s office. Then I started calling the cops.
    That was the worst of it. The cops. I know for a fact that a lot of them would love to see Watts crucified, but they don’t want to see an outsider like me drive the nails in. More than once that afternoon, the line went dead in my ear. When a cop did talk, the hostility crackled on the line like static. One old detective told me to take care of myself. He said it just before he hung up. He didn’t sound very pleasant when he said it. I wasn’t making any friends among New York’s finest. All the same, I kept calling.
    Around seven that evening, Emma Walsh came out of her office. She started walking around the city room. Hands behind her back. A proprietary look in her eye. She nodded at a couple of reporters. They nodded back and then buried their heads in their work. She wandered over toward me.
    I was eating dinner and reading over some clips from the morgue. I was tilted back in my chair, my feet on the file cabinet. I was tearing into a corned beef on rye and dripping mustard on the folder that lay open on my lap. There hadn’t been much in the paper fifteen years ago about E.J.’s disappearance. It seemed to have gotten lost in all the news about the Conti hit.
    â€œHow goes it?” Emma said. She glanced at my feet. I dropped them to the floor. I tossed the folder onto my desk.
    Emma sat on the file cabinet, while I swallowed some corned beef. “It’s good,” I said. “It’s perky.”
    â€œCareful.”
    â€œReally. I’ve never felt so … so vibrant about a story before.”
    She almost laughed. Almost. “Never mind that. Have you got it?”
    I wagged my head, ate some corned beef. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’ve got it. A lot of cops have heard the story, so it’s been around. One thug sort of gave me confirmation on the names. A lawyer who used to be with the D.A. is on record saying he suspected Watts at the time. I was going to run it by Rafferty, then call Watts for his no-comment. Then we can see where we stand.”
    â€œOkay.” She stood up. “You know, if you had a computer terminal, you could just push a button for that morgue stuff.”
    I smiled at her thinly. “Yes, ma’am.”
    I called Watts at his precinct. The desk said the lieutenant wouldn’t be in until tomorrow. His home number was unlisted, but I dug out my Rolodex and found him. I called him at home. A machine answered. Watts had gotten divorced after the drug scandal, I remembered. He lived alone. I left a message on the machine. I said it was urgent. Then I hung up and waited.
    The phone did not ring. An hour later, I made the calls again. I got the same answers. The bulldog deadline came and went. I called again, struck out again.
    I gathered with Rafferty and Emma at the city desk. Rafferty swiveled in his chair. I perched on the desk, smoking. Emma stood next to me.
    â€œDo we need him?” she asked.
    Rafferty’s bullet head tilted to one side. “We ought to give him a chance to respond before we accuse him of murder. We don’t want it to look like a vendetta.”
    â€œIt is a vendetta,” I told