Morphy and Grip were back in the prowl car. The old man across the hall from Vesterhue had been a dead end.
Grip aped him in a geezer voice as they drove, “ ‘Many times he’s entertained ladies of the night. These here walls aren’t thick …’ ” Letting the phrase hang there the way the old-timer had.
Morphy grinned at this and responded, mimicking Grip but exaggerating his officious tone, “ ‘Sir, would you be able to identify any of these women if we showed you pictures?’ ”
Grip-as-geezer: “ ‘Son, you think I stand at my door peeping through my spy-hole all day?’ ”
Both laughed as they recalled the old man catching Morphy’s smile and kicking them both out of his apartment. Their laughter died down, and as they drove, Morphy eyed Grip’s brooding again.
“There a problem?”
Grip looked over at him. “No. No problem.”
Morphy spit out a disdainful laugh. They both knew there was some kind of problem.
“All right. Fuck. Look, you remember that weird skull that’s painted on the door at Crippen’s?”
“Skull with a top hat?”
“That’s the one. This morning, I open my door and there’s the same fucking thing. On my door.”
Morphy’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”
“ ‘Really?’ ” Grip said, mimicking the tone. “The fuck you think?”
“Front door of your building, isn’t it usually locked?”
“Yes. Always. And better yet, how the fuck does whoever it is know where I live? And why did they paint that goddamn thing on my door?”
“That’s strange.”
“That’s one word for it,” Grip said sullenly, thinking about his strange dream; about the man who might or might not have been in his room; about the symbols and murals in the Uhuru Community and that feeling he’d had trying to leave.