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he was at his townhouse and he sounded drunker than I was. He wanted to apologize to me , can you believe that? He wanted me to come downtown to talk to him, right then. So I took the subway downtown and walked over to his place on Charles Street.”
    “What time was that?”
    “I don’t know. Pretty late. Maybe one-thirty or two?”
    “What did you do when you got there?”
    “I let myself in the office door.”
    “How did you do that?”
    “I have a key. I had one made a long time ago. I don’t think my dad knew about it. He hasn’t changed the locks in, like, forever. I never went there but that night I did. So I go inside and I remember being a little disoriented. He had remodeled the place or something and I really wasn’t sure if I was in the right place or not. Of course, I was pretty drunk. Anyway, I went into the main office and saw that it was a mess. There was a bottle of booze spilled everywhere and a bunch of papers and stuff on the floor. I remember stepping on a piece of broken glass.”
    “Did you pick up the bottle of booze?”
    “I don’t remember. I might have. Yeah, I think I did. I probably took a drink.”
    “Then what?”
    “It’s hard to remember. I’m pretty sure that’s when I noticed all his gold records on the wall. For some reason I just lost my cool. I started picking up things from the desk and throwing them at the gold records. The frames shattered and everything. One fell down, I think. It made a lot of noise. I was just waiting for him to come downstairs and find me tearing up the place. I swear if he had, I probably would have killed him. He never did though.”
    Duncan fell silent for a moment. Berenger allowed him to pick it up at his own speed.
    “Then, I guess when I finished smashing the gold records, I heard the music,” Duncan said.
    “The music?”
    “It was coming from upstairs, in the living quarters. There’s a door at the back of the office that opens to the stairway leading to the rest of the house. And I heard this music coming through it, faintly, like he was playing a CD in one of the rooms upstairs. So I opened the door. I called up the stairs. I said something like, ‘Come down here, you bastard!’ No one answered me. So I started climbing the stairs. I let the music lead me. When I got halfway up I realized that something was wrong with the music. It was skipping, you know, like a record with a scratch? In fact, that’s what it was… he had put on an old 45 of one of his hits. And it was scratched.”
    Duncan turned away, a look of panic in his eyes. “It was awful. I got up to the third floor and went into the bedroom. And there he was. Hanging from the ceiling. I think I lost it and puked. I stumbled through the bedroom and went into the bathroom.”
    “The master bathroom?”
    “Yeah. I threw up there. I took some time to wash my face and stuff. Now I realize I left my goddamn fingerprints everywhere. I went back into the bedroom and looked at him again and I guess I just panicked. I really thought he’d killed himself and I might be the reason for it. I ran. I fucking ran down the stairs, through the office, and out to the street. I ran all the way to the subway and I took the train home.”
    “Do you remember seeing anyone else on the street? Someone that saw you?”
    Duncan shook his head. “No. Wait, a cab almost ran over me. I couldn’t see inside of it. I just kept running. That’s all I remember, I swear.”
    Berenger nodded. “Okay, Adrian. Now I’d like you tell me what was going on between you and the Jimmys.”
    Duncan glowered at Berenger and then turned his head to Patterson. The lawyer shrugged and said, “I told him you wouldn’t tell me about them. What was I supposed to do?”
    “What did the cops find in your apartment, Adrian? What’s going on? You gotta tell us,” Berenger said.
    Duncan tapped his foot in annoyance and finally said, “I’ve been working for them, all right? I had access to some… people…