Shoot the Moon

Chapter Nine - Math Made Easy With Hinchman

I went home and changed to one of my older suits. If I was going to have to rough-house like this I didn't want to do it in my Armani. When I was dressed, I visited my safe deposit box for money. Then I took Mickey Dolan's diary to Hinchman.  

There's a chess club in a brown stone on Tenth street between Fifth Avenue and University Place. I went in and asked for Hinchman. The guy at the desk in the front hall wore thick glasses and was reading a book on the theory of relativity. It looked like the adult edition, the one without the pictures. He directed me and I found Hinchman in the corner playing chess with a computer.  

I walked up to him and he said, "Wait a minute." He punched a few keys and chessmen on the computer screen moved, white knight to check black king. The computer moved and Hinchman scratched his head. Then he punched a sequence and the board on the screen changed again. The computer answered immediately and Hinchman scratched for a while. Finally he punched three keys and the board disappeared.  

"I don't want to interrupt you, Hinchman." 

"I lost," he said. Hinchman looks like a defensive lineman. He does, however, wear a plastic pocket protector filled with pens.  

"What can I do for you, Murphy?"  

I handed him the notebook. He leafed through it.  

"It's a code. What is it for?" 

"A mathematician wrote it. Maybe he devised a code you can't break." Hinchman is competitive. "That's interesting, right?" 

"No. That would be irritating. So far I'd say it's a substitution code. That's usually what you use for personal papers. Just something to keep the casual snoop from reading your mind. You say he's a mathematician?" 

"That's right." 

"How would you know?" 

"I wouldn't, Hinchman. That's why I come to you." 

I handed him a couple of hundred dollar bills to sweeten his disposition. "Let me know as soon as you unscramble it." 

I kept the phone numbers for myself. 

***** 

That night when Echo called I kept her on the phone for an hour. Her voice calms me like a warm bath and a cold Manhattan straight up.