“Like a man 1 wouldn’t want to run into, in a dark alley at night.”
“Give me some color, Neff. Give me a size, a shape. How old was this dude?”
“I don’t know. Forty… maybe older. I wasn’t paying that much attention then. I know he was white, and big.”
“How big? Two hundred? Six feet? You tell me, Neff, I’m a lousy mind reader.”
“Yeah… big. Two hundred… at least that. Six feet… I don’t know. But heavy through here. God, he saw me watching him.”
“What did he do when he saw you watching him?”
“Turned his head away… like this… then went on by.”
“Did that strike you as suspicious?”
“Why should it? I didn’t know anybody’d been killed. I’m used to seeing weird characters around here; why should I think anything about it. Jesus, the guy looked straight at me. What am I gonna do?”
“Tell the cops what happened, just like you’re telling me.”
“Well, where the hell are they? And what if that guy comes back before they do?”
“I’m not telling you not to worry about it: somebody’s killed three book people in this town and maybe we all better worry a little. If I were you I’d leave the store closed today. Stay together. Go downtown and wait for Hennessey, then tell him what you told me. Could you describe this guy for a police artist?”
“Maybe… I’m not sure. I didn’t stare at him. When he looked away, so did I.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Black. Black slacks, black sport coat open at the neck, pale gray shirt…no tie. Jesus, he might’ve had the gun right there under his coat. He could’ve shot me.”
“Or he could’ve been some neighborhood bum who had nothing to do with it. I take it you’ve never seen him around here.”
“Never seen him anywhere. He didn’t look like a bum to me.”
“Did you watch him at all after he went on by?”
“No. I came… right back up front.”
I let out a long breath. “Okay, let me get a feel for the time frame. You say you went out on a buy and got back here when… about quarter to five?”
“It wasn’t much later than that. I didn’t look at the clock, but I’m sure I was here by five.”
“It was right at closing time, Dr. J,” Ruby said. “I remember I was thinking I’d be closing up in a minute, then Em came back.”
“Then it was closer to five than quarter to,” I said.
“I don’t know,” Neff said. “I thought it was earlier than that, but you may be right.”
“It was a few minutes before five,” Ruby said.
“What’d you drive?” I asked.
“My car, same’s I always drive. Same one’s out back.”
“And you came up Colfax, right past all the stores?”
“Yeah.”
“When you passed my place, did you happen to look in?”
“I gave it a glance, I always do. I like to see if there’s any business on the block. I look in all the stores when I come by.”
“Was the store open or closed?”
“I don’t remember, I didn’t look at the sign. There was nobody in the front, though, I do know that.”
“Did you look in at Harkness and Fix?”
“Yeah, sure. Fix was sitting in that chair by his window like he always does. Harkness was gone somewhere—he had that clock on the door that said, you know, be back at such-and-such a time. I didn’t notice what time it said. I need some water. This shit’s got me shook.”
I waited for him to come back. Then I started in again. “So you drove past the stores and pulled up here and unloaded the books. How long did that take?”
“No more’n a minute,” Ruby said. “There wasn’t all that much, quantity-wise. Just three boxes. Didn’t take but a second to bring it all in.”
I kept looking at Neff. “Then what did you do?”
“Like I told you, headed straight for the can. I thought I’d bust before I got back there.”
“How long were you on the pot?”
“No more than a minute. You know how it is when you’ve got the runs, it’s all water.”
“Then you opened the back door and saw the guy.”
He took a shivery breath, nodded, and let it out.
“So you were back there what… two minutes? And this would all have taken place by a few minutes after five? And you didn’t see the guy get in any car and drive away, either of you?”
“I didn’t see anything,” Ruby said.
Neff looked ill. We were all silent for a moment.
“I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Janeway, this thing’s made a mess of my nerves. I’m not gonna sleep till they catch this bastard.”
I gave him an encouraging little nod. “Tell me anything else that comes to you. Hair… scars…”
“I didn’t notice any scars. He had thick black hair with deep recesses. It went way back, made the front of his head look like a big letter M, but the hair was still real thick where it did grow. He had a face like a…turtle… just a flat line for a mouth. I can’t tell you about his eyes: he turned away before I got a look, and I probably wouldn’t remember anyway.”
“And he didn’t say anything?”
“Hell no. The whole thing didn’t take more than a few seconds. But that was enough.”
“All right,” I said. “Stay away from here today. Get downtown and tell Hennessey what you’ve told me. Get the artist involved. Do the best you can.”
“Sure… you bet.”
“A couple more questions, then I’ve got to go,” I said. “I talked to Miss Pride in the middle of the day. Told her to call and tell you she’d be there alone at closing…” I looked searchingly at both faces.
Ruby shook his head. “She never called me.”
“No,” Neff said.
Damn you, Pinky, I thought. Next time do what I tell you.
I felt the shivers in my own spine, and hoped I wasn’t coming down with Neff’s flu.
“What about Peter?” I said. “I asked you before if you knew where he lived.”
“Didn’t know then, don’t know now,” Ruby said.
“What was Peter’s last name?”
“Uh, wait a minute… yeah, I know it, I just can’t call it. Hell, Em, help me out, you know what it is.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Come on, we’ve written enough hot checks to the old fart. I don’t mean that the way it sounds, Dr. J… don’t want to speak ill of the dead…I’m just… tryin‘ to…call the damn thing up for you and I can’t get a handle on it. Haven’t you ever written him a check?”
“I always paid him cash,” I said.
“Must be nice. It’s on the tip of my tongue, that’s how close it is. It’s Peter, uh… uh… God damn it! Peter, uh… I know the damn thing as well as I know my own.”
“Think about something else for a minute,” I said. I looked at three boxes of books stacked against the glass case. “Is this the stuff you bought yesterday?”
“Yeah. Damn lovely stuff it is, too. Go ahead, take a look.”
I peeked over the edge and saw a fine copy of Ellison’s Invisible Man. Under it was A Clockwork Orange, a beaut. Under that was a nice double stack, about fifteen books. The three boxes would hold forty, maybe fifty pieces.
“It was a hurry-up deal,” Ruby said. “Woman was going out of town, she calls us and needs the cash right now. I tell you, Samson, we had to scrounge to get it up. Fifteen hundred we had to pool, and two hours to do it. But we did it.”
I didn’t go through the box. For once I didn’t feel like looking at books.
I started to leave, stopped at the door and said:
“Hey, Rube! What’s Peter’s name?”
“Bonnema,” he said. “Two n‘s, and one m. Peter Bonnema. By God, Dr. J, that’s a good trick. That’s a damn good trick.”
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” I said, and left.