"I'll bet they do. How are things law-wise?"
"Booming. Simply booming. They've set up a sort of half assed police station in the Okefenokee Arcade and the usual interrogation of anybody and everybody is well underway. I get it they'd like for you to show up for a minute or two." Jerry grinned again.
"Just the facts, mam. Just the grisly routine facts."
Billie looked up at me.
"Should I go with you, Thax?"
"Uh-uh. Why get involved? Go get ready for your show." I turned back to Jerry.
"The law going to let us open?"
"Sure. Everything but the Swamp Ride. Lieutenant Ferris, the dick in charge, was set to hold us closed. But Madame Cee came along and changed his mind for him." Jerry didn't wink again.
I figured he meant May when he said Madame Cee. I looked at Billie. There was nothing else to say. Not with Jerry the kid with the ears standing there.
"I'll see you later, Thax," she said.
I liked the way she looked at me when she said it. I said, "Sure. See you." Then I watched her walk away and it was something to look at-the way she handled that stern action. Jerry thought so too.
"Yeah," he said softly, his eyes following her.
I gave him an easy one in the ribs.
"Mine," I said. He looked at me, ready to smile.
"Think so?"
"I hope so," I told him. "C'mon."
I liked this Lieutenant Ferris right off. He was an old-time dick. I don't mean he was a daddy graybeard. I mean he looked like those violent men who came out of Prohibition and the Depression-the ones with the iron-eyed faces that might have belonged on either side of the law but couldn't possibly belong to any other strata of society. He was about fifty. A tired fifty.
"Sit anywhere," he told me.
There wasn't anywhere to sit, which didn't bother him because he was a stroller. He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the floor and he strolled up and down while he talked. I pushed some cheap souvenir doodads to one side and parked myself on a counter.
"Name?"
"Thaxton."
He glanced at me. "Well, are you going to add to that or just let it sit there?"
"L. M. Thaxton."
"I'm still waiting."
"Leslie Thaxton for crysake."
He grinned. "You were right the first time." He dropped his grin with a bang. "How come you got into the act this morning?"
I told him about me and the tree house and about Freckles yelling down the roof.
"So you decided to be a big help and go in there and haul the stiff all over the Swamp Ride. Anybody ever mention to you you ain't supposed to touch anything till the law arrives?"
"The kid was pretty hysterical. I didn't know but what those gators were eating somebody alive."
"Not those gators. The bigshot, Lloyd Franks, tells me they're as safe as housepets."
"I didn't know that," I said. "I only walked on the lot yesterday."
Ferris strolled away from me, four paces and turn and four paces back, watching the floor.
"What was the kid doingout thereat that time of morning?"
"Part of his job, I suppose. Don't tell me you haven't questioned him yet?"
He took his eyes off the deck to give me an ironic look.
"You don't mind, do you, if we cross-examine his story?" Then he shrugged and took off on another short stroll.
"Yeah," he admitted, "the kid says it was his turn to show up early and try out the boats. Seems they do it every morning. That's one of the things that has me all ga-ga about this deal."
"What is?"
"Dumping Cochrane in there. I can't see any motive for it. He was killed by the shiv about two AM. He wouldn't be in there taking the Swamp Ride at that time of night, would he? No. So it follows he was killed somewhere else on this lot. So why haul the body in there? The gator wouldn't touch it, and the whole damn place ain't deep enough to hide a dead rat in."
"You mean the murderer must have known the body would be found right away in the Swamp Ride, so why not leave it where he had killed it?"
"Yeah. And here's another thing. How did he get it in there? You can't handle any of those swamp boats without power. And if the murderer had used one of them, somebody around here would have heard the motor." He turned and looked at me.
"You for instance. You were sleeping right over the boats."
"Never heard a thing," I told him. "Slept like a baby."
Except for that time I thought I dreamed Cheeta came home, I thought. What had that little monkey Orme been up to?
A tough-faced harnessbull clomped into the arcade and handed Ferris a shoebox and a few grumbled words I couldn't catch. It must not have been big news to Ferris because he didn't start doing handsprings over it. He grunted and said okay and the storm trooper gave me a dirty look and clomped away.
Ferris opened the shoebox and took out a knife that could only be the murder weapon and he studied it for a minute like he was reading a list of instructions on how to stab.
He strolled over to me to let me marvel at it too.
"Recognize it?" he asked.
"I would if it was sticking in Cochrane's chest again."
"I mean do you recognize this kind of knife?"
"Um. Knife-thrower's. Perfect balance."
"Know who owns this particular one?"
I grinned at him. "The law does now. Before that I couldn't say. Might be anybody."
"Yeah. And whoever the anybody was he wore gloves. No prints. Unless-" His eyes took a stroll over me-"you wiped 'em off before you brought the body back to the dock."
"Try again," I suggested. "This whole deal doesn't mean a damn to me. I just work here. I'm not trying to cover up for anybody."
He waggled the blade absently, wearing a bemused expression.
"Is there a knife-throwing act on this lot?"
I was glad he phrased it that way. I wouldn't have to lie to him-unless you call an omission a lie.
"Not that I know of. But then I just-"
"Yeah, I know. You told me. You just started here." He looked sour for a minute. Then he grunted and almost smiled.
"You picked a hell of a swell time, didn't you?"
There was something in what he said, but it was too vague right then to mean anything. The timing was almost too coincidental.
"Well," I said, "it doesn't really matter, does it?"
I slid off the counter and told Ferris I had to see a man about my job. He didn't seem to care. I think he had already lost interest in me. When he told me to stick around in case he needed me, it sounded like he was saying it out of habit. I hoped so. I wanted a wide gap between myself and the law.
"Good luck," I told him. That was from habit too.
"Yeah," he said. The word didn't carry much conviction.
When I looked back he was still standing alone in the arcade, staring stonily at the floor.
Gabby had a stand set up for me. It was next door to Bill Duffy's bally platform. That was nice. Just a couple of old carny buddies working side by side. We looked at each other and looked away.
A shelf had been rigged behind my stand and it contained a vivid white orchid display.
"What's that for?" I asked Gabby. "I haven't turned pansy since you saw me last."
"The boss don't allow cash for cash gambling," Gabby told me. "We let the marks win an orchid. You're just here for the atmosphere. Didn't Rob explain that to you?"
"Yeah. But it only costs the mark a quarter a try. That's some deal, twobits for an orchid."
"Naw. These here are what they call saprophytic orchids. Don't have much value except for botanical purposes. Big old swamp a couple miles from here and the damn things grow wild in there by the million. Rob hires a kid to collect 'em. They're a dime a dozen."
"Just like barkers," I said.
"How'sit?"
"Something Cochrane said to me last night."
A dull look came into Gabby's morose face.