He looked at me.
I said: «Dead end — quiet, restful, like your town. I like a town like this.» He went on looking at me.
«I’ll bet,» I said, «that a man that’s been around a town like this knows everybody in it and in the country near it.’’
He said: «How much you bet?»
I took a silver dollar out of my pocket. They still had a few up there. The old man looked it over, nodded, suddenly yanked the long hair out of his nose and held it up against the light.
«You’d lose,» he said.
I put the dollar down on my knee. «Know anybody around here that keeps a lot of goldfish?» I asked.
He stared at the dollar. The other old man near by was wearing overalls and shoes without any laces. He stared at the dollar. They both spat at the same instant. The first old man said: «Leetle deef.» He got up slowly and went over to a shack built of old boards of uneven lengths. He went into it, banged the door.
The second old man threw his axe down pettishly, spat in the direction of the closed door and went off among the stacks of cordwood.
The door of the shack opened, the man in the Mackinaw poked his head out of it.
«Sewer crabs is all,» he said, and slammed the door again.
I put my dollar in my pocket and went back up the hill. I figured it would take too long to learn their language.
Capitol Way ran north and south. A dull green streetcar shuttled past on the way to a place called Tumwater. In the distance I could see the government buildings. Northward the street passed two hotels and some stores and branched right and left. Right went to Tacoma and Seattle. Left went over a bridge and out to the Olympic Peninsula.
Beyond this right and left turn the street suddenly became old and shabby, with broken asphalt paving, a Chinese restaurant, a boarded-up movie house, a pawnbroker’s establishment. A sign jutting over the dirty sidewalk said «Smoke Shop,» and in small letters underneath, as if it hoped nobody was looking, «Pool.»
I went in past a rack of gaudy magazines and a cigar showcase that had flies inside it. There was a long wooden counter on the left, a few slot machines, a single pool table. Three kids fiddled with the slot machines and a tall thin man with a long nose and no chin played pool all by himself, with a dead cigar in his face.
I sat on a stool and a hard-eyed bald-headed man behind the counter got up from a chair, wiped his hands on a thick gray apron, showed me a gold tooth.
«A little rye,» I said. «Know anybody that keeps goldfish?»
«Yeah,» he said. «No.»
He poured something behind the counter and shoved a thick glass across.
«Two bits.»
I sniffed the stuff, wrinkled my nose. «Was it the rye the ’yeah’ was for?»
The bald-headed man held up a large bottle with a label that said something about: «Cream of Dixie Straight Rye Whiskey Guaranteed at Least Four Months Old.»
«Okey,» I said. «I see it just moved in.»
I poured some water in it and drank it. It tasted like a cholera culture. I put a quarter on the counter. The barman showed me a gold tooth on the other side of his face and took hold of the counter with two hard hands and pushed his chin at me.
«What was that crack?» he asked, almost gently.
«I just moved in,» I said. «I’m looking for some goldfish for the front window. Goldfish.»
The barman said very slowly: «Do I look like a guy would know a guy would have goldfish?» His face was a little white.
The long-nosed man who had been playing himself a round of pool racked his cue and strolled over to the counter beside me and threw a nickel on it.
«Draw me a Coke before you wet yourself,» he told the barman.
The barman pried himself loose from the counter with a good deal of effort. I looked down to see if his fingers had made any dents in the wood. He drew a Coke, stirred it with a swizzlestick, dumped it on the bar top, took a deep breath and let it out through his nose, grunted and went away towards a door marked «Toilet.»
The long-nosed man lifted his Coke and looked into the smeared mirror behind the bar. The left side of his mouth twitched briefly. A dim voice came from it, saying: «How’s Peeler?»
I pressed my thumb and forefinger together, put them to my nose, sniffed, shook my head sadly.
«Hitting it high, huh?»
«Yeah,» I said. «I didn’t catch the name.»
«Call me Sunset. l’m always movin’ west. Think he’ll stay clammed?»
«He’ll stay clammed,» I said.
«What’s your handle?»
«Dodge Willis, El Paso,» I said.
«Cot a room somewhere?»
«Hotel.»
He put his glass down empty. «Let’s dangle.»
SEVEN
We went up to my room and sat down and looked at each other over a couple of glasses of Scotch and ice water. Sunset studied me with his close-set expressionless eyes, a little at a time, but very thoroughly in the end, adding it all up.
I sipped my drink and waited. At last he said in his lipless «stir» voice: «How come Peeler didn’t come hisself?»
«For the same reason he didn’t stay when he was here.»
«Meaning which?»
«Figure it out for yourself,» I said.
He nodded, just as though I had said something with a meaning. Then: «What’s the top price?»
«Twenty-five grand.»
«Nuts.» Sunset was emphatic, even rude.
I leaned back and lit a cigarette, puffed smoke at the open window and watched the breeze pick it up and tear it to pieces.
«Listen,» Sunset complained. «I don’t know you from last Sunday’s sports section. You may be all to the silk. I just don’t know.»
«Why’d you brace me?» I asked.
«You had the word, didn’t you?»
This was where I took the dive. I grinned at him. «Yeah. Goldfish was the password. The Smoke Shop was the place.»
His lack of expression told me I was right. It was one of those breaks you dream of, but don’t handle right even in dreams.
«Well, what’s the next angle?» Sunset inquired, sucking a piece of ice out of his glass and chewing on it.
I laughed. «Okey, Sunset, l’m satisfied you’re cagey. We could go on like this for weeks. Let’s put our cards on the table. Where is the old guy?»
Sunset tightened his lips, moistened them, tightened them again. He set his glass down very slowly and his right hand hung lax on his thigh. I knew I had made a mistake, that Peeler knew where the old guy was, exactly. Therefore I should know.
Nothing in Sunset’s voice showed I had made a mistake. He said crossly: «You mean why don’t I put my cards on the table and you just sit back and look ’em over. Nix.»
«Then how do you like this?» I growled. «Peeler’s dead.»
One eyebrow twitched, and one corner of his mouth. His eyes got a little blanker than before, if possible. His voice rasped lightly, like a finger on dry leather.
«How come?»
«Competition you two didn’t know about.» I leaned back, smiled.
The gun made a soft metallic blue in the sunshine. I hardly saw where it came from. Then the muzzle was round and dark and empty looking at me.
«You’re kidding the wrong guy,» Sunset said lifelessly. «I ain’t no soft spot for chiselers to lie on.»
I folded my arms, taking care that my right hand was outside, in view.
«I would be — if I was kidding. I’m not. Peeler played with a girl and she milked him — up to a point. He didn’t tell her where to find the old fellow. So she and her top man went to see Peeler where he lived. They used a hot iron on his feet. He died of the shock.»
Sunset looked unimpressed. «I got a lot of room in my ears yet,» he said.