“That’s all right. I didn’t expect much from you anyhow. I just thought I’d try.”
“Try harder.”
“I’ve got nothing more to tell you.”
“Really? That’s hard to believe. You’re not exactly inexpensive, honey, and I’ll bet you have to earn your keep. What I mean is, you and S las surely get convivial on occasions. Even intimate. Men are likely to become indiscreet under such circumstances. They say things they wouldn’t ordinarily say. If Silas killed Regis because of you, I’d think he’d even have an urge to gloat. By innuendo, at least.”
She moved her head against the back of her chair in a lazy negative. “I’m a girl who knows the side of her bread the butter is on, and I earn my keep. You’re right there. But you’re wrong if you think Silas Lawler is the kind who gets confidential or careless. He’s a very reserved guy, and he protects his position. He tends to his own business, and most of his business nowadays is on the three floors of the building we just left. To be honest, he’s pretty damn dull. He works. He eats and sleeps and plays that damn piano, and once in a while he makes love. Once a month, for a few days, he goes to Amity.”
“Amity? Why does he go there?”
“I wouldn’t know. I guess he has interests.”
“Do you ever go with him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m never invited, thank God. Who wants to go to Amity?”
I took a deep breath and held it till it hurt and then released it.
“That’s right,” I said. “Who does? Incidentally there’s something else that nags me. It seems to me that you’re trying to ruin a good thing for yourself, and I don’t understand it. What happens to you and all this if Silas turns out to be a murderer?”
“Whatever it is, I’ll try to bear it. I may even celebrate. In the meanwhile, on the chance that I’m wrong about him, I may as well be comfortable.”
I stood up and looked down, and she stayed down and looked up. And because she was a shrewd and tough wench with looks and brains and queer attachments and flexible morals, I thought it would be pleasant and acceptable to kiss her once in return for the time she’d kissed me once, and that’s what I did, and it was. It was pleasant and acceptable. It even started being exciting. Just as her hands were reaching for me, I straightened and turned and walked to the door, and she came out of the chair after me. She put her arms around my waist from behind.
“It’s worth developing,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided.”
“Sorry,” I said. “My own mind isn’t made up yet. I’ll let you know.”
I loosened her hands and held them in mine against my belly. After a few seconds, I dropped them and opened the door and started out.
“You ugly bastard,” she said.
“Don’t call me,” I said. “I’ll call you.”
“Go to hell,” she said.
I got on out and closed the door softly and began wishing immediately that I hadn’t.
6
The next morning I checked a couple of morgues — the newspaper variety. I turned the brittle bones of old dailies and disturbed the rest of dead stories, but I learned nothing of significance regarding Constance Markley. She was there, all right, briefly and quietly interred in ink. No one had got excited. No one had smelled anything, apparently, that couldn’t eventually be fumigated in divorce court. I left the second morgue about noon and stopped on the way out of the building at the desk of a guy I knew. He was sitting hunched in a chair staring with bitter animosity at a silent typewriter, as if the typewriter were somehow an oppressor and an object of hatred. His name was Ludwig Anderson, and he was a good reporter as reporters go. He looked up at me sourly, brushing lank dun hair out of one eye with one hand, and I had the impression that I shared with the typewriter his repressed and sour hatred.
“Hello, Lud,” I said.
“Hello, Percy,” he said. “What’s the occasion?”
“I been down in the morgue,” I said. “I didn’t learn much of anything.”
He shrugged and made another pass at his intrusive hair. “What’s in a morgue? Old paper. Old mistakes. You working on something?”
“More or less. You remember Constance Markley?”
“Sure. Graham Markley’s third. She got tired of him and ran off with another man. They’ve been bedded down, now, a couple of years. I didn’t know you took divorce cases.”
“Nothing like that. I was just wondering who covered the story for your paper.”
“A frustrated chicken farmer. He’s bored sick by most of the odd balls and pretenders who make the news that people read, and most of all he’s bored by the antics of a prowling wife.”
“You?”
“That’s right.”
“You ever get any idea of where Constance Markley went?”
“No.” He shrugged again and looked as if he were on the verge of a sour belch. “Who cares? She was doing extra-marital business with Regis Lawler. That was established. She and Lawler ran off together. The implication was clear. Why make a case of it?”
“You satisfied there was nothing more to it?”
“I was satisfied at the time. Nothing’s happened to make me dissatisfied since. You know anything that might?”
“Not I. I’m just trying to earn a fee.”
His expression soured again, the belch, this time, erupting.
“God-damn ulcer,” he said.
Opening a drawer in his desk, he removed a quart thermos bottle and a paper cup that had seen much service. He poured milk from the thermos into the cup and drank the milk slowly. The sour animus that I had previously shared with the typewriter was now directed toward his ulcer and the milk and beyond the milk to a guilty cow. He seemed to have forgotten that I was there.
“Ulcers are hell,” I said.
“God-damn milk,” he said.
“I could never stand it,” I said. “I weaned early.”
“I hate all God-damn cows.” He capped the thermos bottle and put it in the drawer with the paper cup. “Fee for what?” he said.
“Didn’t I tell you? Trying to find out where she is.”
“Who wants to know?”
“A client.”
“What for?”
“Just assurance.”
“It’s two years old, Percy. Who’s getting anxious for assurance after two quiet years?”
“I told you. A client.”
“That won’t do. You come in here and stir up my ulcer with questions, but you don’t want to answer any. You ought to know better.”
“All right. The client’s name is Faith Salem. She’s got an interest in Graham Markley, and she wants to give it legal status.”
“Number four?”
“That’s the project.”
“Dames are nuts. Don’t they ever learn anything from each other?”
“This one learns from herself. She knows what she wants and what she doesn’t, but she’s willing to take some of the latter with a lot of the former. She’s realistic.”
“That’s one word for it, I guess. There are others. What’s on her mind that would make her hire a detective?”
“Nothing specific. She wants things clarified, that’s all. No complications. Did you know Constance Markley?”
“No. I never saw her. She did something that rated a few lines, and I wrote them. That’s all.”
“Did she have a reputation?”
“Everyone has a reputation of sorts.”
“You know what I mean. Any escapades? Any notoriety? Any proclivity for doing crazy things?”