“No.”
I straightened away from the bar. “Then I’ll see you around, Fausta.”
She scurried around the bar and caught my coat-tail. “Not so quick, my one. Tomorrow night you come what time?”
I snapped my fingers. “Oh yes. Tomorrow night. How about eleven?”
“Manny Moon!” She stamped both small feet like a child preparing for a tantrum. “I know your one hour dates! You get me eleven, take me home midnight. You come eight o’clock.”
“Nine,” I temporized.
Her eyes snapped. “O. K. But you one minute late, I cut out your heart.”
It was 5:45 when a taxi let me out at 1418 Newberry. I rang the bell of apartment C, but nothing happened, so I pushed it again and kept my finger on it until I heard footsteps. The door abruptly jerked wide.
Although the man outweighed me, I had to look down to see his face. His head, like an upright pear, set the design for his body, which coned outward from narrow shoulders to thick hips and horseshoe legs. The last time I had seen a figure like his, it had been in a cage and I threw peanuts at it. He was in his undershirt and could have used on the top of his head some of the excess hair which matted his arms and shoulders. I guessed his age as forty-five.
“Amos Horne?” I asked.
“What you want?”
Putting one hand against his chest, I pushed him back into the room and kicked the door shut behind me.
“I’m Moon. Your wife sent me.”
His fists clenched, but he left them dangling at his sides. His eyes narrowed scornfully. “Where is the dumb tramp?”
I said: “Sit down and we’ll talk about things.”
“Listen, you got a lousy nerve busting in here and telling me to sit down. If you got a message from my wife, spill it and scram.”
I said: “Sit down.”
His face reddened and he started to raise one fist. I didn’t move, and when his hand got shoulder high the fist unclenched, his expression turned uncertain and he used the hand to scratch the fuzz over his ear. He sat down.
“What you want?” he asked.
I unfolded onto a sofa next to his chair. “I’m a private investigator, and I want some answers. You don’t have to give any, but if you don’t, I’ll put a bug in the ear of Inspector Day at Homicide, and then you will have to give answers.”
“Homicide! I ain’t killed nobody.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind questions. Where were you last night?”
“Wait a minute. What’s this all about?”
“About a murder. Louis Bagnell was killed last night. Don’t you read papers?”
He looked startled, then a wary expression grew in his eyes. “I ain’t seen the papers. I work nights and haven’t been out all day. What’s Bagnell got to do with me?”
“Nothing. Except he was playing your wife and you threatened to kill them both.”
His mouth opened in what could have been honest amazement. “Did that fool wife of mine say that?”
“She did.”
“To the cops?”
“Not yet. But she probably will if they ask her.”
He let out a sigh of relief. “Look, Mister... What you say your name was?”
“Moon.”
“Moon,” he repeated with a thoughtful frown. Then half-recognition dawned in his eyes. “Yeah. I’ve heard of you. Look, Moon, my wife is a moron. I never said I’d kill nobody.”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know. I was mad when I found out about her and Bagnell and just spouted off a lot of stuff. But I never said I’d kill nobody. It was something general, like you say when you’re mad. Like I’d beat both their brains in, or wring their necks or something. But, cripes, I didn’t mean I really would!”
I said: “Funny you use the term ‘wring their necks’. Did I tell you Bagnell was strangled?”
His jaw dropped. “I thought he was shot!”
“He was. Now tell me how you knew.”
His face changed from startlement to sullenness, then a begrudging grin spread across it. “Walked into that neat, didn’t I? It’s been on the radio all day. I figured I’d be smart and not know nothing. Guess I was too smart.”
“Let’s go back to my first question. Where were you last night?”
“I work from six-thirty to one-thirty in the morning.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I was at work.”
“Where’s that?”
“I run a bingo game at Eighth and Market.”
“Got a telephone here?”
He looked surprised. “Yeah. In the hall.”
“What’s the number of your bingo hall?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head back and forth, “Sorry. It’s a private listing. We don’t give it out to everybody.”
“I can just as easily phone Homicide and have them check.”
I let him think it over for a minute. He said: “Fairmont 2103.”
I found the phone in the hall, dialed the number, and after a long time a male voice answered.
“Amos Horne there?” I asked.
“Naw. We ain’t open yet.”
“This is a friend of his. When’s the best time to catch him?”
“He gets here about six-thirty.”
“That’s too early. How late’s he stay?”
“Till closing. One-thirty.”
“He wasn’t there last night,” I objected. “I was in about eight.”
The voice on the other end grew impatient. “He went out for a while last night. He’ll be here tonight.”
I said, “Thanks,” and hung up.
When I returned to the living room, the begrudging grin was back on Horne’s face.
“All right,” he said. “I was gone from the hall from seven to nine. Does that prove I bumped Bagnell?”
“It might. What’s your story?”
“I was just riding around. Couldn’t keep my mind on business for thinking about Gloria, so I put one of the guys in charge and took a drive.”
“Where?”
“Just around.”
“For two whole hours?”
“Yeah.”
“Go near El Patio?”
His mouth quirked insolently. “Yeah. Drove out the highway right past it. Didn’t stop.”
“Stop here?”
His eyebrows were built straight across his forehead, undivided, like a hairy rope. Now one raised, forming a startling broken stair design.
“Why should I stop here?” he asked.
“To see if Gloria were home. Did you?”
“Suppose I did? So what?”
“So you did.” I rose. “Get your shirt on.”
He rose also. “Now wait a minute. You’re no cop. You got no right to arrest me.”
“Relax. I’m not arresting you. Get your shirt on.”
He watched my face undecidedly, scratched his ear fuzz again, then went into the bedroom. In a few minutes he came out fully dressed.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Where do you keep your car?”
“Garage in back.”
“Let’s go.”
I followed him down some back stairs and across the rear yard to the alley. Lifting the center of three identical sliding doors, he exposed a 1938 Ford coach. Without stirring from the alley, I could see his tires were new synthetics and treaded with a V-thread.
“Got any other cars?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I ain’t a millionaire.”
“O. K. You can close it again.”
His left eyebrow made its queer twisting jump again. For a moment he looked at me curiously, then reached up, caught the door’s bottom edge and slammed it against the concrete floor.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“I just like to look at cars. It’s a fetish. What shall I tell your wife?”
“Tell the blamed fool to come home.”
“And get her ears knocked down?”
“Aw, I wouldn’t slam her.”
“I’ll tell her,” I said. “And I’ll see you around.”