He put the razor blade down and dipped a cotton swab in some purplish liquid, painted the cut places. Then he dipped a finger in a jar of white vaseline and smeared that over. He dropped the fish in a small tank off to one side of the room. The fish swam around peacefully, quite content.
The gaunt man wiped his hands, sat down at the edge of a bench and stared at me with lifeless eyes. He had been goodlooking once, a long time ago.
«You interested in fish?» he asked. His voice had the quiet careful murmur of the cell block and the exercise yard.
I shook my head. «Not particularly. That was just an excuse. I came a long way to see you, Mister Sype.»
He moistened his lips and went on staring at me. When his voice came again it was tired and soft.
«Wallace is the name, mister.»
I puffed a smoke ring and poked my finger through it. «For my job it’s got to be Sype.»
He leaned forward and dropped his hands between his spread bony knees, clasped them together. Big gnarled hands that had done a lot of hard work in their time. His head tipped up at me and his dead eyes were cold under the shaggy brows. But his voice stayed soft.
«Haven’t seen a dick in a year. To talk to. What’s your lay?»
«Guess,» I said.
His voice got still softer. «Listen, dick. I’ve got a nice home here, quiet. Nobody bothers me any more. Nobody’s got a right to. I got a pardon straight from the White House. I’ve got the fish to play with and a man gets fond of anything he takes care of. I don’t owe the world a nickel. I paid up. My wife’s got enough dough for us to live on. All I want is to be let alone, dick.» He stopped talking, shook his head once. «You can’t burn me up — not any more.»
I didn’t say anything. I smiled a little and watched him.
«Nobody can touch me,» he said. «I got a pardon straight from the President’s study. I just want to be let alone.»
I shook my head and kept on smiling at him. «That’s the one thing you can never have — until you give in.»
«Listen,» he said softly. «You may be new on this case. It’s kind of fresh to you. You want to make a rep for yourself. But me, I’ve had almost twenty years of it, and so have a lot of other people, some of ’em pretty smart people too. They know I don’t have nothing that don’t belong to me. Never did have. Somebody else got it.»
«The mail clerk,» I said. «Sure.»
«Listen,» he said, still softly. «I did my time. I know all the angles. I know they ain’t going to stop wondering — long as anybody’s alive that remembers. I know they’re going to send some punk out once in a while to kind of stir it up. That’s okey. No hard feelings. Now what do I do to get you to go home again?»
I shook my head and stared past his shoulder at the fish drifting in their big silent tanks. I felt tired. The quiet of the house made ghosts in my brain, ghosts of a lot of years ago. A train pounding through the darkness, a stick-up hidden in a mail car, a gun flash, a dead clerk on the floor, a silent drop off at some water tank, a man who had kept a secret for nineteen years — almost kept it.
«You made one mistake,» I said slowly. «Remember a fellow named Peeler Mardo?»
He lifted his head. I could see him searching in his memory. The name didn’t seem to mean anything to him.
«A fellow you knew in Leavenworth,» I said. «A little runt that was in there for splitting fwenty-dollar bills and putting phony backs on them.»
«Yeah,» he said. «I remember.»
«You told him you had the pearls,» I said.
I could see he didn’t believe me. «I must have been kidding him,» he said slowly, emptily.
«Maybe. But here’s the point. He didn’t think so. He was up in this country a while ago with a pal, a guy who called himself Sunset. They saw you somewhere and Peeler recognized you. He got to thinking how he could make himself some jack. But he was a coke hound and he talked in his sleep. A girl got wise and then another girl and a shyster. Peeler got his feet burned and he’s dead.»
Sype stared at me unblinkingly. The lines at the corners of his mouth deepened.
I waved my cigarette and went On: «We don’t know how much he told, but the shyster and a girl are in Olympia. Sunset’s in Olympia, only he’s dead. They killed him. I wouldn’t know if they know where you are or not. But they will sometime, or others like them. You can wear the cops down, if they can’t find the pearls and you don’t try to sell them. You can wear the insurance company down and even the postal men.»
Sype didn’t move a muscle. His big knotty hands clenched between his knees didn’t move. His dead eyes just stared.
«But you can’t wear the chiselers down,» I said. «They’ll never lay off. There’ll always be a couple or three with time enough and money enough and meanness enough to bear down. They’ll find out what they want to know some way. They’ll snatch your wife or take you out in the woods and give you the works. And you’ll have to come through… Now I’ve got a decent, square proposition.»
«Which bunch are you?» Sype asked suddenly. «I thought you smelled of dick, but I ain’t so sure now.»
«Insurance,» I said. «Here’s the deal. Twenty-five grand reward in all. Five grand to the girl that passed me the info. She got it on the square and she’s entitled to that cut. Ten grand to me. I’ve done all the work and looked into all the guns. Ten grand to you, through me. You couldn’t get a nickel direct. Is there anything in it? How does it look?»
«It looks fine,» he said gently. «Except for one thing, I don’t have no pearls, dick.»
I scowled at him. That was my wad. I didn’t have any more. I straightened away from the wall and dropped a cigarette end on the wood floor, crushed it out. I turned to go.
He stood up and put a hand out. «Wait a minute,» he said gravely, «and I’ll prove it to you.»
He went across the floor in front of me and out of the room. I stared at the fish and chewed my lip. I heard the sound of a car engine somewhere, not very close. I heard a drawer open and shut, apparently in a nearby room.
Sype came back into the fish room. He had a shiny Colt .45 in his gaunt fist. It looked as long as a man’s forearm.
He pointed it at me and said: «I got pearls in this, six of them. Lead pearls. I can comb a fly’s whiskers at sixty yards. You ain’t no dick. Now get up and blow — and tell your redhot friends I’m ready to shoot their teeth out any day of the week and twice on Sunday.»
I didn’t move. There was a madness in the man’s dead eyes. I didn’t dare move.
«That’s grandstand stuff,» I said slowly. «I can prove I’m a dick. You’re an ex-con and it’s a felony just having that rod. Put it down and talk sense.»
The car I had heard seemed to be stopping outside the house. Brakes whined on drums. Feet clattered, up a walk, up steps. Sudden sharp voices, a caught exclamation.
Sype backed across the room until he was between the table and a big twenty- or thirty-gallon tank. He grinned at me, the wide clear grin of a fighter at bay.
«I see your friends kind of caught up with you,» he drawled. «Take your gat out and drop it on the floor while you still got time — and breath.»
I didn’t move. I looked at the wiry hair above his eyes. I looked into his eyes. I knew if I moved — even to do what he told me — he would shoot.
Steps came up the stairs. They were clogged, shuffling steps, with a hint of struggle in them.
Three people came into the room.
ELEVEN
Mrs. Sype came in first, stiff-legged, her eyes glazed, her arms bent rigidly at the elbows and the hands clawing straight forward at nothing, feeling for something that wasn’t there. There was a gun in her back, Carol Donovan’s small.32, held efficiently in Carol Donovan’s small ruthless hand.