“You were watching?”
“I was,” Alfred said equably. “I was looking at Mr. Capp, because I was wondering if maybe he wanted something to drink, see—”
Reardon frowned. Dondero looked up, getting into the act.
“If this Capp character didn’t want anything to drink, what was he doing in here? Don’t tell me he wanted to go to the john, or use the phone, not sitting at a table...”
“Oh, Mr. Capp? Well, he owns the joint, see—”
Dondero stared. “A guy with Capp’s scratch owns a crummy saloon like this one? You got to be joking.”
Alfred Sullivan brought himself up to his full height of five-three.
“Maybe there are things you don’t know about bars, huh, copper? You think those fancy-dan joints in the big hotels or over in the ritzy neighborhoods make dough? Half of them got their tongues hanging out. They got too big a nut, see? And they aren’t open the right hours, neither. A joint like this, no overhead, steady bunch of guys from the docks that don’t drink no drinks it takes a half hour to make — here’s where the dough is. And where the dough is, that’s where Mr. Capp puts his investments, see? He ain’t no dope. I mean...” He slowed down and stopped. His eyes strayed unconsciously to the corpse.
“So go on,” Reardon said quietly.
“Yeah, like I was saying: Mr. Capp, he comes in here every Wednesday around this time, more or less, just to check up, I guess. Sometimes he takes a drink, sometimes he don’t; I got some decent stuff under the bar. Sometimes he just sits and watches the action a bit, or checks the register — though that don’t mean nothing. He’s got a regular accountant keeps an eye on the dough part. Anyways,” Sullivan said flatly, “nobody never gypped Mr. Capp.” He stared down at the body as he said it, as if to prove both his honesty and his loyalty to the dead man.
“Maybe not, but I think he’d have preferred being gypped.” Reardon continued to watch the bartender. “What did he say?”
“Who, the character with the bush? I didn’t hear what he said.”
“How about Capp?”
“After he got stuck? He didn’t say nothing. He just took a dive. Oh — you mean what did he say to make this nut pull out a shiv and stick him? I ain’t got no idea. They was too much noise. I couldn’t hear what neither one of them said. They was a racket in here — from the television, from the guys at the bar—”
Reardon looked up at the television set, now turned off in deference to the dead man, but still keeping a milky, sightless eye on the proceedings from its Big Brother position on a pedestal in one corner; he turned and glanced at the three men waiting at the end of the bar. The three had been watching the doctor and Wilkins trying to rearrange the tableau of the death scene with almost morbid pleasure; if they were also listening to Reardon questioning the bartender, they were doing it without giving it much attention. In the silence that suddenly fell, however, they looked down the bar at the bartender and the police, their three heads turning together, as if mounted on a mutual swivel. One of the men was holding an empty glass and apparently had been holding it for some time; he seemed to become aware of it for the first time and placed it on the bar self-consciously, wiping his hands nervously on his trousers. All three looked as if they would have liked nothing better than to order another drink, but felt it would probably be denied in the circumstances. Reardon turned back to the waiting Alfred Sullivan.
“There were just these three men in here?”
“No, sir. They was at least half a dozen more, watching the TV and having a brew, but they beat it.” He shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is.”
“I know how it is.” Reardon knew only too well how it was. He gave the three men at the end of the bar his attention. “All right. How come you three stuck around?”
One of them looked at Reardon with more than a touch of defiance; he looked as if he had been waiting for just that question. He was a short man with wide shoulders and a cauliflower ear. His nose was almost as flat as Wilkins’, with a scar tissue lumped over his eyes, making him appear almost simian.
“I didn’ even know nothin’ happen’n’ until th’ cop is here an’ he says stick aroun’.” He sounded put upon, as if the whole affair was just one more unfair decision in a world made up of crooked managers, lying newspapermen and blind referees.
“Did you see the killing?”
“Me? I didn’ see nothin’.”
“I saw it, Lieutenant.” It was a thin man with spectacles held together with a piece of dirty adhesive tape, the one who had been holding his glass so long. He shoved his glasses up on his nose; a replacement for the adhesive tape would be required before long. “I was looking at the door, you see, no reason, and I saw this man come in. I was watching him, you see, no reason, and I saw him bump into the man at the table — him” — he pointed — “and I saw them saying something to each other, and then I saw him stab him. That’s all there was. A couple of words between them, and he sticks him with the knife.”
“What kind of knife was it? Switchblade?”
“I really don’t know. I know it wasn’t a banana knife, because I’ve used those on the docks, but they aren’t good for stabbing, anyway. What difference does it make?”
“I was only wondering,” Reardon said. “It had to be quite a blade to go through a jacket and a shirt and still penetrate enough to kill a man with one stroke.”
“I imagine you’re right,” the man said, thinking about it. He shrugged apologetically. “But I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”
Reardon looked around; nobody had anything further to offer on the knife. He returned to the man with the spectacles.
“And what did he look like?”
“Like what Al told the first policeman that was here, that sergeant from the patrol car. He was a middle-sized man with a beard and sunglasses, wearing one of those lumber jackets, you know. You see a lot of them down on the docks this kind of weather. I have one myself. Didn’t wear it today...” He trailed off and them came back to life. “Oh, yes; and he had on a cap.”
“With flaps,” the bartender added. He sounded as if he didn’t like being left out of interrogations in his own bar. “He had the flaps down, but not buttoned down, know what I mean? Loose, like.”
Dondero was taking it all down. Reardon went on.
“Was he fat or thin?”
There was a couple of moments silence before Alfred Sullivan answered. “Them lumberjacks, it’s hard to tell...”
“True,” said the man with spectacles philosophically.
“How about the sunglasses? What were they like?”
“Like?” Everyone fell silent again; then the little ex-pug spoke up for himself.
“Me? I didn’ even see the guy...”
There was a flash of light as Wilkins’ assistant finally started to take pictures. Alfred Sullivan finally answered Reardon’s question.
“They was regular sunglasses, is all. Dark, see. They wasn’t them real orange kind like soup plates you see nowadays, and they wasn’t like flying glasses neither, you know? They was like the kind you get in the five-and-dime, you know. Regular sunglasses. Cheap shades.”
Reardon gave up on the shades. “Tell me about the beard and mustache. What color was it?”
“Black.” The man in spectacles answered; Sullivan bobbed his tiny head in agreement. “Black, like black ink. Like it was dyed, you know? Or as if he might have used shoe polish on it. Some people do,” he added, almost defensively, as if his word might be doubted.