The man beside him gave him a wan sort of smile back, and he said: “Does he? He sure does.”
Quinn waited for him to light the cigarette, but instead he aimed it toward Quinn’s own and ignited it from the tip of that. Quinn let him. He thought: This is the closest I’ve ever come to a murderer yet. Some of the other’s smoke-laden breath got in his face.
He spoke again. He said to Quinn: “Are you here for the same thing I am?”
“No,” Quinn said grimly. “Just the opposite, about. Just the reverse.”
He waited a moment. Then he said: “You ran out of cigars, I guess.”
The man said: “Yes, I did. I only had one left, and I used that up hours—” Then he got it. “How’d you know?” he said.
“I found it up at Graves’ place, chewed to ribbons,” Quinn said quietly.
The man just looked at him. It was beginning to sink in now.
Nothing more came, so Quinn spoke again. “Did the spirits of ammonia make you feel any better? The dose you had at the drugstore over on Madison near Seventieth?”
The man’s face was starting to go a funny color. The profile of his throat joggled a little. “How did you know?” he breathed.
“I found that too; on the directory, outside the phone-booths at the back.”
The cigarette Quinn had given him fell to the floor. He hadn’t wanted to discard it, his mouth got too loose to hold it, and it fell out before he could catch it.
Quinn kept looking at him, looking at him, and he kept looking back.
Quinn said: “Does it hurt you very much? There where you’re holding it?” And he ran his bent knuckle past the up-ended reveres without actually touching them.
“Did you lose a lot of blood?” he said. Then he took the man’s hand and disengaged it forcibly, but still trying not to jar it too much, trying to be gentle about it.
The coat peeled open and there was nothing, just blank whiteness, unbroken whiteness all the way down to his belt.
Quinn sat back with a jolt on the bench.
The man said: “I haven’t any undershirt on. I came out this way, with my coat on my bare back.”
He tightened it up again, with a gesture that must have become almost second-nature by now.
Quinn leaned forward again. “So he didn’t get you,” he said. “I thought he did. Then where was the blood from?”
“From my nose. Any time I get excited it does that. All night off and on, it’s been—”
“That’s a bad combination,” Quinn said. “A killer with a chronic nosebleed. That puts a strike on you.”
The man’s jaw hung slack. “What?” he said idiotically, as though he hadn’t heard him right.
“You know you killed him, don’t you? You know you left him up there dead behind you? You know that, don’t you?”
The man tried to get up off the bench. Quinn put his hand lightly on his shoulder, and then bore down a little. “No, stay here,” he said with deceptive unconcern, “don’t try to get up right away. Stay where you are a while.”
The whole lower part of the man’s face was dancing now.
“Graves, I’m talking about,” Quinn said. “Where you chewed the cigar to ribbons, remember? Seventieth Street.”
“Sixty-ninth,” the man quavered. “And he said his name was — I don’t remember what it is now myself. But it wasn’t Graves. He has the flat under me, and I only went down there and smoked a cigar with him for ten minutes because I was too nervous to stay by myself— If somebody killed him, it happened after I left there.”
The man’s face was stunned. It was like slow ripples spreading outward over it, and freezing as they went. He said, “I don’t like the way you’re talking. I’m going to get away from you.”
“You’re wrong about one of those two things,” Quinn said stonily. “You bet you don’t like the way I’m talking, but you’re not going to get away from me.”
This time the man got up off the bench, taking Quinn’s hand on his shoulder along with him. He tried to get rid of that, so Quinn came up after it, and put the other one on him, got a good tight hold on him with that.
“Get out of here, now,” the man kept panting hysterically. “Get out of here.”
They started to thresh around and stagger to and fro in a locked embrace. They hit the edge of the bench, and it squealed and jumped a little along the floor.
“It was you, wasn’t it,” Quinn said through his clenched teeth. “It was you, wasn’t it. Graves — Seventieth Street — I’ll get it out of you if I have to—”
“Haven’t I been through enough for one night— Look, see what you did? It’s starting in again, after I had it quieted down—”
A thin line of red started to edge down from under one nostril. The man wrenched one arm free, clawed at his pocket, brought out another fistful of paper tissue. He slapped it violently against his own face. Then he removed it again, looked at it. The sight of the red on it seemed to enrage him; he stopped being just passively resistant in Quinn’s grasp. He swung out at him violently, missed, followed it up with another panicky punch.
The door opened suddenly and a nurse stood glaring out at them. “Here! What’s going on out here?” she said sharply. “Stop it! What’s the matter with you two?”
They both became reluctantly quiescent, still hanging onto one another and breathing laboredly.
She gave them a black look of reproof. “The idea. I never heard of such a thing. Which one of you is Mr. Carter?”
“I am,” the bedraggled individual in Quinn’s grasp heaved. The red line had reached his chin now; a second one was beginning to venture downward parallel to it. His coat had been wrenched open by Quinn’s continuing hold on it. His thin, unclad stomach was going up and down like a bellows.
“I’ve got some news for you. Don’t you want to hear it?” she said disapprovingly.
“What is it?” he quailed.
“You’ve got a son.”
She turned quickly to Quinn. “You better hold that man up a minute. I think he’s going to faint. These prospective fathers give us more trouble than the mothers and the babies do put together.”
Chapter 7
“Where to, lady?” He swung the door open.
She closed the door again, remained outside. “I wonder if you can help me. Have you been on this corner all night?”
“From twelve, off and on. I come on at twelve every night. I haven’t been here steady, but this is my reg’lar stand. I start out from here and come back to it again each time.”
“Did you have a woman fare, by herself, from this corner anytime after twelve tonight?”
“Yeah, I did have one. A couple hours ago.” Then he asked, “What are ya trying, to find someone?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Well, if you tell me what she looked like, maybe I can help you.”
“I can’t tell you what she looked like.”
He shrugged, hitched the edges of his hands up off the wheel-rim, then back again. “Then how am I gonna help you, lady?” he demanded not unreasonably. He waited a moment. “Well, is it something serious? Why don’t you try the cops?”
“No, it’s nothing serious. Just a personal matter.” She thought a moment. “Look, when they pay you off, do you notice it pretty closely?”
He smiled cheerlessly. “When they pay me off, that’s all I do notice, mostly. Just how much, and just how much over.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean— You remember where you took her.”
“I remember where I took her.”
“And you remember what she paid you.”
“I remember what she paid me.”
“But when she did pay you, do you remember— Look, I’m her now, a minute. Just watch me like you did her. Did she pay you like this—?” She handed him an imaginary sum through the cab-opening with her right hand. “Or did she pay you like this?” She handed him an imaginary sum with her left hand.