He was about twenty-five or — six, with a glossy Prince Valiant helmet of dark auburn hair. His hair was lighter on top, because of the sun, probably, but it had been expensively styled. His thick auburn eyebrows met in the middle, above his swollen nose, as he scowled. His long sideburns came down at a sharp point, narrowing to a quarter-inch width, and they curved across his cheeks to meet his mustache, which had been carved into a narrow, half-inch strip. As a consequence, his mustache, linked in a curve across both cheeks to his sideburns, resembled a fancy, cursive lower-case m. His dark blue eyes watered slightly. There was blood drying on his mustache, on his chin, and there was a thin Jackson Pollock drip down the front of his lemon-yellow poplin jumpsuit. His nose had stopped bleeding.
Jumpsuits, as leisure wear, have been around for several years, but it’s only been the last couple of years that men have worn them on the street, or away from home or the beach. There’s a reason. They are comfortable, and great to lounge around in — until you get a good profile look at yourself in the mirror. If you have any gut at all — even two inches more than you should have — a jumpsuit, which is basically a pair of fancied-up coveralls, makes you look like you’ve got a pot-gut. I’ve got a short-sleeved blue terry-cloth jumpsuit I wear around the pool once in a while, but I would never wear it away from the apartment house. When I was on the force and weighed about 175, I could have worn it around town, but since I’ve been doing desk work at National, I’ve picked up more than twenty pounds. My waistline has gone from a thirty-two to a thirty-six, and the jumpsuit makes me look like I’ve got a paunch. It’s the way they are made.
But this guy in the yellow jumpsuit was slim, maybe 165, and he was close to six feet in height. The poplin jumpsuit was skin-tight, bespoken, probably, and then cut down even more, and he wore it without the usual matching belt at the waist. It had short sleeves, and his sinewy forearms were hairy. Thick reddish chest hair curled out of the top of the suit where he had pulled the zipper down for about eight inches. He wore zippered cordovan boots, and they were highly polished.
“What’s the girl’s name?” I said.
“How should I know?” he said. “I never seen her before.What’s the matter with her, anyway?”
“There’s nothing the matter with her,” Don said. “She’s dead, now, and you killed her!” Don started for him, but Hank grabbed Don by the arms, at the biceps, and gently pushed him back.
“Take it easy, Don,” Hank said. “Let Larry handle it.” When Don nodded, Hank released him.
“Step forward a pace,” I said, “and put your hands on top of your head.” The man shuffled forward, and put his hands on his head. “Here, Don,” I said, handing Don the pistol. “Cover me while I search him. If he tries anything, shoot him in the kneecap.”
“Sure, Larry,” Don said. His hand was steady as he aimed the .38 at the man’s kneecap.
“I’ll hold the pistol, Don,” Hank said, “if you want me to.”
Don shook his head, and Eddie grinned and winked at me as I went around behind the man in the jumpsuit to frisk him.
“Leave him alone, Hank,” I said. “Why don’t you fix us a drink?”
I tossed the man’s ostrich-skin wallet, handkerchief, and silver ballpoint pen onto the coffee table from behind. He didn’t have any weapons, and he had less than two dollars worth of change in his front pockets. He had a package of Iceberg cigarettes, with three cigarettes missing from the pack, and a gold Dunhill lighter.
At his waist, beneath the jumpsuit, I felt a leather belt. I came around in front of him, and caught the ring of the zipper. He jerked his hands down and grabbed my wrists. Don moved forward and jammed the muzzle of the gun against the man’s left knee. The man quickly let go of my wrists.
“For God’s sake, don’t shoot!” he said. He put his hands on top of his head again.
“It’s all right, Don,” I said.
Don moved back. I pulled down the zipper, well below his waist. He wasn’t wearing underwear, just the belt. It was a plain brown cowhide suit belt, about an inch and a half in width. I unbuckled it, jerked it loose from his body, and turned it over. It was a zippered money belt, the kind that is advertised in men’s magazines every month. If he had been wearing the belt with a pair of trousers, no one would have ever suspected that it was a money belt. I unzipped the compartment. There were eight one-hundred-dollar bills and two fifties tightly folded lengthwise inside the narrow space. I unfolded the bills, and counted them onto the coffee table.
“That ain’t my money!” the man in the yellow jumpsuit said.
“That’s right,” Eddie said, laughing. “Not anymore it isn’t.”
“I’m telling you, right now,” the man said, “that dough don’t belong to me. You take it, and you’re in trouble. Big trouble!”
I sat down at the coffee table, and went through his wallet. Eddie sat beside me in another straight-backed chair. Hank set Scotches over ice in front of us. He held an empty glass up for Don, and raised his eyebrows. Don shook his head, but didn’t take his eyes off the man in the yellow jumpsuit. Hank, with a fresh drink in his hand, leaned against the kitchenette archway, and stared at the man.
There were three gas credit cards in the billfold: Gulf, Exxon, and Standard Oil. The Gulf card was made out to A.H. Wexley, the Exxon to A. Franciscus, and the Standard card was in the name of L. Cohen. All three cards listed Miami Beach addresses. There was no other identification in the wallet. There was another eighty dollars in bills, plus a newspaper coupon that would entitle the man to a one-dollar discount on a bucket or a barrel of Colonel Sanders’s fried chicken. There was a parking stub for the Dupont Plaza Hotel garage, an ivory toothpick in a tiny leather case, and a key to a two-bit locker. Bus station? Airport? Any public place that has rental lockers. And that was all.
“I’ve never seen a man’s wallet this skimpy,” I said to Eddie.
“Me either,” Eddie said. “I can hardly fold mine, I got so much junk.”
“Which one is you?” I said, reading the gas credit cards again. “Cohen, Franciscus, or Wexley?”
“I don’t like to use the same gas all the time, man,” he said, then he giggled.
I got up and kicked him in the shin with the side of my foot. Because I was wearing tennis shoes, it didn’t hurt him half as much as he let on, but because he was surprised, he lost some of his poise.
“Look, you guys,” he said, “why don’t you just take the money and let me go. I haven’t done anything—”
“What’s the girl’s name?” I said.
“I don’t know her name. Honest.”
“What’s her name? She told us she was waiting for you, so there’s no point lying about it.”
“Her name’s Hildy.” He shrugged, yawned, and looked away from me.
“Hildy what?”
“I don’t know, man. She worked for me some, but I never knew her last name.”
“Doing what?” I said.
“She sold a little stuff for me now and then — at Bethune.”
“Mary Bethune Junior High?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you drop her off, earlier tonight, at the drive-in?”
“No. I was supposed to collect some dough from her there, that’s all.”
“Do you know how old she is?”
“She’s in the eighth grade, she said, but I never asked how old she was. That’s none of my business.”
“So you turned her on to drugs without even caring how old she was?” Hank said. “You’re the lowest son of a bitch I’ve ever met.”