"You know too much."
"I know I'm a Texas gal who likes a Texas man."
My grin was a little flat. "I'm a city boy, kid."
"An accident of birth. Everything else about you is Texas. Even a woman doesn't come first with you."
She stretched up on her toes, not far because she didn't have to go far, and kissed me lightly. "Sometimes Texas men do come back. That's why there are always more Texas men." She smiled.
"Don't forget to take those files in," I reminded her. Then there was nothing more to say.
I went back to the rain and the night, looking up just once to see her silhouetted against the window waving to me. She didn't see me, but I waved back to her. She would have liked it if she'd known what I was thinking.
On the way back I stopped off for a drink and a sandwich and tried to think it out. I wanted to be sure of what I was doing before I stuck my neck out. I spent an hour going over the whole thing, tying it into Toady Link and no matter how I looked at it the picture was complete.
At least I tried to tell myself that it was.
I said it over and over to myself the same way I told Pat, but I couldn't get it out of my mind that some place something didn't fit. It was only a little thing, but it's the little things that hold bigger things together. I sat there and told myself that it was Toady who drove the murder car and Toady who gave the orders to Arnold Basil because he couldn't afford to trust anybody else to do the job right. I told myself that it was Toady who engineered Hooker's death and tried to engineer mine.
Yet the more I told myself the more that little voice inside my head would laugh and poke its finger into some forgotten recess and try to jar loose one fact that would make me see what the picture was really like.
I gave up in disgust, paid my bill and walked out.
I walked right into trouble, too. Pat was slouched up against the wall outside my apartment with the friendliness gone completely from his face.
He didn't even give me a chance to say hello. He held out his hand with an abruptness I wasn't used to. "Let's have your gun, Mike."
I didn't argue with him. He packed it open, checked the chamber and the slide, then smelled the barrel.
"You already know when I shot it last," I said.
"I do?" It didn't sound like a question at all.
It started down low around my belly, that squeamish feeling when something is right there ready to pop in your face. "Quit being a jerk. What's the act for?"
He came away from the door frame with a scowl. "Goddamn it, Mike, play it straight if you have to play it at all!"
I said a couple of words.
"You've had it, Mike," he told me. He put it flat and simple as if I knew just what he meant.
"You could tell me about it."
"Look, Mike, I'm a cop. You were my friend and all that, but I'm not getting down on my knees to anybody. I did everything but threaten you to lay off and what happened? You did it your way anyhow. It doesn't go, feller. It's finished, washed up. I hated to see it happen, but it was just a matter of time. I thought you were smart enough to understand. I was wrong."
"That isn't telling me about it."
"Cut it, Mike. Toady's dead., He was shot with a .45," he said.
"And I'm tagged."
"That's right," Pat nodded. "You're tagged."
Chapter Eight
Sometimes you get mad and sometimes you don't. If there was any of that crazy anger in me it had all been drained out up there in Ellen's apartment. Now it's making sense, I thought. Now it's where it should be.
Pat dropped my gun in his pocket. "Let's go, Mike."
So I went as far as the front door and watched the rain wash through under the sill. Before Pat opened the door I said, "You're sure about this, aren't you?"
He was sure. Two minutes ago he had been as sure of it as the day he was born and now he wasn't sure of it at all. His mouth hardened into a gash that pushed his eyes halfway shut with some uncontrollable emotion until they seemed to focus on something right behind me.
I didn't want him to answer me before he knew. "I didn't kill him, Pat. I was hoping I would, but somebody beat me to it."
"The M.E. sets the time of death around four o'clock last night." His voice asked for an explanation.
I said, "You should have told me, Pat. I was real busy then. Real busy."
His hand came away from the door. "You mean you can prove it?"
"I mean just that."
"Mike... if you're lying..."
"I've never been that stupid. You ought to know that."
"I ought to know a lot of things. I ought to know where you were every minute of last night."
"You know how to find out."
"Show me."
I didn't like the way he was looking at me at all. Maybe I'm not so good at lying any more, and I was lying my head off. Last night I was busy as hell sleeping and there wasn't one single way I could prove it. If I tried to tell him the truth it would take a month to talk my way clear.
I said, "Come on," and headed for the phone in the lobby. I shoved a dime in the slot and dialed a number, hoping that I could put enough across with a few words to say what I wanted. He stood right there at my elbow ready to take the phone away as soon as I got my party and ask the question himself.
I couldn't mistake her voice. It was like seeing her again with the lava green of her dress flowing from her waist.
"This is Mike, Marsha. A policeman... wants to ask you something. Mind?"
That was as far as I could get. Pat had the phone while she was still trying to figure it out. He gave me a hard smile and turned to the phone. "Captain Chambers speaking. I understand you can account for Mr. Hammer's whereabouts last night. Is that correct?"
Her voice was music pouring out of the receiver. Pat glanced at me sharply, curiously, then muttered his thanks and hung up. He still didn't quite know what to make of it. "So you spent the night with the lady."
I said a beautiful thanks to Marsha under my breath. "That's not for publication, Pat."
"You better stop tomcatting around when Velda gets back, friend."
"It makes a good alibi."
"Yeah, I'd like to see the guy who'd sooner kill Toady than sleep with a chick like that. Okay, Mike, you got yourself an alibi. I have a screwy notion that I shouldn't believe it, but Link isn't Decker and if you're in this there'll be hell to pay and I'll find out about it soon enough."
I handed him a butt and flipped a light with my thumbnail.
"Can I hear about the deal or is it secret info like everything else?"
"There's not much to it. Somebody walked in and killed him."
"Just like that?"
"He was in bed asleep. He got it right through the head and whoever killed him went through the place like a cyclone. I'm going back there now if you want to come along."
"Blue boy there?"
"The D.A. doesn't know about it yet. He's out with the vice squad again," Pat said tiredly.
"You checked the bullet, didn't you?"
Pat squirmed a little. "I didn't wait for the report. I was so goddamned positive it was you that I came right over. Besides, you could have switched barrels if you felt like it. I've seen the extras you have."
"Thanks. I'm a real great guy."
"Quit rubbing it in."
"Who found the body?"
"As far as we know, the police were the first on the scene. A telegraph boy with a message for Toady saw the door open and went to shut it. Enough stuff was kicked around inside to give him the idea there was a robbery. He was sure of it when he rang the bell and nobody answered. He called the police and they found the body."
"Got any idea what they were looking for... or if they found it?"
Pat threw the butt at the floor. "No. Come on, take a look at it yourself. Maybe it'll make you feel better."
What was left of Toady wouldn't make anybody feel better. Death had taken the roundness from his body and made an oblong slab of it. He lay there on his back with his eyes closed and his mouth open, a huge, fat frog as unlovely dead as he was alive. Right in the center of his forehead was the hole. It was a purplish-black hole with scorched edges flecked by powder burns. Whoever held the gun held it mighty close. If there was a back to his head it was smashed into the pillow.