I put down my knife and fork and stared at her. I hadn’t been really worried about the things she’d been telling me. Innocent men, I’d been telling myself, aren’t framed by the cops on murder charges. Not if they’re willing to tell the truth down the line. They might give me a bad time, I thought, but they wouldn’t hold me long if I leveled with them. But if Billie had signed a statement, then telling them the truth was out. Billie was on the wrong side of the law already; they would take advantage of perjury to put her away, maybe for several years.
I said, “I’m sorry, Billie. I didn’t realize I’d have to involve you if I had to tell them the truth.”
“Eat, Howie. Eat all that grub. Don’t worry about me; I just mentioned it. You’re in worse trouble than I am. But I’m glad you’re talking straight; you sound really awake now. Now you go on eating and I’ll tell you what you’ve got to do.
“First, this milkman’s description. Height, weight and age fairly close but not exact on any, and anyway you can’t change that. But you got to change clothes, buy new ones, because Jesus, the guy got your clothes perfect. Blue denim shirt cut off above elbows, tan work pants, brown loafers. Now first thing when you leave here, buy different clothes, see?”
“All right,” I said. “How else did he describe me?”
“Well, he thought you had blond hair and it’s a little darker than that, not much. Said you needed a shave – you need one worse now – and said you looked like a Fifth Street bum, a wino maybe. That’s all, except he’s sure he could identify you if he ever saw you again. And that’s bad, Howie.”
“It is,” I said.
“Howie, do you want to blow town? I can lend you – well, I’m a little low right now and on account of Karas’ place being watched so close I won’t be able to pick up any extra money for a while, but I can lend you fifty if you want to blow town. Do you?”
“No, Billie,” I said. “I don’t want to blow town. Not unless you want to go with me.”
God, what had made me say that? What had I meant by it? What business had I taking Billie away from the district she knew, the place where she could make a living – if I couldn’t – putting her further in a jam for disappearing when she was more or less a witness in a murder case? And when I wanted to be back in Chicago, back working for my father and being respectable, within a few weeks anyway.
What had I meant? I couldn’t take Billie back with me, much as I liked – maybe loved – her. Billie the Kid as the wife of a respectable investment man? It wouldn’t work, for either of us. But if I hadn’t meant that, what the hell had I meant?
But Billie was shaking her head. “Howie, it wouldn’t work. Not for us, not right now. If you could quit drinking, straighten out. But I know – I know you can’t. It isn’t your fault and – oh, honey, let’s not talk about that now. Anyway, I’m glad you don’t want to lam because – well, because I am. But listen –”
“Yes, Billie?”
“You’ve got to change the way you look – just a little. Buy a different colored shirt, see? And different pants, shoes instead of loafers. Get a haircut – you need one anyway so get a short one. Then get a hotel room – off Fifth Street. Main is okay if you stay away from Fifth. And shave – you had a stubble when that milkman saw you. How much money you got left?”
“Seven,” I said. “But that ought to do it. I don’t need new clothes; I can swap with uncle.”
“You’ll need more than that. Here.” It was a twenty.
“Thanks, Billie. I owe you thirty.” Owe her thirty? Hell, how much did I owe Billie the Kid already, outside of money, things money can’t buy? I said, “And how’ll we get in touch with one another? You say I shouldn’t come to your place. Will you come to mine, tonight?”
“I – I guess they won’t be suspicious if I take a night off, Howie, as long as it wasn’t that first night. Right after the – after what happened to Mame. All right, Howie. You know a place called The Shoebox on Main up across from the court house?”
“I know where it is.”
“I’ll meet you there tonight at eight. And – and stay in your room, wherever you take one, till then. And – and try to stay sober, Howie.”
It shouldn’t be hard, I thought, to stay sober when you’re scared. And I was scared, now.
I stayed on Main Street, away from Fifth, and I did the things Billie had suggested. I bought a tan work shirt, and changed it right in the store where I bought it for the blue one I’d been wearing. I stopped in the barber school place for a fourbit haircut and, while I was at it, a two-bit shave. I had one idea Billie hadn’t thought of; I spent a buck on a used hat. I hadn’t been wearing one and a hat makes a man look different. At a shoe repair shop that handled used shoes I traded in my loafers and a dollar fifty for a pair of used shoes. I decided not to worry about the trousers; their color wasn’t distinctive.
I bought newspapers; I wanted to read for myself everything Billie had told me about the murder, and there might be other details she hadn’t mentioned. Some wine too, but just a pint to sip on. I was going to stay sober, but it would be a long boring day waiting for my eight o’clock date with Billie the Kid.
I registered double at a little walk-up hotel on Market Street around the corner from Main, less than a block from the place of my evening date. She’d be coming with me, of course, since we wouldn’t dare go to her place, and I didn’t want there to be even a chance of trouble in bringing her back with me. Not that trouble would be likely in a place like that but I didn’t want even the minor trouble of having to change the registration from single to double if the clerk saw us coming in, not for fifty cents difference in the price of the room.
I sipped at the wine slowly and read the papers. The Mirror gave it the best coverage, with pictures. A picture of Mame that must have been found in her room and that had been taken at least ten years ago – she looked to be in her late teens or early twenties – a flashlight shot of the interior of her room, but taken after her body had been removed, and an exterior of The Best Chance, where she’d worked. But, even from the Mirror, I didn’t learn anything Billie hadn’t told me, except Mame’s full name and just how and when the body had been discovered. The time had been 12:05, just about the time Billie was leaving from her room on the floor below. The owner of the building had dropped around, with tools, to fix a dripping faucet Mame (Miss Mamie Gaynor, 29) had complained about the day before. When he’d knocked long enough to decide she wasn’t home he’d let himself in with his duplicate key. The milkman’s story and the description he’d given of me was exactly as Billie had given them.
I paced up and down the little room, walked the worn and shabby carpet, wondering. Was there – short of the sheer accident of my running into that milkman – any danger of my being picked up just from that description? No, surely not. It was accurate as far as it went, but it was too vague, could fit too many men in this district, for anyone to think of me in connection with it. And now, with a change of clothes, a shave, wearing a hat outdoors, I doubted if the milkman would recognize me. I couldn’t remember his face; why would he remember mine? And there was no tie-in otherwise, except through Billie. Nobody but Billie knew that I’d even met Mame. The only two times I’d ever seen her had been in Billie’s place when she’d dropped in while I was there, once for only a few minutes, once for an hour or so. And one other time I’d been up to her room, that time to borrow cigarettes for Billie; it had been very late, after stores and bars were closed.