Except he was not a detective. Snoopyfooting around after people’s whereabouts was not his line of work, and not about to be.
So why? Parker and Kifka and the others were all doing it, working away at this like it was a sensible job of some kind instead of craziness. Pete Rudd last night had made an excellent amount of sense, but the others all talked him out of it, and if the truth be known, Abe Clinger wasn’t in all that much of a hurry to kiss the money good-bye either. As he’d said last night, twenty thousand dollars is twenty thousand dollars.
So here he was, walking down a cold street with a gun in his pocket, playing detective like Lloyd Nolan in all the second features he used to show, looking for somebody to ask stupid questions, carrying a clipboard for a prop.
This was an apartment-house block, a long block used up on the right side by four massive shouldered brick apartment houses, the front all acne’d with air conditioners. The one Clinger wanted was third, with a fine old stone arch over the entrance, the building number carved into the keystone of the arch, the whole thing looking like an ad for Pennsylvania.
There was an elevator, slow, trembling, painted red inside. Clinger rode it to the seventh floor, found the door he wanted, and rang the bell. He was no longer self-conscious about giving the spiel, he’d already done it eight times in other doorways. This time, of course, was the first time with someone from the policeman’s list, but if there was one person he looked not a bit like, it was Parker, so what was to worry?
A young man in khaki trousers and a flannel shirt opened the door and stood like his skeleton was disjointed at the hip. He said, ‘Yeah? Something?’
Clinger held his clipboard and ballpoint pen very prominently in front of him. He said, ‘Are you the man of the house?’
‘Yeah?’
Apparently it wasn’t just a question, but also the answer, Clinger said, ‘If you have a minute, I represent Associated Polls. We’re running a little survey. This shouldn’t take up much of your time at all.’
‘You wouldn’t be selling nothing? Encyclopedias, nothing like that?’
‘Word of honor, I am not selling a thing. You have a television set?’
‘Sure.’
Sure. Everybody has a television set. Ask a man does he go to the movies, see what happens. But everybody has a television set, even beatniks. It offended Clinger, it made him feel like the butt of a joke to have to play the role of a television pollster, but Parker was right that this was the best way to handle it. In any case, he couldn’t think of any better way.
He said, ‘I could come in?’
‘Yeah, sure, what the hell.’
Clinger smiled his thanks and went on in.
From here on, it should be smooth sailing. The bit was, he would ask about television viewing habits, and in the course of it he’d find out whether the suspect was watching television this Tuesday night when Parker’s woman was killed. If the suspect was, then he wasn’t a suspect anymore. If he wasn’t, a few sly questions might find out what he was doing, or, if the suspect insisted on being vague about his movements Tuesday, then Clinger would so report to Kifka, and someone else would try a different lack.
In any case, Clinger’s part shouldn’t lake: more than five minute’s and was safe as house’s.
Except for the two bulky men who got to their feet as he walked into the living room, look their hands from their topcoat pockets, and began to walk toward him. One of them opened his mouth and said something to Clinger about showing his company identification.
Cops, Real cops.
The gun in Clinger’s pocket had never felt so heavy or so useless or so monstrous, like a boil on the back of the neck. Without the gun, at least it would be possible he could fast-talk himself out of this. Without the gun, at the very worst he could clam up and wait it out and eventually be given an opportunity to jump bail because they really didn’t have anything on him.
But with the gun, he was already breaking a law, concealed weapons; they had him as easy as pie.
Jail. He remembered it - gray and bleak and boring, impossible to survive in twice. No money, no soft furniture, no blonde.
He turned and ran, side stepping the man of the house, bursting through the doorway and into the hall again. Behind him, shouts and imprecations, thudding of heavy feet.
Running, he fumbled the gun out of his pocket, meaning to get rid of it somehow, somewhere. Down the elevator shaft, in the incinerator, out a window, just anywhere. If they didn’t catch him with the gun in his possession, actually in his possession, he still had a chance.
Behind him, the cops had already seen the gun in his waving hand and had misunderstood his purpose in holding it. They had their own guns out, and when they shouted to him to stop and to drop the gun and he did neither, they opened fire, the shots cracking out in the narrow hallway with a sound like mountains breaking.
Two bullets buzzed past Clinger’s head, and he kept running. The third thudded into his skull, hit him in the bald spot like it was a target, and he ran down.
The husk of Abe Clinger skidded to a stop along the hall floor.
Five
Little Bob Negli liked to drive, so he and Arnie bought a car with separately adjustable bucket seats. That way, Little Bob could sit far enough forward for his short legs to reach the controls, and Arnie could sit far enough back to be comfortable. Their life together was a lot of compromises and adjustments like that, and most of the time things ran smoothly.
Except for other people. If it had been just the two of them, no one else around at all, they’d never have had any trouble; they’d have worked everything out the way they worked out the seating arrangement in the car. But there were other people in the world, and now and again they caused trouble.
Like women. Sometimes Arnie got a hankering for a woman, and off he went to get one, and Little Bob had nothing to do but sit around and wait for Arnie to come back, with or without a dose. Arnie always chose the sloppiest, scabbiest, rottenest tramps in the world when he wanted a woman, so Little Bob always made Arnie go to a doctor for a checkup before letting him back.
And like men. Some men just irritated Little Bob, aggravated him like itching powder, and the first thing anybody knew he’d be starting a fight. With somebody like Parker, say, who’d kill you as quick as look at you. Arnie was always after Little Bob to watch his mouth, quit picking fights, quit acting like such a troublemaker.
So Little Bob was annoyed by the women Arnie picked to sleep with, and Arnie was annoyed by the men Little Bob picked to fight with, but these two gripes were just about the only problems in their life together. It struck them both as a small price to pay.
Little Bob now sat in the car parked by a fire hydrant, waiting for Arnie to come back from another interview. Little Bob himself was too chancy a character to be trusted, going around asking questions of strangers. He’d be in a brawl within an hour, and that usually meant bad trouble. Being so small, he figured it wasn’t up to him to fight fair. He kept a switchblade knife close to his left hand, and a .25 Beretta automatic close to his right.
That’s why Little Bob was doing just the driving and Arnie the questioning. Again it was a compromise that worked out fine for both of them. Little Bob liked to drive, and Arnie liked to talk with people.