Haig grunted. “There are other things in life beside sex,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “That’s the whole trouble. One of the things there is beside sex is coffee. At the moment I’ll settle for second best. Is there any?”
Haig picked up a little bell and rang it, and before the vibrations quit Wong entered with a couple of mugs full of hot black coffee. He’s extraordinary that way. You hardly ever have to tell him what it is you want.
In this case maybe it wasn’t all that extraordinary. It was six-thirty in the morning and I had been up all night, and while Haig had dozed on the couch waiting for me to turn up he hadn’t had anything you’d be likely to call real sleep. Of course we wanted coffee.
By the time I had finished my cup and rung for a refill, I had brought Haig up to date to the point where the cops walked in. I gave him everything reasonably verbatim and he took me back over various points until he was satisfied.
Then I went through my own interrogation. I had gotten off some good lines and I was careful to repeat them all, but since then I’ve reevaluated them, and while they were nice enough at the time, I don’t think I’m going to inflict them on you. I’m not really all that inclined to play smartass with New York’s Finest, but those two bring out the wiseacre in me and I have trouble controlling myself. To give you an example of the level of repartee, at one point Gregorio tried a trap question, asking me why I’d been jealous of the girl in the first place, and I said Haig had selected her to crossbreed with one of his fish in the hope that half the offspring would be mermaids and the other half would be Esther Williams. And that was one of my better lines, so now you know why you’ll never hear the others.
Haig perked up at that particular line, as a matter of fact. “Then they know about Miss Wolinski’s fish?”
“Yes, sir. They were going to find out she had fish, and even the police can add two and two. I told them l was at the club because I was friendly with Tulip, and I said the friendship had happened because Tulip had consulted you as a fellow aquarist about a problem connected with her hobby.”
“Which is not untrue,” Haig murmured.
“I know that. I don’t lie to the police unless I have to. Tulip overheard me say this, and she picked up the ball neatly enough. She said she doesn’t know how good a liar she is. If they grill her I guess she’ll find out.”
“And will they grill her?”
“Over and over again. She was Cherry’s roommate, she was a few yards away from her when she was murdered. They’d have to be crazy not to grill her.”
“There’s no doubt that Miss Bounce was poisoned?”
“None. I saw the blood on her breast. So did someone else, so the M.E. knew where to look for a wound. Just a pinpoint puncture.”
“And the cause of the puncture was not found.”
“No. I looked. The first thing that I thought of was poison. I thought of it before she hit the ground. God damn it, I was looking right at her and I never saw anything hit her. I just saw the blood and then she reached for herself and started to fall. Christ.”
“Chip?”
“I’m all right. When I got up on the stage I was looking for the weapon at the same time that I was determining that she was dead. Not that it was hard to determine. She was all blue in the face. I forget what that’s called. Cyanitis?”
“Cyanosis. And you weren’t looking for the weapon. You were looking for the projectile. A gun is a weapon and a bullet is a projectile.”
“Well, you knew what I meant.”
“My cryptographic ability does not justify your abandoning the English language. You found nothing?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know what I was looking for. Something sharp, but that was as far as I got. A dart or a needle or, hell, anything at all. I didn’t have much time and of course the lighting was terrible, and if it was something like a needle it could have rolled between the floorboards and disappeared.”
“If it’s there, the police will find it. Whatever it may be.”
“Maybe.”
“Absolutely.” He took a pipe from the rack and began twisting it apart. The end of the stem broke off inside the shank and he stared at it, sighed, and dropped both pieces into his wastebasket. He looked at me to see if I was going to smirk, and when I didn’t he went on. “That is their strength. Scientific methodology, exhaustive investigation. If pressed they could find a needle in a haystack. Certainly they can locate one in a nightclub. Unless the murderer has already removed it.”
I thought about that. “He could have,” I said. “It must have hit her and bounced off after puncturing her skin, and if he saw it land he’d have had plenty of time to pick it up. I didn’t make the world’s greatest search for it. I felt it was important to keep as many people inside the place as possible until the police got there.”
“You were probably right,” he said. He cupped his beard, making sure that all the hairs were the right length. “I gather the murderer could have left before you barred the door.”
“Easily. He could have been out the door before Cherry hit the stage, and then he would have had another minute or two while I was checking out the body. A lot of people did leave, I know that much.”
“Hardly an admission of guilt on their part. One can readily appreciate the concern of any number of innocent citizens not to have their presence in such an establishment a matter of public record. All those gentlemen who habitually assure their wives that they are working late at the office.”
“There were enough of those who didn’t get out. When the cops went around taking names, you wouldn’t believe the number of John Smiths who turned up. Of course the cops insisted on seeing identification and took down everybody’s name and address.”
“And you recognized some of the names.”
I stared at him, which of course pleased him no end. “How did you know that?”
He waggled a finger at me. “You’re still a boy who eats the cake and then the frosting, Chip. You save the best for last. If none of our suspects had been present you would have said so earlier. Who was there?”
I got out my notebook and flipped it open. “I can’t say who might have left beforehand. And I can’t be sure that I got the names of all the suspects who were there, because Seidenwall and Gregorio didn’t take me into their confidence. I overheard a few names and I got together with Tulip and she pointed out a couple of people. She didn’t know any of them were there until she happened to see them. Incidentally, her dinner date tonight was with a cousin from Chillicothe, Ohio. He came into town on business yesterday morning and flew home after they had dinner at the Autopub. I didn’t find out what they had for dinner but I could probably check it out for you.”
“Chip.”
“Yes, sir. Gus Leemy was there, obviously. I told you how he did his impression of a bald penguin. That’s not suspicious because he’s always there. Andrew Mallard was there. That’s the ex-boyfriend, the one who kept Tulip’s apartment so she had to find another one.”
“Indeed. And Tulip did not know of his presence beforehand?”
“No. He never talks to her. He usually gets a good table, but what I found out is that there’s no such thing as a good table as far as being up close is concerned. The bar is between the tables and the stage. He came alone, of course. Tulip said he always does.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“I didn’t have a chance. I got a good look at him, though, and I got the impression of a man who goes through life in a fog. He’s tall and thin and he’d be taller if he straightened out his spine a little. He walks with a stoop. Oh, and he wears very thick glasses. From where he was sitting, if he shot a dart or something into Cherry, he was probably aiming at Tulip.”