place on Highway 44 when Miller Starkey came over.
“Evening, Sergeant,” he said amiably, sliding onto a stool next to mine.
I wasn’t particularly interested in talking to him, or to anyone else, but I returned his greeting.
“Whiskey sour, Max,” he advised the bartender. “Buy you a drink, Sergeant?”
“This’ll hold me for a while, Mr. Starkey. How are the girls?”
“Fine. Fine.” He beamed at me. He was proud of his two girls. “Pootsie—that’s Alice, you know—is expecting again. And Juanita is president of her sorority up at State.”
I nodded. The Starkey girls were famous in Cheyney. Born a year apart, they had raised hell from the cradle on, growing boisterous and beautiful. The last time I had seen them together they were under arrest on a shoplifting charge. Gulliver and Starkey had held a fast conference and the girls weren’t booked. Charges were subsequently dropped.
In return for this favor, Starkey allowed police personnel to buy everything in his men’s shop, the best in town, for twenty-five percent off. It meant, to me and to most of the others, the difference between feeling almost dressed and well dressed on the same salary.
Miller Starkey was unimpressively built, very near-sighted, with gray hair that stuck straight up from his scalp about four inches. It was hard to imagine how he could have been responsible for the Starkey women.
Max delivered the whiskey sour and Starkey fondled the glass before drinking, smiling. He smiles all the time. I suppose it’s a mannerism. Like nose-picking.
“So Jimmy Herne committed suicide,” he said. “I guess that wraps up the case, doesn’t it, Sergeant?”
“As far as we’re concerned it was already wrapped up.”
He lost some of his man-to-man chumminess. “Certainly. I only meant—” He poked in embarrassment at his glass.
The small bar was cool and uncrowded. To my left were glass panels partially covered with soft blue drapes and on the other side of the glass was the dining room, almost filled to capacity despite the fact that it was past nine o’clock.
“You know, I . . . I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Smithell,” Starkey said.
“How’s that, Mr. Starkey?”
The smile again. “It’s this way. Mr. Smithell owed rather a large bill at the time of—his death—and I don’t quite know . . .”
“Oh. I wouldn’t worry about that, Mr. Starkey. See Nordin Kaylor and I’m sure he’ll take care of it.” Nordin Kaylor had been Smithell’s partner in two Cheyney automobile agencies.
“Certainly. I should have thought of that.” The unreal whiteness of his false teeth touched the rim of the glass. “I knew Mr. Smithell had only lived in Cheyney about three years and had no relatives here, so you understand . . .”
I looked toward the dining room just as Roxy Marko was passing. He noticed me and waved, so I lifted my glass in his direction.
“It seems as if there’s no gratitude in the world,” Starkey said. “Here Mr. Smithell was willing to take on a boy who had been in the reformatory, let him live in his house, pay him a good salary. Probably the boy was planning all along to rob him when the opportunity arose. Did you ever learn the full story, Sergeant? The papers were so vague . . .”
He looked at me avidly over his glass, perhaps anticipating a party that week, a group of his friends discussing the same subject, himself saying casually, “Now, Sergeant Randall told me . . .”
“His confession was very complete,” I said. I didn’t say that Gulliver had written it and Jimmy had contributed only his signature.
You returned to the house about eleven, after the picture show. And he was asleep. You figured it was as good a time as any. But you didn’t figure he’d wake up. You had to hit him. You didn’t mean to hit him so hard. Then you took the watch and money along with the jewelry. Three thousand bucks worth. You didn’t know he was dead when you packed your stuff and beat it, did you? Later when you found out how hot you were you got rid of the jewelry and watch, dumped them in the river somewhere. That’s how it was, huh, Jimmy? Just sign here, boy, and we’ll leave you alone.
“The very day . . .” Starkey said.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m afraid my mind was wondering.” His smile looked like it had been stepped on. “I just said that the very day Jimmy killed him, Mr. Smithell was planning to buy Jimmy a new suit.”
I felt vaguely apprehensive. “Did you read that in the paper, Mr. Starkey?”
“Why—no. Mr. Smithell called me that afternoon, before he was murdered, told me Jimmy was coming in next day for a fitting. He wanted me to sort of influence the boy’s choice so Jimmy wouldn’t come home with anything drastic in color or style.”
I took a longer swallow of my drink than usual and never tasted it. “I see. Was he going to charge it?”
“No. He told me that he’d given the money to Jimmy. Thirty dollars. He didn’t want the boy picking out something too expensive, so he thought it might make Jimmy feel more responsible if he paid for it himself.”
Starkey looked past me with an expression of mock surprise. “Well, here comes my wife. I thought maybe she’d fallen in.” He chuckled. “Thanks for the advice, Sergeant. Drop by the store some time this week. We’ve received a shipment of those pastel shirts you like so much.”
“Thanks, Mr. Starkey.” I sat there after he had left, feeling a slow gathering sickness in my stomach, a sickness that couldn’t be vomited up. I gulped the rest of the drink and looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I was ugly this night.
Someone tapped my shoulder. “Excuse me.”
I turned and looked at a waiter.
“Mr. Marko sent me, Sergeant Randall. He’d like for you to have a drink with him in his office.”
I wanted to say no, say that I had to go somewhere, away from the pressure I was feeling, like lazy tightening coils. But there was no way I could refuse.
I left the bar and crossed the foyer, went up a flight of stairs to Roxy’s office. I knocked and was invited in.
As soon as I opened the door I saw Gulliver inside.
He was sitting in one of Roxy’s big white leather chairs with his shoes off and a drink in his hand. He smiled peacefully at me.
“Hello, Chief. Roxy,” I said, nodding. Roxy was fixing himself a drink at his desk. He looked at me inquisitively.
“Bill?”
“Bourbon over ice, a little sparkling.”
“A man of simple tastes,” Gulliver said. I could tell he was in a mellow mood. He lifted his glass at me and winked. “Ten years old. Roxy’s putting on the dog tonight.”
Roxy smiled slightly. He’s a small man, about five feet five,
