toward the girl. She wanted her man free. I still wondered what sort of person she was. I made certain the blinds were closed. I began a bungling, amateurish search of the room.
I found letters in the top drawer of a maple-finish dressing table. I hesitated for a moment, and then took them over to where the light was better. I read a few of them. They were nearly all penciled on cheap stationery, and addressed to her at the Birdland Motel or The Pig and It. They all had a pattern:
Lita, baby—The rig busted at Norfolk and I missed the Buffalo load, so I won’t see you as soon as I figured. I got a load to K. C. now and maybe there I can get one to Philly which will bring me by there and you know I will be stopping so be on the lookout for me honey. We had us a time and I’m looking forward to seeing you soon again .
They were signed Joe and Al and Shorty and Red and Pete and Whitey, and they bore dirty thumbprints and they were mailed from all over the East. And they were all over two months old.
She owned cheap bright clothes, and a large collection of cosmetics in elaborate jars and bottles. I could learn nothing else about her. I turned on a table lamp with a red shade and turned off the overhead light. It made the room look better. I turned the small radio on low to a disc jockey program.
It was twenty to one when she opened the door and came in and shut it against the force of the night wind. She looked cold, and her car-hop uniform looked forlornly theatrical.
“Gee, I’m sorry I couldn’t get off sooner. I was worried you’d be gone. I was glad when I saw the car. Jesus, it’s getting cold. I’m all goose bumps. Didn’t you make yourself a drink? I’ll fix you one, hey? I got to get these goddamn boots off. My feet are killing me. I need a drink bad.” She talked with hectic vivacity, being the gay hostess.
I agreed to a drink and she slumped into the kitchenette. Over the rattling of the ice tray, she called out to me, “I’ve been going nuts trying to get somebody to listen to me. I’m glad you came by, believe me. I know Wally didn’t shoot anybody. He wouldn’t kill anybody. If I thought he had it in him to kill anybody, I wouldn’t have nothing to do with him, Mister Dean. He was right here with me when he was supposed to be killing your brother. But can I prove it? Can he prove it?”
She came out with the drinks and handed me mine and plopped down on the unmade studio couch. The drinks were stiff. They looked like iced, black coffee. She pulled off her boots and sat on the bed, Buddha-fashion, adjusting the skimpy red skirt as a casual concession to modesty. The light came through the red lamp shade and made bloody highlights along her lean cheek, on her small arm and knee.
“I suppose,” I said cautiously, “they think you’d try to give him an alibi anyway.”
“That clown Portugal laughed in my face. It would be okay, maybe, if he didn’t have a record.”
“And they hadn’t found the gun in his possession.”
“In his room. Not on him,” she said firmly. “There’s a big difference. Anybody could put it there. I’ll tell you howit was. I was off. We drove out here and we stayed here. We got here about ten. We had some laughs and some drinks. He was going to stay all night. Then, you know, drinking and all, we got yelling at each other about something. So he took off. And I know that was right around two o’clock, and he was drunk and I worried about him driving. We got fighting about him not reporting to the parole officer the way he was supposed to. The thing is, nobody saw him here but me.”
“He told Portugal he robbed a supermarket a while back.”
“Sure. He confessed that because this murder thing has him scared bad. He got six hundred bucks. It wasn’t armed robbery. He busted a back window and got in and pried open a drawer. They can’t drop him too hard for that. Not more than three years, maybe.”
She talked about it as an expected business risk.
I found letters in the top drawer of a maple-finish dressing table. I hesitated for a moment, and then took them over to where the light was better. I read a few of them. They were nearly all penciled on cheap stationery, and addressed to her at the Birdland Motel or The Pig and It. They all had a pattern:
Lita, baby—The rig busted at Norfolk and I missed the Buffalo load, so I won’t see you as soon as I figured. I got a load to K. C. now and maybe there I can get one to Philly which will bring me by there and you know I will be stopping so be on the lookout for me honey. We had us a time and I’m looking forward to seeing you soon again .
They were signed Joe and Al and Shorty and Red and Pete and Whitey, and they bore dirty thumbprints and they were mailed from all over the East. And they were all over two months old.
She owned cheap bright clothes, and a large collection of cosmetics in elaborate jars and bottles. I could learn nothing else about her. I turned on a table lamp with a red shade and turned off the overhead light. It made the room look better. I turned the small radio on low to a disc jockey program.
It was twenty to one when she opened the door and came in and shut it against the force of the night wind. She looked cold, and her car-hop uniform looked forlornly theatrical.
“Gee, I’m sorry I couldn’t get off sooner. I was worried you’d be gone. I was glad when I saw the car. Jesus, it’s getting cold. I’m all goose bumps. Didn’t you make yourself a drink? I’ll fix you one, hey? I got to get these goddamn boots off. My feet are killing me. I need a drink bad.” She talked with hectic vivacity, being the gay hostess.
I agreed to a drink and she slumped into the kitchenette. Over the rattling of the ice tray, she called out to me, “I’ve been going nuts trying to get somebody to listen to me. I’m glad you came by, believe me. I know Wally didn’t shoot anybody. He wouldn’t kill anybody. If I thought he had it in him to kill anybody, I wouldn’t have nothing to do with him, Mister Dean. He was right here with me when he was supposed to be killing your brother. But can I prove it? Can he prove it?”
She came out with the drinks and handed me mine and plopped down on the unmade studio couch. The drinks were stiff. They looked like iced, black coffee. She pulled off her boots and sat on the bed, Buddha-fashion, adjusting the skimpy red skirt as a casual concession to modesty. The light came through the red lamp shade and made bloody highlights along her lean cheek, on her small arm and knee.
“I suppose,” I said cautiously, “they think you’d try to give him an alibi anyway.”
“That clown Portugal laughed in my face. It would be okay, maybe, if he didn’t have a record.”
“And they hadn’t found the gun in his possession.”
“In his room. Not on him,” she said firmly. “There’s a big difference. Anybody could put it there. I’ll tell you howit was. I was off. We drove out here and we stayed here. We got here about ten. We had some laughs and some drinks. He was going to stay all night. Then, you know, drinking and all, we got yelling at each other about something. So he took off. And I know that was right around two o’clock, and he was drunk and I worried about him driving. We got fighting about him not reporting to the parole officer the way he was supposed to. The thing is, nobody saw him here but me.”
“He told Portugal he robbed a supermarket a while back.”
“Sure. He confessed that because this murder thing has him scared bad. He got six hundred bucks. It wasn’t armed robbery. He busted a back window and got in and pried open a drawer. They can’t drop him too hard for that. Not more than three years, maybe.”
She talked about it as an expected business risk.
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