D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton

Daggett said if anything happened to him, I should talk to you.”
    â€œMe? Naww,” he said with disbelief. “That’s fuckin’ weird. You must have got me mixed up with somebody else. I mean, I knew Daggett, but I didn’t
know
him, you dig?”
    â€œThat’s funny. He told me you were the best of friends.”
    He smiled and shook his head. “Old Daggett gave you a bum steer, baby doll. I don’t know nothin’ aboutit. I don’t even remember when I saw him last. Long time.”
    â€œWhat was the occasion?”
    He glanced at the Mexican kid who was eavesdropping shamelessly. “Catch you later, man,” he said to him. Then under his breath, with contempt, he said, “Paco.” Apparently, this was a generic insult that applied to all Hispanics.
    He touched my elbow, steering me into the other room. “These beaners are all the same,” he confided. “Think they know how to play pool, but they can’t do shit. I don’t like talking personal in front of spics. Can I buy you a beer?”
    â€œSure.”
    He indicated an empty table and held a chair out for me. I hung my slicker over the back and sat down. He caught the bartender’s eye and held up two fingers. The bartender pulled out two bottles of beer which he opened and set on the bar.
    Billy said, “You want anything else? Potato chips? They make real nice french fries. Kinda greasy, but good.”
    I shook my head, watching him with interest. At close range, he had a curious charisma . . . a crude sexuality that he probably wasn’t even aware of. I meet men like that occasionally and I’m always startled by the phenomenon.
    He ambled over and picked up the beers, dropping acouple of crumpled bills on the bar. He said something to the bartender and then waited while the guy placed a glass upside down on each bottle, shooting a smirk in my direction.
    He came back to the table and sat down. “Jesus, ask for a glass in this place and they act like you’re puttin’ on airs. Bunch of bohunks. I only hang out here because I got a sister works here three nights a week.”
    Ah, I thought, the woman in the trailer.
    He poured one of the beers and pushed it over to me, taking his time then as he poured his own. His eyes were deepset, and he had dimples that formed a crease on either side of his mouth. “Look,” he said, “I can see you got your mind made up I know something I don’t. The truth is, I didn’t like Daggett much and I don’t think he liked me. Where you got this yarn about me bein’ some pal of his, I don’t know, but it wasn’t from him.”
    â€œYou called him Monday morning, didn’t you?”
    â€œNuh-uh. Not me. Why would I call him?”
    I went on as though he hadn’t said anything. “I don’t know what you told him, but he was scared.”
    â€œSorry I can’t help you out. Must have been somebody else. What was he doin’ up here anyway?”
    â€œI don’t know. His body washed up in the surf this morning. I thought maybe you could fill me in on the rest. Do you have any idea where he was last night?”
    â€œNope. Not a clue.” He’d gotten interested in aspeck of dust in the foam on his beer and he had to pick that out.
    â€œWhen did you see him last? I don’t think you said.”
    His tone became facetious. “Geez, I don’t have my Day-Timer with me. Otherwise, I could pin it down. We might’ve had lunch at some little out of the way place, just him and me.”
    â€œSan Luis perhaps?”
    There was a slight pause and his smile dimmed a couple of watts. “I was at San Luis with him,” he said, cautiously. “Me and thirty-seven hundred other guys. So what?”
    â€œI thought maybe you’d kept in touch.”
    â€œI can tell you didn’t know Daggett too good. Being with him is like walking around with