impact, shuddered, took the bourbon bottle from Sally's hand and splashed a thimbleful more into the glass and chased the first load down. He refilled the shot glass again, and set glass and bottle down on the table beside the chair.
Sally broke the little silence. Her voice was quiet, but there was a note of constraint in it. “I realize how this must have shaken you, Johnny.”
“Shaken me?” His lips drew back mirthlessly from his teeth. He picked up the refilled shot glass and gulped half its contents, then looked up at Sally on the arm of his chair. “You're the only one in the world who knew how I felt about that kid. I never blamed her for rackin' up on me when she did. I was a hard rock still livin' too close to those days overseas, an' she just couldn't understand. I hadn't seen her three times in the last five years, but it wasn't ever any different with me.”
He stared down moodily into the half empty glass, lifted it suddenly and drained it. His hand closed tightly around the solid-feeling thickness of the glass, and his voice hoarsened. “So tonight she's in some kind of trouble, and she comes to me. To me, mind you. And what do I do for her? I get her killed.” He bounded to his feet from the depths of the chair, furiously driven by the impotent anger bubbling in his veins, and his voice soared. “I'll tell you one thing. I'll find the guy that did it if I have to live to be a hundred and four. I'll get him. For sure I'll get him, and when I do I'll feed him to the crows a very small piece at a time. I'll get him, damn him-”
He whirled on the balls of his feet, and Sally gasped and smothered a scream as his arm rose and fell in a whiplash motion. The heavy shot glass exploded in a starburst of glass fragments in the center of the big dresser mirror, which vanished in a crystal spray. Johnny stood, half-crouched forward from the violence of his follow- through, his ears still filled with the soul-satisfying smash.
He straightened slowly; on the arm of the chair Sally was crying. He patted her head awkwardly, then walked over to the wall cabinet and removed the other shot glass. Back at the chair he poured himself another drink, the bourbon sloshing over the glass rim and running down his wrist and fingers.
“You'll be supposed to make s-sense when you talk to the police,” Sally said disapprovingly, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Make as much sense as usual.” The phone rang, and he reached for it. “Yeah?”
“They're on the way up, Johnny.”
“Thanks, Paul.” He replaced the phone, looked at Sally and tried not to see the tear-streaks. “The constabulary, Ma. You got to run.”
She scrubbed openly at her eyes with her hands, stood up and walked to the door. “Promise me you'll keep your temper, Johnny?”
“Yeah, yeah, Ma. Sure.” He closed the door behind her and looked around the room. He picked Sassy up and carried her into the bathroom; he put her down in the tub as she blinked her disapproval. He closed the bathroom door and returned to the chair and his refilled glass. He sat down again and waited.
Trailing fingers of blue smoke swirled and drifted about the walls of his room; he sat and tested in his mind the cumulative questions and answers of the past two hours. He was tired of questions and answers. He looked at the eddying haze in the room; he ought to stir himself and open a window, he supposed. He sat where he was.
He looked up sharply as his door opened and the smoke gusted violently; Detective Cuneo walked directly to the straight-backed chair in the room's center and sat down astraddle it, facing front-to-back. His folded arms rested upon the upper back rest, and his chin rested upon his arms.
After two hours Johnny felt that he knew this man rather well. A quick, incisive man; a lean six-footer with a hatchet face and large-pupilled eyes. The mouth was snug and the lips thin; the jawline slanted to a sharp chin. Detective Cuneo entering a room looked like a detective entering a room.
“About Barnes-” the man in the chair said abruptly, and Johnny looked at him. “We're taking him in. He doesn't talk here maybe he'll talk over there.”
“He didn't do it,” Johnny said.
“I didn't say he did,” Cuneo replied sharply. “I do say that he's not telling us what he knows. When he does-” He broke off as the door opened again, and he twisted to look at the slender, sandy-haired man who entered the room and closed the door again. “Hi, Jimmy. How'd you make out?”
“Tell you later.” The slender man nodded to Johnny in his chair. “'To, Johnny. Long time.”
Johnny nodded in turn, and Cuneo looked from his partner to Johnny and back again. He couldn't keep the surprise from his voice. “You know this guy?”
“Tell you about that later, too. What's with you here?”
“I'm taking Barnes in. Completely uncooperative.” He glanced back at Johnny. “I was just getting instructed here that Barnes didn't do it.” He leaned forward over the back of the chair as the large-pupilled eyes glinted. “What makes you so sure, Killain?”
“You know why I'm sure. Ellen Saxon has a quarter pound of hair and skin under her fingernails, and there isn't even a pimple nicked on Vic. That lets him out.”
“It lets him out of a first degree charge, maybe,” Cuneo said sourly. “I still want the answers to some questions before he's out, period.” He looked at Johnny. “How about you, Killain? Take your shirt off.”
Johnny stood up slowly. “That's what I like about you types. Not 'Do you mind taking your shirt off, citizen?' Just 'Take it off'.”
The hatchet face regarded him impassively. “You don't have to like it. Just do it.”
“Sure you don't want to call in any witnesses? So I can't say I got scratched up while you were wrestlin' the shirt off me?”
Two red spots glowed dully in Cuneo's lean face. He looked, tight-lipped, at his partner, Jimmy Rogers. “Your friend's a character, I see.” He swung back to Johnny. “Personally, I can do without all the conversation. Get it off!”
Johnny slipped out of his uniform jacket and removed tie, shirt, and T-shirt.
“Over here. Under the light.” Cuneo's voice was taut.
Johnny crossed the room, and the detective looked him up and down. “The bear that walks like a man,” he said grudgingly. “You get your shirts from a sailmaker?” His knuckles thumped lightly on Johnny's chest. “Quite a rug. What's this?” An inquiring finger probed in turn each of three dimpled indentations scarcely visible under the curling hair.
Johnny looked down at the finger. “There was this guy that didn't like me.”
Cuneo grunted. “Looks like he didn't like you about three times with a thirty-eight. So?”
“So I reached him. He still doesn't like me.”
The hatchet features stiffened. “I asked you what happened!”
A faint glow began to heat Johnny's interior. “It have anything to do with what happened in Room 629?”
Scarlet flooded Cuneo's face. “Are you refusing to answer?”
“I've answered for two hours. Did you ask any sensible questions you didn't get answered?”
“Killain, you'll answer what I ask you. I'll-”
“I'll answer what I damn please,” Johnny interrupted. The faint glow flared to an open flame. He leaned forward slightly. “Do me a favor, boy scout. Drop dead.”
The tall man crouched, but Jimmy Rogers spoke quickly. “Easy, Ted. He'd like that. I know this boy.”
The dull red spots again emblazoned the pallor which had replaced Cuneo's high color. He bit his words off viciously. “If you know what's good for you you'll answer anything I ask you, Killain!”
“The hell I will. Go make your funny noises some place else.”
The lean man took a short step forward and hesitated. His tongue circled his lips almost hungrily. Jimmy Rogers moved in front of his partner and nodded at Johnny's clothes on the bed. “Button it up, Johnny. Put your clothes on, and we'll go down to the morgue and make the identification.”
Johnny drew a deep breath. “No.”
Cuneo charged back to the assault. “No? What the hell you mean, 'no'?”
“Anything the matter with your ears?”
“Listen, Killain-” Cuneo began dangerously, and Johnny cut him short.
“You listen to me for a change. You got all the identification from me you're gonna get. You know who she is.”
Jimmy Rogers' voice was patient. “We're talking about the legal, positive identification by the next-of-kin
