wantin' to know could they help. Help with what?' He gestured around the room. 'An' assholes. 'Hey, Tony, what happened?' 'Hey, Tony, heard you found a stiff in the basement.' 'Hey, Tony, heard your brother killed him.' Shit!' He shrugged. 'I didn't open.' His knuckles whitened around his gin glass. His voice got louder. 'They been comin' around anyhow, bangin' on the door. Who the fuck they think they are, these guys?'
I drank in silence and he drank too, until the silence was both blurred and sharpened and talk was easier.
'Tony,' I said quietly, 'did Jimmy kill that guy?'
He looked at me for a long time. The gin had cleared everything from his eyes but pain. 'Looks that way,' he said finally. 'Don't it look that way to you?'
'How it looks and what it is might not be the same,'
I said. 'Let MacGregor and Brinkman worry about how it looks. Tell me what's going on, Tony.'
He picked up his bottle; it was empty. He got up and got a new one, walking too carefully. 'I don't know,' he said. He sat heavily. 'Little sonuvabitch said he was gonna stay clean. Stay away from Grice. Get a fuckin' job. He was scared, Smith. You saved his ass an' he knew he was lucky.' He paused, drank. I lit a cigarette, got up, found an ashtray. 'He met this girl, moved in with her. Nice kid. Didn't see him much after that. Funny thing, we was gettin' along better, the coupla times he did come around.' He trailed off. His eyes roved over the silent room as though he were looking for something.
We drank. I waited a few minutes. Then, 'Tell me the rest, Tony.'
His face suddenly flushed. 'What the hell for? Anything I say, you're gonna run to your buddy MacGregor. You gave him those fuckin' keys, Smith. What the hell'd you do that for?'
'I had to do that, Tony. You know I had to.' I kept my voice even.
'Had to,' he muttered, half to himself. 'Motherfucker.'
'Tell me the rest, Tony.'
'Fuck,' he said. He drained his glass. 'Grice came here last night workin' that protection shit. He ain't never pulled that on me before. Maybe I ain't a big enough operation. Or maybe he figured chewin' on me would break his teeth. But last night he's tellin' me Jimmy's in deep shit, an' it's gonna cost me to keep it quiet. Cost me a piece of the action, long term. Action.' He laughed
softly, without humor. 'I told him to shove it. You was there for the rest.'
'What kind of trouble did he say Jimmy was in?'
'Didn't say. What's the fuckin' difference?'
'Maybe it's not true. Maybe he was just fishing.'
'My ass.' He reached for the gin bottle, closed his hand on air. He tried again more slowly, picked the bottle up. The cold night air drifted through the room, drifted out again. It didn't take the ammonia smell with it. I wouldn't have, either.
'Jimmy's girl,' I said. 'Know anything about her?'
'Nice kid.' He poured gin very slowly into his glass.
I leaned forward. 'What's her name, Tony? Where does she live?'
He gave me an unfocused gaze. 'Don't know. Somewhere.'
'What's her name?'
'Nice name. Old-fashioned.' He frowned. 'Alice. Alice Brown ...'
'That's a song, Tony.'
He stared defiantly, 's a name, too.'
'Yeah, Tony, okay. Where does she live?'
'Alice Brown, Alice Brown, prettiest little girl in town. She sells seashells. No, she don't.' He rubbed a hand along the side of his nose. 'No, she don't. She sells pies. Georgie Porgie, puddin' an' pie—'
I took the gin glass from his hand. 'Go on, Tony. Pies?'
'Pies, asshole.' He reached for the glass; I put it on the floor. He slumped back in his chair, looked at me. 'Pies. Blueberry, strawberry. Chocolate cake. Cookies, even.'
'Where?'
'People eat 'em. Gimme my gin.'
'Where?'
He frowned, didn't answer.
'All right,' I gave him his glass. 'Listen, Tony. I'm going to make a couple of calls and then we're going to close this place up and go home. Okay?'
He shook his head. 'Gotta clean up. Smells bad in here. Smells like blood. Shit!' His eyes were suddenly wild. 'In the cellar, Smith. There's a dead guy in the cellar!'
'No, there's not.' I stood, put my hand on his shoulder. 'There was. He's gone. It's okay, Tony.'
He stared at me, unseeing. Then he turned his eyes away. 'Fuck you,' he said.
'Yeah.' I walked to the bathroom. I ran cold water in the cracked sink, splashed it over my face and the back of my neck. That cleared my head. I came back out; the ammonia hit me again, cleared it even more.
I picked up the mop and the bucket, hauled them to the bathroom, dumped the scummy gray water down the
