'You dropped this, I think. Mustn't lose it. It contains your little tin badge.'
'I don't want to have to resort to force, sir,' he said, stiff as starch. 'It would be very embarrassing to both of us.'
'You're right. I haven't been spanked in twenty years.'
Bill Duff was all eyes over on his bally. He was probably hoping the law would let me have the book. I gave him the well-known finger salute and fell in with the New Breed type of dick.
Gabby edged down to one end of his counter and looked at me. Funny about carny people. If they're square they'll do anything for each other. All he was waiting for was a highsign from me. Then he would create some kind of phony commotion, to give me a running chance. I shook my head at him.
This new breeder didn't take me to the Admiral Benbow. He marched me to hell and gone beyond the Watusi Village to the bunkhouse. It wasn't much-a long, low, tarpaper shack with a row of surplus army cots and a table and and couple of benches. It had that sour rummy smell of stale booze and sweat and vomit.
Ferris was sitting on one side of the table. He looked at me and his eyes were as opaque as two paving stones.
'You goddam liar, Thaxton,' he said.
I stared back at him for a count of three. Then I nodded at young Adonis.
'Will I have the boy from Yale on me too, if I go for you?'
'Just save the goddam tough talk for the tourists,' Ferris snapped. 'You ain't about to fight me or anybody. Sit down.'
I sat down at the table. The young dick stood over me like an MP. Ferris didn't seem to like him much better than I did. It was hard to be yourself around a big self-righteous kid like that.
'All right, Larry,' Ferris said to the stern youngster. 'Wait outside, huh?'
The kid tramped away like a good soldier and I looked at Ferris.
'Some politician's son?' I suggested.
'Near enough,' Ferris admitted in a grumble. 'The DA's nephew. Jesus,' he added.
'I think you called me a liar,' I reminded him.
'You're goddam right I did, smart ass. We've done a little enquiing on the wire since I last talked to you. Why'd you hold back on me about you and Mrs. Cochrane?'
'A sin of omission isn't a lie,' I said. 'You didn't ask me about my past marital mistakes.'
'Jesus,' he said. 'Carny people. Never volunteer anything, huh? Look, Thaxton. If you had admitted to me that she used to be your wife you could just as well have told me that she also used to be a pro knife-thrower. And you goddam well could have told me that the shiv we found in Cochrane was one of hers!'
I said nothing. I dug out a cigarette and rolled it between my fingers. Ferris thumbnailed a match and held it out to me.
'You aren't as simple-minded as you make out, Thaxton,' he said. 'What's the first thing a dick looks for in a murder case?'
I shrugged. 'Motive?'
'Bet your sweet butt! First and last. And now here's another toughy for you. What one outstanding person has the motive in this case?'
'How would I know? Am I God?'
Ferris looked at me. He looked sick. He said Jesus again.
'Thaxton-be good to me, huh. I'm working for the city. I'm working on a salary for a pension. I have the commissioner and the DA on my back. I don't have all day to play patty-cake.'
'Look,' I said, 'if you mean that May inherits the gold, say so. I don't know. I haven't been shown Cochrane's will.'
'Well, I have!' He didn't quite shout it at me.
'What's wrong? Did he leave you out of it?'
Ferris ignored my funny. He hunched over the table. 'Your ex-wife picks up the full packet. Got any idea what it's worth?'
'Should be a fair sized bundle.'
'Yeah. I'll drop you a little hint. This place grossed thirty mill last year.'
Now it was my turn to say it. 'Jesus,' I said.
'You like the motive? It catches your eye?'
'Eye, ear and nose too. Money has a nice smell. But that doesn't prove she killed him.'
'Come on,' he said. 'Come on.'
'No, I'm serious. Maybe she loved her husband.'
'Ummm, sure. A cool, sexy article like that. And him only twentyfive years older than her. Sure, nuts about him.'
'Well, maybe she simply liked him then. He was a likable guy.'
'Why sweat it?' Ferris asked. 'You can't ignore that knife. It was hers. And here's another little item for your consideration. My boys found a jade earring on the mudbank where Cochrane's body was. Guess who owns the matching earring.'
'My ex-wife?'
'Your ex-wife. And another point. She was here on the lot the night he was murdered. She claims she was up in her suite asleep, but she has no witnesses.'
'I should hope not,' I said, but my mind was on something not so flippant. It looked bad for May. It had looked bad for her right from the time I found her knife in her husband. The thing was though, it was starting to look a little _too bad_. Or too much. And I got the feeling that maybe Ferris was thinking the same thing. He didn't really look as pleased with his case as he should have.
'It's a nice little case,' I said.
He didn't say anything. He watched me with a somber expression. So I went on and said what I thought might be in both our minds.
'Beautiful, hard-hearted ex-knife-thrower marries kindly rich old coot. Whole world shakes its head knowingly. Gold digger strikes lush pocket. Everybody says so. Nobody likes bitchy wife except maybe rich old husband and a few young lovers. Rich old husband gets murdered with knife that so obviously belongs to gold- digging wife that it runs out and bites you in the leg to attract attention. Wife's jade earring is found near corpse. Wife was in locality at time of murder. Wife can't produce alibi.'
I lit another cigarette. 'Strike you the same way it does me?'
Ferris tucked in his mouth and looked unhappy.
'All right,' he said. 'So it has the smell of a frame.'
'The framework is downright stinking when you start to push at it. Sure-as soon as I saw the body and the weapon I put two and two together and what they made wants to be the widow queen of Neverland. But then I had another look at that knife. The blow that killed Cochrane was a downward thrust. A knife-thrower strikes from a distance. He or she doesn't stab. True, a knife's a woman's weapon, but a woman will usually give it to you in the back, won't she. Cochrane was a pretty tough old Irishman. I don't think May could have stabbed him from the front, unless he'd been asleep, and then the angle's still wrong.'
Ferris lit a cigarette. He said nothing.
'And here's another weak beam in the frame,' I said. 'Aside from the fact that there's no valid reason why the body should have been moved from the Admiral Benbow to the Swamp Ride-how the hell would a woman haul a big heavy body like that? Even if she had used one of those boats, how did she get the stiff from the tearoom to the Swamp Ride dock? And why in God's name would she leave that shiv in him when it practically stands up and shouts 'This murder weapon belongs to May Cochrane!' '.
Ferris studied the ashy tip on his cigarette.
'Maybe she had help with moving the body.'
I had an idea what was coming next. He looked at me.
'Funny,' he said, 'when you think about the timing. You show up, Cochrane gives you a job, you go see his wife- yeah, I know about your little visit with your ex-wife-and a few hours later Cochrane gets kified and your ex-wife ends up with the gold.'
'If you'd checked back far enough,' I said, 'you'd have found out that May divorced me because she hated
