my guts. It was coincidence I ended up at her present husband's lot. It wasn't planned that way.'
He didn't really want to smoke his cigarette. He mashed it out.
'I did check back far enough,' he said quietly. 'And I turned up an interesting little item with your name on it.'
This time I damn well knew what was coming next. It was my little blue ribbon that followed me wherever I went.
'Teenage rape is a messy item in any man's language.' His voice was casual, very casual. I let out my breath.
'All right,' I said. 'You want to hear what happened, or you just want to build a case against me out of a lot of fiveyear-old hysteria reports?'
'You tell me.'
'This hot little thing used to come on the lot every night when I was spieling for my wife with Brody's carny,' I told him. 'When I say hot, I mean kayriced almighty she made you think of instant bedroom. She'd hang around my bally stand and give me the eye while I was making with the words. Whenever I'd have a lull, I'd shoot the breeze with her. You know, playful sex-talk that tells you whether you're going to be in or not. I was in.
'May and I hadn't been getting on for a couple of years. It had turned into a marriage in name only. In short, I wasn't getting my share. So I was ripe when this little sexpot gave me a tumble. She went for me. Funny thing is, I went for her. I don't mean just her body. I liked her.
'We went to a hotel. Everything was fine. We went again. I think she was in love with me, or thought she was. I-'
'Back up a minute,' Ferris interrupted. 'You knew her age when you took her to the motel?'
'Let me tell it my way, huh? I like to do it story style. No, I didn't know her age. She told me she was nineteen and she looked it. But I figured her for eighteen just to be on the safe side. The truth was she was only seventeen and I was on the bad news side. But I didn't find it out until after the world turned over. You see, we had started to talk about me getting a divorce and us getting married.' I blew my breath again.
'Then her old lady found out. Jesus. It was something. The old lady is having a screaming fit. The old man is trying to get at me with a stick. The local law is trying to hold him back and give me a roughing up at the same time. Brody is yelling he'll have me blacklisted on every lot in the land. My wife is calling me all the nice names she'd picked from her whory mother. The seventeen-year-old is bawling. Nobody will listen to me. Nobody will let me explain. I'm standing there like a bewildered asshole.'
Ferris started to chuckle and I shook my head in disgust.
'God,' I said. 'So the seventeen-year-old panics. It's my fault, she says. I seduced her. I got her drunk. She didn't know what she was doing. No, she didn't know I was married. No, I never had said anything about marrying her. Well-' I shrugged.
'So anyhow, her old lady was afraid of the scandal. Her brother was the mayor's brother-in-law or something like that, and the whole mess was covered up. Brody fired me, the law ran me out of the state, and my wife happily sued for divorce. End.' I mashed out my cigarette.
'You were lucky, you know?' Ferris said. 'Because the law says a seventeen-year-old girl doesn't know what she's doing and it damn well means rape.'
I gave him a sick look. 'Will you stop it?' I said. 'Doesn't know what she's doing, shi-'
'No, I mean it. As long as she's under eighteen the entire blame goes up your chute. Even if she pulls off all her clothes and climbs in your bed and gives consent, the law still states she doesn't know what she's doing.'
'All right. But it's a goddam stupid law and you know it. So don't look so self-righteous. You would have done just what I did, if you'd had the chance.'
He cocked an eye. 'Me? At my age?'
'Yes, you at your age. And you're probably happily married and have a couple of grown kids and you're a cop, and yet if a sexy little seventeen-year-old were to come waggling her behind in here and throw it at you, and if there was nobody around and you were damn well certain that you could get away with it-you'd do it. Any normal man would.'
He thought about it for a moment and I could see the truth in his eyes. Any man.
'Well,' he said, 'I guess that's why they made the law.'
'I guess,' I said. 'Look, before we started with the saga of my sex life, you were trying to make me think that you thought I had something to do with Cochrane's death.'
'Did you?'
'Kind of silly supposition, isn't it? I mean when you think about it? My ex-wife says to me 'Help me knock off my hubby and I'll inherit the bundle and give you halvies.' So to prove my brilliance of mind I take one of her special knives and I kill the old gentleman and put him where half the world will see him the first thing in the morning, and then-just to make certain everybody will know my ex-wife had a hand in it-I leave one of her earrings with the body. That way she's bound to get caught, and she'll squeal on me, and I'll end up with nothing but a free ticket on the electric chair ride.'
'It's just possible that your ex-wife had nothing to do with this murder,' Ferris said in his casual voice.
'I take it you're working on a brand new supposition. I'm listening avidly with all three ears.'
'It's just possible the motive wasn't money.'
'Meaning?'
'Revenge.'
'Oh,' I said. 'I can put up my hand now. I know the answer to that one. Me.
Ferris grinned at me. 'Something like it, yeah.'
He got up to take a stroll around the room. I'd been wondering when he was going to start that. But then this case was slowing him down physically. He'd been staying up nights working out suppositions. He wandered back to the table, looking at me.
'You'll admit it has possibilities?' His manner was politely inquiring, but I could damn near hear the wheels go round in his head. He had given the possibility some heavy thought.
'Bet your butt it does,' I said. 'And I'll give you another butt-betting possibility. It's name is Bill Duff.'
In an earlier context I mentioned that carny people clam up when a crime is committed in their territory. But I didn't mind sicking the law on Duff. I loved him like he loved me. And a rather obvious possibility had just crossed my mind. Maybe Ferris hadn't made his inquiries on the wire. Maybe Bill Duff-that snide sonofabitch-had put him wise about my past.
Ferris nodded. 'I'm still giving that one some consideration. We know that this Duff and your ex-wife used to be like that.' He crossed his index over his forefinger to show me.
'That's Duff on the bottom.' I pointed at his lower finger. 'May always liked it that way.'
Ferris actually laughed.
'Thaxton, you have a dirty dirty mind. Get the hell out of here now, huh? I've got other people to see.'
I got out of there. When I looked back through the screendoor Ferris was doing what he had done the last time I'd walked away from him-standing still and staring at the floor. But I had the feeling that this time he was thinking about me.
8
One of those cute little highschool things in the red-and-white guide outfit came up to me with a nice clean smile. This one wore a very short skirt and she had pretty legs. I wondered if she was seventeen.
'Pardon me, sir, but aren't you Mr. Thaxton?'
I admitted I was as I ran my eye from the tip of her toes to the top of her hose. Which I couldn't actually see because it disappeared under her skimpy skirt. Which was just about as high as the law would allow in public. Any
