can't spot anything in it. There was nothing in his pockets, nothing on him, that helps any.'
I humphed. 'Fool is right. Even if he had cleaned it up ? Jbe wouldn't have grabbed a promotion. He would have been more apt to grab a uniform and a beat.' ' 'Yeah, he was that kind. There's too many of that kind. i< Not to mention names, but these precinct men--'
A phone rang. Fickler, by the cash register, looked at Pur- |,ley, who stepped to the counter where the phone was and answered the call. It was for him. When, after a minute, it seemed to be going on, I moved away and had gone a few Places when a voice came.
'Hello, Mr. Goodwin.'
It was Jimmie, Wolfe's man, using comb and scissors above !iis customer's right ear. He was the youngest of the staff,
out my age, and by far the handsomest, with curly lips and rhite teeth and dancing dark eyes. I had never understood |#hy he wasn't at Framinelli's. I told him hello.
7i
'Mr. Wolfe ought to be here,' he said.
Under the circumstances I thought that a little tactless, and was even prepared to tell him so when Ed called to me from two chairs down. 'Fifteen minutes, Mr. Goodwin? All right?'
I told him okay, I would wait, went to the rack and undressed to my shirt, and crossed to one of the chairs over by the partition, next to the table with magazines. I thought it would be fitting to pick up a magazine, but I had already read the one on top, the latest New Yorker, and the one on top on the shelf below was the Time of two weeks ago. So I leaned back and let my eyes go, slow motion, from left to right and back again. Though I had been coming there for six years I didn't really know those people, in spite of the reputation barbers have as conversationalists. I knew that Fielder, the boss, had once been attacked bodily there in the shop by his ex-wife; that Philip had had two sons killed in World War II; that Tom had once been accused by Fickler of swiping lotions and other supplies and had slapped Fickler's face; that Ed played the horses and was always in debt; that Jimmie had to be watched or he would take magazines from the shop while they were still current; and that Janet, who had only been there a year, was suspected of having a sideline, maybe dope peddling. Aside from such items as those, they were strangers.
Suddenly Janet was there in front of me. She had come from around the end of the partition, and not alone. The man with her was a broad-shouldered husky, gray-haired and gray-eyed, with an unlit cigar slanting up from a corner of his mouth. His eyes swept the whole shop, and since he started at the far right he ended up at me.
He stared. 'For God's sake,' he muttered. 'You? Now what?'
I was surprised for a second to see Inspector Cramer himself, head of Manhattan Homicide, there on the job. But even an inspector likes to be well thought of by the rank and file, and here it was no mere citizen who had met his end but
72
one of them. The whole force would appreciate it. Besides, I have to admit he's a good cop.
'Just waiting for a shave,' I told him. 'I'm an old customer here. Ask Purley.'
Purley came over and verified me, but Cramer checked with Ed himself. Then he drew Purley aside, and they mumbled back and forth a while, after which Cramer summoned Philip and escorted him around the end of the partition.
Janet seated herself in the chair next to mine. She looked even better in profile than head on, with her nice chin and straight little nose and long home-grown lashes. I felt a little in debt to her for the mild pleasure I had got occasionally as I sat in Ed's chair and glanced at her while she worked on the customer in the next chair.
'I was wondering where you were,' I remarked.
She turned to me. She wasn't old enough to have wrinkles or seams but she looked old enough then. She was putting a strain on every muscle in her face, and it certainly showed.
'Did you say something?' she asked.
'Nothing vital. My name's Goodwin. Call me Archie.'
'I know. You're a detective. How can I keep them from having my picture in the paper?'
'You can't if they've already got it. Have they?'
'I think so. I wish I was dead.'
'I don't.' I made it not loud but emphatic.
'Why should you? I do. My folks in Michigan think I'm acting or modeling. I leave it vague. And here--oh, my God.'
Her chin worked, but she controlled it.
'Work is work,' I said. 'My parents wanted me to be a college president, and I wanted to be a second baseman, and look at me. Anyhow, if your picture gets printed and it's a good likeness, who knows what will happen?'
'This is my Gethsemane,' she said.
That made me suspicious, naturally. She had mentioned acting. 'Come off it,' I advised her. 'Think of someone else. Think of the guy that got stabbed--no, he's out of it--think of his wife, how do you suppose she feels? Or Inspector
73
Cramer, with the job he's got. What was he asking you just now?'
She didn't hear me. She said through clamped teeth, 'I only wish I had some guts.'
