Self-Defence

He said, 'Forty bucks to find the man.'

'Thirty.'

'Thirty-five.' He stretched out a palm. With a pained expression, I took out the money and gave it to him.

Curling his fingers over it, he smiled.

'Okay,' I said, 'where's Sylvester?'

He gave a deep laugh and pointed across the table. 'Say hello, Mr. Sylvester.'

The skinny man closed his eyes and laughed, rocking in his chair.

'Hello, hello, hello.' He held out his hand. 'Hello from the star of the show.'

'Prove you're Sylvester,' I said.

'A hundred bucks'll prove it.'

'Fifty.'

'Ninety.'

'Sixty.'

'Eighty-eight.'

'Sixty-five, tops.'

He stopped smiling. His skin was as dry as his partner's was moist. His eyes were two bits of charcoal. 'Thirty- five for him just for fingering me, and I only get thirty more? That's stupid, man.'

I said, 'Seventy, if you're really Sylvester. And that's it, because it cleans me out.'

I took all the bills out of my wallet and fanned them.

Frowning, he reached behind and pulled out a mock-alligator billfold. Flipping it open, he showed me a soiled Social Security card made out to Edgely Nat Sylvester.

'Anything with a picture?'

'No need,' he said, but he flipped again to a driver's license. It had expired three years ago, but the picture was of him and the name and address were right.

'Okay,' I said, giving him a twenty and putting the rest of the money back.

'Hey,' he said, rising out of his chair.

'When we're finished.'

The heavy man said, 'We got ourselves a dude here, Eddy. Street dude, knows what it is.'

Sylvester looked at the twenty as if it were tainted. 'How do I know you're righteous, man?'

'Because if you complain to the Times and my boss finds out I paid you, my ass is grass. I don't want any hassles, okay? Just a story.'

'Fair is fair, Eddy,' said the heavy man, with glee. 'He gotcha.'

'Fuck your mama,' said Sylvester.

The heavy man laughed and wheezed. 'Why should I do that, Eddy, when I already fucked your mama and she squeezed all the juice outa me?'

Sylvester gave him a long dark stare, and for a second I thought there'd be violence. Then the heavy man flinched and winked and Sylvester laughed, too. Picking up a domino, he slapped it on the table.

'To be continued, Fatboy,' he said, standing.

'Where you goin, Eddy?'

'To talk to the man, stupid.'

'Talk here. I wanna hear what kind of seventy-dollar story you got.'

'Ha,' said Sylvester. 'Ask my mama about it.' To me: 'Let's go someplace where the atmosphere ain't stupid.'

***

We walked down the block, past other big subdivided houses. An occasional palm tree skyscraped from the breezeway. Most of the street was open and hot, even as evening approached. The air smelled like exhaust fumes.

When we got near the corner, Sylvester stopped and leaned against a lamppost. A brown-skinned woman in a brown-flowered dress walked past. Several small children trailed her, like goslings, laughing and speaking Spanish.

'They come here,' said Sylvester, 'taking jobs for crap pay, don't even wanna learn English. Whynchu write about that?'

He patted his empty shirt pocket and studied me. 'Smoke?'

I shook my head.

'Figures. Now, what murder is it you wanna hear about?'

'Was there more than one at the Adventure Inn?'

'Could be.'

'Could be?'

'That place was no good- you know what it really was, don't you?'

'What?'

'Whorehouse. Nasty one- tough girls. I only worked there 'cause I had to. My day job was cleaning gutters on houses and that's irregular- know what I mean? When it rains, you get your clogged gutters and your leaks coming right through the window seams into the house, people start screaming, Help me, help me! No rain, people forget their gutters; real stupid.'

'The motel was your night job.'

'Yeah.'

'Tough place.'

'Real bad place. The people who owned it ran it stupid- didn't give a damn.'

'The Advent Group.'

He gave me a blank look.

'Guys from Nevada,' I said. 'That's what it said in the original article.'

'Yeah, that's right. Reno, Nevada; my check used to come from there. Pain in the took- ass because it didn't clear for five days. Stupid.'

'The murder I'm talking about is a guy named Felix Barnard. Ex-private eye. The article said you found him.'

'Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Old guy, bare-assed, his pecker in his hand.' Shaking his head. 'Yeah, that was bad, finding that. He got shot up in the face.'

He stuck out his tongue.

'What else do you remember about it?' I said.

'That's about it. Finding him was disgusting, I wanted to quit the stupid job after that. I was working too hard anyway. Used to get off at five in the morning, get home, try to sleep for a couple of hours before going off to clean gutters. I had four kids, I was a good daddy to all of them. Bought ' em stuff. The best shoes. My sons wore Florsheim in high school, none of that sneaker stupidity.'

'You inspected the rooms at 5 A.M.?'

'I finished by then. Started at a quarter to, so I could finish and get the hell out of there by five. If a room was empty, I'd tell the Mexican girl to clean it. If someone was still in it, I'd put a mark in the ledger for the day clerk. Day clerk's job was easy, no one used the damn place during the day.'

'You looked in Barnard's room. Does that mean it was supposed to be empty?'

'Supposed to be. He only paid for a short time- couple of hours, I think. He shoulda been out.'

'You didn't check the room before?'

'Man,' he said, 'I didn't do more than I had to, it was a nasty place. Someone else didn't want to use the room, what did I care if some stupid idiot stayed twenty minutes longer? People that owned it didn't give a damn.'

'A two-hour rental,' I said. 'So Barnard wasn't there to sleep.'

He laughed. 'Right. You must be a college boy.'

'What'd you do when you found him?'