Connolly prompted.
“Yeah.”
“Then what happened?”
Kelly smirked. “He come on to me.”
“Did that surprise you?”
The question seemed to catch him off-guard.
“You just thought he wanted to talk.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Okay, I thought maybe he wanted to do me. It crossed my mind.”
“Did he talk about himself? His work?”
Kelly looked puzzled. “No.”
“So what did you talk about?”
“Nothing. I don’t remember.”
“He was a pretty big guy,” Connolly said evenly. “Did that worry you?” Again he felt Holliday stir.
“I can take care of myself.”
Connolly looked at the thin, sinewy arms, the bloated face, and wondered how often he had said this before, how often the posturing had protected him. “I can see that.”
“Hey,” Kelly said, offended. “I told you. I fell.”
“So you went for a walk and you ended up hitting him. Why?”
“He got out of hand. I told you.”
“He didn’t want to have sex with you?”
“He wanted me to do him. I don’t do that.”
“You tell him this?”
“Sure, but he don’t want to listen, you know? And then he’s all over me, so—”
“So you hit him. With what, by the way?”
“With what?” Connolly could see his face working, sorting through answers.
“Yes. Did you just use your fists, or did you have something?”
“A branch,” he said quickly. “It was lying there right on the ground. Hey, what do you want to know all this for?”
“And you threw it away afterward?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t remember too well.”
“But you do remember hitting him.”
“Yeah, I said I did. I didn’t know he was dead, I just thought he was out, you know.”
Holliday got up then and walked over to the window.
“You must have been pretty angry,” Connolly said smoothly.
“I was surprised, you know? I just did the first thing that came into my head. I wasn’t trying to kill him.”
“What surprised you? The sex?”
“Yeah.”
“You didn’t expect it from him? Was that because he was Mexican too?”
He could feel Holliday turn to them from the window, watching Kelly’s confused face. Kelly hesitated for a minute, then said, “No. It was just the surprise, you know.”
“Ramon, have you ever been to San Isidro?”
“What’s that? A church?”
“Yes. Ever hear of it?”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a church in Santa Fe. You ever go there?”
“I don’t go to church much.” Then, suspicious, “What do you ask that for?”
“The man you killed-the man you hit-used to go there. I just wondered if you’d ever gone there with him.”
“I told you, I only saw him the one time. No, I didn’t go to no church with him. What do you think?”
Holliday sat down again. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “You know, Ramon, the police really appreciate cooperation.”
“Yeah,” he said, not looking at Holliday. Connolly came from somewhere else; this was the devil he knew.
“Makes our job a lot easier, so we appreciate that. When you make it easier for us, then we’re more inclined to-well, make it easier for you.”
“Yeah.”
“When we understand something, we got a much better idea what the charge should be. Like here, for instance. Somebody might think first off this is nothing but a murder one, you know, but when they understand it, when they know all the facts, they might think it’s not so bad. We don’t want you to hang for something you didn’t do.”
Connolly sat back, watching him work.
“That’s right,” Kelly said. “That Jack Duncan. That wasn’t no murder, that was just a fight, you know?”
“That’s what it sounds like to me. The boys down here understand that? They explain that to you?”
Ramon looked up at him. “Yeah, they explained it.”
“Good. You know, it’s a funny thing, boy in your position. Sometimes the police are the best friends you got.”
Ramon absentmindedly rubbed his cheek. “Yeah.”
“So you’d just want to go right on cooperating with them, wouldn’t you?”
“Sure.”
“I mean, we got two dead bodies here, so we got some kind of trouble, but that don’t have to be murder trouble, does it? Not the worst kind. I mean, two counts of second ain’t nowhere near as serious as even one first. You still got your life. They explain that to you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, good. Now I got one more question. After you hit the guy, you go through his pockets some?”
Kelly hesitated for a minute, suspecting a trap, then went ahead. “Yeah, okay, I did. What the hell-I figured he owed me something.”
“Uh-huh. You find much?”
“I don’t remember. Some. Not much.”
“You throw the wallet away too?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What about the car?”
“I don’t know nothing about a car.”
“Oh, well, maybe he didn’t have one. You didn’t find any keys, huh? Just the wallet.”
“Yeah, that’s right. Just a wallet.”
Holliday turned to Connolly. “Anything else you want to know?”
“No. I guess that’s it,” Connolly said. “Better get the guard.”
“You got another cigarette?” Ramon said.
“Sure. Anything else we can do for you?”
Kelly stood up, the cigarette tucked behind his ear. “I’d sure like to get out of solitary. Think you could do something about that? I mean, it’s not like they’re accusing me of being a murderer or something.”
Afterward they stood on the steps of the building, caught in the glare of the afternoon sun. Holliday lit a cigarette, ignoring Connolly, looking deliberately at the street. Only a few cars broke the quiet.
“Well, that explains the warm welcome,” Connolly finally said.
Holliday just continued smoking.
“How do you want to play this?” Connolly said.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Holliday said, his voice low.
“Yes you do. They can’t railroad a confession like this. Who the hell do they think they are, anyway?”
“I don’t know that one either.”
“Is this just some more Wild West stuff? What do they think’s going to happen when he talks to a
