'I keep finding new people to light candles for.'
'I don't get you. You're not drunk, are you, Matt?'
'No, but not for lack of trying. I have had better days.' I sipped coffee, put the cup down on the checkered cloth. I took out Spinner's silver dollar—correction, my dollar, I'd bought and paid for it—and I gave it a spin. I said, 'Last night somebody tried to kill me.'
'God! Around here?'
'A few doors down the block.'
'No wonder you're—'
'No, that's not it. This afternoon I got even. I killed a man.' I thought she would take her hand from atop mine, but she didn't. 'I didn't exactly kill him. He stuck a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. A little Spanish gun, they truck them in by the ton from the Carolinas.'
'Why do you say you killed him?'
'Because I put him in a room and the gun was the only door out of it. I boxed him in.'
She looked at her watch. 'Fuck it,' she said. 'I can leave early for a change.
If Jimmie wants to sue me for half an hour, then the hell with him.' She reached behind her neck with both hands to unfasten her apron. The movement emphasized the swell of her breasts.
She said, 'Like to walk me home, Matt?'
We had used each other a few times over the months to keep the lonelies away. We liked each other in and out of bed, and both of us had the vital security of knowing it could never lead to anything.
'Matt?'
'I couldn't do you much good tonight, kid.'
'You could keep me from getting mugged on the way home.'
'You know what I mean.'
'Yeah, Mr. Detective, but you don't know what I mean.' She touched my cheek with her forefinger. 'I wouldn't let you near me tonight anyway. You need a shave.' Her face softened into a smile. 'I was offering a little coffee and company,' she said. 'I think you could use it.'
'Maybe I could.'
'Plain old coffee and company.'
'All right.'
'Not tea and sympathy, nothing like that.'
'Just coffee and company.'
'Uh-huh. Now tell me it's the best offer you've had all day.'
'It is,' I said. 'But that's not saying a hell of a lot.'
* * *
SHE made good coffee, and she managed to come up with a pint of Harper's to flavor it with. By the time I was done talking, the pint had gone from mostly full to mostly empty.
I told her most of it. I left out anything that would make Ethridge or Huysendahl identifiable, and I didn't spell out Henry Prager's smarmy little secret. I didn't mention his name, either, although she figured to dope it out for herself if she bothered to read the morning papers.
When I was finished she sat there for a few minutes, head tilted to one side, eyes half lidded, smoke drifting upward from her cigarette. At length she said she didn't see how I could have done things differently.
'Because suppose you managed to let him know that you weren't a blackmailer, Matt. Suppose you got a little more evidence together and went to him. You would have exposed him, wouldn't you?'
'One way or another.'
'He killed himself because he was afraid of exposure, and that was while he thought you were a blackmailer. If he knew you were going to hand him over to the cops, wouldn't he have done the same thing?'
'He might not have had the chance.'
'Well, maybe he was better off having the chance. Nobody forced him to take it, it was his decision.'
I thought it over. 'There's still something wrong.'
'What?'
'I don't exactly know. Something doesn't fit together the way it should.'
'You just have to have something to feel guilty about.' I guess the line hit home enough to show in my face, because she blanched. 'I'm sorry,' she said.
'Matt, I'm sorry.'
'For what?'
'I was just, you know, being cute.'
'Many a true word is et cetera.' I stood up. 'It'll look better in the morning.
