his face—and of course there was a big dent where I'd broken his nose.
He gave me the old double slap on the back again, asked, “What we standing here for? Come into my office—not that it looks any better than this craphouse.”
Max's office was a plain room with a battered and butt- burned desk, two chairs—one of them with a broken back—and on his desk were framed snapshots of his fat wife and the two little girls. On one of the green walls there was a small picture of Max in a fighting pose, cut out of the papers when he'd won the Golden Gloves heavyweight title. Max had been riding the gravy train as police department boxing champ for several years till I came along and beat his brains out. It was the start of a real friendship.
Max bent down to get his pint out—why do they always keep it in the bottom drawer? The top would be more convenient—and I said, “Not for me.”
He kicked the drawer shut, tilted his chair, the good one, against the wall. “Matt, I've missed your ugly puss. Going into the agency racket again? You want, I can get you back on the force, being a vet of two wars and all that. Hell, you're only 33, still retire before you're 50.”
“You mean retire to one of these two-bit night watchmen or messenger jobs so I could live on my pension?”
Max sent an oyster of spit into the tin wastebasket. “Going to get your license again?”
I stared at the wastebasket. Max? I'd never thought of that, could be.
He asked, “What's the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“What's your plans, champ?”
“To do a lot of nothing. Get a quiet room on the ocean front, take care of myself.”
Max looked at me with troubled eyes, rocked his chair. “Matt, what's wrong? You talk like a washed-up old man. You're still a kid, and you used to be tough as...”
“That's it, Maxie...
“What crap! I was in touch with the docs at the hospital; all you have is a scar on your lungs. Why half the people in the world have a scar on their lungs, had TB at some time and never even knew it. For all I know, maybe I have. And I heard about your running out on that goon Tops Anderson today. For Christsakes, what's happened, Matt, lost your grip?”
“Could be.
“You've turned soft, sound like a dizzy hypochondriac. Why two years ago you would have slapped Tops loose from his teeth for even looking at you wrong!”
“That was two years ago. Max, why do we make such a big deal of being tough? All we see on the screen, the radio or TV is some joker bragging how tough and rugged he is. I didn't have much to think about in the hospital, so I figured out toughness. It's for the birds. Unless a guy is ready to take a stand—and that means ready to die—on anything, even getting called a louse or a SOB, then being tough is all a bluff, being a coward. And if you're really tough, ready to kill or be killed over a hard look—then you're stupid.”
“Sweet God, you talk like you're half dead, a...”
“That's what I am, half dead. And I don't give a damn about anything but seeing I don't become
“Your hands are the best weapons you'll ever have. What you need a rod for?”
“You want me to make it formal? As a citizen I'm asking for a gun permit for protection. From time to time I'm going to run into other slap-happy characters like Tops, guys I once slugged, and this running is tough on my lungs. With a rod I could bluff my way...”
I stopped, for Max's fat face was twisted up as though he was going to cry. He shook his head sadly. “What's wrong with you? Running!... And you know I can't give you a permit on those grounds. Also you damn well know there's no point in packing a rod unless you're going to use it. That'd be great, getting sent up for knocking off a slob like Tops because you're scared to...”
“You won't get me the permit?” .
“No!”
“Okay. I'll make application for one at police headquarters, anyway.” I stood up. “Say hello to Libby and the kids....”
Max got to his feet. “Wait a minute, can't we talk? For crying out loud, we're old friends and...”
“Sure we are, always will be friends. Only we each have to play things the way we see them. I...”
His phone rang and he waved a big hand at me, snapped at the receiver, “Yeah?... When? Headquarters... the bastards! 241 Hilldale Drive... Beatrice Wilson... Mrs. Get me a car, right away!” He slammed the receiver down, told me, “Got a juicy murder in my precinct. Come over with me.”
I glanced at my watch. It was almost three. “No, time for me to take my afternoon nap. I'll see you some...”
“Nap?” Max growled, grabbing his hat and then my arm, rushing me toward the door. “We can talk while in the car. What the hell, maybe the sight of a stiff will get you in harness again.'”
I didn't want to waste energy wrestling Max. I turned my head away from his, wanted to tell him I'd done my share of killing recently, seen too many bodies—mass murder. But I didn't say a word, and we picked up a young cop and jumped into the car waiting at the curb.
Max put the siren on and started cutting through traffic. The cop asked, “What's up, Captain?”
“Found a dame out on Hilldale Drive with her head bashed in.”
“Hilldale?” the cop repeated. “Ritzy neighborhood. What is it, robbery?”
“How the hell do I know? I got a phone, not a crystal ball!”
Max raced through the streets—although he was careful to slow down at the crossings when we didn't have the light—and within a few minutes he pulled up in front of a fairly new brick house—one of these expensive picture-window jobs set back on a well-kept lawn. There were several radio cars there and a cop keeping back a curious crowd of housewives and kids.
The cop next to me muttered, “Headquarters already here.”
We went inside and a fat cop pointed up a short flight of stairs. We rushed up and I said, “Take it slow, Maxie,” and we came into a large bedroom full of detectives and cops. The fingerprint men and photographers were already busy.
It was a nice bedroom, with pink drapes and candy-striped wallpaper. The bed had been slept in, the sheets were mussed, a dressing table and a couple of chairs were overturned and the dressing mirror smashed. The corpse lay on the bed, clothed in a blue silk negligee, a good deal of her naked, dead body showing—it had been a fairly interesting body, firm thighs. She was lying on her back and from what I could see, she'd been average pretty, maybe cute, for a dame in her late thirties. The back of her head was smashed in, her thick blonde hair messy with matted blood. A little metal table lamp lying near the head had evidently been the skull-cracker.
One of the detectives was standing by the bed, apparently measuring the setup with his eyes. He started to take off his coat, then, his eye catching something red, suddenly dropped to the floor on his hands and knees and peered under the bed. But it was only a pair of fuzzy red bedroom slippers. I guess he was disappointed.
Looking at the woman, I thought it had been years since I'd seen a dead white woman... but I'd seen so many yellow and brown dead women. In death, as in life,, they all looked the same except for the color of their skin. There was a joke that went something like that, Harry would know it. The only difference was this woman had died in her lush bedroom, the others I'd seen—you found dead yellow women along the roads, in the bombed and burned-out huts, or in the grotesque positions of those frozen to death. There'd been the one without any...
I was starting to feel uneasy again and I went into the adjoining bathroom, with its black tile and striped shower curtain and took my pill, cupping my hand under the faucet for water.
I came back into the room and stood around, and a guy from homicide talked to Max who seemed more interested in learning why headquarters had been notified before the local precinct. The homicide man said, “Who knows why? The maid, a Mrs. Florence Samuels, came in at noon. Thought Mrs. Wilson was out, started her work downstairs. When she came up here to clean, she found the body—looked up headquarters in the phone book.”
“Funny she didn't just ask the operator for the cops,” Max said. “And how come she starts at noon?”
“Seems Henry Wilson, husband of the victim, has been missing for a couple days. Mrs. Wilson was up late, worrying, and the maid didn't go home till after eleven. Claims Mrs. Wilson told her not to come in till noon on account of working late.”
“What's with the missing husband?”
“We haven't anything on him, yet. Evidently they had some kind of fuss, and he returned last night and knocked her off. Neighbors says the light was on all night in the bedroom, and they heard the sounds of a man arguing with Mrs. Wilson.”
Max said, “That doesn't mean it was the husband, could have been another John who...”
“One moment, sir!” a voice boomed and this heavy-set joker who had been sitting in one corner of
