'Central Argus,' I said.
She nodded. 'Figures,' she said.
'Because Valdez worked for them?' I said.
'They been stirring up trouble down here for a long time,' Virgie said.
'Or maybe there has been trouble down here for a long time and they've just been reporting it.'
Virgie shrugged again. 'They're paying you,' she said.
'Much coke around here?' I said.
'You got me,' Virgie said. 'You looking to score some?'
'Maybe.'
Virgie shook her head. 'No, you're not. You do coke like I do caviar. You aren't the type.'
'It's my clear blue eyes and square jaw,' I said. 'They're always giving me away.'
'Sure,' Virgie said. 'You got any clues about Valdez?'
'No,' I said. 'I was hoping you might.'
'See you're not listening to me,' Virgie said. 'Watch my lips. I don't know anything about Valdez.'
'Or coke?'
'Or coke.'
'Or Chief Rogers.'
'No.'
'Or anything that isn't small talk.'
Virgie nodded. 'Hey,' she said. 'Man's quick learner.'
'If you were me,' I said, 'who would you talk with.'
'If I were you, I'd go home,' she said.
'And if you didn't do that, what would you do?' I said.
'Nothing,' Virgie said. 'I wouldn't do nothing.'
Chapter 5
The specials didn't bode well for the Reservoir Court dining room so I went out to a supermarket and bought some fixings and a six-pack of beer and went back to the motel to dine alone. I got some ice from the ice machine in the corridor and cooled the beer in a wastebasket. I had tuna salad and coleslaw and whole wheat bread and some paper plates and plastic cutlery, and a jar of bread and butter pickles. Green vegetables are important.
I made supper and marveled at the progress I had made in only a day. The police chief had told me to get lost, after careful probing and a liberal application of the old rough-hewn Spenser sex appeal the woman tending bar had told me to get lost. So far my only success was not getting carded at the Wheaton Liquor Store. I sipped from my bottle of Samuel Adams beer. I was an an American-beer binge. Working on the assumption that locally brewed is fresher and hence tastier. The Sam Adams seemed fresh and tasty, thus confirming my suspicions. Who said I couldn't detect. Who said I couldn't find a whale in a fishbowl. Who had said that Valdez was fooling around with Colombian women?
I hadn't mentioned that. Bailey Rogers had said that. It was after all the suggestion of a clue. If Valdez had been having an affair with a Colombian woman, that cut the suspects from 15,734 to fewer than 5,000.
I drank some more Sam Adams and let it seep down my throat and admired the label. Nice picture of old Sam. That's pretty good detective work, eliminate more than ten thousand suspects with one master stroke. Actually probably only half the remaining five thousand were female, and many of them would be too old or too young. Hell, I practically had the she-devil cornered.
Sam Adams was so fresh and tasty that I was on my third before I got to making supper. The options for an entertaining evening in Wheaton were fairly limited and I was exercising one of the most likely. I carefully spread the tuna salad on the whole wheat bread, and added a dab of coleslaw and made two sandwiches. I cut each one into four triangles and arranged them on a paper plate, the expensive glazed kind, and added a colorful garnish of pickle. I got a hand towel from the bathroom to serve as a napkin, and the water glass to hold beer. For predinner cocktails drinking from the bottle was fine, in fact preferable. But with dinner one needed to decant it. i sat at the little round table by the window and looked out onto the parking lot and had supper.
Talking to Virgie had tended to reinforce what I'd gotten from Chief Rogers. The subject of Valdez's death was not an open subject. Virgie's reaction had been fear of involvement and amazement that I'd even broach the subject let alone broach it without police authority or backup.
I ate a triangle of sandwich. The commercial coleslaw tasted like commercial coleslaw but it wasn't bad, and Sam Adams made it better.
One would hate to generalize, but the first two people I'd talked with wanted the Valdez killing to go away and never be discussed again. As they say on the cop shows, I smelled a cover-up. Spenser, Private Nose.
I ate another triangle, and a bite of pickle. Have nose will travel.
I drank some more beer. In the water glass it had a pleasant amber tone. Like Anchor Steam beer.
Cyrano de Spenser.
I finished the sandwiches and the beer. It was almost seven. I called Susan.
