himself in good physical shape he’s got all this energy, he has to find an outlet for it. But Tulip’s just one of the girls I see from time to time. It’s nothing heavy, you understand? Just a friend, that’s all. A casual friend with whom I have an enjoyable physical relationship. You don’t want to make a whole big deal out of it.”
What I wanted to do was play a tape of this speech for Tulip. Why was she wasting her time on this playboy when I was available? I said, “Look, your wife didn’t send me. Honest.”
“So?”
“So don’t make speeches about how you relate to Tulip like a sister. That’s not the point. You’re her friend, and you were at the Treasure Chest last night, and—”
“The hell I was!”
I did my best to look confused. I even scratched my head, mainly because I’ve seen so many people do it when they’re confused, especially in movies. The only time I normally scratch my head is when it itches. That’s funny,” I said. “According to the information we have, you were at Treasure Chest until just before fee time of the murder.”
“Well, that’s bullshit,” he said. He reached into a jar on his desk and stuffed a handful of things into his mouth. They looked like newly hatched fish, little spherical bodies and long stringy tails. (I found out later that they were alfalfa sprouts.) He munched them and said, “I don’t know where the hell you heard that. Where did you hear it, anyway?”
“You got me. Mr. Haig said that was his information, but I don’t know who told him. Where were you last night, then? Because when I tell Mr. Haig his information was wrong, he’ll want to know where you were.”
He told me what I could tell Haig to do. It was something I’ve often wanted to tell Haig to do, as a matter of fact. “I don’t have to account for my movements to Leo Haig,” he said. “That’s for damn sure.”
“You don’t have to,” I agreed. “But, see, the police don’t really know anything about you, and if Mr. Haig doesn’t have any other way of finding out where you were, he’ll let them know about you and let them ask you the same question. If Haig is satisfied, he wouldn’t have any reason to mention your name to the police. After all, they’re not his clients. Tulip is his client.”
I watched his eyes while I delivered this little set piece. There was a moment when he contemplated a show of righteous indignation, but then his eyes shifted and I could tell he knew it wouldn’t wash. “Oh, the hell with it,” he said. “I have nothing to hide. As a matter of fact, I was home last night. I was watching television. Do you want to know what programs I saw?”
“Not particularly, but maybe the Neilson people would be interested. Well, that’s no problem, then. You were home watching television so that lets you off the hook.”
“What hook? You don’t suspect me of killing Cherry, do you?”
“Of course not,” I said. “How could you? You were home watching television.”
“Right.”
I started toward the door, then turned around. “While I’m here,” I said, “could you tell me a little about Tulip and Cherry? There’s a lot I don’t know, and since I know you’re not a suspect I would be able to rely on what you tell me. It won’t take too much of your time.”
He wasn’t tickled with the idea but he liked the notion of not being a suspect. I asked him a lot of questions and he answered them and I made some notes in my notebook. His chief slant on both of the girls was nutritional. Tulip ate a lot of garbage, he said. Nature had given her a spectacular physique and she was taking a chance of ruining it because she actually ate meat and fruit that had been sprayed and a lot of other no-nos. He had tried to interest her in nutrition but so far it hadn’t taken. Cherry, on the other hand, was far more open to new ideas. The impression I got was that he liked Cherry more than he liked Tulip, probably because she was dumb enough to pay attention to him, but he didn’t like having Cherry around that much because when he stole over there for an afternoon all he really wanted to do was crawl into the feathers with Tulip, who turned him on something wonderful.
No, he didn’t know anyone who would want to kill Cherry. No, he didn’t know anyone who had anything against Tulip, either. I slipped in an oblique reference to Tulip’s fish and he didn’t seem to have strong feelings about them one way or the other. Instead he turned them into nutritional propaganda.
“She knows nutrition is the secret of conditioning,” he said. “That’s how she gets the breeding results she does. Plenty of live foods. Everything raw. Nothing cooked. She even knows to mix kelp and wheat germ into their formula. My God, they eat a better diet than she does! If she ate what she gives the fish, she’d be in fantastic shape.”
If she were in any better shape, I thought, she’d be capable of turning on statues. I was beginning to understand why Tulip had offered me a bourbon and yogurt. It was probably Haskell Henderson’s favorite cocktail.
“I guess that’s it,” I said finally. “Thanks very much for your cooperation, and I’m glad to know you were home watching television last night. That’s one name off the list.”
“Well, it’s not the kind of list I’d want to be on.”
“I don’t blame you.” I gave him my no. 3 warm smile. “Mr. Haig will just ring up your wife and confirm your story, and then we’ll be all set.”
I would probably respect myself a lot more if I didn’t get such a kick out of doing things like that. I mean, I couldn’t feature old Haskell as the killer. If he wanted to do somebody in he’d probably poison them with refined sugar and synthetic vitamins, not strychnine or curare. But we still had to know what he was doing last night, and anybody who’d believe the television story has probably already bought the Brooklyn Bridge several times over.
It was fun to watch him. He made the kind of noise in his throat that you make when you get a shirt back from the laundry and button the collar and find out it wasn’t Sanforized. Then he took six deep breaths and said, very very quietly, “You can’t call my wife.”
“Why not?” I grinned. “Oh, sure. You don’t want her to know anything about Tulip, right?”
“That’s right. She probably suspects I...uh . . . see other women. But to have it thrown in her face, and the fact that a girl I know is peripherally involved in a murder case—”
“You don’t have a thing to worry about.”
“I don’t?”
“Not a thing. Mr. Haig is very discreet. The way we’ll do it, see, is we’ll call up and pretend we’re a television survey. Ask her what programs she was watching last night. Then we’ll ask if anyone else in her family was also watching television, and she’ll say you were, and—”
“She won’t say that.”
“Oh?”
“I wasn’t actually
“We’ll ask if other family members were home but weren’t watching. Mr. Haig knows all the angles, Mr. Henderson.”
“Uh.”
I put a little steel into my voice. Or maybe it was brass. “
“Where does your wife think you were last night?”
He went for the alfalfa sprouts like a drunk for a drink. He munched and shuddered. “Meeting with the owner of a rival store to discuss a possible merger.”
“That’s a pretty good line. I don’t suppose you can use it too often but it has a nice ring to it. What time did you get to Treasure Chest and what time did you leave?”
“I wasn’t there!”
“Where were you? And don’t tell me you were with one of the other girls with whom you have a warm physical relationship and you can’t drag her name into it because she’s respectable. Don’t even try that one on.”
He met my eyes. “Jesus,” he said. “You’re just a kid.”
“I’ve had a hard life. What did you do last night?”
“I went to a movie.”
“All by yourself, of course.”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
