Mrs. Lama Bellsey let him into her apartment without too much of a hassle.
She was so flustered that she didn't even ask to see his ID. Hogan planned to lean on her hard. He didn't even take his hat off, fearing his nude pate wouldn't enhance the image of the hard-boiled detective.
She was a wisp of a woman with thinning gray hair and defeated eyes. She was wearing something shapeless with long sleeves and a high neck that effectively hid her body.
Hogan wondered what she was like in bed, and guessed she'd be similar to his second wife who, during sex, would say things like, 'The ceiling needs painting.'
'Look, Mrs. Bellsey,' he started, scowling at the timid woman, 'you know why I'm here. Your husband is involved in the murder of Doctor Ellerbee, and we don't believe he was home that night like he says.'
'He was,' she said nervously, 'he really was. I was here with him.'
'From when to when?'
'All evening. All night.'
'And he never went out?'
'No,' she said, lowering her eyes.
'Never. He was here all the time.'
'Did he tell you to say that?'
'No, it's the truth.'
'Did he say if you didn't back him up, he'd belt you around?'
'No,' she said, finally showing a small flash of spirit, 'it's not like that at all.'
'You say. We're checking all your husband's hangouts those bars he goes to where he beats up strangers. If we find out that he wasn't here that night, do you know what we'll do to you for lying?'
She was silent, clasping her hands tightly, knuckles whitening.
'Come on, Mrs. Bellsey,' Hogan said in a loud, hectoring voice, 'make it easy on yourself. He went out that night, didn't he?'
'I don't know,' she said in a low, quavery voice.
'What do you mean you don't know?'
She didn't answer.
'Do I have to take you in?' he demanded.
'Arrest you as an accessory?
March you through the lobby in handcuffs? Put you in a filthy cell with whores and.dope fiends? Come on, what do you mean you don't know if he went out?'
'I had a headache,' she said faintly.
'A migraine. I went to bed early.'
'How early?'
'About eight-thirty I think it was.'
'On the night Ellerbee was killed?'
'Yes.'
'Your husband was here then?'
'Yes.
'You went into the bedroom?'
'Yes.
'Did you close the door?'
'Yes. He was watching television.'
'Did you sleep?'
'Well, I took my medicine. It makes me very drowsy.'
'So you slept?'
'Sort of.'
'What time did you get up?'
'I got up around eleven to go to the bathroom.' She wouldn't look at him when she said that.
'At eleven,' Hogan repeated.
'Was your husband here then?'
'Yes, he was,' she said defiantly.
'I saw him.'
'But you didn't see him from eight-thirty to eleven?'
She began to cry, small tears sliding down her cheeks.
'Don't yell at me,' she said, choking.
'Please.'
'Answer my question. Otherwise I'll take you downtown.'
'No!' she screamed at him.
'I didn't see him from eight-thirty to eleven.'
Got him! Detective Timothy Hogan thought with savage satisfaction.
He drove back to 18th Street, delighted with his coup and hoping he hadn't lost Bellsey to mar the triumph. But the white Cadillac was still outside the meat market. Hogan parked nearby where he could watch the door. He urinated into an empty milk carton he always brought along on stakeouts for emergencies.
He sat there all day, getting hungrier and hungrier, and cursing his failure to buy a sandwich, candy bar, coffee anything. He went through almost a pack of cigarettes, but the son of a bitch still didn't come out.
'What the hell is he doing in there?' the detective said aloud. And having said it, began to dream of what the market contained: steaks, chops, ground meat, chickens. It made him faint to think about it, he was so ravenous.
He dozed off a couple of times, but when he jerked awake, the Cadillac was still there. Hogan stuck it out, trying to keep himself alert by recalling the interrogation of Mrs. Lama Bellsey and planning how he would word it in his report: play down the threats, play up the subtlety of his questions. it was almost 8:45 P.m.-the streetlights on-when Bellsey came out of the meat market with two other guys. They stood joking, laughing, pushing each other. Hogan wondered if they had been boozing.
Finally they separated. Bellsey got in his car and took off.
Hogan followed him up Eighth Avenue, sticking close in the heavy traffic, not wanting to lose him after sitting for so many hours and nearly dying of hunger.
Bellsey hung a left on 53rd Street and headed for the river through a darkened factory and warehouse district. Where the hell is he going?
Hogan puzzled, and dropped back a halfblock as traffic thinned. The Cadillac turned onto Eleventh Avenue and went two blocks, slowing. Then Bellsey found a parking slot and pulled in.
Beautiful, Hogan thought. It was a great neighborhood-if your life insurance was paid up.
He cruised along slowly and saw the subject go into a tavern. The street lighting wasn't the brightest, but Hogan could make out the name of the place: TAIL of THE whale. Charming. Why didn't they call it Moby's Dick and be done with it?
He parked and walked back. The windows were steamed up, and he couldn't see inside, but it looked like a seaman's bar, a boilermaker joint, and if you asked for an extra-dry martini with two olives, they'd look at you with loathing and throw your ass out on the street.
He couldn't make up his mind whether to go in, wait in his car for Bellsey to come out, or just scratch the day and go home. What decided him was a big sign over the door: FRANKS, BURGERS, CHILI DOGS, HOT SANDWICHES. He went in.
It was about what he figured: a real bucket of blood. White tiled walls slick with grease. An old-fashioned mahogany bar on one side, tables and booths on the other. A TV set suspended from the tin ceiling on chains.
Lighted jukebox and cigarette machine. In the back, a grill and steam table presided over by a fat black who was dripping sweat onto the sausages.
Hogan saw Bellsey at the bar, talking to two other guys. It looked like they were all working on doubles. The detective slid into an empty booth across the room and started on a new pack of cigarettes. He looked around.
