The Corpse Next Door: A Detective Sergeant Randall Mystery. John Farris
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party that week, a group of his friends discussing the same subject, himself saying casually, “Now, Sergeant Randall told me . . .”
“His confession was very complete,” I said. I didn’t say that Gulliver had written it and Jimmy had contributed only his signature.
You returned to the house about eleven, after the picture show. And he was asleep. You figured it was as good a time as any. But you didn’t figure he’d wake up. You had to hit him. You didn’t mean to hit him so hard. Then you took the watch and money along with the jewelry. Three thousand bucks worth. You didn’t know he was dead when you packed your stuff and beat it, did you? Later when you found out how hot you were you got rid of the jewelry and watch, dumped them in the river somewhere. That’s how it was, huh, Jimmy? Just sign here, boy, and we’ll leave you alone.
“The very day . . .” Starkey said.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m afraid my mind was wondering.” His smile looked like it had been stepped on. “I just said that the very day Jimmy killed him, Mr. Smithell was planning to buy Jimmy a new suit.”
I felt vaguely apprehensive. “Did you read that in the paper, Mr. Starkey?”
“Why—no. Mr. Smithell called me that afternoon, before he was murdered, told me Jimmy was coming in next day for a fitting. He wanted me to sort of influence the boy’s choice so Jimmy wouldn’t come home with anything drastic in color or style.”
I took a longer swallow of my drink than usual and never tasted it. “I see. Was he going to charge it?”
“No. He told me that he’d given the money to Jimmy. Thirty dollars. He didn’t want the boy picking out something too expensive, so he thought it might make Jimmy feel more responsible if he paid for it himself.”
Starkey looked past me with an expression of mock surprise. “Well, here comes my wife. I thought maybe she’d fallen in.” He chuckled. “Thanks for the advice, Sergeant. Drop by the store some time this week. We’ve received a shipment of those pastel shirts you like so much.”
“Thanks, Mr. Starkey.” I sat there after he had left, feeling a slow gathering sickness in my stomach, a sickness that couldn’t be vomited up. I gulped the rest of the drink and looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I was ugly this night.
Someone tapped my shoulder. “Excuse me.”
I turned and looked at a waiter.
“Mr. Marko sent me, Sergeant Randall. He’d like for you to have a drink with him in his office.”
I wanted to say no, say that I had to go somewhere, away from the pressure I was feeling, like lazy tightening coils. But there was no way I could refuse.
I left the bar and crossed the foyer, went up a flight of stairs to Roxy’s office. I knocked and was invited in.
As soon as I opened the door I saw Gulliver inside.
He was sitting in one of Roxy’s big white leather chairs with his shoes off and a drink in his hand. He smiled peacefully at me.
“Hello, Chief. Roxy,” I said, nodding. Roxy was fixing himself a drink at his desk. He looked at me inquisitively.
“Bill?”
“Bourbon over ice, a little sparkling.”
“A man of simple tastes,” Gulliver said. I could tell he was in a mellow mood. He lifted his glass at me and winked. “Ten years old. Roxy’s putting on the dog tonight.”
Roxy smiled slightly. He’s a small man, about five feet five, with a gentle expression that never seems to change. He has gleaming copper-colored hair and a small mustache, and there are clusters of freckles around his eyes, growing darker with age.
He handed me my drink and waved me to a chair. Roxy enjoys luxury. The office walls are padded halfway to the ceiling with the same white leather as the chairs carry, and on one corner stretches a curved sofa that is part of the wall.
On one wall hangs a large oil painting of a nude man and woman. It’s Gulliver’s favorite picture. I’ve seen him sit in that chair and look at the picture for half an hour, pouring drinks into his belly, and at the end of that time a little smile will start and he’ll laugh his head off and then he won’t look at the picture for a while. I’ve never seen Roxy look at it.
“How did the Francis girl take it this afternoon?” Gulliver said.
I looked at him. His eyes were guileless.
“Pretty hard,” I said. “They were close, as people are in that part of town. She was hoping, all the time, that something could be done. She didn’t really believe it, but she was hoping.”
“She’s a fighter,” Gulliver said sympathetically. “Lot of backbone. Not like Jimmy.” He shook his head and sighed. “I always hate to see a good fighter beaten.”
Roxy drank silently behind his desk, watching us almost shyly. He takes his whiskey in a shot glass along with a larger glass of ice and soda, drinking some of the soda, then throwing a little whiskey on top of it.
Gulliver stretched happily, one hand on his belly, the belly with the deceptive slab of fat and the corded muscles underneath. He looked at the picture and his lips were full and heavy at the corners, his eyes a little restive. He drank slowly. Gulliver has a liquor stomach, lined with sponges. He can throw down better than a pint of whiskey and he won’t look drunk, if you don’t know what to look for. Then he’ll put the bottle down and fold his hands over his stomach and sleep for twenty-four hours, unless somebody sets him on fire. But he wasn’t drinking that fast tonight and I knew, the different sort of way he was looking at the picture, that tonight maybe it would be Alise, the big red-headed one who liked to go down fighting. Roxy was a good friend. He was big, maybe the biggest, in local politics. He owned six gin mills besides this place, the big tourist court and restaurant, and other odds and ends, like Alise. In an hour, maybe, Gulliver would feel the whiskey he was drinking so slowly now, feel it just right, and he would look at Roxy and Roxy would pick up the phone. Not that it was that kind of tourist court. It was just that Roxy was such a good friend.
And I had a feeling, looking at Gulliver, that I wanted to destroy the mood he was constructing, that I was going to anyway, because the good whiskey hadn’t rinsed the dead metal taste of fear from my mouth.
“You know, Bill,” Gulliver said, “I shouldn’t have said what I did this afternoon. About the Francis girl. I don’t blame you for maybe getting a little peeved. Forget what I said about Foundry Road. I’ll have one of the patrol cars drive by. Not much use in it, anyway. Kids are going to get their snatch, one way or another.”
He gave me that smile, so I would feel all warm and good and gee-Chief-you-mean-I’m-part-of-the-team-again?
“Thanks,” I said.
Gulliver got up and walked over to Roxy’s desk, helped himself to the whiskey. “Say, Bill, when was it that soldier came in?”
“The one who beefed about dropping three hundred bucks in that poker game at the Regal? Monday night, I think.”
“Yeah.” Gulliver looked at Roxy. “We’ve had some kickbacks lately, Roxy. Nothing serious. A couple of soldiers who dropped their rolls and wanted to start something. But if somebody from Fort McHale gets took in one of your games and goes to his C.O. I’m liable to hear from the Provost.”
“Some people are just unlucky at poker, Sam,” Roxy said. “You know that. If everybody won I’d be out of business.”
I couldn’t see his eyes where I was sitting, but I knew they were as bright and cold as morning sunlight on pond ice, despite his soft, almost whispering voice. A lot of people who thought they knew Roxy had never looked directly into those eyes. You could interpret Roxy a lot of different ways. I had my own ideas about him. So did Gulliver. He handled Roxy carefully. He had heard the story, too.
“Sure, I know,” Gulliver said. “It was just