7

Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O’Malley had, on the whole, taken it rather well. A few screams which somewhat resembled prayers; a few shouted warnings about listening to people nobody could make head or tail of; some violent instructions that Weigand remember he was the cop, and not that couple of screwy amateurs and particularly the dame. But no order to come, forthwith, to O’Malley’s office in West Fifty-fourth Street; no direct threat that, if he caught the Norths messing around it, he would, “g.d. it to hell,” toss them in the tank and throw away the key.

Bill Weigand could not remember that the inspector had ever, before, been so moderate on an issue which was, to him, immoderate. The inspector was, conceivably, softening up. Or, perhaps, he was merely getting tired. He had fought the battle of the Norths for a very long time, but not to much avail. It was his conviction that the Norths loused things up; that any case in which they were involved became improperly complicated and that this was clearly the fault of the Norths. He felt, also, that, with the Norths present, Weigand forgot the duty of a cop: Keep it simple and arrest the most likely. In this case, a sniper, by preference, but—

“About this Willings guy,” Inspector O’Malley had said when he turned from the Norths. “This Payne guy knocks him down in front of a lot of people and from what I hear this Willings guy goes around banging himself on the chest, like this Tarzan guy. Lick any man in the bar, that’s what I hear Willings is. So what’s the matter with the Willings guy, Bill?”

“Nothing,” Bill said. “I don’t say you’re not right, chief. Only, we don’t want to rush things, do we? He’s a fairly important man—”

“Important? Whatja mean important? Way I get it, he’s just a writer. Book writer.”

“Well—”

“That’s what I mean,” O’Malley said. “This North guy gets into it, and you get screwy ideas. Like a book writer’s being an important guy. On account, this North guy publishes books. You see what I mean, Bill?”

“Right. Only—”

“A guy writes for newspapers,” O’Malley said, “and I don’t say you wouldn’t have something. Or even magazines. But this guy just writes books.”

“Right. I remember that, chief.”

“You young cops,” O’Malley said, tolerantly. “Got anything for the newspaper boys?”

“Nothing they need to have. Anyway, they ought to be happy for now.”

“There’s the afternoons, Bill.”

“Give ’em Brozy, chief. They’ll like Brozy.”

“They’ll kid us,” O’Malley said. “But, O.K., Bill. So—wait a minute. Listen, Bill. Are there any cats in this one?” There was entreaty in his tone.

“Not that I know of.”

“Thank God,” O’Malley said, and hung up.

Bill went out to the squad room. Sergeant Mullins was at his desk, and a head motion summoned him.

“Bank Street’s a suicide, O.K.,” Mullins reported. “Girl trouble. Wrote a note and mailed it to the girl.”

“Thoughtful of him,” Bill said. “On this Payne kill, Sergeant. Mrs. Payne went around to see Mrs. North this morning and—”

“Oh,” Mullins said, “another one of those, Loot?” He also sighed deeply.

“And,” Bill repeated, having for the time had enough of that, “apparently—possibly, anyway—is worried whether she said something she shouldn’t. When Mrs. North told her her husband was dead. After that, there was a woman with her—just sitting with her, I suppose—for a time. A housekeeper, works for the hotel. Name of Mason. Mrs. Payne didn’t say anything that sounded out of the way to Mrs. North. But it could be that to this housekeeper—”

“O.K., Loot-I-mean-Captain,” Mullins said. “We go—”

“You,” Bill said. “Right?”

Mullins said “Sure.” He went.…

The bookstore seemed, somehow, to be in hiding. It was on an inconspicuous street in the Village, far from the strange life of Eighth Street. It was three steps below street level, as if it flinched from public view. The lettering on the window glass was at the bottom, and small, and said: “James Self, Books.” Weigand went down into the area and opened the bookshop door and, from some distance, a small bell tinkled. For the moment, nothing else happened.

There were shelves of books on either side of the narrow shop. There were two easy chairs with their backs to the street windows; there was a table beside each chair, and on each table a spray of cigarettes in a pewter container. A long table ran down the center of the room, and there were books on it in varicolored jackets. Waiting, Bill Weigand looked at the books. A small stack of Gardner Willings’s latest. Several titles in French. Two titles by Marquand. Cozzens was represented; Anthony Payne was not. There were light footsteps from a rear room and a girl with dark hair and large dark eyes, with a singularly white skin, came out of it. She wore a loose sweater and a tweed skirt and loafers.

She said, in a somewhat faraway voice, and in a soft voice, “Can I help you? Or would you prefer to browse?”

It occurred to Bill Weigand that the words had been learned by rote; had been planned, whether by the girl or someone else, as a conventional expression of a detached, noncommercial attitude. Certainly the pretty girl spoke as if she were weary of the words. She spoke entirely without animation.

And yet, as she had come into the room, there had been animation in her young body. Much can, Bill Weigand believes, be told about people by the way they move. (He sometimes wonders whether it was not extraordinary grace of movement of which he was first conscious when he looked, long since, at a girl named Dorian. But he can no longer think of Dorian Weigand in segments.)

This dark girl moved freshly, muscles quick in supple body. Only her voice was tired, indifferent, as if her mind went slowly through its motions.

Weigand wondered if he could see Mr. Self. In the same tone of detachment, of indifference, she said that she was afraid Mr. Self was out. But if there was some particular book? If an especially rare book he would, indeed, have to see Mr. Self. But—if, perhaps, he wanted them to search for a book? She could make a note of what he wanted—

“No,” Bill said. “Nothing like that, miss—”

He gave her opportunity. She did not seem to hear him.

“I wonder,” he said, “if you’ve got Payne’s new one in stock yet? Anthony Payne? The Liberators, I think it’s called. Out yest—”

He stopped because the girl had drawn back. It seemed to him that her dark eyes widened; that the tiny muscles around them set. Her skin had been white, but with glow under it. Suddenly her face was flatly white.

“What do you want?” she said. Her voice did not increase in volume; it was still a soft voice. But its whole timbre was very different.

“What?” he said. “Why, Anthony Payne’s new—”

“No,” she said. “You brought his name up, didn’t you. To see what—what I’d do?”

And that, of course, was true enough. There might be one very pretty, dark-haired, dark-eyed, girl in James Self’s shop and another in his life—one (what had Willings said?) “tender” girl. It had seemed worthwhile finding out. He had, he thought, found out.

Candy from a baby, Bill thought. A singularly defenseless baby.

“Who are you?” the girl said. And then, unexpectedly, “I suppose, whoever you are, you’re very proud of yourself.”

Bill found that he wasn’t, particularly. Policemen have to take candy from those who have it. The girl wasn’t, certainly, stupid. Merely—innocent? Merely “tender”?

“Right,” Bill said. “I’m a detective. And—”

“What do you want to see Jim about?” The voice was a little higher now.

Bill managed, he hoped, to look surprised; even to look blank.

“Why,” he said, “Payne’s killing, miss.” He tried to get surprise into his voice—surprise that she had missed the obvious. (Mullins can do this better, Bill thought.) “Not Mr. Self more than anybody else. We’re trying to see everybody who was at this—” he hesitated—“press party, I guess they call it. See if anybody can tell us anything to help.” He smiled at the pretty girl, and thought some warmth came back under her very white skin. “Just one of dozens, I am,” Bill said. “Were you at this party yourself, miss?”

Muscles around eyes had relaxed. Fine. Taking candy from a baby. All right—fine.

“I?” she said. “Good heavens no. I was minding the store. That’s what Mr. Self pays me for.”

“Sure,” Bill said. “Can’t leave any avenue unexplored, as the regulations say.” (Mr. Self, now. Jim a moment ago. Baby trying to get her candy back.) “You expect Mr. Self soon?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “It shouldn’t be—” And stopped abruptly. “He did,” she said, “say something about going to an auction. I’d forgotten that. If he did—heaven knows.”

Bill Weigand sighed—a tired cop, doing the dull things he was told to do.

“He was at this party, though?” Bill said. “Somehow I got the idea it was for—oh, book reviewers. People like that.” Not owners of unimportant bookshops, his tone implied. (He hoped.)

“Oh,” she said, “Mr. Self is a critic too. Quite an important one where—where it’s important.” How does one explain these things to a dumb policeman? her tone asked. “And he’s starting a magazine. A magazine of—” She looked at Bill, and shook her pretty head. Looking for a word within my scope, Bill thought. “Comment,” the girl said. “Literary comment. About books that really matter. Not just—”

She made a graceful gesture toward the bright-jacketed books on the long table. Her gesture seemed to dismiss them—Cozzens and Marquand and all.

“Of course,” she said, “we have to handle—well, everything here. Best sellers and everything.” It was a little, Bill thought, as if she were saying that cockroaches get in everywhere. “Some of our customers want things like that,” she said.

Animated enough, now. Trotting along gayly, now, on the hobbyhorse of enthusiasm.

“Most of them,” she said, “are—well, different.”

“Writers, I suppose,” Bill said, trying to remember how Mullins would say it, and speak accordingly. “People like this—what’s his name? Williams?”

“If you mean Tennessee Williams,” she said. “I don’t think—he lives in Key West, you know.”

“Thinking of somebody else,” Bill said. “Doesn’t matter. I’d better be getting—” He started to turn. He said, “Wait a minute. Willings. That’s the one I was thinking of. Writers like that. Or, for that matter, Anthony Payne.”

“Not Will—” she said, and stopped, and the little muscles about her large, and for that matter very beautiful, dark eyes once more tightened.

“But,” Bill Weigand said, “Payne. Often, miss—? I think you’d better tell me your name.”

She hesitated for a moment. She said, “Why?” He merely waited. When she spoke, her voice was flat again.

“Rhodes,” she said. “Jo-An Rhodes.”

“Miss Rhodes,” Bill said, “you saw Mr. Payne away from the shop, didn’t you? Went to dinner with him? Things like—”

“You haven’t any—”

“Yes,” Bill said. “To ask. Because we have to find out everything about Mr. Payne we can find out—who he knew, who he saw. Yes, even who he took to dinner. If you’ve some reason not to answer—”

She was shaking her head, by then. She said, “You’ll misunderstand. Try to make something out of it.” Very young; a little frightened.

“No,” Bill said. “Nothing that isn’t there. You did see him? Often?”

“Several times. It was—there wasn’t anything. To dinner a few times and—oh, to the theater. And once up to have dinner at a place in the country. I can go where I want to. With—with people I want—”

“Of course,” Bill said. “I don’t question that. But, Miss Rhodes, did Mr. Self?”

She looked surprised—managed to look surprised. That was it, Bill thought—“managed.” Candy from—

“Mr. Self?” she repeated, and got surprise into her soft voice. “Why on earth should—Oh, I see what you mean. It was always after I was through here, of course. I only work until—”

“No,” Bill said. “That wasn’t what I meant, Miss Rhodes. You know it wasn’t, don’t you? Because—how do you want me to put it? Mr. Self doesn’t want you going with other men? Particularly men such as Mr. Payne apparently was? And, of course, married men and—”

“His wife didn’t—” Again she did not finish.

“Understand him?” Bill said, in a certain tone, and at that she shook her head from side to side.

“Care,” she said. “It was—their marriage was just a—formality. It isn’t as if—”

“He told you that?”

She saw it; saw it too late. If it had all been as casual as she said, Payne wouldn’t have—oh, she saw it. But at that moment, a little bell tinkled in the room behind the shop.

She was facing toward the front of the shop. She spoke as Bill Weigand turned to face the door.

“Jim,” she said. “This man’s a detective. He’s been—”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Self,” Bill said. “My name’s Weigand. From—”

“Captain,” Self said. He was a tall, spare man in his early thirties. He had black hair, which was beginning a little to recede. He had a wide forehead and a wide mouth and a surprisingly square jaw. “Homicide, Manhattan West. Badgering children, Captain?”

“I’m not a—” Jo-An said, and her voice was not indifferent now. There was indignation in the young voice.

“Of course you are, Jo-Jo,” James Self said. “I’m sure the captain discovered that. Get what you were after, Weigand?”

“Oh,” Bill said, “I was just waiting around until you got back, Mr. Self. To see whether you’d noticed anything at the party which might help us. There’s a lot of rou—”

“The hell with that,” Self said. “Jo-Jo—dust some books, will you? Or read one. Or, twiddle your pretty thumbs.”

“I don’t have—” the girl said and Self said, “Sh-h-h.” He said, “You want to see me, come on,” and walked toward the rear of the shop. “The insufferable—” the girl said, and gave it up. Bill Weigand followed the spare man who, he now realized, vaguely reminded him of somebody he had met before. In almost the same moment, he remembered who—a lineman for a light and power company; a man called Harry; a very tough young man indeed and, certainly, no frequenter of bookshops. Bill was faintly amused by the vagary of his own mind.

The room immediately in the rear of the shop was small, dim, obviously a storeroom. Beyond it, the room Weigand followed James Self into was as obviously an office. It had a tall window giving on a garden. There was a desk, rather cluttered. Self sat at the desk, back to window, and motioned, the gesture quick, peremptory, toward a chair. Bill thought, the image, of Harry, and sat down.

“What did you get out of the child?” Self said, and his voice, too, was peremptory.

“You seem,” Bill said, mildly, “to think there was something to get, Mr. Self.”

He was asked if he wanted to kid around.

“Very well,” Bill said. “That she was seeing a good deal of Anthony Payne, a man who’s got himself killed. A good deal more than you approved of, I think. How strong was your disapproval, Mr. Self?”

“So,” Self said, “that’s your line, is it? No demented sniper, anymore?”

“I haven’t a line yet,” Bill said. “I’m looking for a line. Well?”

“She’s a baby,” Self said. “You can see that, can’t you? Pretty, bright enough. Hipped on what she used to call the ‘literary life.’” His wide mouth twisted itself into a smile—a rather unexpected smile, somehow at odds with his manner, with the aggressive squareness of his jaw. “Cured her of the expression. Not, I’m afraid, of the attitude. Fair game for a man like Payne. Distinguished man of letters.” He made a sound of utter contempt. “She’s a little goose—pretty, downy little goose.” He seemed to speak with anger.

Bill waited.

“He was a stinker,” Self said. “What you ought to be looking for is somebody to pin a medal on.”

“Perhaps,” Bill said. “But we’re not hired for that. I take it you felt strongly about this? Miss Rhodes seeing Payne? Going about with—”

“Who wouldn’t? Except another stinker like Payne?”

“You seem to feel responsible for her,” Bill said. “Why?”

“Nobody’s responsible for anybody,” Self said. “You see a kid fall into a sewer, you try to pull it out, if you happen to be on hand. Sure, I disapproved. I disapprove of all the bad things that happen to everybody. Take it that I’m against sin.”

Bill Weigand smiled faintly, and moved his head slowly from side to side.

“All right,” James Self said, “she’s a lovely little thing. I’m sitting here in this cave, growling, and one day she walks in and says she’s come from Chicago because life there is sterile—whatever the hell she meant by that—and can I give her a job? Because she wants to be some place that has something to do with books.” He shook his own head. “Good God,” he said.

Bill kept on waiting.

“So—” Self said. “She lighted up the cave. And I did need somebody to tell people please to feel free to browse. She tell you that?”

Bill nodded.

“Her father manufactures buttons,” Self said. “Gives you pause, doesn’t it? Until you remember buttons have to come from somewhere. And that somebody must make—oh, rubber bands. Paper clips. Hairpins, for God’s sake. Bit button man. And her mother—what the hell am I going into all this for?” He looked hard at Weigand. “You think I fell for her,” he said. “Was overcome by yen.”

“Well—”

“Not that,” Self said. “I don’t say nothing like that. But not flatly that. She’s—what the hell’s the use? Keep it simple. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Payne grabs off my girl and I kill Payne. Only—she isn’t my girl. And I didn’t kill Payne.”

“Right,” Bill said. “Whatever you say.”

“Until you can prove different,” Self said.

“Unless I can.”

“How did you get onto this—angle? Or is that none of my business?”

“Payne brought Miss Rhodes into a restaurant,” Bill said. “You saw them. Seemed angry—upset.”

“Willings,” Self said, “is a blabbermouth. Has to put everything into words. Has to listen to his own words. Try them out. Regardless—” Self broke off and leaned back in his chair. “And God,” he said, “how the bastard can write!” He leaned forward again.

“And where was I at the time of the crime? And who was with me? And have I got a revolver—”

“Rifle,” Bill said. “Twenty-two target. Probably with a telescopic sight.”

“I said revolver just to throw you off,” Self said. “Sure I knew it was a rifle.”

Bill sighed, audibly.

“No,” Self said. “Revolver or rifle or popgun. No. I left this damn party—”

“By the way. How’d you happen to go to the party?”

“Got invited. Thought there might be a performance. Couldn’t see Willings passing up a chance like that. Not after Payne’s review.”

“You saw the performance?”

“Saw it. Thought it only fair. Contrived unhappy ending. Good guy felled by bad guy. You’ve considered Willings? Unexpectedly deflated. Made an ass out of, to put it simply. Which he wouldn’t like at all.”

“Yes. You went alone to the party?”

“You mean, did I take Jo-Jo? No. After the show was over I came back here. Upstairs, that is. I’ve got an apartment upstairs. Which Miss Jo-An Rhodes does not share. That’s for the record. I read a while and had a drink and about nine o’clock I got hungry and went out and got some food. That I could prove, I suppose. Not the rest of it. Well?”

That, Weigand told him, about did it. For the moment. Bill went, alone, through the small storeroom and into the shop. Jo-An Rhodes was sitting in one of the chairs, back to window, reading. She looked up as he came into the room; looked up quickly.

Since the light was behind her, Bill Weigand could not see her face clearly. There was no real explanation, therefore, for the sudden conviction in his mind that the girl—the very pretty girl—was frightened. She looked at him as he walked the length of the room, and did not speak. She did not turn her head after he had passed her, nor as he went out through the door, while a distant bell tinkled his departure. So he could not, still, see her face clearly enough to read anything in it. Nothing to go on, really. All the same, he thought her frightened.

In the area outside, he turned and looked back into the shop. Jo-An Rhodes was going toward the rear of the shop. She was going so quickly that she seemed almost to be running.