The room was supposed to be a study, but the same person who decorated Hub Gilplaine’s office had decorated this room too. Every visible surface except for a small path from the door to the desk was covered in books and papers. There were unfinished shelves screwed into the length of one wall, bowing under the weight of the books piled on them. One shelf had ripped out of the wall and fallen onto the books on the shelf beneath it. That one only held because of the piles of books on the floor propping it up from below. The papers were strewn about in inelegant stacks, the edges curling. There appeared to be a green imitation-leather easy chair in one of the corners, but there was no way to get to it now. By comparison, the surface of the desk was relatively tidy, dominated as it was by an Underwood typewriter. There was a bottle of vodka that had had a good deal of its contents acquainted with a glass, and an already empty bottle on the floor beside the desk chair. The place smelled of alcohol and old paper.
Rosenkrantz turned to face me. He looked pale and his eyes were dilated, but he had no trouble sitting up straight or tracking me. When he spoke, it was surprisingly clear, the sign of a practiced drinker. “You followed me from the Carrot-Top,” he said.
It didn’t require an answer so I didn’t give him one.
“You saw what they did...”
“What who did?” I said.
“This goddamn life. This goddamn city. These goddamn people.”
For a great writer, he seemed awfully hung up on one word. “Had she any enemies?” I asked.
He looked up again. “What are you, the police? They were already here.”
“Okey. Then what did you want to see me about?”
“They say Clotilde did it.”
“They do.”
“She didn’t.”
“I know.”
He nodded, satisfied with the work that had been done so far. We had who didn’t do it established beyond a doubt. He shook his head as he reached for the bottle and brought it to the rim of his empty glass. He didn’t have any trouble with the maneuver. “Mandy didn’t have any enemies. No one she’d fought with. Nobody she was scared of. Nobody who cared either way.”
“Friends?”
“I know that she made friends with a few of the girls that worked in the club where she was waitressing, but just to go out and have a laugh with. Maybe some of the valets too. She was new to San Angelo.”
“And the name of the club?”
He lowered his head and looked at me out of the tops of his eyes.
“The Carrot-Top.”
“No, but close enough. The Tip. That’s where I met her.”
“You said you could put her in movies.”
He shrugged, raising his glass in a toast. “And I actually did.” He drank the whole thing down in two gulps.
“I guess there’s a first for everything,” I said.
He raised his empty glass again. “Hear, hear.”
“Well this is lots of fun. You could probably charge a door fee. You might need to share the alcohol though.”
“She was a swell kid, Foster. I didn’t love her. In fact we fought just as much as we laughed. But she could really lay into you, and always made it good afterward. She was a swell kid.”
“Sure. And she had a heart of gold. And she never would hurt a fly.”
His face clouded and he looked up at me. “Ah, go to hell.” He grabbed the bottle for a refill.
“Should I send Miguel up with another bottle?”
“Why weren’t you here last night doing your job!”
“I know my place,” I said. “I know I’m not supposed to say, why weren’t you here with your wife, or why weren’t you at Miss Ehrhardt’s place to protect her. Because if we always ask ourselves why then pretty soon we can make anything our fault.”
“Especially when it is.”
I nodded. “Then too.”
He sneered and shook his head. “God, the people in this town will cut your throat and tell you they’re giving you a shave. They’re not people, even. They’re money, with no eyes and no heart, or they’re raw desire hidden behind bulletproof glass. You can see them, but you can’t touch them. Either you go through the system until you’re just money, too, or you find out that your bulletproof glass wasn’t as bulletproof as advertised. If at any point you remember you’re a person, you better watch out, you’re halfway on the bus home.”
“I hate to interrupt the great American man of letters while he’s being insightful, but you’ll have to excuse me.”
“You’ll go and talk to Hub now, won’t you?”
“I’m no longer working this case.”
“That’s why you came here. Because you’re no longer working on it.”
“Just some matters I wanted to tie up.”
He considered me for a moment. “When you go see Hub, ask him about Janice Stoneman.” He waited for me to write it down. I didn’t. He refilled his glass and downed it without preliminaries, then sat staring at it. “Huh.” He looked up from his empty glass. “In my books, the characters always have a moment of realization, some object or event that crystallizes their very being. Not the trash I write for Gilplaine, my real books. But who really recognizes the moment that his life changes? At the time, I mean. Maybe later, but not at the time.” He shook his head and sighed. “I was wrong, what I told you a minute ago. It would be bad enough if it was those Hollywood bastards that cut your throat. But no, you cut your own throat. Up until the moment it’s done, it’s not done, but once it is done...” He opened his hand in front of him as though letting a lightning bug go.
“Tell Hub I don’t ever want to see him again.” He picked up the bottle, but I didn’t wait for him to refill his glass.
Downstairs, there was no sign of Miguel. Miss Rose must have required his further assistance. If I’d been smart, I would have counted myself lucky that my own assistance was no longer required. But like the man said, you don’t know you’re holding the razor until after it’s too late.