Finally I knocked. He said for me to come in.
“Hi Willy,” he said. “What’s up?”
I looked around for the statue but I didn’t see it. The door to his closet was closed and I thought maybe he had the statue in there.
“You know what’s up, Roy.”
“No, really, I don’t. What is it?”
“I’m looking for a statue.”
He took a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches from his shirt pocket, put a cigarette in his mouth and struck the match with one hand.
“There are several very fine statues in town that I know of,” he said. “Is this for a school project or something?”
“I don’t go to school anymore, Roy. I’m looking for a statue of the Virgin Mary, about this big. It belonged to Nancy.”
“You don’t have to stand in the doorway like that. Come in, sit down and tell me about it. You want a glass of milk or some cookies or something?”
“No,” I said. I left the door open and we sat down at the table.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” he said. “We’ve never really had much chance to talk.”
“We’re going to talk now,” I said.
“So we are, and it’s a good thing. I don’t get many guests. So how are you holding up, Willy?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You said something about Nancy’s statue, and yes, I know the statue you’re talking about. You think somebody took it? What difference does that make now that she’s … you know …?”
“Dead. She’s dead, Roy, and she didn’t kill herself.”
“I thought she OD’d.”
“No. Somebody knocked her out with chloroform and gave her a hot shot.”
“Did you hear that from the police?”
“They think it was an accident, but it wasn’t. You haven’t seen the statue, have you?”
“As a matter of fact …” Roy got up from the table and opened the cabinet over his sink. He took out a box of chocolate chip cookies and stuck them under the stump of his arm. “… she said something to me about the statue being missing. I swear you have to keep your door locked every minute around this place. You can’t even walk to the bathroom without somebody goes in your room and takes something.”
He got a jug of milk from the refrigerator and put the cookies and milk on the table. Then he got a plate and two glasses and put them on the table and sat down again. He dumped the cookies onto the plate, poured milk into the glasses, and stuck a cookie into his mouth. “Have some,” he said; like I’d ever eat cookies and drink milk with the guy that killed Nancy.
“Her door and window were locked from the inside,” he said. “Unless you have some evidence that says otherwise, she OD’d.”
“There’s evidence all right. She went to the bank and took all her money out. Then the Colonel and I broke into her room after she died and we looked all over for money, and there wasn’t any, not even any change in her pocketbook.”
“The Colonel’s in on this, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Here’s what I think: Nancy’s death threw you for a loop, and you don’t want to believe she was using drugs and OD’d. The Colonel cooked up this whole murder thing to get you to help him break into Nancy’s room. You just told me all her money was gone. Who do you think has it, huh?”
“I didn’t take her money!”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the Colonel probably took the money from her pocketbook when your back was turned.”
“No he didn’t. I searched him before we left the room.”
“Did you search the crack of his butt? Hey, I’m just asking; did you?”
“No I didn’t search the crack of his butt, Roy. I just patted him down and went through his wallet.”
“Okay, let’s move on. You broke into her room, and it’s an open question as to whether there was any money in there when you went in, but we know for sure that there was no money when you left. What else did you find in her room?”
“Mr. Winkley found a gray rubber flashlight under her bureau, and a loose panel in the door. Somebody could have stuck their hand in the door and locked it from outside the room.”
“Mr. Winkley’s on this case?”
“Yeah.”
“Three detectives, and this is all the evidence you have?”
“There’s more. We found ice cube bags, bleach bottles, and paint thinner in the dumpster.”
“You’ve lost me there, Willy. I don’t get it.”
“The Colonel said it’s how you make chloroform.”
“So you think that somebody came into her room, which was locked, knocked her out with chloroform, gave her a hot shot, took her statue, left the room and closed the door, then pushed their hand in through a loose door panel and locked the door.”
“No. The panel was loose on the outside. The killer had to push it open from inside the room.”
“Any other evidence?”
“Not yet, but once I find the statue I’ll have everything I need.”
“The statue was gone before she died, so it won’t help us any to find it. Is there anything else, like did anybody see or hear anything suspicious that night?”
“We have a witness.”
Roy took out a bottle of nasal spray from his shirt pocket and held it up to his nose and sniffed, and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
“A witness, huh?” he said. “Who?”
“Mr. Winkley. He was in Nancy’s room the whole time. He saw everything.”
“He probably did. He saw Nancy giving herself the shot, or whatever happened to her. But he can’t tell anybody.”
“Well, no; not exactly.”
“He can’t talk, period. If he could, then he could tell us who killed her, and you and I would go out and kill the guy.”
“It was you, Roy. You talked her into going away with you. You told her she’d have everything she ever wanted. You took her to the bank and she cleaned out her account, all the money she’d been saving for years. Then you killed her and took the money.”
“If you believe that, let’s go to the police station right now. I’m serious. Let’s go.”
“Not yet. Not until I find the statue. Anyway, I can’t go to the police until I report to the Colonel, and he’s in a trance and I don’t know when he’s coming out of it. He won’t even talk to me and he said that I killed Nancy.”
“Why did he say you killed her?”
“I don’t know. I guess because I hid the paint thinner from him.”
“You hid evidence?”
“Yeah, but …”
“What is it about that statue that’s so important to you, anyway?”
“It was important to her, Roy. Her mother gave it to her and it was the only thing she had.”
“So what do you want it for? Is that where she hid her stash, inside the statue?”
I wanted it to put on my bureau, but that wasn’t the only reason.
“Because it proves you killed Nancy,” I said.
“How does it prove anything?”
“You only have one arm, Roy.”
Roy looked at the stump of his arm. “So I do,” he said. “Guilty as charged.”
“The only way a one-armed guy could get out of that room and leave it locked was if he stuck something in the door panel to prop it open on his way out. That was why you brought the flashlight. You dropped the flashlight and it rolled under the bureau, so you looked around the room for something else, and the statue was just the right size. Anybody could have killed Nancy and taken a souvenir, but you couldn’t have done it any other way.”
“I could have used my wallet.”
“No, everybody knows you never carry a wallet when you’re out on a job.”
“You probably shouldn’t have let the Colonel talk you into breaking into her room,” he said, “because if somebody did kill her, the police are going to think it was you.”
“You took her to the bank the afternoon before she died.”
“I did. I drove her so she wouldn’t have to walk. She said she was going to cash her paycheck. I waited in the car, and she went in. Then she came out. That was it.”
I realized that I didn’t really have anything on Roy, at least nothing I could prove.
“Now that I think of it, Willy, she was acting strange, like something was bothering her. You said she was planning on going away with somebody. That’s probably why she took her money out. She was probably planning to run off with some guy. Why didn’t we think of this before?”
“There wasn’t any guy, Roy, except maybe you.”
“She and I were friends, Willy, and that’s all we were. Don’t beat yourself up over this. It’s not your fault. She really loved you, man. She used to say, ‘I love Willy so much, because he’s so handy and he can fix anything.’”
“Shut up, Roy,” I said.
“She did; said it all the time; and, ‘Willy is so smart, so handy, I don’t know what I’d ever do without him.’ I hate to admit it, man, but I was jealous of you when she’d go on like that.”
“All I want is the statue, Roy. If I can just have the statue …”
“You really think the statue’s the key to cracking this case, huh?”
“The statue proves everything.”
“I’ve got a feeling the killer doesn’t even have it anymore. You know what I think it is? I think you’re just hung up on the statue because it was hers and it reminds you of her. Am I right?”
“I don’t know, Roy. I just want to find it and keep it for her. Her mother gave it to her and it was the only thing she had! Why did you have to take it away from her, Roy? Why?”
“Hey hey.” Roy pulled up a chair, sat down, and put his hand on my shoulder. I was hoping he wouldn’t shake my shoulder and get my ribs going again.
“We’re all grownups here, right?” he said. I was looking down at the floor with my eyes squeezed shut, and he gripped my shoulder.
“Aren’t we, Willy? Grownups?” I nodded my head.
“Nancy was a nice girl, Willy. She couldn’t ever be anything but nice. She was nice to every guy … everybody. That’s the way you should always remember her; a nice girl. Now listen to me, Willy. When something has been done, it can’t ever be undone. There’s nothing anybody can do that will bring her back. Where she is, she don’t even want to come back. Anyway, it’s in the past. How do you think I got where I am today, Willy? Positive thinking, that’s how. I never look back. When you think positive, you can do anything.”
“I already know about positive thinking, Roy. The Colonel told me all about it.”
“He’s right. You should listen to him. Sometimes that crazy old goat knows what he’s talking about.”
“If you can do anything, like you said, then you could even break into a locked room and leave it locked.”
“Well, I don’t know about that.”
“Oh, yeah; a room or a safe or a fort or anything. The Colonel knows. He told me about these guys way back who made a wooden horse …”
“I was there.”
“No way, Roy! It was a long time ago.”
“I was!”
“Prove it!”
Roy sniffed from the bottle of nasal spray.
“Well, we made the horse, like you said, and in the middle of the night we put it outside the fort and we got inside. The guys in the fort, they wake up the next morning and they see this horse and they figure it’s a gift from the gods, so they drag the horse—and we’re inside this horse—right into the walls of the city. Then everybody climbed out with their swords, and you know the rest.”
I thought he might be telling the truth because I didn’t think the Colonel ever told him the story, and I didn’t see how he could have known about it unless he’d actually been there.
“You saw it?” I said.
“Sure, I was there the whole time. I didn’t take sides, though. I stayed inside the horse, see, and I watched them all killing each other. Oh, man, it was great! I’ve been everywhere, in and out of everything. I can travel back and forth in time, and in between life and death. There are no walls, Willy, and no limits. I can show you how to do it too, but you got to think positive, and don’t ever dwell on the past. Now think hard; did you ever see her with any strange guy, or did she ever mention that she was seeing some guy, anything like that?”
“I never saw any guy going into her room,” I said.
“Maybe he didn’t go through her door. All she had to do was leave her window open a little ways.”
“Her window?”
He looked at me, smiled and nodded his head.
“But the window was locked.”
“The point is, Nancy was such a nice girl that she couldn’t refuse anybody. That’s why she took in that cat. Any guy could have taken advantage of her kindness. What we’re going to do to this guy when we get him, it won’t matter what way he came in. For the rest of my life I’m never going to be able to forget how I was standing out in the hall, and I heard what he was doing to her in that room every night, and her crying like she was, and I’ll always regret that I didn’t bust that door down and go in and help her, but I just didn’t have the balls.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Francine said that Stanley heard the guy in her room too. He didn’t do anything either.”
“That’s because Stanley hasn’t got any balls. If we had just busted in there—you and me, Willy—busted in there, right through the fucking door, grabbed that guy by the fucking throat, and ripped his fucking head off, none of this would have happened. We’ve got to find that guy, Willy, and when we do—”
“Yeah. He’s going to prison for the rest of his life.”
“No, we ain’t giving him that chance. We’re going to handle this ourselves. We’re going to kill him slow. The first thing were going to do to him—”
“I don’t know, Roy. The Colonel—”
“Don’t listen to him; he’s already gotten you into enough trouble.”
“I have report to him before I do anything. He wants to get the killer as much as we do. But he has his own way of doing things, and I don’t think he wants us to kill anybody.”
“The Colonel was good in his day, Willy, no doubt about it. He was one of the best, anywhere; one of the top, oh hell, the top—”
“He still is,” I said.
“You’re not letting me finish. He was one of the top operators—”
“He was an operative for the CIA.”
“I’m trying to tell you, he was good, could take the fillings out of your teeth and you’d never even know. But something happened to him in the joint.”
“He went to prison to break up a spy ring.”
“Are you going to let me tell the story? Now as I was saying, he got sent up. But the guy that came out of the joint wasn’t the same guy that went in. Something happened to him in there. Now there’s all different stories as to what happened, but the true story is, he stooled on some guy, and it bothered him so much that it drove him crazy, and he’s been that way ever since.”
“No, he went undercover to break up a spy ring.”
“The guy stooled! The spy story is just something he made up so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he turned into a stool pigeon, and there’s nothing worse than a stool pigeon.”
“I’m not a stool pigeon.”
“I know you’re not. You’re the last guy would stool on anybody. But you keep interrupting me and you’re missing my point.”
I reached out to take a cookie, and then I pulled my hand back, because I wasn’t going to eat cookies with a guy who I thought might have kill Nancy.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that a stool pigeon knows he’s a stool pigeon, and he has to live with that every day of his life, only he can’t live with it.”
“I’m not a stool pigeon.”
“I know you’re not, because there’s nothing worse. The Colonel can’t live with himself, and now all he can do is go around spying and stooling all the time. How do you think that bitch Elsie finds out about everything, huh? She’s got the Colonel spying for her.”
I took a cookie and put it in my mouth.
“Stanley’s a spy too,” I said.
“Yeah, Stanley’s another one. You don’t ever want to say anything to either one of them.”
“Stanley and the Colonel were playing chess in the Colonel’s room. He used to play chess with me, but he doesn’t anymore.”
Roy got up and looked up and down the hall, closed the door, and sat down again.
“There are spies everywhere, Willy. Unless you know for a fact that someone’s not a spy, you don’t tell them anything.”
“How do I know who’s a spy and who isn’t?”
“You can come to me any time day or night, and I’ll tell you whether some guy’s a spy or not. I know every spy in this town.”
I drank some milk and wiped my mouth with my arm.
“Are there a lot of spies, Roy?”
“Oh, yeah, they’re all over the place; spies, agents, you name it. I deal with a lot of them in my work, so I know who they are.”
“Sometimes I find out things for Elsie.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a stool pigeon, so it’s different. I’m talking about spies that are rats, and you and me both know you’re not like that.”
“I’m not a rat,” I said. “Are you sure you didn’t kill Nancy, Roy?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy who would kill Nancy. Do I?”
I looked at him. He was smiling and I didn’t think he would be if he really killed her.
“Have some cookies, for crissakes,” he said. “Put some in your pockets, take the whole plate, I don’t know.” Roy stood up and picked up the plate and dumped the cookies on my head.
“Cut it out, Roy,” I said. I picked the cookies up off the floor and put as many as I could in my pockets and the rest in my mouth. Roy laughed.
“I don’t know if you have any more room in your pockets,” he said, “but if you do …” He held up a twenty dollar bill.
“What’s that for, Roy?” I said.
“It’s a retainer,” he said. “Go ahead, take it.”
I’d never had twenty dollars before. I took the money and put it in my pocket. “What for?” I said.
“I heard you’ve been looking for a job.”
“Yeah, but I don’t sell drugs to little kids.”
“If you were that kind of person I’d never have you working for me. What I do has got nothing to do with drugs. I don’t use them, and I sure don’t sell them. If people want to think I deal drugs, that’s fine. That way they never find out my real business.”
“What is your business?”
“Are you screwing with me, Willy? Is that what you’re doing? Because if you are …” I was drinking milk and he reached across the table and pushed the glass, and the milk went all over my face and my shirt. Then he mussed my hair with his hand.
“That’s not funny, Roy,” I said. I wiped my face with the back of my hand and Roy laughed again.
“You know what business I’m in; the same business as you’re in; same business the Colonel used to be in.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. Look, I know you’ve had experience. The Colonel taught you a lot, but there’s nothing more he can teach you. You’re at a dead end. Am I right?”
I didn’t see how he knew I felt like I was at a dead end. “Yeah,” I said; “I guess you’re right.”
“You know how I know? Because I was there myself at one time. I was just like you. A lot of people don’t even know they’re living in a box. You can’t bust your way out until you’re backed into a corner. It’s time for you to bust out.”
It all made sense to me, as long as I didn’t have to sell drugs to little kids.
“What kind of job have you got for me, Roy?”
“I’ll let you know when the time comes. Just be ready, and don’t ask too many questions. All you need to know is we’re going to take down the drug dealers, starting with the one that killed Nancy.”
Roy sniffed from the bottle again, went to the window, lifted one of the slats in the blinds, and looked out.
“In our business,” he said, “the less you know, and the less you say, the better.”
“What are you looking at, Roy? What’s out there?”
He turned and looked at me. “See for yourself,” he said, and pulled open the blinds.
I went over to see what he was looking at.
“I don’t see anything,” I said.
“If you can’t see it, you can’t get it. I can see lots of things. Whatever you’re looking for, it’s out there somewhere, and all you have to do is take it; it’s that easy.”
I looked again, but I still didn’t see anything.
Somebody started scratching at the door and Roy jumped and put his hand in his pocket. Then we heard Mr. Winkley yowl, “ghurrrrr.” It sounded like a rusty hinge.
“It’s Mr. Winkley,” I said. “I’ve been looking for him.”
Roy knelt down behind the bed and nodded at the door.
“Get the door,” he whispered.
I opened the door and Mr. Winkley came in. He had a mouse in his mouth. I picked him up and sat down at the table with him on my lap and looked into his eye to see the picture that was in there. Roy came out from behind the bed and asked me what I was looking at.
“He’s got a picture in his eye,” I said.
“What kind of a picture?”
“A picture of some guy who looks like you, killing Nancy.”
Roy came around the table and looked too. Mr. Winkley was going, “Rrrrrrah … rrrrrrah.”
“Why’s he doing that?” Roy said. “What’s he saying?”
“I don’t know,” I said. We listened and Mr. Winkley went, “hrrrrroy.”
“It sounds like he’s saying ‘Roy,’” I said.
“No he isn’t,” Roy said. “I don’t see any picture in his eye.”
“Sometimes you see it and sometimes you don’t,” I said. “Gladys and the Colonel said the cops have a forensic machine they can get the picture out with.”
“No way.”
“Yes way. They sent a man to the moon, Roy.”
“I heard about that moon thing.”
“When the Colonel and I were in her room we left the window open and Mr. Winkley kept going in through her window and coming out the loose panel in her door. He was doing that for a couple of days.”
“Did anybody see him come out?”
“I saw him, but I don’t know if anybody else did. The window’s closed and latched now.”
Mr. Winkley was still yowling and Roy kept slicking back his hair with his hand and he was walking around in circles and sniffing his nasal spray.
“Why does he keep growling like that?” Roy said.
“Because he’s got a mouse,” I said.
“Take his mouse away from him,” Roy said.
I took the mouse out of Mr. Winkley’s mouth and put it in my pocket.
“Not in your pocket,” Roy said. “Don’t you have any manners? Throw it out the window.”
Roy took out his window screen, and I put Mr. Winkley on the floor and dropped the mouse out the window. Mr. Winkley jumped up on the window sill, looked down at the ground, then at me.
Roy couldn’t put the screen back with one arm so I put it back for him. Mr. Winkley was mad because we took his mouse away, and he went under Roy’s bed and Roy and I sat down at the table.
“Now like I was saying, Willy, you stick with me and you’ll go places. Remember, you can’t trust anybody. I’m the only friend you have.”
“The Colonel’s okay,” I said. “Maybe he could work with us.”
“No. He’s a senile old man, and he tells stories, he lies to you, because those stories aren’t even true, and somewhere deep down inside yourself, you know. He’s an old blowhard and that’s all he is.”
“Howie’s my friend. He’s your friend too.”
“Howie’s my friend? I look out for him and sometimes he does things for me, but that’s it. He’s a punk, and a punk will stab you in the back the minute you turn around.”
Mr. Winkley was still under the bed and he started yowling Roy’s name again, and Roy jumped up from the table.
“You’ve got to do something about that cat,” he said. “You told me he was doing it because he had a mouse, and we took his mouse away and he’s still doing it. Why won’t he stop?”
“He’s mad because we took his mouse away.”
“Get rid of him.”
“But he doesn’t have any other place to go.”
“Then you’ve got to send him someplace, for his own good. Look, he has a picture in his eye, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And the cops have a machine, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You know how those machines work?”
I shook my head “no.”
“They take the cat’s eye out, and put it in the machine. He’s only got one eye to begin with. He’ll be blind for the rest of his life, and Elsie will find out about him and kick him out, and he’ll be out walking around on the street all blind and confused and everything, and in no time at all he’ll be dead. You’ve got to take care of him before that happens.”
I didn’t want Mr. Winkley to end up like that, and he’d die thinking that nobody cared about him.
“I knew a guy,” Roy said, “and the way he always used to take care of cats, he’d put the cats in a bag …”
“I have a big shopping bag I put Mr. Winkley in sometimes.”
“Good. Now let me finish. He’d take these cats and he’d put them in a bag, and then he’d take a hammer and hit the bag until the cats stopped moving.”
“He hit the cats with a hammer?”
“No! That’s why he had the bag. The whole idea was, he didn’t hit the cats; he hit the bag.”
Mr. Winkley yowled again and I went under the bed and got him and sat down at the table with him on my lap, and he quieted down after that.
“You’ll take care of him?” Roy said.
“Sure, Roy,” I said. “I’ll take care of him.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to interrogate everybody,” I said, “and find out if anybody knows anything about that guy that was going into Nancy’s room.”
Roy reached across the table and tugged my ear and cuffed the side of my face, like just kidding around.
“I like you, Willy, but you’re not the brightest guy in the world.”
“I know that,” I said.
“I told you not to talk to anybody. You want the cops to tip off the dealers that we’re after them? You’re supposed to wait for instructions. But I understand, because I know you’re not so bright.”
“I’m not stupid, Roy. Everybody says I can fix things and I’m good with tools.”
“Wait a minute, I’m getting an idea; something to do with tools … tools … Okay, I’ve got it: Everybody’s like a different tool. Me, I’m like a razor, because I’m sharp. I’m Roy the razor, okay? Now you don’t have so much brains like me, but you got something better; you got balls. I mean you just bust right in and don’t ask a lot of questions, and everybody’s like, ‘Whoa, that was Willy the …’ I don’t know, what kind of tool are you?”
“A drill?” I said, because that was the first tool I thought of.
“No, you ain’t a drill. You’re a hammer, because you just pound your way in. Everybody’s a different tool, see?”
“I don’t know. You think I’m a hammer?”
“Yeah. Now you tell me, what’s your name?”
“Willy?”
“No, it ain’t Willy. Try again.”
“Willy Lee?”
“No!”
“But that’s my name, Roy; Willy Lee.”
“No it’s not. I’m Roy the razor. Now who are you?”
“Willy!”
“Willy the …” Roy was moving his hand in circles and nodding his head. “Willy the huh huh huh …”
“Willy the hammer!”
“That’s you.” Roy poked my nose with his finger and squeezed my shoulder.
“And what’s Willy the hammer got that other guys don’t got?”
“I’ll show you,” I said. “Watch this.” I lit a cigarette and put the lit end on the back of my hand and held it there and looked at him.
“You don’t feel that or nothing?” he said. I shook my head “no.”
“No brain, no pain,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Enough with the cigarette already. Now, the reason I don’t want you going around asking questions is because I don’t want the killer to know we’re after him, and half the people in this hotel probably already know who the guy is, but they’re not going to tell us.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s a drug dealer, the cops are in the dealers’ pockets, and everybody’s scared.”
That made sense to me, because sometimes I’d ask people things and they wouldn’t tell me. I didn’t see how you could ever know anything unless somebody told you.
“You know something, Roy?” I said. “I always feel like people know things and they won’t tell me.”
“Do you know why they do that?”
I shook my head “no.”
“They do that because they don’t want you to know what they know, because then you’d be smart like they are, and they want to keep you stupid.”
I never knew that before, and I was really mad because I suddenly realized that people had been doing that to me my whole life, not telling me anything to keep me from being smart. Every time I’d asked somebody a question they’d always give me a crazy answer that never made any sense, but I never knew they were doing it on purpose and that was why I couldn’t be smart like they were.
He smacked his hand on the table and stood up.
“Meeting’s adjourned,” he said. “I want you in that room. I don’t care how you do it. Make it look like a break-in. Turn the place upside down, rip it apart if you have to. Get all the evidence out of the dumpster too. Hide it somewhere.”
“I’ve got a secret hiding place under the bridge.”
“No, somebody will find it there. Think of another place.”
“The only other place I can think of is the supply closet. I have the only key.”
“That’s good. And anything that won’t fit in the supply closet, hide the rest in your room. We’re going to get this guy, and we’re going to get that statue he took too; for you, and for Nancy.”
“Yeah. We’re going to kill him, and then he’ll be sorry.”
“That’s right. And don’t forget to take care of the cat.”
“Okay, Roy.”