D Is for Deadbeat

for him. I despised him for the whiny little fucker that he was, but I couldn't leave him alone. It's like I had to torment him. I liked to watch him squirm, which maybe makes me weird but it don't make me a killer. I never murdered anybody in my life."
    "What about Coral? Where was she in all this?"
    "Hey, you ask her."
    "Could she have been the one with Daggett that night? It sounds like Lovella to me, but I can't be sure."
    "Why ask me? I wasn't there."
    "Did Coral mention it?"
    "I don't want to talk about this," he said, irritably.
    "Come on. You talked to Daggett Thursday night. Did he mention this woman?"
    "We didn't talk about women," Billy said. He began to snap the fingers of his right hand against his left palm, making a soft, hollow pop. I could feel myself going into a terrier pup mode, worrying the issue like a rawhide bone, knotted on both ends.
    "He must have known who she was," I said. "She didn't just materialize out of the blue. She set him up. She knew what she was doing. It must have been a very carefully thought-out plan."
    The popping sound stopped and Billy's tone took on a crafty note. "Maybe she was connected to the guys who wanted their money back," he said.
    I looked at him with interest. That really hadn't occurred to me, but it didn't sound bad. "Did you tip them off?"
    "Listen, babe, I'm not a killer and I'm not a snitch. If Daggett had a beef with somebody, that was his lookout, you know?"
    "Then what's the debate? I don't understand what you're holding back."
    He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Lay off, okay? I don't know nothin' else so just leave it alone."
    "Come on, Billy. What's the rest of it?" I snapped.
    "Oh, shit. It wasn't Thursday," he blurted out. "I met Daggett Tuesday night and that's when he asked me to help him out."
    "So he could hide from the guys at San Luis," I said, making sure I was following.
    "Well, yeah. I mean, they'd called him Monday morning and that's why he'd hightailed it up here. We talked on the phone late Monday. He was drunk. I didn't feel like putting myself out. I'd just got home and I was bushed so I said I'd meet him the next night."
    "At the Hub?"
    "Right."
    "Which is what you did," I said, easing him along.
    "Sure, we met and talked some. He was already in a panic so I kind of fanned the flames, just twitting him. There's no harm in that."
    "Why lie about it? Why didn't you tell me this to begin with?" I was crowding him, but I thought it was time to persist.
    "It didn't look right somehow. I didn't want my name tied to his. Thursday night sounded better. Like I wasn't all that hot to talk to him. You know, like I didn't rush right out. I can't explain it any better than that."
    It was just lame enough to make sense to me. I said, "All right. I'll buy it for now. Then what?"
    "That's all it was. That's the last I saw of him. He came in again Friday night and Coral spotted him, so she called me, but by the time I got there, he'd left."
    "With the woman?"
    "Yeah, right."
    "So Coral did see her."
    "Sure, but she didn't know who she was. She thought it was some babe hittin' on him, like a whore, something like that. The chick was buyin' him all these drinks and Daggett was lappin' ' em up. Coral got kind of worried. Not that either of us really gave a shit, but you know how it is. You don't want to see a guy get taken, even if you don't like him much."
    "Especially if you've heard he's got thirty thousand dollars on him, right?" I said.
    "It wasn't thirty. You said so yourself. It was twenty-five." Billy was apparently feeling churlish now that he'd opened up. "Anyway, what are you goin' on and on about? I told you everything I know."
    "What about Coral? If you lied, maybe she's been lying too."
    "She wouldn't do that."
    "What'd she say when you got there?"
    The look on Billy's face altered slightly and I thought I'd hit on something. I just didn't know what. My mind leapt ahead. "Did Coral follow them?" I asked.
    "Of course not."
    "What'd she say then?"
    "Coral wasn't feeling so hot," he replied, uneasily.
    "So she'd what, gone home?"
    "Not really. She was coming down with this cold and she'd taken a cold cap. She was feeling zonked so she went back in the office and lay down on the couch. The bartender thought she'd left. I get there and I'm pissed because I can't find her, I can't find Daggett. I don't know what's goin' on. I hang around for a while and then I come back here, thinking she's home. Only she's not. It was a fuck-up, that's