Dark Maze

the right to remain silent, anything you say may be used against..
    Halo interrupted with a wounded, “Aw, come on! Give me a freaking break here!”
    Ruby calmly opened her purse. She took out a quarter and held it in her fingertips for Halo to take. She said, “The call’s on me, Johnny. Go ahead and ring up the department. Tell them Detective Neil Hockaday’s having a beer on duty.“
    “Hold the phone, lady. I wasn’t never going to really do that!” Halo pushed Ruby’s hand away. He was now leaking sweat like an open hydrant in August. “House policy’s see no evil, hear no evil, remember?”
    Ruby sighed, turned to me and said, “Gee, I sure don’t like the way this concerned citizen goes all hot and cold on us. I think he’s way too slippery to fool with.”
    She turned to the very damp, pale Halo and said, “You know all about the murders, right, Johnny?”
    “I read in the paper where some people got killed,” he said weakly.
    Ruby said to me, “Notice how strange Johnny looks when he talks about people getting killed? Maybe you better read him again, Hock, from the top.”
    I shrugged and said to Halo, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say may be used against you in a court of law...“
    And poor Johnny Halo looked at me, then at Ruby, then at me.
    “You have the right to have an attorney present during all questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney...”
    Halo made a sharp noise that reminded me of the mouse going down Waldo’s insides.
    “What’s that, Johnny?” Ruby asked.
    “I was trying to say... ” Halo choked and went into a coughing spasm. He got himself some water, recovered, and said, “What do you’s want anyway?”
    Ruby answered, “Well, maybe we want to give you a break, Johnny. You think about it and we’ll talk it over, okay? Meantime, give us another round—a Molson for Detective Hockaday and another soda for me—this time with a lime twist and a nice big smile.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Halo smiled, but he had teeth like a tobacco-chewing baseball player, and so this was not a pleasant sight to behold.
    Ruby laid out a five-dollar bill on the bar. Halo pushed it back at her and said, “This one’ll be on the house.“
    “That’s real friendly of you,” Ruby said.
    Then Halo turned to get our drinks.
    I said to Ruby, “That was quite a performance.”
    “Of course. I’m good at what I do.”
    “I never doubted it for a minute. What do actors call that anyway, improv?”
    “Well, well, Detective Hockaday. So you know some stage lingo. Didn’t I tell you cops and actors are cousins?”
    “That you did.”
    “The good-cop, bad-cop routine, it’s the oldest improv in the business, isn’t it?”
    “And just now done to a classic turn.”
    “Admit it,” Ruby said. “I’m the best partner you’ll ever have.”
    “I would kiss you, but I’m on duty.”
    Johnny Halo returned to us. He set down the fresh drinks, this time complete with lime. “Okay,” he said, “so I know Picasso.”
    I waited, but he was no more forthcoming than this. Ruby gave him a bit of the bad cop. “We’re going to need lots more spill than that, Johnny. And in a real big hurry.“
    “Nothing personal,” I added, “but we’re running out of time for informality. If you want formal, you’ll have to close up the bar and come along with us to Central Booking in Manhattan.”
    “Aw, I don’t want no trouble,” Halo said.
    The guy dozing down at the end of the bar belched in his sleep. His head popped up and he looked around, then he dropped back to his rag pillow.
    “Where’s Picasso?” I asked.
    “Hell if I know,” Halo said. “And right now, after what I read about him in the paper, I’d tell you! But I ain’t seen the hump in I don’t know, maybe a year or better.”
    “He was a customer here?”
    “Yeah, I said that. A good steady customer, too, when he was flush. Which in the better days around here in Coney he usually was. The guy was a great artist, I’ll give him that.” I told Halo there was no disputing taste.
    He said, “Yeah, that’s true. But here’s one thing nobody’d argue about: The big trouble with old Picasso is, whenever he ain’t painting the guy is hell on wheels.”
    “Like when he was evicted from the Seashore?”
    Halo looked at me with surprise and respect, and a trace of impudence that showed me his starch was coming back. “You’re good, Hockaday,” he said. “Real, real good. Where’d you hear