Dark Maze

said. “It’s what the twenty is for.”
    “Somebody I know?”
    “A squatter,” I said. “I think he’s right here in the neighborhood. Have you heard of a man called Picasso?“
    “Every serious person has.”
    “I don’t mean the painter. Well, he’s a painter. But I mean the guy in the newspapers, the guy the police are hunting in connection with the murders.”
    “I don’t read newspapers, Hock. I’ve got enough vulgarity in my life.”
    “Please,” I said. Then I described Charlie Furman to Rat. And then I got lucky.
    “Yes, I’ve seen the man,” Rat said.
    “When?”
    “Last fall, thereabouts.”
    “Where?”
    “In this very street, Hock. But only once. And I only remember it now because of the beret you mentioned and because he carried something large and bulky under his arm. You say he’s a painter?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, now that I think of it, it could have been an easel.“
    “Did you see where he went?”
    “I had no reason for that,” Rat said. “But I can tell you this about him: he was walking along talking in the fiercest way to somebody.”
    “That’s Picasso, he does that,” I said. “He’s got some imaginary friend he’s always talking to, or arguing with.”
    “No, this was nothing imaginary.”
    I thought, Of course not! There was Ruby’s dream: "What you see is an artist painting about death—not murdering, painting.” Picasso would have to know one real friend, at least one real and murderous friend.
    I said, “Who was he with, Rat?”
    “She wasn’t much to look at. So in fact, I didn’t.”
    “A woman?”
    “She wore a coat, a big coat. I can’t tell you what she looked like, I can’t tell you anything about her.”
    I could see that Rat was honestly straining his memory. I believed him.
    And I knew what I might do next to best puzzle this out.
    I gave Rat another twenty and said good bye, then walked back to Tenth Avenue and up to my building at Forty-third. I checked the mailbox. Nothing but bills to ignore.
    I climbed the stairs to my apartment where I put the newly gathered bills on the sideboard at the top of a mounting stack of other such appeals. Beside this lay Patrick Snoody’s letter about my dying Uncle Liam.
    Then I telephoned Ruby. “Remember how I said I’d be needing you?”
    She said she would meet me in an hour.
    I took a hot shower. Then I hauled out my best suit and tie and put them on.

    Too bad about Celia, and I really mean that. But she went rotten on me, didn't she? Ho, ho, didn’t she, though!
    Damn straight.
    And ain’t I always said nobody beats the odds?
    Damn straight I said that!
    And who needs another one of them shrinkers with only questions and no answers? Ain ’t I always said fuck Dr. Freud? Ain't I?
    But you think they’ll listen, even now?
    Hey, how do you like the balls on that Puerto Rican? I do my very best for him, I put my best observations on his windows. Like that pig I showed you that day—the essential fear I captured in that pig’s eyes, remember?
    How does he pay me off? In crummy sandwiches! Can you beat that? Not cash money like an honest hard-working artist deserves, sandwiches! You call that respect?
    So, I don’t respect him back. Him, I don’t give the respect of oil on canvas. I give him calcimine on glass, the Puerto Rican bastard!
    Johnny Halo! They ought to give me a medal for painting Johnny Halo like I done!
    Damn straight.
    Oh, this is some lovely bunch of coconuts I got in my broken-down life, hey?
    Ain’t it the truth?
    Ain’t I got the rest of my work cut out for me?
    Ho, ho! One potato, two potato, three potato, four!
    Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more!

TWENTY-TWO

    I got over to Angelo’s Ebb Tide before Ruby.
    The dining room in back was filled with generally the same types who were inconvenienced the other night when Celia Furman took it in the neck and upset everybody’s happy hour by being dead on her barstool. The crowd around the bar looked much the same as then, too—mostly the types that annoy Angelo so much. Which is maybe why he took the dim view of my good suit.
    “Who went and died, Hock?”
    “That is all too painfully obvious if you read the newspapers. What I want to know is, who went and killed everybody?”
    “I didn’t mean it like that.”
    “Yeah, I know.”
    “It’s awful good to see you,” Angelo said, rolling his eyes *n disgust at the rest of the crowd. “How about the usual? The first round’s on me.”
    “Thanks,”