The staked Goat

quelled it. ”Can you describe this guy?”
    He closed his eyes and opened them again. ”I didn’t pay too much attention, you know. I mean it isn’t so unusual for Milt to ask somebody to get me or tell me something. The guy was short, maybe five-six or five-seven, with a hat, glasses, I think.”
    ”Color hair?”
    ”Don’t know with the hat and all.”
    ”And all?”
    ”Well, he had on a raincoat with the collar up. You really couldn’t see much of him.”
    ”Color raincoat?”
    ”Trenchcoat type, you know.”
    ”Color eyes?”
    ”Didn’t notice.”
    ”Mustache, beard?”
    ”Don’t remember one, but he could have. Honest, I really didn’t pay much attention.”
    I nodded. He continued, ”Is this gonna get the woman detective in trouble?”
    ”No, no,” I said, ”I doubt if it’s related at all to what she was doing.” I resurrected my unsettling thought. ”One thing, though.”
    ”Yeah?”
    ”Would this guy have had time, while you were in the bar, to go through anything at the desk here?”
    ”Actually, I thought of that and checked around. Everything was still here.”
    ”Yes,” I said patiently, ”but would he have had time to look at the register, that sort of thing?”
    ”Well, we don’t have a register exactly, we use cards and put them in this View-dex thing. But, yeah, he would have had ten or twenty seconds to look at something before I got back. Course he would have had to use some of that to take off.”
    ”Right,” I said and thanked him. As I walked out to my car, I kept glancing around. If I had killed the man in 304 earlier that evening, I would have had his hotel key, and I damn well would have wanted to check his room for any trace that could lead the cops to me. I also would have wanted to read the pink message slip in his mail box. You know, the slip with the name ”J. F. Cuddy” on it. The slip implying that the man who had to be killed for some reason had spoken with Cuddy earlier that day. Shit and double shit.
     

Six
     
     
     
    I GOT HOME FROM THE MIDTOWN ABOUT 1:15 A.M. I played back the telephone tape machine in case anything had happened in Pittsburgh. Dale Palmer’s voice read the name and address of a no-rip-off, nondenominational funeral home to me and then said Carol would be with Martha all night. Next came George’s voice, asking me to call him at home or at work for the details on transporting Al’s body. Last came Jesse Cooper, asking me to call. I checked my watch. If I called Jesse and Emily at 1:27 A.M ., I would scare them more than Marco had. I set my alarm for 7:00 A.M. and fell into bed.
    The next morning, I got up with the alarm. Don Kent on WBZ radio said it was 28 degrees. I laced up my running shoes, did ten minutes of warm-ups, and then pulled on a sweater, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. I tugged a black watchcap over my ears and had my hand on the door when I remembered my talk with the second desk clerk the night before. I pulled the left leg of the elastic-ankled sweatpants up over my knee and jerry-rigged a calf-holster for my .38 Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special. The butt of the small revolver hung down about ten inches above my ankle. I pulled the sweatpants leg back down, stood straight, and experimented with drawing the gun past the elastic. After about three minutes, I could execute a reasonably good draw, assuming any potential assailant allowed me time to stoop to tie my shoelaces.
    I left the apartment and began running slowly toward the river two blocks away. I got barely across the footbridge spanning the multilane highway called Storrow Drive when the pain of the gun butt bonking against my shin got so intense I had to stop. I looked around and saw no one. I bent and drew the weapon, stuffing it in the front double pocket of my sweatshirt. I then did a mile and a half up the river and back, with my hands in my front pocket stabilizing the revolver. I must have looked like a potbellied clown.
    I stopped running on the river side of the footbridge. I walked over it and up Cambridge Street a block to disperse the lactic acid that otherwise stiffens the joints. I also bought a paper and six donuts as a reward for running three miles. Home, I stripped, warmed down, showered, and drank a glass of ice water to rehydrate. I then sipped a quart of orange juice with the donuts over the Globe.
    By 9 A.M. , I was ready to face my problems. I called George and gave him the name of the Pittsburgh funeral home. He explained the