The staked Goat

preferably a two-door, with a long engine compartment.” Eddie poured and tossed another shot, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ”I got maybe two cars so. One a Pontiac, ‘67. The other a Buick, ‘69. The Buick run better maybe, but it’s four doors. The Pontiac got only two.”
    ”Make it the Pontiac then.”
    Eddie looked grieved when I pulled out my bankroll. ”No, no,” he said, ”favor to good friend. Eddie—”
    I held up my hand. ”I insist,” I said, counting out three hundred. ”By the way,” I asked, ”do the cops in this town come by here much at night?”
    Eddie, rummaging around through some dogeared, stained paperwork, gave his lion’s laugh again. ”Hoo, sure, Johnnie, sure. Just like they go to church. Ever’ Christmas and Easter.”
    He gave me a registration and a set of car keys, then tossed a gate key on top. ”Come, we try this beauty for you.”
    ”Oh, Eddie,” I said. ”Two more things.”
    ”Yeah?” he said, turning at the door as I finished my vodka.
    ”We’re going to talk some more, but if anybody asks you about today, you tell them I just asked you if I could use the driveway beyond the gate as a meeting site. I never got any old car or any gate keys from you.”
    ”Okay,” he said, a quizzical look on his face.
    ”And, Eddie?”
    ”Yeah?”
    ”After I use it, I want the car crushed.”
    ”Crushed?” said Eddie.
    ”I’ll be leaving it here tomorrow night, and I’ll want it crushed first thing in the morning.”
    Eddie fixed me squarely. ”I show you where to park it. I work crusher Friday morning myself. First t’ing.”
    We went back out into the yard.
     
    After Eddie Shuba, I saw the Button’s brother. I barely had time to catch the post office before it closed. I decided to let it and the stationery store go till tomorrow morning. I looped and skipped as much rush-hour traffic as I could, buying an evening Globe from a kid at an intersection just as it hit the street a little after 5 P.M. At the next three traffic lights, I leafed through it. My identification as the corpse was dumped to page six by two flareups in the Middle East, a political corruption case, three fires, and a schoolbus accident. I pulled off into a Seven-Eleven store parking lot and called Lieutenant Murphy.
    He picked up on the third ring.
    ”It’s Mr. Lazarus,” I said.
    ”Who?”
    ”You know, the Charcoal Kid?”
    ”Hold on,” he said, bellowing something at someone on his end. I thought I heard a door close. ”Where have you been, Cuddy?”
    ”I’ve been busy,” I said.
    ”What have you got?”
    ”Nothing definite.”
    ”Let’s hear about the maybes.”
    ”I’d rather not.”
    ”Now look, mister,” he said, the telephone growing warmer from his voice, ”I am out on a limb for you. I have an as yet unidentified—”
    ”Misidentified,” I interjected.
    He growled but drove on. ”t/nidentified body in the morgue and I have to either confirm or deny the Globe article.”
    ”Tell them that no positive identification is possible until my prints come in from Washington.”
    ”The hands were too burned. I got Daley calling dentists. You know how many—”
    ”I haven’t been to the dentist since mine died two years ago.”
    ”That’s all right. Boring him is better than chewing his ass for the reporter slip. Now, what have you found out?”
    ”Al Sachs was killed by a guy he’d met in the service. Al had blown the guy’s cover somehow.”
    ”How? What’s the guy’s name?”
    ”I’m not sure of that yet.”
    ”You’re not sure of the name?”
    ”No, of how Al found out.”
    ”What difference does that make? Do you know who the killer is?”
    ”No, not as such.”
    Another growl. ”What do you mean, ‘not as such’?”
    ”Look, Lieutenant, I’m at a pay phone, and there are three teenage thugs looking to—”
    ”Fuck the thugs. What’s his name?”
    ”Sorry, Lieutenant, I can’t hold—” I jiggled the cradle five times, then held it down. I’d have to be straighter than that with him next time.
    I got back into the rental and drove it to Nancy’s house.
     
    ”You know,” she said, lazily swirling the wine in her glass, ”it’s kind of nice coming home to a cooked dinner.”
    I had stopped at a small grocery and bought four split chicken breasts and some Shake ‘n Bake. I tossed it together, and it was ready just fifteen minutes after she’d come in the door.
    ”In my opinion, it’s the Green Giant Niblets