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“It’s called accessory after the fact to homicide,” I said.
“That sounds serious.”
“It ought to.”
“Bernie-”
I took her arm. “I was thinking about that earlier, Ruth. Maybe you ought to bail out.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You could wind up buying a lot of trouble.”
“That’s crazy,” she said. “You’re i
“The cops don’t think so.”
“They will when we find the real killer for them. Hey, c’mon, Bern! I’ve seen all the old movies, remember? I know the good guys always come through in the end. We’re the good guys, aren’t we?”
“I’d certainly like to think so.”
“Then we’ve got nothing to worry about. Now just tell me how you like your eggs and then get the hell out of here, huh? There’s room for me and the roaches in this kitchen and that’s about all. What are you doing, Bernie?”
“Kissing your neck.”
“Oh. Well, that’s okay, I guess. Actually you could do it some more if you’d like. Hmmmm. You know, that’s sort of nice, Bernie. I could learn to like that.”
We were polishing off the eggs when the phone rang. The service was on the ball and picked up midway through the fourth ring.
Which reminded me. “I tried to call you earlier,” I said, “but your number’s unlisted. Unless you’ve got it listed in your husband’s name or something like that.”
“Oh,” she said. “No, it’s unlisted. Why were you trying to call?”
“Because I need a shave.”
“I noticed. Your face is all scratchy. Actually I sort of like it, but I can see where you’d want to shave.”
I told her about the lack of shaving cream and the state of Rod’s razor. “I thought you could pick them up on your way over here.”
“I’ll go get them now. It’s no trouble.”
“If I’d had your number I could have saved you a trip.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said. “I don’t mind. Is there anything else you need?”
I thought of a few things and she made a small list. I took a ten out of my wallet and made her take it. “There’s really no rush,” I said.
“I’d just as soon go now. I was just thinking, Bernie. Maybe it’s not a good idea to use the telephone.”
“Why not?”
“Well, couldn’t the people at the service tell if it was off the hook or if you were talking to someone? I think they could even listen in, couldn’t they?”
“Gee, I don’t know. I’ve never understood just how those things work.”
“And they know Rod’s out of town, and if they knew someone was in his apartment-”
“Ruth, they usually let the phone ring twenty times before they get around to answering it. That’s how efficient they are. The only time they pay attention to a subscriber’s line is when it’s ringing, and even then their attention isn’t too terribly keen.”
“The last time it rang they got it right away.”
“Well, accidents happen, I suppose. But you don’t really think there’s any risk in using the phone, do you?”
“Well-”
“There can’t be.”
But when she went out I found myself standing next to the phone and staring at it as if it were a potential menace. I picked up the receiver and started dialing my own apartment-I remembered the number this time-but halfway through I decided the hell with it and hung up.
While she shopped I did up the breakfast dishes and read the paper. All the Times had to tell me was that I was still at large and I already knew that.
This time I hadn’t bothered locking the door, and when she knocked I went over and opened it for her. She handed me a paper bag containing a razor, a small package of blades, shaving cream, a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. She also gave me forty-seven cents change from my ten-dollar bill. Every once in a while something like that comes along to demonstrate that all this talk about inflation is not entirely unwarranted.
“I’ll be going out in a few minutes,” she said. “You can shave then.”
“Out? You just got here.”
“I know. I want to go to the library. And check the Times Index-we talked about that last night. I don’t know how else we’re going to learn anything about Flaxford unless I go track down his ex-wife and talk to her.”
“That sounds like more trouble than it’s likely to be worth.”
“The Times? I just go to Forty-second and Fifth-”
“I know where the library is. I mean the ex-wife.”
“Well, it might not be any trouble at all, actually. Do ex-wives come to memorial services for their ex-husbands? Because that’s where I’m going this afternoon. There’s a memorial service for him at two-thirty. What’s the difference between a memorial service and a funeral?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s whether or not you have the body around. I guess the police are probably hanging onto the body for an autopsy or something. To make sure he’s really dead.”
“They already established cause and time of death.”
“Well, maybe they just aren’t releasing the body, or maybe it’s being shipped somewhere. I don’t know. But that’s the difference, isn’t it? You can’t have a funeral without a corpse, can you?”
“Tell that to Tom Sawyer.”
“Fu
“Just Pandora’s. Why would you go there?”
“I don’t know. The same reason I’m going to the memorial service, I suppose. On the chance that I might run into the little man who wasn’t there.”
“I don’t see why he would be at the memorial service.”
She shrugged. “I don’t either. But if he’s a business acquaintance of Flaxford’s he might have to go, and anything’s possible, isn’t it? And if he’s not at the service he might be drowning his sorrows at Pandora’s.”
And she went on to explain her reasons for thinking Pandora’s might be our friend’s regular hangout, and they were pretty much the same reasons which had led me to drop in there for a beer the night before. If he was at the bar or the memorial chapel, she felt certain she’d recognize him from my description.
We sat around talking about this and other things for perhaps another hour before she decided it was time for her to head uptown. Several times I was on the point of mentioning that I’d gone to Pandora’s myself just a matter of hours ago, but for one reason or another I never did get around to it.
Once she was gone, the day sagged. She was out doing things, pointless or otherwise, and all I had to do was hang around and kill time. I decided I should have put on the wig and the cap and tagged along after her, and I decided that would have been pretty stupid, since the cops would certainly have a man on duty at the service just as a matter of routine. I found myself wondering if Ruth was aware of this possibility, and if she knew enough not to attract attention there or to be followed when she left.
When you have nothing better to worry about, you make do with what you’ve got. I decided I ought to let her know about this danger. But I couldn’t call her because I didn’t have her number and anyway she was going straight to the library. Of course I could call the library and have her paged, except I was by no means certain that they would page people, although I could always claim it was a matter of life and death…
No, all that would do was draw attention. So I could put on the wig and the cap and go up to the library and tell her, and no doubt I would corner her in a room where three cops were browsing at the moment, and she’d call me by name, and my cap and wig would fall off.
So instead I went and shaved. I took as much time as possible doing this, soaping and rinsing my face four or five times first, then shaving very carefully and deliberately. I treated myself to the closest shave I’d had in years-unless you count my departure from the Flaxford apartment, heh heh-and I left my moustache unshaven, figuring that it might become a useful part of my disguise, no doubt combining nicely with wig and cap.
Then I dragged the cap and the yellow wig out of the closet and tried them on, and I scrutinized the patch of eighth-of-an-inch fur on my upper lip, and I returned wig and cap to closet shelf and lathered up again and erased the attempted moustache altogether.