Free Time to Murder and Create by Lawrence Block

could have set up the date in the first place in order to put a tag on me. But even if he had been at Polly's, that didn't prove anything; he could have picked me up earlier and tailed me there. I hadn't been making myself hard to find. Everybody knew where I lived, and I'd spent the whole day in the neighborhood.
    It was probably around nine thirty when I noticed him, maybe closer to ten.
    It was almost eleven when he packed it in and left. I had decided he was going to leave before I did, and I would have sat there until Billie closed the place if necessary. It didn't take that long, and I hadn't thought it would. The Marlboro man didn't look like the sort who enjoyed biding his time in aNinth Avenue gin mill, even as congenial a gin mill as Armstrong's. He was too active and western and outdoorsy, and by eleven o'clock he had mounted his horse and ridden off into the sunset.
    A few minutes after he left, Trina came over and sat down across from me.
    She was still on duty, so I couldn't buy her a drink. "I have more to report," she said. "Billie has never seen him before. He hopes he never sees him again, he says, because he does not like to serve alcoholic beverages to men with eyes like that."
    "Eyes like what?"
    "He did not go into detail. You could probably ask him. What else? Oh, yes.
    He ordered beer. Two of them, in about as many hours. Wurzburger dark, if you care."
    "Not awfully."
    "He also said--"
    "Shit."
    "Billie rarely says 'shit.' He says 'fuck' a lot, but rarely 'shit,' and he didn't say it now. What's the matter?"
    But I was up from the table and on my way to the bar. Billie ambled over, polishing a glass with a towel.
    He said, "You move fast for a big man, stranger."
    "My mind moves slow. That customer you had--"
    "The Marlboro man, Trina calls him."
    "That's the one. I don't suppose you got around to washing his glass yet, did you?"
    "Yes, as a matter of fact I did. This is it here, as best I recall." He held it up for my inspection. "See?
    Spotless."
    "Shit."
    "That's what Jimmie says when I don't wash them. What's the matter?"
    "Well, unless the bastard was wearing gloves, I have just done something stupid."
    "Gloves. Oh. Fingerprints?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "I thought that only worked on the tube."
    "Not when they come as a gift. Like on a beer glass. Shit. If he ever comes in again, which would be too much to hope for--"
    "I pick up the glass with a towel and put it some place very safe."
    "That's the idea."
    "If you'd told me..."
    "I know. I should have thought of it."
    "All I was interested in was seeing the last of him. I don't like people like him anywhere, and especially in bars. He made two beers last an hour apiece, and that was just fine with me. I was not about to push drinks on him. The less he drank and the sooner he left, the happier he made me."
    "Did he talk at all?"
    "Just to order the beers."
    "You catch any kind of an accent?"
    "Didn't notice it at the time. Let me think." He closed his eyes for a few seconds. "No. Standard American nondescript. I usually notice voices, and I can't dredge up anything special about his. I can't believe he's fromNew York , but what does that prove?"
    "Not too much. Trina said you didn't like his eyes."
    "I didn't like them at all."
    "How so?"
    "The feeling they gave me. It's hard to describe. I couldn't even tell you what color they were, although I think they were light rather than dark. But there was something about them, they stopped at the surface."
    "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
    "There was no depth to them. They could have been glass eyes, almost. Did you happen to watch Watergate?"
    "Some of it. Not much."
    "One of those pricks, one of the ones with a German name--"
    "They all had German names, didn't they?"
    "No, but there were two of them. Not Haldeman. The other one."
    "Ehrlichman."
    "That's the prick. Did you happen to see him? Did you notice his eyes? No depth to them."
    "A Marlboro man with eyes like Ehrlichman."
    "This isn't connected with