Free Meet Me at the Morgue by Ross MacDonald Page B

opened the door. He was breathing hard, like a sprinter who had barely made it to the tape. His eyes had a glassy sheen and his face was loose, as if a heavy block of experience had fallen out of the California sky and struck him a dazing blow.
    “You shouldn’t do these things to me,” he said in an unsuccessful attempt at lightness. “That room. That face. I’m a tenderly nurtured boy, I can’t take death in the afternoon.”
    “Do you know the man?”
    “I believe I do. I think I can say I’m virtually certain I’ve seen him. But lawyers make poor witnesses, you know—”
    I interrupted his nervous wordiness: “Sit down and tell me about it.”
    “Yes, of course.” His glance moved unsteadily around the dingy walls and rested in the sweet peas on Ann’s desk. They were beginning to fade. “Say, old man, could I have a drink of some kind? My throat is parched.”
    I pointed to the cooler. “All we stock is water.”
    “Water will be fine. Adam’s ale, my mother calls it.” He filled and drained a paper cup, three times. “How in the world did you know I’d seen that chap?” he said with his back to me.
    “That’s beside the point.…”
    “Was it dear little Annie?”
    “We’re wasting time. Now come in here and sit down and talk.” I opened the door of the inner office and motioned him in.
    He looked me sharp in the eye as he went by. His mouth still wet from his drink, his short hair bristling, he gave a sly and dangerous impression, like an animal caught in an alien corner of the woods. His short lip curled. “Do I detect a faintly peremptory note? Was that a sneer of cold command, Mr. Ozymandias?”
    “Cut the comedy, Seifel. You could be in a jam.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said uneasily. “What has Annie been saying to you anyway? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
    Disregarding the question, I sat down behind my desk and put a fresh tape on the recording-machine.
    He leaned across the desk, protesting. “What’s that you’re doing? You have no right to record what I say. You have no police powers.”
    “My office has investigative functions. I interpret them pretty broadly, and nobody seems to object. Do you object?”
    “Naturally I object.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m not prepared to make a formal statement. I’ve had an upsetting day, the sight of that body—”
    “And you won’t talk without advice of counsel. Why don’t you widen that split in your personality and be your own counsel?”
    He stiffened and grew pale. “I didn’t come here to be insulted. As a matter of fact, I didn’t like the way you asked me in the first place.”
    “Go back to your office and we’ll start over. I’ll send you a
billet-doux
pinned to an orchid.”
    He leaned close, supporting his weight on outspread palms: “I suspect you don’t know who you’re talking to, old man. I was light-heavy champion at Stanford before the war. And if you weren’t a friend of Annie’s, I’d bat your ears off here and now. Just needle me a little more and I will anyway.”
    “If you’re a friend of hers, speak of her with a little more respect. Her friends call her Ann, by the way.”
    He clenched his right fist. “You’re asking for it, Cross.”
    “And you talk a good fight.” I stood up, staring at him hard and level. I suspected that he was hollow or soft inside. Even his anger was a little actorish. His face and mouth made the motions and the sounds, but they didn’t ring quite male. “Come down to the gym next week and I’ll take you up on it. Right now I have other things on my mind.”
    I flicked the switch of the recorder. The twin spools began to revolve.
    “Stop that thing,” he said in a high-pitched voice. “I refuse to talk for the record.”
    “So you can change your story later on, when you’ve had more time to think? What’s the matter, Seifel? You’ve got me half convinced that you’re involved—”
    “I could sue you for that!” He glared at the