قراءة كتاب A Bullet for Cinderella
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you up some if that's what you want."
I sat in the chair. My knees were weak and my wrists hurt. He got up quickly, went to the door and opened it and looked out, closed it and went back to the bunk. "We'll talk about Timmy Warden, Howard."
"What about Timmy?"
"It's too damn late for games. Information keeps you alive. I did a lot of listening in that camp. I made a business of it. I know that Timmy stole sixty thousand bucks from his brother and stashed it away in jars. I know Timmy told you that. I heard him tell you. So don't waste our time trying to play dumb about it. I'm here and you're here, and that's the only way it adds up. I got here first. I got here while you were still in the hospital. I haven't got the money. If I had it, I wouldn't still be here. That's obvious. I figured Timmy might have told you where he hid it. I've been waiting for you. What kept you?"
"I don't know any more about it than you do. I know he hid it, but I don't know where."
He was silent as he thought it over. "Maybe I won't buy that. I came here on a long shot. I didn't have much to go on. I wanted to be here and all set when you came after it. It was a long shot, but one town is the same as another to me. I can't see you coming here to find the money and not knowing any more than I do. You're a more conservative type, Howard. You know something I want to know."
"That's right," I said. "I know exactly where it is. I can go and dig it up right now. That's why I waited a year before I came here. And that's why I came here to see you instead of going and digging it up."
"Why come at all?"
I shrugged. "I lost my job. I remembered the money. I thought I'd come here and look around."
"I've spent a year looking around. I know a hell of a lot more about Timmy Warden, the way he lived, the way his mind worked, than you'll ever know. And I can't find it."
"Then I won't be able to either, will I?"
"Then you better take off, Howard. Go back where you came from."
"I think I'll stay around."
He leaned forward. "Then you do have some little clue that I don't have. Maybe it isn't a very good one."
"I don't know any more than you do. I just have more confidence in myself than I have in you."
That made him laugh. The laughter stung my pride. It was a ludicrous thought to him that I could do anything in the world he couldn't do.
"You've wasted better than a year on it. At least I haven't done that," I said hotly.
He shrugged. "I have to be somewhere. It might as well be here. What's wasted about it? I've got a good job. Let's pool everything we know and can remember, and if we can locate it I'll give you a third."
"No," I said, too quickly.
He sat very still and watched me. "You have something to work on."
"No. I don't."
"You can end up with nothing instead of a third."
"Or all of it instead of a third."
"Finding it and taking it away from here are two different problems."
"I'll take that chance."
He shrugged. "Well, suit yourself. Go and say hello to George. Give him my regards."
"And Eloise?"
"You won't be able to do that. She took off while we were still behind the wire. Took off with a salesman, they say."
"Maybe she took the money with her."
"I don't think so."
"But she knew Timmy was hiding it, had hidden a big amount. From what he said about her, she wouldn't leave without it."
"She did," he said, smiling. "Take my word. She left without it."
TWO
The lumberyard had looked reasonably prosperous. The retail hardware store was not what I expected. From talks with Timmy I had expected a big place with five or six clerks and a stock that ranged from appliances and cocktail trays to deep-well pumps and pipe wrenches.
It was a narrow, dingy store, poorly lighted. There was an air of dust and defeat about it. It was on a side street off the less prosperous looking end of Delaware Street. A clerk in a soiled shirt came to help me. I said I wanted to see Mr. Warden. The clerk pointed back toward a small office in the rear where through glass I could see a man hunched over a desk.
He looked up as I walked back to the office. The door was open. I could see the resemblance to Timmy. But Timmy just before and for a short time after we were taken, had a look of bouncing vitality, good spirits. This man looked far older than the six years difference Timmy had told me about. He was a big man, as Timmy had been. The wide, high forehead was the same, and the slightly beaked nose and the strong, square jaw. But George Warden looked as though he had been sick for a long time. His color was bad. The stubble on the unshaven jaw was gray. His eyes were vague and troubled, and there was a raw smell of whisky in the small office.
"Something I can do for you?"
"My name is Tal Howard, Mr. Warden. I was a friend of Timmy's."
"You were a friend of Timmy's." He repeated it in an odd way. Apathetic and yet somehow cynical.
"I was with him when he died."
"So was Fitz. Sit down, Mr. Howard. Drink?"
I said I would have a drink. He pushed by my chair and went out to a sink. I heard him rinsing out a glass. He came back and picked a bottle off the floor in the corner and put a generous drink in each glass.
"Here's to Timmy," he said.
"To Timmy."
"Fitz got out of it. You got out of it. But Timmy didn't make it."
"I almost didn't make it."
"What did he actually die of? Fitz couldn't say."
I shrugged. "It's hard to tell. We didn't have medical care. He lost a lot of weight and his resistance was down. He had a bad cold. He ran a fever and his legs got swollen. He began to have trouble breathing. It hurt him to breathe. A lot of them went like that. Nothing specific. Just a lot of things. There wasn't much you could do."
He turned the dirty glass around and around. "He should have come back. He would have known what to do."
"About what?"
"I guess he told you about how we were doing before he left."
"He said you had a pretty good business."
"This store used to be over on Delaware. We moved about six months ago. Sold the lease. Sold my house too. Still got the yard and this. The rest of it is gone."
I felt uncomfortable. "Business is bad, I guess."
"It's pretty good for some people. What business are you in?"
"I'm not working right now."
He smiled at me in a mirthless way. "And I suppose you plan on sticking around awhile."
"I'd thought of it."
"Did Fitz send for you?"
"I don't know what you mean. I didn't know he was here."
"But you talked to him. He phoned me and said you'd probably be in for a little chat. And that you're an old friend of Timmy's. He's been working for me for nearly a year. I don't see how I can give you a job. There just isn't enough coming in. I couldn't swing it."
"I don't want a job, Mr. Warden."
He kept smiling. His eyes were funny. I had the feeling that he was either very drunk or out of his head. "Maybe something nice out of the store? We still have some nice things. I could unlock the gun rack for you. Need a nice over and under, with gold inlay, French walnut stock? On the house."
"No thanks. I don't understand, Mr. Warden. I knew Timmy and I thought maybe it would be the right thing to do to just stop in and chat."
"Sure. But you went out to the yard first."
"Yes. I went out there because I put my car in a garage here and I told the man I'd known Timmy in prison camp. He said there was another man here who'd been in the same place. Earl Fitzmartin. So I went out there and saw him. Then I came here. I could have come here first and then gone out there. I don't know why you think you have to give me a job or a gun or anything."
He looked at me and then bent over and picked up the bottle again. He put some in both glasses. "Okay," he said. "So it's just like that. Pay