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was a nice guy; he certainly wouldn't mind. That sofa had been used before for
similar purposes; once in a while someone got tired in the middle of a game
and wanted to rest a while and then get back in.
So he'd pretend to go to sleep on the sofa--or really go to sleep if he could.
And stay there till the game broke up, which was never before five o'clock.
Same deal with a minor variation if he sold the ring but lost the money too
soon. His upset stomach and headache would have come back by then; he'd take
more Alka-Seltzer and aspirin and then lie down a while to give them a chance
to work.
It would work. Parts of the story might sound mildly strange to the police
when they questioned him, but there'd be too many witnesses for them to have
any serious doubts. Especially if Milt Corbett was there as one of the
witnesses, as he probably would be; Milt was a prominent member of the city
council and the strength of his word would be as the strength of ten, to the
police.
He left a dollar tip on the bar, to make the bartender remember him; it
wouldn't hurt to be able to extend his alibi backward a bit in case Ruth died
very shortly after midnight, and left.
He'd timed it right; it was midnight on the head when he rang the bell of
Harry Brambaugh's apartment.
Stella, Brambaugh's wife, opened the door. On a chain, of course, but she
opened it the rest of the way when she recognized Ray. He was a little
surprised to see that she was wearing a robe and had her iron gray hair in pin
curlers; usually she stayed dressed and made coffee and sandwiches about one
o'clock, and then went to bed.
"Cold on the stroke of midnight," Ray said. "Game been going on long?"
"Ray, I tried to call you but you weren't home. There isn't any game. Harry
got a telegram while we were eating tonight; his brother is seriously hurt in
a car accident and he had to leave right away, the first plane. He gave me a
list of six men to call up and I got all of them except you."
Ray frowned, thinking frantically. "Mrs. Brambaugh, I wonder if you could give
me that list. I
know all the boys on it, but not all their phone numbers. And maybe we can
still get a game going, especially if you'd let me use your phone so I can
call them right away."
She shook her head. "I might find the list in the wastebasket, but it wouldn't
work anyway, Ray.
Three of them said they wouldn't have been able to make it tonight anyway. I
don't know whether Harry would have played four-handed or not; he'd prob-ably
have postponed it. But that leaves only two besides yourself, and they've
probably got doing something else by now. Or gone to bed."
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His mind went in frantic circles as he walked down the stairs and out into the
night. What now?
He could alibi himself by going to any tavern where he was well known, between
now and one o'clock when the tavern would close. God, oh God, what could he
do? He could go to a hotel, but what good would that be as an alibi? The clerk
could testify when he checked in and when he checked out, but could he give
positive testimony that he had not sneaked out and back in again sometime
during the night?
Of course if he picked up a woman and took her to a hotel, or to her own
place-- He considered that and abandoned it reluc-tantly. The testimony of a
woman like that would be of only slight value, for one thing. For another, the
chances of his finding such a woman were slight, especially since he had less
than an hour to do it in. There'd been a recent crackdown and available
pickups in bars were currently few and far between. Outside of bars, he didn't
have the faintest idea where to start looking. He didn't have a little black
book of addresses; for the last few years, his only extramarital adventures
had been those with Dolly, and Dolly--well, he could forget Dolly tonight, if
not forever.
Besides, he was broke. He couldn't have over a few dollars left after all the
drinks, many of them doubles, that he'd been buying.
For a moment he entertained the wild idea of walking in front of a car,
getting himself injured and taken to the hospital. But that was too risky; he
could be killed--or permanently crippled, which would be almost as bad. Or if
for safety he picked a slowly moving car and just let it knock him down his
injuries would probably be so superficial that a hospital would simply check
him over and discharge him immediately. Could he feign a heart attack? No, it
would take the admitting physician only half a minute with a stethoscope to
learn that his heart was as sound as a preinflation dollar. Acute
appendicitis?
Hardly, with his appendix already out and a scar to prove it. Or--no, damn it,
he knew too little about illnesses to be able to get away with feigning
anything. He'd never had a sick day in his life, except for that attack of
appendicitis and the time he'd been in the army infirmary on account of his
allergy to wool.
The hospital idea wouldn't work. But what else would be open all night after
the taverns closed?
The answer was so simple that he wondered why he'd sweated thinking about
hotels and hospitals. The jail was open all night. It wouldn't hurt him to
spend a night in the drunk tank, to save his life, and to pay a ten-buck fine
in the morning. Maybe even no fine, just a warning, for first offense; and,
what alibi could possibly be better than being in jail? He wondered why he
hadn't thought of it the moment he'd learned that the poker game was called
off.
But he'd better make it good and really get drunk, roaring drunk, not depend
on acting. He looked at his watch. It was only five minutes after twelve.
Fifty-five minutes to go and that was plenty of time, if he drank straight
shots, doubles. He had a hell of a good capacity for liquor if he took it in
highballs and reasonably spaced his drinks--as he had thus far tonight--but
straight whisky always hit him hard and fast. With the slight edge he already
had, five or six straight doubles would be plenty, if he took them no more
than five minutes apart.
Money wouldn't be a problem, even though he had only two buck's, enough for
two doubles, left. Since he'd never done so before, he could borrow five or
ten from almost any bar owner or bartender in town. And even five, with what
he had, would get him seven doubles, more than enough.
He'd been walking without thinking where he was going, but now he looked to
see where he was. Half a block from the Log Cabin, run by Jerry Dean. It would
be as good a place as any. He was known there at least as well as at any other
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tavern, and Jerry was at least as likely to lend him money as anyone else;
he'd spent hundreds of dollars in Jerry's.
Jerry was behind the bar and, Ray was glad to see, so was his son Shorty Dean,
whom Jerry was teaching to be a bartender. Two witnesses would be better than
one--and he might as well establish the time right away. He put a dollar on
the bar and asked for a straight double. Then while Jerry was pouring it he
glanced up at the wall clock. "Hey, your clock's half an hour off."
Jerry looked up at the clock and then at his own watch. "Seven after twelve.
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