suppose so,” I said irritably. “I didn’t even think about it. All I was interested in at the time was bending his fat face for him. And as for having a gun myself, I could have thrown away twenty of them by this time. With the case I’ve got, a lawyer would tell me to plead guilty and pray.”
She shook her head. “I thought the paper said he was killed with a knife. That should prove you didn’t have a gun, or you’d have used it. Whose knife was it? His?”
“How do I know?” I said. “I didn’t see it.”
“You’re not really serious about that?”
“Of course not. The electric chair just brings out the clown in me. How’d you like to see my impersonation of Red Skelton?”
“Don’t get sarcastic. I’m not forcing you to stay here.” She lay back on the chaise longue and gestured toward the couch with her cigarette. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me about it?”
“What do you care?” I asked.
“I probably don’t. But if we’re going to stay cooped up together the rest of our lives, we might as well talk.”
I sat down, diagonally across the coffee table from her, and lighted a smoke. “I’d had trouble with him before. About two weeks ago I threatened to knock his roof in if he didn’t watch his step. It was in front of witnesses, so that helps too. Don’t bother telling me that sort of thing is stupid; I know it, but when it comes to characters like Stedman I’ve got a very short fuse. He’s a Lover Boy, one of those big, flashy, conceited types that has to spread himself out as much as possible to give all the girls a break. Especially the ones whose husbands are away a lot.
“My wife used to be a nightclub singer. We’ve been married about a year. It didn’t work out very well, because it’s no cinch being married to a guy on a tanker unless you just like being alone most of the time. We run up the East Coast and back like a commuter train, gone fifteen days and home one, except that we do get a long vacation once a year. She couldn’t take it. Last trip in I found out she’d been running around with Stedman. He was single and had an apartment there in the same building, the Wakefield, in the 1200 block on Forest Avenue. We had a real fight about it, and the same night I ran into Stedman in the Sidelines Bar, up in the next block, and had a few words with him. The owner of the place is a good friend of mine, though, and he broke it up and talked me out of starting anything.
“Last evening when we docked, I got the word. About the divorce, I mean. She was in Reno, along with the car and most of the joint checking account. Around nine o’clock I came uptown from the refinery and stopped in the Sidelines for a few drinks, and the more I thought about it the more burned up I got. I mean, I wasn’t broken up about it—hell, we were about washed up anyway—but I don’t like being played for a sucker, at least not by types like Stedman. So I went up to his apartment.
“When he opened the door and saw who it was he tried to shut it again, but I pushed my way in and belted him one. He wasn’t wearing the gun and holster, of course, because he was off duty, but he was a long way from being a pushover. He was a little heavier than I am, and he could really punch. We made a hell of a mess out of his living room. The apartment-house manager started pounding on the door and saying he was going to call the police. We were both pretty well banged up and winded after about five minutes of it. When I went out Stedman was on his knees in the middle of the living room trying to get up, and I wasn’t in much better shape myself. I was groggy from some of the punches I’d taken, and I had blood on my hands and clothes from some of the cuts I’d opened on his face. The manager was gone from the hallway, but I met two tenants who knew me, at least by sight. I went back to the Sidelines, but before I got there I heard the