Eight hours. They can't even make him mad.”
A sergeant with oversize shoulders had entered and was standing there.
Cramer told him:
“This man's name is Goodwin.
Take him down to Room Five and tell Sturgis to let him help if he wants to.” He turned to me. “Drop in again before you leave.
I may want to ask you something.”
“Okay.
I'll have something thought up to tell you.”
I followed the sergeant out to the corridor and down it to the elevator. We stayed in for a flight below the ground floor, and he led me the length of a dim hall and around a corner, and finally stopped at a door which may have had a figure 5 on it but if so I couldn't see it. He opened the door and we went in and he closed the door again.
He crossed to where a guy sat on a chair mopping his neck with a handkerchief, said something to him, and turned and went out again.
It was a medium-sized room, nearly bare.
A few plain wooden chairs were along one wall.
A bigger one with arms was near the middle of the room, and Perren Gebert was sitting in it, with a light flooding his face from a floor lamp with a big reflector in front of him.
Standing closer in front of him was a wiry-looking man in his shirt sleeves with little fox ears and a Yonkers haircut.
The guy on the chair that the sergeant had spoken to was in his shirt sleeves too, and so was Gebert.
When I got close enough to the light so that Gebert could see me and recognize me, he half started up, and said in a funny hoarse tone:
“Goodwin!
Ah, Goodwin-”
The wiry cop reached out and slapped him a good one on the left side of his neck, and then with his other hand on his right ear.
Gebert quivered and sank back.
“Sit down there, will you?” the cop said plaintively.
The other cop, still holding his handkerchief in his hand, got up and walked over to me:
“Goodwin?
My name's Sturgis.
Who are you from, Buzzy's squad?”
I shook my head.
“Private agency.
We're on the case and we're supposed to be hot.”
“Oh.
Private, huh?
Well…the inspector sent you down.
You want a job?”
“Not just this minute.
You gentlemen go ahead. I'll listen and see if I can think of something.”
I stepped a pace closer to Gebert and looked him over.
He was reddened up a good deal and kind of blotchy, but I couldn't see any real marks.
He had no necktie on and his shirt was torn on the shoulder and there was dried sweat on him.
His eyes were bloodshot from blinking at the strong light and probably from having them slapped open when he closed them.
I asked him:
“When you said my name just now, did you want to tell me something?”
He shook his head and made a hoarse grunt.
I turned and told Sturgis:
“He can't tell you anything if he can't talk.
Maybe you ought to give him some water.”
Sturgis snorted.
“He could talk if he wanted to.
We gave him water when he passed out a couple of hours ago.
There's only one thing in God's world wrong with him.
He's contrary.
You want to try him?”