The Nothing Man by Jim Thompson

to speak. I let him go right on waiting. Finally he crossed the room and pulled up a chair in front of me.
    "Keed," he said, sorrowfully, "you shouldn't've done it. You should have knowed you couldn't get away with it."
    "Well," I shrugged, "nothing ventured, nothing gained."
    "She wasn't worth it, Brownie."
    "No," I said, "I don't suppose she was. But, then, who is?"
    "I don't see no way out for you, keed. Not unless I was to kind of take a hand personally. If I was to do that, now, call it an accident-"
    "Why don't you?" I said. "After all, a pal's a pal, I always say."
    "You mean that, Brownie? You'll play ball with me like I been askin' you to?"
    "Well"-I hesitated-"isn't it pretty muddy outside?"
    "Muddy? I don't dig you, keed."
    "To play ball."
    "Look!" he snarled, and his hand closed over my arm. "What the hell are you talking about?"
    "I don't know," I said. "What are you talking about?"
    He jumped up and stood over me. I started to rise and he shoved me back hard.
    "I'm talking about murder, you smart bastard! You were over to the island tonight. You killed her. You coldcocked her and set fire to her. Left her to burn up in the bed. Only she didn't burn up, see. She didn't die right away. I figure her hair probably cushioned the blow, and she came to when she felt herself burnin'. Anyway, she got up and got to the dresser. She got something out of her purse. She had it balled up in her hand when the island cops found her."
    I looked at him, blinking a little owlishly, sifting through the situation one fact at a time. It wasn't particularly startling, although I suspect that I was guilty of at least a small start. I'd been pretty wobbly on my pins when I swung the bottle, and she did have a thick head of hair. And the whisky would have tended to burn away before the bedclothes themselves caught fire.
    Now, as to this "something" she'd taken from her purse…
    "To borrow an expression," I said, "I don't dig you, keed. Just who am I supposed to have killed?"
    "Don't pull that innocent crap on me! Who the hell else would have killed your wife? She wasn't robbed. It's a cinch it wasn't a rape murder. Anyone that wanted any of that could have had it for-"
    I came up then, and I came up swinging. I hit him an open-palmed slap across the jaw, hit him so hard his hat sailed from his head. His hand darted to his hip, but he didn't draw the gun. I sat back down again and buried my face in my hands.
    After a while I said, "Are you sure it was murder? It couldn't have been an accident?"
    "Who you kidding?" he said. "You goin' to tell me that she fell on top of her head? That she wiped the place clean of fingerprints herself?"
    "Wi-!" I caught myself, choked the word into a meaningless grunt. "This object she had in her hand. What was it?"
    "A poem, kind of a poem. She put the finger right on you, keed. She'd had it a long time; it was practically worn out with all the folding and refolding it had gone through. You wrote it for her, and she'd been carrying it around all this time. Ever since you split up. Yessir, she knew that when we saw it, we'd-"
    "It had my name on it?"
    "It didn't need no name on it. She never really went for no one but you. Anyway, she sure wasn't going for anyone three-four years ago when this must've been written. When you an' her were still tied up."
    "Maybe she wrote it herself."
    "Huh-uh. She wasn't up to anything that sharp. And what the hell? A dame's dying, and she goes for a poem she's written? You know better than that, keed. You wrote it. It sounds like you to a t, and she knew I'd see that-"
    "What was it?" I said. "Have you got it with you?"
    "It figures, Brownie. It all adds up to just one guy. No one else had any motive. No one else would have written a thing like this. It had to be someone that lives here- someone I'd know-and, palsy, that ain't no one but-"
    "I'd like to hear it," I said. "Do you mind?"
    "I don't mind a bit, keed." He took a notebook from his pocket and opened it. "Catch a