Canvas Coffin by William Campbell Gault

going to have to take it away from me. The man ahead of me went out on his back, and I put him there. The one who follows me will have to be as good.”
    “And you want to choose your successor?” Her smile was impudent. “You’ll fight some more bums. Patsy Giani will never get the chance
you
got, will he?”
    “That’s up to Max.”
    “You wouldn’t be afraid of him?”
    “I’m not afraid of anybody in the world.”
    “You probably aren’t,” she said. “You’re too damned dumb to be scared of anything. You haven’t the necessary imagination.”
    “Come on over and sit in my lap. Let’s make up.”
    “You go to hell. I hate you when you’re so — realistic and certain and pseudo-logical.”
    “Let’s play canasta.”
    “No, I want to read. I’m all talked out and I don’t like canasta.”
    “We could lock the door,” I said, “and — ”
    “Shut up. I want to read.”
    She read. Tires hummed. My hand throbbed. I saw Harry Bevilaqua crash and heard Noodles whimper and saw the maroon sheets and the big woman in shorts. Busy little bees, we’d been, gayly investigating this B girl’s death.
    Mary Kostanic, known professionally as Brenda Vane, liked tough guys. And was I a tough guy? I suppose to her I was. To a lot of people I am. But I really never left All Saints.
    Murder is a word used too easily.
Murder the bum … I’m telling you it was murder … That gown is simply murderous, Mrs. Vere de Vere …
    Murder is more important than that; it’s a double death, killing the killer as well as the killed, ending the dream and staining the soul. The newspapers love it, especially if one breast or more can be exposed, along with the inside of the thigh.
    That makes a good picture, and who’s got time to read? With wrestling on the television, who’s got time to read about why Brenda Vane died? Who cares?
She couldn‘t a‘been much; ya ever seen ‘er in pitchers? Or on television?
    Sally turned a page and the twin tail pipes of a hot rod made music on Sunset.
    I thought of Sergeant Sands, the gray-black hair, the knowing blue eyes, the free and steady and easy way he moved around this case. That was no prelim boy, that Sergeant Sands.
    Somebody laughed in the hall, and Sally turned a page. I went out to the patio and got the Hemingway. I came in and stretched out on the davenport with it.
    Max came in with an afternoon paper, and went through to the patio. He turned on the little radio, out there; Max can’t take his reading straight. He dilutes it with music.
    Sally looked up, frowning. I smiled.
    Someone knocked at the door.
    Max called, “I’ll get it. It’s for me, I’m sure. One of the local reporters wants an interview, Champ.”
    He opened the door, but it wasn’t a reporter. It was the slim, blasé character, the smoothie in the blue flannel, the desk clerk.
    “I wonder if you gentlemen have a little time right now?” he asked.

Chapter VI
    M AX SAID , “You’ve got nothing to sell, skinny. You already sold it to Sam Wald.”
    “Wald?” the clerk said. “I don’t know any Wald.”
    “Let him come in, Max,” I said. “You’re blocking the door.”
    “To hell with him,” Max said. “Let him squeak to the law.”
    Sally said, “For heaven’s sake, Max, go back to your comic page. Luke and I will handle this.”
    Max turned to look at her, and then his gaze shifted to me.
    “I’d like to talk to him, Max,” I said. “Maybe he just wants my autograph.”
    Max took a deep breath and went back to the patio.
    The smoothie smiled and came in, closing the door behind him.
    “What’s your name?” I asked him. I wore my tough-guy look.
    “It doesn’t matter. You know who I am.”
    “All right. What do you want?”
    “I was thinking you might need a witness.” He’d come over to stand near the davenport, where I was still stretched out.
    He didn’t look as though my tough-guy front was getting to him one bit.
    “Witness?” I said.
    Sally said, “Won’t you