Lawrence Sanders - Tenth Commandment

'Tyke,' I suggested.

Oh, what a dreadful room that was! So bleak, so tawdry. It was about ten feet square with an iron bed that had once been painted white. It appeared to have the promised clean sheets — threadbare but clean — but on the lower third of the bed, the sheet and a sleazy cotton blanket had been covered with a strip of black oilcloth. It took me awhile to puzzle that out. It was for customers too drunk or frantic to remove their shoes.

I immediately ascertained that the door could be double-locked from the inside and that there was a bolt, albeit a cheap one. There was a stained sink in one corner, one straight-backed kitchen chair and a small maple table, the top scarred with cigarette burns. There was no closet, but hooks had been screwed into the walls to compensate, and a few wire coathangers depended from them.

I went into the corridor to prowl. I found a bathroom smelling achingly of disinfectant. There was a toilet, sink, bathtub with shower. I used the toilet after latching the door with the dimestore hook-and-eye provided, but I resolved to shun the sink and tub.

I went back to my room and hung up my hat and overcoat on a couple of the hooks. After a great deal of struggling, I opened the single window. A chill, moist breeze came billowing in, still tainted with sulphur. It didn't take long to realize that there was no point in sitting around in such squalor, and soon I had reclaimed my hat and coat and headed back downstairs.

'Going to get something to eat,' I said to the owner-clerk, trying to be hearty and cool simultaneously.

'A monkey-type creature,' he said. 'Five letters.'

'Lemur,' I said.

The New Frontier Bar and Grill had gained patrons during my absence; most of the barstools were occupied, and there were several couples, including a few whites, at tables in the back room. All the men were big, wide, powerfully built, with rough hands, raucous laughs, and thundering angers that seemed to subside as soon as they flared.

I was pleased to note the bartender remembered what I drank.

'Scotch?' he asked as if it were a statement of fact.

'Please. With water on the side.'

When he brought my drink, I asked him about the possibility of getting sandwiches and a bag of potato chips.

'I'm a little fandangoed at the moment,' he said. 'When I get a chance, I'll make them up for you — okay?'

'Fine,' I said. 'No rush.'

I looked around, sipping my shot glass of whisky. The monsters on both sides of me were drinking boilermakers, silently and intently, staring into the streaked mirror behind the bar. I did not attempt conversation; they looked like men with grievances.

I turned back to my own drink and in a moment felt a heavy arm slide across my shoulders.

'Hi, sonny,' a woman's voice said breezily.

'Good evening,' I said, standing. 'Would you care to sit down?'

'Sit here, Sal,' the man next to me offered. 'I got it all warmed up for you. I'm going home.'

'You do that, Joe,' said the woman, and a lot of woman she was, too, 'for a change.'

They both laughed. Joe winked at me and departed.

'Buy a girl a drink?' Ms Sal asked, swinging a weighty haunch expertly atop the barstool.

'A pleasure,' I said.

'Can I have a shot?' she asked.

'Whatever you like.'

'A shot. Beer makes me fart.'

I nodded sympathetically.

'Lou!' she screamed, so loudly and so suddenly that I leaped. 'The usual. I've got a live one here.'

She dug a crumpled pack of cigarettes from a stuffed purse. I struck a match for her.

'Thanks, sonny,' she said. She took a deep inhalation and the smoke just disappeared. I mean, I didn't see it come out anywhere.

She was a swollen, bloated woman in her middle forties.

She looked like the kind of girl who could never be surprised, shocked, or hurt; she had seen it all — twice at least.

The bartender brought her drink: a whisky with a small beer chaser.

Sal looked me up and down.

'You work in the steel mills, sonny?'

'That Sal,' the bartender said to me, 'she's a card.'

'Oh no,' I said to her. 'I'm not from around here. I'm from New York.'

'You could have fooled me,' she said. 'I would have sworn you were a puddler.'

'Come on, Sal,' the bartender said.

'That's all right,' I told him. 'I know the lady is pulling my leg. I don't mind.'

She smacked me on the back, almost knocking me off the stool.

'You're okay, sonny,' she said in a growly voice. 'I like you.'

'Thank you,' I said.

'What the hell you doing in Gary?'

'Gary?' I said, fear soaring. 'I thought this was Athens.

Isn't this Athens, Indiana?'

'Athens?' she said. She laughed uproariously, rocking back and forth on her barstool so violently that I put out an arm to assist her in case she should topple backwards.

'Jesus Christ, sonny,' she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, 'this place hasn't been called Athens in years. It was absorbed by Gary a long time ago.'

'But it was Athens?' I insisted.

'Oh sure. It was Athens when I was a kid, more years ago than I want to remember. What the hell you doing in Athens?'

'I work for a law firm in New York,' I said. 'It's a matter of a will. I'm trying to locate a beneficiary whose last address was given as Athens, Indiana.'

'No shit?' she said, interested. 'An inheritance?'

'Oh yes.'

'A lot of money?'

'It depends on what you mean by a lot of money,' I said cautiously.

'To me,' she said, 'anything over twenty bucks is a lot of money.'

'It's more than twenty bucks.'

'What's the name?'

'Knurr,' I said. 'K-n-u-r-r. A woman. Goldie Knurr.'

'Goldie Knurr?' she repeated. 'No,' she said, shaking her head, 'never heard of her. Lou!' she screamed. When the bartender came over, she asked, 'Ever hear of a woman named Goldie Knurr?'

He pondered a moment, frowning.

'Can't say as I have,' he said.

'Buy me a double,' Sal said to me, 'and I'll ask around for you.'

When she returned she slid on to the barstool again, spanked her empty glass on the bar.

'What the hell's your name?' she demanded.

'Josh.'

'My name's Sal.'

'I know. May I buy you a drink, Sal?'

She pretended to consider the offer.

'Well. . all right, if you insist.' She signalled the bartender, holding up two fingers. 'Bingo,' she said. 'I found a guy who knows Goldie Knurr. Or says he does.

See that old swart in the back room? The grey-hair, frizzy-haired guy sitting by himself?'

I turned, 'I see him,' I said.

'That's Ulysses Tecumseh Jones,' she said. 'Esquire.

One year younger than God. He's been around here since there was a here. He says he knew the Knurr family.'

'You think he'll talk to me?' I asked.

'Why not?' she said. 'He's drinking beer.'

'Mr Jones?' I said, standing alongside his table with my drink in one hand, a stein of beer in the other.

He looked up at me slowly. Sal had been right: he had to be ninety, at least. A mummy without wrappings. Skin of wrinkled tar paper, rheumy eyes, hands that looked like something tossed up by the sea and dried on hot sands.

'Suh?' he said dimly.

'Mr Jones,' I said, 'my name is Joshua Bigg and I — '

'Joshua,' he said. 'Fit the battle of Jericho.'

'Yes, sir,' I said, 'and I would appreciate it if we could share a drink and I might speak to you for a few moments.'

I proffered the stein of beer.

'I take that kindly,' he said, reaching. 'Set. Sal says you asking about the Knurrs?'

'Yes, sir,' I said, sliding on to the banquette next to him.

The ancient sipped his beer. He told me a story about his old army sergeant. He cackled.

'What war was that, sir?' I asked.

' O h. . ' he said vaguely. 'This or that.'

'About the Knurrs?' I prompted him.