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I was finished I took a nice hot shower, got
dressed, and went down stairs. I had to hold on to the railing when
I went down, I was all stiff and sore and for the first time in a
long time, I really feel how old I am.
    It was about eleven thirty and I was having a
beer and waiting for that Mr. Dulouz, when guess who walked in
Alice? It was Gimpy, and he didn’t so much walk as he shuffled,
like he always did.
    I didn’t even notice him at first, I was off
in my head thinking about things, about you, Alice, about what
happened, and Fifties Chick said “Harry?” I looked up and there he
was. I was angry at first, cuz I told him before I don’t want a
puke like him coming around my bar because he’d attract more pukes
same as a piece of shit draws flies. I drug him out back and was
fixing to beat the lesson into him so maybe he’d not forget it this
time, and then he said it.
    “I found a guy, Harry! He knows the guy that
had Alice! He knows the guy that kept her!” I wasn’t too sure what
he meant by the last part but I was too surprised to say anything,
cuz sure, Gimpy’s got his uses, but he ain’t never come through
like this before, and never so soon. He just kept talkin’, and the
more he said the better and the worse I felt. It’s tough to
explain, Alice, but you prolly know what I mean, bein’ up there.
You prolly know everything now, huh? I felt bad cuz I was hearing
more stuff that happened to you, but I could lay my hands on the
puke who done it, and this made me happy.
    “He don’t know who kilt her, but he knows the
guy that hung on to her for whoever did. They took pitchers of her,
Harry.”
    “Wait here,” I said. I poked my head back in
the bar and asked Fifties Chick if she’d apologize to Mr. Duluoz
for me and tell him we’d need to meet another time and she said,
“Sure, Harry.” and I went upstairs to get all the implements I
would need and packed my pockets with ‘em. I went back out and got
in my car with Gimpy and we drove away from the bar, we drove to
down by the river, and he talked as we drove.
    “I found this guy who has pitchers of this
little blonde girl, she’s about seven or eight or so,” Gimpy says.
“Only he won’t tell me where he got ‘em. So I started pokin’ around
right? I poked around an’ I found a guy who says that the girl in
them pitchers is prolly dead now, but that he had all these
pitchers to off, yeah? He’s sellin’ ‘em for someone, he ain’t the
one that took ‘em but knows who did, an’ so I brought you one.”
    With that Gimpy reached into his greasy
overcoat and come out with a Polaroid, and it’s a damn good thing I
was already pulled over cuz I’d a drove right into the river
otherwise. I took the pitcher and I stared.
    “That her?” Gimpy asked.
    It was you, Alice. You wasn’t naked or
nothin’, though I knew there’d be other pictures where you were,
but you had a bruise under your eye and tears in them, and you’re
wearing a swim-suit while sitting on a big pink pillow. I got outta
the car, put the picture on the ground, and I burnt it cuz it was
making me crazy, Alice, it was making it so I couldn’t think, and
if I’m to get them that done this to you, and this puke seems to be
one of ‘em, I need to think. I took deep long breaths and I could
hear Gimpy’s teeth clacking, he was shaking he was so scared, and
he was right to be scared, because right then there was murder in
my heart, Alice, it was long and it was nasty, and both Gimpy and
me knew it.
    “Tell me more.” I said.
    Gimpy kept talkin’, faster at first, telling
me where to go and what words to say and the secret knock I had to
use like some kid trying to get into the All-Pukes Club. But I got
one of ‘em, the one on the bottom, and all I gotta do is work my
way up to the top.
    And Gimpy, he may a been a puke once, but
he’s a saint to me now, Alice. It makes me sick to say this but
there ain’t no way I coulda found all this out without him.