"Only lemme tell you something about Bruce. All the time he was so holy-holy, attending Mass every Sunday he was over on this side--but avoiding Communion, come to think of it--he didn't give a damn either. He just didn't have the nerve to make a clean break with those black crows, like me." Kintyre, who had listened to many midnight hours of troubled young confidences, said quietly: "At the time he died, Bruce hadn't yet decided what he believed. He wouldn't hurt his parents for what might turn out to be a moment's intellectual whim." "All right, all right. Only did you know he was shacking up?" Kintyre raised his brows. "I'm surprised he told you. He introduced the girl around as his fiancée. In the apartment house he said she was his wife. He was more concerned about her reputation than she was." "Come off it," snorted Guido. "Who did he fool?" "Nnn ... nobody who met her, I suppose. He tried, but--" "But this was the first woman he ever had, and it was such a big event he couldn't hide it. He was a lousy liar. Just for kicks, I badgered him till he broke down and admitted it to me." "It was her idea," said Kintyre. "He wanted to marry her." "Be this as it may," said Guido, "our little tin Jesus turns out to've been less than frank with everybody. So what else did he have cooking? Don't ask what I'm mixed up in. Look into his doings." "I might," said Kintyre, "except that you have explained to me how poor a liar he was." The girl came back with a pint of bourbon and a chit for Guido to sign. She leaned far over to set down a bottle of soda and two glasses of ice, so Kintyre could have a good look down her dress. "Man," said Guido when she had oscillated off again, "Laura's got ants tonight. If you don't help yourself to that, I will." "Why offer me the chance in the first place?" asked Kintyre. He ignored the proffered glass, sticking to his beer. "I was going out on the town when I finished here. Know some places, they cost but they're worth it." Guido slugged his own glass full, added a dash of mix, and drank heartily. "They'll keep till tomorrow, though." "I wonder where a chronically broke small-time entertainer gets money to splurge, all at once," said Kintyre. Guido set his drink down again. Behind the loose, open blouse, his breast muscles grew taut. "Never you mind," he said, in the bleakest voice Kintyre had yet heard him use. "Forget I mentioned it. Run along home and play with your books." "As you wish. But when you're being officially grilled--and you will be, sonny--I wouldn't talk about Bruce in exactly the terms you used tonight. It sounds more and more as if you hated him." Kintyre had no intention of leaving. Guido was disquietingly hard to understand. He might even, actually, be a party to the murder. Kintyre didn't want to believe that. He hoped all the tough and scornful words had been no more than a concealment, from Guido's own inward self, of bewildered pain. But he couldn't be sure.