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By Root 392 0

the woman appeared. She wore a soiled housecoat and high-heeled gold leather sandals. Curlers pinioned her thinning yellowish hair. Her face was broad, muscular, rouged, powdered. She was carrying a can of Miller High Life beer; she smelled of beer and tobacco and recently applied nail varnish. She was seventy-four years old, but in Nye's opinion, "looked younger - maybe ten minutes younger." She stared at him, his trim brown suit, his brown snap brim hat. When he displayed his badge, she was amused; her lips parted, and Nye glimpsed two rows of fake teeth. "Uh-huh. That's what I figured," she said. "O.K. Let's hear it. "He handed her a photograph of Richard Hickock. "Know him?" A negative grunt.

"Or him?" She said, "Uh-huh. He's stayed here a coupla times. But he's not here now. Checked out over a month ago. You wanna see the register?" Nye leaned against the desk and watched the landlady's long and lacquered fingernails search a page of pencil-scribbled names. Las Vegas was the first of three places that his employers wished him to visit. Each had been chosen because of its connection with the history of Perry Smith. The two others were Reno, where it was thought that Smith's father lived, and San Francisco, the home of Smith's sister, who shall here be known as Mrs. Frederic Johnson. Though Nye planned to interview these relatives, and anyone else who might have knowledge of the suspect's where-abouts, his main objective was to obtain the aid of the local law agencies. On arriving in Las Vegas, for example, he had discussed the Clutter case with Lieutenant B. J. Handlon, Chief of the Detective Division of the Las Vegas Police Department. The lieutenant had then written a memorandum ordering all police personnel to be on the alert for Hickock and Smith: "Wanted in Kansas for parole violation, and said to be driving a 1949 Chevrolet bearing Kansas license JO-58269. These men are probably armed and should be considered dangerous." Also, Handlon had assigned a detective to help Nye "case the pawnbrokers"; as he said, there was "always a pack of them in any gambling town." Together, Nye and the Las Vegas detective had checked every pawn ticket issued during the past month. Specifically, Nye hoped to find a Zenith portable radio believed to have been stolen from the Clutter house on the night of the crime, but he had no luck with that. One broker, though, remembered Smith ("He's been in and out of here going on a good ten years"), and was able to produce a ticket for a bearskin rug pawned during the first week in November. It was from this ticket that Nye had obtained the address of the rooming house.

"Registered October thirtieth," the landlady said. "Pulled out November eleventh." Nye glanced at Smith's signature. The ornateness of it, the mannered swoops and swirls, surprised him - a reaction that the landlady apparently divined, for she said, "Uh-huh. And you oughta hear him talk. Big, long words coming at you in this kinda lispy, whispery voice. Quite a personality. What you got against him - a nice little punk like that?"

"Parole violation."

"Uh-huh. Came all the way from Kansas on a parole case. Well, I'm just a dizzy blonde. I believe you. But I wouldn't tell that tale to any brunettes." She raised the beer can, emptied it, then thoughtfully rolled the empty can between her veined and freckled hands. "Whatever it is, it ain't nothing big-big. Couldn't be. I never saw the man yet I couldn't gauge his shoe size. This one, be only a punk. Little punk tried to sweet-talk me out of paying rent the last week he was here." She chuckled, presumably at the absurdity of such an ambition. The detective asked how much Smith's room had cost. "Regular rate. Nine bucks a week. Plus a fifty-cent key deposit. Strictly cash. Strictly in advance."

"While he was here, what did he do with himself? Does he have any friends?" Nye asked.

"You think I keep an eye on every crawly that comes in here?" the landlady retorted. "Bums. Punks. I'm not interested. I got a daughter married big-big." Then she said, "No, he doesn't have any friends.