Nash is heavy. A big guy wearing a heavy coat over his white uniform, he's wearing his white track shoes and standing at the bar when I get there. Both elbows on the bar, he's eating a steak sandwich, on a kaiser roll with mustard and mayo squeezing out of the far end. He's drinking a cup of black coffee. His greasy hair is pulled into a black palm tree on top of his head.

And I say, so?

I ask, was the place ransacked?

Nash is just chewing, his big jaw going around and around. He holds the sandwich in both hands but stares past it at the plate full of mess, dill pickles and potato chips.

I ask, did he smell anything in the hotel room?

He says, "Newlyweds like they were, I figure he fucks her to death, and then has himself a heart attack. Five bucks says they open her and find air in her heart."

I ask, did he at least star-69 their telephone to find out who'd called last?

And Nash says, "No can do. Not on a hotel phone."

I say, I want more for my fifty bucks than just his drooling over a dead body.

"You'da been drooling, too," he says. "Damn, she was a looker."

I ask, were there valuables—watches, wallets, jewelry—left at the scene?

He says, "Still warm, too, under the covers. Warm enough. No death agonies. Nothing."

His big jaw goes around and around, slower now as he stares down at nothing in particular.

"If you could have any woman you wanted," he says, "if you could have her any way you wanted, wouldn't you do it?"

I say, what he's talking about is rape.

"Not," he says, "if she's dead." And he crunches down on a potato chip in his mouth. "If I'd been alone, alone and had a rubber ...," he says through the food. "No way would I let the medical examiner find my DNA at the scene."