On the top floor a large fat woman sat just outside her door, peeling potatoes. Jay asked her where Fletcher’s room was. She jerked her thumb to a door without saying anything.
Jay rapped on the door and pushed it open.
A man lay on a dirty mattress. He’d got a three days’ growth of beard, and Jay saw he was blind in one eye.
He sat up, a scared look on his face, as Jay entered.
“What do you want?” he said. He had quite a cultured voice.
Jay looked round the dirty room and grimaced. “I’m Ellinger of the St. Louis Banner. I want to talk to you, pal,” he said.
Fletcher got off the bed. “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” he said.
Jay thought he looked horribly thin. He began to cough and he had to sit on the bed again.
Jay pulled up a rickety chair and sat down too. “Listen, Fletcher, don’t fly off the handle. You’re lookin’ in a bad shape. I might be able to help you.”
When he had stopped coughing, Fletcher said rather wildly, “Look what they did!”pointing to his eye.