L01 0010    There were thirty-eight patients on the bus the morning I left
L01 0020 for Hanover, most of them disturbed and hallucinating. An interne,
L01 0030 a nurse and two attendants were in charge of us.   I felt lonely
L01 0040 and depressed as I stared out the bus window at Chicago's grim,
L01 0050 dirty West Side. It seemed incredible, as I listened to the monotonous
L01 0060 drone of voices and smelled the fetid odors coming from the patients,
L01 0070 that technically I was a ward of the state of Illinois, going to
L01 0080 a hospital for the mentally ill.   I suddenly thought of Mary
L01 0090 Jane Brennan, the way her pretty eyes could flash with anger, her quiet
L01 0100 competence, the gentleness and sweetness that lay just beneath the
L01 0110 surface of her defenses.   We had become good friends during my
L01 0120 stay at Cook County Hospital. I had told her enough about myself
L01 0130 to offset somewhat the damaging stories that had appeared in local newspapers
L01 0140 after my little adventure in Marshall Field + Co&. She
L01 0150 knew that I lived at a good address on the Gold Coast, that I had
L01 0160 once been a medical student and was thinking of returning to the university
L01 0170 to finish my medical studies. She knew also that I was unmarried
L01 0180 and without a single known relative. She wasn't quite sure that
L01 0190 I felt enough remorse about my drinking, or that I would not return
L01 0200 to it once I was out and on my own again. This had worried her.
L01 0210    "I read those newspaper stories about you", she had said. "You
L01 0220 must have loved that girl very much, but you couldn't have meant
L01 0230 it when you said that you wanted to kill her".   "Why do you
L01 0240 say that"? I asked. "I was full of booze and, well, a drunk
L01 0250 is apt to do anything he says he'll do".   Nonsense! I grew
L01 0260 up in an Irish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side. Don't
L01 0270 tell me about drunks. You're not the kind to go violent. Were you
L01 0280 in love with that girl"?   "Would it make any difference to
L01 0290 you if I were, Mary Jane"?   She met my eyes, suddenly
L01 0300 angry. "I wouldn't have gone into nursing if I didn't care about
L01 0310 people. I'm interested in every patient I've helped take care
L01 0320 of. When I think of people like you, well, I"-   "You
L01 0330 what, Mary Jane"?   "You are young, intelligent, have a
L01 0340 whole lifetime before you to make something worth while of yourself, but
L01 0350 you mess it up with whiskey, indifference, self-destructive attitudes.
L01 0360 I don't blame that girl for breaking her engagement with you. Was
L01 0370 she pretty"?   "Oh, yes", I said, feeling annoyed,
L01 0380 "she was very pretty. You don't believe that I'm going back to
L01 0390 medical school and finish, do you"?   "Why
L01 0391 should I? I've
L01 0400 worked this ward for three months now. We keep getting the same
L01 0410 ones back again and again. They all mean well, have great promises to
L01 0420 make when they are about to go home, but drinking is their sickness.
L01 0430 You've not seemed like them, but maybe you are. You've treated
L01 0440 your stay here like a big joke. It's not a joke to be sent to a place
L01 0450 like this or to Hanover. I wanted to go to college, to"-
L01 0460    "Why didn't you"? I asked. "Chicago has some of the best"-
L01 0470    Her eyes flashed angrily. "That's what I mean about
L01 0480 you, Anderson", she said. "You don't seem to know much about
L01 0490 reality. I'll tell you why I didn't go to college; I'm
L01 0500 the oldest of six children. My father's a policeman and makes less
L01 0510 than seven thousand dollars a year. There was no money for tuition,
L01 0520 for clothes, for all the things you apparently take for granted. Nurses'
L01 0530 training here doesn't cost anything. They even pay me six dollars
L01 0540 a month. I think it's a good deal. I'm going to become a good
L01 0550 nurse, and I've got two baby brothers that are going to have college
L01 0560 if I have to work at my profession until I'm an old maid to give
L01 0570 it to them".   "Do you have a boy friend"? I asked.
L01 0580    "That's none of your business", she said, then changed
L01 0590 the subject. "What about your father and mother, don't you think
L01 0600 of them when you're in a place like this"?   "My father
L01 0610 and mother died when I was two years old", I said. "My aunt raised
L01 0620 me. Aunt Mary died when I was doing my military service. I have
L01 0630 no one but myself to worry about".   Something in my voice must
L01 0640 have touched her deeply because her anger passed quickly, and she
L01 0650 turned away to keep me from seeing her face.   "I'm sorry",
L01 0660 she said. "I don't know what I'd do without my family. We've
L01 0670 always been so close".   "Tell me more about them".
L01 0671    Her
L01 0680 eyes became bright as she talked about her father and mother, aunts
L01 0690 and uncles, cousins. Listening, I felt cheated and lonely as only an
L01 0700 orphan can. When she had finished I said:   "Your dad sounds
L01 0710 like a good father and a good policeman. I'll bet he wouldn't
L01 0720 be pleased if a rumdum like me were to ask his daughter for a date-
L01 0730 I mean, after I'm out of the hospital, a month or so from now".
L01 0740    "My father is a sergeant of detectives and has been attached
L01 0750 to Homicide for five years. He's a pretty good judge of character,
L01 0760 Anderson. I don't think he'd mind too much if he were sure you'd
L01 0770 decided not to be a rumdum in the future".   "What about
L01 0780 you? How would you feel about it if I were to ask you for a date
L01 0790 when I get through at Hanover"?   "If I thought you
L01 0800 were serious about going back to school, that you'd learned something
L01 0810 from your experiences here and at Hanover- well, I might consider
L01 0820 such an offer. What about your **h that girl you were going to kill"?
L01 0830    It suddenly seemed very important to me that Mary Jane
L01 0840 Brennan should know the truth about me- that I was not the confused,
L01 0850 sick, irresponsible person she believed me to be.   "There
L01 0860 are things about me that I can't tell you now, Mary Jane", I
L01 0880 said, "but if you'll go out to dinner with me when I get out of Hanover,
L01 0890 I'd like to tell you the whole story. I can say this: I'm
L01 0900 dead serious about going back to school. As for that other girl,
L01 0910 let's just say that I never want to see her again. You will get
L01 0920 to come home on long weekends from Hanover, won't you"?
L01 0930 "Yes, I'll get one overnight a month".   "We'll go up
L01 0940 to the Edgewater Beach Hotel for dinner", I said. "Do you like
L01 0950 to dance? They always have a good orchestra".   "I like
L01 0960 to dance", she said, then turned and walked away.   There hadn't
L01 0970 been anything really personal in her interest in me. I knew that.
L01 0980 It was just that she felt deeply about every patient on the ward
L01 0990 and wanted to believe that they might benefit from their treatment there.
L01 1000    Now, riding this hospital bus, feeling isolated and utterly
L01 1010 alone, I knew that she was genuine and unique, quite unlike any girl
L01 1020 I had known before. It seemed the most important thing in my life
L01 1030 at this moment that she should know the real truth about me.   It
L01 1040 was a fantastic story. Only two people in the state of Illinois knew
L01 1050 that I was entering Hanover State Hospital under an assumed name,
L01 1060 or why. It was unlikely that any girl as sharp as Mary Jane Brennan
L01 1070 would believe it without proof. But I had the proof, all documented
L01 1080 in a legal agreement which I would show her the moment I was free
L01 1090 to do so.   As the bus turned into the main highway and headed
L01 1100 toward Hanover I settled back in my seat and closed my eyes, thinking
L01 1110 over the events of the past two weeks, trying to put the pieces in
L01 1120 order. I wondered suddenly as I listened to the disconnected jabberings
L01 1130 coming from the patient behind me, if I had not perhaps imagined
L01 1140 it all. Perhaps this was reality and Dale Nelson, the actor, was
L01 1150 delusion; a figment of Carl Anderson's imagination. #FOUR# I
L01 1160 had come to Chicago from New York early in September with a dramatic
L01 1170 production called <Ask Tony>. It was a bad play, real grade-A
L01 1180 turkey, which only a prevalence of angels with grandiose dreams of
L01 1190 capital gain and tax money to burn could have put into rehearsal. No
L01 1200 one, not even the producer, had any real hope of getting it back to Broadway.
L01 1210 But because it was a suspense gangster story of the Capone
L01 1220 era, many of us felt that it might catch on for a run in Chicago, continue
L01 1230 as a road company, and eventually become a movie.   Such optimism
L01 1240 was completely unjustified. The critics literally screamed their
L01 1250 indignation. <Ask Tony> was doomed from the moment Kupcinet leveled
L01 1260 on it in his <Sun-Times> column. We opened on Friday and
L01 1270 closed the following Monday. Out of the entire cast I alone received
L01 1280 good notices for my portrayal of a psychopathic killer. This let me
L01 1290 in for a lot of kidding from the rest of the company, two members of
L01 1300 which were native Chicagoans.   We were paid off Tuesday morning
L01 1310 and given tickets back to New York.   I felt lonely and depressed
L01 1320 as I packed my bags at the Croydon Hotel. It seemed to me that
L01 1330 my life was destined to be one brilliant failure after another. I
L01 1340 had been among the top third in my class at N&Y&U&, had wanted
L01 1350 desperately to go to medical school, but I'd run out of money and
L01 1360 energy at the same time. Then later I had quit my safe, secure five-a-week
L01 1370 spot on a network soap opera to take a part in this play. It
L01 1380 seemed to me that I was not only unlucky but quite stupid as well. I
L01 1390 knew that I'd soon be back working as an orderly at the hospital
L01 1400 or as a counterman at Union News or Schraffts while waiting for another
L01 1410 acting job to open. It suddenly occurred to me that I did not particularly
L01 1420 like acting, that I was at some sort of crossroads and would
L01 1430 have to decide soon what I was going to do with my life.   I
L01 1440 closed the last bag and stood all three at the door for the bellboy
L01 1450 to pick up, then went to the bathroom for a drink of water. The telephone
L01 1460 rang. When I answered it a voice too dignified and British to
L01 1470 be real said, "Is this Mr& Dale Nelson, the actor"?
L01 1480 "All right", I said. "Why don't you bastards lay off for a
L01 1490 while"?   "I beg your pardon, sir"?   "All right.
L01 1500 This is Dale Nelson **h the actor".   "Good. I'm
L01 1510 calling you, Mr& Nelson, at the request of Mr& Phillip Wycoff.
L01 1520 Could you possibly have lunch with him today? His car could pick
L01 1530 you up at your hotel at twelve".   I smiled. "You'll send
L01 1540 the Rolls-Royce, of course"?   "Yes, of course, Mr&
L01 1550 Nelson".   I started to say something else appropriate, but
L01 1560 the man had hung up.   I finally went downstairs to the bar off
L01 1570 the main lobby where most of the cast were drowning their sorrows over
L01 1580 the untimely passing of <Ask Tony>. They all bowed low as I approached
L01 1590 them.   "All right, you bastards", I said, "the great
L01 1600 actor is about to buy a drink".   I laid a tenspot on the
L01 1610 bar and motioned to the bartender to serve a round. He had just returned
L01 1620 my change when the doorman came in off the street to page me. I
L01 1630 walked over to him.   "You Mr& Nelson"? he asked.
L01 1640    "That's right".   "Mr& Wycoff's car is waiting
L01 1650 for you at the east entrance".   I followed him out through the
L01 1660 lobby to the street.   An ancient Rolls-Royce, as shiningly
L01 1670 impressive as the day it came off the ship, was parked at the curb. The
L01 1680 elderly chauffeur, immaculate in a dark uniform, stood stiffly at attention
L01 1690 holding open the door of the town car.
L02 0010    I was giving the parked cars the once-over. The Oldsmobile with
L02 0020 the license number ~JYJ 114 was in stall number five.
L02 0030 "Okay", I said to the attendant, "I'll let you know if I close
L02 0040 the deal on the office in this building".   I walked with
L02 0050 him back to the entrance. He gave me a ticket on the agency car and
L02 0060 parked it.   I was back in ten minutes. "Forgot to get something
L02 0070 out of the car", I told him, showing him my ticket.   He
L02 0080 started to say something as I walked in and then suddenly grinned and
L02 0090 said, "Oh, yes. You're the one I was talking to about a monthly
L02 0100 rental.   "That's right", I told him.   He consulted
L02 0110 the parking ticket, then looked at a notation and said, "You're
L02 0120 in the third row back toward the rear. Can you find it all right"?
L02 0130    "Sure", I told him.   I went back to the agency
L02 0140 car and got out an electric bug, one of the newest devices for electronic
L02 0150 shadowing. I always keep a set in the car.   I put in new
L02 0160 batteries so as to be certain I'd have plenty of power and on my way
L02 0170 out walked over to the regular parking stalls and stood looking at
L02 0180 them thoughtfully.   I waited until the parking attendant was busy
L02 0190 with a customer, then slipped around the back of the car with license
L02 0200 number ~JYM 114, attached the electronic bug to the rear bumper
L02 0210 and walked out.   The attendant waved me on.   One of the
L02 0220 hardest chores a detective has is hanging around on a city street, trying
L02 0230 to make himself inconspicuous, keeping an eye on the entrance of
L02 0240 an office building and waiting.   For the first fifteen or twenty
L02 0250 minutes it's possible to be more or less interested in window displays,
L02 0260 then in people passing by. After a while, however, a person's
L02 0270 mind gets fed up and that magnifies all of the disagreeable physical
L02 0280 symptoms which go with that sort of an assignment. You want to sit down.
L02 0290 Your leg muscles and back muscles feel weary. You're conscious
L02 0300 of the fact that your feet hurt, that the city pavements are hard.
L02 0310    I waited a solid two hours before my man came out of the office
L02 0320 building. He came out alone.   I wasn't far behind him when
L02 0330 he entered the parking lot and hurried over to his car.   The attendant
L02 0340 recognized me once more and said, "What did you do about that
L02 0350 office"?   "I haven't made up my mind yet", I said.
L02 0360 "It's a sublease. I have a couple of them I'm figuring on;
L02 0370 one here and one that's out quite a ways where there's usually curb
L02 0380 parking".   "That curb parking is undependable and annoying,
L02 0390 particularly when it rains", he said.   I kept trying to
L02 0400 get him to take my money. "Okay", I told him. "I'm in a rush
L02 0410 right now. I know where the car is. Want me to drive it out"?
L02 0420    "I'll have one of the boys get it", he said. "It's
L02 0430 one
L02 0440 of the rules on transients. Regulars drive out their own cars".
L02 0450    "Make it as snappy as you can, will you"? I asked.
L02 0460 "Oh, that's all right", he said. "You're going to be a regular.
L02 0470 You'll get in the office building here. You don't want to
L02 0480 lease a place way out in the sticks. You get business where the business
L02 0490 is, not where it isn't".   I grinned at him, handed him
L02 0500 a couple of dollars and said, "By the time you get the parking charge
L02 0510 figured up, there should be a cigar in it for you".   I hurried
L02 0520 over to the agency heap, jumped in, started the motor and was just
L02 0530 in time to see the car I wanted to shadow turn to the left.
L02 0540 I was held up a bit trying to make a left turn. By the time I'd
L02 0550 made it he was gone. Traffic was pretty heavy.   I turned on the
L02 0560 electric bug, and the signal came in loud and clear.   I made
L02 0570 time and picked him up within ten blocks. I stayed half a block behind
L02 0580 him, letting lots of cars keep in between us, listening to the steady
L02 0590 beep **h beep **h beep.   After fifteen minutes of traffic driving
L02 0600 he turned to the left. I couldn't see him, but the electric bugging
L02 0610 device gave steady beeps when it was straight ahead, short half
L02 0620 beeps when the car I was following was to the left, and long drawn-out
L02 0630 beeps when it turned to the right. If it ever got behind me, the beep
L02 0640 turned to a buzz.   I turned left too soon and got a signal showing
L02 0650 that I was still behind him but he was to the right. After a
L02 0660 while the signal became a buzz and I knew he was behind me. That meant
L02 0670 he'd parked someplace. I made a big circle until I located the
L02 0680 car parked at the curb in front of an apartment house.   I found
L02 0690 a parking place half a block away, sat in the car and waited.
L02 0700 My quarry was in the apartment house for two hours. Then he came out
L02 0710 and started driving toward the beach.   By this time it was dark.
L02 0720 I could get up close to him where there was traffic but had to drop
L02 0730 far behind when there wasn't traffic. My lights would have been a
L02 0740 giveaway if I'd tried to shadow him in the conventional manner. Moreover,
L02 0750 I'd have lost him if it hadn't been for the electronic shadowing
L02 0760 device **h. His signal was coming loud and clear and then all
L02 0770 of a sudden it turned to a buzz. I circled the block and found he was
L02 0780 in the parking lot of a high-class restaurant.   I sat where
L02 0790 I could watch the exit and realized I was hungry. I sat there with
L02 0800 the faint odor of charcoal-broiled steaks tantalizing my nostrils and
L02 0810 occasionally catching the aroma of coffee.   My man came out an
L02 0820 hour later, drove to the beach, turned right and after half a mile went
L02 0830 to the Swim and Tan Motel.   It was a fairly modern motel with
L02 0840 quite a bit of electrical display in front. I remembered it was the
L02 0850 Peeping Tom place.   I waited until my man was coming out of
L02 0860 the office with the key to a cabin before I went in to register.
L02 0870    The card the man I was shadowing had filled out was still on the
L02 0880 counter. I noticed that he was in Unit 12 and that he had registered
L02 0890 under the name of Oscar L& Palmer and wife, giving a San Francisco
L02 0900 address.   He had written out the license number of his car
L02 0910 but had transposed the last two figures, an old dodge which is still
L02 0920 good. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the motel manager doesn't
L02 0930 check the license number on the plates against the license number the
L02 0940 tenant writes out. If he does, it's still better than an even chance
L02 0950 he won't notice the transposition of the numbers, and if he should
L02 0960 notice it, the thing can be passed off as an honest mistake.
L02 0970 I used the alias of Robert C& Richards, gave the first three letters
L02 0980 and the first and last figure of the license number on the agency
L02 0990 heap, but a couple of phony numbers in between.   I could have
L02 1000 written anything. The manager of the motel was a woman who apparently
L02 1010 didn't care. She was complying with the law in regard to registrations
L02 1020 but she certainly wasn't checking license numbers or bothering
L02 1030 the tenants.   "You mean you're all alone, Mr& Richards"?
L02 1040    "That's right".   "Your wife isn't going
L02 1050 to join you- later"?   "I don't think so".   "If
L02 1060 you expect her to show up", she said, "you'd better put 'and
L02 1070 wife' on there. It's a formality, you know".   "Any
L02 1090 difference in the rate"? I asked.   "Not to you", she said
L02 1100 smiling. "It's ten dollars either way. There are ice cubes in
L02 1110 a container at the far end and in another by the office. There are
L02 1120 three soft-drink vending machines, and if you should be joined by- anybody-
L02 1130 try to keep things quiet, if you will. We like to run a nice
L02 1140 quiet place".   "Thank you", I told her.   I took
L02 1150 another sidelong glance at the other registration card, then took the
L02 1160 key to Unit 13 that she had given me and went down long enough to park
L02 1170 the car.   The construction was reasonably solid; not like
L02 1180 the cracker-box construction of so many of the motel units that have stucco
L02 1190 all over the outside but walls that are thin enough so you can hear
L02 1200 every movement of the people in the adjoining apartment.   I
L02 1210 put a small electric amplifier against the wall on the side I wanted
L02 1220 to case. With the aid of that I could hear my man moving around, heard
L02 1230 him cough a couple of times, heard the toilet flush, heard the sound
L02 1240 of water running.   Whoever his companion was going to be, she
L02 1250 was going to join him later. She knew where to come. He didn't have
L02 1260 to telephone.   I was so hungry my stomach felt all lines of
L02 1270 communication had been severed. It's one thing to go without food
L02 1280 when you're occupied with some work or when you're simply postponing
L02 1290 a meal, but when you're dependent on someone else and know that you
L02 1300 <can't> eat until he's bedded down for the night, hunger can
L02 1310 be a gnawing torture.   I had noticed a drive-in down the road a
L02 1320 quarter of a mile. The batteries on the bugging device I had put on
L02 1330 the car were still fresh enough to send out good strong signals. The
L02 1340 powerful microphone I could press against the wall between my motel
L02 1350 unit and that occupied by the man would bring in the sound of any conversation,
L02 1360 and I was positively nauseated I was so hungry.   I
L02 1370 got in the car, drove down to the drive-in and ordered a couple of hamburgers
L02 1380 with everything included, a cup of coffee and the fastest service
L02 1390 possible.   The place wasn't particularly busy at that time
L02 1400 of night, and the girl who was waiting on me, who was clothed in the
L02 1410 tightest-fitting pair of slacks I had ever seen on a woman and a sweater
L02 1420 that showed everything there was- and there was lots of it- wanted
L02 1430 to be sociable.   "You really in a hurry, Handsome"?
L02 1440 she asked.   "I'm in a hurry, Beautiful".   "It's
L02 1450 early in the evening to be in a hurry. There's lots of time left".
L02 1460 "There may not be any women left", I said.   She gave
L02 1470 a little pout and said, "<I> don't get off work until eleven
L02 1480 o'clock. That's when my evening commences".   "I'll
L02 1490 be here at ten-fifty-five", I said.   "Oh, <you!>" she
L02 1500 announced. "That's what they all say. What's that thing going
L02 1510 buzz-buzz-buzz in your car"?   I said "Darn it, that's
L02 1520 the automatic signal that shows when the ignition key is on. I didn't
L02 1530 turn it off". I reached over and switched off the electronic bugging
L02 1540 device.   She went in to get the hamburgers, and I switched
L02 1550 on the device again and kept the signal from Dowling's car coming
L02 1560 in steady and clear until I saw her starting back with the hamburgers.
L02 1570 Then I shut off the device again.   She wanted to hang around
L02 1580 while I was eating. "Don't you think it's selfish to have
L02 1590 dinner <before> you go to pick her up"?   "No", I said.
L02 1600 "It's a kindness to her. You see, she's on a diet. She'll
L02 1610 eat just a pineapple and cottage cheese salad and I'm to have one
L02 1620 with her so she won't feel out of place".   "diets can be
L02 1630 terrible", the girl said. "How much overweight is she"?
L02 1640    "Not a bit", I said, "but she's keeping her figure in hand".
L02 1650    She looked at me provocatively. "Good figures <should>
L02 1660 be kept in hand", she said, and walked away with an exaggerated
L02 1670 wiggle.   I turned on the device again, half fearful that I might
L02 1680 find silence, but the buzzes came in loud and clear.   When I
L02 1690 switched on the lights for her to come and get the check, I had the
L02 1700 exact change plus a dollar tip.
L03 0010    The fat man said, "All we gotta do is go around the corner".
L03 0020    The gun moved. The thin man said, "That-a-way".
L03 0030    "- second building on the right".   "- it says police
L03 0040 right on the door".   "- so even if we was as dumb as you
L03 0050 take us for, we could still find it".   Roberta and Dave began
L03 0060 to back toward the door. The thin man waved the gun again. He said,
L03 0070 "Right around the corner".   "It says water works, but
L03 0080 there is a policeman on duty, too".   "A night policeman just
L03 0090 like in the States. You know"?   "Canada doesn't have
L03 0100 much of this here juvenile delinquency problem, but we keep a night
L03 0110 policeman all the same on account of the crazy tourists".   At
L03 0120 the door, Dave paused to feel for the latch. Roberta glanced up at
L03 0130 her husband. He was going to be sensible and not try to do anything
L03 0140 rash with that gun pointed at him. She measured the distance from where
L03 0150 they stood to the men and the gun, measured the distance from the
L03 0160 men to the back room. She decided to risk it. There was something phony
L03 0170 about all this gun waving- something not quite what it seemed in
L03 0180 the detailed directions for finding the police.   Dave had the
L03 0190 latch under his thumb now and he removed his arm from his wife in order
L03 0200 to pull the door open. In a flash she was away to the back, paying
L03 0210 no attention to three angry shouts from the male throats. She tore open
L03 0220 the back door. It was dark inside the room but enough light spilled
L03 0230 from the restaurant behind her to enable her to make out a round table
L03 0240 with a green cloth top. There was a small sideboard with some empty
L03 0250 beer bottles on it and perhaps fifteen wooden chairs.   Slowly
L03 0260 she turned to face the men again. Rat-face at the counter was on his
L03 0270 feet. The distance between where she stood and where Dave waited at
L03 0280 the outside door was a hundred miles. Keeping her frightened gaze on
L03 0290 the men at the counter, she began to feel her way to the door. She
L03 0300 sidled along the booths one step at a time. The gun followed her.
L03 0310    As she reached Dave and felt his arm go around her, felt him pull
L03 0320 her to the safety of his person, she knew with the certainty of despair
L03 0330 that something bad had happened to Lauren.   The two
L03 0340 men watched as Dave closed the door behind them, watched them cross the
L03 0350 sidewalk to their car. It was getting light. The fat man removed
L03 0360 his apron, put on a greasy and wrinkled jacket, and zipped it over his
L03 0370 paunch.   The thin man moved swiftly to the phone and dialed a
L03 0380 number. When he was answered, he said, "Albert? Vince. I'm sending
L03 0390 you a couple of customers- yeah- just get them out of my hair
L03 0400 and keep them out- I don't give a damn what you tell them- only
L03 0410 don't believe a word they say- they're out to make trouble for
L03 0420 me and it is up to you to stop them- I don't care how- and one
L03 0430 more thing- Cate's Cafe closed at eleven like always last night
L03 0440 and Rose and Clarence Corsi left for Quebec yesterday- some shrine
L03 0450 or other- I think it was called Saint Simon's- yeah, yesterday.
L03 0460 Got it"?   He turned from the phone and strode to
L03 0470 the front of the restaurant. The white Buick hadn't moved away yet.
L03 0480 Good. A line of worry formed, a twitch pulled his mouth over to one
L03 0490 side.   He said, "Grosse? You ain't kidding me- the
L03 0500 kid don't know the name of this town"?   "I ain't kidding
L03 0510 you, Vince. How could she? She musta been walking in her sleep-
L03 0520 you seen her yourself in here".   "Howda I know"?
L03 0530    "Remember how she looked when Barney held the door for her?
L03 0540 Kinda like a zombie? She was just waking up when we found her at
L03 0550 the garage".   Vince swore. "Stupid fools- ain't got
L03 0560 enough brains between the two of you"-   Grosse muttered, his
L03 0570 head down, one hand playing with the zipper on his jacket. "- had
L03 0580 enough brains to call ya up so as ya could do sompin about it when the
L03 0590 parents- I coulda let her go go"- His eyes were lowered, so
L03 0600 he couldn't have seen the narrow, pointed face of his companion suddenly
L03 0610 writhe with fury; but he was aware of it just the same. He knew
L03 0620 Vince Steiner was one of those men who had to work up a fury once
L03 0630 in a while just to prove how dangerous he could be.   With a curse,
L03 0640 Vince seized the thing nearest, a glass sugar container with a spouted
L03 0650 metal top, and threw it against the wall opposite. The heavy glass
L03 0660 didn't break, but the top flew off; sugar sprayed with a hiss
L03 0670 that was loud in the silence.   Not really startled, but careful
L03 0680 to appear so, Grosse sucked noisily on his pipe. Vince cursed steadily.
L03 0690 "Why does everything have to happen to me"?   Grosse
L03 0700 quietly got a broom and started to sweep up the sugar. Vince watched
L03 0710 him. His mouth worked over the profanity, the obscenities in his vocabulary.
L03 0720 Once he said, "Why'n hell didn't you look in the back
L03 0730 seat of the car before you drove off? Don't you and Barney ever
L03 0740 use your brains"?   The fat man didn't answer. He got one
L03 0750 of the menus and brushed the spilled sugar onto it and carried it to
L03 0760 a box on the floor behind the counter. He returned the menu to its
L03 0770 place between catchup bottle and paper napkin dispenser.   He spoke
L03 0780 soothingly. "She don't know nothing about them cars. She thinks
L03 0790 she's in a ordinary garage".   "How do you know, stupid?
L03 0800 And put Cate's gun back".   "I know". Grosse tucked
L03 0810 the gun under the counter.   "- one word of this gets to
L03 0820 Guardino"-   "Who's telling Guardino"?   Vince
L03 0830 swore again. "You get that kid over to Rose's house".
L03 0840    The fat man winced. He ran a finger down his cheek, tracing the scratch
L03 0850 there. "Why can't I leave her locked up in the tool crib"?
L03 0860    The thin man stopped his pacing long enough to glance at
L03 0870 the clock. "You and Barney get her over to Rose's before it gets
L03 0880 too light. After Guardino's left, we'll dump the kid somewhere
L03 0890 near the border where she kin get home. God help you if she knows where
L03 0900 she's been".   Grosse spread his hands. "What am I going
L03 0910 to do with her all day? In the tool crib she can't get away".
L03 0920    "What the hell do I care what you do with her all day?
L03 0930 Just get her where Guardino won't see her and start asking questions".
L03 0940    Grosse swore now. "Dammit all, Vince. I ain't no
L03 0950 baby sitter".   Vince shouted finally, "Get her over to Rose's
L03 0960 and I'll come by and see that she stays put".   Grosse
L03 0970 rubbed the bridge of his nose where it was swollen. He spoke sullenly.
L03 0980 "You don't hafta get nasty. I wish you luck when you try
L03 0990 scaring that kid". Suddenly he grinned. His voice lost its sullen
L03 1000 tones and he chuckled. "I got one question".   "What is it"?
L03 1010 Impatiently.   "Are you a poor dumb Canadian or a smart
L03 1020 aleck from the States"?   Vince lifted his hand as if to
L03 1030 strike, but his thin lips spread in a smile. Grosse ducked and sniggered.
L03 1040 "Where'd you say you was born"?   "In a Chicago
L03 1050 slum just like you. And I ain't going back there on account of
L03 1060 one lousy kid". ## Lauren Landis rubbed her face against the blanket.
L03 1070 She had cried a little because she was frightened. She could
L03 1080 easily understand why the two men had been startled to find a strange
L03 1090 girl in the back seat of their car (she had figured <that> out), but
L03 1100 she couldn't understand their subsequent actions. Was it because
L03 1110 she had shown panic? Who could blame her for that? It was one thing
L03 1120 to awaken outside a restaurant where your parents were eating and
L03 1130 quite another to awaken in a strange garage and know your parents had
L03 1140 gone on home without you.   She was glad the fat man had left. Barney
L03 1150 was not really frightening. She jumped as the little man now appeared
L03 1160 at the window and, reaching through the opening, offered her a
L03 1170 bottle of coke. She smiled at him wetly. Although she found she was
L03 1180 thirsty, she was about to refuse (never, never take candy from a strange
L03 1190 man) when she saw the bottle was unopened. He placed a bottle opener
L03 1200 on the counter. So, <he> understood her panic. She blew her nose
L03 1210 on a tissue and opened the coke bottle. It was icy cold and tasted
L03 1220 delicious. She felt a lift in spirit. When she was finished she pushed
L03 1230 it back. The man was busy doing something to the inside of the door-frame
L03 1240 on the driver's side of a car.   She called softly, "Barney".
L03 1250    He looked in her direction but he didn't answer.
L03 1260    She said, "Barney, why is he keeping me here"?
L03 1270    Still no answer. He seemed to be looking at a point above the little
L03 1280 window.   Lauren said, "Why can't I call my home? Or
L03 1290 borrow some money from someone and go home by bus? I could send the
L03 1300 money right back".   Barney finished the cigarette he had been
L03 1310 smoking. He dropped it and carefully ground it to nothing with the
L03 1320 sole of his heavy shoe. Now he looked at her. He said, "I only work
L03 1330 here".   Lauren said, "Please"? But he was back at
L03 1340 work on a car.   She dropped her head on her arms on the counter.
L03 1350 How could he be kind one moment and cruel the next? Did he know
L03 1360 something that made him feel sad and sorry for her? And was he afraid
L03 1370 to do anything as definite as releasing her? Her heart was thumping
L03 1380 painfully; the unknown was so much worse than- what dangers lay
L03 1390 ahead for her? What awful thing had she to face in the next few
L03 1400 hours? Something wet and hot was trickling on her wrists. Tears?
L03 1410    With a sturdy act of will she turned her mind away from herself;
L03 1420 as long as she could do nothing constructive about the situation
L03 1430 she was in, she would think about something else. Her mother and father,
L03 1440 for instance. Where were they now? In her mind she followed
L03 1450 the white Buick along the road somewhere between here and the Niagara
L03 1460 River. Her father's attention would be on the road ahead and it
L03 1470 wouldn't deviate an inch until he crossed the bridge at the Falls
L03 1480 and took the River Road to LaSalle and, finally, turned in at their
L03 1490 own driveway at 387 Heather Heights. Then he would yawn and stretch
L03 1500 and shout, "All out. This is the end of the line".   And
L03 1510 what would her mother be doing right now? Her mother would be fast
L03 1520 asleep curled up against that wonderful, big, safe, solid shoulder next
L03 1530 to her on the front seat.   Lauren Landis was in trouble and
L03 1540 she was alone. ## Roberta Landis put her hand on her husband's
L03 1550 arm as he slid in the driver's seat beside her. Somewhere birds
L03 1560 were sweetly calling, were answered. Her teeth chattered so that she
L03 1570 made three attempts at speech before she became intelligible.   "Dave.
L03 1580 I saw that woman's apron behind the door. There was a wet
L03 1590 spot- she couldn't have been gone long".   Dave made some
L03 1600 sound meant to convey agreement. He inserted the car key in the lock.
L03 1610 Roberta was violently trembling.   She stammered, "You heard
L03 1620 what he said about police? Why don't we drive around the corner"?
L03 1630    The car door crashed shut. The engine throbbed into life.
L03 1640 Dave said, "I got the message. We're going".
L03 1650    Roberta said, "No. You go. Walk. Suppose Lauren comes
L03 1660 looking for us? I can sit here in the car while you walk around
L03 1670 the corner".   The big car sprang away from the curb like something
L03 1680 alive. He said, "I'm not going to leave my wife and my car
L03 1690 out here in sight of those"-   Roberta glanced at him and stopped
L03 1700 trembling.
L04 0010 His jowls were spiked by barbs of graying beard. His small, mean eyes
L04 0020 regarded Marty steadily, unblinkingly. His eyes were threaded by little
L04 0030 filaments of red as if tiny veins had burst and flooded blood into
L04 0040 them. As he chewed his gum and exuded wheezing breath, Marty smelt
L04 0050 the reek of bad whiskey.   Marty recognized the man. He had driven
L04 0060 the car that passed them on the road outside Admassy's place.
L04 0070 This was Acey Squire, proprietor of the juke joint.   Marty
L04 0080 smiled at Squire pleasantly and said, "There was a cab waiting for
L04 0090 me here. Do you know where it might have gone"?   Squire chewed
L04 0100 his gum, his jaw moving in a steady rhythm. He looked straight
L04 0110 at Marty. He did not answer. Marty scanned the faces of the others
L04 0120 nearest him, looked into their staring eyes.   "Did anyone see
L04 0130 my cab"? he asked, keeping his voice casual.   He avoided
L04 0140 showing any surprise or annoyance when no one answered him.   "I
L04 0150 have to get back to Jarrodsville", he went on. "I see there are
L04 0160 some cars here. I wonder if one of you gentlemen could drive me back
L04 0170 to town? I'd be happy to pay for the favor, of course".
L04 0180    The seventeen men stood and stared at him for a moment longer. And
L04 0190 then a startling thing occurred. It was so utterly unexpected that
L04 0200 Marty stood for several moments with his mouth hanging open foolishly
L04 0210 after it had happened.   There was no word spoken, no apparent
L04 0220 signal given.   Yet the men all moved at the same instant.
L04 0230    They piled into the waiting cars, motors roared, the cars sped off.
L04 0240    The station wagon and the old Plymouth headed east toward Jarrodsville.
L04 0250 The Ford and the pickup truck sped west toward Sanford's
L04 0260 Run.   In seconds all four cars were out of sight.
L04 0270 Marty Land stood alone on a red-clay road as storm clouds gathered ominously
L04 0280 in the sky again. From a great distance thunder growled and
L04 0290 broke the silence.   Land looked back toward the dilapidated house.
L04 0300 He thought he saw a pale face at a window. Perhaps it was Dora
L04 0310 May. Perhaps she would be glad that they hadn't hurt him.   There
L04 0320 were other farmhouses nearby. Across the road there was one no
L04 0330 more than a hundred yards away. There was another on this side, a little
L04 0340 further down. There were many more between here and Jarrodsville.
L04 0350 Telephone poles lined the road. They reared tall and mocking. Their
L04 0360 wires stretched out into infinity. Not a single strand of wire reached
L04 0370 into the silent houses beside the red-clay road.   There was
L04 0380 nothing he could do but walk. And Jarrodsville was more than three
L04 0390 miles away, down an old dirt road that the rain had turned into a quagmire.
L04 0400    Marty faced east and started walking down the left side
L04 0410 of the road. After he had proceeded a few feet, he paused and turned
L04 0420 up the cuffs of his trousers, which were already damp and mud-caked.
L04 0430 The viscous mud was ankle-deep, and in places great puddles spread across
L04 0440 the road and reflected the murky light.   As he approached
L04 0450 the first farmhouse, thunder sounded behind him again, closer now and
L04 0460 louder, like a steadily advancing drum corps. There were several people
L04 0470 on the porch of the farmhouse. There was a very old man and a young
L04 0480 woman and a brood of children ranging from toddlers to teen-agers.
L04 0490 For just an instant he thought of appealing to them for help. Perhaps
L04 0500 they had a car or truck and would drive him into town. Then he realized
L04 0510 the utter futility of the idea. They were staring at him in the same
L04 0520 blank and menacing way that the men outside the gate had stared. Even
L04 0530 the eyes of the smallest children seemed malicious.   On his
L04 0540 side of the road there were two farm hands, well back in a field, leaning
L04 0550 against a plow. They, too, stared at him.   The drums of
L04 0560 thunder were right behind him now.   A foolish thought came into
L04 0570 his head. He remembered a story he had read as a youth. It was probably
L04 0580 one of Kipling's tales of the British Army. It concerned an officer
L04 0590 who had been disgraced and drummed out. The steady roll of the drums
L04 0600 had sounded behind him as he walked between the endless ranks of
L04 0610 the men he had commanded, and each man about-faced and turned his back
L04 0620 as the officer approached. Marty wished these poor farm people would
L04 0630 turn their backs.   The fencing by the roadside ended. Now the
L04 0640 dirt highway was bordered on either side by a fairly deep drainage ditch,
L04 0650 too broad to leap over unless you were an Olympic star. The day's
L04 0660 rain had been added to the stagnant water. He was trapped on the
L04 0670 road when he heard the sound of an approaching car. It was coming toward
L04 0680 him. The car was now in sight. Marty's heart skipped a beat when
L04 0690 he recognized it. It was the station wagon that had passed his cab
L04 0700 on the road, the station wagon that had been parked at the Burch farm.
L04 0710 Acey Squire's station wagon. It had headed back toward Jarrodsville.
L04 0720 That had only been a ruse to lure him out on the deserted road.
L04 0730 Now Acey and his friends were returning to seek him out.
L04 0740 The station wagon came to a stop a couple of hundred feet in front of
L04 0750 him, beside a fenced field. Then there was another sound. A second
L04 0760 car was coming from the west, from the direction of Sanford's Run.
L04 0770 It was the Ford that had been outside Burch's farm.   Marty
L04 0780 looked helplessly in both directions. It was a narrow road, barely
L04 0790 wide enough for two cars to pass. He could not leave the road because
L04 0800 of the water-filled drainage ditch. When the two cars were equidistant
L04 0810 from him, the station wagon started up again and the Ford gathered
L04 0820 speed. They bore down on him. There was nothing he could do except
L04 0830 jump into the ditch.   He jumped, and sank to his knees in muddy
L04 0840 water.   As the two cars roared by, there was a high-pitched eerie,
L04 0850 nerve-shattering sound. Marty knew how the Union soldiers must
L04 0860 have felt at Chancellorsville and Antietam and Gettysburg when the
L04 0870 ragged gray ranks charged at them, screaming the wild banshee howl they
L04 0880 called the Rebel yell.   For moments he stood in water, shivering
L04 0890 and gasping for breath. He had turned his ankle slightly, and it
L04 0900 pained him. The cars, with their load of howling men, had disappeared
L04 0910 in the distance. There had been two more cars parked at the farm,
L04 0920 a Plymouth and a pickup truck. They would be coming for him next, bearing
L04 0930 down on him from both directions. And then the station wagon and
L04 0940 the Ford would seek him out again. He would be harassed repeatedly
L04 0950 and would escape death by inches time after time, all the way to Jarrodsville.
L04 0960 He still had three miles to go. Back East the more affluent
L04 0970 juvenile delinquents, who could afford hyped-up autos instead of
L04 0980 switch blades as lethal weapons, played this same game and called it
L04 0990 "Chicken".   He could not go through the fields. That way
L04 1000 was barred on both sides of the road by a high barbed-wire fence. He
L04 1010 had to make for the section of road just ahead that was bordered by the
L04 1020 rail fence, the section by the farmhouse. At least he could climb
L04 1030 up on the fence when his tormenters roared by again. The Admassy place
L04 1040 could not be far now. He would go in there, climb through the window,
L04 1050 and at least be safe for a little while and able to rest. There
L04 1060 was even a bare chance that the phone had not been disconnected.
L04 1070    He did not dare climb back up to the road. He was deep in water, but
L04 1080 at least they could not reach him there. He splashed on, mud sucking
L04 1090 at his feet with each step, until he reached the end of the drainage
L04 1100 ditch and the beginning of the fence that enclosed the farm. He climbed
L04 1110 back to the road, and he felt utterly exhausted. He stood, panting,
L04 1120 for a moment. And then he saw something that he had not seen before,
L04 1130 and panic gripped him again.   The fence, his only refuge when
L04 1140 the metal death came roaring at him, was made of rails, all right,
L04 1150 but the rails were protected by a thick screening of barbed wire that
L04 1160 would rip his flesh if he pressed against it. He lurched on down the
L04 1170 road despairingly, because there was no place else to go.   He lost
L04 1180 all sense of dignity. You could not stand on dignity when you were
L04 1190 soaked and muddied and your life was at stake. Probably people were
L04 1200 watching him from the porch or from behind the windows of this farmhouse,
L04 1210 too, but he did not bother to look. He broke into a dogtrot, breathing
L04 1220 heavily, streaming with sweat. He had to reach Admassy's place.
L04 1240 It was his only sanctuary. The fences on both sides of the road
L04 1250 bristled with the barbed wire. The fences stretched on endlessly.
L04 1260    And then he heard them.   And now he saw them.   The
L04 1270 Plymouth was coming at him from the east, the pickup truck from the west.
L04 1280 They had timed it better this time. They would reach him at almost
L04 1290 exactly the same instant. He stopped stone-still. If he backed
L04 1300 against the fence, one of the cars would brush him as it passed, and he
L04 1310 would be cruelly lacerated by the wire.   He stumbled to the middle
L04 1320 of the road and simply stood there, waiting for them, a perfect
L04 1330 target.   The cars must have had their gas pedals pushed down to
L04 1340 the floor boards. They were coming on at reckless speed for such old
L04 1350 vehicles. They thundered at him. He held his arms close to his sides
L04 1360 and made himself as small as possible. When the Plymouth neared, it
L04 1370 veered toward him and seemed about to run him down. He forced himself
L04 1380 to stay frozen there. If he moved, he would be in the path of the
L04 1390 other car. He thought the fender of the Plymouth brushed his jacket
L04 1400 as it went by. In a fraction of a second the pickup truck hurtled by
L04 1410 on the other side.   The weird, insane sound of the Rebel yell
L04 1420 reverberated again and echoed from the distant hills.   He did not
L04 1430 leave the middle of the road. He did not try to run. He trudged on,
L04 1440 his aching eyes focused straight ahead. He was nearing the Admassy
L04 1450 house. He was going to make it, he told himself. And then he heard
L04 1460 a car coming from the east, and he felt as if he would break down and
L04 1470 weep.   "Oh, no, not again", he said aloud. "Not again so
L04 1480 soon".   There was a new sound, a sound as piercing as the Rebel
L04 1490 yell, yet different. It was the sound of a siren. Now he saw that
L04 1500 the approaching car was painted white, and he began to wave his arms
L04 1510 frantically. It was the prowl car from the sheriff's office.
L04 1520    The car drew up alongside him and stopped.   "Get in",
L04 1530 Charley Estes said brusquely.   He staggered into the back seat
L04 1540 and lay back, fighting for breath. There was someone in front with
L04 1550 the sheriff. It was Pete Holmes, the cabdriver.   Pete turned
L04 1560 around and said to Marty, "I guess you think I'm a yellow-bellied
L04 1570 hound. But there wasn't no use in me staying there. I couldn't
L04 1580 fight a dozen or so of 'em. If I'd stayed, all that I'd have
L04 1590 got was four punctured tires and one busted head. Why didn't you
L04 1600 wait at the Burch house? You must've known I'd gone to get
L04 1610 the sheriff. I was lucky they let me go, I guess".   The sheriff
L04 1620 was occupied with maneuvering the car around in a very narrow space.
L04 1630 When it was finally pointed east, he said, "You should never have
L04 1640 come out here alone. This is redneck country. Every man in every
L04 1650 one of these houses is a Night Rider.
L05 0010    Then he turned the telephone over to Rourke, and went into the
L05 0020 bedroom to change his slippers for dry socks and shoes. Rourke was
L05 0030 talking on the phone when he came back. "About an hour, eh? Are
L05 0040 you positive"? He listened a moment and then said, "Hold it".
L05 0050 He turned his head and said, "Alvarez will definitely be in a back
L05 0060 room at the Jai Alai Club on South Beach within an hour. Want
L05 0070 to try and meet him there"?   Shayne looked at his watch. That
L05 0080 wasn't too far from Fifth Street, and should allow him to make
L05 0090 Scotty's Bar by midnight. He said with satisfaction, "That's
L05 0100 fine, Tim. I'll be there".   Rourke confirmed the appointment
L05 0110 over the phone and hung up. "I don't know what you're getting
L05 0120 into, Mike", he said unhappily. "I hope to Christ **h".
L05 0130    Shayne said briskly, "Grab another drink if you want it. We've
L05 0140 got one other call to make before I meet Alvarez".
L05 0150 "Where"?   "It's out in the Northeast section. Have
L05 0160 you got my car here"?   "It's parked in front". Rourke
L05 0170 hastily slopped whiskey into his glass on top of half-melted ice-cubes.
L05 0180    "I'd better keep on driving yours", Shayne decided,
L05 0190 "because I'll be going on over to the Beach. I can drop you back
L05 0200 here to pick mine up". He went to a closet to get a light jacket,
L05 0210 and took his hat from beside the door. Timothy Rourke gulped down
L05 0220 the whiskey hastily and joined him, asking, "Who are we going to call
L05 0230 on in the Northeast section"?   "A lady. That is, maybe
L05 0240 not too much of a lady. At least, I want to find out whether she's
L05 0250 home yet or not". He opened the door and followed Rourke out.
L05 0260    In Rourke's car, Shayne drove east to Biscayne Boulevard
L05 0270 and north toward Felice Perrin's address which had been given to
L05 0280 him by the Peralta governess. As he drove, he filled in Timothy Rourke
L05 0290 briefly on the events of the evening after leaving the reporter
L05 0300 to go to the Peralta house, and on his own surmises.   "I want
L05 0310 to be in Scotty's Bar at midnight when Marsha makes her phone call
L05 0320 there", he ended grimly. "I don't know whether that threatening
L05 0330 letter of hers has anything to do with this situation or not, but
L05 0340 I want to see who takes the call".   "This deal at <Las
L05 0350 Putas Buenas> where the two knife-men jumped you", said Rourke with
L05 0360 interest, "that sounds like it was set up with malice aforethought
L05 0370 by the luscious Mrs& Peralta, doesn't it"?   "It
L05 0380 does", Shayne grunted sourly, still able to taste her mouth on his
L05 0390 in
L05 0400 the Green Jungle parking lot. "That story of hers about an unsigned
L05 0410 note directing her to be there tonight sounds completely phony. If
L05 0420 it was designed to put me on the spot, it would have to have been written
L05 0430 before Peralta ever called me in on the case".   "Do
L05 0440 you think Laura did have the counterfeit bracelet made without her husband's
L05 0450 knowledge"?   "I haven't the faintest idea. I
L05 0460 think her husband strongly suspects so, and that's why he called me
L05 0470 in on the thing in direct defiance of his confederates **h and almost
L05 0480 certainly without telling them why he was doing so. Isn't this Felice's
L05 0490 street"? Shayne asked, peering ahead at the partially
L05 0500 obscured street sign.   Rourke could see it better out the right-hand
L05 0510 side, and he said, "Yes. Turn to the left, I think, for that
L05 0520 number you gave me. Not more than a block or so".   Shayne
L05 0530 got in the left-hand lane and cut across the Boulevard divider. There
L05 0540 was a small, neon-lighted restaurant and cocktail lounge on the southeast
L05 0550 corner of the intersection as he turned into the quiet, palm-lined
L05 0560 street where most of the houses on both sides were older two-story
L05 0570 mansions, now cut up into furnished rooms and housekeeping apartments.
L05 0580    Shayne drove westward from the Boulevard slowly, letting Rourke
L05 0590 crane his head out the window and watch for street numbers. A single
L05 0600 automobile was parked half-way up the block on the left-hand side.
L05 0610 Shayne noted idly that it carried Miami Beach license plates as he
L05 0620 approached, and then saw the flare of a match in the front seat as they
L05 0630 passed, indicating that it was occupied.   He turned to see
L05 0640 the briefly-illumed faces of two men in the parked car just as Rourke
L05 0650 said, "It's the next house, Mike. On the right".   Instead
L05 0660 of pulling into the curb, Shayne increased his speed slightly to
L05 0670 the corner where he swung left. He went around the corner and parked,
L05 0680 turning off his lights and motor.   "I told you, Mike", said
L05 0690 Rourke in an aggrieved voice. "It was back there **h".
L05 0700    Shayne said, "I know it was, Tim". His voice was chilling and
L05 0710 cold. "Did you see the car parked across the street"?
L05 0720 "I didn't notice it. I was watching for numbers **h".   "It
L05 0730 has a Beach license, Tim. Two men in the front seat. I got a
L05 0740 quick look at their faces as we went past. Unless I'm crazy as hell,
L05 0750 they're two of Painter's dicks. A couple named Harris and Geely.
L05 0760 Those names mean anything to you"?   "Wait a minute,
L05 0770 Mike. In Painter's office this evening **h".   Shayne
L05 0780 nodded grimly. "The pair whom Petey is officially commending for
L05 0790 slapping me around and pulling me in".   "What are they doing
L05 0800 here"?   "A stake-out, I suppose. On Felice Perrin.
L05 0810 Maybe with specific orders to see that I don't make contact with her.
L05 0820 I'm not positive, Tim. I may be wrong. I'll slide out and
L05 0830 walk around the block back to the cocktail lounge on Biscayne. You drive
L05 0840 on and circle back and pull up beside them parked there. You're
L05 0850 a reporter, and you're looking for Miss Perrin to interview her.
L05 0860 Make them show their hands. If they are Beach cops on a stake-out,
L05 0870 they'll admit it to a reporter. They've got no official standing
L05 0880 on this side of the Bay. As soon as you find out if they are Geely
L05 0890 and Harris, come on around to the lounge where I'll be waiting".
L05 0900    Shayne opened the door on his side and stepped out. Timothy
L05 0910 Rourke groaned dismally as he slid under the wheel. "The things you
L05 0920 talk me into, Mike **h".   Shayne chuckled. "How often
L05 0930 do they add up to headlines? You should complain".   He crossed
L05 0940 the street and walked swiftly southward to circle back to the Boulevard
L05 0950 and north a block to the open restaurant.   He was standing
L05 0960 at the end of the bar enjoying a slug of cognac when Rourke came
L05 0970 in six or eight minutes later. The reporter nodded as he moved up beside
L05 0980 him at the bar. Shayne told the bartender, "Bourbon and water",
L05 0990 and Rourke told him, "It's those two, all right. Harris and
L05 1000 Geely. I made them show me their identification before I could be
L05 1010 persuaded not to call on Felice Perrin".   Shayne said happily,
L05 1020 "I've got it all worked out, Tim. Take your time with your
L05 1030 drink. I'll beat it. In exactly three minutes, go in that phone
L05 1040 booth behind you and call Police Headquarters. Be excited and don't
L05 1050 identify yourself. Just say that a couple of drunks are having a hell
L05 1060 of a fight down the street, and they better send a patrol car. Then
L05 1070 hang up fast and come walking on down to the Perrin address. I'll
L05 1080 be waiting for you there".   The bartender brought Rourke's
L05 1090 drink and Shayne laid a twenty-dollar bill on the bar. He said in
L05 1100 a low voice, "I've got a date with a lady, Mister. Will that
L05 1110 pay for a pint I can take with me. You know how it is", he added with
L05 1120 a conspiratorial wink. "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker **h
L05 1130 and you don't have any candy for sale here anyhow".   "We
L05 1140 sure don't". The bartender winked back at him and palmed the bill.
L05 1150 He turned away and returned in a moment with a pint of brandy in
L05 1160 a small paper sack which he slid over the counter to Shayne.
L05 1170 As the detective slid it into his pocket, Rourke asked sadly, "What
L05 1180 in hell are you going to do, Mike"?   "Make a couple of
L05 1190 punk detectives named Geely and Harris wish to God they'd stayed
L05 1200 out of my way this afternoon. Three minutes, Tim".   Shayne
L05 1210 strode out blithely, and Rourke checked his watch and sipped his drink,
L05 1220 getting a dime ready to make the telephone call to the police.
L05 1230    Outside, Shayne hesitated when he saw that Rourke had parked his
L05 1240 coupe directly in front of the bar headed south. He walked over to
L05 1250 the right-hand door, opened it and got the reloaded automatic out of
L05 1260 the glove compartment and put it in his hip pocket. He hoped he wouldn't
L05 1270 be forced to use it in taking care of the Beach detectives, but
L05 1280 its weight was comforting at his hip. On this side of the Bay, Miami
L05 1290 Beach cops had no more legal rights than any ordinary citizen, and
L05 1300 Shayne's pistol permit was just as good as theirs.   He went
L05 1310 swiftly up the sidewalk toward the parked car with the two Beach detectives
L05 1320 in the front seat. He tugged the brim of his hat low as he approached,
L05 1330 stepped out into the street just behind the car and strode around
L05 1340 to the right-hand side.   The big, paunchy man named Geely
L05 1350 was on that side, half-turned in the seat toward his hatchet-faced
L05 1360 companion so that his back partially rested against the closed door.
L05 1370    Shayne turned the handle and jerked the door open before either
L05 1380 of the men were quite aware of his presence in the night.   Geely
L05 1390 grunted and slid partly out, and Shayne's left arm snaked in around
L05 1400 his neck to help him, while he set himself solidly on the roadway
L05 1410 and swung his right fist to the big, gum-chewing jaw before Geely could
L05 1420 straighten up.   Shayne stepped back to let him slump to the
L05 1430 ground, and then dived over him through the open door into Harris who
L05 1440 was cursing loudly and trying to drag a gun from a shoulder holster,
L05 1450 somewhat impeded by the steering wheel.   Shayne locked his big
L05 1460 hands around Harris' thin neck and dragged him out over the seat into
L05 1470 the roadway. He hit him once on the sharp point of his chin and felt
L05 1480 the body go limp. He dropped him into the street a couple of feet
L05 1490 away from Geely's recumbent figure and stared down at both of them
L05 1500 for a moment before kicking the big man lightly in the side. He didn't
L05 1510 stir. They were both breathing heavily, out cold, and Shayne didn't
L05 1520 think either of them had recognized him or could describe him.
L05 1530    He got the pint of liquor out of his pocket and unscrewed the
L05 1540 top, sprinkled the pungent stuff liberally over both men, and then tossed
L05 1550 the open bottle in on the front seat.   He turned, then, to
L05 1560 look toward the lighted Boulevard, and saw Rourke's tall, emaciated
L05 1570 figure come out of the lounge and hurriedly start to angle across the
L05 1580 street toward the opposite side.   Shayne strolled across to intercept
L05 1590 the reporter in front of the two-story house where Felice Perrin
L05 1600 lived, and asked casually, "Get the police okay"?
L05 1610 "Sure. Said they'd have a patrol car here fast. Let's get inside.
L05 1620 What happened with you"?   "Why the two damned fools
L05 1630 got all excited when they saw the bottle, and knocked each other out
L05 1640 cold", Shayne said good-humoredly. "They'll have fun explaining
L05 1650 that to the Miami cops. Got no business over here on a stake-out anyway".
L05 1660    They went up onto a front porch and into a small hallway
L05 1670 where a dim bulb burned high in the ceiling. A row of mailboxes
L05 1680 along the wall had numbers and names on them. Shayne found one marked
L05 1690 PERRIN ~2-A.   The stairway on the right was dark, but
L05 1700 there was a wall-switch at the bottom which lighted another dim bulb
L05 1710 at the top, and they went up.   There were two front rooms, both
L05 1720 dark behind their transoms, and there was no sound or light in the entire
L05 1730 house to indicate that any of the occupants were awake.
L06 0010    Eight, nine steps above him, Roberts had paused. Mickey paused
L06 0020 with him, waiting, no longer impatient, trying now to think it out,
L06 0030 do a little planning. He looked down over the banister at the hotel desk,
L06 0040 with the telephone and pen set.   If I could call in, they
L06 0050 could check the story while we were on our way. I wouldn't have to
L06 0070 tell them I had Roberts-   Then he heard it, like a muffled
L06 0080 thud, felt a subtle change in air pressure. He glanced up in time to
L06 0090 see Roberts hurtling down on him from above, literally flying through
L06 0100 the air, his bloody face twisted. Mickey tried to flatten against the
L06 0110 banister, gripped it with one hand, but Roberts' full weight struck
L06 0120 him at that moment in the groin. He gasped for air and the impact
L06 0130 tore
L06 0140 his hand from the rail. He tumbled with Roberts, helpless and in
L06 0150 agony, over and over, down the steps.   By a wrenching effort,
L06 0160 he managed to hunch and draw in, to take the final fall on his back and
L06 0170 shoulders rather than his head. He was fuzzy in his mind and, for a
L06 0180 moment, helpless on the lobby floor, but he was conscious, and free of
L06 0190 the weight of Roberts' body. When his vision cleared he saw the taller
L06 0200 one scrambling upward, reaching. Mickey was on his knees when Roberts
L06 0210 turned on the stairs and the razor flashed in his hand. He felt
L06 0220 his empty pocket and knew that Roberts had retrieved the only weapon
L06 0230 at hand.   Mickey's eyes fixed on the other's feet, which
L06 0240 would first betray the moment and direction of an attack. He rose stiffly,
L06 0250 forcing his knees to lock. The knifelike pain in his groin nearly
L06 0260 brought him down again. He made himself back off slowly, his eyes
L06 0270 wary on Roberts, who now had no more to lose than he. The pain dulled
L06 0280 as he moved, and he steadied inside. After a moment he extended one
L06 0290 hand, the fingers curled.   "Come on", he said. "You want
L06 0300 to be that big a fool- I was hoping for this".   Roberts
L06 0310 brushed at his eyes with his free hand and started down the steps. He
L06 0320 held the razor well out to one side. He was invulnerable to attack,
L06 0330 but he could be handled, Mickey knew, if he could be brought to make
L06 0340 the first move.   They were eight feet apart when Roberts cleared
L06 0350 the last step. Mickey waited with slack arms.   "Any time,
L06 0360 Roberts", he said. "Or would it be easier if I put my hands in
L06 0370 my pockets"?   The taunt was lost on Roberts. He advanced
L06 0380 slowly, directly, giving no hint of a feint to either side. He was
L06 0390 just short of arm's reach when he stopped. Mickey backed off two steps,
L06 0400 forcing him to come on again. There was a fixed grin on Roberts'
L06 0410 face, made hideous by the swollen nose and the smeared blood.
L06 0420    Mickey backed off again and Roberts hesitated, then came along.
L06 0430 They moved in a series of rhythmic fits and starts, a macabre dance-
L06 0450 two steps back, two steps forward, two steps back. Mickey felt his shoulders
L06 0460 come up against the wall beside the heavy slab front door. This
L06 0470 was going to be it now, any second, and what he had to remember was
L06 0480 to keep his eye on the razor, no matter what, even if Roberts should
L06 0490 feint with a kick to the groin, the deadly hand was his exclusive concern.
L06 0500    The kick came, sudden and vicious but short. Mickey's
L06 0520 guts twisted with the effort, but he kept his eye on the weapon. It
L06 0530 moved in a silver arc toward his throat, then veered downward. He hunched
L06 0540 his left shoulder into it and slashed at Roberts' forearm with
L06 0550 his own, felt the blade slide off his sleeve. Before Roberts could
L06 0560 move inside to cut upward toward his face, he slammed his right fist into
L06 0570 Roberts' belly. Roberts sagged and slashed at him wildly. Ducking,
L06 0580 Mickey tripped and fell to one side, landing heavily on the wood
L06 0590 floor. Then Roberts was on him, gasping for breath and for a couple
L06 0600 of seconds Mickey lost sight of the blade. He felt it rip at the side
L06 0610 of his jacket and a momentary sting under his left ribs. He got a
L06 0620 knee up into Roberts' belly, used both hands and heaved him clear,
L06 0630 then scrambled to his feet. They were in the center of the lobby now.
L06 0640 Still clutching the razor, Roberts came up into a crouch, shaking
L06 0650 his head. When he charged Mickey was ready. He hit Roberts with his
L06 0660 left fist in the ribs and the razor cut toward him feebly, then wobbled
L06 0670 in mid-air. With his right fist, and nearly all his weight behind
L06 0680 it, he smashed at the bloodstained face.   Roberts careened backward,
L06 0690 his back arched, fought for balance and, failing, stumbled against
L06 0700 the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The sound of his head striking
L06 0710 the solid wood was an ultimate, sudden-end sound. He fell on
L06 0720 his side across the lowest step, rolled over once, then lay still.
L06 0730    Mickey found himself leaning against the desk, with stiff hands,
L06 0740 panting for breath. After a minute he went to Roberts, looked at one
L06 0750 of his eyes and felt for a pulse. He couldn't feel any. Roberts appeared
L06 0760 to be dead; if not yet, then soon, very soon. Suddenly it was
L06 0770 cold in the lobby. #@ 12# It seemed to him that a long time
L06 0780 had passed before he decided what to do. Actually it was no more than
L06 0790 eight or ten minutes, and the sum of his reasoning came to this:
L06 0800    There's no way to take him in now and keep those other two-
L06 0810 Wister and the one who hired the two of them- from finding out about
L06 0820 Roberts and lamming out. The local law here would hold me till they
L06 0830 check clear back home, and maybe more than that. They would have to.
L06 0840 By then they could never catch up with the others. There's no other
L06 0850 way; I'll have to do it myself.   He looked at where Roberts
L06 0860 lay sprawled on the step. Mickey was sure now he was dead.
L06 0870    One thing, he thought, nobody knows about it yet. Only me.
L06 0880    He climbed the stairs, went into Roberts' room, found a suitcase
L06 0881 and
L06 0890 packed as much into it as he could. He left a few things. It didn't
L06 0900 have to be perfect. Roberts was a wastrel. Walking away on impulse,
L06 0910 he might logically leave behind what it was inconvenient to carry.
L06 0920    When he had closed the suitcase he found a rag and moved about
L06 0930 the room, wiping carefully everything he might have touched. It took
L06 0940 him nearly an hour. He went to the room he had rented and got into
L06 0950 his overcoat. He left the rest of his things and returned to the lobby.
L06 0960 He set Roberts' suitcase near the front door, went outside and
L06 0970 walked back to the garage. He was mildly surprised to find it was snowing.
L06 0980 It snowed softly, silently, an undulating interruption of his vision
L06 0990 against the night sky. He could feel it on his face and in his
L06 1000 hair.   He found the key to the Jeep, got it started and warmed
L06 1010 it up for five minutes. Then he backed out and swung around to the front
L06 1020 drive. He went into the hotel and searched till he found the razor.
L06 1030 He put it in his own pocket for safekeeping. He took the suitcase
L06 1040 out to the Jeep and put it in the front seat. Then he went back for
L06 1050 Roberts.   The body was heavier than he had anticipated. He
L06 1060 got it onto his shoulder after some work and carried it outside and down
L06 1070 to the Jeep. He dumped it into the back and made sure it wouldn't
L06 1080 roll out, then returned to the porch and closed the front door, making
L06 1090 sure it was unlocked.   He drove carefully in the direction
L06 1100 of the brief tour they had taken earlier. It snowed continuously, but
L06 1110 quietly, evenly. When he reached the dip in the woods, he saw that
L06 1120 already the earlier ruts were barely discernible. The Jeep fought its
L06 1130 way through the low spot and got onto higher ground. He drove in low
L06 1140 gear to the fork in the road and swung as close as possible to the entrance
L06 1150 to the abandoned mine. He parked facing it and left the headlights
L06 1160 on, but when he started into the tunnel with the suitcase, he found
L06 1170 the illumination extended no farther than half a dozen feet into the
L06 1180 passage. He went back and got the flashlight, returned to the tunnel
L06 1190 and carried the suitcase to the edge of the pit he had found earlier.
L06 1200 He tossed the bag into the pit and watched dry dust spray up around
L06 1210 it. When the dust settled, he went back to the Jeep and carefully
L06 1220 worked Roberts' body onto his shoulder.   It wasn't like carrying
L06 1230 the suitcase. The soft snow was deceitful underfoot. Twice he
L06 1240 nearly fell. Inside the passage, he had to work his way over the fallen
L06 1250 timber and nearly collapsed under his clumsy burden. By the time
L06 1260 he reached the edge of the pit he was panting and his shoulder and back
L06 1270 ached under the drag of the dead weight.   He stood looking down
L06 1280 for a few seconds, then backed up two or three paces from the edge.
L06 1290 There was too much weight casually to toss it away. He could feel
L06 1300 himself falling in with it and being unable to get out. It would be
L06 1310 a bad place to die. It was a bad place for Roberts to wind up, but
L06 1320 Roberts had asked for it. It was too late to worry about that.
L06 1330    He knelt slowly and dumped the corpse onto the floor of the tunnel.
L06 1340 It was a relief to get rid of the weight. He was shaking with tension
L06 1350 and it took him a couple of minutes to get his breath and settle down.
L06 1360 Then he got on his knees and rolled Roberts' body toward the edge.
L06 1370 It hung momentarily on the point of dropping off. He gave it a
L06 1380 strong push, heard it slide, then tumble dryly into the hole. He got
L06 1390 to his feet and threw the flashlight beam into the pit. The body lay
L06 1400 in an awkward sprawl twelve or fifteen feet below the level of the tunnel
L06 1410 floor.   Deep enough, he decided. There was little chance
L06 1420 anyone would enter this shaft during the winter. The external signs of
L06 1430 his approach to it would be covered by the snow, probably by the next
L06 1440 day. It wasn't cold enough in the tunnel to preserve the body intact.
L06 1450 By spring it would be a skeleton.   He made his way back to
L06 1460 the Jeep. He had started to back into the turn when he remembered
L06 1470 the razor in his pocket. He climbed down, went back into the tunnel and
L06 1480 tossed the razor into the pit. It landed on Roberts' sprawled right
L06 1490 thigh, poised precariously, then slid off to the ground. He went
L06 1500 back once more to the Jeep and started the short drive to the hotel.
L06 1510    In the garage he checked the Jeep for signs of the use he had
L06 1520 made of it. There were stains here and there and he cleaned them off,
L06 1530 using an oiled rag he found on a nail. He wiped the steering wheel
L06 1540 and all the places he might have touched the Jeep. He replaced the
L06 1550 flashlight where it had been stowed, got into his own car and backed it
L06 1560 out of the garage. There were tire marks where it had been, but they
L06 1570 were overlapped by others and on the dusty floor would not be noticeable
L06 1580 except under close scrutiny. Liz Peabody, he thought, might spend
L06 1590 some time grieving for her lost lover, but he doubted that she would
L06 1600 launch an investigation. He judged her to be a woman of some pride,
L06 1610 though not much sense. Still she would probably have sense enough not
L06 1620 to call in the local sheriff to find her boy friend who, apparently,
L06 1630 had run away.
L07 0010    He put in a call to Cunningham from his hotel room. The maid
L07 0020 answered and he decided Nancy must be at work.   Jeb cautioned
L07 0030 him not to be too hopeful and then, ignoring his own advice, said excitedly,
L07 0040 "But it does sound good. A woman named Lisa who tells nobody
L07 0050 anything about herself. That courtyard picture with the same initials".
L07 0060    "I'm not exactly jumping up and down with enthusiasm.
L07 0070 I'll call you in a day or so".   On the highway he relaxed
L07 0080 and enjoyed the drive over Lake Pontchartrain and along the coast.
L07 0090    Gulf Springs was ten miles inland- more of a quaint old
L07 0100 coast town than those along the beach made garish by tourist attractions.
L07 0110    He checked into a motel and drove downtown. The courthouse
L07 0120 was a white-stucco building minus the customary dome. Instead of the
L07 0130 usual straggling privet hedges and patches of bare dirt in most small-town
L07 0140 squares, the building was hemmed in by a semitropical growth of
L07 0150 camellias and azaleas and a smooth lawn the improbably bright-green
L07 0160 shade of florist's grass.   He figured his best bet was a call
L07 0170 on the sheriff. A clerk in the outer office took him in to Sheriff
L07 0180 Carruthers, a big, paunchy man with thick, white hair and a voice with
L07 0190 a senatorial resonance which suggested he should be running for higher
L07 0200 office.   Seated in front of the desk, Hank said, "I'm
L07 0210 looking for some information with very little to go on, Sheriff".
L07 0220    He explained the background of the case, ending with the tenuous
L07 0230 clue which had brought him to Gulf Springs.   The sheriff's
L07 0240 swivel chair tilted back. "So you're looking for a woman who married
L07 0250 a man who might have lived here a year ago and might have been poisoned.
L07 0260 If there was such a person, I'm afraid she got away with
L07 0270 it. Pity we don't know more about him. I think the best bet is to
L07 0280 go through the society columns of last year and see if any of the grooms
L07 0290 match with the obituaries a little later. It'll be a tedious job,
L07 0300 but if you want to try it, the old newspaper files are in the basement
L07 0310 here in the county supervisor's office".   "Maybe the society
L07 0320 editor would remember a good-looking out-of-town bride".
L07 0330    "That's an idea. Mrs& Calhoun has been society editor here
L07 0340 for twenty-five years. The editor says that marriages may be made in
L07 0350 heaven, but weddings are made in Mrs& Calhoun's columns. She's
L07 0360 the one who decides which wedding is to get the lead space in the Sunday
L07 0370 paper and all that". He smiled. "Once, when the editor was
L07 0380 just out of the hospital from a gallstone operation, Mrs& Calhoun
L07 0390 and the mother of the bride went out to his house and fought it out
L07 0400 beside his bed. She'd be sure to remember any bride who was vague about
L07 0410 background. She'd have made a great scientist dedicated to tracking
L07 0420 down heredity and environment. She'd also remember if the groom
L07 0430 died later". He stood up. "I wish you good luck, but please don't
L07 0440 dig up too tough a case for me this close to election. If you
L07 0450 find out anything, come on back here and we'll get started on it".
L07 0460    Tracking down Mrs& Calhoun was like trying to catch up with
L07 0470 Paul Revere between Lexington and Concord. It turned out that
L07 0480 she also sold real estate, cosmetics, and hospital insurance. The wearying
L07 0490 trek stretched into the afternoon- from newspaper plant to insurance
L07 0500 office to her house and back to the newspaper, where he found
L07 0510 her at five o'clock.   She was a large woman with a frizzled gray
L07 0520 poodle cut and a pencil clamped like a bit between her teeth while
L07 0530 she hunted and pecked on an old typewriter. It took a couple of minutes
L07 0540 to run through her various
L07 0550 businesses and get down to the one he wanted.
L07 0560    "Last year? Well, I do remember one. From Baton
L07 0570 Rouge. Married a man named Vincent Black. I remember her because
L07 0580 she didn't want her picture in the paper. First bride like that I've
L07 0590 seen in twenty-five years".   "What reason did she give"?
L07 0600    "Said she had a breaking-out on her face- some sort
L07 0610 of allergy- and none of her old pictures was good enough. I didn't
L07 0620 see her till several days later at the wedding, and her face looked
L07 0625 like it had never had a
L07 0630 blemish on it. But, of course, you couldn't
L07 0640 see too well through the veil".   "Was her name Lisa Carmody"?
L07 0650    "Now how in hell would I remember that"?
L07 0660    "Never mind. I can look it up. Do they still live here"?
L07 0670    "I think they moved away shortly after they were married. He
L07 0680 was a salesman for something or other and must have been transferred.
L07 0690 I'm sure it'll be in the files. We usually run a social note when
L07 0710 somebody moves away".   He stood up and thanked her.   "Have
L07 0720 they inherited some money or something"? she asked with a
L07 0730 reportorial gleam in her eye.   He said vaguely, "Well, it is
L07 0740 a little legal matter, but nothing like that".   He hurried across
L07 0750 to the courthouse and caught the sheriff just as he was leaving.
L07 0760    "Sounds like what you're after", he said when Hank had
L07 0770 finished. "Come on, let's hurry down before they lock up for the
L07 0780 day".   In the basement the sheriff took him to a small, dingy
L07 0790 office occupied by a tall, thin man informal in rolled-up shirt sleeves.
L07 0800    "Mr& Ferrell **h Hirey Lindsay, chairman of the board
L07 0810 of supervisors. Mr& Ferrell is a private detective, Hirey. Wants
L07 0820 to look up something in the newspaper files, so don't lock him
L07 0830 in here".   "Sure", said Hirey. "I'll just leave the
L07 0840 door open. It latches when you close it, so stay as long as you like".
L07 0850    Carruthers crossed the room to a metal door with an open
L07 0860 grillework in the top half. He pulled it open. "Now don't shut this
L07 0870 door. It won't open from inside. Before we built the new jail,
L07 0880 we used to keep prisoners in here overnight sometimes when the old jail
L07 0890 got too crowded. Hirey treats himself a lot better than we do prisoners.
L07 0900 They were a sight more comfortable than the ones in the jail with
L07 0910 the cold air from Hirey's air conditioner coming through the grille".
L07 0920    He walked past the sheriff into a windowless room with
L07 0930 shelves full of big, leather-bound volumes from floor to ceiling all
L07 0940 around the walls. A metal table and four chairs stood in the center.
L07 0950    "They're all here, back to 1865", Carruthers told him.
L07 0960 "It's all right to smoke, but make sure your cigarettes are out
L07 0970 before you leave. And, of course, you know not to take clippings".
L07 0980    "I'll leave the air conditioner on for you, Mr& Ferrell",
L07 0990 said Hirey. "Don't forget to turn it off and close the door
L07 1000 good so it'll latch".   Hank thanked them and promised to
L07 1010 observe the rules. When they had gone, he stood for a minute breathing
L07 1020 in the mustiness of old paper and leather which the busily thrumming
L07 1030 air conditioner couldn't quite dispel. #CHAPTER FOURTEEN# In
L07 1040 a tour around the stacks, he found that the earliest volumes began on
L07 1050 the left and progressed clockwise around the room. An old weakness for
L07 1060 burrowing in records rose up to tempt him.   It was, indeed,
L07 1070 all here- almost a century. From reconstruction to moon rockets. But
L07 1080 he pulled away from the irrelevant old volumes and walked around to
L07 1090 the newer ones.   Last year's volume was at the top a couple
L07 1100 of inches below the ceiling. Near it was a metal ladder on casters attached
L07 1110 to the top shelf. He pulled it over, climbed up, and lifted out
L07 1120 the big volume, almost losing his balance from the weight of it. He
L07 1130 staggered over and dropped it on the table.   Since Mrs& Calhoun
L07 1140 remembered only that the marriage had been in the spring, he started
L07 1150 to plod through several months. He tried to turn right to the society
L07 1160 page in each one, but interesting stories kept cropping up to distract
L07 1170 him. At last he found it in the paper of April 2.   It
L07 1180 told him little more than Mrs& Calhoun had remembered, stating that
L07 1190 it had been a small, modest wedding compared to some of the others.
L07 1200    There was a marked contrast in the amount of information on bride
L07 1210 and groom. Mr& Black's life was an open book, so to speak, from
L07 1220 his birth in Jackson, Mississippi, through his basketball-playing
L07 1230 days at L&S&U& and his attainment of a B&A& degree, which
L07 1240 had presumably prepared him for his career as district sales manager
L07 1250 for Peerless Business Machines.   The one line on the bride
L07 1260 said she was Miss Lisa Carmody from Baton Rouge. No mention of
L07 1270 New Orleans.   Hank was beginning to feel sharp concern for
L07 1280 Mr& Black. If Mrs& Black was who he thought she was, Mr& Black's
L07 1290 Peerless selling days might well be over.   Now for their
L07 1300 exodus from Gulf Springs. This time the search took twice as long,
L07 1310 cutting down on his extra reading, for he had to pick through several
L07 1320 columns of one- and two-line social notes in each issue. He found
L07 1330 it in the edition of May 15. The item said Mr& and Mrs& Black
L07 1340 had moved to Jackson, his home town- so the lovely Lisa had been
L07 1350 with him a year ago.   Next on his program was a call to the Jackson
L07 1360 office of Peerless Business Machines to find out if Vincent
L07 1370 Black was still with them- or, more specifically, still with <us>.
L07 1380    He glanced at his watch, saw it was only seven, and decided
L07 1390 to indulge his weakness now. For the next hour he scrambled happily
L07 1400 up and down the ladder, sharing the excitement of reporters who had seen
L07 1410 McKinley's assassination, the Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago,
L07 1420 and the Hall-Mills trial.   In the middle of the stock market
L07 1430 crash, he heard a slight noise in the outer office. He turned around,
L07 1440 saw nothing, and decided it must be a mouse. Something else distracted
L07 1450 him, yet there was no sound, only tomblike silence. Then he knew
L07 1460 it was not sound, but lack of it. The air conditioner was no longer
L07 1470 running.   He jumped up and turned around to see the metal door
L07 1480 closing. It clanged shut as he sprang toward it.   He pressed
L07 1490 his face against the grille. "Who's there"?   The light
L07 1500 shining through the grille dimly illumined the office beyond- enough
L07 1510 for him to see there was no one there. Then he heard the outer door
L07 1520 closing.   "Hey, come back", he shouted. He thought it must
L07 1530 be some damn janitor or cleaning woman puttering around, figuring
L07 1540 that Hirey had gone off and forgotten to turn off everything and lock
L07 1550 up. _hen the faint beginnings of fear stirred in his mind. Unless
L07 1560 he was stone-blind, the person who'd just left couldn't have missed
L07 1570 seeing Hank through the open door of the brightly lighted room. And
L07 1580 even if he'd somehow missed seeing him, he wouldn't have gone off
L07 1590 and left the light on and door open in the file room.   Whoever
L07 1600 it was had meant to shut him up in here, had followed him and waited
L07 1610 till the courthouse and square were deserted. But why? To search
L07 1620 his room at the motel? To come back later and kill him after the stores
L07 1630 had closed around the square and everybody had left? No, they
L07 1640 could
L07 1650 kill him just as easy right now. Nobody could hear what was going
L07 1660 on in this underground vault.   Then he heard it and smelled it-
L07 1670 the steady hissing, the dread, familiar pungency of gas escaping.
L07 1680 It must be coming from an upright heater against the far wall in the
L07 1690 supervisors' office.   Until now, Lilac Gaylor and Lila Kingsley
L07 1700 had been like an anagram which he could unscramble at his own pace
L07 1710 and choosing.   Except for those minutes in her room, he had
L07 1720 lost touch with her as a reality. Gaylor's obsession and Cunningham's
L07 1730 chimera-chasing reminiscences had mesmerized him into thinking
L07 1740 of Lila and Lilac, separately or together, as a legend. They kept drifting
L07 1750 apart and merging again in his mind like some minute form of life
L07 1760 on a microscope slide.
L08 0010    "Well"- said Mr& Skyros. "I take a little time to
L08 0020 think it over". It was awkward: very awkward. There would be all
L08 0030 the nuisance of contacting someone else to take over. Someone reasonably
L08 0040 trustworthy. And Angie would hear about it. And Angie knew-
L08 0050    "Time", said Angie, and he smiled very sweet and slow at
L08 0060 Mr& Skyros. "Not too much time, because I'll be needing some
L08 0070 more myself pretty much right away. And I done favors for you, big
L08 0080 favor not so long back, didn't I, and I'm right here to take on
L08 0090 where Pretty left off. No trouble. I don't want no trouble, you
L08 0100 don't want no trouble, nobody wants trouble, Mr& Skyros".
L08 0110    Dear heaven, no, thought Mr& Skyros, turning away as another
L08 0120 man came in. He straightened his tie at the mirror with a shaking hand;
L08 0130 the genial smile seemed painted on his face. Angie knew- Speak
L08 0140 of dangerous information! Angie knew too much entirely already. Really
L08 0150 he had Mr& Skyros at bay **h   "Big favor I done
L08 0160 you. Acourse there's this deal o' Denny's- and Jackie's-
L08 0170 kinda hangin' fire, ain't it, maybe you've been kinda worryin'
L08 0180 over that. And can't say I blame you", said Angie thoughtfully.
L08 0190 "This deal with the ace o' spades. Anything to do with an ace
L08 0200 o' spades, bad luck".   Ace of spades- a widow, that was
L08 0210 what they called a widow, these low-class crooks remembered Mr& Skyros
L08 0220 distractedly. All about that Angie knew, too. When things got
L08 0230 a little out of hand, they very rapidly got a lot out of hand- it seemed
L08 0240 to be a general rule. All just by chance, and in a way tracing
L08 0250 back to poor Frank, all of it, because naturally- brothers, living
L08 0260 together- and Angie-   Mr& Skyros did not at all like the
L08 0270 look on Angelo's regular-featured, almost girlishly good-looking
L08 0280 face-
L08 0290 or indeed anything about Angelo. Mr& Skyros was not a man
L08 0300 who thought very much about moral principles; he found money much more
L08 0310 interesting; but all the same he thought now, uneasily, of the way
L08 0320 in which Angelo earned his living- and paid for his own stuff-
L08 0330 and eyed the soft smile, and the spaniel-like dark eyes, and he felt a
L08 0340 little ill.   "Look, my friend", he said, "in my life I
L08 0350 learn, how is it the proverb says, better an ounce of prevention to a
L08 0360 pound of cure. I stay in business so long because I'm careful. Two
L08 0370 weeks, a month, we talk it over again, and maybe if nothing happens
L08 0380 meanwhile to say the cops know this and that, then we make a little deal,
L08 0390 isn't it"?   "That's a long while", said Angie.
L08 0400 "I tell you, you want to leave it that way, I don't fool around
L08 0410 with it. I go over to Castro and get fixed up there. I can't wait
L08 0420 no two weeks".   And Mr& Skyros didn't like Angie, but
L08 0430 what with Prettyman and three of his boys inside, and not likely
L08 0440 to come out- And Angie such a valuable salesman, Prettyman said-
L08 0450 All the nuisance and danger of getting in touch with practically a
L08 0460 whole new bunch of boys- Why did everything have to happen at once?
L08 0470    Denny said stupidly, "Why, you ain't turning Angie down,
L08 0480 are you, Mr& Skyros? I mean, we all figured- I guess anybody'd
L08 0490 figure- Angie"-   Angelo gave him an affectionate
L08 0510 smile. "Mr& Skyros too smart a fellow want to get rid of me",
L08 0520 he said. "It's O&K&, Denny, everything's O&K& Ain't
L08 0530 it, Mr& Skyros"?   Oh, God, the name repeated over
L08 0540 and over, anybody to hear- Not being a fool, Mr& Skyros knew
L08 0550 why. But aside from everything else, it would scarcely be pleasant
L08 0560 to have dealings with one who was nominally an underling and actually
L08 0570 held- you could say- the whip hand. And all because of Domokous!
L08 0580 If Mr& Skyros had dreamed of all the trouble that young man would
L08 0590 eventually cause-   Of course, there was another factor. Angie
L08 0600 worth his weight in gold right now, but these users, they sometimes
L08 0610 went down fast. Who knew, Angie might not last long **h.
L08 0620 The sweat broke out on Mr& Skyros' forehead as he realized he had
L08 0630 been actually thinking- hoping- planning- perhaps-   Good
L08 0640 God above, had not Domokous been enough?   He patted Angelo's
L08 0650 thin shoulder paternally. "Now you don't want to go talking
L08 0660 that way", he said. "Sure, sure, you're the one take over
L08 0670 for Pretty, soon as I get the supply, get started up again, isn't
L08 0680 it? You don't need worry, Angelo. I tell you, I know how it is
L08 0690 with you, my friend, I sympathize, and I'll make it a special point-
L08 0700 a special favor- get in touch, and get some stuff just for you.
L08 0710 I don't know if I can manage it tonight or tomorrow, but I'll try
L08 0720 my best, my friend. You see, you got to remember, we all got schedules,
L08 0730 like any business! My man, he won't be around a little while,
L08 0740 he just fixed me up with this stuff they took out of the Elite. It's
L08 0750 awkward, you see that, isn't it"?   "Well, that's
L08 0760 your business, Mr& Skyros", said Angie, and his dreamy eyes
L08 0770 moved past Mr& Skyros' shoulder to gaze vaguely out the ground-glass
L08 0780 window. "I appreciate it, you do that. Sure. We don't none
L08 0790 of us want no trouble **h. I'm in a room over the Golden Club on
L08 0800 San Pedro, you just ask for me there, you want see me. Or maybe I
L08 0810 call you- tonight? About nine o'clock, I call and see if you
L08 0820 got any. A couple decks for me, Mr& Skyros- and ten-twelve to sell,
L08 0830 see, I like to have a little ready cash".   "Oh, now,
L08 0840 I don't know about that much", said Mr& Skyros. "And you know,
L08 0850 Angelo, Pretty, he always keeps it a strict cash basis, like they
L08 0860 say"-   "Sure", said Angie. "Sure, Mr& Skyros.
L08 0870 Fifty a throw, that the deal? Sure. I bring you the cash, say five
L08 0880 hundred for ten decks. Never mind how much I cut it, how much I
L08 0890 get", and he smiled his sleepy smile again. "Standard deal, Mr&
L08 0900 Skyros. You go 'n' have a look round for it".   "I
L08 0910 do my best", said Mr& Skyros earnestly, "just for you, my friend.
L08 0920 This is awkward for everybody, isn't it, we all got to put up with
L08 0930 inconvenience sometimes. But I do my best for you". He got out
L08 0940 of there in a hurry, brushing past another man in the door, mopping
L08 0950 his brow.   The expedient thing- yes, very true, one must make
L08 0960 do as one could, in some situations. It could all be straightened out
L08 0970 later. Not very much later, but when things had settled down a little.
L08 0980 After this deal with the Bouvardier woman went through. An ace
L08 0990 of spades **h. He was not a superstitious man, but he felt perhaps
L08 1000 there was a little something in that, indeed. He rather wished he
L08 1010 had never got into the business, and still- scarcely to be resisted,
L08 1020 a nice little profit with not much work involved, easy money **h
L08 1030 ## Katya Roslev, who would be Katharine Ross so very soon now,
L08 1040 rang up her first sale of the day and counted back the change. She
L08 1050 did not notice that the customer seized her purchase and turned away without
L08 1060 a smile or a word of thanks. Usually she marked the few who did
L08 1070 thank you, you didn't get that kind much in a place like this: and
L08 1080 she played a little game with herself, seeing how downright rude she
L08 1090 could act to the others, before they'd take offense, threaten to call
L08 1100 the manager. Funny how seldom they did: used to it, probably. The
L08 1110 kind who came into a cheap store like this! Grab, snatch, I saw
L08 1120 that first! and, Here, I'll take this, I was before <her>,
L08 1130 you wait on me now or I don't bother with it, see! This kind of
L08 1140 place **h   She'd be through here, just no time at all- leave
L08 1150 this kind of thing 'way behind. Off at noon, and she'd never come
L08 1160 back. Never have to. Money- a lot of money, <enough>. She'd
L08 1170 be smart about it, get him to give it to her in little bills so's
L08 1180 nobody would suspect- maybe couldn't get it until Monday account
L08 1190 of that, the banks- But that wasn't really long to wait. Not when
L08 1200 she'd waited so long already.   No need say anything at all
L08 1210 to the old woman. She had it all planned out, how she'd do. She'd
L08 1220 say she didn't feel good on Sunday, couldn't go to church- there'd
L08 1230 be a little argument, but she could be stubborn- and when the
L08 1240 old woman had gone, quick pack the things she'd need to take, all
L08 1250 but the dress she'd wear Monday, and take the bag down to that place
L08 1260 in the station where you could put things in a locker overnight, for
L08 1270 a dime. Then on Monday morning- or it might have to be Tuesday-
L08 1280 get up and leave just the usual time, and last thing, put the money
L08 1290 in an envelope under the old woman's purse there in the drawer. She
L08 1300 wouldn't be going to get that for an hour or so after Katya had left,
L08 1310 go do the daily shopping. No need leave a note with it, either-
L08 1320 or maybe just something like, Don't worry about me, I'm going away
L08 1330 to make a better life.   A better life. Escape. It wasn't
L08 1340 as if she wanted <much>. She didn't mind working hard, not as if
L08 1350 she figured to do anything <wrong> to live easy and soft- all she
L08 1360 wanted was a <chance>, where she wasn't marked as what she was.
L08 1370 To
L08 1380 be Katharine Ross, and work in a nicer shop somewhere, at a little
L08 1390 more money so she could have prettier clothes, and learn ladies' manners
L08 1400 and all like that, and get to know different people than up to now,
L08 1410 not just the ones like her here, with foreign-sounding names, the
L08 1420 ones went to the same church and- Different place, different job, different
L08 1430 people, she'd be all different too. Prettier, she'd do her
L08 1440 hair another way; smarter, and wear different kinds of clothes-
L08 1450 she'd be Katharine Ross, just what that <sounded> like.
L08 1460 "You've give me the wrong change", said the customer sharply. "Think
L08 1470 I can't count"?   Katya made up the amount in indifferent
L08 1480 silence. She was listening to other voices, out of the future.
L08 1490 Some of those vaguely-imagined new, different people. <Oh, Katharine's
L08 1500 awfully nice, and pretty too, I like Katharine- Let's
L08 1510 ask Katharine to go with us, she's always lots of fun- Katharine>-
L08 1520    Soon, very soon now **h #@ SIXTEEN @# Mendoza
L08 1521 didn't
L08 1530 wake until nearly nine-thirty. It was going to be another hot
L08 1540 day; already the thermometer stood close to ninety. Alison was still
L08 1550 sound asleep; he made fresh coffee and searched through all the desk
L08 1560 drawers for more cigarettes before thinking of her handbag, and found
L08 1570 a crumpled stray cigarette at its bottom, which tasted peculiarly
L08 1580 of face powder. He left a note propped on the desk asking her to call
L08 1590 him sometime today, and drove home.   After he'd got out fresh
L08 1600 liver for Bast, he paused to look at her crouched daintily over her
L08 1610 dish. Surely she <was> just a trifle fatter around the middle? He
L08 1620 seemed to remember reading somewhere that Abyssinians had large litters,
L08 1630 and suffered a dismaying vision of the apartment overrun with a
L08 1640 dozen kittens. "<@Y que sigue despues?>- what then"? he
L08 1650 asked her severely. "A lot of people are so peculiar that they don't
L08 1660 like cats, it's not the easiest thing in the world to find good
L08 1670 homes for kittens- and, damn it, you know very well if I have them
L08 1680 around long, impossible to give them away! And I suppose now that
L08 1690 you've finally grown up, if a little late, you'd go on producing
L08 1700 kittens every six months or so. Yes, well, it's a pity to spoil your
L08 1710 girlish figure- which all those kittens would do anyway- but I
L08 1720 think when you've raised these we'll just have the vet fix it so
L08 1730 there won't be any more **h. I wonder if the Carters would take one
L08 1740 **h. And it's no good looking at me like that", as she wound affectionately
L08 1750 around his ankles.
L09 0010 Maude's long nose unexpectedly wrinkled up. "Happened to be in the
L09 0020 hall! Happened to hear you quarrel about her! Oh, well, you can't
L09 0030 really blame Lolotte. She lost her beau to you".   But
L09 0040 she was talking of Emile when she saw the black line of the open door;
L09 0050 Sarah remembered it clearly. Maude went on. "I've got to
L09 0060 get busy. Miss Celie's taken to her bed, with the door locked. She
L09 0070 opened it an inch and poked out the keys for me to give you. Here"-
L09 0080 She thrust a bundle of keys strung on a thick red cord into Sarah's
L09 0090 hand. "Not that there's much use in locking up the smokehouse
L09 0100 and the storehouse now. Drink your coffee"-   Coffee.
L09 0110 "It's- cold". Maude suddenly looked quite capable of pouring
L09 0120 it down her throat. "I don't want it", Sarah said, firmly.
L09 0130    "Oh. Well- I'll take it down with me as I go".
L09 0140 Maude swooped up the cup and hiked up her top hoop as if about to take
L09 0150 off with a racing start. At the door she turned back, her Roman nose
L09 0160 looking very long now and satiric. "I forgot. Ben and Lucien
L09 0170 have gone after them. It's just like that book your Northern friend
L09 0180 wrote- except there aren't any ice floes to cross and no bloodhounds".
L09 0190    "I don't know Mrs& Stowe **h. What can they
L09 0200 do if they find them"?   "They can't do anything. It's
L09 0210 silly, childish, running after them like that. I told Ben so. But
L09 0220 of course the paterollers won't be of any help, not with everything
L09 0230 so upset and that Yankee cavalry outfit they say is running around,
L09 0240 God knows where".   She had swished away, she had been gone for
L09 0250 a long time probably when Sarah suddenly realized that she ought to
L09 0260 stop her, pour out the coffee, so no one would drink it. But then the
L09 0270 so-called coffee was bad enough at best, cold it was all but undrinkable-
L09 0280 especially that cup!   She was deeply, horribly sure
L09 0290 that Lucien had filled it with opium. She had quarreled with Lucien,
L09 0300 she had resisted his demands for money- and if she died, by the provisions
L09 0310 of her marriage contract, Lucien would inherit legally not
L09 0320 only the immediate sum of gold under the floorboards in the office, but
L09 0330 later, when the war was over, her father's entire estate.   She
L09 0340 felt cold and hot, sticky and chilly at the same time. Now wait a
L09 0350 minute, she told herself, think about it; Lucien is not the only person
L09 0360 in this house who could have put opium in that coffee.   She
L09 0370 had lost a bottle of opium- but that was on the trip from New Orleans.
L09 0380 Or someone had taken it during her first day at Honotassa. Yes,
L09 0390 she had missed it after her talk with Emile, after dinner, just
L09 0400 before Emile was shot. Rilly or Glendora had entered her room while
L09 0410 she slept, bringing back her washed clothes. So somebody else could
L09 0420 have come in, too- then or later while she was out of the room. It
L09 0430 would have been easy to identify as opium by its odor.   It was
L09 0440 not very reasonable to believe that Lucien had procured unprocurable
L09 0450 opium and come back to Honotassa with a formed plan to murder her. He
L09 0460 didn't even know that she was there. And he certainly couldn't
L09 0470 have guessed that she would resist his demand for the gold or that she
L09 0480 was not the yielding- yes, and credible fool he had every right to
L09 0490 expect. No, he had been surprised, unpleasantly surprised, but surprised.
L09 0500    Then somebody else? Don't question, Rev had said, don't
L09 0510 invite danger. Her skin crawled: Lolotte had told Maude that
L09 0520 she was in the hall and the door was open. Sarah had begun to tell
L09 0530 Lucien of Emile, she had begun to question and a little draft had crept
L09 0540 across the room from the bedroom door, open barely enough to show
L09 0550 a rim of blackness in the hall. So Lolotte- or anybody- could have
L09 0560 listened, and that somebody could have already been supplied with
L09 0570 the missing bottle of opium.   That was not reasonable either.
L09 0580 The opium had disappeared before Emile's death and whoever shot him
L09 0590 could not by any stretch of the imagination have foreseen Sarah's
L09 0600 own doubts and suspicions- and questions.   She began to doubt
L09 0610 whether there had been in fact a lethal dose of opium in the cup. So
L09 0620 suppose somebody only wished to frighten her, so she would leave Honotassa!
L09 0630    That made a certain amount of logic. Added to the
L09 0640 argument was the fact that while she might have tasted the coffee if it
L09 0650 had been still hot, she might even have drunk some of it, she wouldn't
L09 0660 have taken enough to kill her, for she would have been warned by
L09 0670 its taste.   No. It was merely an attempt to frighten her.
L09 0680    She wouldn't go back to New York as Maude suggested; she wouldn't
L09 0690 run like a scared cat. But- well, she'd be very careful.
L09 0700    She dressed and the accustomed routine restored to her a sense
L09 0710 of normal everyday life.   But before she left her room she dug
L09 0720 into her big moire bag, took out the envelope holding her marriage contract
L09 0730 and the wax seal had been broken. So somebody else knew what
L09 0740 would happen to her father's money if she died.   Rev had known
L09 0750 all along. Rev didn't need to break the wax seal, read the contract
L09 0760 and find out. He could conceivably have wished to make sure; Rev
L09 0770 loved Honotassa, it was like a part of his breath and body; Rev
L09 0780 had stressed the need for money. Rev would never have tried to give her
L09 0790 poison!   She thrust the envelope back in the bag; there
L09 0800 was no point in locking it up in the armoire now, it was like locking
L09 0810 the barn after the horse was stolen. And in all likelihood, by now,
L09 0820 there was more than one person in the house who knew the terms of her
L09 0830 marriage contract. There was no point either in telling herself again
L09 0840 what a fool she'd been.   She went downstairs and received another
L09 0850 curious shock, for when Glendora flapped into the dining room in
L09 0860 her homemade moccasins, Sarah asked her when she had brought coffee
L09 0870 to her room and Glendora said she hadn't. "Too much work this morning,
L09 0880 Miss Sarah- everybody gone like that"-   Sarah swallowed
L09 0890 past another kind of constriction in her throat. "Well, then
L09 0900 who brought it"?   "Miss Maude. She come to the kitchen
L09 0910 and say she take it up to you". Glendora put down a dish of lukewarm
L09 0920 rice. "Not much breakfast this morning. I don't know what we're
L09 0930 going to do, Miss Sarah".   "We've got to eat",
L09 0940 Sarah said, curtly, because a chill crawled over her again. Maude?
L09 0950    Glendora flapped away. The rice wasn't dosed with opium,
L09 0960 indeed it had no taste at all, not a grain of salt. She ate what she
L09 0970 could and went out along the covered passageway, with the rain dripping
L09 0980 from the vines. In the kitchen Glendora was despairingly picking
L09 0990 chickens. "Get a basket", Sarah told her. "We'll go to the
L09 1000 storehouse".   Glendora dropped a chicken and a flurry of feathers,
L09 1010 and went with her through the drizzle, to the storehouse. Sarah
L09 1020 found the right key and unlocked the door.   It was a long,
L09 1030 low room, like a root cellar, for it was banked up with soil, and vines
L09 1040 had run rampant over that, too. It was dark but dry and cool. She
L09 1050 doled out what Glendora vaguely guessed were the right amounts of dried
L09 1060 peas, eggs, cornmeal, a little salt. The shelves looked emptier than
L09 1070 when Miss Celie had shown her the storeroom, and since the men from
L09 1080 the Commissary had called; there were certainly now fewer mouths
L09 1090 to feed but there was less to feed them with. She took Glendora to
L09 1100 the smokehouse, unlocked it and saw with satisfaction there was still
L09 1110 a quantity of hams and sides of bacon, hanging from the smoke-stained
L09 1120 rafters.   They wouldn't go hungry, not yet. And the fields
L09 1130 were green and growing. "Can't you possibly imagine what life is
L09 1140 going to be like, here"? Maude had said.   Maude.
L09 1141 She
L09 1150 sent Glendora back to the house, her basket and her apron laden. She
L09 1160 stood for a moment, rain dripping from the trees over her head, thinking
L09 1170 of Maude.   Maude had the opportunity to take the bottle
L09 1180 of opium from Sarah's room. Maude had the cool ruthlessness to d
L09 1185 o
L09 1190 whatever she made up her mind to do. She couldn't see how her death
L09 1200 could affect Maude. She couldn't see any reason why Maude would
L09 1210 attempt to frighten her. Besides, there was something hysterical and
L09 1220 silly, something almost childish about an attempt to frighten her. Maude
L09 1230 was neither hysterical nor silly and Sarah rather doubted if she
L09 1231 had ever
L09 1240 been childish.   Yet Maude had suggested that Sarah return to
L09 1250 New York. Maude could have shot Emile- if she'd had a reason
L09 1260 to kill him.   There was no use in standing there in the drizzle,
L09 1270 trying to find a link between Emile's murder and opium in a cup
L09 1280 of coffee.   She started back for the house, saw a light in the
L09 1290 office, opened the door and surprised a domestic little scene which was
L09 1300 far outside the dark realm of murder or attempted murder. Rev, George
L09 1310 and Lolotte were mending shoes.   a lighted lamp stood on the
L09 1320 table that dusky, drizzling day. They were all three bent over a shabby
L09 1330 riding boot; George had a tack hammer. Lolotte held a patch of
L09 1340 leather, Rev steadied something, a tiny brad, waiting for George's
L09 1350 poised hammer. George said, "First thing I do when I get to Vicksburg
L09 1360 again, is get me a Yankee"-   "With boots on",
L09 1370 Lolotte laughed softly.   Rev looked up and saw her. Lolotte
L09 1380 looked up and stiffened. George didn't look up at all. There was
L09 1390 no way to know, no way to guess whether any one of them was surprised
L09 1400 at Sarah's appearance, believing her to be drugged and senseless-
L09 1410 and just possibly dead.   Rev said, "Come in, Sarah. Reckon
L09 1420 you know the news".   And what news, Sarah thought as satirically
L09 1430 as Maude might have said it.   Rev's face was suddenly
L09 1440 a little fixed and questioning. He turned to George and Lolotte. "Take
L09 1450 your cobbler's shop somewhere else. I want to talk to Sarah".
L09 1460    Everything in the office, the spreading circle of lamplight,
L09 1470 the patch of leather in Lolotte's hands. George poised with the
L09 1480 tack hammer, the homely, everyday atmosphere, all denied an attempt
L09 1490 at murder. A rush of panic caught Sarah. "No. Not now. I mean
L09 1500 I've got to- to see to the kitchen. Glendora"-   Her words
L09 1510 jumbled together and she all but ran from the office and from the
L09 1520 question in Rev's face.   Now why did I do that? she thought
L09 1530 as warm, drizzling rain touched her face. She was no schoolgirl,
L09 1540 refusing to bear tales.   As she reached the kitchen door the answer
L09 1550 presented itself; if she told anyone of the opium it must be Lucien,
L09 1560 her husband.   It might be, indeed it had already proved
L09 1570 to be a marriage without love, but it was marriage. So she couldn't
L09 1580 choose Rev as a confidant; it must be Lucien.   Always provided
L09 1590 that Lucien himself had not dosed her coffee with opium, she thought,
L09 1600 as coldly and sharply, again, as Maude might have said it.
L09 1610    She paused at the kitchen door, caught her breath, told herself firmly
L09 1620 that the opium was only an attempt to frighten her and went into
L09 1630 the kitchen, where Glendora was eyeing the chickens dismally and Maude
L09 1640 was cleaning lamp chimneys. Glendora gave a gulp. "Miss Sarah,
L09 1650 I can't cut up no chicken. Miss Maude say she won't".
L09 1660 Again the homely, everyday details of daily living refuted a vicious
L09 1670 attempt to frighten her- or to murder her.   The homely everyday
L09 1680 details of living and domestic requirements also pressed upon her
L09 1690 with their immediate urgency. No matter what had happened or hadn't
L09 1691 happened,
L09 1700 somebody had to see about dinner. She eyed the chickens with, if she
L09 1710 had known it, something of Glendora's dismal look and thought with
L09 1720 a certain fury of the time she had spent on Latin verbs.
L10 0010    "Not since last night. I didn't think there was any reason
L10 0020 to".   "Maybe there isn't. Speak to him again anyway. Try
L10 0030 talking to some of the fellows he works with, friends, anyone. Try
L10 0040 to find out how happy he is with his wife, whether he plays around with
L10 0050 women. You might try looking into his wife too. She might have been
L10 0060 talking to some of her friends about her husband if they've been
L10 0070 having any trouble".   "You think Black's the one we're
L10 0080 looking for"?   "Yeah. I think he might be", Conrad
L10 0090 said grimly. "Then again he might not".   "What a stinking
L10 0100 world", Rourke said. "Black is Gilborn's best friend".
L10 0110    "I know".   "Will you be coming back soon"?
L10 0120    "I think so. I'm on my way to see the Jacobs woman".
L10 0130    "Gilborn's secretary? What for? You don't think Gilborn
L10 0150 is the-"?   "I don't think anything. I just don't
L10 0160 want to go off half-cocked before picking up Black, that's all".
L10 0170 Conrad interrupted. "Gilborn says he was in his office all day with
L10 0180 her yesterday. I'd like to make sure. Also, it's just possible
L10 0190 she might know something about Mrs& Gilborn".   "Right.
L10 0200 I'll see you later".   "Aren't you ever going to go home"?
L10 0210    "It sure as hell doesn't look like it, does it?
L10 0220 I'm telling you, if these corpses ever knew the trouble they put us
L10 0230 to, they'd think twice before letting themselves get knocked off".
L10 0240    "Remember to tell that to the next corpse you meet".
L10 0250    Conrad hung up and sat on the small telephone-booth bench, massaging
L10 0260 his right leg.   He looked at his watch. It was ten minutes
L10 0270 before eleven.   He wondered how long it would be before they
L10 0280 had a signed confession from Lionel Black.   Thirty years' experience
L10 0290 let him know, even at this early stage, that Black was his
L10 0300 man.   But he still wanted to know why. ## It was a cold, windy
L10 0310 day, the day after Kitti's death, but Stanley Gilborn paid no
L10 0320 attention to the blustery October wind.   After leaving Conrad,
L10 0330 Gilborn had no destination. He simply walked, not noticing where
L10 0340 he was, not caring. He stopped automatically at the street corners,
L10 0350 waiting for the traffic lights to change, unheeding of other people, his
L10 0360 coat open and flapping.   As he walked, he tried to think.
L10 0370    Of Kitti. Of himself. Mainly of what Conrad had tried to make
L10 0380 him believe.   There was nothing coherent about his thinking.
L10 0390 It was a succession of picture-images passing through his mind: the
L10 0400 same ones, different ones, in no apparent sequence, in no logical succession.
L10 0410    The enormity of what Conrad had told him made it impossible
L10 0420 for Gilborn to accept, with any degree of realism, the actuality
L10 0430 of it.   Conrad's words had intellectual meaning for him only.
L10 0440 Emotionally, they penetrated him not at all.   <Whoever he
L10 0450 was and your wife were intimate>.   Gilborn remembered Conrad's
L10 0460 exact words. They made sense and yet they didn't. He knew Conrad
L10 0470 had told him the truth. It was so. Yet it wasn't so. It wasn't
L10 0480 so because it couldn't be so.   When Kitti was alive-
L10 0490 and he remembered the pressure of her hand resting lightly on his arm-
L10 0500 she had been the center of his life.   She was the sun, he the
L10 0510 closest planet orbiting around her, the rest of the world existing
L10 0520 and visible yet removed.   For fifty-five years he had lived, progressing
L10 0530 towards a no-goal, eating, working, breathing without plan,
L10 0540 without reason.   Kitti had come along to justify everything. She
L10 0550 was his goal, she was his reason. He had lived all his life waiting
L10 0560 for her.   Not once, in the time that he had known her, had he
L10 0570 ever considered the possibility, not once, not for one one-thousandth
L10 0580 of a second, of her infidelity.   He could not consider it now.
L10 0590 Not really. And so he walked, aimless again.   The walk ended,
L10 0600 inevitably, right in front of his hotel building. The doorman began
L10 0610 to nod his head automatically, then remembered who Gilborn was, what
L10 0620 had happened to him the night before. He looked at Gilborn with undisguised
L10 0630 curiosity.   Gilborn passed by him without seeing him.
L10 0640    He crossed the lobby and rode up in the elevator lost in his own
L10 0650 thoughts.   In the apartment itself, all was still. The police
L10 0660 were no longer there. There was no evidence that anything was different
L10 0670 than it had been.   Except that Kitti wasn't there.
L10 0680    Without taking off his coat, he sat in the blue chair which still
L10 0690 faced the closed bedroom door.   At last, sitting there, in the
L10 0700 familiar surroundings, the truth began to sink in.   <Who?>
L10 0710    He felt no anger towards Kitti, no sense that she had betrayed
L10 0720 him.   <Who?>   She was all he had, everything he had,
L10 0730 everything he wanted. Someone had taken her away from him.
L10 0740 <Who>?   Where there is a left-hand entry in the ledger, there
L10 0750 is a right-hand one, he remembered from his school days.   Where
L10 0760 there is a victim, there is a killer.   <Who>?
L10 0770 <Whoever he was and your wife were intimate>.   He rose from
L10 0780 the
L10 0790 chair, took off his coat. Quickly, he went into the bedroom.
L10 0800    The bed still showed signs of where Kitti had lain. Gilborn stood
L10 0810 there for a long time. He looked at the bed unblinkingly.   The
L10 0820 bed was empty now. Kitti would lie in it no more. He would lie in
L10 0830 it no more.   Gilborn wondered whether Kitti had lain in that
L10 0840 same bed with **h <Who?>   For thirty minutes, Stanley Gilborn
L10 0850 stood there.   At the end of the half-hour, racking his brains,
L10 0860 thinking over and over again of Kitti, her friends, her past, he
L10 0870 left the bedroom.   <Who?>   He could think of no answer.
L10 0890    Gilborn put on his coat again. Before leaving, he took one
L10 0900 last, lingering look at the apartment.   He knew he would never
L10 0910 see it again.   In the street, walking as quickly as he could, Stanley
L10 0920 Gilborn was a lone figure. ## On Blanche Jacobs, Kitti
L10 0930 Gilborn's death had a quite different effect. For Blanche, Kitti's
L10 0940 death was a source of guilty, but nonetheless soaring, happy hope.
L10 0950    In Blanche's defense, it must be said she was unaware of
L10 0960 the newborn hope.   If anyone had asked her, she would have described
L10 0970 herself only as nervous and worried. The figures on the worksheet
L10 0980 paper in front of her were jumping and waving around so badly it
L10 0990 was all she could do to make them out clearly enough to copy them with
L10 1000 the typewriter.   She wondered whether Stanley would call. She
L10 1010 wanted to be with him, to give him the comfort and companionship she
L10 1020 knew he needed.   She had skipped her lunch hour in the fear that
L10 1030 he might call while she was out. He hadn't. And now she was feeling
L10 1040 sick, both from concern about Stanley and hunger.   Why hadn't
L10 1050 he called?   Men, she reflected, even men like Stanley,
L10 1060 are unpredictable.   She tried to think of his unpredictable
L10 1070 actions in the eleven years she had known him and discovered they weren't
L10 1080 so many after all.   Stanley really was quite predictable.
L10 1090 That was one of the things she liked about Stanley. He wasn't like
L10 1100 so many other men. The dentist last night, for instance. Dinner and
L10 1110 the movies had been fine. He had taken her upstairs to say good night.
L10 1120 She had invited him in for coffee.   It was in the kitchen,
L10 1130 as she was watching the kettle, waiting for the water to boil, that
L10 1140 he had grabbed for her. Without warning, without giving her a chance
L10 1150 to prepare for it. From behind, he had put his arms on her shoulders,
L10 1160 turned her around, and pressed her to him, so close she couldn't breathe.
L10 1170    Later, she apologized for the long scratch across his face,
L10 1180 tried to explain she couldn't help herself, that the panic arose
L10 1190 in her unwanted. But he hadn't understood. When he left, she knew
L10 1200 she would never see him again.   Stanley wasn't like that. She
L10 1210 could always predict what Stanley was going to do, ever since she
L10 1220 first met him.   Except for that one morning. The morning he walked
L10 1230 in to announce to her, blushing, that he was married. She thought
L10 1240 she was going to die.   She had assumed before then that one
L10 1250 day he would ask her to marry him.   Blanche couldn't remember
L10 1260 when she had first arrived at this conclusion. She thought it was
L10 1270 sometime during the second week she worked for Stanley. It was nothing
L10 1280 that he said or did, but it seemed so <natural> to her that she
L10 1290 should be working for him, looking forward to his eventual proposal.
L10 1300    She was thirty-one years old then. Her mother was already considerably
L10 1310 concerned over her daughter's future. But Blanche had been
L10 1320 able to maintain a serene and assured composure in the face of her widowed
L10 1330 mother's continued carping, had been able to resist her urgings
L10 1340 to date anyone who offered the slightest possibility of matrimony.
L10 1350    For Blanche, it was only a matter of time before Stanley would
L10 1360 propose. It was to be expected that Stanley would be shy, slow in
L10 1370 taking such a momentous step. Stanley went along in life, she knew,
L10 1380 convinced that he deserved the love and faith of no woman. As a result,
L10 1390 he never looked for it.   But one day, she expected, he would
L10 1400 somehow discover, without her having to tell him, that there was such
L10 1410 a woman in the world; a woman who was willing to give him love, faith,
L10 1420 and anything else a woman could give a husband. Indeed, there was
L10 1430 a woman who, unasked, had already given him love. Unquestionably, Blanche
L10 1440 loved Stanley.   And then, unexpectedly, Stanley made his
L10 1450 announcement.   On that first day, Blanche literally thought
L10 1460 she was going to die, or, at the very least, go out of her mind.
L10 1470    It might have been easier for her if Kitti Walker hadn't been
L10 1480 everything that Blanche was not.   Kitti was thirty years younger
L10 1490 than Stanley, taller than Stanley, prettier than Stanley had any
L10 1500 right to hope for, much less expect. Kitti could have married a score
L10 1510 of men. There was no reason for her to marry someone like Stanley
L10 1520 Gilborn, there was no <need> for her to marry Stanley.   Kitti
L10 1530 had come into the office, on somebody's recommendation, because she
L10 1540 needed help in preparing her income tax return.   Stanley had
L10 1550 filled out the return and because, when he was finished, it was close
L10 1560 to the lunch hour, he had politely asked Kitti to join him, never expecting
L10 1570 her to accept.   Blanche knew all this because the door
L10 1580 to Stanley's office was open and, without straining too hard, she could
L10 1590 hear everything that was said.   Stanley had gone out, saying
L10 1600 he would be back in an hour. He hadn't come back for over two.
L10 1610    After that day, Blanche still didn't know exactly what had happened.
L10 1620 There were mornings when Stanley came in late, afternoons when
L10 1640 he left early, days when he didn't come in at all.   Blanche
L10 1650 knew something must be causing Stanley's new, strange behavior but
L10 1660 she never once connected it with Kitti Walker. It was too unprecedented.
L10 1670 Then, six weeks after the day Kitti first came into the office,
L10 1680 Stanley announced he and Kitti were married.   Somehow, Blanche
L10 1690 managed to cover the stunned surprise and offer her congratulations.
L10 1700    That night the two of them left for a week's honeymoon
L10 1710 in Acapulco.   While they were away Blanche came into the office
L10 1730 every morning, running things as she had always run them for Stanley,
L10 1740 going through the week in a dazed stupor, getting things done automatically,
L10 1750 out of habit.   For exactly one week, she was able to
L10 1760 continue in this manner.   On the morning of Stanley's return,
L10 1770 however, her strength left her. Two hours of watching his serenely
L10 1780 happy face, listening to his soft humming as he bent over his penciled
L10 1790 figures, and Blanche had to leave.   She stayed away for ten
L10 1800 days. Those ten days were like no others that Blanche had known.
L10 1810    Mostly, she stayed in bed. She didn't tell anyone, even her
L10 1820 mother, what was wrong. She refused to have a doctor, insisting there
L10 1830 was nothing a doctor could do for her.
L11 0010    "Right", said the fingerprint man. "Also, if you're going
L11 0020 to believe those prints, you'll have to look for a killer who's
L11 0030 a top-grade piano player".   He demonstrated by playing an
L11 0040 imaginary piano, doing a staccato passage with a broadly exaggerated attack.
L11 0050 To make it clearer he shifted to acting out, but with no change
L11 0060 of manner, the killing of Rose Mallory. His hands snatched at an
L11 0070 imaginary bucket, swooping down hard to grab it and coming away with equal
L11 0080 snap like a ball that's been bounced hard. In the same way he
L11 0090 pantomimed grasping a mantel and bouncing cleanly off that, pressing his
L11 0100 hands against the floor and bouncing cleanly off that. He was moving
L11 0110 like a ballet dancer, playing for laughs. If Rose Mallory's killer
L11 0120 acted this way, catching up with him was going to be a cinch. We'd
L11 0130 know him by his stretch pants and the flowers he'd wear twined
L11 0140 in his hair.   Perhaps if Felix had first come upon us when this
L11 0150 boy was not cavorting so gaily up and down the hall outside the murdered
L11 0160 woman's apartment, we might have had less trouble convincing Felix
L11 0170 of our seriousness. This, you will remember, was still New Year's
L11 0190 Day. By the time Felix turned up it was early afternoon, which, one
L11 0200 would think, would be late enough so that by then, except for small children
L11 0210 and a few hardy souls who had not yet sobered up, it could have
L11 0220 been expected that people would no longer be having any sort of active
L11 0230 interest in the previous night's noisemakers and paper hats.
L11 0240    Felix was the exception. He had retained his hat and his horn,
L11 0241 and,
L11 0250 whatever fun might still be going, he was ready to join it. That, incidentally,
L11 0260 might give you some idea of what Felix was like. After
L11 0270 all, he hadn't happened upon us in that second-floor hall without warning.
L11 0280    The ~ME's boys had finished their on-the-spot examination
L11 0290 and the body had been removed for autopsy. The meat wagon, therefore,
L11 0300 was not out in front of the house any more, but the cluster
L11 0310 of squad cars was still there and there was a cop on the door downstairs
L11 0320 to screen any comings and goings. There was, furthermore, the
L11 0330 crowd of curious onlookers gathered in the street and a couple more cops
L11 0340 to hold them at a decent distance.   Just put yourself in Felix's
L11 0350 place for a moment. You're a taxpayer, householder, landlord.
L11 0360 You've been away from home for the New Year festivities, but now
L11 0370 the party is over and you come home. Defining sobriety in the limited
L11 0380 sense of being free from the clinical symptoms of the effects of alcohol
L11 0390 ingested and not yet eliminated from the system, you are sober.
L11 0400    You still have your paper hat and you're wearing it, but then,
L11 0410 it is an extraordinary paper hat and, in addition to anything else
L11 0420 you may be, you are also the sculptor who created that most peculiar dame
L11 0430 out in the back yard. It's not too much to assume that you will
L11 0440 have a more lasting interest in paper hats than will Mr& Average
L11 0450 Citizen.   You have your paper horn clutched in your big, craggy
L11 0460 fist, and for your entrance you have planned a noisy, colorful and exuberant
L11 0470 greeting to your friends and tenants. You find your house a
L11 0480 focus of public and police attention. Can you imagine yourself forgetting
L11 0490 under the circumstances that you are approaching this startling and
L11 0500 unexpected situation so unsuitably hatted and armed with a paper horn?
L11 0510    Maybe one could be startled into forgetfulness. You shoulder
L11 0520 your way through the cluster of the curious and you barge up to
L11 0530 the
L11 0540 cop on the door. You identify yourself and ask him what's going
L11 0550 on. Instead of answering you, he sticks his head in the door and shouts
L11 0560 up the stairs.   "Got the upstairs guy", he bellows. "The
L11 0570 owner. Do I send him up"? Then he turns back to you. "Go
L11 0580 on in", he says. "They'll tell you what's cooking".
L11 0590 Even then, as you go into the house oppressed by the knowledge that
L11 0600 something is cooking and that your house has passed under this unaccountable,
L11 0610 official control, could you go on forgetting that you still had
L11 0620 that ridiculous hat on your head and you were still carrying that childish
L11 0630 horn in your hand?   What I'm getting at is that we
L11 0640 were fully prepared for Felix's being an odd one. We'd seen his
L11 0650 handiwork out in the back yard, and the little his tenants had told us
L11 0660 of him did make him sound a little special. We were not, however, prepared
L11 0670 for anything like the apparition that confronted us as Felix came
L11 0680 up the stairs. He, of course, must have been equally unprepared for
L11 0690 what confronted him, but, nonetheless, I did find his reaction startling.
L11 0700    If Felix was still wearing the hat and carrying the horn
L11 0710 because he'd forgotten about them, he now remembered. He came bounding
L11 0720 up the stairs and joined the dance. He adjusted the hat, lifted
L11 0730 the horn to his lips as though it were a flute, and fell in alongside
L11 0740 our fingerprint expert to cavort with him.   Our man stopped
L11 0750 dead and glowered at Felix. Felix threw his head back and laughed a
L11 0760 laugh that shook the timbers of even that solidly built old house. This
L11 0770 was a bull of a man. He was big-chested, big-shouldered and heavy-armed.
L11 0780 His face was ruddy and heavy and unlined, and when he laughed
L11 0790 he showed his teeth, which were big and white and strong and unquestionably
L11 0800 home-grown. I don't remember ever seeing teeth that were quite
L11 0810 so white and at the same time quite so emphatically not dentures. His
L11 0820 hair had receded most of the way to the back of his neck. He had only
L11 0830 a fringe of hair and he wore it cropped short. It was almost as white
L11 0840 as his teeth. For a man of his mass he was curiously short. He
L11 0850 wasn't a dwarf but he was a bit of a comic figure. A man with so big
L11 0860 and so staggeringly developed a torso and such long and powerful arms
L11 0870 is expected to stand taller than five feet five. For Felix it was
L11 0880 a bit of a stretch to make even that measurement. The man was just this
L11 0890 side of being a freak.   We waited till he had finished laughing,
L11 0900 and that gave us a few moments for taking stock of him. He was dressed
L11 0910 in a manner <Esquire> might suggest for the outdoor man's
L11 0920 country weekend. Dark gray sports jacket, lighter gray slacks, pink flannel
L11 0930 shirt, black silk necktie. His eyes were clear. He was freshly
L11 0940 shaved, and if there had been any alcohol in him we could never have
L11 0950 missed detecting some scent of it on the massive gusts of his laughter.
L11 0960 Not even a whiff. Eventually he subsided.   "Felix"?
L11 0970 Gibby said.   "Me", he said merrily. "Me, the happy one".
L11 0980    "That much Latin we remember", Gibby said dryly. "You
L11 0990 always live up to your name, always like this, always making happy"?
L11 1000    "I try", Felix said blithely. "The world is full
L11 1010 of blokes who put their hearts into making the tragic scene. I've
L11 1020 never noticed that it improves things any".   "Bully for you",
L11 1030 Gibby said. "What's the rest of your name"?   "No
L11 1040 rest of it. Felix is all there is".   "All there ever
L11 1050 was"?   "The past I leave to historians", Felix intoned,
L11 1060 demonstrating that he could be pompous as well as happy.   "You
L11 1070 live in the present"?   "In the present", Felix proclaimed.
L11 1080 "For the future. Is there any other time in which a man
L11 1090 can live"?   "We", Gibby announced, "are not philosophers.
L11 1100 We are Assistant District Attorneys. This gentleman is a police
L11 1110 officer. He is a fingerprint specialist. Could your future, your
L11 1120 immediate future, be made to include taking us upstairs, giving us a
L11 1130 bit of space in which our friend can work, and making available to him
L11 1140 your finger tips"?   The happy one could never have looked
L11 1150 happier. This was more than joy. It was ecstasy.   "Those lovely
L11 1160 whorls", he chortled. "So intricate, so beautiful. Come right
L11 1170 along. I love fingerprints".   He was prancing along the
L11 1180 hall, heading for the next flight of stairs.   Gibby called him
L11 1190 back. "We're here because of what happened last night", he said.
L11 1200 "Past, yes, but important. Since it is important, for the record
L11 1210 let's have the full name".   "That important"? Felix
L11 1220 asked.   "That important".   "Grubb", Felix whispered.
L11 1230    "Felix Grubb"? Gibby asked, not bothering to whisper.
L11 1240    "Shh", Felix implored. "I can't see what would
L11 1250 make it necessary for you to know. Nothing could make it necessary
L11 1260 to proclaim it to the whole world".   Obligingly Gibby lowered
L11 1270 his voice. "Felix Grubb"? he repeated. "No. Edmund, but
L11 1280 not for years. For years it's been just Felix. First thing I did
L11 1290 after my twenty-first birthday was go into court and have it officially
L11 1300 changed, and this is something I don't tell everybody. That was
L11 1310 almost forty years ago".   Having volunteered that he was a man
L11 1320 of about sixty, he bounded up the stairs and with each leap rendered
L11 1330 the number less credible. This was a broth of a boy, our Felix, and
L11 1340 nothing was more obvious than the joy he took in demonstrating how agile
L11 1350 he was and how full of juice and spirit. We followed him up the
L11 1360 stairs. The cops would gather up Connor and the foursome on the third
L11 1370 floor and bring us those of them who would voluntarily submit to fingerprinting.
L11 1380    You may think we didn't need Nancy and Jean,
L11 1390 but you always get what you can when you can, and we had no guarantee
L11 1400 that a fingerprint record on them couldn't be useful before we were
L11 1410 through with this case. Also, if we had excluded the ladies we would
L11 1420 have to that extent let the whole world know at least that much of where
L11 1430 we stood. The killer, if in our present group, would certainly be
L11 1440 interested in knowing that much, and even though with the fingerprint
L11 1450 evidence what it was I could see no way he could use this bit of information
L11 1460 to improve on his situation, there might always be some way. If
L11 1470 you can possibly avoid it, you don't hand out any extra chances.
L11 1480    Felix took us into his studio. It was that oddly shaped space
L11 1490 at the very top of the house, where ceiling heights had to accommodate
L11 1500 themselves to the varying angles of roof slope. At each angle of its
L11 1510 pitch a big skylight had been fitted into the roof and all these skylights
L11 1520 were fitted with systems of multiple screens and shades.
L11 1530 When Felix first opened the door on it, all these shades were tightly
L11 1540 drawn and the whole studio was as dark as night. He quickly fixed
L11 1550 that, rolling back the shades on some of the skylights and adjusting screens
L11 1560 on the others. He flew about the place making these adjustments
L11 1570 and it was obvious that what he was doing was the fruit of long experience.
L11 1580 None of his movements was tentative. There was no process of
L11 1590 trial and error. Starting with the room completely blacked out, as it
L11 1600 was when we came in, he unerringly fixed things so that the whole place
L11 1610 was bathed in the maximum of light without at any point admitting
L11 1620 even so much as a crack of glare.   Expecting something more-than-average
L11 1630 wacky, I was surprised by what we found. There was no display
L11 1640 of either works in progress or of finished work. Here and there on
L11 1650 work table or pedestal stood a shape with a sheet or a tarpaulin draped
L11 1660 over it. These shapes might have been mad, but there was no telling.
L11 1670 They were all completely shrouded. The equipment was solid and heavy
L11 1690 and in good condition. Everything was orderly and it seemed to be
L11 1700 arranged for the workman's comfort, convenience and efficiency. There
L11 1710 were tools about but they were neatly kept. There was no confusion
L11 1720 and no litter. Supplies of sheet metal were neatly stacked in bins.
L12 0010 ANDY DID NOT SEE the newspapers the next day. Someone on his staff-
L12 0020 he suspected it was Ed Thornburg- intercepted them and for
L12 0030 this Andy was grateful.   He finally fell asleep around six in
L12 0040 the morning with the aid of a sleeping capsule, a crutch he rarely used,
L12 0050 and didn't awaken until early afternoon. Memory flooded him the
L12 0060 instant he opened his eyes and the sick feeling knotted his stomach.
L12 0070    Outside his window bloomed a beautiful summer day. Presumably
L12 0080 the same sun was shining upon little Drew also, and those who had kidnapped
L12 0090 him. But where? It was still a very big world, despite all
L12 0100 the modern cant to the contrary.   Hub was sitting in a chair that
L12 0110 blocked the hall door. He was dozing, perhaps the only sleep he'd
L12 0120 gotten. He snapped to alertness at Andy's entrance. "Sorry,
L12 0130 Mr& Paxton. Nothing new. Lot of people waiting to see you, though".
L12 0140    "Reporters"?   "Our own people. Questions
L12 0150 about the show tonight". Hub picked up the telephone. "Shall I
L12 0160 let them know you're awake"?   "I suppose. How's Lissa,
L12 0170 do you know"?   Hub considered. "Some better. She's
L12 0180 got plenty of guts, Mr& Paxton. You want me to call her"?
L12 0190    "She expecting me to"? Hub shook his head so Andy told
L12 0200 him not to bother. The only reason for contacting Lissa was to comfort
L12 0210 or to be comforted. He could not manage the former or expect the
L12 0220 latter; they had nothing to give to each other. The omission might
L12 0230 look peculiar to outsiders, but Andy could not bring himself to go through
L12 0240 the motions simply for the sake of appearances.   He had little
L12 0250 time to himself, anyway. As the afternoon sped toward evening,
L12 0260 the suite saw a steady procession of Paxton aides pass in and out, each
L12 0270 with his own special problem. Thornburg arrived with the writers.
L12 0280 They had spent the morning revising the act, eliminating all the gay
L12 0290 songs, patter and dancing with a view of the best public relations. What
L12 0300 remained lacked the original verve but it was at least dignified,
L12 0310 as befitting the tragic circumstances. Raymond Fox reported that the
L12 0320 orchestra had hastily rehearsed "Cradle Song" in case it was needed.
L12 0330 Charlie Marble was back and forth on several occasions, first
L12 0340 to confer with Andy on the advisability of cancelling the Las Vegas
L12 0350 engagement- they decided it was wise- and later to announce that
L12 0360 a prominent comedian, also an agency client, had agreed to fill the casino's
L12 0370 open date. And once Bake slipped in, pale and drawn, last
L12 0380 night's liquor still on his breath with some of today's added to it.
L12 0390 He asked if there was anything he could do. Andy invented a job to
L12 0400 keep him busy, sending him ahead to El Dorado to supervise last minute
L12 0410 arrangements.   But from Rocco Vecchio, they heard nothing.
L12 0420    At last it was time to depart. Hub, nosing about, spotted
L12 0430 reporters in the lobby, so Andy was hustled away quietly through the
L12 0440 hotel's service entrance in a strange car which Hub had procured somewhere.
L12 0450    They succeeded in eluding the curious at the hotel, but
L12 0460 there was no chance of avoiding them at the nightclub. El Dorado
L12 0470 was surrounded by a mob. They overflowed the parking lot, making progress
L12 0480 by automobile difficult. Long before he reached the protection of
L12 0490 the stage door, Andy was recognized. Word of his arrival spread through
L12 0500 the crowd like a brushfire. They surged around him, fingers pointing,
L12 0510 eyes prying. It was not a hostile gathering but Andy sensed the
L12 0520 difference from last night's hero-worshippers. They had come not
L12 0530 to admire but to observe.   "It's worse inside", Thornburg
L12 0540 informed Andy. "Skolman's jammed in every table he could find.
L12 0550 Under the heading of it's an ill wind, et cetera".   Backstage
L12 0560 was tomblike by contrast. Andy's co-workers kept their distance,
L12 0570 awed by the tragedy. But in his dressing room was a large bouquet
L12 0580 and a card that read, "We're with you all the way". It was signed
L12 0590 by everyone in the troupe. Andy couldn't help but be touched.
L12 0600 He instructed Shirl Winter to compose a note of thanks to be posted
L12 0610 on the call board.   Bake was waiting to report that Lou DuVol
L12 0620 had been sobered up to the point where he could function efficiently.
L12 0630 Andy gathered that this had been no small accomplishment. Bake himself
L12 0640 looked better; any kind of job was better than brooding.
L12 0650    Andy told him, "Bake, I wish you'd talk to Skolman, see if
L12 0660 some kind of p& a& system can be rigged up outside. It's just barely
L12 0670 possible with this crowd that the kidnapper wasn't able to get
L12 0680 a table. I wouldn't want him to miss the message".   "I'll
L12 0690 try. Skolman isn't going to like it much, though, giving away
L12 0700 what he should be selling".   Skolman wasn't the only one who
L12 0710 didn't care for Andy's scheme. A short time later, Lieutenant
L12 0720 Bonner stomped into the dressing room. "I got a bone to pick with
L12 0730 you, Mr& Paxton. It's those damn loudspeakers".   Andy
L12 0740 rolled up the revised script he had been studying. "What about them"?
L12 0750    "They're going to louse me up good. My men have been
L12 0770 here all afternoon, setting up for this thing". Bonner explained
L12 0780 that, with the nightclub's cooperation, the police had occupied El
L12 0790 Dorado like a battlefield. Motion picture cameras had been installed
L12 0800 to film the audience, the reservation list was being checked out name
L12 0810 by name, and a special detail was already at work in the parking lot
L12 0820 scrutinizing automobiles for a possible lead. However, it was virtually
L12 0830 impossible to screen the mob outside, even if Bonner had manpower
L12 0840 available for the purpose. "I want you to have the speakers taken
L12 0850 out".   Andy sighed. "Seems like we're never going to see
L12 0860 eye to eye, Lieutenant. Didn't they tell you what I wanted the p&
L12 0870 a& system for"?   "Sure, I know. But it's such a
L12 0880 long shot"-   "No longer than yours. What do you expect
L12 0890 to get tonight, anyway? You think somebody is going to stand up in
L12 0900 the audience and make guilty faces? Or have a sign on his car that
L12 0905 says, 'Here
L12 0910 Comes the Paxton Kidnapper'"? Andy crumbled the
L12 0920 script in his fist. "I can't stop you from doing what you think
L12 0930 is right. But don't try to stop me, either".   "Someday",
L12 0940 Bonner said, "you're going to ask us for help. I can hardly
L12 0950 wait".   "What you don't understand is that I'm asking
L12 0960 for it now".   But Bonner departed, still full of ill will. He
L12 0970 had gotten stuck with a job too big for his imagination; he had to
L12 0980 cling to routine, tested procedures. To act otherwise would be to admit
L12 0990 his helplessness. But, admit or not, Bonner was helpless. The
L12 1000 crime showed too much planning, the kidnappers appeared too proficient
L12 1010 to be caught by a checklist.   Andy's performance was scheduled
L12 1020 for eleven o'clock. He stalled for a half-hour longer, hoping to
L12 1030 hear something from Vecchio about the ransom money. Bake and Shirl
L12 1040 Winter, on separate telephones, could not reach him at any conceivable
L12 1050 location in Los Angeles, nor could they secure any clear-cut information
L12 1070 regarding his efforts.   Bake cursed. "The sweaty bastard's
L12 1080 probably halfway to Peru with our money by now". When no one
L12 1090 smiled, he felt constrained to add, "Just kidding, natch".
L12 1100    Thornburg popped in to advise, "Andy, Skolman's sending up
L12 1110 smoke signals. You about ready"?   "What's he complaining
L12 1120 about"? Bake asked. "They're drinking, aren't they"?
L12 1130    "No. We got a bunch of sippers out there tonight. I guess
L12 1140 nobody wants to pass out and miss anything". Thornburg added in a
L12 1150 lower voice but Andy overheard, "They act more like a jury than an
L12 1160 audience".   Andy said, "Well, I guess we can't wait any
L12 1170 longer. Hub, you stick by the stage door. If Rock shows up during
L12 1180 the number- or you hear anything- give me the signal".
L12 1190 Shirl Winter said, "I'll stay on the phone, Mr& Paxton. There's
L12 1200 a couple of call-backs I can work on".   "You're
L12 1210 a sweetheart- but leave one line open. He may try to phone us". Andy
L12 1220 passed into the corridor, their "good lucks"! following him.
L12 1230 It was what they said before every performance but tonight it sounded
L12 1240 different, as if he really needed it.   They were right. The
L12 1250 act, cut to shreds and hastily patched together during the afternoon,
L12 1260 had not been rehearsed sufficiently by anyone. The result had nothing
L12 1270 of the polish, pace or cohesion of the previous night. Here's where
L12 1280 luck would normally step in. But this was no ordinary show and Andy
L12 1290 knew it. Whether he sang well or badly had nothing to do with it.
L12 1300 The audience had come not to be entertained but to judge. Twenty-four
L12 1310 hours had changed him from a performer to a freak.   Within this
L12 1320 framework, what followed was strained, even macabre. Eliminating
L12 1330 the patter and the upbeat numbers left little but blues and other songs
L12 1340 of equal melancholy. The effect was as depressing as a gravestone,
L12 1350 the applause irresolute and short-lived. Yet Andy plowed ahead, mouthing
L12 1360 the inconsequential words as if they possessed real meaning, and
L12 1370 gradually his listeners warmed to him. Their clapping grew more fervent;
L12 1380 the evening was still not beyond salvaging, not as a show but for
L12 1390 him as a person.   The worst was yet to come.   As Andy
L12 1400 reached the finale of his act, a subdued commotion backstage drew his
L12 1410 attention to the wings. Rocco Vecchio- a perspiring, haggard Vecchio-
L12 1420 was standing there, flanked by two men in the uniforms of armored
L12 1430 transport guards. Vecchio was nodding and pointing at the
L12 1440 large suitcase he held.   Andy felt his heart thud heavily with
L12 1450 relief. He waved at Fox to cut off the finale introduction. The music
L12 1460 died away discordantly. He drew a deep breath. "Ladies and gentlemen,
L12 1470 in place of my regular closing number tonight, I'd like to sing
L12 1480 something of a different nature for you. Ray, if you please- the
L12 1490 'Cradle Song'".   He sensed rather than heard the gasp
L12 1500 that swept across the audience. Nor could he blame them. This particular
L12 1510 song at this particular time could only be interpreted as the ultimate
L12 1520 in bad taste, callous exploitation beyond the bounds of decency.
L12 1530 Having no choice, he plunged into it, anyway, holding onto the microphone
L12 1540 for support.   "Lullaby and goodnight **h"   His
L12 1550 voice shook. For the first time in his life he forgot the lyrics midway
L12 1560 through and had to cover up by humming the rest. He wondered if the
L12 1570 audience would let him finish.   They did; though contemptuous,
L12 1580 they were still polite. But when he was finally through, their scorn
L12 1590 was made apparent. Someone clapped tentatively then quickly stopped.
L12 1600 Otherwise, the silence was complete. As the lights came up, Andy
L12 1610 could see that a number of patrons were already on their way toward
L12 1620 the exit.   He stumbled off-stage. "My God", he muttered.
L12 1630 "My God".   Hub was there to support him. "It's okay,
L12 1640 Mr& Paxton. The money's here, all of it".   At this moment,
L12 1650 all he could think of was what he'd been forced to undergo. "Did
L12 1660 you hear them? Do you know what they think of me"?
L12 1670    "Bunch of damn jerks", Hub growled. "Who needs them"?
L12 1680    Thornburg patted his arm. "Sure, Andy, it'll be all right.
L12 1690 Nothing broken that can't be mended". The words were hollow. Thornburg
L12 1700 knew, better than any of them, that a public image was as fragile
L12 1710 as Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's
L12 1720 men **h   Vecchio shouldered in. "I got it, Andy. God knows
L12 1730 how, but I got it. You'll never believe the places I've been
L12 1740 today. I practically had to sign your life away, you'll probably fire
L12 1750 me for some of the deals I had to go for, but"-   Andy
L12 1760 nodded dully. "It doesn't matter, Rock. We've done our part".
L12 1770    He clutched that knowledge to him as he returned to his dressing
L12 1780 room. The usual congratulatory crowd was conspicuously absent;
L12 1790 the place had the air of a morgue. Andy had no desire to linger himself
L12 1800 but Hub reported that the mob outside was still large despite the
L12 1810 efforts of the police to disperse them.
L13 0010    His son watched until he got as far as the hall, almost out of
L13 0020 sight, then hurried after. "Dad. Dad, wait".   He caught
L13 0030 up with the old man in the living room. Old man Arthur had put down
L13 0040 the suitcase to open the front door.   "Just this one favor,
L13 0050 Dad. Just don't tell Ferguson that crazy opinion of yours".
L13 0070    "Why not"? The old man gave the room a stare in leaving; under
L13 0080 the scraggly brows the pale old eyes burned with a bitter memory.
L13 0090 "It's the truth".   "The Bartlett girl was killed by
L13 0100 Mr& Dronk's son. Rossi and Ferguson have been across the street,
L13 0110 talking to the kid. They've found some sort of new evidence, a bundle
L13 0120 of clothes or something, and it must link the kid even stronger
L13 0130 to the crime. Why won't you accept facts? The two kids were together
L13 0140 a lot, they were having some kind of teen-age affair- God knows
L13 0150 how far that had gone- and the kid's crippled. He limps, and the
L13 0160 man who hit you and took the cane, <he> limped. My God, how much
L13 0170 more do you want"?   His father looked him over closely. "You
L13 0180 sound like an old woman. You should have gone to work today, 'stead
L13 0190 of sneaking around spying on the Dronk house".   "Now,
L13 0200 see here"-   "The trouble with you", old man Arthur
L13 0210 began, and then checked himself. Young Mrs& Arthur had opened the
L13 0220 oven and there was a drifting odor of hot biscuits. The old man opened
L13 0230 the door and stepped out into the sunlight. "Isn't enough time
L13 0240 to go into it", he finished, and slammed the door in his son's face.
L13 0250 ## Mrs& Holden turned from the window draperies. "They
L13 0260 found something else up there", she said half-aloud to the empty room.
L13 0270 "They took it away, overalls or something". She walked restlessly
L13 0280 across the room, then back to the windows. "Now they've gone,
L13 0290 they didn't come back, and they didn't arrest that Dronk boy".
L13 0300 She stood frowning and chewing her lip. She was wearing a brown cotton
L13 0310 dress, cut across the hips in a way that was supposed to make her
L13 0320 look slimmer, a yoke set into the skirt and flaring pleats below. She
L13 0330 smoothed the skirt, sat down, then stood up and went back to the windows.
L13 0340 "Why on earth did I send him off to work? There was excuse
L13 0350 enough to keep him home **h that young Mr& Arthur's still over
L13 0360 there".   With sudden energy, she went to the phone and rang
L13 0370 Holden's office and asked for him.   "I think you had better
L13 0380 come home".   "Mae, we're so busy. Mr& Crosson's
L13 0390 been on everybody's neck, an order he expected didn't come through
L13 0400 and he's"-   "I don't care. I want you here. I'm
L13 0410 all alone and certain things are going on that look very ominous. I
L13 0420 need someone to go out and find out what's happening".   "But
L13 0430 I couldn't do that, even if I were home"! His voice grew
L13 0440 high and trembling. "I can't be underfoot every time those cops turn
L13 0450 around! They'll **h they'll think <I> did something".
L13 0460    He couldn't see the grin that split her mouth; the teeth that
L13 0470 shone into the phone were like a shark's. "You'll just have
L13 0480 to risk it. You can't wander along in the dark, can you? I'd
L13 0490 think that you **h even more than I **h would be wondering what they're
L13 0500 up to. They found some clothes", she tossed in.   "What"?
L13 0510    Deliberately, she ignored the yelp. "Also, that Mr&
L13 0520 Ferguson was here. I guess he wants to ask you some questions.
L13 0530 I stalled him off. He doesn't expect you until five".   "Then
L13 0540 I'd better wait until five".   "No **h o **h o. Come
L13 0550 home right away". She slapped the receiver into its holder and stepped
L13 0560 away. Her eyes were bright with anticipation.   In his office,
L13 0570 Mr& Holden replaced the phone slowly. He rose from his chair.
L13 0580 He had to cough then; he went to the window and choked there with
L13 0590 the fresh breeze on his face. He got his hat out of the closet. For
L13 0600 a moment he thought of going into Crosson's office to explain that
L13 0610 he had to leave, but there was now such a pain in his chest, such a
L13 0620 pounding in his head, that he decided to let it go. He passed the receptionist
L13 0630 in the outer office, muttering, "I've got to go out for
L13 0640 a little while". Let her call Crosson if she wanted to, let Crosson
L13 0650 raise the roof or even can him, he didn't care.   He got into
L13 0660 the car. Putting the key into the switch, pressing the accelerator
L13 0670 with his foot, putting the car into reverse, seemed vast endeavors almost
L13 0680 beyond the ability of his shaking body. Once out in the street,
L13 0690 the traffic was a gadfly maze in which he wandered stricken. When he
L13 0700 turned into the highway that led to the outskirts of the city and then
L13 0710 rose toward home, he had to pull over to the curb and wait for a few
L13 0720 minutes, sucking in air and squinting and blinking his eyes to clear
L13 0730 them of tears.   What on earth was in Mae's mind, that she wanted
L13 0740 him up there spying on what the cops were doing? What did she
L13 0750 think he could do?   He tried to ignore what his own common sense
L13 0760 told him, but it wasn't possible; her motives were too blatant.
L13 0770 She wanted him to get into trouble. She wanted the police to notice
L13 0780 him, suspect him. She was going to keep on scheming, poking, prodding,
L13 0790 suggesting, and dictating until the cops got up enough interest in
L13 0800 him to go back to their old neighborhood and ask questions. And he knew
L13 0810 in that moment, with a cold sinking of despair, a dying of old hopes,
L13 0820 that Mae had spread some kind of word there among the neighbors.
L13 0830 Nothing bald, open; but enough. They'd have some suspicions to repeat
L13 0840 to the police.   Though his inner thoughts cringed at it,
L13 0850 he forced himself to think back, recreating the scene in which Mae claimed
L13 0860 to have caught him molesting the child.   It hadn't amounted
L13 0870 to anything. There had been nothing evil or dirty in his intentions.
L13 0880    A second scene flashed before his mind, the interior of
L13 0890 the garage at the new house and the young Bartlett girl turning startled
L13 0900 to meet him, the dim dark and the sudden confusion and fear and then
L13 0910 the brightness as Mae had clicked on the light.   Suppose the
L13 0920 cops somehow got hold of <that?>   Well, it hadn't been
L13 0930 what it seemed, he'd had no idea the girl was in there. He hadn't
L13 0940 touched her.   And when he came to examine the scene, there was
L13 0950 a certain staginess to it, it had the smell of planning, and a swift
L13 0960 suspicion darted into his mind.   Too monstrous, of course. Mae
L13 0970 wouldn't have plotted a thing like that. It was just that little
L13 0980 accidents played into her hands. Like this murder.   He leaned
L13 0990 on the wheel, clutching it, staring into the sunlight, and tried to bring
L13 1000 order into his thoughts. He felt light-headed and sick. There was
L13 1010 no use wandering off into a territory of utter nightmare. Mae was his
L13 1020 wife. She was married to him for better or for worse. She wouldn't
L13 1030 be wilfully planning his destruction.   But she was. She was.
L13 1040    Even as the conviction of truth roared through him, shattering
L13 1050 his last hope of safety, he was reaching to release the hand brake,
L13 1060 to head up the road for home, doing her bidding. He drove, and the
L13 1070 road wobbled, familiar scenes crept past on either side. He came to a
L13 1080 stretch of old orange groves, the trees dead, some of them uprooted,
L13 1090 and then there was an outlying shopping area, and tract houses. He had
L13 1100 the feeling that he should abandon the car and run off somewhere to
L13 1110 hide. But he couldn't imagine where. There was really no place to
L13 1120 go, finally, except home to Mae.   At the gate he slowed, looking
L13 1130 around. Cooper was beside his car, on the curb at the right, just
L13 1140 standing there morosely; he didn't even look up. Behind him on the
L13 1150 steps of the little office sat old man Arthur; he was straight,
L13 1160 something angry in his attitude, as if he might be waiting to report
L13 1170 something. Holden stepped on the gas.   A new idea drifted in from
L13 1180 nowhere. He could go to the police. He could tell them his fears
L13 1190 of being involved, he could explain what had happened in the old neighborhood
L13 1200 and how Mae had misunderstood and how she had held it over him-
L13 1210 the scene was complete in his mind at the moment, even to his
L13 1211 own jerkings
L13 1220 and snivelings, and Ferguson's silent patience. He could throw
L13 1230 himself on the mercy of the Police Department.   It wasn't
L13 1240 what Mae would want him to do, though. He was sure of this. Once
L13 1250 he had abandoned himself to the very worst, once he had quieted all
L13 1260 the dragons of worry and suspense, there wouldn't be very much for
L13 1270 Mae to do. At that moment, Holden almost slammed on the brakes to go
L13 1280 back to Cooper and ask if Ferguson was about.   It would be
L13 1290 such a relief.   What was that old sign, supposed to be painted
L13 1300 over a door somewhere, <Abandon hope, all ye who enter here?>
L13 1310    Why, Holden said to himself, surprised at his own sudden insight,
L13 1320 I'll bet some of those people who enter are just as happy as can
L13 1330 be. They've worried, they've lain awake nights, they've shook
L13 1340 at the slightest footstep, they've pictured their own destruction, and
L13 1350 now it's all over and they can give up. Sure, they're giving up
L13 1360 hope. Hand in hand with hope went things like terror and apprehension.
L13 1370 <Good-bye>. Holden waved a hand at the empty street. <Glad to
L13 1380 see you go>.   He drove into the paved space before the garage
L13 1390 and got out, slamming the car door. He looked up and down the street.
L13 1400 If Ferguson's car had been in sight, Holden would have walked
L13 1410 directly to it.   He went to the front door and opened it and looked
L13 1420 in.   Mae entered the room from the hallway to the kitchen.
L13 1430 She had a cup of something steaming, coffee perhaps, in one hand, a
L13 1440 fresh piece of toast in the other. She stood there, watching Holden
L13 1450 come in, and she put the piece of toast in her mouth and bit off one corner
L13 1460 with a huge chomp of her white teeth.   "Mae"-
L13 1470    "I've been thinking", she said, swallowing the toast. "Didn't
L13 1480 you have an old pair of painting overalls in the garage? You
L13 1490 used them that time you painted the porch at our other house. And then
L13 1500 you wiped up some grease".   She had caught him off guard,
L13 1510 no preparation, nothing certain but that ahead lay some kind of disaster.
L13 1520 "No. Wait a minute. What do you"-   "I've been
L13 1530 looking for them, and they're gone. I'm sure they were in the garage
L13 1540 up until a couple of days ago. Or even yesterday. You used to paint
L13 1550 in them, and then you just took them for rags. The police have them
L13 1560 now".   "I don't remember any overalls at all".
L13 1570    "They were all faded. Worn through at the knees". She stood sipping
L13 1580 and chewing and watching. "Green paint, wasn't it? Well,
L13 1590 I'm not sure of the color. But you had them".   "Mae,
L13 1600 sit down. Put down the cup of coffee. Tell me what this is all about".
L13 1610    She shook her head. She took another bite of toast. Holden
L13 1620 noticed almost absently how she chewed, how the whole side of her
L13 1630 cheek moved, a slab of fat that extended down into her neck. "My goodness,
L13 1640 you ought to remember if I do. You're going to have to go
L13 1650 to the police and explain what happened. Tell them the truth **h or
L13 1660 something **h before they come here".   A seeping coldness entered
L13 1670 Holden's being; his nerves seemed frost-bitten down to the tips
L13 1680 of his tingling fingers and his spine felt stiff and glass-like, liable
L13 1690 to break like an icicle at any moment. "I've never owned any
L13 1700 painting overalls.
L14 0010 A man with a sketch pad in hand sat with a large pink woman in a small
L14 0020 office at the end of a long, dim corridor and made pencil lines on paper
L14 0030 and said, "Is this more like it, Mrs& MacReady? Or are
L14 0040 the eyebrows more like this"? When he had finished with that, he
L14 0050 would go to another part of the hotel and say much the same things to
L14 0060 someone else, most probably a busboy. "Begin to look like him now,
L14 0070 would you say? Different about the mouth, huh? More like this,
L14 0080 maybe"?   Men blew dust on objects in a room on the seventeenth
L14 0090 floor of the Hotel Dumont and blew it off again, and did the same
L14 0100 in a tiny, almost airless room in a tenement in the West Forties.
L14 0110 And men also used vacuum cleaners in both rooms, sucking dust up once
L14 0120 more.   Men from the Third Detective District, Eighteenth Precinct,
L14 0130 had the longest, the most tedious, job. At the Hotel Dumont
L14 0140 there had, at the time in issue, been twenty-three overnighters, counting
L14 0150 couples as singular. These included, as one, Mr& and Mrs&
L14 0160 Anthony Payne, who had checked in a little after noon the day before,
L14 0170 and had not checked out together. But Gardner Willings was not
L14 0180 included; he had been at the Dumont for almost a week. There was,
L14 0190 of course, no special reason to believe that the man or woman they sought
L14 0200 had stayed only overnight at the hotel. The twenty-three (or twenty-two
L14 0210 with the Paynes themselves omitted) provided merely a place to
L14 0220 start, and their identification was the barest of starts. With names
L14 0230 and addresses listed, verification came next. It would take time;
L14 0240 it would, almost inevitably, trouble some water. ("I certainly was
L14 0250 not at the Dumont last night and my husband couldn't have been. He's
L14 0260 in Boston. Of <course> he's in"-)   The Hotel King
L14 0270 Arthur across the street provided almost twice as many problems.
L14 0280 The King Arthur offered respectable and convenient lodgings to people
L14 0290 from the suburbs who wanted to see a show and didn't want- heaven
L14 0300 knew didn't want!- to lunge anxiously through crowded streets
L14 0310 to railroad stations and, at odd hours of night, drive from smaller stations
L14 0320 to distant homes, probably through rain or, in November, something
L14 0330 worse. The King Arthur was less expensive than the Dumont. The
L14 0340 King Arthur had fifty-four overnighters, again counting rooms rather
L14 0350 than people.   Check the overnighters out. Failing to find
L14 0360 what was wanted, as was most likely, check out other guests, with special-
L14 0370 but not exclusive- attention to those with rooms on the street.
L14 0380 (Anyone active enough can reach a roof, wherever his room may be.) And
L14 0390 know, while all this went on, that there was no real reason to suppose
L14 0400 that the murderer had been a guest in either hotel. It was not even
L14 0410 certain the shot had been fired from either hotel. There were other
L14 0420 roofs, less convenient but not impossible. It is dull business, detecting,
L14 0430 and hard on feet.   There was also the one salient question
L14 0440 to ask, and ask widely: Did you notice anything out of the way?
L14 0450 Like, for example, a man carrying a twenty-two rifle, probably with
L14 0460 a telescopic sight attached?   There was, of course, no hope
L14 0470 it really would be that simple. The sniper, whether psychopathic marksman
L14 0480 or murderer by intent, would hardly have walked to his vantage point
L14 0490 with rifle over shoulder, whistling a marching tune. Anybody carrying
L14 0500 anything that might hide a rifle? Long thin suitcase? Or long
L14 0510 fat suitcase, for that matter? Shrugs met that, from room clerks,
L14 0520 from bellhops. Who measures? But nothing, it appeared, long enough
L14 0530 to attract attention. Cases, say, for musical instruments? None
L14 0540 noted at the Dumont. Several at the King Arthur. A combo was staying
L14 0550 there. And had been for a week. Anything else? Anything at
L14 0560 all? Shrugs met that.   (Detective Pearson, Eighteenth Precinct,
L14 0570 thought for a time he might be on to something. A refuse bin at
L14 0580 the Dumont turned up a florist's box- a very long box for very
L14 0590 long-stemmed flowers. Traces of oil on green tissue? The lab to check.
L14 0600 The lab: Sorry. No oil.)   Anything at all strange?
L14 0610    Well, a man had tried, at the King Arthur, to register with
L14 0620 an ocelot. At the Dumont, a guest had come in a collapsible wheel chair.
L14 0630 At the King Arthur one guest had had his head heavily bandaged,
L14 0640 and another had a bandaged foot and had walked with crutches. There
L14 0650 had also been a man who must have had St& Vitus or something, because
L14 0660 he kept jerking his head.   As reports dribbled in, William
L14 0670 Weigand tossed them into the centrifuge which had become his head.
L14 0680 Mullins came in. There was no sign of Mrs& Lauren Payne at her
L14 0690 house on Nod Road, Ridgefield, Connecticut. The house was modern,
L14 0700 large, on five acres. Must have cost plenty. The State cops would
L14 0710 check from time to time; pass word when there was word to pass. Weigand
L14 0720 tossed this news into the centrifuge. Sort things out, damn it.
L14 0730 Sort out the next move.   Try to forget motive for the moment.
L14 0740 Consider opportunity. Only those actually with Payne when he was shot,
L14 0750 or who had left the party within not more than five minutes (make
L14 0760 five arbitrary) positively had none. The Norths; Hathaway, Jerry's
L14 0770 publicity director; Livingston Birdwood, producer of <Uprising>.
L14 0780 They had been with Payne when he was shot, could not therefore
L14 0790 have shot him from above.   Take Gardner Willings. He had
L14 0800 left after the scuffle; had been seen to leave. He would have had ample
L14 0810 time to go into a blind somewhere and wait his prey. Consider him
L14 0820 seriously, therefore? Intangibles entered, then- hunches which
L14 0830 felt like facts. Willings would ambush, certainly; Willings undoubtedly
L14 0840 had. Willings was, presumably, a better than average shot. But-
L14 0850 hunch, now- Willings would not ambush anything which went on two
L14 0860 legs instead of four. Because, if for no other reason, Willings would
L14 0870 never for a moment suppose he was not bigger, tougher, than anything
L14 0880 else that went on two legs. Ambushes are laid by those who doubt themselves,
L14 0890 as any man may against a tiger.   Faith Constable had
L14 0900 had to "go on" from the party and had, presumably, gone on. To
L14 0910 be checked out further. Forget motive? No, motive is a part of fact.
L14 0920 Nobody in his right mind punishes a quarter-century-old dereliction.
L14 0930 Grudges simply do not keep that well in a sane mind. Faith Constable
L14 0940 had accomplished much in a quarter of a century. Jeopardize it now
L14 0950 to correct so old a wrong? Bill shook his head. Also, he thought,
L14 0960 I doubt if she could hit the side of a barn with a shotgun.
L14 0970 Lauren herself? She had left the party early, pleading a headache.
L14 0980 No lack of opportunity, presuming she had a gun. She might, conceivably,
L14 0990 have brought one in in a large-enough suitcase. (Check on the
L14 1000 Payne luggage.) She might now have taken it away again. Motive- her
L14 1010 husband wandering? Bitter, unreasoning jealousy? Heaven knew
L14 1020 it happened and hell knew it too. But- it happened, almost always,
L14 1030 among the primitive and, usually, among the very young. (Call it mentally
L14 1040 young; call it retarded.) There was nothing to indicate that Lauren
L14 1050 Payne was primitive. She did not move in primitive circles. She
L14 1060 was young, but not that young.   It occurred to Bill Weigand
L14 1070 that he was, on a hunch basis, eliminating a good many. He reminded
L14 1080 himself that all eliminations were tentative. He also reminded himself
L14 1090 that he had an unusual number of possibilities.   The Masons,
L14 1100 mother or son, or mother <and> son? Opportunity was obvious. Motive.
L14 1110 Here, too, the cause to hate lay well back in the years. But
L14 1120 bitterness had more cause to remain, even increasingly to corrode. With
L14 1130 the boy, particularly. The boy had, apparently- if Mrs& MacReady
L14 1140 was right in what she had told Mullins- only in recent months
L14 1150 been forced to give up college, to work as a busboy. Seeing the man
L14 1160 he blamed for this made much of- youth and bitterness and-
L14 1170    Bill picked up the telephone; got Mullins.   "Send out a
L14 1180 pickup on Mrs& Mason and the boy when you've got enough to go on",
L14 1190 Bill said. "Right"?   Mullins would do.   A
L14 1200 man named Lars Simon, playwright-director, had expressed a wish that
L14 1210 Anthony Payne drop dead. He would say, of course, that he had not
L14 1220 really had any such wish; that what he had said was no more than one
L14 1230 of those things one does say, lightly, meaning nothing. Which probably
L14 1240 would turn out to be true; which he obviously had to be given the
L14 1250 opportunity to say.   A man named Blaine Smythe, with "~y"
L14 1260 and "~e" but pronounced without them, had been fired at Payne's
L14 1270 insistence. He was also, if Pam North was right, a closer acquaintance
L14 1280 of Lauren Payne's than she, now, was inclined to admit.
L14 1290 He might deny the latter; would certainly deny any connection between
L14 1300 the two things, or any connection of either with murder. He would
L14 1310 have to be given the opportunity.   Mullins? It was evident
L14 1320 that Mullins was the man to go. It was evident that a captain should
L14 1330 remain at his desk, directing with a firm hand and keeping a firm seat.
L14 1340 Bill Weigand was good and tired of the wall opposite, and the crack
L14 1350 in the plaster. Let Mullins keep the firm seat; let Stein. #@#
L14 1360 When Siamese cats are intertwined it is difficult to tell where
L14 1370 one leaves off and another begins. Stilts and Shadow, on Pam's
L14 1380 bed, appeared to be one cat- rather large, as Siamese cats go, and,
L14 1400 to be sure, having two heads and two tails. On the other hand, they,
L14 1410 or it, seemed to have no legs whatever. Pamela North said, "Hi",
L14 1420 to her cats, and added that proper cats met their humans at the door.
L14 1430 Of four dark brown ears, one twitched slightly at this. "All right",
L14 1440 Pam said. "I know it isn't dinnertime".   But at
L14 1450 this the one too-large cat suddenly became two cats, stretching. Shadow,
L14 1460 the more talkative, began at once to talk, her voice piteous. Stilts,
L14 1470 a more direct cat, leaped from the bed and trotted briskly toward
L14 1480 the kitchen. Shadow looked surprised, wailed, and trotted after her.
L14 1490 The hell it isn't dinnertime, two waving tails told Pam North.
L14 1500    It was not, whatever tale was told by tails. Martha presumably
L14 1510 would cope. She might be firm. It was most unlikely that she would
L14 1520 be firm. They want to be fat cats, Pam thought, and lighted a cigarette
L14 1530 and leaned back on a chaise and considered pulling her thoughts together.
L14 1540 After a time, it occurred to her that her thoughts were not worth
L14 1550 the trouble. A vague feeling that Anthony Payne had had it coming
L14 1560 was hardly a thought and was, in any event, reprehensible. Had Faith
L14 1570 Constable's explanation of her confidence, so uninvited, been a
L14 1580 little thin? That was more like a thought, but not a great deal more.
L14 1590 Had that tall dark boy, carrying trays too heavy for him, found what
L14 1600 he might have considered adulation of a man he probably hated more
L14 1610 than he could bear? And possessed himself- how?- of a rifle
L14 1620 and killed? Pam found she had no answers; had only a hope. The poor
L14 1630 kid- the poor, frail kid. Some people have luck and some have no
L14 1640 luck and that, whatever people who prefer order say, is the size of
L14 1650 it. The poor, unlucky-   The telephone rang. Pam realized, to
L14 1660 her surprise, that she had been almost dozing. At four o'clock in
L14 1670 the afternoon. Two martinis for lunch- that was the trouble. I ought
L14 1680 to remember. Don't pretend. You do remember. You just- "Hello?
L14 1690 Yes, this is she? What"?   The voice had music
L14 1700 in it. Even with words coming too fast, they came on the music of the
L14 1710 voice.   "I said I would", Pam said. "They won't talk
L14 1720 about who gave the information. Not unless they have to. They don't,
L14 1730 Mrs& Constable. Not unless they have"-   She was
L14 1740 interrupted.   "Call this a cry for help", Faith Constable
L14 1750 said.
L15 0009 "Through a door conveniently unlocked", Madden supplemented.
L15 0010    "That damn door", said the police chief.   "A gift horse
L15 0020 to be viewed with suspicion". Madden's dark face wore a meditative
L15 0030 look. "If there was collusion between an outside murderer and
L15 0040 a member of the household it would be an elementary precaution to check
L15 0050 on the door later. And it makes a very poor red herring for an inside
L15 0060 job. Much better to break a cellar window".   "Don't
L15 0070 forget, there was the hope it would pass for a natural death", Pauling
L15 0080 reminded him.   "Well, with a house as big as that there
L15 0090 must be at least one cellar window that wouldn't be noticed right away
L15 0100 unless there was a police investigation".   "Yeah. And a
L15 0110 pane of glass isn't hard to"-   The telephone interrupted
L15 0120 him. He scooped up the receiver and said, "Police chief", into
L15 0130 the mouthpiece, and then, "Oh yes, Mr& Benson. I was hoping I'd
L15 0140 hear from you today".   With his free hand he pulled a pad
L15 0150 and pencil toward him and began to make notes as he listened, saying,
L15 0160 "Uh-huh" and "I see" at intervals.   At last he said,
L15 0170 "Well, thank you for calling, Mr& Benson. Although there was
L15 0180 no doubt in my mind and we've been handling it as one I'm glad
L15 0190 to have it made official".   He hung up. "Coroner", he said
L15 0200 to Madden. "He's just heard from the pathologist who says Mrs&
L15 0210 Meeker apparently died from suffocation". Pauling looked at his
L15 0220 notes. "Many minute hemorrhages in the lungs; particles of lint
L15 0230 and thread in the mouth and nostrils. Scrapings from the bed linen
L15 0240 identical with the lint and thread found in the nasal and oral cavities.
L15 0250 No other cause of death apparent. Trachea clear of mucus and foreign
L15 0260 objects. Brain examined for thrombosis, clot or hemorrhage. No signs
L15 0270 of these, no gross hemorrhage of lungs, heart, brain or stomach".
L15 0280 He paused. "That's about it. Oh, the time of death. The duration
L15 0290 of the digestive process varies, the pathologist says, but the empty
L15 0300 stomach and the findings in the upper gastrointestinal tract indicate
L15 0310 that Mrs& Meeker died several hours after her seven-o'clock
L15 0320 dinner. Probably around midnight, give or take an hour either way".
L15 0330    Pauling paused again. "So there it is", he said. "Not
L15 0340 your problem, of course, unless Johnston and the murderer are one
L15 0350 and the same".   They discussed this possibility. However likely
L15 0360 it was, Pauling said, he couldn't limit himself to it. He had
L15 0370 to look for other prospects, other motives until more conclusive evidence
L15 0380 pointing to Johnston came to light. Madden, with his investigation
L15 0390 centered on the fraud, said that tomorrow he would go to the Bronx
L15 0400 bank through which Mrs& Meeker's checks to Johnston had cleared.
L15 0410    Arthur Williams had to be located, they agreed. He might
L15 0420 have been in collusion with Johnston on the fraud; he might be Mrs&
L15 0430 Meeker's murderer or have played some part in her death. This
L15 0440 was Madden's suggestion; the police chief shook his head over it.
L15 0450 If Arthur Williams was involved in the fraud or the murder, then he
L15 0460 too had another identity. No one the Medfield police had questioned
L15 0470 professed to know any more about him than about Johnston.   Scholarship
L15 0480 applicant? Pauling looked doubtful. Madden explained that
L15 0490 he was thinking of an application sent directly to Mrs& Meeker.
L15 0500 Then he asked to use the phone and called Brian Thayer, who said that
L15 0510 he was just leaving to keep a lunch date but would be home by two
L15 0520 o'clock.   Madden said that he would see him at two and made another
L15 0530 call, this one to Mrs& Meeker's lawyers. Mr& Hohlbein
L15 0540 was out for the day, but Mr& Garth would be free at one-thirty. The
L15 0550 secretary's tone indicated that an appointment at such short notice
L15 0560 was a concession for which Madden should be duly grateful.
L15 0570 He inferred that Hohlbein and Garth were high-priced lawyers.
L15 0580    He had lunch with Pauling. Promptly at one-thirty he entered Hohlbein
L15 0590 and Garth's elegant suite of offices in Medfield's newest
L15 0600 professional building.   He disliked Garth on sight, conservative
L15 0610 clothes and haircut, smile a shade too earnestly boyish for a man
L15 0620 who must be well into his thirties, handclasp too consciously quick and
L15 0630 firm. Youngish man on the make, Madden labeled him, and was ready
L15 0640 to guess that in a correct, not too pushing fashion, the junior partner
L15 0650 of the firm had political ambitions; that Mrs& Garth would be
L15 0660 impeccably suitable as the wife of a rising young lawyer; that there
L15 0670 were three children, two boys and a girl; that she was active in the
L15 0680 Woman's Club and he in Lions, Rotary, and Jaycee; and finally,
L15 0690 that neither of them had harbored an unorthodox opinion since their
L15 0700 wedding day.   Madden knew that he could be completely wrong about
L15 0710 all this, but also knew that he would go right on disliking Garth.
L15 0720    Garth was prepared to be helpful in what he referred to with
L15 0730 fastidious distaste as this unfortunate Johnston affair, which would
L15 0740 not, he said more than once, have ever come about if Mrs& Meeker
L15 0750 had only seen fit to consult Mr& Hohlbein or him about it.
L15 0760 Madden regretted not being able to find fault with so true a statement.
L15 0770 He asked to see a copy of Mrs& Meeker's will.   Garth
L15 0780 brought one out.   The date, October 8, 1957, immediately caught
L15 0800 the inspector's eye. "Fairly recent", he remarked. "Was she
L15 0810 in the habit of making new wills"?   "Oh no. She had reason
L15 0820 to change the one she made right after Mr& Meeker's death. Her
L15 0830 estate had grown considerably. She wanted to make a more equitable
L15 0840 distribution of it among the groups that would benefit the most; particularly
L15 0850 the scholarship fund. At the time the will was drawn Mr&
L15 0860 Hohlbein mentioned to me how mentally alert she seemed for her age,
L15 0870 knowing just what changes she wanted made and so forth".   Garth
L15 0880 hesitated. "Mr& Hohlbein and I have noticed some lapses since,
L15 0890 though. Most of them this past year, I'd say. Even two or three
L15 0900 years ago I doubt that she'd have become involved in this unfortunate
L15 0910 Johnston affair. She'd have consulted us, you see. She always
L15 0920 did before, and showed the utmost confidence in whatever we advised".
L15 0930    The inspector nodded, doubting this. Mrs& Meeker hadn't
L15 0940 struck him as ready to seek anyone's advise, least of all Garth's.
L15 0950 With her sharp tongue she'd have cut his pompousness to ribbons.
L15 0960 It would have been Hohlbein who handled her affairs.   Madden
L15 0970 settled back to read the will.   He skimmed over the millions
L15 0980 that went to Meeker Park, Medfield Hospital, the civic center,
L15 0990 the Public Health Nursing Association, the library, and so on, pausing
L15 1000 when he came to the scholarship fund. Two millions were added to
L15 1010 what had been set aside for it in Mrs& Meeker's lifetime, and
L15 1020 the proviso made that as long as Brian Thayer continued to discharge
L15 1030 his duties as administrator of the fund to the satisfaction of the board
L15 1040 of trustees (hereinafter appointed by the bank administering the estate)
L15 1050 he was to be retained in his present capacity at a salary commensurate
L15 1060 with the increased responsibilities enlargement of the fund would
L15 1070 entail.   A splendid vote of confidence in Thayer, Madden
L15 1080 reflected. Tenure, too. Very nice for him.   He went on to personal
L15 1090 bequests, a list of names largely unknown to him. Twenty-five thousand
L15 1100 to each of the great-nieces in Oregon (not much to blood relatives
L15 1110 out of millions) ten thousand to this friend and that, five thousand
L15 1120 to another; to Brian Thayer, the sum of ten thousand dollars;
L15 1130 to the Pecks, ten thousand each; to Joan Sheldon the conditional
L15 1140 bequest of ten thousand to be paid to her in the event that she was
L15 1150 still in Mrs& Meeker's employ at the time of the latter's death.
L15 1160 (No additional five thousand for each year after Joan's twenty-first
L15 1170 birthday; Mrs& Meeker hadn't got around to taking care
L15 1180 of that.)   Too bad, Madden thought. Joan Sheldon had earned
L15 1190 the larger bequest.   Mr& Hohlbein was left twenty thousand,
L15 1200 Garth ten. There were no other names Madden recognized. Arthur Williams's
L15 1210 might well have been included, he felt. Mrs& Meeker had
L15 1220 spent a small fortune on a search for him but had made no provision for
L15 1230 him in her will if he should be found after her death, and had never
L15 1240 mentioned his name to her lawyers.   Madden took up this point
L15 1250 with Garth, who shrugged it off. "Old people have their idiosyncrasies".
L15 1260    "This one came a bit high at thirty thousand or more".
L15 1280    "Well, she had a number of them where money was concerned",
L15 1290 Garth said. "Sometimes we'd have trouble persuading her to
L15 1300 make tax-exempt charitable contributions, and I've known her to quarrel
L15 1310 with a plumber over a bill for fixing a faucet; the next moment
L15 1320 she'd put another half million into the scholarship fund or thirty
L15 1330 thousand into something as impractical as this unfortunate Johnston
L15 1340 affair. There was no telling how she'd react to spending money".
L15 1350    Madden inquired next about the audit of the scholarship fund.
L15 1360    There was an annual audit, Garth informed him. No discrepancies
L15 1370 or shortages had ever been found. Brian Thayer was a thoroughly
L15 1380 honest and competent administrator. His salary had reached the ten thousand
L15 1390 mark. His expenses ran another four or five thousand. The lawyer
L15 1400 didn't know him very well although he saw him occasionally at some
L15 1410 dinner party- Thayer, like himself, Madden reflected, was the extra
L15 1420 man so prized by hostesses- and found him easy enough to talk to.
L15 1430 But he didn't play golf, didn't seem to belong to any local clubs-
L15 1440 his work took him away a lot, of course- which probably accounted
L15 1450 for his tendency to keep to himself.   Garth's glance began
L15 1460 to flicker to his watch.   He said that he had already told the
L15 1470 police chief that he didn't know what insurance man had recommended
L15 1480 Johnston to Mrs& Meeker. He would offer no theory to account
L15 1490 for her murder. The whole thing, his manner conveyed, was so far outside
L15 1500 the normal routine of Hohlbein and Garth that it practically demanded
L15 1510 being swept under the rug.   No doubt Mrs& Meeker had
L15 1520 snubbed him many a time and he felt no grief over her passing. Even so,
L15 1530 Madden's dislike of the suave, correct lawyer deepened. It would
L15 1540 be all right with him, he decided, if his investigation of the fraud,
L15 1550 with its probable by-product of murder, led to Garth's door. Motive?
L15 1560 Ten-thousand-dollar bequest. At first glance, not much of a motive
L15 1570 for a man of his standing; but for all his air of affluence, who
L15 1580 could tell what his private financial picture was?   The inspector
L15 1590 knew as he left that this was wishful thinking. Nevertheless,
L15 1600 he made a mental note to look into Garth's financial background.
L15 1610    Brian Thayer had a downtown address. He lived in an apartment
L15 1620 house not over three or four years old, a reclaimed island of landscaped
L15 1630 brick and glass on the fringe of the business district.   He
L15 1640 occupied a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, using the second
L15 1650 bedroom as his office. Airy and bright, the apartment was furnished
L15 1660 with good modern furniture, rugs, and draperies. Done by a professional
L15 1670 decorator, Madden thought, and somehow as impersonal, as unremarkable
L15 1680 as its occupant. In Dunston the rent would run close to two hundred
L15 1690 a month; in Medfield, perhaps twenty-five less, not all of it
L15 1700 paid by Thayer, who could charge off one room on his expense account.
L15 1710    He took Madden into the room he used as an office. It contained
L15 1720 a desk, files, a typewriter on a stand, and two big leather armchairs.
L15 1730 A newspaper open at stock-market reports lay on one of them. Thayer
L15 1740 folded it up and offered a drink.   The inspector declined.
L15 1750 To begin the interview, he asked if Thayer, with more time to think
L15 1760 it over, could add to what he had said the other day about Johnston.
L15 1770    Thayer shook his head. "It's all I think about, too.
L15 1780 That and her death. It's still unbelievable that it was murder. For
L15 1790 all her domineering ways, I can't conceive of her having had a deadly
L15 1800 enemy".
L16 0010    "Dammit, Phil, are you trying to wreck my career? Because
L16 0020 that's what you're doing- wrecking it, wrecking it, wrecking it"!
L16 0030 Griffith had confronted Hoag on the building's front steps-
L16 0040 Hoag had been permitted no further- and backed him against a wrought-iron
L16 0050 railing. His rage had built up as he made his way here from
L16 0060 the second floor, helped by the quantity of champagne he had consumed.
L16 0070    Hoag said, "I didn't send for you, Leigh. I want the
L16 0080 captain in charge. Where is he"?   "Phil, for God's sake,
L16 0090 go away. The undersecretary's in there. I told you there's
L16 0100 nothing between Midge and me, nothing. It's all in your mind". A
L16 0110 couple of sobs escaped him, followed by a sentiment that revealed his
L16 0120 emotional state. "Why, I'm not fit to touch the hem of her garment".
L16 0130    "Leigh, get a grip on yourself. It's not about you
L16 0140 or Midge. I have some security information about the prime minister".
L16 0150    Griffith looked at him suspiciously through red-rimmed
L16 0160 eyes. "Not about me? You mean it, Phil? You wouldn't pull
L16 0170 my leg, old man? I <did> get you on the platform this morning".
L16 0180    "I'm not pulling your leg. Will you call that captain"?
L16 0190    "No use, he won't come". He peered closely at Hoag
L16 0200 in the gathering darkness. "What happened to your head"?
L16 0210    "I was hit- knocked out. Now will you get him"?   "He
L16 0220 says I'm to take the message". He stared at Hoag drunkenly.
L16 0230 "Who'd hit you in the head"?   "It doesn't matter.
L16 0240 You get back to the captain and tell him this: Somebody's going
L16 0250 to take a shot at the prime minister, and Mahzeer is in on the plot.
L16 0260 Tell him under no circumstances to trust the prime minister with Mahzeer".
L16 0270    Griffith said, "That's impossible. Mahzeer's
L16 0280 the ambassador".   "Nevertheless it's true".   "Impossible".
L16 0290 Griffith was trying to clear his head of the champagne
L16 0300 fuzz that encased it. "I'll show you how wrong you are. Mahzeer
L16 0310 and the prime minister are alone right now". He nodded triumphantly.
L16 0320 "So that proves it"!   Hoag looked terrified. "Where
L16 0330 are they"?   "Where'd you expect, the john? Mahzeer's
L16 0340 office".   "Where is that"?   "Facing us,
L16 0350 two flights up. Look, old man, you can't go up. They won't even
L16 0360 let you in the front door. So why don't you be a good boy and"-
L16 0370    Hoag grabbed him by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Leigh.
L16 0380 If you want to spend another day in the State Department- <another
L16 0390 day>- you get in there and tell that captain what I told you".
L16 0400 He bit out the words. "And you know I can do it".   Griffith
L16 0410 raised placating hands. "Easy does it, Phil. I was just going.
L16 0420 I'm on my way". He turned and fled into the house and made
L16 0430 his way up the marble stairs without once looking back. On the second
L16 0440 landing he paused to look for Docherty, didn't see him, and accepted
L16 0450 a glass of champagne. He took several large swallows, recollected
L16 0460 that Docherty had gone up another flight, and decided he would be wise
L16 0470 to cover himself by finding him. The way Hoag was, no telling what
L16 0480 he might say or do. He finished his champagne and climbed uncertainly
L16 0490 to the next landing. At the top a uniformed officer blocked further
L16 0500 progress. "Yes, what is it"? he asked.   "I want Captain
L16 0510 Docherty". He spotted Docherty coming out of a room at the far
L16 0520 end of the corridor and called to him.   Docherty said, "It's
L16 0530 okay, Bonfiglio, let him by". They walked toward each other.
L16 0540 "Well"?   Griffith said, "Hoag told me to tell you"-
L16 0550 he waited until they were close; it was hideously embarrassing-
L16 0560 "not to let the prime minister be alone with Mahzeer".   Griffith
L16 0570 looked half-crocked to the captain; it would be just like him.
L16 0580 "Why not"?   "He claims Mahzeer's in a plot to kill
L16 0590 the P&M&".   Docherty went taut: was it possible?
L16 0600 Could the ambassador himself be the man on this side the prime minister
L16 0610 feared? Not possible, he thought; the prime minister knew who
L16 0620 his enemy was here; he wasn't going to allow himself to be led meekly
L16 0630 to the slaughter. And if by some wild chance Mahzeer was the man,
L16 0640 he wouldn't dare try anything now- not after Docherty had looked
L16 0650 in on the two of them to see that all was well. Docherty was damned
L16 0660 if he would make a fool of himself again the way he had earlier over
L16 0670 the laundry truck. One more muddleheaded play like that one and they'd
L16 0680 be leading him away. Still, this had to be checked out.   "Where'd
L16 0690 your friend Hoag get his information"? he asked.
L16 0700    "Haven't the faintest, Captain".   "Would you mind
L16 0710 sending him up here? I'd like to talk to him". Troubled, he continued
L16 0720 along the corridor, poking his head into the next office for
L16 0730 a careful look around. #3# But Hoag had not stayed on the front
L16 0740 steps when Griffith disappeared into the building. He was unwilling
L16 0750 to rely on Griffith's carrying his message, and he had no confidence
L16 0760 the police would act on it. If Mahzeer was alone with the prime minister
L16 0770 he could be arranging his execution while Hoag stood out here
L16 0780 shivering in the darkening street. He would have to do something on his
L16 0790 own. But what?   The door opened and three men and a woman
L16 0800 in a sari swept past him and down the stairs. In the lighted interior
L16 0810 he saw other men and women struggling into their wraps. These were
L16 0820 the early departures; in half an hour the reception would be over. If
L16 0830 Mahzeer was planning to set up the prime minister for Muller he would
L16 0840 have to do it in the next few minutes. Hoag descended the stone
L16 0850 steps to the street and looked up at the building. Wide windows with
L16 0860 many small leaded panes swept across the upper stories. On the second
L16 0870 floor he saw the animated faces of the party guests; the scene looked
L16 0880 like a Christmas card. On the third floor one of the two windows
L16 0890 was lighted; it was framed in maroon drapes, and no faces were visible.
L16 0900 This would be Mahzeer's office. He and the prime minister would
L16 0910 be back from the window, seated at Mahzeer's desk; they would
L16 0920 be going over papers Mahzeer had saved as excuse for just such a meeting.
L16 0930 In a minute, or five minutes, the business would be done; Mahzeer
L16 0940 would stand up, the prime minister would follow. Mahzeer would direct
L16 0950 the prime minister's attention to something out the window and
L16 0960 would guide him forward and then step to one side. The single shot would
L16 0970 come; Hoag would carry its sound to his grave. Mahzeer, of course,
L16 0980 would be desolate. How was he to suspect that an assassin had been
L16 0990 lurking somewhere across the street waiting for just such a chance?
L16 1000    Hoag turned. Where across the street? Where was Muller
L16 1010 waiting with the rifle? Narrow four-story buildings ran the length
L16 1020 of the block like books tightly packed on a shelf. Most of them could
L16 1030 be eliminated; Muller's would have to be one of the half dozen
L16 1040 almost directly opposite. The legation was generously set back from
L16 1050 the building line; if the angle of fire were too great the jutting buildings
L16 1060 on either side would interfere. Would the shot come from a roof?
L16 1070 He ran his eye along the roof copings; almost at once a figure
L16 1080 bulked up. But dully glinting on the dark form were the buttons and
L16 1090 badge of a policeman. With a cop patrolling the road Muller would
L16 1100 have to be inside a building- if he was here at all, and not waiting
L16 1110 for the prime minister somewhere between this street and the terminal
L16 1120 building at La Guardia Airport.   Hoag crossed the narrow street,
L16 1130 squeezing between parked cars to reach the sidewalk. From this
L16 1140 side he could see farther into the legation's third-story window, but
L16 1150 he saw no faces; the room's occupants were still seated or they
L16 1160 had been called into the hallway by an alarmed police captain. If only
L16 1170 the latter were true **h. He walked rapidly along the buildings scanning
L16 1180 their facades: one was a club- that was out; two others he
L16 1190 ruled out because all their windows were lighted. That left three, possibly
L16 1200 four, one looking much like the next. He climbed the steps of
L16 1210 the first and opened the door to the vestibule. He quickly closed it
L16 1220 again. He had assumed that all these buildings had been divided into
L16 1230 apartments, but this one, from a glance at the hall furnishings, was
L16 1240 obviously still a functioning town house, and its owners were in residence;
L16 1250 that made it doubtful as the hiding place of a man whose plans
L16 1260 had to be made in advance.   He went on to the next building and
L16 1270 found what he expected- the mingled cooking aromas of a public vestibule.
L16 1280 On one wall was the brass front of a row of mailboxes; there
L16 1290 were six apartments. Now what? The names on the mailboxes meant
L16 1300 nothing to him. This was senseless- he had no idea what to look for.
L16 1310 He peered in the boxes themselves; all were empty except one, and
L16 1320 that one was jammed with letters and magazines. The occupants of Apartment
L16 1330 Number 3 were probably away for a few days, and not likely to
L16 1340 return on a Friday. Had Muller made the same deduction? Muller
L16 1350 was attracted to the lore of mailboxes.   He opened the inner door;
L16 1351 the cooking
L16 1360 odors were stronger- all over the city, at this hour, housewives
L16 1370 would be fussing over stoves. He climbed, as quickly as he could urge
L16 1380 his body, up the two unbroken flights to the third floor, pulling
L16 1390 himself along on a delicate balustrade, all that remained of the building's
L16 1400 beauty. He paused on the landing to steady his breathing and
L16 1410 then bent to examine the single door by the light of the weak bulb
L16 1420 overhead. Now he was certain: the lock had not yielded to Muller's
L16 1430 collection of keys; fresh scars showed that the door had been
L16 1440 prized open. It had been shut again, but the lock was broken; he noted
L16 1450 with a thrill of fear that the door moved under his touch.
L16 1460 What was he to do now? He had thought no further than finding Muller.
L16 1470 He realized now he had more than half hoped he wouldn't find
L16 1480 him- that Muller would not be here, that the attempt would be scheduled
L16 1490 for somewhere beyond Hoag's control. He could not break in on
L16 1500 an armed man. He would have to climb back down to the street and signal
L16 1510 a cop. Was there time?   His thoughts were scattered by
L16 1520 the sharp report of a rifle from the other side of the door. Hoag pushed
L16 1530 open the door: at the far end of the long dark room Muller was
L16 1540 faintly silhouetted against the window, the rifle still raised; he stood
L16 1550 with his feet apart on a kitchen table he had dragged to the sill.
L16 1560 He turned his head to the source of the disturbance and instantly back
L16 1570 to the window and his rifle sight, dismissing Hoag for the moment
L16 1580 with the same contempt he had shown in their encounter at Hoag's apartment.
L16 1590    Hoag stretched his left hand to the wall and fumbled
L16 1600 for the switch: evil flourishes in the dark. The room was bathed in
L16 1610 light at the instant Muller's second shot came. Muller, nakedly
L16 1620 exposed at the bright window like a deer pinned in a car's headlights,
L16 1630 threw down the rifle and turned to jump from the table; his face
L16 1640 wore a look of outrage. A shot caught him and straightened him up in
L16 1650 screaming pain; a following volley of shots shattered glass, ripped
L16 1660 the
L16 1670 ceiling, and sent him lurching heavily from the table. He was dead
L16 1680 before his body made contact with the floor. Hoag stumbled back into
L16 1690 the hall, leaned against the wall, and started to retch. #4# After
L16 1700 Captain Docherty sent Arleigh Griffith for Hoag he was able to
L16 1710 complete his detailed inspection of the third floor and to receive a
L16 1720 report from his man covering the floors above before Griffith returned,
L16 1730 buoyed up by a brief stop for another glass of champagne.
L17 0010    The safe at Ingleside District Station stands next to the gum
L17 0020 machine in a narrow passageway that leads to Captain Harris's office
L17 0030 (to the left), the lieutenant's office (farther along and to the
L17 0040 left) and the janitor's supply closet (straight ahead).   The
L17 0050 safe is a repository for three dead flashlight batteries, a hundred
L17 0060 and fifty unused left-hand fingerprint cards, a stack of unsold Policemen's
L17 0070 Ball tickets from last year, and thirty-seven cents in coins
L17 0080 and stamps. Gun set the captain's fifth of Hiram Walker inside
L17 0090 the safe before he reported to Lt& Killpath, though he knew that
L17 0100 Killpath's ulcer prevented him from making any untoward incursion on
L17 0110 Herman Wolff's gift. It was more a matter of tact, and also it
L17 0120 was none of Killpath's goddam business.   He walked up to the
L17 0130 lieutenant's office, leaned wearily against the gun rack that housed
L17 0140 four rifles and a gas gun nobody remembered having used and a submachine
L17 0150 gun that was occasionally tried out on the Academy Range. He stared
L17 0160 at the clerk who sat at a scarred and ancient fumed-oak desk stuffing
L17 0170 envelopes.   "Where's the Lieut"?   The clerk
L17 0180 wagged his head toward the captain's office. Gun went to the connecting
L17 0190 door, which was open, and stood at attention while Orville Torrence
L17 0200 Killpath, in full uniform, finished combing his hair.
L17 0210 The lieutenant's sparse brown hair was heavily pomaded, and as Killpath
L17 0220 raked the comb through it, it stuck together in thatches so that
L17 0230 it looked like umbrella ribs clinging to his pink skull. The lieutenant
L17 0240 eyed Gun's reflection in the mirror over the washbowl and then
L17 0250 glanced back at his own face, moving the comb methodically around his
L17 0260 head.   Leave me alone, Gun thought. Fight with Sam Schaeffer,
L17 0270 fight with the whole damned Bureau. But leave me alone. Because
L17 0280 I'm looking for the son of a bitch that killed that old man, and I'm
L17 0290 going to get him. If you just leave me to hell alone, Lieutenant.
L17 0300    Killpath peered through half-closed lids at his reflection,
L17 0310 thrust up his chin in a gesture of satisfaction and about-faced.
L17 0320    Gun waited for Killpath to sit down behind the desk near the window.
L17 0330 He sat stiff-backed in a chair that did not swivel, though it was
L17 0340 obvious to Gun that Killpath felt his position as acting captain plainly
L17 0350 merited a swivel chair. The desk before him was in no better repair
L17 0360 than the rest of the furniture crowded into the room, including wooden
L17 0370 file cabinets with some of their pulls yanked off and a wardrobe
L17 0380 stained with the roof seepage of countless seasons.   Killpath
L17 0390 pulled one thin leg up, clamping his arms around the shinbone to press
L17 0400 his knee into an incredibly scrawny gut. It was the posture which the
L17 0410 men had come to recognize as that of Killpath defying his ulcer. He
L17 0420 put his chin on his kneecap, stretching his neck like that of a turkey
L17 0430 on a chopping block, and stared wordlessly at his sergeant.
L17 0440 Gun waited.   The 7:45 bell rang and he could hear the outside
L17 0450 doors bang shut, closing in the assembled day watch.   Finally,
L17 0460 Orville intoned through his hawk nose, "We can't have people running
L17 0470 in any time they please, Sergeant".   "No, sir". "Running
L17 0480 in, running out. Can't have it. Makes for confusion and
L17 0490 congestion". He rocked back in the chair, knee locked against stomach,
L17 0500 his beady eyes fixed on Matson.   He was silent again, possibly
L17 0510 listening to the sounds in the squadroom. Roll was being called.
L17 0520 Gun cleared his throat.   Killpath said, "You were expected
L17 0530 to report to
L17 0540 my office twenty minutes ago, Sergeant. That's not getting
L17 0550 all the juice out of the orange, now is it"?   "No, sir".
L17 0560    Then Killpath smiled. Gun knew that nothing but aces back
L17 0570 to back would give the lieutenant an ulcer and a smile at the same time.
L17 0580    The day-watch platoon commander, Lt& Rinker, was calling
L17 0590 out the beat assignments, but Matson couldn't make the names mean
L17 0600 anything.   "I called the station at three this morning",
L17 0610 Killpath's nasal voice pronounced. "Do you have any idea who might
L17 0620 have been in charge at the time"?   "Sergeant Vaughn,
L17 0630 sir".   "Now, now, you're just guessing, Sergeant". He
L17 0640 smiled thinly, savoring his joke. "What if I said nobody was here
L17 0650 but a couple of patrolmen"?   "Sir, Vaughn knows better
L17 0660 than to leave the station without a relief. He must have"-
L17 0670    "He let a patrolman take over the duties of the station keeper. Now
L17 0680 that's not regulation, is it"?   "No, sir".
L17 0690 "But you didn't know a thing about it, did you"? Killpath leaned
L17 0700 forward; his foot slipped off the chair and he put it back again,
L17 0710 frowning now. "That's not taking one's command with a responsible
L17 0720 attitude, Matson".   Gun told himself that the old bastard
L17 0730 was a fool. But stupidity was no consolation when it had rank.
L17 0740    "I was out in the district, sir".   "Oh, yes. So
L17 0750 I have heard". He stretched a pale hand out to the scattered papers
L17 0760 on his desk. "I might point out that your inability to report to
L17 0770 my office this morning when you were instructed to do so has not **h ah
L17 0780 **h limited my knowledge of your activities as you may have hoped".
L17 0790 He took up a white sheet of paper, dark with single-spaced data.
L17 0800    A car pulled into the driveway outside the window. Gun knew it
L17 0810 was Car 12, the wagon, returned from delivering Ingleside's
L17 0815 drunk-and-disorderlies
L17 0820 to the City Jail. But for some fool reason he couldn't
L17 0830 remember which men he'd put on the transfer detail. He stared
L17 0840 at the report in Killpath's hand, sure it was written by Accacia-
L17 0850 just as sure as if he'd submitted it in his scrawled longhand. He
L17 0860 sucked in his breath and kept quiet while Killpath laid down the sheet
L17 0870 again, wound the gold-wire stems of his glasses around his ears and
L17 0880 then, eying the report as it lay before him on the desk, intoned, "Acting
L17 0890 Lieutenant Gunnar Matson one failed to see that the station
L17 0900 keeper was properly relieved two absented himself throughout the entire
L17 0910 watch without checking on the station's activities or the whereabouts
L17 0920 of his section sergeants three permitted members of the Homicide
L17 0930 Detail of the Inspector's Bureau to arrogate for their own convenience
L17 0940 a patrolman who was thereby prevented from carrying on his proper
L17 0950 assignment four failed to notify the station commander Acting Captain
L17 0960 O& T& Killpath of a homicide occurring in the district five
L17 0970 frequented extralegal establishments known as after-hours spots for
L17 0980 purposes of an unofficial and purportedly social nature and six"-
L17 0990 he leaned back and peeled off his glasses "- failed to co-operate
L17 1000 with the Acting Captain by returning promptly when so ordered. What
L17 1010 have you to say to that, Sergeant"? Killpath sailed the paper
L17 1020 across the desk, but Matson didn't pick it up or even glance at it.
L17 1030    "Well"?   "I didn't think Accacia knew so
L17 1040 many big words, Lieutenant".   Killpath licked his lips. "Patrolman
L17 1050 Accacia is an alert and conscientious law-enforcement officer.
L17 1060 I don't think his diligence mitigates your negligence, Matson".
L17 1070    "Negligence, hell"! Gun held his breath a moment,
L17 1071 pushing
L17 1080 the volume and pitch of his voice down under the trapdoor in his
L17 1090 throat. "Sir. I would have been negligent and a goddam lousy cop to
L17 1100 boot, if I'd sat around this station all night when somebody got
L17 1110 away with murder in my district. It's too bad I didn't call you,
L17 1120 and it's too bad I let Schaeffer use Accacia when he could have
L17 1130 had a boy who'd be glad to learn something of Homicide procedure.
L17 1140 But I'm not one damned bit sorry I went out to question the people
L17 1150 I know in the places they hang around, and"-   "Let's
L17 1160 not push our patience beyond the danger line, Sergeant", Killpath
L17 1170 nasaled. "I shouldn't like to have to write you up for insubordination
L17 1180 as well as dereliction of duty".   Gun stiffened, his hands
L17 1190 balling into fists at his sides. He clamped his jaws to keep the
L17 1200 fury from spilling out. An argument with Orville Torrence Killpath
L17 1210 was as frustrating and as futile as a cap pistol on a firing range.
L17 1220    Killpath leaned forward again, rocked comfortably with his arms
L17 1230 still wrapped around one knee. "Let's just remember, Sergeant,
L17 1240 that we must all carry our own umbrella. A district station can't
L17 1250 run smoothly, unless"- He interrupted himself, looking around Gun
L17 1260 at the doorway. "Morning, Lieutenant Rinker".   "Sorry,
L17 1270 Orville. I thought you hadn't come in yet".   "I've
L17 1280 been here for some time". He stood up, cocked his head and eyed Gun
L17 1290 coldly. "The sergeant is just leaving". ## It had come as
L17 1300 no great surprise to Matson that the hot water in the showers didn't
L17 1310 work, that Loren Severe had thrown up all over the stairs, or that
L17 1320 some thieving bastard of a cop had walked off with his cigarettes. It
L17 1330 was the best he could hope for on a watch that had ended with a session
L17 1340 in Killpath's office.   Now, as he passed the open counter
L17 1350 that divided the assembly room from the business office, he nodded
L17 1360 and said good night to the station keeper and his clerks, not stopping
L17 1370 to hear the day-watch playback of his chewing out.   Not that he
L17 1380 gave a damn what the grapevine sent out about Killpath's little speech
L17 1390 on the comportment of platoon commanders. He just didn't want
L17 1400 to talk about it. If the acting captain wanted his acting lieutenant
L17 1410 to sit on his ass around the station all night, Killpath would just
L17 1420 have to go out and drag Gun back by the heels once an hour; because
L17 1430 he'd be damned if he was going to be a mid-watch pencil-pusher just
L17 1440 to please his ulcerated pro-tem captain.   At the doorway he squinted
L17 1450 up at the gray morning overcast and patted his jacket pockets for
L17 1460 the cigarettes, remembering then that he'd left them at the Doughnuttery.
L17 1470 He could pick up another pack on his way home, if he were going
L17 1480 home. But even before he started across the oiled road to his Plymouth,
L17 1490 parked in the lot under the cypress trees across from the station,
L17 1500 he knew that he wasn't going home.   Not yet.   It
L17 1510 was nine o'clock in the morning: the hour which, like a spade turning
L17 1520 clods of earth, exposed to the day a myriad of busy creatures that
L17 1530 had lain dormant in the quiet night. Mission Street at this hour was
L17 1540 populated by a whole community that Gun could not have seen on his
L17 1550 tour of duty- the neighborhood that had known Urbano Quintana by
L17 1560 day. #TEN# Sol Phillips had purchased the Alliance Furniture
L17 1570 Mart seventeen years ago. It was professedly worth three thousand dollars
L17 1580 in stock and good will, and the name was written in gold in foot-high
L17 1590 letters across each of the two display windows.   On the right
L17 1600 window, at eye level, in smaller print but also in gold, was <Gonzalez,
L17 1610 Prop&,> and under that, <Se Habla Espanol>. Mr& Phillips
L17 1620 took a razor to <Gonzalez, Prop&,> but left the promise
L17 1630 that Spanish would be understood because he thought it meant that Spanish
L17 1640 clientele would be welcome. Language was no problem anyway;
L17 1650 Mr& Phillips had only to signal from his doorway to summon aid from
L17 1660 the ubiquitous bilingual children who played on the sidewalks of Mission
L17 1670 Street.   Aside from the fact that business was slow this
L17 1680 time
L17 1690 of year and his one salesgirl was not the most enterprising, Mr&
L17 1700 Phillips had no worries at all, and he said as much to Gun Matson,
L17 1710 who sat across from him in civilian clothes, on a Jiffy-Couch-a-Bed,
L17 1720 mauve velour, $79.89 nothing-down special!   "She's honest
L17 1730 as the day", Mr& Phillips said, and added, "Mr& Gunnar,
L17 1740 I can say this to you: Beebe is a little too honest. You can't
L17 1750 tell a customer how much it's going to cost him to refinance his payments
L17 1760 before he even signs for a loan on the money down! A time plan
L17 1770 is a mere convenience, you understand, and when"- He interrupted
L17 1780 himself, smiling. "I put her in lamps. That way I don't lose
L17 1790 so much".   "Why don't you just hire somebody else"?
L18 0010    "She says she has to finish a story". He shrugged. "I
L18 0020 asked her why she couldn't do it tomorrow, but it seems the muse is
L18 0030 working good tonight and she's afraid to let it go".   Casey
L18 0040 made some comment, but his mind was busy as he considered the man. His
L18 0050 name was George Needham and he, too, had come from a good family.
L18 0060 He was perhaps thirty-two, nicely set up, with light brown hair that
L18 0070 had a pronounced wave. He was always well groomed and well tailored,
L18 0080 and he had that rich man's look which was authentic enough and came
L18 0090 from two good prep schools and a proper university. An only child, he
L18 0100 had done all the things that young men do who have been born to money
L18 0110 and social position until his father double-crossed him by dying broke.
L18 0120 Since then he had worked at this and that, though some said his main
L18 0130 interest was gambling.   All this went through Casey's mind
L18 0140 in the first instant, but what held his interest was the fact that
L18 0150 these two should be together at all. For he had understood that Betty
L18 0160 had been engaged to a boy named Barry Jenkins. She had grown up with
L18 0170 young Jenkins, and he had heard that they had been at the point of
L18 0180 getting married at least twice. He wanted to ask her about Jenkins
L18 0190 now, but he knew he couldn't do so in Needham's presence. And so,
L18 0200 still wondering and a little perplexed, he grinned at the girl and
L18 0210 spoke lightly to make sure that she would know he was kidding.
L18 0220 "Where did you pick him up"?   "Oh, I've known him quite
L18 0230 a while". She glanced at her companion fondly. "Haven't I,
L18 0240 George"?   "I've been after her for years", Needham
L18 0250 said, "but I've never been able to get anywhere until the last
L18 0260 few days".   The girl's eyes were softly shining as she reached
L18 0270 out and touched Casey's hand. "Can I tell you a secret?
L18 0280 We're going to get married. Do you approve"?   Casey kept
L18 0290 his smile fixed, but some small inner disturbance was working on him
L18 0291 as
L18 0300 he thought again about Needham, who was eight or ten years older than
L18 0310 the girl. He wondered whether Needham was going to swear off gambling
L18 0320 and get a steady job or whether he was counting on the income from
L18 0330 Betty's estate to subsidize him. None of this showed in his face,
L18 0340 and he tried to keep his skepticism in hand. He made a point of frowning,
L18 0350 of acting out the part of the fond father-confessor.   "I'll
L18 0360 have to give it some thought", he said. "You wouldn't want
L18 0370 me to say yes without making sure his intentions are honorable, would
L18 0380 you"?   She made a face at him and then she laughed. "Of
L18 0390 course not".   "I'll get my references in order", Needham
L18 0400 said, and though he spoke with a smile, Casey somehow got the idea
L18 0410 that he was not particularly amused. "Stop by any time, Casey".
L18 0420 He stood up and touched the girl's arm. "Come on, darling. If
L18 0430 you're really serious about working on that story, I'd better take
L18 0440 you home".   Casey watched them go, still frowning absently
L18 0450 and then dismissing the matter as he called for his check. As he went
L18 0460 out he told Freddie the dinner was perfect, and when he got his hat
L18 0470 and coat from Nancy Parks and put a fifty-piece piece in the slot,
L18 0480 he told her to be sure that it went toward her dowry.   A taxi
L18 0490 took him back to the bar and grill where he had left his car, and a few
L18 0500 minutes later he found a parking place across the street from his apartment.
L18 0510 Because his mind had been otherwise occupied for the past couple
L18 0520 of hours, he did not think to look and see if Jerry Burton's
L18 0530 car was still there. In fact, he did not think about Jerry Burton at
L18 0540 all until he entered his living room and closed the door behind him.
L18 0550 Only then, when his glance focused on the divan and saw that it was
L18 0560 empty, did he remember his earlier problem.   Even from where he
L18 0570 stood he could see the neatly folded blanket that he had spread over
L18 0580 Burton, the pillow, the sheet of paper on top of it. Then he was striding
L18 0590 across the room, his thoughts confused but the worry building swiftly
L18 0600 inside him as he snatched up the note. ## <Jack:
L18 0601 Look in
L18 0610 the wastebasket. I knew the only way I could beat you was to play possum,
L18 0620 but it was a good try, kid, and I appreciate it.   J>&
L18 0621 ##
L18 0630 The wastebasket stood near the wall next to the divan, and the instant
L18 0640 Casey picked it up he knew what had happened. The discarded papers
L18 0650 inside were sodden, there was a glint of liquid at the bottom, and
L18 0660 the smell of whisky was strong and distinct. He put the basket down
L18 0670 distastefully, muttering softly and thoroughly disgusted with himself
L18 0680 and his plan that had seemed so foolproof. For he remembered too well
L18 0690 how he had brought back the loaded drinks to Burton and then returned
L18 0700 to the kitchen to get weaker drinks for himself.   For another
L18 0710 second or two he gave in to the annoyance that was directed at himself;
L18 0720 then his mind moved on to be confronted by something far more
L18 0730 serious, and as the thought expanded, the implications jarred him. It
L18 0740 no longer mattered that Burton had outsmarted him. The important thing
L18 0750 was that Burton had gone somewhere to meet a blackmailer with a gun
L18 0760 in his pocket. And that gun was empty.   Even before his mind
L18 0770 had rounded out the idea, he thrust one hand into his trousers pocket
L18 0780 and pulled out the six slugs he had taken from the revolver. He considered
L18 0790 them with brooding eyes, brows bunched as his brain grappled with
L18 0800 the problem and tried to find some solution. He said: "The crazy
L18 0810 fool", half aloud. He put the shells on the table, as though he
L18 0820 could no longer bear to hold them. He thought: <Where the hell
L18 0830 could he have gone? How can I find him?>   There was no answer
L18 0840 to this and he began to pace back and forth across the room, his
L18 0850 imagination out of control. He tried to tell himself that maybe Burton
L18 0860 had sobered up enough to get some sense. Maybe he only intended to
L18 0870 scare the blackmailer, whoever he was, in which case an unloaded gun
L18 0880 would be good enough. He thought of other possibilities, none of them
L18 0890 satisfactory, and finally he began to think, to wonder if there was
L18 0900 some way he could reach Burton. Then, as he turned toward the telephone,
L18 0910 it rang shrilly to shatter the stillness in the room and he reached
L18 0920 for it eagerly.   "Yeah", he said.   "Casey"?
L18 0930    "Yeah".   "Tony Calenda".   Casey heard
L18 0940 the voice distinctly and he knew who it was, but it took him a while to
L18 0950 make the mental readjustment and control the disturbance inside his
L18 0960 head. When he heard Calenda say: "What about that picture you took
L18 0970 this afternoon"? it still took him another few seconds to remember
L18 0980 the job he had done for Frank Ackerly.   "What picture"?
L18 0990 he demanded.   "You took a picture of me at the corner of
L18 1000 Washington and Blake about three thirty this afternoon".
L18 1010 "Who says so"?   "One of my boys".   Casey believed
L18 1020 that much. Calenda was not the sort who walked around without one
L18 1030 of his "boys" close at hand.   "So"?   "With
L18 1040 my trial coming up in Federal Court next week I wouldn't want that
L18 1050 picture published".   "Who says it's going to be published"?
L18 1060    "I wouldn't even want it to get around".
L18 1070    Under normal circumstances Casey was a little fussy when people told
L18 1080 him what to do with pictures he had taken. Even so, he generally listened
L18 1090 and was usually reasonable to those who voiced their objections
L18 1100 properly. Right now, however, he was still too worried about Jerry
L18 1110 Burton, and the gun that had no bullets, and the story Burton had told
L18 1120 him, to care too much about Tony Calenda. His nerves were getting
L18 1130 a little ragged and his impatience put an edge in his voice.
L18 1140 "Look", he said. "I was hired to take a picture. I took it.
L18 1150 That's all I know about it and that's all I care".   "Maybe
L18 1160 you'd better tell the guy who hired you what I said".
L18 1170    "You tell him".   "All right", Calenda said, his voice
L18 1180 still quiet. "But I meant what I said, Casey. If that picture
L18 1190 gets around and I find out you had anything to do with it, I'm
L18 1200 going to send a couple of my boys around to see you".   "You
L18 1210 do that", Casey said. "Just be sure to send your two best boys,
L18 1220 Tony".   He hung up with a bang, annoyed at himself for running
L18 1230 off at the mouth like that but still terribly concerned with the situation
L18 1240 he had helped to create. As soon as he could think logically
L18 1250 again he reached for the telephone directory and found Jerry Burton's
L18 1260 home number. He dialed it and listened to it ring ten times before
L18 1270 he hung up. He called the bar and grill where he had picked Burton
L18 1280 up that afternoon. When he was told that no one had seen Burton since
L18 1290 then, he thought of three other places that were possibilities. Each
L18 1300 time he got the same answer and in the end he gave up.   By
L18 1310 the time he had smoked three cigarettes he had calmed down. He had done
L18 1320 all he could and that was that. And anyway Burton was not the kind
L18 1330 of guy who would be likely to get in trouble even when he was drunk.
L18 1340 He, Casey, had been scared for a while, but that had come mostly from
L18 1350 the fact that he felt responsible. He should have stayed here and
L18 1360 watched Burton. He didn't. So he made a mistake. So what?
L18 1370    He kept telling himself this as he went out to the kitchen to make
L18 1380 a drink. Only then did he decide he didn't want one. He considered
L18 1390 opening a can of beer but vetoed that idea too. Finally he went into
L18 1400 the bedroom and sat down to take off his shoes. He had just finished
L18 1410 unlacing the right one when the telephone rang again. When he snatched
L18 1420 it up the voice that came to him was quick and urgent.   "Casey?
L18 1430 You don't know me but I know you. If you want a picture
L18 1440 get to the corner of Adams and Clark just as fast as you can. If you
L18 1450 hurry you might beat the headquarters boys".   Casey heard the
L18 1460 click of the distant receiver before he could open his mouth, and it
L18 1470 took him no more than three seconds to make his decision. For over
L18 1480 the years he had received many such calls. Some of them came from people
L18 1490 who identified themselves. Some telephoned because he had done
L18 1500 them a favor in the past. Others because they expected some sort of
L18 1510 reward for the information. A few passed along a tip for the simple
L18 1520 reason that they liked him and wanted to give him a break. Only
L18 1530 an occasional tip turned out to be a phony, and, like the police, Casey
L18 1540 had made a point of running down all such suggestions and he did not
L18 1550 hesitate this time.   He was in his car with his camera and equipment
L18 1560 bag in less than two minutes, and it took him only three more
L18 1570 to reach the corner, a block from Columbus Avenue. It was a district
L18 1580 of small factories and loft buildings and occasional tenements, and
L18 1590 he could see the police radio car as he rounded the corner and slammed
L18 1600 on the brakes. He did not bother with his radio- there would be time
L18 1610 for that later- but as he scrambled out on the pavement he saw the
L18 1620 filling station and the public telephone booth and knew instantly how
L18 1630 he had been summoned.   The police car had pulled up behind a
L18 1640 small sedan, its headlights still on.
L19 0010    slowly he pulled out the hand throttle until the boat was moving
L19 0011 at
L19 0020 little more than a crawl, and watched Elaine rapidly spin from one
L19 0030 station to another, tune in the null, then draw in a line on the chart.
L19 0040 "We're out just a little too far. Make a 90 degree straight
L19 0050 for shore".   Poet came in, raising his eyebrows appreciatively
L19 0060 as he saw Elaine. "Now"? he asked.   "Pretty quick",
L19 0070 she replied. "Will you drop the anchor"?   Poet nodded,
L19 0080 swung below and a moment later emerged from the forward hatch where
L19 0090 he picked up the anchor. The rock and roll music coming from the radio
L19 0100 station suddenly faded as the boat coasted into the null on the ~RDF.
L19 0110    "Reverse", Elaine said, then peered through the loop
L19 0120 of the ~RDF and waved to Poet. A second later she came behind
L19 0130 the wheel and backed off the anchor line until it was set in the ocean
L19 0140 floor. She cut the engines and slowly the cruiser swung around on
L19 0150 the end of its lines until its bow was pointing into the wind and the
L19 0160 cockpit faced toward the shore. Nick watched her somewhat enviously as
L19 0170 she efficiently cut the engines, and started the auxiliary motor.
L19 0180    Poet came up from below, wearing new bathing trunks. The price
L19 0190 tag hung from the belt and he pulled it off as he entered the chartroom
L19 0200 and looked at it curiously. Nick wondered if Elaine had bought them,
L19 0210 but he said nothing. Nobody, he suddenly realized, was saying anything.
L19 0220 It seemed as if they were all under a spell. There should be an
L19 0230 excited conversation, for somewhere, directly below them, was a treasure
L19 0240 lost for more than four hundred years.   But instead of chatter
L19 0250 there was a null, like on the radio direction finder. Once, in New
L19 0260 York, he had gone flying with some friends in a small private airplane
L19 0270 with a single engine. They had all been laughing, joking, when
L19 0280 suddenly the engine had failed. No one had screamed. No one had prayed.
L19 0290 All had fallen into a complete silence, listening to the wind whistle
L19 0300 over the wings. The pilot had been good. He'd landed the plane
L19 0310 on a small airstrip in Connecticut and as soon as the aircraft had
L19 0320 coasted to a stop, everyone had burst into chatter at the same moment.
L19 0330    There had been tension in the plane during the silent descent;
L19 0340 a tension similar to the one now. But in the plane there was a concrete
L19 0350 reason for it. Now, at this moment, there should be none **h unless
L19 0360 skin diving was much more dangerous than he had been led to believe.
L19 0370 Yet tension existed. The same taut-nerved relationship as there
L19 0380 had been between the passengers on the plane now strained at the three
L19 0390 of them here on the boat. It hung over them like a cloud, its arrival
L19 0400 as sudden as a cloud skidding over the sun.   Silently, Elaine
L19 0410 picked up her keys from the table and went out into the cockpit, Poet
L19 0420 behind her, Nick trailing behind him. She threw back a cushion over
L19 0430 one of the seats, unlocked a padlock on the chest beneath it, then
L19 0440 presently straightened, holding a long knife and a wicked looking spear
L19 0450 gun in her hand.   Poet whistled softly as he looked at the gun.
L19 0460 "Hydraulic"? he asked.   Elaine nodded. "They are the
L19 0470 best". She kicked the locker lid shut and replaced the cushion.
L19 0480 "They are the most efficient".   "And the deadliest", Poet
L19 0490 commented as he buckled on his tank harness.   "Why do you
L19 0500 need an arsenal"? Nick asked, apprehensively, staring at the weapon.
L19 0510    "It's quite possible there's more than codfish down
L19 0520 there, man", Poet replied with a short, nervous laugh as he held
L19 0530 the harness for Elaine.   A moment later, moving awkwardly because
L19 0540 of the swimming fins, she picked up the gun, handed the knife to Poet,
L19 0550 then rolled off the transom of the boat, back first. Poet nodded
L19 0560 to Nick and entered the water in a similar fashion. Another moment
L19 0570 and they were out of sight, leaving behind only a string of bubbles as
L19 0580 a clue to their whereabouts.   For a while Nick followed the
L19 0590 twisting course of the bubbles, wondering which set came from Elaine.
L19 0600 They remained close together, their air trail wiggling like serpents
L19 0610 traveling side by side. Eventually the bubbles became lost in the sparkle
L19 0620 of the ocean surface, and he rolled over on his back.   Clasping
L19 0630 his hands behind his head, he stared at the blue sky. There was
L19 0640 nothing quite like being alone on a boat on the ocean. Alfredo certainly
L19 0650 must have enjoyed being alone. Next to the ocean, probably the
L19 0660 loneliest spot was the desert. If Elaine's uncle had stuck to this
L19 0670 desire for aloneness, he probably would still be alive.   Yet Alfredo
L19 0680 wanted money **h wanted money to roam through the deserts. And
L19 0690 Graham wanted money probably to roam among the dice tables in Las
L19 0700 Vegas. It was an odd combination **h a strange pair to stumble upon
L19 0710 the wreck of the <Trinidad>. But Graham hadn't stumbled on it.
L19 0720 Two to three weeks prior to the charter of the <Virginia>, Graham
L19 0730 had been snooping around the San Luis Rey Mission.   The small
L19 0740 helicopter with its two steel skids churned offshore and Nick raised
L19 0750 up to watch it heading south. That was a hell of a note, he thought.
L19 0760 A couple couldn't even find a secluded spot anywhere on a beach
L19 0770 to neck nowadays without someone swooping down upon them. If the character
L19 0780 flying that thing had gone over San Clemente Island yesterday
L19 0790 he would have had an eyeful.   Off to the west a beautiful schooner
L19 0800 slowly beat its way into the wind, headed on a tack toward San
L19 0810 Clemente. Behind it a cabin cruiser drifted crossways in the small
L19 0820 ground-swell, a lone fisherman in the chair aft. The fisherman was right
L19 0830 in the middle of the Deep. Nick recalled stories that the two best
L19 0840 fishing spots in Southern California were over the La Jolla Deep
L19 0850 and the Redondo Deep, two spots where the ocean dropped off to fantastic
L19 0860 depths almost from the shoreline.   Someday, geologists
L19 0870 had warned, the land on both sides of these deeps would fall into the
L19 0880 ocean and no more La Jolla or Redondo Beach. Meanwhile, fishermen
L19 0890 took advantage of them to pull up whoppers. Sometimes the fish exploded
L19 0900 as they neared the surface because of the difference in pressure.
L19 0910    Why, he wondered, had Elaine wanted him along on this trip?
L19 0920 He couldn't skindive, he couldn't run a boat, except on the open
L19 0930 sea. He stood up, stretched, looked around for the bubbles, but could
L19 0940 see none. Strolling down to the galley, he lit the butane under the
L19 0950 coffee pot and when the brew was heated, poured himself a cup and went
L19 0960 up to the chartroom. Turning on the hi-fi, he went back to the cockpit,
L19 0970 stretched out on the cushions and listened to the music.   Elaine
L19 0980 and Poet returned together, popping up over the transom almost
L19 0990 like dolphins breaking water.   He sat up and watched as they pulled
L19 1000 themselves over the stern. "Any luck"? he asked.   Poet
L19 1010 shook his head, sliding his face mask up on his forehead.
L19 1020 "We're right on the edge of the Deep", Elaine said. Pulling
L19 1030 off her face mask, she carefully placed the spear gun across the stern,
L19 1040 then lifted her wet hair from her back and squeezed out the water. "Which
L19 1050 is a break as the area to search is less than a square mile",
L19 1060 she added as she swung her legs over the transom. "Any news"?
L19 1070    "Not a thing". He tossed her a towel, then repeated the
L19 1080 service for Poet. "Cigarette"?   Elaine shook her head
L19 1090 as she slipped out of her harness, but Poet nodded. His feet still hung
L19 1100 over the stern of the transom, but as he reached for the smoke he
L19 1110 raised them to swing them in. The fin on his foot caught on the moulding,
L19 1120 throwing him off balance. His forearm smashed painfully into the
L19 1130 narrow washboard and he grimaced as he grabbed his bruised limb with
L19 1140 his other hand and rolled into the boat.   "Kee-reist"! The
L19 1150 word hissed distinctly from Poet's lips as he struggled to his feet.
L19 1160    Nick's body became rigid. Turning slowly he saw Poet
L19 1170 in a brilliant glare of horror. Poet! His face was still creased in
L19 1180 pain as he studied the underside of his arm. Poet a murderer? Turning
L19 1190 quickly toward Elaine, Nick saw that she, too, stood in shocked
L19 1200 surprise.   The sudden silence was too silent. Instinctively
L19 1210 aware of the charged atmosphere, Poet raised his head slowly, looking
L19 1220 first at Elaine.   She had caught the implication of the oath.
L19 1230 Her face was frozen into the mask of a mannequin, her body absolutely
L19 1240 motionless.   And then Nick knew that all of them knew **h Elaine,
L19 1250 himself **h and Poet.   Elaine recovered first, so quickly
L19 1260 that Nick thought he might have imagined her sudden reaction. "Do
L19 1270 you need a bandage"? she asked steadily.   Poet rubbed
L19 1280 his arm. "It's like banging a shin", he said, his eyes lingered
L19 1290 on Nick's face, then moved back to Elaine. "Hurts like hell for
L19 1300 a second, then it disappears".   "I'll get some ointment".
L19 1310 Elaine turned and started toward the companionway. But her walk
L19 1320 was too steady, too slow, telegraphing her fear.   Nick sensed
L19 1330 it. So did Poet. Springing like a cat, he leaped back, swooped up the
L19 1340 spring gun and, whirling, pointed it toward the cabin. At the same
L19 1350 instant, Nick hit the barrel and threw himself upon the smaller man.
L19 1360 The gun fired next to his ear with a vicious whoosh like the first stroke
L19 1370 of an old steam engine. At the same instant, Elaine screamed wildly,
L19 1380 the sound ending abruptly as Nick went off the boat and into the
L19 1390 water on top of the frantic, struggling Poet.   The moment the
L19 1400 sea closed over Nick, some atavistic sense warned him that he would
L19 1410 survive in this alien element only if he did not panic. But the murderer
L19 1420 to whom he clung had a tremendous advantage. The wide flippers
L19 1430 on Poet's feet gave his legs incredible power, driving the two of them
L19 1440 down into the water as they rolled over and over. Poet was the captured,
L19 1450 arms pinioned to his side, and he twisted convulsively trying
L19 1460 to escape. Poet would escape, Nick thought grimly, because he wore the
L19 1470 apparatus which would keep him alive under water. But Nick would
L19 1480 not let go.   The rubber and glass face mask slipped from Poet's
L19 1490 forehead, bounced painlessly off Nick's chin, then disappeared.
L19 1500 Poet twisted again and Nick's knuckles scraped on the air tank, ripping
L19 1510 off the skin. For a split second, Nick relaxed his grip and Poet's
L19 1520 slippery body spun completely around before Nick could stop
L19 1530 him, holding him now from the rear. Something flailed at the side of
L19 1540 Nick's head as they rolled around and around.   Suddenly Poet
L19 1550 stopped struggling and the two of them hung suspended in the water,
L19 1560 not rising, not sinking. A sharp pain lanced across Nick's chest and
L19 1570 a bubble of air escaped from his tortured lungs, joining dozens of
L19 1580 others that sailed lazily toward the surface like helium balloons rising
L19 1590 into the sky. A black, snake-like object swayed eerily in front of
L19 1600 him, spewing bubbles from its flat cobra head. The air hose was free!
L19 1610 The discovery struck Nick like a blow.   Desperately, Nick
L19 1620 flashed one hand up, catching Poet's neck in the bend of his elbow.
L19 1630 At the same instant, he grabbed the loose, writhing hose with his
L19 1640 other hand and bit down on the hard rubber mouthpiece. Instinctively
L19 1650 he exhaled through his nose then sucked in the air from the hose. At
L19 1660 once the excruciating pain in his chest stopped and he was seized with
L19 1670 a sudden, wild exultation.   As if this was a signal, Poet abruptly
L19 1680 began to thrash the water and the quick movement slowly made them
L19 1690 sink through the water. Relentlessly, Nick held on, sucking on the
L19 1700 hose, inhaling the air that belonged to Poet. Poet was not fighting
L19 1710 Nick now.
L20 0010    HARBOR POINT sticks out into the ocean like the fat neck
L20 0020 of a steamer clam. It's a rich village but not much for action- too
L20 0030 many solid residents, not enough tourists or working stiffs. It's
L20 0040 at the far end of the county and the last time I came here was for
L20 0050 a hit and run manslaughter- about seven months ago.   Chief Bob
L20 0060 Moore looked his same hick-self; a man mountain running to lard
L20 0070 in his middle-age. Seeing me he said with real surprise, "Well, well,
L20 0080 ain't we honored! Hardly expected the <head> of County Homicide
L20 0090 up for this murder. You sure climbed fast, Jed. Rookie investigator
L20 0100 last summer and now it's <Inspector Jed>. Took me 19 years
L20 0110 to become Chief of our three man police force. Proves a college
L20 0120 education pays off". His sarcasm was followed by a stupid grin of his
L20 0130 thick mouth and bad teeth.   "I guess it helps", I said,
L20 0140 paying no attention to his ribbing.   "Never could figure out
L20 0150 why you ever wanted to be a cop, Jed. You're not only young but **h
L20 0160 well, you don't <even look> like a police officer. A runt with
L20 0170 narrow shoulders and that brush haircut **h hell, you'd pass for a
L20 0180 juvenile delinquent of the hotrod set. In my day the first requirement
L20 0190 for a cop was to look like the law, big and tough. Man, when my 275
L20 0200 pounds and six-four comes along, why it's the same as another badge.
L20 0210 When I say move, a guy moves"!   "Don't worry about
L20 0220 my being tough, Moore. Also, it's far too early in the day for corny
L20 0230 lines like the bigger they come **h You've had your gassy lecture,
L20 0240 let's get to work. Who was the murdered woman **h Mrs& Buck"?
L20 0250    "Widow, nice sort of woman. Comfortably fixed. Ran a
L20 0260 fair-sized farm. Came to the Harbor as a bride and **h Don't worry
L20 0270 Jed, this one is in the bag. I know the killer, have the only road
L20 0280 off the peninsula covered".   "Yeah, passed your road block
L20 0290 as I drove in", I said, sitting on his polished desk. Although
L20 0300 Bob dressed like a slob, he kept a neat office. "Okay, what happened"?
L20 0310    "About nine this morning Mrs& Buck phones me she's
L20 0320 having trouble with one of her farm hands- money trouble. Colored
L20 0330 fellow named Tim Williams- only hand she has working for her
L20 0340 now. Tim come with the migratory workers that follow the crops up from
L20 0350 the South last year, but Tim and his wife settled here. Never had
L20 0360 no trouble with him before, thought he was a hard worker, hustling around
L20 0370 to get a full week's work. Anyway, Julia asks me to **h".
L20 0380    "Julia"?   "Come on, <Inspector>, look alive.
L20 0390 Julia Buck, the deceased", Moore said, slipping me his smug, idiot-grin
L20 0400 again. "Julia asks me to come out at once. But she didn't
L20 0410 sound real alarmed **h you know, like there was any immediate danger.
L20 0420 I got there at 9:47 A&M&, found her strangled. I would have
L20 0430 come sooner if I'd known **h. No doubt about Tim being the killer-
L20 0440 I have a witness. Don't know why the County had to send anybody
L20 0450 up here. Told them I can handle this".   "Yeah, seems
L20 0460 you have a nice package, with all the strings tied. Who's **h"?
L20 0470    "I'll collar Tim before night".   "Who's your
L20 0480 witness"?   "Julia had- has- an old Indian woman cooking
L20 0490 for her- Nellie Harris. Probably the last of the original Island
L20 0500 Indians. Nellie was in the kitchen, had just come to work, when
L20 0510 she heard Tim arguing with Julia in the living room. Swears she
L20 0520 recognized his voice, that Tim yelled, 'It's my money and I want
L20 0530 it'! and then rushed out of the house. Then she heard Julia phone
L20 0540 me. Nellie went on with her house work- until I found Julia dead.
L20 0550 And before you say it, Nellie ain't near strong enough to have
L20 0560 strangled Julia. There's no doubt this Tim sneaked back and killed
L20 0570 Mrs& Buck. Another fact: Tim's disappeared- on the run.
L20 0580 But there's no way off the Point except through my road block. Guess
L20 0590 you want to see the body- have her up the street in Doc Abel's
L20 0600 office". "Let's see it".   We walked up Main Street
L20 0610 to this big white house, then around to the back. Being the Harbors
L20 0620 sole doctor, Abel was also its Medical Examiner. The corpse was
L20 0630 on a table, covered by a sheet. Doc Abel was busy up front with some
L20 0640 of his live patients. Pulling back the sheet, I examined the bruises
L20 0650 around Julia Buck's once slender throat. Powerful hands had killed
L20 0660 her. "Find any prints"?   Chief Moore shook his big
L20 0670 head, seemed lost in thought as he stared at the nude body. Then he
L20 0680 said, "Never noticed it before **h I mean, when she was dressed **h
L20 0690 but for a woman her age, Julia had a real fine figure".   I
L20 0700 dropped the sheet, glanced at my watch. It was almost one and I hadn't
L20 0710 had lunch. Still, I wanted to get this over with, had a lot of
L20 0720 paper work waiting in my own office. I told him, "I want to go see
L20 0730 the Buck house".   "Sure".   Walking back down Main
L20 0740 Street, I said, "I saw the Harbor's one squad car at the
L20 0750 road block, we'll ride out in my car".   "Naw, we'll use
L20 0760 mine", Moore said, opening the door of a sleek white Jaguar roadster.
L20 0770 As I slid in beside him he said, "Some heap, hey? Got a heck
L20 0780 of a buy on this, dirt cheap".   "Yeah, it's a real load",
L20 0790 I told him, looking up the street at my battered Ford.
L20 0800 Five racing minutes later we pulled into the driveway of this typical
L20 0810 two-story house, and when the Jaguar stopped I managed to swallow.
L20 0820 There was a garage and a modern barn in the rear, all of it standing
L20 0830 between two large flat fields planted in early potatoes. Everything
L20 0840 shouted gentleman farming, the kind of grandfather-father-to son folding
L20 0850 money the Point is known for. The fins of a Caddy were sticking
L20 0860 out of the garage, while the inside of the house was a comfortable mixture
L20 0870 of old and expensive contemporary furniture.   Nellie Harris
L20 0880 wasn't old, she was ancient- a tiny shriveled woman with a face
L20 0890 like a tan prune. She was also stone deaf in her right ear. She calmly
L20 0900 repeated what Moore had told me. When I asked, "Why didn't
L20 0910 you go into the living room to see how Mrs& Buck was"? the old
L20 0920 gal stared at me with her hard eyes, said, "She didn't call. I
L20 0930 do the living room last. I went up stairs and did the bath and her
L20 0940 bedroom- way I always do in the morning".   "Have you any
L20 0950 idea what this Tim and Mrs& Buck were arguing about"?
L20 0960 "Probably wages. Miss Julia was a hard woman with a dollar. Years
L20 0970 ago when I asked her to put me in Social Security, so's I wouldn't
L20 0980 have to be working now, Miss Julia threatened to fire me-
L20 0990 all because it would mean a few more dollars a year to her".
L20 1000 "Did you hear Tim return"?   "No sir. Nobody came until
L20 1010 Chief Moore".   I drummed on the kitchen table with my pencil.
L20 1020 "Mrs& Buck have any men friends"?   "Her"?
L20 1030 The wrinkled mouth laughed, revealing astonishingly strong, white, teeth.
L20 1040 "I never see none. But then I wasn't her social secretary".
L20 1050    "Was she on friendly terms with other members of her family"?
L20 1060    "Didn't have no family- around here. They had
L20 1070 a son- killed in the war".   I walked into the living
L20 1080 room. There didn't seem to be any signs of a struggle. I told Moore,
L20 1090 "Where does Tim's wife live"?   "I'll take you
L20 1100 there. Look Jed, this is an open and shut case and I have to relieve
L20 1110 my men at the road block soon. Okay, come on".   We did 80
L20 1120 miles an hour across a hard dirt road to a cluster of shacks. In late
L20 1130 summer migratory workers lived five and six to a room in these. Now
L20 1140 they were empty, except for a cottage across the road.   Mrs&
L20 1150 Tim Williams was about 21, with skin the color of bitter chocolate,
L20 1160 and if you discounted the plain dress and worn slippers, she was startlingly
L20 1170 pretty. The inside of their place was full of new furniture, five
L20 1180 bucks down and a buck a week stuff, but all of it clean and full of
L20 1190 the warmth of a home.   Mrs& Williams was both sullen and frightened.
L20 1200 She said she didn't know a thing- Tim had left the house
L20 1210 at six in the morning, as usual. She hadn't seen him since.
L20 1220    "Did Mrs& Buck owe him any wages"? I asked.   "Well,
L20 1230 for this week, but they wasn't due 'till Saturday. Listen,
L20 1240 Mr& Inspector, no matter what anybody say, my Tim didn't kill
L20 1245 that woman!
L20 1250 Tim is a good man, hard working. He strong as a bull but
L20 1260 gentle as a baby. Even if he angry, Tim wouldn't hurt a woman. He
L20 1270 never in his life took a hand to a woman or **h"   "We'll
L20 1280 get him soon, see what he says", Chief Moore cut in.   "Does
L20 1290 your husband have a car"? I asked.   "Got us an old
L20 1300 station wagon. Need it for the job".   I asked a silly question:
L20 1310 "You've no idea where your husband could be, now"?
L20 1320    She shook her head. I knew she was lying. I stood there, staring
L20 1330 at her for a moment- thinking mostly of her beauty and her poverty.
L20 1340    Moore said, "Come on, Jed, I have to get to my men".
L20 1350    On my way out I told her, "If you should **h eh **h just
L20 1360 happen to see your husband, get him to give himself up. He'll get a
L20 1370 fair trial. Hiding out like this won't get him anything, except more
L20 1380 trouble, or a bullet".   "Yes. I'll tell him- <if>
L20 1390 I see him".   We made it back to the Harbor in less than four
L20 1400 minutes. I tried not to act scared. That Jaguar could really barrel
L20 1410 along. I told Moore I was going to eat, get some forms filled out
L20 1420 by Doc Abel.   Chief Moore said, "If I don't see you
L20 1430 when I return, see you for certain at my road block, Inspector".
L20 1440    I had a bowl of decent chowder, phoned the Doc and he said he'd
L20 1450 leave the death statements with his girl- in a half hour. Lighting
L20 1460 my pipe, I took a walk. The Harbor is a big yachting basin in
L20 1470 the summer. Even now, there were several slick cruisers tied to the dock,
L20 1480 an ocean-going yawl anchored inside the breakwater. There was a
L20 1490 34 foot Wheeler with CHIEF BOB'S in big gold letters on its stern
L20 1500 also tied up at the dock. It wasn't a new boat, about five years
L20 1510 old, but fitted with fishing outriggers and chairs. I asked an old
L20 1520 guy running a fishing station if the boat was Moore's. He said, "You
L20 1530 bet. Bob Moore is plumb crazy about blue fishing".   I
L20 1540 dropped into the doctor's office, picked up my forms. As I was walking
L20 1550 back to the Police Station, which was in the same building with
L20 1560 the City Hall and Post Office, I saw Mrs& Tim Williams sneaking
L20 1570 into the back of my car. If she moved gracefully, she was clumsy
L20 1580 at it.   I got into the front seat. She was 'hiding' on
L20 1590 the floor of the back seat, the soft curves of her back and hips- rousing
L20 1600 lines. I drove out of the Harbor, turned off into a dirt road
L20 1610 among the scrub pine trees and stopped. I waited a few minutes and she
L20 1620 sat up. For another moment we didn't talk, then she began to weep.
L20 1630 She mumbled, "I just know that Chief Moore is out to kill my Tim"!
L20 1640    "Maybe. I never saw him so anxious before", I
L20 1650 said, lighting my pipe and offering her a cigarette. "Of course, it
L20 1660 could be because this is his first murder case. You know where Tim
L20 1670 is, don't you, Mrs& Williams"?   She puffed on the cigarette
L20 1680 slowly, sitting slumped against the back seat; didn't answer.
L21 0010 But the police have dropped the case. I want you to go to Pearson City
L21 0020 and find out why- first-hand stuff for your modern crime series.
L21 0030 Take the same train Diana Beauclerk took and get there at the same
L21 0040 time. Go to the same hotel and occupy the same suite- 1105".
L21 0050    "Will the hotel rent it so soon after the crime"?   "Why
L21 0060 not? The police have finished with it. Besides, the number
L21 0070 of the suite hasn't been published in any newspaper. To the hotel people,
L21 0080 you'll just be an innocent tourist who happens to ask for that
L21 0090 particular suite".   "Still, they may not want to rent it".
L21 0100    "That's your headache. Once inside, keep your eyes open"!
L21 0110    "For what"! Alec was growing more and more skeptical.
L21 0120 "The police will have gone over every square inch of the place
L21 0130 with a fine-tooth comb. The hotel people will have scoured and vacuumed
L21 0140 it. Ten to one, it's even been redecorated"!   "There's
L21 0150 always a chance they may have overlooked something", returned
L21 0160 the chief. "I'm betting on that chance. Interview the bellboy
L21 0170 and chambermaid who waited on Beauclerk. Study the topography of the
L21 0180 suite. Soak up local color. Reenact everything Beauclerk did.
L21 0190    Try to imagine you're going to be murdered yourself- between
L21 0200 eleven p&m& and one a&m& the night you arrive".   Alec
L21 0210 smirked. "Cheerful way to spend an evening"! A sudden thought
L21 0220 wiped the smirk from his face. "Suppose the murderer should return
L21 0230 to the scene of the crime"!   The chief's eyes gleamed.
L21 0240 He spoke softly. "That is exactly what I'm hoping for. After all,
L21 0250 the murderer is still at large. And the key to the suite is still
L21 0260 missing". ## On the train Alec refreshed his memory of the Beauclerk
L21 0270 case by reading teletype flimsies- spot-news stories about
L21 0280 the crime sent out by the <Pearson City Star,> a member of the Syndicate
L21 0290 Press.   Diana Beauclerk was a second-rate actress living
L21 0300 in New York. Two weeks ago she had gone west to Pearson City.
L21 0310 Daniel Forbes, her divorced husband, lived there. So did the firm
L21 0320 of lawyers who had got her the divorce, Kimball and Stacy.
L21 0330 She reached Pearson City at nine p&m& and went straight to the
L21 0340 Hotel Westmore. She telephoned the junior partner of her law firm,
L21 0350 Martin Stacy, and asked him to call at her hotel that evening.
L21 0360    At the time of her divorce Forbes had promised to pay her a lump sum
L21 0370 in lieu of further alimony if she remarried. According to Stacy,
L21 0380 she told him she was planning to remarry and she wanted him to ask Forbes
L21 0390 for the lump sum. Stacy replied that it would bankrupt Forbes,
L21 0400 who had just sunk all his money in a real estate venture.   Stacy
L21 0410 said he left her suite at nine forty-five p&m&. She was in good
L21 0420 health and spirits, but still determined to get the money from Forbes.
L21 0430 No one saw Stacy leave. No other visitor inquired for her that
L21 0440 evening.   Next morning she was found dead in her suite with a bullet
L21 0450 from a .22-caliber Colt revolver in her brain. According to the
L21 0460 medical examiner, she was shot between eleven p&m& and one a&m&.
L21 0470 Her door was locked and the key was missing. So was the gun.
L21 0480    When Alec finished reading he was sure that either Forbes or Stacy
L21 0490 had killed Diana Beauclerk. Forbes had motive and Stacy had
L21 0500 opportunity.
L21 0510 Find a motive for Stacy or an opportunity for Forbes and the case
L21 0520 would be solved. ## The Hotel Westmore proved to be one of the
L21 0530 older hotels in Pearson City, and definitely second-rate. Alec's
L21 0540 first impression of the lobby was gloomy, Victorian dignity- black
L21 0550 walnut and red plush, a black and white tiled floor, and Persian rugs.
L21 0560    He studied the night clerk as a man measures an adversary.
L21 0570 "I'd like the room I had the last time".   "Certainly,
L21 0580 sir". The clerk was young and limp, with a tired smile. "Do you
L21 0590 recall the number"?   "It was 1105".   The clerk's
L21 0600 smile congealed. "That suite is taken".   Alec's glance
L21 0610 went to a chart of guest names and room numbers hanging on the wall
L21 0620 behind the clerk. Opposite the number 1105 stood one word: <Unoccupied>.
L21 0630    The clerk's glance followed Alec's. "We have
L21 0640 better rooms vacant now", he babbled. "Larger and more comfortable.
L21 0650 At the same rate".
L21 0655    Alec's face was dark, blunt, and sulky.
L21 0660 He always looked impertinent and he could look dangerous. He was
L21 0670 looking dangerous now. He raised his voice. "Anything wrong with
L21 0680 the plumbing in 1105"?   There was a sudden stillness in the
L21 0690 lobby. Two women, who had been chattering like parrots, were struck
L21 0700 dumb. A man, lighting a match for his cigar, paused until the flame
L21 0710 burned his fingers. Even the bellboys on their bench were listening.
L21 0720    The clerk's eyes flickered. "Of course not"!
L21 0730 "Anybody with a contagious disease been in there"?   "No"!
L21 0740 The clerk was almost hysterical. "It's just that- well,
L21 0750 1105 is being redecorated".   "I don't believe it". Alec
L21 0760 leaned on the desk, holding the clerk's eyes with his. "Suppose
L21 0770 you tell me the real reason", he drawled. "There might be a story
L21 0780 in it".   "St-story"?   "I'm with the Syndicated
L21 0790 Press, Feature Service. Either I get the story- or I get
L21 0800 the suite".   It was blackmail and the clerk knew it. "There
L21 0810 is no story", he piped tremulously. "Front! Show this gentleman
L21 0820 to 1105"!   The stillness persisted as Alec followed
L21 0830 a bellboy across the lobby to the elevator. He could feel eyes on his
L21 0840 back. He wished it had not been necessary to announce the number of
L21 0850 his suite quite so publicly.   The corridor on the eleventh floor
L21 0860 was dimly lighted by electric globes at intervals of thirty feet. A
L21 0870 thick, crimson carpet muffled every footfall. At the end of the corridor
L21 0880 Alec noticed a door marked: <Fire Stairs>. It was a neat
L21 0890 setup for murder.   The bellboy unlocked a white door numbered
L21 0900 1105. The room was dark but a neon sign flashed and faded beyond the
L21 0910 window. A few snowflakes sifted down through that theatrical red glow,
L21 0920 languid as falling feathers. Hastily the boy switched on a ceiling
L21 0930 light.   The room looked normal and even commonplace. There was
L21 0940 no hint of a violent struggle now. Deal furniture with a mahogany finish
L21 0950 was neatly arranged as if it stood in the window of a department
L21 0960 store. The blue rug was suspiciously bright and new. It had never been
L21 0970 stained with blood. Table covers and towels were clean, ashtrays
L21 0980 empty and supplied with fresh matches. The mirror over the bureau was
L21 0990 a blank eye, round and innocent.   Alec played the part of an innocent
L21 1000 tourist. "Is there anything wrong with this room"?
L21 1010    "N-no". The boy dropped his eyes.   "Afraid you'll
L21 1020 lose your job if you don't keep your mouth shut"?   The boy
L21 1030 raised his eyes. "Listen, mister. If you want my advice, pack up
L21 1040 and take the next train back to New York".   "Were you on
L21 1050 duty here two weeks ago"?   The boy hesitated. Then, "I'm
L21 1060 not talking. But I wouldn't spend a night in here for a million
L21 1070 bucks"!   He was in a hurry to get out of the room. Alec
L21 1080 gave him a tip and let him go.   Alone, Alec examined the doors.
L21 1090 There were three- one leading to a bathroom, one to the hall, and
L21 1100 one to the room next door which was immovable- locked or bolted on
L21 1110 the other side. Alec locked the hall door and put the key with his
L21 1120 watch on the bedside table. It was just quarter of nine.   As
L21 1130 he ranged his belongings on the bureau he noticed a film of white dust
L21 1140 on the dark surface of the wood beyond the linen cover. Not gray like
L21 1150 the dust that collects in an unused room, but white. Women didn't
L21 1160 use white face powder nowadays, he recalled. They used pink, tan, or
L21 1170 cream powder.   Alec glanced into the bathroom. <Blood in the
L21 1180 bathtub where the murderer appears to have washed his hands>.
L21 1190 It seemed
L21 1200 clean now, but Alec decided against a bath. He crawled into bed and
L21 1210 switched off the light.   In the darkness he could see the rosy
L21 1220 reflection of the neon sign on the wall opposite the window. It winked
L21 1230 as steadily as a metronome- on, off- on, off. In less than
L21 1240 five minutes
L21 1250 Alec was asleep.   He never knew just what woke him. Yet
L21 1260 suddenly he was wide-awake. There was no sound and apparently no movement
L21 1270 in the room except the noiseless pulsation of the red light on
L21 1280 the wall.   He lay still, listening to the silence, watching the
L21 1290 light. Somewhere in the city a big clock sounded twelve solemn notes-
L21 1300 midnight. <According to the medical examiner she was shot between
L21 1310 eleven p&m& and one a&m&> **h.
L21 1320    Alec heard a faint sound.
L21 1330 His heart seemed to swell and knock against the wall of his chest.
L21 1340 For the sound was inside the room.   he let his eyelids droop
L21 1350 and breathed heavily, feigning sleep. The sound was coming nearer. A
L21 1360 monstrous shadow fell across the illuminated wall, distorted and indefinable.
L21 1370    When the neon sign faded out, the shadow disappeared.
L21 1380 When the neon sign flashed on, the shadow was still there. It stretched
L21 1390 to an impossible height, climbing the wall to the ceiling. That
L21 1400 meant that something between the light and its reflection on the wall
L21 1410 was moving closer to the source of the light- in this case, the window.
L21 1420    Cautiously Alec tensed his muscles, ready to jump. The bedsprings
L21 1430 betrayed him with a creak. The shadow vanished. Someone
L21 1440 had moved beyond the range of the light from the window.   Abandoning
L21 1450 caution, Alec leaped out of bed and groped for the light switch.
L21 1460 Before he could snap it on, a stinging blow caught him in the ribs.
L21 1470 He lashed out blindly with his right. There was a thick, squashy crack
L21 1480 of fist on flesh.   Something hard grazed his knuckles. He
L21 1490 put everything he had into the next and aimed down where the stomach ought
L21 1500 to be. Rough cloth rasped his fist. There was a grunt, curiously
L21 1510 inarticulate, like that of an animal in pain. Something heavy shook
L21 1520 the floor as it dropped.   Alec waited a moment, on guard. Nothing
L21 1530 happened. Again he groped for the light switch.   The blue
L21 1540 rug had been rolled up and stacked in one corner of the room. On the
L21 1550 bare floorboards a man lay face down. He had a short, heavy, powerful
L21 1560 body.   Alec turned him over and discovered a round, lumpy face
L21 1570 with narrow, slanting eyes- a primitive Tartar face from Russia
L21 1580 or the Balkans. The man's shoes were too pointed, his overcoat too
L21 1590 broad at the shoulders and too narrow at the waist.   There was
L21 1600 a slight bulge under the left armpit- a shoulder holster. Alec promptly
L21 1610 removed the gun. He was familiar with this type. He had seen it
L21 1620 in the lineup at Police Headquarters in New York, in Broadway night
L21 1630 clubs and Seventh Avenue pool rooms, in the criminal courts. But
L21 1640 he was surprised to meet it here. Diana Beauclerk had no connection
L21 1650 with the underworld.   A professional gunman would not have killed
L21 1660 her with a weapon of such small caliber as a .22. Nor would he
L21 1670 choose a respectable hotel as the scene for a killing when it would be
L21 1680 so much safer to take his victim for a one-way ride on a lonely country
L21 1690 road.   The man's eyelids fluttered. He opened his eyes.
L21 1700    "What are you doing here"? demanded Alec.   The man
L21 1710 made no reply. His eyes were dazed. His lips were bruised and swollen
L21 1720 where Alec had hit him.   "Did you kill Diana Beauclerk"?
L21 1730    Alec expected an indignant denial, but there was no response
L21 1740 at all.   "Oh, come on, snap out of it! Or I'll turn
L21 1750 you over to the police"! The silence was getting on Alec's
L21 1760 nerves.   The man opened his mouth, but no words came. Only that
L21 1770 curious, animal grunting Alec had heard during their fight.
L21 1780 "Don't you speak English"?   The man opened his mouth
L21 1790 wider. A forefinger pointed toward his gullet. Alec leaned forward to
L21 1800 look. There were hideous scars inside the throat and the palate was
L21 1810 mutilated.
L22 0010 In good time I shall get to the distressing actuality, to Red McIver
L22 0020 and Handley Walker, to murder and sudden death. But you realize,
L22 0030 I am sure, how much old deeds incite to new ones, and you must forgive
L22 0040 me if I tell you first of the old ones.   It was in 1814 that
L22 0050 Abraham Wharf and his sister sat by a meager fire in their house
L22 0060 on Dogtown Common, a desolate place even then. He was sharpening his
L22 0070 razor. "Sister", said he "do you think people who commit suicide
L22 0080 go to heaven"? and she answered, "I don't know, but I hope
L22 0090 you'll never do such a thing". Without a tremor, "God forbid"!
L22 0100 he said, and went out and cut his throat in the cave near Granny
L22 0110 Day's swamp.   What has this to do with the present? Much,
L22 0120 I assure you. You must know what gets into people, even such as
L22 0130 Red and Handley, before you can tell what comes out of them. They
L22 0140 had learned, both of them, about Abraham Wharf. That's why I
L22 0145 beg
L22 0150 you not to forget him. His ghost is not laid. Red and Handley, God
L22 0160 help them, knew the old Dogtown lore; and I knew they knew it, for
L22 0170 I'd told them a lot of it. And isn't it true that you get a deeper
L22 0180 perception about a man and his motives when you know what it is
L22 0190 he knows?   Yes, gentlemen, I am getting to the point, to my
L22 0200 point. You know the facts; they are set forth in your own newspapers.
L22 0210 You want from me the story, but a story is about 'why' and then,
L22 0220 perhaps, about 'how'. The 'when' you know; yesterday morning.
L22 0230 So what I am trying to tell you is the 'why'- that is <my>
L22 0240 point- and that concerns the spirit of the matter. There is an
L22 0250 inwardness and a luster to old furniture (look at that mahogany highboy
L22 0260 behind you) which has a provocative emanation, if I may say so. Places,
L22 0270 too, have their haunting qualities. Even people. And my point
L22 0280 in this sad story is the spirit of the matter. When you hold the spirit
L22 0290 of a thing, then somehow you know the truth- you know a fake antique
L22 0300 from the real thing. And the truth is what you've come for, is
L22 0310 it not?   Now, Dogtown is one of those places that creeps into
L22 0320 the marrow as worms get into old wood, under the veneer. In fact,
L22 0330 all the folk who lived on the back of Cape Ann, they are not just like
L22 0340 others. There's a different hall-mark on them. There were no witch
L22 0350 burnings here because everyone had a witch in the family. Just think
L22 0360 of old Granther Stannard who pulled the teeth of Dark Younger
L22 0370 (her real name was Dorcas), and because he bungled the job and left
L22 0380 two protruding tusks she put such a hex on him that he thought his legs
L22 0390 were made of glass. After that he was never known to run or even walk
L22 0400 fast. Today Dogtown is the only deserted village in all New England
L22 0410 that I know of. There it sits, a small highland, with towns like
L22 0420 Gloucester near by; but now it's the most lost and tortured place
L22 0430 in the world. Those who lived in that desolation of rocky deformity
L22 0440 took on some of the moraine's stony character. Scientists say it
L22 0450 is the last spewings of a great glacier, but one rather feels that only
L22 0460 a malevolent giant could have piled up those crouching monsters of granite
L22 0470 which still seem to preserve a sort of suspended, ominous life
L22 0480 in them.   We'll walk up there later. It's perhaps a mile from
L22 0490 here where we sit. And not one single dwelling left there, though
L22 0500 once, in the early eighteenth century, there were close to a hundred
L22 0510 houses. (I myself have identified about sixty sites, from the old maps
L22 0520 and registers. A fascinating pursuit, I assure you.) Even I can
L22 0530 remember nothing but ruined cellars and tumbled pillars, and nobody has
L22 0540 lived there in the memory of any living man. It is now a sweep of boulders
L22 0550 and ledges, with oak, walnut and sumac creeping across the common,
L22 0560 and everywhere the ruins and the long, long shadows.   That's
L22 0570 your setting, and a sinister one. Please get that in your reports.
L22 0580 It accounts for so many things. Both Red McIver and Handley Walker
L22 0590 lived nearby, almost as near as I do. Red lived at Lanesville,
L22 0600 and from his house he could be up on the Common in a half hour's
L22 0610 brisk walk; Handley lived further on, at Pigeon Cove. I'd often
L22 0620 find one or other of them up around Dogtown sketching. They were
L22 0630 both
L22 0640 painters, (They were? They are? What should one say?) Well,
L22 0650 anyhow, Dogtown Common is so much off the beaten track nowadays
L22 0660 that only Sunday picnickers still stray up there, from time to
L22 0670 time. Sea-road, railroad, lack of water, killed Dogtown. Dead, dead
L22 0680 as a brass door nail, and I sometimes feel like the Sexton, for I'm
L22 0690 about the last to be even interested.   I knew Red and Handley
L22 0700 well. As I said, they were both painters. They'd come, separately,
L22 0710 to Gloucester some twenty years ago- there's always been an
L22 0720 artists' colony somewhere on Cape Ann- and each married here.
L22 0730 They married cousins, Anta and Freya Norberg. There are a lot of
L22 0740 Scandinavians in this neck of the woods, and many still make painted
L22 0750 furniture and take steam-baths. Pretty girls among them, with blonde
L22 0760 hair and pert faces. Handley married Freya and Red, of the red beard,
L22 0770 married Anta. And it was because of an old Norberg inheritance that
L22 0780 I got to understand them all so well. The quarrel ended in a ridiculous
L22 0790 draw, but I must tell you about it. Oh, yes, I'm quite sure
L22 0800 it's important, because of the Beech Pasture. What's that?
L22 0810 Why, that's what gave me the feeling, gave me as-it-were the spirit,
L22 0820 the demoniac, evil spirit of this whole affair.   You see, besides
L22 0830 being custodian of antiquities, I am also registrar. No, I don't
L22 0840 hold with those who live entirely among dead things. I know as
L22 0850 well as the next man that a ship is called from the rigging she carries,
L22 0860 where the live wind blows, and not from the hull. But you've got
L22 0870 to know both. What's below the water-line interests me also. As I
L22 0880 was saying, I've known all about the old records, including the old
L22 0890 Norberg deed. Some ten years ago that page was torn out, I don't
L22 0900 know by whom. About five years ago, Handley came to ask me if he
L22 0910 could see the tattered register. He was courteous and casual about it,
L22 0920 as though it were of no consequence. He's always like that, in spite
L22 0930 of being a big man. (When you see him, you'll notice his habit
L22 0940 of fingering, I might almost say, stroking a large mole with black hairs
L22 0950 on it, by his right temple.) A sensual man, but very courteous, some
L22 0960 would say slick. Like his glossy black hair. Too many outside manners,
L22 0970 to my taste. He is the sort who, with an appraising eye, would
L22 0980 cross the street to help a strange woman on to a bus and then pinch her.
L22 0990 A real gentleman, I feel, would do neither. He's always worn
L22 1000 a broad-brimmed hat, and I've noticed, in my small study at the Society,
L22 1010 that he rather smells of cosmetics. The next week, cousin Red
L22 1020 wandered in as casually, but curt and untidy. Red was small and fine-boned,
L22 1030 like ivory-inlay. He too asked to see the same page. When I
L22 1040 told him someone had torn it out, he shouted. "By God, it's that
L22 1050 damn Handley, the sneak"! And later in the same week they both
L22 1060 came together to examine the register. Fortunately we were alone in
L22 1070 the building- so few people nowadays are interested even in their own
L22 1080 past or in the lovely craft of other days- for they began to abuse
L22 1090 each other in the foulest language. Red thrusting out his tawny beard,
L22 1100 Handley glowering under his suddenly rumpled black hair. They actually
L22 1110 bristled. <Le rouge et le noir>. Violent men both. Red always
L22 1120 was morose, yet that day the dapper Handley was the louder of the
L22 1130 two. But for my presence, they would have been at each others' throats.
L22 1140    During the quarrel I learned what the trouble was, from
L22 1150 the accusations each hurled at the other. The Beech Pasture had
L22 1155 suddenly
L22 1160 become valuable. There's a fine granite quarry there, and granite's
L22 1170 coming back for public buildings. Both men knew it was in the
L22 1180 Norberg family holdings, but to which of the cousins did it belong,
L22 1190 Anta or Freya? Fortunately, I knew almost exactly what the will
L22 1200 had said. It began with a preamble, of course. This explained that the
L22 1210 judge of probate of Essex County, 1785 or 1786, appointed three free-holders
L22 1220 of Gloucester to divide and establish the Norberg estate.
L22 1230 After the usual Honorable Sirs, it went on to say that there had
L22 1240 been set off to the widow one full third part of the real estate of
L22 1250 the deceased Salu Norberg, one lower room, on the Western side, privileges
L22 1260 to the well and bake-oven and to one third of the cellar (I
L22 1270 can show you the cellar when we go up), also one Cow Right, and lastly
L22 1280 they set off to the widow her own land that she brought with her as
L22 1290 dower, namely the Beech Pasture. And I remember that the whole of
L22 1300 the privileges, not counting the Beech Pasture, was valued at twenty
L22 1310 pounds. I wish you could have seen the crests fall on these two sparring
L22 1320 coxcombs when I told them that obviously the pasture belonged
L22 1330 to their wives jointly.   That battle scene, ridiculous at it was,
L22 1340 remained in my mind. A disturbing picture of bad blood, to be further
L22 1350 heightened with illicit if buccolic colors, for on a subsequent day
L22 1360 I saw Handley escorting Anta, Red's wife, up on Dogtown Common.
L22 1370 I felt it would be inopportune to disclose my presence. Not that
L22 1380 I intentionally go unperceived, but the boulders up there are very high
L22 1390 and I am a small woman.
L22 1395    One other cause of jealousy between them
L22 1400 I must tell you. Paint! Gloomy and unkempt as Red McIver was,
L22 1410 he was much the better painter. I suppose Handley knew it. If Red
L22 1420 had a show at Gloucester, Handley would hurry to hang his pictures in
L22 1430 Rockport. You may say this has little pertinence, but, gentlemen,
L22 1440 remember that all this prepared my mind, alerted my intelligence. By
L22 1450 such touches the pattern takes shape. You would call these the motives
L22 1460 of crime. I would call them the patterns of life, perhaps even the
L22 1470 designs of destiny. Yet with all this knowledge I had nothing of substance
L22 1480 to unravel our case, as you would call it, till yesterday.
L22 1490    One month ago, on the 20th of October, was the opening of the gunning
L22 1500 season in Massachusetts. Not much to shoot, but there are a few
L22 1510 pheasant. Rabbits, too, if you care for them, which most of the folk
L22 1520 around here haven't the sense to appreciate. Any more than they have
L22 1530 the sense to eat mussels. That was the day Red was said to have
L22 1540 gone away. Oh yes, he'd talked about doing so. In fact, he often disappeared,
L22 1550 from time to time,- off to paint the sea, aboard a dragger
L22 1560 out from Gloucester. Anta, his wife, never seemed to mind. I suppose
L22 1570 these absences gave her more clearance for her embraces with Cousin
L22 1580 Handley. Anyhow, I wasn't surprised, early that morning, to see
L22 1590 Handley himself crossing from Dogtown Common Road to the Back
L22 1600 Road. No, he didn't have his gun, which he should have. It would
L22 1610 have been a good excuse for his being there at all. I myself had been
L22 1620 up there by seven o'clock, after mushrooms, since there'd been a
L22 1630 week of rain which had stopped early that morning and the day was as clear
L22 1640 as Sandwich glass.
L23 0010    That's what the man had said. Haney peered doubtfully at his
L23 0020 drinking companion through bleary, tear-filled eyes. He had no ready
L23 0030 answer, as much from surprise as from the fit of coughing. Was the
L23 0040 man drunk or crazy or both? But his new-found buddy had matched him
L23 0050 drink for drink until he lost count, and the man's eyes were still
L23 0060 clear.   <The guy is off his rocker,> Haney thought to himself,
L23 0070 and looked away from those eyes. Eyes that were clear, but also bright
L23 0080 with a strange intensity, a sort of cold fire burning behind them.
L23 0090 Why hadn't he noticed it before? No, the man was not drunk **h
L23 0100    He wondered how he got tied up with this stranger. But, of course,
L23 0110 he remembered now. It was blurred, after two hours of steady drinking,
L23 0120 but the occasion of it came back to him. The stranger, his head
L23 0130 seemingly sunk in thought, started to cross the street against the
L23 0140 light just as a huge moving van roared through the intersection.
L23 0150    Brakes howled and a horn blared furiously, but the man would have
L23 0160 been hit if Phil hadn't called out to him a second before. His shout
L23 0170 had been involuntary, something anybody might have done without thinking,
L23 0180 on the spur of the moment. As a matter of fact, he wouldn't
L23 0190 have cared at all if the guy had been hit. Actually, he regretted having
L23 0200 opened his mouth when the truck came to a stop and the angry driver
L23 0210 jumped down from the cab and walked back toward them.   By then,
L23 0220 the stranger was thanking Haney profusely and had one arm around his
L23 0230 shoulders as if he were an old friend. So the driver started to curse
L23 0240 at both of them as if they had been in a plot together to ruin his
L23 0250 safe-driving record.   Then the man he saved turned and looked
L23 0260 squarely into the truck driver's face, without saying a word. Very
L23 0270 suddenly, the driver stopped swearing at them, turned on his heel and
L23 0280 went back to his truck.   Haney hadn't given it much thought at
L23 0290 the time. Now he recalled it very clearly, and wondered what the truck
L23 0300 driver had seen in those eyes to make him back off. It must have
L23 0310 been the sort of look that can call a bluff without saying a word.
L23 0320    When the light went their way, they went on across the street. And
L23 0330 when the stranger found out that Phil was on the way to one of his
L23 0340 favorite bars, he insisted on offering to buy drinks for both of them.
L23 0350    Phil usually went alone and kept to himself, sitting in a corner
L23 0360 and passing the time by nursing his favorite grudges. But he decided
L23 0370 he wouldn't mind company in return for free drinks, even though
L23 0380 he made good money at his job. Phil was like that. ## NOW
L23 0390 he wondered
L23 0400 if it was worth it, having a screwball for company. He really
L23 0410 didn't take the offer seriously, but he began to feel uneasy. When
L23 0420 he finally got the coughing under control, he realized that Pete (all
L23 0430 he gave was his first name) was still waiting for an answer- he didn't
L23 0440 even seem to wink as he continued to stare.   Haney managed
L23 0450 a weak laugh. "Guess I can't think of anyone, Pete. Thanks anyhow".
L23 0460    A faint crease appeared between the man's eyebrows.
L23 0470 "I think you aren't taking me seriously, Phil. I meant it. And
L23 0480 everybody has some kind of grudge. I might have got hit by that truck
L23 0490 if it wasn't for you. I believe in returning favors. I'll do
L23 0500 anything for somebody I like. It won't cost you a cent, Phil. Go
L23 0510 ahead and try me"!   Phil rubbed his forehead wearily. He
L23 0520 was beginning to feel woolly. Maybe it would be better to humor the
L23 0530 guy and then make an exit. He really didn't expect anything to come
L23 0540 of it, and there <were> a few people **h   "All right",
L23 0541 he
L23 0550 conceded finally, "if you must know, I don't get along with the
L23 0560 landlord. He keeps riding me because I like to listen to the radio
L23 0570 and sing while I'm taking a bath. He says the neighbors complain,
L23 0580 but I don't believe it. Why don't they tell me themselves if it
L23 0590 bothers them"?   The man closed his eyes and nodded. When he
L23 0600 looked up again, he seeemd almost contented. "Fine. Give me your
L23 0610 address. It will take a little time. I want to study your landlord's
L23 0620 habits and movements first. You see, I always make it look like
L23 0630 an accident. Maybe suicide, if it looks reasonable. In that way there's
L23 0640 no trouble for the customer".   Haney's eyebrows flew
L23 0650 up. <"Customer"?>   Pete smiled modestly. "It's my
L23 0660 line of work", he said **h   Five minutes later, before Haney
L23 0670 could make his break, the stranger stood up and nodded farewell. Haney
L23 0680 watched the small but wiry man slip out the door quickly and silently,
L23 0690 and felt relieved to see that nobody else seemed to notice his departure.
L23 0700    Phil decided to stay a little longer, and as time passed
L23 0710 it seemed as if the strange little man had never been there, but for
L23 0720 the other glass on the table. Some time before midnight he returned
L23 0730 to his apartment and hit the sack, putting the whole incident out of
L23 0740 mind before he fell asleep.   The next day, Sunday, the hangover
L23 0750 reminded Haney where he had been the night before. The hangover
L23 0760 in turn reminded him of his conversation with the weirdy, and he
L23 0770 groaned. He went for more aspirin later in the day, and passed the surly
L23 0780 landlord on the way- he was still alive and scowling as usual,
L23 0790 as if tenants were a burden in his life. Phil shrugged and ignored him.
L23 0800    He went back to work Monday. By Wednesday the landlord was
L23 0810 still alive. Of course **h On Thursday, Haney mailed the monthly
L23 0820 check for separate maintenance to his wife Lolly, and wished the stranger
L23 0830 could do something about her **h   Coming home from work,
L23 0840 he was startled to see a police car parked in front of the apartment
L23 0850 building. Inside the lobby, people were standing around, talking excitedly.
L23 0860 His spine crawled with a foreboding premonition as he asked one
L23 0870 of his fellow tenants what had happened.   The landlord had died.
L23 0880 Late that afternoon, it seemed, he had fallen off the roof while
L23 0890 on some obscure errand or inspection. He had apparently been alone. Nobody
L23 0900 witnessed the fall- just the sickening impact when his body smashed
L23 0910 on the pavement just outside the basement delivery entrance.
L23 0920    Haney hoped that nobody noticed his sudden pallor, as he felt the
L23 0930 blood drain from his cheeks. He muttered something about how terrible
L23 0940 it was, and walked with deliberate slowness to the elevator. Once
L23 0950 inside his apartment, he poured a drink with trembling hands and flopped
L23 0960 limply in a chair.   After a while he began to feel better about
L23 0970 it, especially when no one bothered to ask any questions. But after
L23 0980 all, why should they? Still later, he finally convinced himself
L23 0990 that it <was> an accident- just a coincidence. The stranger really
L23 1000 had nothing to do with it, of course **h   Haney went to bed,
L23 1010 happy that at least he was rid of that lousy landlord. After all, the
L23 1020 man had no family, so no one suffered, and everybody was better off
L23 1030 for it. Really, he said to himself, nobody kills a man just as a favor!
L23 1040    <So you thought I didn't mean what I said>. The stranger's
L23 1050 eyes were large and sad, as if Phil Haney had hurt his feelings.
L23 1060 It was like a recurrent, annoying dream, but now the dream was
L23 1070 beginning to take on overtones of a nightmare.   However, Haney
L23 1080 knew it was not a dream. He might be very tight, but he knew where
L23 1090 he was. It was the same bar, and it was two weeks later- Saturday
L23 1100 night, when he had an excuse to drink heavier than usual. ## HE
L23 1120 had been sitting in the usual corner at the little table, as far as possible
L23 1130 from any talkative, friendly lushes. He was enjoying the weekly
L23 1140 ritual of washing down his pet grievance with bourbon slightly moistened
L23 1150 with water. This favorite grievance was not the landlord. He had
L23 1160 already quite forgotten about him. In fact, he had only mentioned him
L23 1170 on the spur of the moment. His real grievance was Lolly.   Toward
L23 1180 the end of his fourth hairy highball, while he was moodily making
L23 1190 wet rings on the table-top with the bottom of the glass, he became
L23 1200 aware that he was not alone. He looked up with bloodshot eyes and beheld
L23 1210 the stranger sitting across the table, smiling a secret smile at him,
L23 1220 as if they were fellow conspirators. He hadn't even noticed-
L23 1230 what was his name? Pete?- he hadn't seen him sit down. The man
L23 1240 was uncanny, like a shadow, and made as much noise as a shadow.
L23 1250    Haney felt like shrinking out of sight, but he was already trapped
L23 1260 in the corner with the wiry, dark little man. He began to wish that
L23 1270 he hadn't shouted that other evening when the truck bore down through
L23 1280 the crossing. Was he going to be saddled from now on with a creep
L23 1290 for a bar-buddy? He'd have to start going to some of the other places
L23 1300 again.   In a low voice, almost whispering, the man had asked
L23 1310 Phil if he was happy with the way the landlord had been taken off
L23 1320 his back. He made the mistake of answering in an offhand way, and instantly
L23 1330 realized that his skepticism must have showed in his face or voice.
L23 1340    Pete frowned slightly, then became sad and moody. Haney
L23 1350 didn't want to encourage his company, but felt he ought to buy him a
L23 1360 drink anyhow, to prevent possible trouble. But there was no trouble.
L23 1370 The guy sulked over his drink, obviously upset by Haney's lack of
L23 1380 appreciation.   To break the uncomfortable silence, Haney began
L23 1390 to talk. In time, and two drinks later, he was complaining bitterly
L23 1400 about his wife, He was on the subject for ten minutes or so when he
L23 1410 noticed the renewed interest in his listener- it showed in the alert
L23 1420 face and the suddenly bright eyes.   When he paused to moisten
L23 1430 his throat, the stranger broke in. "But why pay her bills? If she
L23 1440 runs around with other men, and if you hate her as you say, why not
L23 1450 just divorce her"?   Haney scowled. "That bitch would love
L23 1460 a divorce", he growled. "Then she'd get half of everything I
L23 1470 have. Community property deal- you know. I'd have to sell out
L23 1480 my business to pay her off with her share. She can drop dead"!
L23 1490    Pete nodded understandingly. "Oh yes. Now I see. You must
L23 1500 understand, I haven't been in this state too long. I came out here
L23 1510 to retire. That's why I- why I do a free job now and then. You
L23 1520 should have told me about her before".   Haney felt a twinge
L23 1530 of annoyance when he heard the now familiar line again. Then a wild
L23 1540 thought ran circles through his clouded brain. Suppose- just suppose
L23 1550 this guy was really what he said he was! A retired professional killer
L23 1560 **h If he was just a nut, no harm was done. But if he was the
L23 1570 real thing, he could do something about Lolly. He felt very cunning,
L23 1580 very proud of himself as he played on the other man's soft spot.
L23 1590    "No offense intended", he said gently. "But it's just that-
L23 1600 well, you know. The cops didn't suspect a thing, and I thought
L23 1610 it was a coincidence. After all, I didn't know you, Pete. It
L23 1620 <could> have been an accident". He shrugged casually. "But if
L23 1630 you say you managed it **h" The stranger was hooked. His eyes burned
L23 1640 feverishly. "Yes, yes", he muttered impatiently. "Of course
L23 1650 it looked like an accident. I always work it that way- and always
L23 1660 at a time when the customer has an alibi. Let me prove it, Phil. I
L23 1670 think I can manage one more favor for you". He waited eagerly.
L23 1680    Haney swished the liquor in the bottom of his glass.
L24 0010 About halfway back Pops groped against a wall and stopped, pulled away
L24 0020 two loosely nailed wide boards at one end, and went through. "C'mon",
L24 0030 he whispered; "floor level's about three feet down, so
L24 0040 don't fall". I went through and down, into pitch darkness. He said,
L24 0050 "Jist stay still. I'll pull the boards back and then get us
L24 0060 a light. Jist stay where you are". I jist stayed where I was while
L24 0070 he fumbled around and then walked away. A moment later he struck a
L24 0080 match and lighted a candle, and I could see.   It was a big room,
L24 0090 empty except for a few things of Pop's at the far end- a wooden
L24 0100 crate on which stood the candle, a spread out blanket, and an unrolled
L24 0110 bindle. I looked back over my shoulder while I went to join him;
L24 0120 he'd hung another half of a blanket over the boarded window so no
L24 0130 light would show through.   I took the pint bottle from my pocket
L24 0140 and handed it over as I sat down beside him on the spread blanket.
L24 0150 "You first", I said.   He drank and handed it back. "Nice
L24 0160 place", I told him. "Listen, I got a buddy I travel with,
L24 0170 real nice guy named Larry. I know where he is, right near here. Could
L24 0180 he join the party and sleep here tonight too? We'll both be blowing
L24 0190 town tomorrow so we won't be moving in on you".   He hesitated
L24 0200 a second, looking at the bottle, before he said "Sure-sure",
L24 0210 and I reassured him. "He'll bring a bottle too, and I'll
L24 0220 get another one or maybe two while I'm out. You can work on this
L24 0230 one while I'm gone, kill it if you want". I took a short swallow
L24 0240 from it myself and handed it to him.   His "sure-sure" was
L24 0250 enthusiastic this time. He put the bottle down. "Git over by the window
L24 0260 while there's light, an' I'll put th' candle out. When
L24 0270 yuh come back I'll put it out agin till you're both inside".
L24 0280    Charlie was waiting, leaning against a building front. "Perfect
L24 0290 set-up", I told him. "But we got to go back to Fifth and get
L24 0300 another bottle or two. On the way I'll give you the scoop".
L24 0310    On the way I gave him the scoop. I bought another pint of sherry
L24 0320 and when we got back Pops let us in in the dark, put back the blanket
L24 0330 and then lighted the candle again. I introduced my friend Larry
L24 0340 to Pops and we made ourselves comfortable. There was still a little,
L24 0350 not much, left in the first bottle and we passed it around once and
L24 0360 killed it, and Charlie opened his.   I was reminded, amusedly,
L24 0370 by a poem of Kenneth Patchen's called <The Murder of Two Men
L24 0380 by a Young Kid Wearing Lemon Colored Gloves>, which Patchen himself
L24 0390 read on a record against jazz background. The poem consisted of
L24 0400 only two words, the word "Wait", repeated over and over at irregular
L24 0410 intervals and with different inflections, and then the word "Now"!
L24 0420 and a blaring final chord from the jazz group.   This was
L24 0430 the same, except that it was the murder of one man by two men and neither
L24 0440 of us was wearing gloves. But we could wait all right; there
L24 0450 was no hurry. I said, "Wait **h wait" to Charlie and he grinned,
L24 0460 digging the reference. We'd heard the record together once.
L24 0470    The second bottle passed a few times. Pop was taking long ones, but
L24 0480 not showing the effect yet. He seemed as drunk as when I'd first
L24 0490 talked to him, but no drunker. He had a capacity; if we'd really
L24 0500 been trying to get him dead drunk we'd have had to go out for more
L24 0510 wine.   About halfway through the second bottle, Charlie looked
L24 0520 at me across Pops, who was sitting between us and asked "Now"?
L24 0530 I said, "Wait", and handed the bottle to Pops for his final
L24 0540 drink. When he handed it back and I had hold of it safely, Pops was
L24 0550 looking toward me and I said "Now", to Charlie and he swung
L24 0560 the short length of lead pipe he'd meanwhile taken from his pocket,
L24 0570 once. It was a lead pipe cinch.   There was a sound like the one
L24 0580 you produce by flicking a watermelon with your finger, only louder,
L24 0590 and Pops fell forward from the waist and then over sidewise. Out cold,
L24 0600 if not dead; and he'd never known what hit him- he'd never
L24 0610 known that <anything> had hit him.   I reached my hand toward
L24 0620 him to put it inside his shirt to feel for a heartbeat, but Charlie
L24 0630 said "Wait"!- and said it sharply, not as in the Patchen bit,
L24 0640 but as an order- so I stopped my hand and looked at him. He was
L24 0650 holding the piece of lead pipe out to me.   "We don't want to
L24 0660 know whether he's dead, yet. I gauged that blow to be borderline.
L24 0670 To kayo him and maybe or maybe not kill. You hit again about twice
L24 0680 that hard before we know whether he's dead or not. That way we'll
L24 0690 never know which of us really killed him and which was just the accomplice.
L24 0700 Dig"?   I dug him, I saw his point; it made sense.
L24 0710 I took the piece of pipe from Charlie's hand and used it, harder
L24 0720 than he had. The <thunk> was louder, anyway, and I thought I heard
L24 0730 bone crack.   Charlie said, "Good boy. That did it, if mine
L24 0750 didn't. And we'll never know which. All right, now I'll give
L24 0760 you a hand".   We straightened Pops up and I made sure there
L24 0770 was no trace of a heartbeat.   I nodded to Charlie. "Let's
L24 0780 put him down again the way he was. It's a more natural position".
L24 0790 We did that.   "How do you feel"? Charlie asked me.
L24 0800    "Cool", I told him. "What do you feel"?   "Nothing.
L24 0810 Well **h maybe I'm exaggerating. It was a kick, but not
L24 0820 a big enough one for me to want to take the chance again, except for
L24 0830 stakes. But let's not talk about it abstractly until we're out of
L24 0840 here. Now, first question: the bottles. Shall we take them all with
L24 0850 us, or leave one"?   "Take them", I said. "If we
L24 0860 left one we'd have to wipe it for fingerprints. Here's the picture
L24 0870 we want to leave for the fuzz- whenever the body gets found. This
L24 0880 happened in the middle of a drinking bout with another bum. If they'd
L24 0890 been working on a bottle or a jug he'd have taken it with him".
L24 0900    "Right. And he'd have taken the weapon with him too, so
L24 0910 we take that. Now"- He looked around. "I've been careful
L24 0920 about fingerprints. How about you"?   "Same. There are
L24 0930 the boards over the window, of course, but they're not painted and too
L24 0940 rough to take prints. Same goes for the rough cement of the ledge.
L24 0950 Besides, I doubt if the cops will even try dusting. They find dead
L24 0960 winos every day, maybe they won't even autopsy him for the cause of
L24 0970 death".   "We can't take a chance on that. We've got to
L24 0980 assume they'll decide he was murdered and we've got to keep the
L24 0990 picture consistent. Our hypothetical other bum who killed him would have
L24 1000 turned out his pockets. Let's do that". We did that and found
L24 1010 a dirty handkerchief, some matches and fourteen cents in change. We
L24 1020 took the matches- they were book matches and once they'd been touched
L24 1030 might retain fingerprints- and the change.   We discussed
L24 1040 the candle and decided the hypothetical other bum would have left it
L24 1050 burning to light his way to the window and because he'd have no reason
L24 1060 to blow it out. The candle had been stuck on a tin lid so it wouldn't
L24 1070 set fire to the crate when it guttered out. A fire wouldn't have
L24 1080 mattered except that it would cause Pops to be found sooner. He
L24 1090 might not be found for days, even weeks, otherwise.   We went once
L24 1100 more over every point, then triple-checked. Being picked up for questioning
L24 1110 by a cop on the way out seemed to be the only possible remaining
L24 1120 danger, and we weren't picked up by a cop. In fact, nobody saw
L24 1130 us, cop or citizen. Winsett is a quiet street with no taverns and was
L24 1140 completely deserted at that hour. Which, if it matters, was one A&M&.
L24 1150 Less than three hours ago we'd decided, in Maxine Wells's
L24 1160 pad on Cosmo, to commit a trial murder. It had gone like clockwork.
L24 1170 Almost <too> smoothly, I found myself thinking, and then told
L24 1180 myself that was ridiculous. How safe is too safe? Thinking like that
L24 1190 can get you into a padded pad.   An hour later we were back
L24 1200 in my unpadded pad, killing what had been left of the second pint. We
L24 1210 decided to leave the third one intact for tomorrow. Also our plans for
L24 1220 me to commit Charlie's murder and for him to commit mine. But we
L24 1230 were really going to do it. We shook hands on it.   We planned
L24 1240 ahead only one step, a rendezvous for tomorrow when we could swap notes.
L24 1250 I'd tell him everything I'd learned about Seaton's habits
L24 1260 and habitat, and he'd tell me the score on Radic. We made the date
L24 1270 for two o'clock in the afternoon at Maxine Wells's pad. Charlie
L24 1280 would get there early because he had the key. From here on in, the
L24 1290 less Charlie and I were seen together in public, or visited one another's
L24 1300 rooms, the better.   I was dead tired and slept soundly,
L24 1310 as far as I know dreamlessly.   We met at Maxine's and decided
L24 1320 we were set to stay as long as it took, into or even through the
L24 1330 evening, to talk things out. Charlie had brought food and we'd decided
L24 1340 on no drinks. I'd brought along the virgin pint from last night,
L24 1350 but we were going to kill that only when we were through talking.
L24 1360    I talked first, telling him everything I knew about Seaton and
L24 1370 his house and domestic arrangements. I drew diagrams and floor plans;
L24 1380 he memorized them thoroughly and then we tore them into tiny pieces
L24 1390 and flushed them down. He gave me equivalent and even more detailed
L24 1400 dope on Radic, including diagrams- one of the apartment building
L24 1410 Radic lived in and one of the apartment itself. He'd been there several
L24 1420 times, back when, while he and Radic had been friends, or at least
L24 1430 not enemies.   It didn't take us as long as we'd thought
L24 1440 it might; it was not quite six o'clock when we finished and Charlie
L24 1450 said, "Well, I guess that's it. Shall we flip a coin to see
L24 1460 which of us goes first? Or would you rather deal a hand of show-down
L24 1470 poker or play a game of gin rummy, or what"?   "Wait a
L24 1480 minute, Charlie", I said. "One thing we haven't discussed, expense
L24 1490 money. We'll need <some> at least, if only bus fare to the
L24 1500 scene of the crime. And if you're as flat broke as I am, I think
L24 1510 we'll have to take the added risk of knocking over a filling station
L24 1520 or something before we split for one of us to set up an alibi while
L24 1530 the other does his dirty work".   He sighed. "All right, I'll
L24 1540 come clean. I've got a little stashed for a rainy day, and I
L24 1550 guess this is rainy enough. A couple of hundred. If you draw the short
L24 1560 straw I'll lend you some bread, like fifty bucks, before I take
L24 1570 off to visit my sister in Frisco. Then, after I'm back, another
L24 1580 fifty so you can put some mileage on yourself and have a solid alibi
L24 1590 somewhere while I take care of your seat cover boy".   "Solid",
L24 1600 I said. I took a deep breath, and the plunge. "In that case,
L24 1605 let's not draw.
L24 1610 I'll go to bat first. You'd have to wait till Seaton's
L24 1620 back from Mexico City and also while I set it up with Doris
L24 1630 to have <her> have an alibi for D-night. So it wouldn't be
L24 1640 for days or even a week before you could do anything. But your friend
L24 1650 Manny can go any time".   He grinned and clapped me on the shoulder.
L24 1660 "I was hoping you'd say that, Willy. But I wouldn't
L24 1670 have suggested it. Well- in that case, I take off tomorrow morning
L24 1680 for Frisco. And, in case, I brought the money with me".