The Paul Cain Omnibus:

Every crime story and the novel Fast One as originally published

(Black Mask)

Paul Cain by Boris Dralyuk

Coleman said: “Eight ball in the corner.”

There was soft click of ball against ball and then sharper click as the black ball dropped into the pocket Coleman had called.

— Paul Cain, “Murder Done in Blue”

Somebody always takes it about as far as it’ll go, and no one took the hard-boiled farther than Paul Cain.

Raymond Chandler tagged Cain’s only novel, Fast One (1933), as “some kind of high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner.” They use that as a blurb; to my mind, those qualifications — “some kind,” “ultra” — reek of anxiety. Stacked pound-for-pound against Cain’s lean and war-hardened antihero Gerry Kells, Chandler’s Philip Marlowe comes off like a flabby, eccentric chatterbox — more Sydney Greenstreet than Humphrey Bogart.

The novel’s title says it all: Fast One. Some have called it A Fast One or The Fast One, but that’s not it. There’s neither need nor time for articles. Someone or something, in the singular, is fast. Fast and singular. And the chase is on:

Kells walked north on Spring. At Fifth he turned west, walked two blocks, turned into a small cigar store. He nodded to the squat bald man behind the counter and went on through the ground-glass-paneled door into a large and bare back room.

There’s so much momentum in those first lines — so little besides movement — that the reader can hardly keep up, much less take a pause. A pause might raise some questions. Just how does Kells get through that ground-glass-paneled door? Does he open it? Bust right through it? Roll through it as if it didn’t exist? But, of course, the door doesn’t exist. Cain’s language is stripped so bare it’s hardly referential. That’s the central paradox of the hard-boiled style: For all its reputed hardness, the universe it conjures is eerily immaterial — verbal, not substantive. Hard-boiled protagonists throw punches indefatigably, get blackjacked unconscious at the end of one chapter only to emerge with a slight headache at the start of the next, and keep moving to the last.

Cain’s characters aren’t people, they’re billiard balls, propelled by an initial push and colliding till they’re all sunk — “One, Two, Three,” as the title of one of his stories has it. Fast One’s first chapter, which starts with Kells rolling down Spring in downtown L.A., set to spark a gang war, ends with a kind of carom shot involving a gambler named Jake Rose and a pint-sized triggerman:

Rose came around the desk and took the automatic out of Kells’ belt, held it by the barrel and swung it swiftly back and then forward at Kells’ head. Kells moved his hand enough to take most of the butt of the automatic on his knuckles, and bent his knees and grabbed Rose’s arm. Then he fell backwards, pulled Rose down with him.

The little man came into the room quickly and kicked the side of Kells’ head very hard. Kells relaxed his grip on Rose and Rose stood up, brushed himself off and went over and kicked Kells very carefully, drawing his foot back and aiming, and then kicking very accurately and hard.

The kitten jumped off the desk and went to Kells’ bloody head and sniffed delicately. Kells could feel the kitten’s warm breath. Then everything got dark and he couldn’t feel anything any more.

That kitten is a nice touch. Sniffing, “delicately,” at a not-quite-dead piece of meat. Just another animal, drawn to a meal.

It’s hard to believe that the first installment of Fast One, which debuted in the March 1932 issue of Black Mask, is Cain’s first appearance in print. He hit the ground running. The novel sets the pace for Cain’s other stories, while Kells sets the mold for their protagonists: obdurate plug-uglies or clever machers, such as the titular narrator of “Black” (May 1932); or Red, who narrates “Parlor Trick” (July 1932) and “Trouble-Chaser” (April 1934); or “St. Nick” Green of “Pineapple” (March 1936). Black, Red, Green — beautifully rendered abstractions careening across the flat surface of Cain’s prose.

Cain got his break thanks to Captain Joseph T. Shaw. In 1926, Shaw took the helm of what was then called The Black Mask magazine, a matrix for the hard-boiled style. (One of Shaw’s first acts as editor was dropping the “The” from the magazine’s title.) Twelve of the fifteen hard-boiled stories reprinted in this volume first appeared in Black Mask, along with the five stories that were eventually sutured together as Fast One. Shaw’s previous star contributor, Dashiell Hammett, left the magazine in 1931, the year Cain arrived. Shaw himself was forced out by the publisher in 1936, the year Cain’s last story appeared in the magazine. Cain wasn’t just Hammett’s successor, to Shaw’s mind: “in the matter of grim hardness,” he wrote, Cain was Hammett’s superior. “Dash paused on the threshold, [Cain] went all the way.”[1]

Whatever Shaw meant by “grim hardness,” it isn’t to everyone’s taste. An earlier edition of Cain’s stories from Centipede Press carried brief, perceptive introductions by leading names in crime writing, including Ed Gorman, Joe Gores, Edward D. Hoch, John Lutz, and Bill Pronzini. Most of the commentators were duly reverential, but some couldn’t hide their qualms. While Robert Randisi noted that Cain’s work is “[b]etter than most” of the Black Mask set, he still ranked it “a notch or two below that of Chandler and Hammett.” As Gorman put it, “[t]here is in Hammett a great sorrow and in Chandler great melancholy. Not a trace of either appears in Cain.”

What Gorman mourns is the absence of an emotional load. But that lack is only the symptom of a profounder vacancy. Hammett was an inveterate lefty, and used the Continental Op to lance capitalism’s Poisonvilles, while Chandler, who admits to having learned “American just like a foreign language,” forever remained an outraged public school boy, pinning his hopes for civilization on a medieval knight in a powder-blue suit. One red and the other reactionary, both Hammett and Chandler harbored strong convictions — convictions expressed, whether intentionally or not, through their chosen genre. Not so with Cain, who seems to have been free of any such burden. The main thing his work expresses is the genre itself, in all its inexorable but essentially meaningless logic. He’s the oracle at Black Mask, huffing the fumes of Capt. Shaw’s cigars and delivering an almost unmediated vision of the hard-boiled as such.

In “Back in the Old Black Mask” (1987), the writer and historian William Brandon, who cut his teeth at Shaw’s “rough paper,” recalled his early mentor’s thoughts on “objective writing”:

Objectivity was part of what Shaw meant by style — a clean page, a clean line, an uncluttered phrase. I remember him showing me a couple of lines in a manuscript of Raymond Chandler’s, something such as, “I looked into the fire and smoked a cigarette. Then I went to bed.” This was the key line of the story, Shaw said. In those few minutes watching the fire the protagonist thought the problem through and reached his tough decision. You weren’t told that but you knew it. The line was clean, the effect was subtle but strong. Objective writing was good hard prose as against the spongy prose of subjectivity.[2]

One senses that Shaw’s proclamation isn’t simply an older writer’s attempt to provoke or mystify a starry-eyed tyro. The line may or may not be pivotal for Chandler’s story, but it certainly provides a key to Shaw’s notion of storytelling. Rudimentary and drained of character, these two sentences report nothing but action that’s only implicitly, if at all, related to the plot. Brandon recalls another of Shaw’s edicts, more telling than the first:

A letter from Hammett, Shaw said one day, had included the line, “I can make a better wall with the same bricks now than I could make a year ago.” Shaw was much taken by the image of the wall and referred to it again and again. “It’s the wall itself that counts for the writer,” he said, “not what it closes in or out — that’s for the critics to mull over. The writer’s business is just making the best wall he can.”[3]

Although Shaw insisted in the March 1931 issue of Black Mask that the magazine’s contents reflected his readership’s distinctly modern morality, which opposed “unfairness, trickery, injustice, cowardly underhandedness” and stood “for a square deal and a fair show in little or big things,” his shoptalk with Brandon exposes him as something of a doctrinaire formalist.[4] And despite their formal mastery, neither Hammett nor Chandler could quite force themselves to build a wall without considering what lies on either side of it. Cain, on the other hand, was ideally suited to the job. His spare vocabulary, skeletal syntax, and relentless action do more than realize Shaw’s ideal — they brazenly bare the genre’s devices, leaving readers like Gorman vaguely disconcerted and hungry for substance. This isn’t to say that Cain had nothing new to offer: His protagonists — gangsters, gamblers, and addicts — are some of the first true antiheroes in the hard-boiled tradition. But this, too, only takes the device of the ambiguously or unconventionally moral detective hero to its logical conclusion, demonstrating that the genre’s animating feature is action, not character. As Irvin Faust writes in the afterword to a 1978 reprint of Fast One, “the pace takes over, is itself a major character, perhaps the major character, and it controls the book.”[5] Cain doesn’t merely stick to Black Mask’s reduced palette; his Blacks, Reds, and Greens constantly call attention to its elemental makeup. One risk of this approach, of course, is painting oneself into a corner. Cain “went all the way,” alright — and dropped into the pocket Shaw had called.

All the same, within the confines of his genre, Cain’s work is remarkably diverse. For a virtuoso, self-imposed limitations can be assistive, even liberating — and Cain was nothing if not virtuosic. He did with the hard-boiled manner what Paganini had done with a single string.

Fast One and the Black Mask tales from which it originated — “Fast One” (March 1932), “Lead Party” (April 1932), “Velvet” (June 1932), “The Heat” (August 1932), and “The Dark” (September 1932) — represent the summit of “grim hardness,” a third-person minimalism that realizes its own implosive potential. But Cain continued to experiment in this vein. “Murder Done in Blue” (June 1933), for instance, puts his ingenuity with the third-person perspective on full display. The story’s structure is cinematic, opening with close ups of three apparently unconnected murders before anchoring us to the protagonist who’ll connect the dots, ex-studio stuntman Johnny Doolin. Cain toys with our expectations, inviting us to an intimate dinner scene at Doolin’s kitchenette, but denying us true access:

A rather pretty fresh-faced girl was stirring something in a white saucepan on the little gas stove. She looked up and smiled and said: “Dinner’ll be ready in a minute,” wiped her hands on her apron and began setting the table...

She was twenty-three or — four, a honey-blonde pink-cheeked girl with wide gray eyes, a slender well-curved figure.

Doolin went to her and kissed the back of her neck.

The girl of indeterminate age is Doolin’s wife; the “something” in the saucepan is dinner. We get no help from Cain.

On closer inspection, however, Cain’s stories feature a complexity of characterization beyond what one expects from his style. His protagonists may, at some level, be abstractions, but they could not function if they lacked depth. They individuate in subtle ways, especially in the first-person narratives. Black, who’s as tough as they come, radiates just enough warmth, by way of humor, to suggest a hint of vulnerability:

It was dark there, there wasn’t anyone on the street — I could have walked away. I started to walk away and then the sucker instinct got the best of me and I went back and bent over him.

I shook him and said: “Come on, chump — get up out of the puddle.”

A cab came around the corner and its headlights shone on me — and there I was, stooping over a drunk whom I’d never seen before, who thought my name was McCary.

And there he is, a hard man whose momentary pause, a concession to a soft instinct, sets “Black” in motion. Cain’s minimalism also creates a context for an unusually effecting depiction of shock. Consider Red’s reaction to the sight of a corpse in “Parlor Trick”: “I looked at the glass and I looked up at the man again. I think I said: ‘Christ,’ very softly.” So much hinges on that “I think,” which undermines the rigid composure of Red’s voice. It’s worth remembering that trauma and its repression are a recurrent theme. As Kells quips through a grin, “I came back from France... with a set of medals, a beautiful case of shell shock and a morphine habit you could hang your hat on.”

In other stories, Cain mastered the tone of breezy, world-weary confidence — which implies total competence. Keenan of “Dutch Treat” (December 1936) could take up any of the Continental Op’s cases midstream without missing a beat:

Our firm — the Old Man was it, Lefty and I just worked for him — handled more insurance cases than anything else and had a pretty swell reputation — as reputations of confidential investigating outfits go.

Hammett, that Lefty, would be proud. An even breezier tone whistles through the pages of “One, Two, Three” (May 1933), this time with a witty formal justification: The unidentified P.I. recounts his case during a poker game, punctuating the narrative with an occasional “I’ll take three off the top, please” and “Pass.” The cards bring their own momentum to the table.

This touches on another of Cain’s abiding themes, or rather, motifs: the gambling mentality. Be they grist for the mill of a penny-ante racket — like the black cabby Lonny in “555” (December 1935) — or high-rollers like Kells in Fast One, Shane in “Red 71” (December 1932), and Finn in “Sockdolager” (Aril 1936), Cain’s characters are always eloquent barometers for the thrills and desperations of the sporting life:

That Number Two spot was an inspiration. The Santa Anita track had just opened and all Southern California had gone nag-nutty. We got the cream in Number two; at two o’clock of any afternoon in the week you could stand in the middle of the main room and poke your finger in the eye of anywhere from ten to two dozen picture stars, wives of stars, “cousins” of producers, and just plain rich women. If you think men are natural gamblers you ought to see a lot of gals who can afford it in a bunch. A two grand parlay was chickenfeed. (“Sockdolager”)

Cain’s dominant character is the incorrigible gambler, the risk-taker who lives and dies by his hunches. Criminals and their pursuers have that trait in common, and in Cain’s fiction, it’s seldom clear which is which. Cain makes the most of this irony in “Hunch” (March 1934), where the seasoned detective Cy Brennan follows his nose down a blind alley, taking the reader right along with him:

She was staring at him with wide hard eyes: one eyebrow was arched to a thin skeptical line, her red mouth curved humorously upward at the corners. She said with broad, biting sarcasm: “The old Brennan hunches — they never miss...”

Keith Alan Deutsch addresses the thrill-seeking impulse inherent to so many of Cain’s characters in his afterword to Fast One, and shrewdly identifies its effect; Kells and his ilk confront us with a bracing, “clean” amorality. They are indeed the true forerunners of both Lee Marvin in Point Blank (1967) and Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (1987).

Cain’s virtuosity extends to his perfectly pitched depictions of disparate social strata. His narratives move effortlessly from the Roosevelt Hotel to a dirty flophouse, and his characters react to these shifts in various ways. “St. Nick” Green circulates among “legman, Park Avenue debutantes, pickpockets, touts, bank robbers and bank presidents, wardheelers, and international confidence men,” but remains a parvenu, spending “more of his time in night courts than in nightclubs.” Whereas Druse, a mysterious retired judge in “Pigeon Blood” (November 1933), exudes an elegance and sophistication alien to most of Cain’s protagonists: “Druse leaned forward. ‘I am not a fixer,’ he said. ‘My acquaintance is wide and varied — I am fortunate in being able to wield certain influences.’” There is a great deal of reserve in Druse’s speech; it may be the reticence of a man guarding old wounds.

Only a writer freely exploring the boundaries of his genre could have produced such a variety of stories in so short a time. It is, in a sense, fitting that the man behind this protean achievement was himself so protean.

On November 2, 1986 the Los Angeles Times ran the following ad in the classifieds:

Information Sought

I am writing a biography of the

hard-boiled novelist Paul Cain

(a.k.a. Peter Ruric/George Sims),

author of the classic Los Angeles

gangster novel “Fast One” (1933).

I would appreciate hearing from

anyone with letters or biographical

information.

DAVID A. BOWMAN

Bowman never did produce his book-length biography. He could only scrape so much together, and much of what he found couldn’t be verified. Along with essays by E. R. Hagemann and Peter Gunn, and book chapters by David E. Wilt and Woody Haut, Bowman’s introduction to the 1987 Black Lizard edition of Fast One is still one of the best sources on Cain’s life. Recent work by Lynn F. Myers Jr. and Max Allan Collins has added to Bowman’s portrait. And yet, thanks largely to his own efforts, Cain has remained a cipher.

The photo that originally appeared on Fast One’s jacket is a high-angle, ¾ portrait of Cain’s bearded face, with a diagonal white bar across his eyes. It’s the only published picture we have of him, and might as well have been taken by Man Ray. The white band is an obvious but striking feature. So is his first self-obliterating, deflective, yet spasmodically revealing autobiographical sketch, which begins:

PAUL CAIN

isn’t his real name.

is slender, blond, usually bearded.

has wasted his first thirty years as a

matter of course and principle; wan-

dered over South America, Europe,

northern Africa and the Near East;

been a buson’s-mate, Dada painter,

gambler, and a “no”-man in Holly-

wood.

likes Mercedes motor-cars, peanut

butter, Gstaad, and phonograph

records of Leslie Hutchinson, Scotch

whiskey, some of the paintings of

Chirico, gardenias, vegetables and

sour cream, Garbo, Richebourg

1904, and Little Pam.

dislikes parsnips, the color pink,

sopranos, men who wear white silk

sox, backgammon, cigars and a great

many men, women, and children.

Cain’s lies — and many were to follow in subsequent autobiographical statements — form a predictable pattern: unlikely ports of call, unbelievable occupations, and preposterous literary accomplishments. He never completed “a new novel of crime and blood and thunder, tentatively titled Three in the Dark,” and no library in the world holds “a melodramatic farce” titled Young Man Sees God, or any of his other supposed titles: Hypersensualism: A Practical Philosophy for Acrobats; Syncopaen; The Naked Man; Advertisement for Death; Broad; The Cock-Eyed Angel; or Seven Men Named Caesar. Nor is it likely that anyone will ever track down the long-lost acetate reels of Cain’s “motion picture to end motion pictures entitled Grapefruit and You,” which somehow calls to mind the Gerry Kells-like Jimmy Cagney flattening a grapefruit on Mae Clarke’s face in The Public Enemy (1931) — except you’re Mae Clarke. And of course Fast One, too, might just be a gag.

Cain was, in fact, an Iowan named George Caryl Sims, born in Des Moines on May 30, 1902, to one-time police detective and drugstore owner William Dow Sims and his wife Eva, née Freberg, the daughter of Swedish immigrants.[6] The exact date of his family’s relocation to Los Angeles remains unknown; the young Sims and his mother, who was by then divorced, probably made the move in 1921, while his father and paternal grandfather, George C. Sims, a Union veteran of the Civil War, joined them a few years later. Although Myers and Collins had found William Sims listed as a salesman in the 1924 Des Moines City Directory, the 1923 Los Angeles City Directory has William D. Sims, George C. Sims, and George C. Sims, “Jr.” residing at 1201 June St., while Mrs. Eva W. Sims is described as a stenographer at 6026-D Hollywood Blvd.[7]

One can guess at the reasons for the family’s exodus from Des Moines to “double Dubuque,” as H. L. Mencken dubbed it. Boom-time Los Angeles was a magnet for well-heeled Midwesterners like the elder George C. Sims. Louis Adamic described these “Folks” of the ’20s — evocatively and not without sympathy — in his autobiography Laughing in the Jungle (1932):

They were pioneers back in Ioway and Nebraska. No doubt they swindled a little, but they always prayed a little, too, or maybe a great deal. And they paid taxes and raised young ones. They are old and rheumatic. They sold out their farms and businesses in the Middle West and wherever they used to live, and now they are here in California — sunny California — to rest and regain their vigor, enjoy climate, look at pretty scenery, live in little bungalows with a palm-tree or banana plant out front, and eat in cafeterias. Toil-broken and bleached out, they flock to Los Angeles, fugitives from the simple, inexorable justice of life, from hard labor and drudgery, from cold winters and blistering summers of the prairies...[8]

Los Angeles also drew younger Midwesterners on the make. Indeed, the most revealing detail of the routine, telegraphic entry in the 1923 City Directory has nothing to do with the Sims family’s living arrangement. It’s a matter of professional ambition. George C. Sims, Jr. — twenty-one years of age — is registered as an “author.”[9] In the mid-’20s, probably eager to shake the image of an Iowan bumpkin, Sims rechristened himself Ruric (first George, then Peter). He began cutting a figure in Hollywood, grabbing production assistant and assistant director credits on Josef von Sternberg’s The Salvation Hunters (1925) and A Woman at Sea (1926), respectively.

It was at this time that his flair for pseudonyms left a permanent mark on Myrna Williams, a young starlet searching for a screen name. In her memoir, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming (1987), she writes: “Peter Rurick [sic], a wild Russian writer of free verse, suddenly came up with ‘Myrna Loy.’ And I said, ‘What’s that?’ It sounded alright, but I still wasn’t convinced about changing my name.”[10] A Russian free-verse poet? Surely a ruse, but his research was passable. He probably borrowed Peter from Peter the Great, and Ruric from the ninth-century founder of the Rurikid dynasty. And Myrna Loy, for its part, sounds suspiciously similar to Mina Loy, a real free-verse poet. Cain would later claim to have published in Blast and transition. Anachronistic fabrications, but evidence of wide-ranging reading. He would have run across Mina Loy’s work in the little magazines. A couple of her “Aphorisms on Futurism” (1914) even seem to predict Cain’s distinctly modernistic aesthetic: “IN pressing the material to derive its essence, matter becomes deformed. AND form hurtling against itself is thrown beyond the synopsis of vision.”

By 1930 he was in New York. His stint there yielded a new persona — Paul Cain — and a bruising relationship with an actress named Gertrude Michael, who matched the alcoholic Sims drink for drink. In 1932 she landed an M-G-M screen test in Hollywood, and he tagged along. They took up residence at the stately Montecito Hotel & Apartments (6650 Franklin Avenue), where he crossed paths with a fellow Black Mask regular, Raoul Whitfield. It was here that Sims completed Fast One, dedicating it to Michael, who likely served as the model for Granquist, Kells’s alcoholic moll. He sold the novel’s story to Paramount, which turned it into Gambling Ship (1933), a lumbering vehicle for Cary Grant and Benita Hume. Sims and Michael split when the book was still hot off the presses; as the L. A. Times gossip columnist “Tip Poff” put on October 23, 1933, “Peter Ruric (Paul Cain) and Gertrude Michael are going places. But not together.” How right he was: the three of them — Ruric, Cain, and Michael — would chart their own courses.

As Ruric, Sims enjoyed a respectable if humdrum career in screenwriting, which began with work on the script to Affairs of a Gentleman (1934). His most distinguished effort was the screenplay for Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934), a masterpiece of expressionistic horror. In a January 1998 interview with Tom Weaver, Shirley Ulmer described her husband’s collaborator as “brilliant, really, but cuckoo. [...] He wasn’t like any ordinary person I’d ever met. But very, very brilliant — Edgar adored him, and they were very close.”[11] Edgar Ulmer’s own assessment, given to Peter Bogdanovich in 1970, is a bit more somber: “He was a young man who had come out from New York, and I met him; a very intelligent boy who should have been a great playwright but got lost.”[12] Relying on the testimony of relatives, Bowman limns the Ruric pose: he was a “blond, bearded member of the Malibu Beach crowd, taken to wearing ascot scarves.”[13] He apparently spent the next four years in Europe with his mother. The only record of his work in the European film industries is shared credit for the script to Jericho (1937), a British drama starring Paul Robeson that was released in the U.S. as Dark Sands. Sims then returned to make another splash in Tinseltown.

His accomplishments of note during this second Hollywood period are the story for Twelve Crowded Hours (1938), which he hammered out with Garrett Fort — an adherent of Meher Baba whose life would end in suicide at a Los Angeles hotel in 1945 — and script work on Grand Central Murder (1942), a giddy maze of flashbacks that highlights his facility with form. He also contributed to the adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Night of January 16th (1941).

On August 18, 1939, he married a twenty-year-old “cigarette girl” from Nebraska named Virginia Maxine Glau, who changed her moniker, at her husband’s suggestion, to Mechel Ruric. (Although Bowman gives her name as Mushel, the L. A. Times and the 194 °Census record it as Mechel.) As Bowman describes it, Mechel and Sims met cute at her place of work: “One night, he and the notorious Prince Romanoff wobbled into the new nightclub, the Mocambo. Romanoff wobbled because he was nipped, and Ruric wobbled because he was nipped and his leg was in a cast.”[14] The impostor Ruric palling around with the impostor Romanoff? All the makings of a royal Russian farce.

The Rurics’ honeymoon period came to a screeching halt seven months later, in March 1940, with Mechel’s flight from the third-story balcony of the couple’s home at 1412 N. Kingsley Drive, after what must have been a hell of a quarrel. She survived and stuck with her husband (for the most part) until 1943. Mechel furnished Bowman with a bleak sketch of a man losing his grip: “On most nights Ruric drove home from the studio blind drunk, miraculously navigating the curving driveway without steering off the cliff. He then stumbled up to the porch, crashed through the front door, and passed out in the hallway.”[15]

When Mechel finally left him, Sims took a room at the Chateau Marmont (8221 Sunset Blvd.), where he befriended an unlikely fellow resident, Sinclair Lewis, who’d been brought out by M-G-M to work on a screenplay with Dore Schary. Lewis writes about Sims, who was introduced to him as Peter Ruric, in a series of letters to his mistress, Marcella Powers. His letter of July 17, 1943, on Marmont stationary, gives us another glimmer of Sims’s mythic self, and of its power to impress:

My great pal here a new man whom you would like as much as you do Hal Smith (with less safety from propositioning, however) — Peter Ruric, to whom I was introduced by [Clifton] Kip Fadiman but who proved to be an MGM writer with a cell just a few doors from mine. He is in the Elliott [sic] Paul tradition, with a touch of Peter Godfrey (no, haven’t seen him yet) and a dash of Francois Villon. For years he has hewed out a movie script, then escaped to Paris — China — Carmel — Buenos Ayres, to write an exquisite but unsaleable story, and, casually along the way, to marry or just amiably live with and just as casually to leave some lovely girl — I have only his genteel and unpretentious word for it, however, that they were lovely.

Elliot Paul is indeed an awfully astute comparison. Born in 1891 — just over a decade before Sims — Paul was an experimental novelist in the early ’20s, an émigré in Gertrude Stein’s Parisian circle and a co-editor of transition in the middle of that decade, a “missing person” on a Spanish isle in the early ’30s, and a Hollywood screenwriter in the ’40s. Snatches of his biography correspond so perfectly to the facts and fictions of Sims’s own story that one is justified in asking whether the latter modeled himself on the former. Elliot Paul’s name even forms a Venn diagram with Paul Cain’s, and the titles of his first three novels — Indelible (1922), Impromptu (1923), and Imperturbe (1924) — sound like prequels to Syncopean. The situation, of course, is more complicated; Elliot Paul may not have served as a direct role model, but he did represent the society to which Sims had always wished to belong. Ironically, while Sims continued to place stock in spurious avant-garde credentials, Paul was turning to crime fiction. His The Mysterious Mickey Finn: Or, Murder at the Café du Dôme (1939) inaugurated a series of parodic detective novels starring Homer Evans, an American expatriate in Paris. In more ways than one, Sims and the smart set were ships in the night.

On July 25, Lewis describes a night in the life of Hollywood “players”: “last evening, going again to PR [Players Restaurant] with Peter Ruric and a couple of gals (each of whom was preposterously more beautiful, intelligent, and adorable than any NY girl, such as this Rosemary Povah).” But by August 10, Lewis had tired of the Ruric mystique: “Dinner last night, the only one attempted in my tiny dining-room where houseman here serves [me] breakfasts: Cedric [Hardwicke], who was charming as ever, Alex Knox (Jason) who was fair, Peter Ruric who was dreary...” It appears that many in Hollywood were beginning to feel the same way.

Cain, for his part, had a small resurgence. In 1944 Sims took a trip to New York, renting an apartment at 3 E 33rd Street and meeting with Shaw. After his return to Hollywood, Sims’s erstwhile mentor helped resuscitate his nose-diving protégé’s career, including “Red 71” in The Hard-Boiled Omnibus (1946). Shaw’s correspondence with Sims, who was living in a two-bedroom home at 2372 Loma Vista Place, involved more obfuscation and outright malarkey. Meanwhile, the Shaw Press in Hollywood (a subsidiary of Saint Enterprises) reprinted Fast One in 1944, followed by Sims’s own compilation of his finest Black Mask tales, Seven Slayers (1946). Avon would keep both volumes in print into the ’50s.

By that time, Ruric was entirely on the outs with the studios. His last screenplay had been a collaborative adaptation of two Maupassant stories, Mademoiselle Fifi (1944), and in 1948 he received a credit for the appropriately named Alias a Gentleman, which was based on a story he had sold to M-G-M in 1941. As Myers and Collins disclose, 1948 also saw Ruric writing two episodes for the radio program Cavalcade of America, “Incident at Niagara” (September 27, 1948) and “Home to the Heritage” (October 11, 1948). They quote radio historian Martin Grams: “It is interesting to note that he co-wrote the scripts with Virginia Radcliffe, who herself was a free-lance writer and wrote numerous scripts for Cavalcade.”[16] This partnership is interesting indeed, and wasn’t limited to the airwaves. Sims and Radcliffe, who was born in Chicago in 1914, were married sometime in 1945 or ’46, and their union lasted until the end of the decade. Radcliffe, the second Virginia in Sims’s life, had previously been married to the prolific bit-player and sometime writer George M. Lynn; after divorcing Sims, she’d go on to marry William Hurst, becoming an outspoken conservationist and penning The Caribbean Heritage, an illustrated history of the islands, which was published shortly after her death in 1976.

Sometime during their marriage the couple lived in New York, and it was at this point that Sims’s old acquaintance from the Chateau Marmont, Sinclair Lewis, reappeared in his life. Lewis’s biographer Mark Schorer writes:

[Lewis] was spending as many hours as she would give him with Miss Powers, but there were empty stretches when he turned to people whom he hardly knew — the young Hollywood script-writer Peter Ruric, for example, who was now writing a novel in New York, and whom Lewis invited to his apartment with his fiancée, and to whom he said that he could not work in New York, that he was returning as soon as possible to his home ground. One afternoon he had this couple to a cocktail party with some other young people, including Miss Powers, and presently he sent the whole party out to dinner, promising to join them later. He made reservations for them at an 86th Street Brauhaus, to which they proceeded, and where they dined, danced and waited for him; but he never came. His guests spoke of him with faint scorn, a hopeless case, and Miss Powers, although defensive of him, despaired, too.[17]

Lewis himself had grown dreary. Schorer seems to have learned of this meeting partly from Miss Powers, and partly from Virginia Radcliffe herself, whom he thanks in his acknowledgments.

Records from the U.S. Copyright Office also show that Sims had written plays as Ruric that were never published, registering Memory of Man, a Play. In Three Acts in 1947, and Count Bruga, a Morality Play in Three Acts in 1949.[18] The latter was based on Ben Hecht’s 1926 novel, a satire of Greenwich Village bohemia and its archetypal poète maudit, Maxwell Bodenheim.

In 1949, Marcel Duhamel, the legendary editor of Gallimard’s “Série noire,” added a French translation of Fast One to his catalog. Inclusion in this prestigious series — a favorite among French intellectuals — encouraged Sims. By this time, it must have been clear to him that the Paul Cain stories stood the best chance of gaining him entry into the world of the European avant-garde, to which he had long claimed allegiance. After all, even Gertrude Stein had lent the hard-boiled crime novel her imprimatur in Everybody’s Autobiography (1937): “I never try to guess who has done the crime and if I did I would be sure to guess wrong but I liked somebody being dead and how it moves along and Dashiell Hammett was all that and more.”[19] A year earlier, in her lecture “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them” (1936), Stein had mused on the detective story’s peculiar merits: “It is very curious but the detective story which is you might say the only really modern novel form that has come into existence gets rid of human nature by having the man dead to begin with.”[20] Stein valued style and pace, and Hammett had certainly provided, but it was Cain who would have best met her needs; no one in the hard-boiled school had so fearlessly elevated style and pace over moral substance and “human nature.” Indeed, no crime novel was more modernistic in a Steinian sense than Fast One, and Duhamel had given its author recognition when he needed it most.

According to his memoir, Raconte pas ta vie (1972), Duhamel had the dubious honor of meeting Sims in France around that time. The man he encountered was a physically decrepit, unbearably needy specimen, who was “unable to take a single step by himself” — a limp “octopus,” a “vampire” that would exceed Polanski’s imagination.[21] Duhamel’s story confirms the notion that Sims had bottomed out, and was now betting on Paul Cain:

It was Hollywood that had done him in. A renowned screenwriter, a darling at “parties,” disgusted with work that was unworthy of him, he ended up seeking inspiration in alcohol. This was followed by emotional setbacks, two divorces, three detoxification cures, and a course of psychoanalysis; he came to Europe looking for some kind of salvation, after having tried everything else. “And,” he said, “you are my last hope.”[22]

Duhamel couldn’t stand him. Using the advance for a French translation of Seven Slayers, the editor sent Sims packing for Spain. Life in Alicante and on Mallorca seems to have worked miracles for Sims’s health; it’s hard to believe that his whimsical article on Spanish cooking for Gourmet magazine, “Viva la Castañetas: A Spanish [Mostly Mallorquin] Letter” (June 1951), could have been written by the same “jellyfish” that Duhamel had seen off at the train station. Upon receiving word of Sims’s newfound joie de vivre, and another marriage, it took Duhamel “some time to recover from the shock.”[23]

Peggy Gregson had recently graduated from the University of North Carolina and was taking a grand tour of Europe with her girlfriend, Jeanne Summers. She, Jeanne, and Jeanne’s mother met the man they knew as Peter Ruric at a Mallorcan restaurant in 1955. It was Jeanne’s mother, roughly Sims’s contemporary, who struck up the conversation, but Sims had his eye on Peggy. Although he was thirty years her senior, and a year older than her own father, the bohemian writer swept the girl off her feet. She briefly returned to her family home in Varina, Virginia, but she didn’t stay away long, soon heading back to Spain.

Peggy would become Cain’s third wife. In Catholic Spain, three was two too many. The couple tied the knot in Tripoli, Libya, where they spent a month in 1956 in order to established residence.

They eventually set sail for California on a freighter from Italy, travelling through the Panama Canal and points south for “forty days and forty nights,” as Peggy recalls. They settled in South Laguna and had two sons: Peter Craig in 1956 and Michael Sean in 1958. According to Peggy, Sims, now in his fifties, wasn’t hitting the bottle any more than was usual for the period. She describes a happy and charmed life, although she admits his old Hollywood friends may have wondered what he was doing “with that little girl.” He was a kind, loving man — a snazzy dresser and a wonderful cook — but simply couldn’t provide for his family. He refused to abandon his identity as a writer, even when the writing opportunities had dried up for good. Peggy sensed that his old friends weren’t as eager to see him as he was to see them. He didn’t seem to be writing much anyhow. But pumping gas wasn’t an option, nor was letting Peggy work.

When Peter Craig was ten months old, the family travelled cross-country in Sims’s Thunderbird, paying a visit to the Gregsons in Virginia. The dashing author wowed Peggy’s friends, but unnerved her parents. In December 1958, a few months after Michael Sean’s birth, the family went east again. Sims first connected with his friend Jim Lowry in Washington, D.C., and then took off for Cuba. Peggy and the kids settled with her parents in Virginia.

Sims had tried to consolidate his personae as early as the mid-’40s, when he’d composed a bio for Shaw’s Omnibus that began, “Paul Cain is Peter Ruric, wrote his first crime novel in the early thirties on a bet.” Shaw did not to use it (although a smaller “Peter Ruric” did appear in parentheses below “Paul Cain”). Sims had also swapped “Peter Ruric” for “Paul Cain” on the tear sheets of the stories in Seven Slayers, which now sit in the Joseph Shaw papers at UCLA’s Young Research Library. The publishers kept “Paul Cain.”

On top of all his other woes — both mental and material — this diffusion of identity must have been exhausting. Nowhere is that exhaustion more evident than in the letters and postcards that Sims sent Peggy and his sons in the late ’50s and early ’60s, care of her family and friends in Virginia. He was no longer able to control or keep up the appearances that were so important to him. Bowman secured some of these letters from Peggy in the 1980s, and copies now sit in the E. R. Hagemann papers at UCLA’s Young Research Library.

Reading them can be a painful experience. One of the longer letters is a New Year’s greeting, written aboard a German liner in Havana on the evening of December 31, 1958, and the morning of January 1, 1959 — on the eve of Batista’s flight. Sims writes of his failing health, an unsuccessful attempt to place a novel called Truce, faint hope for a play called The Ecstasy Department, and his generally dwindling prospects:

“Truce” is out for the moment, honey — Doubleday is edgy about it being “uncompromisingly sexual” — they didn’t say sexy, they said sexual — and they’ll have to see more of it and for this time of unpeace it isn’t the answer. Maybe The Ecstasy Department is, but it’s in a trunk in Laguna. It probably isn’t the answer either — there are so few answers left for a man with thought shaped like mine who is fighting for so much more than his life. I thought of a cheap hotel in some small town by the sea in Florida. Is there one? So. After, conceivably, getting physically well in the sun, what would I do? I thought of S. America. I thought of Africa. (I whisper this, ever so gently — a man in even consummately concealed sorrow is not made welcome in new places. They know. He’s not made welcome in old places either. I may learn to ever more consummately conceal it during this, God grant, short empty interval, but I shall never be really welcome again anywhere until I am whole again. Stop. Unwhisper.)

In the end, his consummate disguises worn thin, Sims returned to Los Angeles: “And so, whether I like it or not, California seems to be in the cards, so I’m trying to like it. It takes a certain kind of courage to go back there looking like a tramp and face the music and the bill-collectors and our friends.”

Cracking Hollywood again proved nearly impossible. His last credit is for a contribution to the script of “The Man from Blackhawk,” an episode of the TV Western The Lady in Yellow, which aired on January 24, 1960. His letters — one sent from Mrs. Tita D’Oporto’s Studio House apartment at 6201 Fountain Avenue, several cuts below the Montecito — tell of strained circumstances. He claims that three stories he had written for a television series were abruptly shelved. Above all, he longs to reunite with his family, pleading for a response, composing nursery rhymes for his children, and crowding the letters’ margins with doodles of concentric hearts and polka-dotted elephants:

If you said, ‘They’re paying high wages in the brinzel factory at Dimpling Ky. and need men — we’ll meet you there — you can work on books and stories nightstand Sundays,’ I’d be there so fast it would make all our Ruric heads spin.

Peggy, who now lives in Richmond, Virginia, still keeps these letters, along with other mementos of their relationship. He never stopped writing to her, and she responded when she could, even after remarrying in June 1962. Suffused with charm and punctured by whispered sorrow, Sims’s letters may be his last great work. They offer us a fleeting glimpse of the man behind the fiction, who had found happiness in family life and was desperate to recapture it.

Sims died of ureter and lung cancer on June 23, 1966. His last known address was a small bungalow at 6127 Glen Holly Street; he passed away at the Toluca Lake Convalescent Hospital. His death certificate states that he had made Los Angeles his home for 48 years, and had been an author for 43 of them. Sims’s first bold autobiographical statement supports this claim, by hook or by crook. He might have been telling the truth when he listed himself as an “author” in the 1923 L. A. City Directory, although no one has yet found any of his writing from that period. And if he had been lying, then that listing was his first work of fiction, published 43 years before his death.

Bowman tracked Sims’s posthumous fate to another dead end: “His body was cremated, and the box of ashes sat in a Glendale cemetery’s storage room until 1968 when it was shipped to Hawaii to the care of a woman who was either an old lover or an old friend.”[24]

The ashes were stored at Glendale’s Grand View Memorial Park, and dispatched to Honolulu’s Nuuanu Memorial Park on May 24, 1968. At that time, Peggy and her boys were living in Honolulu, where her second husband, a neurologist, was stationed during the Vietnam War. Peggy did not claim the ashes, but Sims had known that she and the kids would be in Hawaii. She conjectures that he arranged for a friend to scatter his ashes near his family.

This friend was likely Tita D’Oporto, who appears to have been as close to the man in the final years of his life as anyone. The “Peter Ruric AKA George Sims” file at the Crippen Mortuary in La Crescenta, which bought the Eckerman-Heisman Mortuary that had handled Sims’s cremation, contains letters and notes from D’Oporto, her attorney, and Sims’s maternal aunt, Alma E. Winkler. It is D’Oporto who took the greatest interest in Sims’s affairs. She lived next door to him on Glen Holly Street, but was abroad when he passed. Upon her return, she contacted the mortuary and informed them that his wishes were to have his cremains scattered at sea. She herself passed away in Hawaii in 1976.

In 1965, D’Oporto sent a letter to Sims’s aunt, enclosing a Western Union telegram that a young George Sims had wired to his grandmother on October 31, 1919. D’Oporto’s letter hints at the dire straits in which Sims found himself in his final years and points to the lingering mysteries of his life:

Peter is 63 years old, his birthday was May 30th, 1902. The enclosed wire is dated 1919, so he would have been 17 years then and maybe they have a record of his service in the Navy in Des Moines. Would you try to find out? I was at the navy Recruiting Office in L — A — and could not get anywhere. They told me I would have to write to Washington D.C. but have to have his service number — but if he was stationed in Des Moines, it may be easier to get it there.

Peter gets now $ 52. — Social Security and $ 75. — disability check. They said he should get about $ 100 from the Navy if he is disabled. When in the Hospital, he does not get the disability check, but a bill for over $ 40 a day, which, I believe, is a matter of form and they will not collect it unless he should be able to work again. He does not remember anything about the Navy and I did not show him the wire. He never told me that he was George Sims. There is no use to bring it up unless necessary for him, I thought. His mind is not always clear, that is, he does not remember things and people at times. I feel very sad about it all and wished I could do more for him.

I must close now — still have plenty to do, but I would like to see you again — maybe when Peter feels better and we all can meet.

The wire itself, sent collect from Detroit and telegraphic by definition, is the work of a young man commencing a life of misadventures both on and off the page:

MRS GEORGE C SIMS

PHONE BLACK 3410 EAST 33RD AND UNIVERSITY AVE DESMOINES IOWA I AM GOING ABOARD EAGLE TEN BOUND FOR PORTSMOUTH CLOTHES HAVE NOT ARRIVED FROM CHICAGO I CANNOT DRAW CLOTHES HERE PLEASE SEND MONEY ENOUGH TO BUY A FEW CLOTHES AND PURCHASE NECCESSITIES [sic] FOR THREE WEEKS TRIP HAVE NOT BEEN PAID ABSOLUTELY BROKE PROBABLY LEAVE MONDAY LOVE TO ALL

GEORGE C SIMS.

There is an equal measure of exuberance and desperation in all of Sims’s writing. His telegram confirms, perhaps, what he had claimed in a letter to Shaw in 1944 — that he’d spent a part of his youth in Chicago. But it appears to have been a small part.

The U.S. Navy Reserve archives contain the record of one George Caryl Sims, who enlisted on June 7, 1917 and was to serve a stint until May 30, 1923. Sims — described as a ruddy, 5’ 8”, 131 lb., 17-year-old, with a 3” operation scar on his right abdomen — was discharged on January 17, 1921 for “inaptitude.” The record includes pleas for the boy’s release from Rep. C. C. Dowell, on the grounds that his mother is ill and needs his help, and responses from the office of then Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt. It is a less-than-stellar record of accomplishments — featuring several incidents of losing government property, disregard of orders, and disobedience. So began one of the strangest careers in hardboiled fiction.

Giving oneself over to a genre reveals more than one intends. Things swim up. A reader is tempted to mine the stories for autobiographical traces — and traces abound. As Myers and Collins point out, the boorish police dick Freberg in “Hunch” bears Sims’s mother’s maiden name, and wears a badge, like his father.[25] Make what you will, then, of Freberg’s fate:

He caught Freberg by the throat with his right hand drew his left far back and snapped it suddenly forward; he could feel his hard fist sink into the soft pallor of Freberg’s face. Freberg crashed into the wall, sank slowly to the floor... He glanced back at Freberg once, expressionlessly, then he went out and closed the door.

The protagonist justifies Freberg’s beating with a cryptic suggestion: “I know where he buries the bodies.” Myers and Collins report that Fast One’s Granquist shares a name with a family that resided in Des Moines.[26] But this kind of reading may take us nowhere.

What erupts in the stories, regardless of names, are fits of misogyny, which are pronounced even in a Black Mask context. Women get their lights punched out for their own good: “‘Papa knows best, baby.’ He brought one arm up stiffly, swiftly from his side; the palm down, his fist clinched. His knuckles smacked sharply against her chin” (Fast One). Women wreak havoc in men’s lives and are punished gruesomely. In the late “Death Song” (January 1936), a dipsomaniac starlet is fatally bludgeoned with an “outsize vibrator.” It’s a joke, yes, but a tendentious one — disclosing something of what Sims may have been repressing. He wrote the story when Michael’s career was in serious peril, after a well-publicized car crash in San Bernardino and ahead of a mysterious hospitalization in New York for “toxic poisoning.”

They may be playful experiments with form, but the Paul Cain stories are studded with laconic indications of buried trauma, resentment, and addiction.

Then there’s “The Tasting Machine” (1949), the last piece of fiction Sims published. It appeared under the Peter Ruric byline in Gourmet magazine, which would later run his article on Mallorcan cuisine. The story is collected here, although it is expressly not one of Cain’s hard-boiled narratives. Rather, it’s something like a hypertrophied version of John Collier’s urbane fantasies. Compare its first sentence to the opening of Fast One:

In fine weather, of which there was a spate that summer, it was the whim of M. Etienne de Rocoque to emerge from his restaurant in East Sixty-first Street at exactly six-thirteen of an evening and stroll west to Fifth Avenue, south to Sixtieth, east to Park Avenue, north to Sixty-first, and so back to the restaurant and home.

The protagonist’s very name signifies a new point of departure, a Rococo tumescence that stands in direct opposition to Cain’s minimalism. But style is ultimately style, and this is another exercise.

De Rocoque is a master chef, who holds a beautiful girl named Mercedes captive above his restaurant. He had “snatched” her “from the harem of a mighty caliph at the age of three” — “after wading through veritable seas of blood” — and has “reared” her for the last fifteen years, “inviolate from the world.” Among de Rocoque’s companions is a talking myna bird named Gertrude, “whose words and usually her sentiments were most uncouth.” The chef’s ménage is invaded by a little robot dead-set on tasting everything in its path, including Mercedes. The story climaxes as Mercedes — sequestered with the tasting machine — cries out in either agony or joy, while de Rocoque strikes at her locked door with an ax. Sims’s career in fiction ends with an ironic fantasy about a hypersensual stylist whose attempts to control his inner world are born of insecurity and frustrated by mechanistic drives.

This surreal joke-work in Gourmet magazine casts an odd backward light on the Cain stories. Losing himself in the styles he’d mastered, Sims gave free rein to the things he most wished to obscure. But whatever it is that initially pushed him to the outer reaches of the hard-boiled and propelled his characters on their collision courses, the work he left behind as Cain won’t be outdone.

Paul Cain was not the only Black Mask regular to transcend the limitations of his genre, but he is unique in having transcended those limitations by exploiting them to their fullest. He achieved a refinement of the hard-boiled manner that is truly exhilarating. Unlike Hammett and Chandler, whose work reckoned with the problems of modernity, Cain embraced a modernist aesthetic, manipulating the devices available to him with radical experimental energy. Cain’s focus on aesthetics accounts for the dizzying diversity of his fiction — his use of a variety of perspectives, stylistic registers in dialogue, and narrative structures. This focus also liberated Cain from moral concerns, allowing him to craft distinctly modern antiheroes whose compulsive, uninhibited risk-taking is a fictional analog to their creator’s own approach to writing.

Cain’s work is anything but confessional, but this triumph of style, this masterful performance — this modernistic put-on, as it were — testifies to the tremendous gifts and troubles of the man behind the pose. The stories bear his indelible signature, in invisible ink.

Sims was an ironist given to elaborate fronts that revealed as much as they concealed. His tenuous grasp on his own identity allowed him to sink, for a brief time, into the role of Paul Cain, and to keep playing as long as he could. As the narrator of “Dutch Treat” says about a game of “Spit-in-the-Ocean,” “I won, or maybe I lost — I forget which.”

The letters and drafts quoted in this introduction are housed in box 33, folder 9, of the E. R. Hagemann Papers and Collection of Detective Fiction (1672), and box 5, folder 6, of the Joseph T. Shaw Papers (2052) — both in the Department of Special Collections of UCLA’s Young Research Library — in the Sinclair Lewis Letters to Marcella Powers collection, at the St. Cloud State University Archives, St. Cloud, Minnesota, and in the “Peter Ruric AKA George Sims” file at the Crippen Mortuary, located at 2900 Honolulu Avenue, La Crescenta, CA 91214. I thank the library staffs, the staff at the Crippen Mortuary, and the Harrelson family for permission to quote this material. An earlier version of this essay appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and I thank them for the chance to amend, expand, and republish it. I am especially grateful to Keith Alan Deutsch, my brilliant, indefatigable editor, for soliciting this piece, for helping me at every stage of the writing process, and — most of all — for facilitating Paul Cain’s long-deserved rediscovery.

I owe my deepest gratitude to Mike and Peggy Harrelson, son and second wife of the man at the center of this essay. To say that they have been gracious would be an understatement. Their generosity and warmth were an unexpected gift. I would not have made contact with Mike were it not for a chain of remarkable coincidences, one of which placed me in the basement of UCLA’s Young Research Library on the same day that Professor William Marling of Case Western Reserve University was conducting his own research on the Hagemann collection. Bill asked me what I was up to, I told him, and he mentioned that he was in touch with the Harrelson family. I remain in his debt.

Mike’s initial letter to Bill Marling, in which he describes himself and his brother, is worth quoting: “Peter [Craig Harrelson is an] emergency room doctor who works very little and incessantly travels the planet’s backwaters. He’s a colorful cat who marches to his own drummer. I, while much less charismatic, have made part of my living with a pen.” Their father, of whom they knew very little until recently, seems to have passed on a gift for language and a thirst for adventure, as well as some other curious traits. I am told that, like his father, Peter Craig has been known to rename his girlfriends.

The Harrelsons have supplied me with a wealth of information about Paul Cain/Peter Ruric’s later years, which I am honored to pass on to his readers. Peggy’s memories and insights have added color and nuance to an unnaturally stark image — an image of Cain’s own making. Nothing represents this contribution more vividly than the three photographs of Cain/Ruric, Peggy, and their son Peter Craig, taken in the summer of 1957 at the Gregson family home in Varina, Virginia. These candid, animated family portraits are a necessary corrective to Cain’s stylized black-and-white author photo from the early ’30s; the author photo was intended to disguise his identity, while the later shots capture the man at his happiest, among his loved ones, off-guard.

Much of what we know about Sims’s ancestry and early childhood owes to the pioneering work of Lynn F. Myers, Jr. and Max Allan Collins, whose research has cleared up a great number of longstanding mysteries. I am grateful to Lisa Burks, a journalist and author working on the history of Glendale’s Grand View Memorial Park, who provided invaluable information about Sims/Ruric/Cain’s cremation records. I must also thank David A. Bowman, whose writing on Cain was nothing short of groundbreaking. Bowman’s work was interrupted by a terrible accident in 1989, from which he recovered. He continued to write fiction, but abandoned his biography of Cain. He passed away on February 27, 2012, at the age of 54.

Works Cited and Further Reading:

Adamic, Louis. Laughing in the Jungle: The Autobiography of an Immigrant in America. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932.

Ballard, Todhunter. “Writing for the Pulps.” In Hollywood Troubleshooter: W. T. Ballard’s Bill Lennox Stories, edited and introduced by James L. Traylor. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1985. Pp. 8-18.

Bogdanovich, Peter. “Edgar G. Ulmer.” In Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1997. Pp. 558–604.

Bowman, David A. “Cold Trail: The Life of Paul Cain.” In Fast One. Berkeley, CA: Black Lizard, 1987.

Brandon, William. “Back in the Old Black Mask.” The Massachusetts Review 28, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 706-16.

Carr, Larry. “Myrna Loy.” In More Fabulous Faces: The Evolution and Metamorphosis of Dolores Del Rio, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979. Pp. 53-108.

Duhamel, Marcel. Raconte pas ta vie. Paris: Mercure de France, 1972.

Faust, Irvin. “Afterword.” In Fast One. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Pp. 305-16.

Fischer, Dennis. “The Black Cat.” In Boris Karloff. Edited by Gary J. Svehla and Susan Svehla. Baltimore: Midnight Marquee, 1996. Pp. 91-113.

Gunn, Peter. “Paul Cain, 1902–1966.” In Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 306: American Mystery and Detective Writers. Edited by George Parker Anderson. Detroit, MI: Gale, 2005. Pp. 35–43.

Hagemann, E. R. “Introducing Paul Cain and His Fast One: A Forgotten Hard-Boiled Writer, a Forgotten Gangster Novel.” Armchair Detective 12, no. 1 (January 1979): 72–76.

Haut, Woody. “The Postman Rings Twice but the Iceman Walks Right in: Paul Cain and James. M. Cain.” In Heartbreak and Vine: The Fate of Hardboiled Writers in Hollywood. London: Serpent’s Tail, 2002. Pp. 76-101.

Loy, Myrna, and James Kotsilibas-Davis. Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming. New York: Knopf, 1987.

MacShane, Frank. The Life of Raymond Chandler. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976.

Myers, Lynn F., Jr. and Max Allan Collins. “Chasing Shadows: The Life of Paul Cain.” In The Complete Slayers. Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2011. Pp. 9-32. This volume also carries introductions to individual stories by Ed Gorman, Joe Gores, Edward D. Hoch, John Lutz, and Bill Pronzini, Robert Randisi, and others.

Schorer, Mark. Sinclair Lewis: An American Life. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

Shaw, Joseph. “Greed, Crime, and Politics.” Black Mask (March 1931).

Stein, Gertrude. Everybody’s Autobiography. New York: Random House, 1937.

—. “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them.” In What are Masterpieces (Los Angeles, CA: The Conference Press, 1940). Pp. 83–95.

Weaver, Tom. “Shirley Ulmer.” In I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001. Pp. 227-49.

Wilt, David E. “Paul Cain.” In Hardboiled in Hollywood. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1991. 97-120.

Black

The man said: “McCary.”

“No.” I shook my head and started to push past him, and he said: “McCary,” again thickly, and then he crumpled into a heap on the wet sidewalk.

It was dark there, there wasn’t anyone on the street — I could have walked away. I started to walk away and then the sucker instinct got the best of me and I went back and bent over him.

I shook him and said: “Come on, chump — get up out of the puddle.”

A cab came around the corner and its headlights shone on me — and there I was, stooping over a drunk whom I’d never seen before, who thought my name was McCary. Any big-town driver would have pegged it for a stickup, would have shoved off or sat still. That wasn’t a big town — the cab slid alongside the curb and a fresh-faced kid stuck his face into the light from the meter and said: “Where to?”

I said: “No place.” I ducked my head at the man on the sidewalk. “Maybe this one’ll ride — he’s paralyzed.”

The kid clucked: “Tch, tch.”

He opened the door and I stooped over and took hold of the drunk under his armpits and jerked him up and across the sidewalk and into the cab. He was heavy in a funny limp way. There was a hard bulge on his left side, under the arm.

I had an idea. I asked the kid: “Who’s McCary?”

He looked self-consciously blank for a minute and then he said: “There’s two — Luke and Ben. Luke’s the old man — owns a lot of real estate. Ben runs a poolhall.”

“Let’s go see Ben.” I said. I got into the cab.

We went several blocks down the dark street and then I tapped on the glass and motioned to the kid to pull over to the curb. He stopped and slid the glass and I said: “Who’s McCary?”

The kid made the kind of movement with his shoulders that would pass for a shrug in the sticks. “I told you — he runs a poolhall.”

I said: “Listen. This guy came up to me a few minutes ago and said ‘McCary’ — this guy is very dead.”

The kid looked like he was going to jump out of the cab. His eyes were hanging out.

I waited.

The kid swallowed. He said: “Let’s dump him.”

I shook my head slightly and waited.

“Ben and the old man don’t get along — they’ve been raising hell the last couple of weeks. This is the fourth,” he jerked his head towards the corpse beside me.

“Know him?”

He shook his head and then — to be sure — took a flashlight out of the sidepocket and stuck it back through the opening and looked at the man’s dead face.

He shook his head again.

I said: “Let’s go see Ben.”

“You’re crazy, Mister. If this is one of Ben’s boys he’ll tie you up to it, and if it ain’t...”

“Let’s go see Ben.”

Ben McCary was a blond fat man, about forty — he smiled a great deal.

We sat in a little office above his poolhall and he smiled heartily across all his face and said: “Well, sir — what can I do for you?”

“My name is Black. I came over from St Paul — got in about a half hour ago.”

He nodded, still with the wide hearty smile; stared at me cordially out of his wide-set blue eyes.

I went on: “I heard there was a lot of noise over here and I thought I might make a connection — pick up some change.”

McCary juggled his big facial muscles into something resembling innocence.

“I don’t know just what you mean, Buddy,” he said. “What’s your best game?”

“What’s yours?”

He grinned again. “Well,” he said, “you can get plenty of action up in the front room.”

I said: “Don’t kid me, Mister McCary. I didn’t come over here to play marbles.”

He looked pleasantly blank.

“I used to work for Dickie Johnson down in KC,” I went on.

“Who sent you to me?”

“Man named Lowry — that’s the name on the label of his coat. He’s dead.”

McCary moved a little in his chair but didn’t change his expression.

“I came in on the nine-fifty train,” I went on, “and started walking uptown to a hotel. Lowry came up to me over on Dell Street and said ‘McCary,’ and fell down. He’s outside in a cab — stiff.”

McCary looked up at the ceiling and then down at the desk. He said: “Well, well” — and took a skinny little cigar out of a box in one of the desk drawers and lighted it. He finally got around to looking at me again and said: “Well, well,” again.

I didn’t say anything.

After he’d got the cigar going he turned another of his big smiles on and said: “How am I supposed to know you’re on the level?”

I said; “I’ll bite. What do you think?”

He laughed. “I like you.” he said. “By God! I like you.”

I said I thought that was fine. “Now let’s try to do some business.”

“Listen,” he said. “Luke McCary has run this town for thirty years. He ain’t my old man — he married my mother and insisted on my taking his name.”

He puffed slowly at his cigar. “I guess I was a pretty ornery kid” — he smiled boyishly — “when I came home from school I got into a jam — you know — kid stuff. The old man kicked me out.”

I lighted a cigarette and leaned back.

“I went down to South America for about ten years, and then I went to Europe. I came back here two years ago and everything was all right for a while and then the old man and I got to scrapping again.”

I nodded.

“He’d had everything his own way too long. I opened about three months ago and took a lot of his game business away — a lot of the shipyard men and miners...”

McCary paused, sucked noisily at his cigar.

“Luke went clean off his nut,” he went on. “He thought I was going to take it all away from him...” McCary brought his big fist down hard on the desk. “And by the Christ! I am. Lowry’s the third man of mine in two weeks. It’s plenty in the open now.”

I said: “How about Luke’s side?”

“We got one of the bastards,” he said. “A runner.”

“It isn’t entirely over the gambling concession?”

“Hell, no. That’s all it was at first. All I wanted was to make a living. Now I’ve got two notch-joints at the other end of town. I’ve got a swell protection in with the law and I’m building up a liquor business that would knock your eye out.”

I asked: “Is Luke in it by himself?”

McCary shook his head slowly. “He don’t show anywhere. There’s a fella named Stokes runs the works for him — a young fella. They been partners nearly eight years. It’s all in Stokes’ name...”

“What does Stokes look like?”

“Tall — about your build. Shiny black hair and a couple of big gold teeth” — McCary tapped his upper front teeth with a fat finger — “here.”

I said: “How much is he worth to you?”

McCary stood up. He leaned across the desk and grinned down at me and said: “Not a nickel.” His eyes were wide and dear like a baby’s. He said slowly: “The old man is worth twenty-five hundred smackers to you.”

I didn’t say anything and McCary sat down and opened another drawer and took out a bottle of whiskey. He poured a couple of drinks.

“I think the best angle for you,” he said, “is to go to Stokes and give him the same proposition you gave me. Nobody saw you come in here. It’s the only way you can get near the old man.”

I nodded. We drank.

“By God! I like your style,” he said. “I’ve been trying to get along with an outfit of yokels.”

We smiled at one another. I was glad he said he liked me because I knew he didn’t like me at all. I was one up on him, I didn’t like him very well either.

Stokes sat on a corner of the big library table, his long legs dangling.

He said: “You’re airing Ben — how do we know you’ll play ball with us?” His eyes were stony.

I looked at the old man. I said: “I don’t like that fat — son of yours — and I never double-cross the best offer.”

Luke McCary was a thin little man with a pinched red face, bushy white hair. He sat in a big armchair on the other side of the table, his head and neck and wild white hair sticking up out of the folds of a heavy blue bathrobe.

He looked at me sharply. He said: “I don’t want any part of it.”

“Then I’ll have to act on the best offer.”

Stokes grinned.

The old man stood up. He said: “Why — damn you and your guts...” He opened a humidor on the table and took out a small automatic. “I can shoot the buttons off your vest, young fella... I can shoot you for a yegg right now, and no one’ll ever know the difference...”

I said: “You’ll know the difference — for not having taken advantage of talent, when you had the chance.”

He put the automatic back in the box and sat down and smiled gently at Stokes.

Stokes was looking at the floor. He said: “Five grand if you wipe out the whole outfit. Run ’em out of town, stick ’em in jail, poison ’em... Anything.”

“Wouldn’t you like a new railroad station too?”

They didn’t say anything for a minute. They looked at me.

I went on: “No sale. I’ll take care of Ben for that — but busting up the organization would mean sending for a few friends — would cost a hell of a lot more than five...”

The old man looked the least bit scared for a second — then he said: “Ben’ll do.”

“How about laying something on the line?”

Stokes said, “Don’t be silly.” The old man cackled. “Well I never saw such guts,” he said. I said: “All right, gentlemen. Maybe I’ll call you later.” Stokes went downstairs with me. He smiled in a strange way. “I never knew the old man to go for anything that looks as tricky as this. I guess it looks good because Ben thinks you’re working for him.”

I nodded. I said: “Uh-huh — Ben’s a swell guy. He’ll probably blast me on sight.”

“I don’t think you’ll find him at his joint.”

I waited and Stokes leaned against the door, said: “There’s a big outfit downstate that’s been running twelve trucks a week through here from the Border. They’ve paid off for this division of the highway for years — to the old man. The last two convoys have been hijacked at Four-mile Creek, north of town — a couple drivers were killed...”

He paused, looked wise a minute, went on: “That was Ben. There was a convoy due through last night — they run in bunches of four, or six — it didn’t show up. It’s a cinch for tonight — and that’s where Ben’ll be.”

I said: “That’s fine. How do I get there?”

Stokes told me to follow the main highway north, and where to take the cutoff that crossed Four-mile. I thanked him and went out.

I walked down to a drugstore on the corner and called a cab. When it came, I got in and had the driver jockey around until he was parked in a spot where I could watch the front door of the McCary house.

After a while, Stokes came out and got into a roadster and snorted up past us and turned down the side street. I told the driver to follow him. I don’t think the driver knew who it was. It didn’t matter a hell of a lot anyway.

I got out and told the driver to wait and walked on down Dell Street, keeping close to the fence. It was raining pretty hard again. I passed the place where Lowry had come up to me, and I went on to the corner; and then went back the same way until I came to the narrow gate I had missed in the darkness.

It was more a door than a gate, set flush with the high fence. I finagled with the latch for a while and then pushed the gate open slowly and went into a yard. It was a big yard, full of old lumber and old boxcar trucks — stuff like that. There was a long shed along one side, and a small two-story building on the far side.

I stumbled along as quietly as I could towards the building and then I went around the corner of a big pile of tires, and Stokes’ roadster was sitting there very dark and quiet in the rain. I went past it and up to the building and along the wall until I saw the lighted window.

I had to rustle around quietly and find a box and stand on it to see through the little square window. The panes were dirty; the inside looked like a time office; Stokes and Ben McCary and another man were there. They were arguing about something. McCary was walking around waving his arms; Stokes and the other man were sitting down. I couldn’t hear a word they said. The rain was roaring on the tin roof of the shed and all I could hear was a buzz of voices.

I didn’t stay there very long. It didn’t mean anything. I got down and put the box back and wandered around until I found McCary’s car. Anyway, I guessed it was his car. It was a big touring car and it was parked near the gate on the opposite side of the block from Dell Street, where Stokes had come in.

I got in and sat in the back seat. The side curtains were drawn and it was nice to get out of the rain for a while.

In about ten minutes, the light went out and I could hear voices coming towards the car. I sat down on the floor. The three of them stood outside for a minute talking about “a call from Harry” — then Stokes and the other man went off towards Stokes’ car, and McCary squeezed into the front seat and stepped on the starter.

I waited till we had burned through the gate and were halfway up the block, and then I put a gun against the back of McCary’s neck. He straightened out in the seat and eased the brake on. I told him to go on to the old man’s house.

We sat in the big room upstairs. The old man sat in the big armchair by the table, and Ben sat across from him. I was half lying down in another chair out of the circle of light and I had the gun on my lap.

The old man was fit to be tied. He was green with hate and he kept glaring at Ben out of his little red-rimmed eyes. I said: “Well, gran’pa — if you’ll make out that check now, we’ll finish this business.”

The old man swallowed.

“You can give me your twenty-five hundred in cash,” I went on to Ben. “Then I’ll put the chill on both of you — and everybody’ll be happy.”

They must have thought I meant it. Ben got rigid, and the old man cleared his throat and made a slow pass at the humidor.

I fiddled with the gun. I threw a pack of cigarettes on the table and said: “Smoke?”

The old man looked at the cigarettes and at the gun in my hand, and relaxed.

I said: “Still and all — it don’t quite square with my weakness for efficiency, yet. Maybe you boys’ll get together and make me an offer for Stokes. He’s the star — he’s been framing both of you.”

I don’t think Ben was very surprised — but the old man looked like he’d swallowed a mouse.

“He’s been in with Ben on the truck heistings,” I went on. “He’s been waiting for a good spot to dump you — working on your connections.”

The old man said: “That’s a goddamned lie.”

“Suit yourself.”

I went on to Ben: “He made the five-grand offer for your hide, in Luke’s name, tonight — and he gave me the Four-mile steer...” I hesitated a moment. “Only you wouldn’t try three in the same spot, would you?”

Ben finally got his smile working. He started to say something but I interrupted him: “Stokes told me you rubbed the two boys on the trucks, too.”

Ben’s smile went out like a light. He said: “Stokes shot both those men himself — and there wasn’t any need for it. They were lined up alongside the road...”

Something in the soft way he said it made it sound good.

I said: “He’ll be around your place — no?”

“He went home.”

Ben gave me the number and I called up, but there wasn’t any answer.

We sat there without saying anything for several minutes, and then the door downstairs opened and closed and somebody came up.

I said to Ben: “What’ll you bet?”

The door opened and Stokes came in. He had a long gray raincoat on and it made him look even taller and thinner than he was. He stood in the doorway looking mostly at the old man; then he came in and sat down on a corner of the table.

I said: “Now that the class is all here, you can start bidding.”

The old man laughed deep in his throat. Stokes was watching me expressionlessly, and Ben sat smiling stupidly at his hands.

“I’m auctioning off the best little town in the state, gentlemen,” I went on. “Best schools, sewage system, post office... Best streetlighting, water supply...”

I was having a swell time.

The old man was staring malevolently at Stokes. “I’ll give you twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said to me, “to give me that pistol and get out of here.”

If I’d thought there was any chance of collecting, I might have talked to him. Things happen that way sometimes.

I looked at my watch and put the gun down on the arm of the chair where it looked best and picked up the phone.

I asked Ben: “Where’s the business going to be pulled off tonight?”

Ben wanted to be nice. He said: “A coffee joint about six miles north of town.” He glanced at Stokes. “This bastard tried to swing it back to Four-mile when he thought you’d be there sniping for me.”

“The boys are there now?”

He nodded. “The trucks have been stopping there to eat lately.”

I asked the operator for long distance, and asked for the Bristol Hotel in Talley, the first town north. The connection went right through. I asked for Mister Cobb.

When he answered, I told him about the coffee place, and that I wasn’t sure about it; and told him he’d find the stuff that had been heisted in the sheds of the yard on Dell Street. I wasn’t sure of that either, but I watched Ben and Stokes when I said it and it looked all right. Cobb told me that he’d gotten into Talley with the convoy about midnight and had been waiting for my call since then.

I hung up. “There’ll be some swell fireworks out there,” I said. “There’s a sub-machinegun on every truck — double crews. And it don’t matter much,” I went on to Ben, “how good your steer is. They’ll be watching out all the way.”

Stokes stood up.

I picked up the gun. “Don’t move so far, Skinny,” I said. “It makes me nervous.”

He stood there staring at the gun. The water was running off his raincoat and it had formed into a little dark pool at his feet.

He said: “What the hell do you want?”

“I wanted you to know that one of the kids you shot up last week at Four-mile was my boss’ brother. He went along for the ride.”

I don’t think Stokes could move. I think he tried to move sidewise or get his hand into his pocket, or something, but all he could do was take a deep breath. Then I shot him in the middle of the body where he shot the kid, and he sank down on the floor with his legs crossed under him, like a tailor.

The old man didn’t get up. He sat a little deeper in his chair and stared at Stokes. Ben moved very fast for a fat man. He was up and out the door like a bat out of hell. That was OK with me — he couldn’t get to the coffee place before the trucks got there. I had the keys to his car, and it was too far away anyway.

I got up and put the rod away and went over to the table and picked up my cigarettes. I looked down at the old man, said: “Things’ll be a little quieter now, maybe. You’ll get the dough for haulage through your territory, as usual. See that it gets through.”

He didn’t answer.

I started for the door and then there was a shot out in front of the house. I ran on down to the front door. It was open and Ben was flat on the threshold — had fallen smack on his face, half through the door.

I ducked back through the hall and tried a couple locked doors. When I came up through the hall again, the old man was on his knees beside Ben, and was rocking back and forth, moaning a little.

I went through another room and into the kitchen and on through, out the back door. I crossed the backyard and jumped a low fence and walked through another yard to a gate that led into an alley. I sloshed along through the mud until I came to a cross street, and went on down to the corner that was diagonally across the block from the McCary house.

A cab came down the street and I waited until it was almost to the corner, stepped out in front of it. The driver swerved and stepped on the gas, but he had slowed enough to give me time to jump on the running board.

I stuck my head in to the light from the meter. That turned out to be my best hunch of the evening because in another second, the driver would have opened up my chest with one of the dirtiest looking .45s I ever saw, at about two feet. It was the kid who had picked Lowry and me up. He hesitated just long enough when he saw who I was.

We nearly ran into a tree and I had time to reach in and knock that cannon out of his hand. He stepped on the brake, and reached for the gun, but I beat him to it by a hair and stuck it in my overcoat pocket and got in beside him.

I said: “Shame on you — almost crashing an old pal like me.”

He sat tight in the seat and got a weak grin working and said: “Where to?”

“Just away.”

We went on through the mud and rain, and turned into a slightly better lighted street.

I said: “How did you know Ben shot Lowry?”

The kid kept his head down, his eyes ahead. “Lowry and me have lived together for two years,” he said. “He used to be in the hack racket too, till he got mixed up with McCary...”

“Lowry won a lot of jack in one of Ben’s crap games a couple days ago, and Ben wanted him to kick back with it — said everybody that worked for him was automatically a shill, and couldn’t play for keeps. But Lowry’s been dropping every nickel he made in the same game, for months. That was okay with Ben. It was all right to lose, but you mustn’t win.”

I nodded, lighted a cigarette.

“Ben shot Lowry tonight at the joint on Dell Street. I know it was him because Lowry’s been afraid of it — and that’s why he said ‘McCary’.”

“Did you know it was Lowry when you picked us up?”

“Not until I used the light. Then, when we got to Ben’s I saw him get out of his car and go in just ahead of you — then I was sure. I took Lowry up to his pa’s after you went in.”

The kid drove me to the next town south. I forget the name. I got a break on a train — I only had to wait about ten minutes.

Parlor Trick

I knocked on the door at the end of the hall. It was cold in the hall, almost dark. I knocked again, and Bella’s voice said: “Come in,” faintly; then she said: “Oh — it’s locked.” The key scratched in the lock and the door opened and I went into the room.

It was very hot in there. It was dark, with only a little light from a gas heater. There was a little more light that came through a short corridor from the kitchen, but it was pretty dark.

Bella closed the door and went over to the davenport and sat down. She was near the heater and the yellow light flickered over the lower part of her face.

I took off my coat and put it on a chair. Bella kept scraping her teeth lightly over her lower lip. Her teeth were like a little animal’s and she ran them over her soft lower lip rapidly, like an animal. The light from the heater was bright on the lower part of her face.

I went through the short corridor to the kitchen. The bathroom door was open; I glanced in as I passed and Gus Schaeffer turned his head and looked over his shoulder at me. He was standing at the basin with his back to the door and when he turned his head to look at me his face was awful. His skin was damp and gray and his eyes had something leaden and dying in them.

I said: “Hi, Gus,” and went in to the kitchen.

There was a man sitting on one of the benches at one side of the narrow breakfast table. The table was set lengthwise into a niche, with a bench at each side, and the man on one of the benches was sitting with his back in the corner of the niche, his knees drawn up, his feet on the outside end of the bench. His head was back against the wall and his eyes and mouth were open. There was a thin knife handle sticking out of one side of his throat.

Gus came out of the bathroom and stood behind me in the doorway.

There were several nearly empty glasses on the table. One had fallen to the floor, broken in to many glittering pieces.

I looked at the glass and I looked up at the man again. I think I said: “Christ,” very softly.

“I did it. I did it and I didn’t know it. I was blind...” Gus was clawing at my arm.

Bella came through the corridor and stood behind him. She looked very scared, very beautiful.

She said huskily: “Gus was terribly drunk. Frank said something out of turn and Gus picked up the knife and stuck it in to his neck. He choked — I guess—”

She looked at the dead man, and then her eyes turned up white in their sockets and she fainted. Gus turned around and almost fell down trying to catch her. He said: “Oh, baby — baby!” He took her up in his arms and carried her back into the living room.

I followed him in and switched on the lights. He put Bella on the davenport. I watched him bend over her and flick ice water across her face with his fingers, from a pitcher; he rubbed her hands and wrists, and tried to force a little whiskey between her clenched pale lips. He kept saying: “Oh, baby — baby,” over and over. I sat down. He sat on the edge of the davenport and looked at me while he rubbed and patted Bella’s hands.

“You better telephone,” he said. Then he looked at Bella a long time. “I did it — see — I did it; only I didn’t know about it. I was cockeyed—”

I nodded. I said: “Sure, Gus,” and I leaned forward and picked up the telephone.

Gus was looking at Bella’s white beautiful face. He bobbed his head up and down mechanically.

I said: “What’s the best play — self-defense?”

He turned suddenly. “I don’t care — no play at all.” He dropped her hand and stood up. “Only I did it myself. She didn’t have anything to do with it. She was in here.” He came towards me, shaking his finger at me, speaking very earnestly.

I said: “Maybe I can get Neilan. The longer we let it go, the worse it’ll be.”

I dialed a number.

Neilan was a short chubby man with a strangely long face, a high bony forehead. He and Frank had been partners in a string of distilleries for almost five years. He said: “When did you get here, Red?”

“Bella called me up and told me something had happened — I live around the corner.”

I was sitting near the door that led in to the kitchen. Bella was sitting in the middle of the davenport, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, staring vacantly into the brightness of the heater. Gus was sitting in a straight backed chair in the middle of the room.

Neilan had been walking around looking at the pictures on the walls. He sat down straddling an arm of the davenport.

“So you were so drunk you don’t remember?” Neilan was looking at Gus.

Gus nodded. Bella looked up at him for a moment and nodded a little and then looked back into the fire.

There was a light tap at the door and it opened and a big man came in quietly and closed the door behind him. He wore glasses and his soft black hat was tilted over the back of his head. I think his name was McNulty, or McNutt — something like that. He said: “Ed’s downstairs with a couple of the boys.”

“They can wait downstairs.” Neilan turned his head a little and looked at Bella out of the corners of his eyes. “So Gus was so drunk he don’t remember?”

Gus stood up. He said: “Goddamn it! Pat — I was so drunk I didn’t know any better, but I wasn’t so drunk I don’t know it was me. Lay off Bella — she was in here.”

“She didn’t say so.”

Bella said: “I was nearly asleep and I could hear Gus and Frank talking in the kitchen and then they didn’t talk any more. After a while I got up and went out in the kitchen — Frank was like he is now, and Gus was out — with his head on the table.”

Her chin was in her hands, and her head bobbed up and down. Gus was sitting down again on the edge of the chair.

Neilan grinned at McNulty. He said: “What do you think, Mac?”

McNulty went over to Bella and reached down and put one big finger under her chin and jerked her head back.

“I think she’s a liar,” he said.

Gus stood up.

McNulty turned as if that had been what he wanted. He hit Gus very hard in the face, twice.

Gus fell down and rolled over on his side. He pulled his knees up and moaned a little.

McNulty took off his coat and folded it carefully and put it on a chair. He went to Gus and kicked him hard in the chest and then kicked his head several times. Gus tried to protect himself with his arms. He didn’t make any more noise but put his arms up and tried to protect himself. He tried to get up once and McNulty kicked him in the stomach and he fell down and lay quietly. In a little while, McNulty stopped kicking him and sat down. He was panting. He took off his hat and took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his face.

I looked at Neilan. “I called you,” I said, “because I thought you’d give Gus a break...”

He said: “You ought to of called the police. They’d be after giving Gus a break, and your lady friend here” — he jerked his head at Bella — “with a length of hose.”

Bella was leaning back on the davenport with her hands up to her face. She stared at Gus and tried to look at McNulty. McNulty smiled, said: “Sure — why don’t you call a cop? Frankie had everybody from the Chief down on his payroll — they’ll have to go back to working for the city.” He was out of breath, spoke unevenly.

Bella stood up and started to go towards the door, and Neilan stood up too, and put one hand over her mouth and one on her back. He held her like that for a minute and then he pushed her back down on the davenport.

McNulty got up then and stooped over and took hold of the back of Gus’ shirt collar and pulled him up a little way.

McNulty said: “Come on, boy — we’ll get some air.”

Gus’ shirt collar started to tear and McNulty cupped his other hand around the back of Gus’ neck and jerked him up on his feet. Gus couldn’t stand by himself; McNulty stood there holding him with his arm around his shoulders. Gus’ face was in pretty bad shape.

McNulty said: “Come on, boy,” again and started guiding Gus towards the door.

Neilan said: “Wait a minute, Mac.”

McNulty turned and stared vacantly at Neilan for a minute and then pushed Gus down in a big chair. He sat down on the arm of the chair, took out his handkerchief, and wiped Gus’ face. Neilan went out into the kitchen. He was out there two or three minutes without making any noise, then he snapped off the light and came back. He turned off the lights in the living room too, and it was dark except for the faint yellow light from the heater.

Neilan went back and sat down at the end of the davenport, out of the light. The light rippled over Bella’s face, and after a while, when my eyes were used to the darkness, I could make out dark shapes where McNulty and Gus sat — and Neilan.

It was so dark and quiet except for the sharp sound of Gus’ breathing. There wasn’t anything to look at except Bella and she was leaning back with her eyes closed and her face very still.

It got on my nerves after several minutes and I said: “What’s it all about, Pat?”

Neilan didn’t answer, so I leaned forward in my chair, but I didn’t get up. I sat there with all my muscles tight.

Then I heard something moving out in the kitchen. I don’t know whether anybody else heard it, but I know there was a sound out there like something moving across the floor.

I stood up and I couldn’t speak. I didn’t hear the sound again but I stood there without moving, and then Bella started talking. She talked in a conversational tone, with her head back, her eyes closed:

“Frank came here to see me. He’s been coming to see me every night for four nights. He brought along a lot of lousy whiskey and got Gus drunk, and he got drunk too. He got Gus drunk once before and tried to sell me an idea. He wouldn’t give up.”

She stopped talking a moment and the light beat up and down on her face. She was very beautiful then.

“He made a crack tonight while Gus was in the bathroom about telling Gus about Red and me...”

She opened her eyes and looked towards me in the darkness a minute, and then closed her eyes and went on: “I was scared. I called Red while they were raising hell in the kitchen and he came over and I let him in. We listened to them for a few minutes from in here in the dark, and then when Frank got to talking about what a great guy Red was, and started getting dirty about it, Red went in there very quickly and killed him. I guess Gus was too far gone to see it or know anything about it.”

She stopped talking again and it was quiet.

“Then Red beat it and I stayed in here a while and then I went out like I told you and woke up Gus. He thought I did it, I guess. I called Red again...”

Neilan got up and went over and switched on the lights. McNulty got up too and stood there blinking, staring stupidly at Bella.

I went over and got my hat and coat and put them on. I stood looking at Bella for a while after I had put on my coat. She was still leaning back with her eyes closed. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen.

Neilan opened the door and McNulty and I went out into the hall. It was very cold there after the intense heat of the room. Then Neilan closed the door and the three of us went downstairs.

There was a small touring car at the curb, with the side curtains on. There were two men whom I had never seen before in the front seat, and another man standing on sidewalk. The engine was running.

McNulty opened the door and got in the back seat, and then I got in, and then Neilan. There wasn’t anything else to do. I sat between them, and Neilan said: “Let’s go.”

We went down the street slowly. The man who had been standing on the sidewalk didn’t get into the car; he stood there looking after us. I turned around a little and looked at him through the rear window; as we turned the corner, he went on back up the street, the other way.

When we got out of town a ways we went faster. It was very cold.

I said: “Hurry up.”

Neilan turned and grinned at me. I could see his face a little as we passed a street light. He said: “Hurry up — what?”

“Hurry up.” The cold was beginning to get in to the pit of my stomach, and my legs. I wanted to be able to stand up. I wanted it standing up, if I could.

Neilan glanced out the rear window. He said: “I think our taillight’s out.”

The car slowed, stopped. We were pretty well out in the country by that time and the road was dark.

Neilan said: “See if we’ve got a taillight, Mac.”

McNulty grunted and reached up and opened the door and heaved himself up into the door. He stooped and put one foot out on the running board, and then Neilan reached in front of me very quickly. There was a gun in his hand and he put it close to McNulty’s back and shot him three times. The explosions were very close together. McNulty’s knees crumpled up and he fell out of the car on his face.

The car started again and the man who sat next to the driver reached back and slammed the door shut hard. Neilan cleared his throat.

He said: “Frank’s number has been up a long time. He’s been tipping our big deliveries, South; we haven’t got a truck through for two months.” I could feel the blood getting back into my arms and legs. I wasn’t so cold and I could breathe without pain.

“McNulty was in it with him. McNulty was in the outfit downstate. We found out about that last night.”

We rode on for a little while and nobody said anything.

“If the dame sticks to her beef,” Neilan went on, “the scarcer you are, the better. If she doesn’t, Gus’ll stand it. You can’t do yourself any good around here any more anyway.”

Pretty soon we stopped at a little interurban station where I could get a car in to the city.

I had to wait a while. I sat in the station where it was warm, and thought about Bella. After a while the car came.

Red 71

Shane pressed the button beneath the neat red 71. Then he leaned close against the building and tilted his head a little and looked up at the thick yellow-black sky. Rain swept in great uneven and diagonal sheets across the dark street, churned the dark puddle at his feet. The streetlight at the corner swung, creaked in the wind.

Light came suddenly through a slit in the door, the door was opened. Shane went into a narrow heavily carpeted hallway. He took off his dark soft hat, shook it back and forth, handed it to the man who had opened the door.

He said: “Hi, Nick. How is it?”

Nick said: “It is very bad weather — and business is very bad.”

Nick was short, very broad. It was not fat broadness, but muscled, powerful. His shoulders sloped heavily to long curving arms, big white hands. His neck was thick and white and his face was broad and so white that his long black hair looked like a cap. He hung Shane’s hat on one of a long row of numbered pegs, helped him with his coat, hung it beside the hat.

He stared at Shane reproachfully. “He has been waiting for you a long time,” he said.

Shane said: “Uh-huh,” absently, went back along the hallway and up a flight of narrow stairs. At the top he turned into another hallway, crossed it diagonally to an open double doorway.

The room was large, dimly lighted. Perhaps fifteen or eighteen people, mostly in twos or threes, sat at certain of the little round white covered tables. Three more, a woman and two men, stood at the aluminum bar that ran across one corner.

Shane stood in the doorway a moment, then crossed the room to where Rigas sat waiting for him at a table against the far wall. Several people looked up, nodded or spoke as he passed; he sat down across the table from Rigas, said: “Bacardi,” to the hovering waiter.

Rigas folded his paper, leaned forward with his elbows on the table and smiled.

“You are late, my friend.” He put up one hand and rubbed one side of his pale blue jaw.

Shane nodded slightly. He said: “I’ve been pretty busy.”

Rigas was Greek. His long rectangular face was deeply lined; his eyes were small, dark, wide set; his mouth was a pale upward-curved gash. He was in dinner clothes.

He said: “Things are good with you — Yes?”

Shane shrugged. “Fair.”

“Things are very bad here,” Rigas picked up his cocktail, sipped it, leaned back. Shane waited.

“Very bad,” Rigas went on. “They have raised our protection overhead more than fifty per cent.”

The waiter lifted Shane’s cocktail from the tray with a broad flourish, put it on the table in front of him. Shane looked at it, then up at Rigas, said: “Well...”

Rigas was silent. He stared at the tablecloth, with his thin lips stuck out in an expression of deep concentration.

Shane tasted his cocktail, laughed a little. “You know damned well,” he said, “that I’m not going to put another dime into this place.” He put down his glass and stared morosely at Rigas. “And you know that I can’t do anything about your protection arrangement. That’s your business.”

Rigas nodded sadly without looking up. “I know — I know.”

Shane sipped his drink, waited.

Rigas finally looked up, spoke hesitantly: “Lorain — Lorain is going to get a divorce.”

Shane smiled, said: “That’s a break.”

Rigas nodded slowly. “Yes.” He spoke very slowly, deliberately: “Yes — that is a break for all of us.”

Shane leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, put one hand down slowly, palm up. He stared at Rigas and his face was hard, his eyes were very cold. He said: “You made that kind of a crack once before — remember?”

Rigas didn’t speak. He gazed wide-eyed, expressionlessly at Shane’s tie.

“Remember what happened?” Shane went on.

Rigas didn’t speak, or move. Shane relaxed suddenly. He leaned back, glanced around, smiled faintly.

“I back this joint,” he said, “because I thought you might make it go. I don’t like you — never have — but I like Lorain, have liked her ever since we were kids together. I thought she was an awful chump when she married you and I told her so.”

He sipped his cocktail, widened his smile. “She told me what a great guy you were,” he went on, “an’ she stuck to it, even after you’d dropped all your dough, and hers. Then she told me you wanted to take over this place, an’ I came in on it, laid fifteen grand on the line.”

Rigas moved uncomfortably in his chair, glanced swiftly around the room.

“Since then,” Shane went on, “I’ve chunked in somewhere around five more...”

Rigas interrupted: “We’ve got nearly twelve thousand dollars’ worth of stock.” He made a wide gesture.

“What for?” Shane curved his mouth to a pleasant sneer. “So you can be knocked over, and keep the enforcement boys in vintage wines for a couple of months.”

Rigas shrugged elaborately, turned half away. “I cannot talk to you,” he said. “You fly off the handle...”

“No.” Shane smiled. “You can talk to me all you like, Charley — and I don’t fly off the handle — and I’m not squawking. But don’t make any more cracks about Lorain and me. Whatever I’ve done for you I’ve done for her — because I like her. Like her. Can you get that through that thick Spick skull of yours? I wouldn’t want her if she was a dime a dozen — an’ I don’t like that raised eyebrow stuff. It sounds like pimp.”

Rigas’ face turned dull red. His eyes were very sharp and bright. He stood up, spoke very softly, breathlessly, as if it was hard for him to get all the words out: “Let’s go upstairs, Dick.”

Shane got up and they crossed the room together, went out through the double door.

On the third floor they crossed an identical hallway, Rigas unlocked a tall gray door and they went into another large room. There were two large round tables, each with a green-shaded droplight over it. There were eight men at one of the tables, seven at the other; Rigas and Shane crossed the room to another tall gray door.

The stud dealer and two players looked up from the nearest table, one of the players said: “H’ are yah, Charley?” Then Rigas opened the tall door and they went into a little room that was furnished as an office.

Rigas pressed the light switch, closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment. His hands were in his coat pockets.

Shane sat down on the edge of the desk. Rigas crossed to the desk slowly and when he was near Shane he jerked his right hand out of his pocket suddenly and swung a thin-bladed knife up at Shane’s throat.

Shane moved a little to one side, grabbed Rigas’ arm near the elbow with one open hand; the knife ripped up crosswise across the lapel of his coat. At the same time he brought his right knee up hard against Rigas’ stomach. Rigas grunted and one of his knees gave way and he slumped down slowly, sidewise to the floor. The knife clattered on the glass desk-top.

As Shane slid off the desk, stood over Rigas, the door opened and a very tall, very spare man came a little way into the room.

Shane glanced at the man and then he looked down at Rigas and his eyes were almost closed, his mouth was a thin hard line. Rigas groaned and held his hands tight against his stomach, his chin tight against his chest.

Shane looked up at the tall man, said: “You’d better not let this brother of yours play with knives. He’s liable to put somebody’s eye out.” He spoke with his teeth together.

The tall man stared blankly at Rigas.

Shane went past the tall man, to the door, went out and across the big room. All of the men at the tables were looking at him; all of them were very quiet. Two men were standing up at the nearest table.

Shane went out and closed the door behind him, went swiftly down two flights. He found his hat and coat and put them on. Nick came up from the basement as he was knotting his scarf.

Nick said: “Shall I get you a cab, Mister Shane?”

Shane shook his head. He slid the big bolt and opened the door and went out into the driving rain. He walked to Madison Avenue, got into a cab and said: “Valmouth — on Forty-ninth.”

It was five minutes after eight.

Shane’s rooms at the Valmouth were on the eighteenth floor. He stood at one of the wide windows and looked down through the swirling, beating rain to Fiftieth Street.

After a little while he went into the bathroom, turned off the water that was roaring into the tub, slipped off his robe.

Someone knocked at the outer door and he called: “Come in,” looked into the long mirror in the bathroom door that reflected part of the living room. A waiter with a wide oval tray opened the door, came in and put the tray down on a low table.

Shane said: “There’s some change on the telephone stand.” He kicked off his slippers and stepped into the tub.

In five minutes he was out, had put on a long dark-green robe, slippers, and was sitting at the low table cutting a thick T-bone steak into dark pink squares.

As he poured coffee the phone buzzed; he leaned side-wise, picked it up, said: “Hello.” Then he said: “Mister Shane is not in... She’s on the way up!... What the hell did you let her start up for?”

He slammed the phone down, went swiftly to the door and turned the bolt. He stood near the door a moment, then shrugged slightly, turned the bolt back and went slowly back and sat down.

Lorain Rigas was slender, dark. Her black eyes slanted upward a little at the corners, her mouth was full, deeply red, generous. She wore a dark close-fitting raincoat, a small suede hat. She closed the door and stood with her back to it.

Shane said: “Coffee?”

She shook her head. She said: “Charley called me up this afternoon and said he was going to give me the divorce — that he wouldn’t fight it.”

“That’s fine.” Shane put two lumps of sugar in a spoon, held it in the coffee and intently watched the sugar crumble, disappear. “So what?”

She came over and sat down near him. She unbuttoned her coat, crossed her slim silken legs, took a cigarette out of a tiny silver case and lighted it.

She said: “So you’ve got to help me locate Del before he gets to Charley.” Shane sipped his coffee, waited.

“Del started drinking last night,” she went on, “an’ he kept it up this morning. He went out about eleven, and some time around one, Jack Kenny called up an’ told me that Del was over at his joint — roaring drunk, and howling for Charley’s blood. He gets that way every time he gets boiled — crazy jealous about Charley and me.”

She leaned back and blew a thin cone of smoke at the ceiling. “I told Jack to let him drink himself under the table, or lock him up, or something — an’ in a little while Jack called back and said everything was all right — that Del had passed out.”

Shane was smiling a little. He got up and went to the central table and took a long green-black cigar from a humidor, clipped it, lighted it. Then he went back and sat down.

The girl leaned forward. “About three o’clock,” she said, “the Eastman Agency — that’s the outfit I’ve had tailing Charley for evidence — called up and said they’d located the apartment house up on the West Side where Charley’s been living with the McLean woman...”

Shane said: “How long have they been on the case?”

“Three days — an’ Charley’s ducked them until today — they traced a phone call or something.”

Shane nodded, poured more coffee into the little cup.

Lorain Rigas mashed out her cigarette. “I told Eastman to keep his boys on the apartment until they spotted Charley going in — then I figured on going over tonight and crashing in with a load of witnesses — but in a little while Charley calls me and says everything’s okay, that he’ll give me the divorce any time, any place, and so on.”

Shane said: “You’ve had a busy day.”

“Uh-huh.” She reached over and picked up the cup of coffee, sipped a little. “I didn’t call Eastman back — I figure on going through with it the way I intended to — get the evidence an’ the affidavits an’ what not. Then if Charley changes his mind...” She put the cup back on the tray, leaned back and lighted another cigarette. “But we’ve got to find Del.”

Shane said: “I thought he was cold at Kenny’s.”

She shook her head, smiled. “I called Kenny to see how Del was, and Del was gone. He came to and started where he left off — stole a gun out of Jack’s trunk, and went out the back way. I don’t think he’d really go through with it, but he goes nuts when he gets enough red-eye under his belt...”

Shane was leaning far back in the deep chair, staring vacantly at the ceiling. He said: “If you think Del would really make a pass at Charley—” He puffed at the cigar, finished slowly: “You don’t seem quite as excited about it as you should be.”

“What the hell’s the use getting excited?” She stood up. “It’s a cinch they won’t let Del into 71 — an’ he wouldn’t wait outside for Charley — not when he’s drunk. He gets big ideas about face to face and man to man when he’s drunk. I know Del.”

“Then what are you worrying about?” Shane looked up at her, smiled gently. “He’s probably at home waiting for you.”

“No — I just called up.” She went over to the window.

Shane looked at her back. He said: “You’re pretty crazy about Del — aren’t you?” She nodded without turning.

Shane put his cigar down, reached for the phone. “Where do you think we ought to start?”

She turned, cocked her head a little to one side and looked at him sleepily. “If I knew where we ought to start, Dick,” she said, “I wouldn’t have had to bother you. You’ve known Del for years — you know the screwy way his mind works as well as I do — and you know the places. Where would he go, do you think, looking for Charley — besides 71?”

Shane picked up the phone, stared at it a little while, put it down. He got up and said, “I’m going to put on some clothes,” and went into the bedroom.

Lorain Rigas sat down near the window. She pushed the small suede hat back off her forehead, leaned back and closed her eyes.

When Shane came in, knotting his tie, she was lying very still. He stood over her a moment, looking out the window. Then he finished his tie and looked down at her and put one hand out tentatively, touched her forehead with his fingers. She opened her eyes and looked up at him expressionlessly for a little while; he turned and went to the chair where he had thrown his coat, put it on.

The phone buzzed a second after Shane had closed and locked the door. He swore under his breath, fished in his pockets. The girl leaned against the wall of the corridor, smiled at his futile efforts to find the key.

The phone buzzed insistently.

He finally found the key, unlocked the door hurriedly, and went to the phone. Lorain Rigas leaned against the frame of the open door.

Shane said: “Hello... Put him on...” He stood, holding the phone, looking at the girl; spoke again into the phone: “Hello, Bill... Yeah... Yeah... What the hell for...?” Then he was silent a while with the receiver at his ear. Finally he said: “Okay, Bill — thanks.” Hung up slowly.

He sat down, gestured with his head for the girl to come in and close the door. She closed the door and stood with her back to it, staring at him questioningly.

He said: “Charley was shot to death in the Montecito Apartments on West Eighty-second, some time around eight-thirty tonight.”

Lorain Rigas put her hand out slowly, blindly a little way. Her eyes were entirely blank. She went slowly, unsteadily to a chair, and sank into it.

Shane said: “They’re holding the McLean gal — an’ they’ve found out that Charley and I had an argument this evening — they want to talk to me. They’re on the way over to pick me up.”

He glanced at his watch. It was nine-forty. He got up and went to the table, took a cigar from the humidor lighted it. Then he went to the window and stared out into the darkness.

“One — base of brain. One — slightly lower — shattered cervical.” The autopsy surgeon straightened, tossed the glittering instrument into a sterilizer and skinned off his rubber gloves. He glanced at Shane, turned and started towards the door.

Sergeant Gill and an intern turned the body over.

Gill said: “Rigas?” looked up at Shane.

Shane nodded.

Gill spread a partially filled out form on the examining table near Rigas’ feet, took a stub of pencil from his pocket and added several lines to the form. Then he folded it and put it in his pocket and said: “Let’s go back upstairs.”

Shane followed him out of the room that smelled of ether and of death; they went down a long corridor to an elevator.

On the third floor they left the elevator and crossed the hall diagonally to the open door of a large office, went in. A tall, paunched man with a bony, purplish face turned from the window, went to a swivel chair behind the broad desk and sat down.

He said: “How come you stopped by tonight, Dick?” He leaned back, squinted across the desk at Shane.

Shane shrugged, sat down sidewise on the edge of the desk. “Wanted to say hello to all my buddies.”

“You’re a damned liar!” The tall man spoke quietly, impersonally. “A couple of my men were on the way over to pick you up when you showed up here. You were tipped, an’ I want to know who it was — it don’t make so much difference about you, but that kind of thing is bad for the department.”

Shane was smiling at Gill. He turned his head to look down at the tall man silently. Finally he said: “What are you going to do, Ed — hold me?”

The tall man said: “Who tipped you to the pinch?”

Shane stood up, faced the tall man squarely. He said: “So it’s a pinch?” He turned and started towards the door, spoke over his shoulder to Gill: “Come on, Sarge.”

“Come here, you bastard!”

Shane turned. His expression was not pleasant. He took two short, slow steps back towards the desk.

The tall man was grinning. He drawled: “You’re hard to get along with — ain’t you!”

Shane didn’t answer. He stood with one foot a little in advance of the other and stared at the tall man from under the brim of his dark soft hat. The flesh around his eyes and mouth was very tightly drawn.

The tall man moved his grin from Shane to Gill. He said: “See if you can find that Eastman op.”

Gill went out of the room hurriedly. The tall man swung a little in the chair turned his head to look out the window. His manner when he spoke was casual, forced:

“The McLean girl killed Rigas.”

Shane did not move or speak.

“What did you and him fight about tonight?” The tall man turned to look at Shane. His hands were folded over his broad stomach and he clicked his thumbnails nervously.

Shane cleared his throat. He said huskily: “Am I under arrest?”

“No. But we’ve got enough to hold you on suspicion. You’ve sunk a lot of dough in Rigas’ joint and so far as we know you ain’t taken much out. Tonight you had an argument...”

The tall man unclasped his hands and leaned forward, put his arms on the desk. “Why don’t you help us get this thing right instead of being so damned fidgety?” He twisted his darkly florid face to a wry smile.

Shane said: “Rigas and I had an argument about money — I left his place at eight o’clock and I was in my hotel at a quarter after. I was there until I came here.” He went forward again to the desk. “I can get a half-dozen people at the hotel to swear to that.”

The tall man made a wide and elaborate gesture of deprecation. “Hell, Dick, we know you didn’t do it — and it’s almost a natural for McLean. Only we thought you might help us clean up the loose ends.”

Shane shook his head slowly, emphatically.

Sergeant Gill came in with an undersized blond youth in a shiny blue serge suit.

The young man went to the desk, nodded at Shane, said: “H’ are you, Cap?” to the tall man.

The tall man was looking at Shane. He said: “This man” — he jerked his head at the youth — “works for Eastman. He was on an evidence job for Mrs Rigas and went in with the patrolman when Rigas was shot...”

“Yes, sir” the youth interrupted. “The telephone operator come running out screaming bloody murder an’ the copper come running down from the corner an’ we both went upstairs” — he paused, caught his breath — “an’ there was this guy Rigas, half in the bedroom and half out, an’ dead as a doornail... The gun was on the floor, and this dame, McLean, was in pajamas, yelling that she didn’t do it.”

The tall man said: “Yes — you told us all that before.”

“I know — only I’m telling him.” The youth smiled at Shane.

Shane sat down again on the edge of the desk. He looked from the youth to the tall man, asked: “What does McLean say?”

“She’s got a whole raft of stories.”

The tall man spat carefully into a big brass cuspidor beside the desk. “The best one is that she was asleep and didn’t wake up till she heard the shots — and then she turned on the lights an’ there he was, on the floor in the doorway. The outer door to the apartment was unlocked — had been unlocked all evening. She says she always left it that way when he was out because he was always losing his key, an’ then he could come in without waking her up.” Shane said: “What was she doing in bed at eight-thirty?”

“Bad headache.” Sergeant Gill took a .38 automatic from the drawer of a steel cabinet, handed it to Shane. “No fingerprints,” he said — “clean as a whistle.”

Shane looked at the gun, put it down on the desk.

The tall man looked at the youth and at Gill, then bobbed his head meaningly towards the door. They both went out. The youth said: “So long, Cap — so long, Mister Shane.” Gill closed the door behind him.

Shane was smiling.

The tall man said: “Rigas’ wife had these Eastman dicks on his tail — she got anything to do with this?”

“Why?” Shane shrugged. “She wanted a divorce.”

“How long they been having trouble?”

“Don’t know.”

The tall man stood up, stuck his hands in his pockets and went to the window. He spoke over his shoulder: “Didn’t you and her used to be pretty good friends?”

Shane didn’t answer. His face was entirely expressionless.

The tall man turned and looked at him and then he said: “Well — I guess that’s all.”

They went out together.

In the corridor Shane made a vague motion with his hand, said: “Be seeing you,” went down two flights of stairs and out the door to the street. He stood in the wide arch of the entrance, out of the rain, looked up and down the street for a cab. There was one in front of a drugstore six or seven doors up from the Police Station; he whistled, finally walked swiftly up to it through the blinding rain.

As he got in, the youth in the shiny blue serge suit came out of the drugstore, scuttled across the sidewalk and climbed in beside him, sat down.

The driver turned around and said: “Where to?”

Shane said: “Wait a minute.”

The youth leaned back, put his hand confidentially on Shane’s shoulder. He said: “Tell him to drive around the block. I got something to tell you.”

The driver looked at Shane, Shane nodded. They swung out from the curb.

The youth said: “I seen Mrs Rigas about a half a block from the place uptown where Rigas was killed, about ten minutes before we found him.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He rubbed the side of his face with one hand, glanced at his watch, nodded.

“I was coming back from the delicatessen on the corner, where I got a bite to eat. She was going the same way, on the other side of the street. I wasn’t sure it was her at first — I only seen her once when she came in to see Mister Eastman — but there was a car coming down the street and its headlights were pretty bright and I was pretty sure it was her.”

Shane said: “Pretty sure.”

“Aw hell — it was her.” The youth took a soggy cigarette out of his pocket, lighted it.

“Where did she go?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out. It was raining so damned hard — and the wind was blowing — when I got to our car, that was parked across the street from the Montecito, she’d disappeared.” The youth shook his head slowly. “I told my partner about it. He said I was probably wrong, because if it was her she would have called up the office and found out how to spot us, because she would be wanting us to go in with her. He went on down to the corner to get something to eat, an’ I sat in the car an’ figured that I probably had been wrong, an’ then in a few minutes I heard the shots an’ the telephone operator come running out.”

Shane said: “Did you see Rigas go in?”

The youth shook his head. “No — an’ my partner swears he didn’t go in while he was on watch. He must’ve gone in the back way.”

Shane took a cigar out of a blue leather case, bit off the end, lighted it. “And you say you were figuring you were wrong about thinking you’d seen her?”

The youth laughed. “Yeah — that’s what I figured then. But that ain’t what I figure now.”

“Why not?”

“Because I pride myself, Mister Shane, on being able to look at a dame what is supposed to have just bumped a guy off, an’ knowing whether she did it or not. That’s why I’m in the business.” He turned his head and looked very seriously at Shane.

Shane smiled faintly in the darkness.

The youth said: “It wasn’t McLean.” He said it very positively.

Shane said: “Why didn’t you tell the Captain about this?”

“Christ! We got to protect our clients.”

The cab stopped in front of the drugstore, the driver turned around and looked at Shane questioningly.

Shane blew out a great cloud of gray-blue smoke, glanced at the youth, said: “Where do you want to go?”

“This is okay for me.” The youth leaned forward, put his hand on the inside handle of the door. Then he paused, turned his head slightly towards Shane.

“I’m in a spot, Mister Shane. My wife’s sick — an’ I took an awful beating on the races the other day, trying to get enough jack for an operation...”

Shane said: “Does anybody besides your partner know about Mrs Rigas?”

The youth shook his head.

Shane tipped his hat back on his head, drew two fingers across his forehead, said: “I’ll see what I can do about it. Where do you live?”

The youth took a card out of his pocket, took out a thin silver pencil and wrote something on it. He handed the card to Shane, said, “So long,” and got out of the cab and ran across the sidewalk to the drugstore.

Shane said: “Downtown.”

On Twelfth Street, a little way off Sixth Avenue, Shane rapped on the glass, the cab swung to the curb. He told the driver to wait, got out and went down a narrow passageway between two buildings to a green wooden door with a dim electric light above it. He opened the door, knocked on another heavier door set at an angle to the first. It was opened after a little while and he went down four wide steps to a long and narrow room with a bar along one side.

There were seven or eight men at the bar, two white-aproned men behind it: a squat and swarthy Italian and a heavily built Irishman.

Shane went to the far end of the room, leaned on the bar and spoke to the Italian: “What’ve you got that’s best?” The Italian put a bottle of brandy and a glass on the bar in front of him. Shane took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, held the glass up to the light, wiped it carefully. He poured a drink, tasted it.

He said: “That’s lousy — give me a glass of beer.” The Italian picked up the glass of brandy, drank it, put the bottle away and drew a glass of beer. He skimmed off the foam, put the tall glass on the bar.

He said: “Seventy-five cents.”

Shane put a dollar bill on the bar, asked: “Kenny around?”

The Italian shook his head.

Shane said: “Where’s the phone?”

The Italian inclined his head towards a narrow door back of Shane. Shane went into the booth and called the Valmouth, asked for Miss Johnson. When the connection had been made, he said: “Hello, Lorain — what room are you in?... All right, stay there until I get back — don’t go out for anything — anybody... I’m down at Jack Kenny’s... Tell you when I see you... Uh-huh... G’bye...” He hung up and went back to the bar.

The Italian and the Irishman were talking together. The Irishman came down to Shane and said: “Jack’s upstairs, asleep. Wha’d you want to see him about?”

“You’d better wake him up — I want to tell him how to keep out of the can.” Shane tasted the beer, said: “That’s lousy — give me a glass of water.”

The Irishman looked at him suspiciously for a minute, put a glass of water on the bar, went to the door at the end of the room. He said: “Who’ll I say it is?”

“Shane.”

The Irishman disappeared through the door.

He was back in a little while, said: “You can go on up — it’s the open door at the top of the stairs.”

Shane went back and through the door across a dark, airless hallway. He lighted a match and found the bottom of the stair, went up. There was a door ajar at the top of the stair through which faint light came, he shoved it open, went in.

Jack Kenny was big and round and bald. He was sitting deep in a worn and battered wicker armchair. He was very drunk.

There was another man, lying face down across the dirty, unmade bed. He was snoring loudly, occasionally exhaled in a long sighing whistle.

Kenny lifted his chin from his chest, lifted bleary eyes to Shane. He said: “Hi, boy?”

Shane asked: “What kind of a rod did you give Del Corey?”

Kenny opened his eyes wide, grinned. He leaned heavily forward, then back, stretched luxuriously.

“I didn’t give him any — the louse stole it.”

Shane waited.

Kenny was suddenly serious. He said: “What the hell you talking about?”

Shane said: “Charley Rigas was killed tonight with a .38 Smith & Wesson automatic — the safety was knocked off, an’ the number on the barrel started with four six six two...”

Kenny stood up suddenly, unsteadily.

Shane said: “I thought you might like to know.” He turned and started towards the door.

Kenny said: “Wait a minute.”

Shane stopped in the doorway, turned.

All the color had gone out of Kenny’s bloated, florid face, leaving it pasty, yellow-white.

He said: “You sure?” He went unsteadily to a little table in the room, picked up an empty bottle, held it up to the light, threw it into a corner.

Shane nodded, said: “Pretty damned dumb for Del to get so steamed up about Lorain an’ Charley that he killed Charley — huh? Lorain’s been washed up with Charley for months — an’ Del ought to’ve known about it if anybody did...”

Kenny said: “He wasn’t worrying about Lorain. It was that little cigarette gal — Thelma, or Selma, or something — that works for Charley. Del’s been two-timing Lorain with her for the last couple weeks. That’s what he was shooting off his mouth about this afternoon — he had some kind of office on her an’ Charley.”

Kenny went to a dresser and opened a drawer and took out a bottle of whiskey.

Shane said: “Oh.”

He went out and down the dark stair out to the bar. The glass of beer and the glass of water were on the bar where he had left them. He picked up the glass of water, tasted it, said: “That’s lousy,” and went out through the front door and the passageway to the cab.

It was a few minutes before eleven when Shane got out of the cab, paid off the driver and went into the Valmouth. The clerk gave him a note that a Mister Arthur had telephoned, would call again in the morning.

Shane went up to his rooms, sat down with his coat and hat on and picked up the telephone.

He said: “Listen, baby — tell the girl that relieves you in the morning that when Mister Arthur calls, I’m out of the city — won’t be back for a couple months. He wants to sell me some insurance.”

He hung up, looked up the number of 71 in his little black book, called it. A strange voice answered. Shane said: “Is Nick there?... Is Pedro there?... Never mind — what I want to know is what’s Thelma’s last name? Thelma, the cigarette girl?... Uh-huh... Never mind who I am — I’m one of your best customers... Uh-huh... How do you spell it?... B-u-r-r... You haven’t got her telephone number, have you?” The receiver clicked, Shane smiled, hung up.

He found Thelma Burr’s address in the telephone directory: a number on West Seventy-fourth, off Riverside Drive. He got up and went to the table and took several cigars from the humidor, put all but one of them in the blue leather case. He lighted the cigar and stood a little while at one of the windows, staring at the tiny lights in the buildings uptown. Gusts of rain beat against the window and he shuddered suddenly, involuntarily.

He went to a cabinet and took out a square brown bottle, a glass, poured himself a stiff drink. Then he went out, downstairs to the sixteenth floor. He knocked several times at the door of 1611, but there was no answer. He went to the elevator, down to the lobby.

The night clerk said: “That’s right, sir — 1611, but I think Miss Johnson went out shortly before you came in.”

Shane went to the house phone, spoke to the operator: “Did Miss Johnson get any calls after I talked to her around ten-thirty?... Right after I called — huh?... Thanks.”

He went out to a cab, gave the driver the number on Seventy-fourth Street.

It turned out to be a narrow, five-story apartment house on the north side of the street. Shane told the driver to wait and went up steps, through a heavy door into a dark hall. There were mailboxes on each side of the hall; he lighted a match and started on the left side. The second from the last box on the left bore a name scrawled in pencil that interested him: N. Manos — the apartment number was 414. He went on to the right side of the hall, found the name and the number he was looking for, went up narrow creaking steps to the third floor.

There was no answer at 312.

After a little while, Shane went back downstairs. He stood in the darkness of the hall for several minutes. Then he went back up to the fourth floor, knocked at 414. There was no answer there either. He tried the door, found it to be locked, went back down to 312.

He stood in the dim light of the hallway a while with his ear close to the door. He heard the outside door downstairs open and close, voices. He went halfway down the stair. waited until the voices had gone away down the corridor on the first floor, went back to the door of 312 and tried several keys in the lock. The sixth key he tried turned almost all the way; he took hold of the knob, lifted and pushed, forcing the key at the same time. The lock clicked, gave way, the door swung open.

Shane went into the darkness, closed the door and lighted a match. He found the light switch, pressed it. A floor lamp with a colorful and tasteless batik shade; a smaller table lamp with a black silk handkerchief thrown over it, lighted. The globes were deep amber; the light of the two lamps was barely sufficient to see the brightly papered walls, the mass of furniture in the room. Shane picked his way to the table, jerked the black handkerchief off the table lamp; then there was a little more light.

There was a man on his knees on the floor, against a couch at one end of the little room. The upper part of his body was belly down on the couch and his arms hung limply, ridiculously to the floor; the back of his skull was caved in and the white brightly flowered couch cover beneath his head and shoulders was dark red, shiny.

Shane went to him and squatted down and looked at the gashed and bloody side of his face. It was Del Corey.

Shane stood up and crossed the room to an ajar door, pushed it open with his foot. The light over the wash basin was on, covered with several layers of pink silk; the light was very dim.

Thelma Burr was lying on her back on the floor. Her green crepe de chine nightgown was torn, stained. There were black marks on her throat, her breast; her face was puffy, a bruised discolored mask, and her mouth and one cheek were brown-black with iodine. There was a heavy pewter candlestick a little way from one outstretched hand.

Shane knelt, braced his elbow on the edge of the bathtub and held his ear close to her chest. Her heart was beating faintly.

He stood up swiftly, went out of the bathroom, went to the door. He took out his handkerchief, wiped off the light switch carefully, snapped the lights out. Then he went out and locked the door, wiped the knob, put the key in his pocket and went downstairs, out and across the street to the cab.

The driver jerked his head towards another lone cab halfway down the block. “That hack come up right after we got here,” he said. “Nobody got out or nothing. Maybe it’s a tail.” He stared sharply at Shane.

Shane said: “Probably.” He glanced carelessly at the other cab. “You can make yourself a fin if you can get me to the nearest telephone, and then over to 71 East Fifty — in five minutes.”

The driver pointed across the street, said: “Garage over there — they ought to have a phone.”

Shane ran across to the garage, found a phone and called Central Station, asked for Bill Hayworth. When Hayworth answered, he said: “There’s a stiff and a prospective in apartment 312 at West Seventy-fourth. Hurry up — the girl’s not quite gone. Call you later.” He ran out to the waiting cab, climbed in, leaned back and clipped and lighted a cigar, watched the other cab through the rear window. They went over to the Drive, down two blocks, turned east. Shane thought for a while that the other cab wasn’t following, but after they’d gone several blocks on Seventy-second he saw it again. They cut down Broadway to Columbus Circle, across Fifty-ninth.

In front of 71, Shane jumped out of the cab, said: “That’s swell — wait,” went swiftly across the sidewalk and pressed the button beneath the red number.

The slit opened, a voice that Shane did not know whispered: “What is it you want?”

Shane said: “In.” He stuck his face in the thin shaft of light that came through the slit.

The door was opened and Shane went into the narrow hallway. The man who had let him in was about fifty-five — a slight, thin-faced man with white hair combed straight back from high forehead. He closed the door, bolted it.

Nick was standing behind and a little to one side of the slight man. He held a blunt blue automatic steadily in his right hand. His chin was on his chest and he stared at Shane narrowly through thick, bushy brows. He jerked his head up suddenly, sharply, said: “Put your hands up, you son of a bitch!”

Shane smiled slowly, raised his hands slowly as high as his shoulders.

A bell tinkled faintly above the door, the slight white-haired man opened the slit and looked out, closed the slit and opened the door. Another man whom Shane recognized as one of the stud dealers came in. The slight man closed the door.

Nick jerked his head up again, said: “Upstairs.” He put the automatic in the pocket of his dinner coat, the muzzle held the cloth out stiff.

Shane turned and went slowly up the stairs, and Nick and the man who followed him in came up behind him. The slight man stayed at the door.

On the second floor, Shane put his hands down as he passed the double door into the big room, glanced in. There were three people, a man and two women, in earnest and drunken conversation at one of the corner tables. There was a couple at a table against the far wall. With the exception of these and a waiter and the man behind the bar, the room was deserted.

Shane spoke over his shoulder to Nick: “Swell crowd.”

Nick took two or three rapid steps, took the automatic out of his pocket and jabbed it against Shane’s back, hard. Shane put his hands up again and went up the second flight to the third floor. Nick and the other man followed him. He stopped at the top of the stair leaned against the balustrade. Nick went past him and knocked at the tall gray door. It was opened in a little while and the three of them went into the room.

Pedro Rigas, Charley’s brother, was sitting on one of the big round tables, swinging his feet back and forth. He was very tall and spare and his face was dark, handsome, his features sharply cut.

There was a plump young man with rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, shingled sand-colored hair on a straight canebottomed chair near Pedro. His legs were crossed and he leaned on one elbow on the table. There was a heavy nickeled revolver on the table near his elbow. He stared at Shane with interest.

Lorain Rigas was sitting on a worn imitation leather couch against one wall. She was leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her hands over her eyes. She had taken off the small suede hat, her dull black hair curved in damp arabesques over her white forehead and throat and hands.

The little Eastman operative was half sitting, half lying on the floor against the wall near the couch. His face was a pulpy mass of bruised, beaten flesh; one arm was up, half covering the lower part of his face, the other was propped in the angle of the floor and wall. He was sobbing quietly, his body shook.

Pedro Rigas looked at the dealer who had come in with Shane and Nick, nodded towards Shane, asked: “You bring him in?”

Nick said: “He came in — by himself.” He grinned mirthlessly at Shane.

Shane was staring sleepily at Lorain Rigas.

She lifted her face, looked at him helplessly. “Somebody called up a little while after I talked to you,” she said — “said it was the night clerk — said you were waiting for me out in front of the hotel. I went down and they smacked me into a cab, brought me over here.”

Shane nodded slightly.

She turned her eyes towards the Eastman man on the floor. “He was here,” she went on, “an’ they were beating hell out of him. I don’t know where they picked him up.”

Shane said: “Probably at the Station, after he talked to me. They’ve been tailing me all night — since I left the hotel to go over an’ talk to the captain. That’s how they knew you were at the hotel — they saw you come in around nine — an’ they got the fake Johnson name from the register.”

Pedro Rigas was smiling coldly at Shane, swinging his feet back and forth nervously.

He said: “One of you two,” — he jerked his head towards the girl — “killed Charley. I find out pretty soon which one — or by God I kill you both.”

Shane had put his hands down. He held them in front of him and looked down at them, stroked the back of one with the palm of the other. Then he looked up at the rosy-cheeked young man, questioned Rigas: “Executioner?” He smiled slightly, sarcastically.

Lorain Rigas stood up suddenly, faced Pedro. She said:

“You fool! Can’t you get it through that nut of yours that Del killed Charley? Dear God!” — she made a hopeless gesture. “Read the papers — the gun they found was the one Del swiped from Jack Kenny this afternoon. Jack’ll verify that.”

Pedro’s face was cold and hard and expressionless when he looked at her. “What were you doing up there?”

“I told you!” she almost screamed. “I went to warn Charley that Del was after him! I heard the shots when I was halfway upstairs — got out.”

Shane was looking at Lorain Rigas and there was a dim mocking glitter in his eyes.

She glanced at him, said: “I didn’t tell you about that, Dick, because I was afraid you’d get ideas. You wouldn’t trust your own mother across the street, you know.”

Shane nodded gently, slowly.

He turned to Pedro. “Where do I come in?” he said. “I went from here to the hotel — an’ I was there till about a quarter of ten.”

The dealer, who was still standing near the door, spoke for the first time: “No. After you left here, you didn’t get to the hotel till about ten minutes of nine. I found that out from a friend of mine — a bellhop.”

Lorain Rigas looked from the dealer to Shane. Her eyes were wide, surprised. She said: “My God!”

Pedro stopped swinging his feet suddenly. He said: “Where did you go after you left here?” He was staring at Shane and his eyes were thin heavily fringed slits.

Shane was silent a moment. Then he reached slowly, deliberately towards his inside pocket, smiled at Lorain Rigas, said: “May I smoke?”

Pedro stood up suddenly.

The rosy-cheeked youth stood up, too. The revolver glistened in his hand and he went swiftly to Shane, patted his pockets, his hips, felt under his arms. He finished, stepped back a pace.

Shane took out the blue case, took out a cigar and lighted it.

It was silent except for the choked sobbing of the little Eastman man.

Nick came suddenly forward, took Shane by the shoulder, shook him. Nick said: “You answer Pedro when he asks you a question.”

Shane turned slowly and frowned at Nick. He looked down at Nick’s hand on his shoulder, said slowly: “Take your hand off me, you son of a bitch!” He looked back at Pedro. “Ask Nick where he went tonight.”

Pedro jerked his head impatiently.

Shane took the cigar out of his mouth, said: “Did you know that Thelma — downstairs — is Nick’s gal?” He hesitated a moment, glanced swiftly at Nick. “An’ did you know that Charley’s been playing around with her?”

Pedro was staring at Nick. His mouth was a little open.

Shane went on: “Nick knew it.”

He whirled suddenly and smashed his left fist down hard on Nick’s broad forearm, grabbed for the automatic with his right hand. The automatic fell, clattered on the floor. Shane and Nick and the rosy-cheeked young man all dived for it, but the young man was a little faster; he stood up grinning widely, murderously — a gun in each hand.

Pedro said: “Go on.”

Shane didn’t say anything. He was looking at Nick and his eyes were bright, interested — he was smiling a little.

Pedro snapped at the dealer: “Go downstairs an’ send Mario up — you stay at the door.”

The dealer went out and closed the door. They were all very quiet. Nick was staring at the automatic in the young man’s hand and there was a very silly, faraway expression on his face. Shane was watching Nick like a vivisectionist about to make the crucial incision. Lorain Rigas was sitting down again on the couch with her hands over her eyes.

Pedro only waited, looked at the floor.

The door opened and the slight, white-haired man came in.

Pedro said: “What time did Nick go out tonight?”

The slight man looked at Nick bewilderedly. He cleared his throat, said: “Nick went out right after Charley went home. He said there wasn’t any business anyway, an’ he wanted to go to a picture show, an’ would I take the door for a while. He came back some time around nine.”

Pedro said: “All right — go on back downstairs.”

The slight man gestured with one hand. “You seen me on the door when you went out right after we heard about Charley,” he said. “Wasn’t it all right for me to be on the door?”

“Sure.” Pedro was looking at Nick. “Sure — only I thought Nick was down in the basement or something — I didn’t know he’d gone out.”

The slight man shrugged and went out and closed the door.

Shane said evenly: “Nick had a hunch that Charley was going to Thelma’s. He didn’t follow Charley, but he jumped in a cab, probably, and went to her place. He didn’t find Charley — but he found Del Corey.”

Lorain Rigas put her hands down and looked up at Shane. Her face was drawn, white.

“That’s what Del went there for,” Shane went on — “expecting to find Charley. Del’s been making a big play for Thelma — an’ he knew about Charley and her — was cockeyed an’ burnt up an’ aimed to rub Charley.” Shane was watching Nick narrowly. “Thelma must’ve calmed Del down — Nick found them there...” Shane turned his eyes towards Lorain Rigas. “... And caved in Del’s head.”

Lorain Rigas stood up, screamed.

Pedro crossed to her swiftly, put one hand over her mouth, the other on her back, pushed her back down on the couch gently.

Shane said: “Then Nick beat the hell out of Thelma, made her admit that Charley had been in the woodpile, too, damn near killed her.”

He was looking at Nick again.

“He dragged what was left of her into the bathroom and poured some iodine on her mouth, an’ put the candlestick that he’d smacked Del with in her hands so it would look like she’d killed Del an’ then committed suicide.”

Nick turned to stare at Shane vacantly.

Shane was puffing out great clouds of blue gray smoke, seemed to be enjoying himself hugely.

“She wasn’t quite dead, though,” he went on. He glanced at his watch. “The law ought to be over there by now — getting her testimony.”

Pedro said: “Hurry up.”

Shane shrugged. “Nick took the gun that Del got from Jack Kenny, jumped up to Charley’s. He knew he was in a good spot to let Charley have it because Charley and I had that argument tonight — an’ it’d look like me — or he could make it look like me. Charley evidently stopped some place on the way home — Nick got there first and either stuck Charley up in the corridor and took him into the apartment to kill him, or sneaked in — the door was unlocked — and waited in the dark. Then he went out the back way — the way Charley came in — and came back down here.”

Pedro went to the door, turned to Shane, said: “You and the lady go.”

Shane gestured towards the Eastman man. “What about him?”

“We’ll fix him up — give him some money. It is too bad.” Pedro smiled, opened the door.

Shane looked at Nick. Nick’s face was pasty, yellow, still wore the silly, faraway expression.

Lorain Rigas stood up and took up her hat and went to Shane.

They went together to the door, out into the hallway. Pedro leaned over the balustrade, called down to the little man at the outside door: “Okay.”

Shane and the girl went downstairs, past the doors of the dark and empty barroom, down to the street floor.

The slight, white-haired man and the dealer were whispering together. The slight man opened the door for them, said: “Good night — come again.”

They went out and got into the cab.

Shane said: “Valmouth.”

It had stopped raining for the moment, but the streets were still black and glistening and slippery.

He tossed the cigar out through the narrow space of open window, leaned back, said: “Am I a swell dick? — or am I a swell dick?”

Lorain Rigas didn’t answer. Her elbow was on the armrest, her chin in her hand. She stared out the window blankly.

“You’re not very appreciative.” Shane smiled to himself, was silent a little while.

The light held them up at Fifth Avenue. Theater traffic was heavy in spite of the weather.

Shane said: “The only thing I’m not quite sure about is whether you went to Charley’s to warn him — or whether you’d heard about Del and Thelma — thought that the day Del was yelping about shooting Charley, in front of witnesses, was a swell time for you to shoot Charley yourself.”

She did not answer.

As the cab curved into Sixth Avenue, she said: “Where did you go after you left 71 — before you went back to the hotel?”

Shane laughed. “That lousy alibi held up with the captain,” he said. “He didn’t question it.” He unbuttoned the top button of his topcoat, took something wrapped in tissue paper out of his inside pocket. “You know what a sucker I am for auction sales?”

She nodded.

He unfolded the tissue paper and took out a platinum-mounted diamond ring. The stone was large, pure white, very beautiful.

He said: “Pip?”

She nodded again.

He put the ring back in the tissue paper, folded it, put it back in his pocket.

The cab slid to the curb in front of the Valmouth. Shane said: “Where you going?”

She shook her head.

He said: “You keep the cab.” He pressed a bill into her hand, said: “This’ll take care of it — why don’t you take a nice long ride?”

He brushed her forehead lightly with his lips and got out of the cab and went into the hotel.

One, Two, Three

I’d been in Los Angeles waiting for this Healey to show for nearly a week. According to my steer, he’d taken a railroad company in Quebec for somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty grand on a swarm of juggled options or something. That’s a nice neighborhood.

My information said further that he was headed west and that he dearly loved to play cards. I do, too.

I’ll take three off the top, please.

I missed him by about two hours in Chicago and spent the day going around to all the ticket offices, getting chummy with agents, finally found out Healey had bought a ticket to LA, so I fanned on out there and cooled.

Pass.

Sunday afternoon I ran into an op for Eastern Investigators, Inc., named Gard, in the lobby of the Roosevelt. We had a couple drinks and talked about this and that. He was on the Coast looking for a gent named Healey. He was cagey about who the client was, but Eastern handles mostly missing persons, divorces, stuff like that.

Monday morning Gard called me and said the Salt Lake branch of his outfit had located Healey in Caliente, Nevada. He said he thought I might like to know. I told him I wasn’t interested and thanked him and then I rented a car in a U Drive place and drove up to Caliente.

I got there about four in the afternoon and spotted Healey in the second joint I went into. He was sitting in a stud game with five of the home boys and if they were a fair sample of local talent I figured I had plenty of time.

Healey was a big man with a round cheery face, smooth pink skin. His mouth was loose and wet and his eyes were light blue. I think his eyes were the smallest I’ve ever seen. They were set very wide apart.

He won and lost pretty evenly, but the game wasn’t worth a nickel. The home boys were old-timers and played close to their vests and Healey’s luck was the only thing that kept him even. He finally scared two of them out of a seventy- or eighty-dollar pot and that made him feel so good that he got up and came over to the bar and ordered drinks for the boys at the table. He ordered lemonade for himself.

I said: “Excuse me, but haven’t I seen you around Lonnie Thompson’s in Detroit?” Lonnie makes a book and I had most of my dope on Healey from him.

He smiled and said: “Maybe,” and asked me what I drank.

I ordered whiskey.

He asked me if I’d been in town long and I said I’d just driven up from LA to look things over and that things didn’t look so hot and that I would probably drive back to LA that night or the next morning.

I bought him another lemonade and had another whiskey and we talked about Detroit. In a little while he went back to the table and sat down.

That was enough for a beginning. I had registered myself with him as one of the boys.

I went out and drove a couple of blocks to the Pine Hotel and took a room. The Pine was practically the only hotel in town, but I flipped the register back a day or so and found Healey’s name to make sure. Then I went up and washed and lay down to smoke a cigarette and figure out the details.

According to Lonnie Thompson, Healey was a cash boy — carried his dough in paper and traveler’s checks. I couldn’t be sure of that but it was enough. The point was to get him to LA and in to one or two or three places where I could work on him.

I guess I must have slept almost an hour because it was dark when I woke up. Somebody was knocking at the door and I got up and stumbled over and switched on the light and opened the door. I was too sleepy to take Healey big — I mumbled something about coming in and sitting down, and I went over to the basin and put some cold water on my face.

When I turned around he was sitting on the bed looking scared. I offered him a cigarette and he took it and his hand was shaking.

He said: “Sorry I woke you up like that.”

I said: “That’s all right,” and then he leaned forward and spoke in a very low voice:

“I’ve got to get out of here right away. I want to know how much it’s worth to you to take me down to Los Angeles.”

I almost fell off the chair. My first impulse was to yell, “Sure,” and drag him down to the car; but he was scared of something and when a man’s scared is a swell time to find out what it’s all about.

I stalled. I said: “Oh, that’s all right,” sort of hesitantly.

He said: “Listen... I got here Saturday morning. I was going to stay here long enough to establish residence and then apply for one of those quick divorces, under the Nevada law.

“My wife has been on my tail six weeks with a blackmail gag,” he went on. “She’s here. When I got back to the hotel a little while ago she came into my room and put on an act.”

I thought then I knew who Gard’s client was.

“She came in this afternoon. She’s got the room next to mine.” He was silent so long that I laughed a little and said: “So what?”

“I’ve got to duck, quick,” he went on. “She’s a bad actor. She came into my room and put on an act. She’s got a guy with her that’s supposed to be her brother and he’s a bad actor, too. You said you were going to drive back to LA. I saw your name on the register when I came in and I thought you might take me along. I can’t rent a car here and there isn’t a train till midnight.”

He pulled the biggest roll I ever saw out of his pocket and skimmed off a couple notes. “If it’s a question of money...”

I shook my head with what I hoped was a suggestion of dignity. I said: “I’d decided to go back myself tonight. It will be a pleasure to take you, Mister Healey,” and I got up and put on my coat. “How about your stuff?”

He looked blank until I said: “Luggage,” and then he said: “That’s all right — I’ll leave it.” He smiled again. “I travel light.”

At the top of the stairs he whispered: “This is sure a big lift.” Then he remembered that he had to sneak up to his room to get something and said he’d meet me at the car. I told him where it was. He said he’d paid his hotel bill.

I went on downstairs and checked out.

My car was wedged in between a Ford truck and a light-blue Chrysler roadster. There was plenty of room ahead of the roadster, so I went up and snapped off the handbrake and pushed it ahead about eight feet. Then I got into my car and leaned back and waited. The whole layout looked pretty bad, what with him scared to death of a deal he admitted was blackmail and all. He said he didn’t want his luggage and then, right on top of it, he had to go up to his room to get something. That would be taking a chance on running into the wife again. I wondered if she was his wife.

I couldn’t figure out how a wife could blackmail a husband while she was jumping from state to state with a man who was “supposed” to be her brother; but then almost anything is possible in Nevada.

After about five minutes I began to get nervous. I opened the door of the car and stepped out on the sidewalk, and as I closed the door there were five shots close together some place upstairs in the hotel.

I can take trouble or leave it alone; only I always take it. Like a sap, I went into the hotel.

The clerk was a big blond kid with glasses. He came out from behind the counter as I went in the door; we went upstairs together, two or three at a time.

There was a man in long woolly underwear standing in the corridor on the third floor and he pointed to a door and we went in. Healey was lying flat on his face in the middle of the room, and beyond him, close to the wall, was the body of a woman, also face downward.

The clerk turned a beautiful shade of green; he stood there staring at Healey. I went over and rolled the woman over on her back. She couldn’t have been much over twenty-two or three; little, gray-eyed, blonde. There was a knife in her side, under the arm. There was a .38 automatic near her outstretched hand. She was very dead.

The man in the woolly underwear peeked in and then hurried across the hall and into another room. I could hear him yelling the news to somebody there.

I went over and tapped the clerk on the shoulder and pointed at the girl. The clerk swallowed a couple of times, said: “Miss Mackay,” and looked back at Healey. He was hypnotized by the way Healey’s back looked. Hamburger.

Then about two dozen people came into the room all at once.

The sheriff had been in the pool hall across the street. He rolled Healey over and said: “This is Mister Healey,” as if he’d made a great discovery.

I said: “Uh-huh. He’s been shot.”

I guess the sheriff didn’t like the way I said it very well. He glanced at the clerk and then asked me who I was. I told him my name and the clerk nodded and the sheriff scratched his head and went over and looked at the girl. I wanted to say that she’d been knifed, but I restrained myself.

Shaggy underwear was back with his pants on. He said he hadn’t heard anything except somebody swearing and then, suddenly, the shots.

I asked him how long after the shots it had been when he came into the corridor and he said he wasn’t sure, but it was somewhere around half a minute.

The first interesting thing that turned up was that it wasn’t Healey’s room — it was Miss Mackay’s room. His was next door. That probably meant that Healey had deliberately gone into her room; that she hadn’t surprised him in his room while he was getting something he’d forgotten.

Number two was that the knife was Healey’s. Half a dozen people had seen him with it. It was an oversize jackknife with a seven-inch blade — one of the kind that snaps open when you press a spring. Somebody said Healey had a habit of playing mumblety-peg with it when he was trying to out-sit a raise or scare somebody into splitting a pot.

Number three was the topper. The dough was gone. The sheriff and a couple of deputies searched Healey and went through both rooms with a fine-tooth comb. They weren’t looking for big money because they didn’t know about it; they were looking for evidence.

All they found on Healey were four hundred-dollar bills tucked into his watch pocket, and the usual keys, cigarettes, whatnot. There were no letters or papers of any kind. There was one big suitcase in his room and it was full of dirty clothes. The roll he’d flashed on me was gone.

In the next half hour I found out a lot of things. The girl had come to the hotel alone. No one else had checked in that day, except myself. The door to the girl’s room was about twenty feet from the top of the back stairs and there was a side door to the hotel that they didn’t lock until ten o’clock.

It looked like a cinch for the man Healey had told me about, the one who was supposed to be Miss Mackay’s brother.

Healey had probably gone upstairs to take care of the girl. I knew that his being scared of her was on the level because I know bona fide fear when I see it. She evidently had plenty on him. He’d arranged his getaway with me and then gone up to carve the girl, shut her up forever.

The alleged brother had come in the side door and had walked in on the knife act and opened up Healey’s back with the automatic at about six feet.

Then he’d grabbed the roll and whatever else Healey had in his pocket that was of any value — maybe a book of traveler’s checks — had tossed the gun on the floor and screwed back down the back stairway and out the side door. Something like that. It wasn’t entirely plausible, but it was all I could figure right then.

By the time I’d figured that much out the sheriff had it all settled that Healey had knifed the girl and then she’d plugged him five times, in a ten-inch square in his back. With about three inches of steel in her heart.

That was what the sheriff said so I let it go. They didn’t know about the brother and I didn’t want to complicate their case for them. And I did want a chance to look for that roll without interference.

When I got out to the car the blue Chrysler was gone. That wasn’t important except that I wondered who had been going away from the hotel when it looked like everybody in town was there or on the way there.

I didn’t get much information at the station. The agent said he’d just come on duty; the telegraph operator had been there all afternoon but he was out to supper. I found him in a lunch-room across the street and he said there’d been a half-dozen or so people get off the afternoon train from Salt Lake; but the girl had been alone and he wasn’t sure who the other people had been except three or four home towners. That was no good.

I tried to find somebody else who had been in the station when the train came in but didn’t have any luck. They couldn’t remember.

I went back to the car and that made me think about the blue Chrysler again. It was just possible that the Mackay girl had come down from Salt Lake by rail, and the boyfriend or brother or whatever he was had driven down. It didn’t look particularly sensible but it was an idea. Maybe they didn’t want to appear to be traveling together or something.

I stopped at all the garages and gas stations I could find but I couldn’t get a line on the Chrysler. I went back to the hotel and looked at the register and found out that Miss Mackay had put down Chicago as her home, and I finagled around for a half hour and talked to the sheriff and the clerk and everybody who looked like they wanted to talk but I didn’t get any more angles.

The sheriff said he’d wired Chicago because it looked like Healey and Miss Mackay were both from Chicago, and that he’d found a letter in one of Healey’s old coats from a Chicago attorney. The letter was about a divorce, and the sheriff had a hunch that Miss Mackay was Mrs Healey.

I had a sandwich and a piece of pie in the hotel restaurant and bundled up and went out and got in the car and started for LA.

I didn’t get up till around eleven o’clock Tuesday morning. I had breakfast in my room and wired a connection in Chi to send me all he could get on Miss Mackay and her brother. I called the desk and got the number of Gard’s room and on the way down stopped in to see him.

He was sitting in his nightshirt by the window, reading the morning papers. I sat down and asked him how he was enjoying his vacation and he said swell, and then he said: “I see by the papers that our friend Healey had an accident.”

I nodded.

Gard chuckled: “Tch, tch, tch. His wife will sure be cut up.”

I smiled a little and said, “Uh-huh,” and Gard looked up and said: “What the hell are you grinning about and what do you mean: Uh-huh?”

I told him that according to my paper Mrs Healey was the lady who had rubbed Healey — the lady who was on her way back East in a box.

Gard shook his head intelligently and said: “Wrong. That one was an extra. Mrs Healey is alive and kicking and one of the sweetest dishes God ever made.”

I could see that he was going to get romantic so I waited and he told me that Mrs Healey had been the agency’s client in the East and that she’d come in from Chicago Monday morning by plane and that he’d met her in the agency office, and then he went on for five or ten minutes about the color of her eyes and the way she wore her hair, and everything.

Gard was pretty much of a ladies’ man. He told it with gestures.

Along with the poetry he worked in the information that Mrs Healey, as he figured it, had had some trouble with Healey and that they’d split up and that she wanted to straighten it all out. That was the reason she’d wired the Salt Lake office of his agency to locate Healey. And almost as soon as they’d found Healey he’d shoved off for LA and the agency had wired her in Chicago to that effect. She’d arrived the morning Healey had been spotted in Caliente and had decided to wait in LA for him.

Gard said he had helped her find an apartment. He supposed the agency had called her up and told her the bad news about Healey. He acted like he was thinking a little while and then asked me if I didn’t think he ought to go over and see if he could help her in any way. “Comfort her in her bereavement,” was the way he put it.

I said: “Sure — we’ll both go.”

Gard didn’t go for that very big, but I told him that my having been such a pal of Healey’s made it all right.

We went.

Mrs Healey turned out a great deal better than I had expected from Gard’s glowing description. As a matter of fact she was swell. She was very dark, with dark blue eyes and blue-black hair; her clothes were very well done and her voice was cultivated, deep. When she acknowledged Gard’s half-stammered introduction, inclined her head towards me and asked us to sit down, I saw that she had been crying.

Gard had done pretty well in the way of helping her find an apartment. It was a big luxurious duplex in the Garden Court on Kenmore.

She smiled at Gard. “It’s very nice of you gentlemen to call,” she said.

I said we wanted her to know how sorry we were about it all and that I had known Healey in Detroit, and if there was anything we could do — that sort of thing.

There wasn’t much else to say. There wasn’t much else said.

She asked Gard to forgive her for bothering him so much the previous evening with her calls, but that she’d been nervous and worried and kept thinking that maybe Healey had arrived in LA after the agency was closed and that she hadn’t been notified. They’d been watching the trains of course.

Gard said that was all right and got red and stammered some more. He was stunned by the lady. So was I. She was a pip.

She said she thought she’d stay in California and she told us delicately that she’d made arrangements for Healey’s body to be shipped to his folks in Detroit.

Finally I said we’d better go and Gard nodded and we got up. She thanked us again for coming and a maid helped us with our coats and we left.

Gard said he had to go downtown so I took a cab and went back to the hotel. There was a wire from Chicago:

JEWEL MACKAY TWO CONVICTIONS EXTORTION STOP WORKS WITH HUSBAND ARTHUR RAINES ALIAS J L MAXWELL STOP LEFT CHICAGO WEDNESDAY FOR LOS ANGELES WITH RAINES STOP DESCRIPTION MACKAY FOUR ELEVEN ONE HUNDRED TWO BLONDE GRAY EYES RAINES FIVE SIX ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE RED BROWN EYES STOP MAY LOCATE THROUGH BROTHER WILLIAM RAINES REAL ESTATE SOUTH LABREA REGARDS

ED.

I got the number of Raines’ real estate office from the telephone book and took a cab and went down and looked it over. I didn’t go in. Then I told the driver to take me to the Selwyn Apartments on Beverly Boulevard. That was the place the telephone book had listed as Raines’ residence.

It took a half hour of jabbering about spark plugs with the Bohunk in the Selwyn garage to find out that Mister Raines had gone out about ten o’clock with another gentleman, and what Mister Raines looked like and what kind of a car he drove. The gentleman who had been with him was tall — or maybe he was short. Or maybe it had been a lady. The Bohunk wasn’t sure.

I jockeyed the cab around to a good spot in the cross street and went into the drug store on the opposite corner and drank Coca-Colas. Along about the fifth Coca-Cola the car I was looking for pulled up in front of the Selwyn. A medium-sized middle-aged man who I figured to be the brother got out of the driver’s seat and went into the apartment house. The other man in the car moved over into the driver’s seat and started west on Beverly. By that time I was back in the cab and after him.

Of course I couldn’t be sure it was Raines. It looked like a little man. I had to take that chance.

We followed the car out Beverly to Western, up Western. I wondered what had become of the blue Chrysler. Then we drew up close behind Raines’ car at an intersection and I nearly fell out the window. The man in the car ahead turned around and looked back; we looked smack at one another for five seconds.

I’d seen him before! I’d seen him the night before in Miss Mackay’s room at the Pine Hotel in Caliente! He’d been one of the raft of people who’d busted in with the Sheriff and stood around ah-ing and oh-ing. The man had guts. He’d come in while Healey and the girl were still warm to see what a neat job he’d done.

The traffic bell rang and I knew he’d recognized me, too. He went across that intersection like a bat out of hell, up Western to Fountain. He lost us on Fountain.

I talked to my driver like a father. I got down on my knees and begged him to keep that car in sight. I called him all the Portuguese pet names I could think of and made up a few new ones, but Raines ran away from us on Fountain.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped at the Hollywood Branch of the Automobile Club and had a friend of mine look up the license number of the car. Of course it was the brother’s car, in the brother’s name. That didn’t get me anywhere. I was pretty sure Raines wouldn’t go back to his brother’s place now that he knew I’d spotted him; and it was a cinch he wouldn’t use that car very long.

He didn’t know what I wanted. He might figure me for a dick and scram out of LA — out of the country. I sat in my room at the hotel and thought soft thoughts about what a chump I’d been not to go to him directly when he’d stopped with his brother in front of the Selwyn, and the speed of taxicabs as compared to automobiles — things like that. It looked like the Healey case was all washed up as far as I was concerned.

I went out about five o’clock and walked. I walked down one side of Hollywood Boulevard to Bronson and back up the other side to Vine and went into the U Drive joint and rented the car again. I was nervous and jumpy and disgusted, and the best way for me to get over feeling that way is to drive it off.

I drove out through Cahuenga Pass a ways and then I had an idea and drove back to the Selwyn Apartments. The idea wasn’t any good. William Raines told the clerk to send me up and he asked me what he could do for me and smiled and offered me a drink.

I said I wanted to get in touch with his brother on a deal that would do us both a lot of good. He said his brother was in Chicago and that he hadn’t seen him for two years. I didn’t tell him he was a liar. It wouldn’t have done any good. I thanked him and went back down to the car.

I drove down to LA and had dinner in a Chinese place. Then I went back by the Santa Fe and found out about trains — I figured on going back to New York the next day.

On the way back to Hollywood I drove by the Garden Court. Not for any particular reason — I thought about Mrs Healey and it wasn’t much out of the way.

The blue Chrysler was sitting squarely across the street from the entrance.

I parked up the street a little way and got out and went back to be sure. I lit a match and looked at the card on the steering column; the car was registered to another U Drive place, downtown, on South Hope.

I went across the street and walked by the desk with my nose in the air. The Spick elevator boy didn’t even look at the folded bill I slipped him; he grinned self-consciously and said that a little red-haired man had gone up to four just a couple minutes ago. Mrs Healey was on four and there were only three apartments on a floor.

I listened at the door but could only hear a confused buzz that sounded like fast conversation. I turned the knob very slowly and put a little weight against the door. It was locked. I went down to the end of the hall and went out as quietly as possible through a double door to a fire escape platform. By standing outside the railing and holding on with one hand and leaning far out I could see into the dining room of Mrs Healey’s apartment, could see a couple inches of the door that led, as well as I could remember, into the drawing room. It was closed.

There is nothing that makes you feel quite so simple as hanging on a fire escape, trying to look into a window. Particularly when you can’t see anything through the window. After a few minutes I gave it up and climbed back over the railing.

I half sat on the railing and tried to figure things out. What business would the guy who shot Healey have with Mrs Healey? Did the blackmail angle that Raines and Mackay had hold over Healey cover Mrs Healey, too? Was Raines milking his lowdown for all it was worth? It was too deep for me.

I went back into the hall and listened at the door again. They were a little louder but not loud enough to do me any good. I went around a bend in the hall to what I figured to be the kitchen door and gave it the slow turn and it opened. I mentally kicked myself for wasting time on the fire escape, tiptoed into the dark kitchen and closed the door.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was in a quaint spot if somebody should come in. What the hell business did I have there! I fixed that, to myself, with some kind of vague slant about protecting Mrs Healey and edged over to the door, through to the room I’d been looking into from the fire escape.

The door into the drawing room was one of those pasteboard arrangements that might just as well not be there. The first thing I heard was a small, suppressed scream like somebody had smacked a hand over somebody else’s mouth, and then something like a piece of furniture being tipped over. It was a cinch someone was fighting in there, quietly — or as quietly as possible.

There wasn’t much time to think about whether I was doing the right thing or not. If I’d thought about it I’d probably have been wrong, anyway. I turned the knob, swung the door open.

Mrs Healey was standing against the far wall. She was standing flat against the wall with one hand up to her mouth. Her eyes were very wide.

There were two men locked together on the floor near the central table and as I came in they rolled over a turn or so and one broke away and scrambled to his feet. It was Raines. He dived after a nickel-plated revolver that was lying on the floor on the far side of the table, and the other man, who had risen to his knees, dived after it, too. The other man was Gard.

He beat Raines by a hair but Raines was on his feet; he kicked the gun out of Gard’s hand, halfway across the room. Gard grabbed his leg and pulled him down and they went round and round again. They fought very quietly; all you could hear was the sound of heavy breathing and an occasional bump. I went over and picked up the gun and stooped over the mess of arms and legs and picked out Raines’ red head and took hold of the barrel of the gun. I took dead aim and let Raines have it back of the ear. He relaxed.

Gard got up slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair and jiggled his shoulders around to straighten his coat and grinned foolishly.

I said: “Fancy, meeting you here.”

I turned around and looked at Mrs Healey. She was still standing against the wall with her hand across her mouth. Then the ceiling fell down on top of my head and everything got dark very suddenly.

Darkness was around me when I opened my eyes, but I could see the outlines of a window and I could hear someone breathing somewhere near me. I don’t know how long I was out. I sat up and my head felt like it was going to explode; I lay down again and closed my eyes.

After a while I tried it again and it was a little better. I crawled towards what I figured to be a door and ran into the wall and I got up on my feet and felt along the wall until I found the light switch.

Raines was lying in the same place I’d smacked him, but his hands and feet were tied with a length of clothesline and there was a red, white and blue silk handkerchief jammed into his mouth. His eyes were open and he looked at me with an expression that I can only describe as bitter amusement.

Gard was lying belly down on the floor near the door into the dining room. He was the hard breather I’d heard in the darkness. He was still out.

I ungagged Raines and sat down. I kept having the feeling that my head was going to blow up. It was a very unpleasant feeling.

In a little while Raines got his jaws limbered up and started talking. The first thing he said was: “What a bright boy you turned out to be!” I was too sick to know very much about what that meant — or care.

He went on like that for some time, talking in a high, squeaky voice, and the idea gradually filtered through the large balloonshaped ache that my head had turned into.

It seems that Raines and the Mackay gal had juggled Healey into a swell spot. One of their angles was that Healey, in an expansive moment, had entirely forgotten about Mrs Healey and married Miss Mackay. They had a lot of material besides; everything from the Mann Act to mayhem. When he’d made the hundred and fifty grand lick in Quebec they’d jumped him in Chicago.

Healey had ducked out of Chi and they’d tailed him, first to Salt Lake, then to Caliente. Monday night, Raines had helped Mackay put on the act in the hotel that Healey had told me about.

Raines hadn’t got off the train with her or checked into the hotel with her because they didn’t want to be seen together in case anything went wrong, but he ducked up that handy back stairway and they’d given Healey the act, showing him exactly the color and size of the spot they had him on.

Then, when Healey came down to my room, Raines had gone down and planted across the street in case Healey tried to powder.

Raines hadn’t been there five minutes before Mrs Healey and a man rolled up in the blue Chrysler. Raines recognized Mrs Healey because she’d spotted Healey with Miss Mackay and Raines in a cabaret in Chicago once and crowned Miss Mackay with a beer bottle. It seems Mrs Healey was a nice quiet girl.

They parked in front of the hotel and the man went in a minute, probably to buy a cigar and get a peek at the register. Then he came out and talked to Mrs Healey a little while and went back in the little alleyway that led to the side door. He was only there a minute; he probably found out that it was practical to go into the hotel that way and came back and told her.

Along about that time in Raines’ yarn I woke up to the fact that he was referring to the man who was with Mrs Healey as “this guy.” I opened my eyes and looked at him and he was looking at Gard.

Gard had stayed in the car while Mrs Healey went back through the alleyway and into the hotel. After a couple minutes he got nervous and got out and walked up the street a little ways, and Raines went across the street and went upstairs to find out what it was all about. That must have been about the time I was checking out.

Gard must have been coming back down the other side of the street and he saw me come out and finagle with his car and get into mine, and he stayed away until hell started popping upstairs and I went into the hotel.

Raines stopped a minute. I got up and went over and rolled Gard over on his back. He groaned and opened his eyes and blinked up at me and then he sat up slowly and leaned against the wall.

Raines said Mrs Healey must have tried Healey’s door and then waited till Healey came up the front stairway after he left me, and she ducked around a corner and watched Healey go into Mackay’s room. By that time Raines was at the top of the back stairway and he watched Mrs Healey take a gun out of her bag and go down and listen at Miss Mackay’s door. When Healey opened the door after whittling Mackay, she backed him into the room and closed the door. Raines said she probably told him a few pertinent truths about himself and relieved him of what was left of the hundred and fifty and then opened him up with the .38.

It was a swell spot for her, with the Mackay gal there with a knife in her heart. Raines said he figured she’d intended to rub Healey from the start, before he could divorce her — Healey had said she’d sworn to kill him, before he left Chicago. A nice quiet girl — Mrs Healey. A lady.

She’d dodged Raines on the stairs and he’d chased her down to the car, but by that time Gard was back in the car with the engine running and they’d shoved off fast. Then Raines had come back up with the sheriff and his gang to look things over. That’s where I’d seen him.

He’d taken the midnight train for LA and it had taken him all day Tuesday to locate Mrs Healey. He’d been putting the screws on her and Gard for a split of the important money and Gard had gone into a wrestling number with him just before I arrived.

By the time Raines had got all that out of his system Gard was sitting up straight with his mouth open and his hands moving around fast and that dumb, thoughtful look on his face as if he wanted to say something. When Raines stopped to breathe, Gard said that the lady had talked him into driving her up to Caliente because she said she was too nervous to wait for Healey in LA — she said she had to see Healey and try to make their scrap up right away, or she’d have a nervous breakdown or something and Gard — the big chump — fell for it.

He said he was the most surprised man in the world when the shooting started, and that when she came galloping down and they scrammed for LA she’d told him that she’d walked in on Mackay ventilating Healey, just like the sheriff said, and that Mackay had shot at her as she ran away. Gard had fallen for that, too. She had the poor sap hypnotized.

Gard knew I’d been up at Caliente, of course — he’d seen me; so when I walked into his place in the morning he’d figured I had some kind of slant on what it was all about and he’d taken me over to her place so they could put on their “comfort her in her bereavement” turn for my benefit. Then, Tuesday night, when I’d walked in on the shakedown and knocked Raines out, Gard, who had had a load of what Raines had to say to Mrs Healey and who half believed it, calculated that his best play was to take the air with her. He was too much mixed up in it to beat an accessory rap anyway, so he’d sapped me with a bookend and they’d tied Raines, who was coming to, and he’d helped her pack her things. They were going to light out for New Zealand or some quiet place like that; only she’d sneaked up behind him and smacked him down at the last minute. A lovely lady.

We all stopped talking about that time — Raines and Gard and me — and looked at one another.

Gard laughed. He squinted at me and said: “You looked silly when I clipped you with the bookend!”

Raines said: “You didn’t look particularly intelligent when our girl-friend let you have it.”

Gard snickered on the wrong side of his face and got up and went out into the kitchen for a drink of water. He found a bottle out there — almost a full fifth of White Horse. He brought it in, I untied Raines and we all had a snort.

I was thinking about what suckers we’d been. I’d popped Raines and Gard had popped me and Mrs Healey had popped Gard — all of us. One, two, three. Tinker to Evers to Chance — only more so.

I think we were all pretty washed up with La Belle Healey. It was a cinch Gard wouldn’t want any more of her. I don’t know about Raines, but I know I didn’t.

We finished the bottle and Raines snooped around and found a full one and we did a little business with that.

I didn’t find out I had a concussion till next morning. I was a week and two days in the hospital at twenty dollars a day, and the doctor nicked me two-fifty. He’ll get the rest of it when he catches me.

The whole Healey play, what with one thing and another, cost somewhere in the neighborhood of a grand. I got a lame skull and about two-bits’ worth of fun out of it. I pass.

Murder Done in Blue

Coleman said: “Eight ball in the corner.”

There was soft click of ball against ball and then sharper click as the black ball dropped into the pocket Coleman had called.

Coleman put his cue in the rack. He rolled down the sleeves of his vividly striped silk shirt and put on his coat and a pearl gray velour hat. He went to the pale fat man who slouched against a neighboring table and took two crisp hundred dollar notes from the fat man’s outstretched hand, glanced at the slim, pimpled youth who had been his opponent, smiled thinly, said: “So long,” went to the door, out into the street.

There was sudden roar from a black, curtained roadster on the other side of the street; the sudden ragged roar of four or five shots close together, a white pulsing finger of flame in the dusk, and Coleman sank to his knees. He swayed backwards once, fell forward onto his face hard; his gray hat rolled slowly across the sidewalk. The roadster was moving, had disappeared before Coleman was entirely still. It became very quiet in the street.

Mazie Decker curved her orange mouth to its best “Customer” smile. She took the little green ticket that the dark-haired boy held out to her and tore off one corner and dropped the rest into the slot. He took her tightly in his arms and as the violins melted to sound and the lights dimmed they swung out across the crowded floor.

Her head was tilted back, her bright mouth near the blue smoothness of his jaw.

She whispered: “Gee — I didn’t think you was coming.”

He twisted his head down a little, smiled at her.

She spoke again without looking at him: “I waited till one o’clock for you last night.” She hesitated a moment then went on rapidly: “Gee — I act like I’d known you for years, an’ it’s only two days. What a sap I turned out to be!” She giggled mirthlessly.

He didn’t answer.

The music swelled to brassy crescendo, stopped. They stood with a hundred other couples and applauded mechanically.

She said: “Gee — I love a waltz! Don’t you?”

He nodded briefly and as the orchestra bellowed to a moaning foxtrot he took her again in his arms and they circled towards the far end of the floor.

“Let’s get out of here, kid.” He smiled, his mouth a thin line against the whiteness of his skin, his large eyes half closed.

She said: “All right — only let’s try to get out without the manager seeing me. I’m supposed to work till eleven.”

They parted at one of the little turnstiles; he got his hat and coat from the checkroom, went downstairs and got his car from a parking station across the street.

When she came down he had double-parked near the entrance. He honked his horn and held the door open for her as she trotted breathlessly out and climbed in beside him. Her eyes were very bright and she laughed a little hysterically.

“The manager saw me,” she said. “But I said I was sick — an’ it worked.” She snuggled up close to him as he swung the car into Sixth Street. “Gee — what a swell car!”

He grunted affirmatively and they went out Sixth a block or so in silence.

As they turned north on Figueroa she said: “What’ve you got the side curtains on for? It’s such a beautiful night.”

He offered her a cigarette and lighted one for himself and leaned back comfortably in the seat.

He said: “I think it’s going to rain.”

It was very dark at the side of the road. A great pepper tree screened the roadster from whatever light there was in the sky.

Mazie Decker spoke softly: “Angelo. Angelo — that’s a beautiful name. It sounds like angel.”

The dark youth’s face was hard in the narrow glow of the dashlight. He had taken off his hat and his shiny black hair looked like a metal skullcap. He stroked the heel of his hand back over one ear, over the oily blackness and then he took his hand down and wriggled it under his coat. His other arm was around the girl.

He took his hand out of the darkness of his coat and there was brief flash of bright metal; the girl said: “My God!” slowly and put her hands up to her breast...

He leaned in front of her and pressed the door open and as her body sank into itself he pushed her gently and her body slanted, toppled through the door, fell softly on the leaves beside the road. Her sharp breath and a far quavering “Ah!” were blotted out as he pressed the starter and the motor roared; he swung the door closed and put on his hat carefully, shifted gears and let the clutch in slowly.

As he came out of the darkness of the dirt road on to the highway he thrust one hand through a slit in the side curtain, took it in and leaned forward over the wheel.

It was raining, a little.

R.F. Winfield stretched one long leg out and planted his foot on a nearby leather chair. The blonde woman got up and walked unsteadily to the phonograph. This latter looked like a grandfather clock, had cost well into four figures, would probably have collapsed at the appellation “phonograph” — but it was.

The blonde woman snapped the little tin brake; she lifted the record, stared empty-eyed at the other side.

She said: “’s Minnie th’ Moocher. Wanna hear it?”

Mr Winfield said: “Uh-huh.” He tilted an ice-and-amber filled glass to his mouth, drained it. He stood up and gathered his very blue dressing gown about his lean shanks. He lifted his head and walked through a short corridor to the bathroom, opened the door, entered.

Water splashed noisily in the big blue porcelain tub. He braced himself with one hand on the shower tap, turned off the water, slipped out of the dressing gown and into the tub.

The blonde woman’s voice clanged like cold metal through the partially open door.

“Took ’er down to Chinatown; showed ’er how to kick the gong aroun’.”

Mr Winfield reached up into the pocket of the dressing gown, fished out a cigarette, matches. He lighted the cigarette, leaned back in the water, sighed. His face was a long tan oblong of contentment. He flexed his jaw, then mechanically put up one hand and removed an upper plate, put the little semicircle of shining teeth on the basin beside the tub, ran his tongue over thick, sharply etched lips, sighed again. The warm water was soft, caressing; he was very comfortable.

He heard the buzzer and he heard the blonde woman stagger along the corridor past the bathroom to the outer door of the apartment. He listened but could hear no word of anything said there; only the sound of the door opening and closing, and silence broken faintly by the phonograph’s “Hi-de-ho-oh, Minnie.”

Then the bathroom door swung slowly open and a man stood outlined against the darkness of the corridor. He was bareheaded and the electric light was reflected in a thin line across his hair, shone dully on the moist pallor of his skin. He wore a tightly belted raincoat and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets.

Winfield sat up straight in the tub, spoke tentatively “Hello!” He said “hello” with an incredulous rising inflection, blinked incredulously upward. The cigarette dangled loosely from one corner of his mouth.

The man leaned against the frame of the door and took a short thick automatic out of his coat pocket and held it steadily, waist high.

Winfield put his hands on the sides of the tub and started to get up.

The automatic barked twice.

Winfield half stood, with one hand and one leg braced against the side of the tub for perhaps five seconds. His eyes were wide, blank. Then he sank down slowly, his head fell back against the smooth blue porcelain, slid slowly under the water. The cigarette still hung in the corner of his clenched mouth and as his head went under the water it hissed briefly, was gone.

The man in the doorway turned, disappeared.

The water reddened. Faintly, the phonograph lisped: “Hi-de-ho...”

Doolin grinned up at the waiter. “An’ see the eggs are four minutes, an’ don’t put any cream in my coffee.”

The waiter bobbed his head sullenly and disappeared through swinging doors.

Doolin unfolded his paper and turned to the comic page. He read it carefully, chuckling audibly, from top to bottom. Then he spread pages two and three across the counter and began at the top of page two. Halfway across he read the headline: Winfield, Motion Picture Executive, Slain by Sweetheart: Story continued from page one.

He turned to the front page and stared at a two-column cut of Winfield, read the accompanying account, turned back to page two and finished it. There was another cut of Winfield, and a woman. The caption under the woman’s picture read: “Elma O’Shea Darmond, well-known screen actress and friend of Winfield, who was found unconscious in his apartment with the automatic in her hand.”

Doolin yawned and shoved the paper aside to make room for the eggs and toast and coffee that the sour-faced waiter carried. He devoured the eggs and had half finished his coffee before he saw something that interested him on page three. He put his cup down, leaned over the paper, read: “Man Shot in Glendale Mystery. H.J. (Jake) Coleman, alleged gambler, was shot and killed as he came out of the Lyric Billiard Parlors in Glendale yesterday evening. The shots were fired from a mysterious black roadster which the police are attempting to trace.”

Doolin read the rest of the story, finished his coffee. He sat several minutes staring expressionlessly at his reflection in the mirror behind the counter, got up, paid his check and went out into the bright morning.

He walked briskly down Hill Street to First, over First, to the Los Angeles Bulletin Building. He was whistling as the elevator carried him up.

In the back files of the Bulletin he found what he was looking for, a front-page spread in the Home Edition of December 10th:

MASSACRE IN NIGHTCLUB

Screen-stars Duck for Cover as

Machine-guns Belch Death

Early this morning The Hotspot, famous cabaret near Culver City, was the scene of the bloodiest battle the local gang war has afforded to date. Two men who police believe to be Frank Riccio and Edward (Whitey) Conroy of the Purple Gang in Detroit were instantly killed when a private room in the club was invaded by four men with submachine guns. A third man, a companion of Riccio and Conroy, was seriously wounded and is not expected to live.

Doolin skimmed down the column, read:

R.F. Winfield, prominent motion picture executive, who was one of the party in the private room, said that he could not identify any of the killers. He said it all happened too quickly to be sure of any of them, and explained his presence in the company of the notorious gangsters as the result of his desire for firsthand information about the underworld in connection with a picture of that type which he is supervising. The names of others in the party are being withheld...

Under a subhead Doolin read:

H.J. Coleman and his companion, Miss Mazie Decker, were in the corridor leading to the private room when the killers entered. Miss Decker said she could positively identify two of them. Coleman, who is nearsighted, was equally positive that he could not...

An hour and a half later, Doolin left the Bulletin Building. He had gone carefully through the December file, and up to the middle of January. He had called into service the City Directory, Telephone Book, Dun & Bradstreet, and the telephone, and he had wheedled all the inside dope he could out of a police reporter whom he knew casually.

He stood on the wide stone steps and looked at the sheet of paper on which he had scrawled notes. It read:

People in private room and corridor who might be able to identify killers of Riccio and Conroy:

Winfield. Dead.

Coleman. Dead.

Martha Grainger. Actress. In show, in NY

Betty Crane. Hustler. Died of pneumonia January 4th.

Isabel Dolly. Hustler and extra girl. Was paralyzed drunk during shooting, probably not important. Can’t locate.

Mazie Decker. Taxi-dancer. Works at Dreamland on Sixth and Hill. Failed to identify killers from rogues gallery photographs.

Nelson Halloran. Man-about-town. Money. Friend of Winfield’s. Lives at Fontenoy, same apartment house as Winfield.

Doolin folded and creased the sheet of paper. He wound it abstractedly around his forefinger and walked down the steps, across the sidewalk to a cab. He got into the cab and sat down and leaned back.

The driver slid the glass, asked: “Where to?”

Doolin stared at him blankly, then laughed. He said: “Wait a minute,” spread the sheet of paper across his knee. He took a stub of pencil out of his pocket and slowly, thoughtfully, drew a line through the first five names; that left Mazie Decker and Nelson Halloran.

Doolin leaned forward and spoke to the driver: “Is that Dreamland joint at Sixth an’ Hill open in the afternoon?”

The driver thought a moment, shook his head.

Doolin said: “All right, then — Fontenoy Apartment — on Whitley in Hollywood.”

Nelson Halloran looked like Death. His white face was extremely long, narrow; his sharp chin tapered upward in unbroken lines to high sharp cheekbones, great deep-sunken eyes, continued to a high, almost degenerately narrow, forehead. His mouth was wide, thin, dark against the whiteness of his skin. His hair was the color of water. He was six-feet-three inches tall, weighed a hundred and eighty.

He half lay in a deeply upholstered chair in the living room of his apartment and watched a round spot of sunlight move across the wall. The shades were drawn and the apartment was in semidarkness. It was a chaos of modern furniture, books, magazines, papers, bottles; there were several good but badly hung reproductions on the pale walls.

Halloran occasionally lifted one long white hand languidly to his mouth, inhaled smoke deeply and blew it upward into the ray of sunlight.

When the phone buzzed he shuddered involuntarily, leaned sidewise and took it up from a low table.

He listened a moment, said: “Send him up.” His voice was very low. There was softness in it; and there was coldness and something very faraway.

He moved slightly in the chair so that one hand was near his side, in the folds of his dressing gown. There was a Luger there in the darkness of the chair. He was facing the door.

With the whirl of the buzzer he called: “Come in.”

The door opened and Doolin came a little way into the room, closed the door behind him.

Halloran did not speak.

Doolin stood blinking in the half-light, and Halloran watched him and was silent.

Doolin was around thirty; of medium height, inclined to thickness through all the upper part of his body. His face was round and on the florid side and his eyes were wideset, blue. His clothes didn’t fit him very well. He stood with his hat in his hand, his face expressionless, until Halloran said coldly: “I didn’t get the name.”

“Doolin. D-double o-l-i-n.” Doolin spoke without moving his mouth very much. His voice was pleasant; his vowels colored slightly by brogue.

Halloran waited.

Doolin said: “I read a couple of things in the paper this morning that gave me an idea. I went over to the Bulletin an’ worked on the idea, an’ it pans out you’re in a very bad spot.”

Halloran took a drag of his cigarette, stared blankly at Doolin, waited. Doolin waited, too. They were both silent, looking at one another for more than a minute. Doolin’s eyes were bright, pleased.

Halloran finally said: “This is a little embarrassing.” He hesitated a moment. “Sit down.”

Doolin sat on the edge of a wide steel and canvas chair against the wall. He dropped his hat on the floor and leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees. The little circle of sunlight moved slowly across the wall above him.

Halloran mashed his cigarette out, changed his position a little, said: “Go on.”

“Have you read the papers?” Doolin took a cellophanewrapped cigar out of his pocket and ripped off the wrapper, clamped the cigar between his teeth.

Halloran nodded, if moving his head the merest fraction of an inch could be called a nod.

Doolin spoke around the cigar: “Who rubbed Riccio and Conroy?”

Halloran laughed. Doolin took the cigar out of his mouth. He said very earnestly: “Listen. Last night Winfield was murdered — an’ Coleman. You’re next. I don’t know why the people who did it waited so long — maybe because the trial of a couple of the boys they’ve been holding comes up next week...”

Halloran’s face was a blank white mask.

Doolin leaned back and crossed his legs. “Anyway — they got Winfield an’ Coleman. That leaves the Decker broad — the one who was with Coleman — an’ you. The rest of them don’t count — one’s in New York an’ one died of pneumonia an’ one was cockeyed...”

He paused to chew his cigar, Halloran rubbed his left hand down over one side of his face, slowly.

Doolin went on: “I used to be a stuntman in pictures. For the last year all the breaks have been bad. I haven’t worked for five months.” He leaned forward, emphasized his words with the cigar held like a pencil: “I want to work for you.”

There was thin amusement in Halloran’s voice: “What are your qualifications?”

“I can shoot straight, an’ fast, an’ I ain’t afraid to take a chance — any kind of a chance! I’d make a hell of a swell bodyguard.”

Doolin stood up in the excitement of his salestalk, took two steps towards Halloran.

Halloran said: “Sit down.” His voice was icy. The Luger glistened in his hand.

Doolin looked at the gun and smiled a little, stuck the cigar in his mouth and backed up and sat down.

Halloran said: “How am I supposed to know you’re on the level?”

Doolin slid his lower lip up over the upper. He scratched his nose with the nail of his thumb and shook his head slowly, grinning.

“Anyway — it sounds like a pipe dream to me,” Halloran went on. “The paper says Miss Darmond killed Winfield.” He smiled. “And Coleman was a gambler — any one of a half dozen suckers is liable to have shot him.”

Doolin shrugged elaborately. He leaned forward and picked up his hat and put it on, stood up.

Halloran laughed again. His laugh was not a particularly pleasing one.

“Don’t be in a hurry,” he said.

They were silent a while and then Halloran lighted a cigarette and stood up. He was so tall and spare that Doolin stared involuntarily as he crossed, holding the Luger loosely at his side, patted Doolin’s pockets, felt under his arms with his free hand. Then Halloran went to a table across a corner of the room and dropped the Luger into a drawer.

He turned and smiled warmly at Doolin, said: “What will you drink?”

“Gin.”

“No gin.”

Doolin grinned.

Halloran went on: “Scotch, rye, bourbon, brandy, rum, Kirsch, champagne. No gin.”

Doolin said: “Rye.”

Halloran took two bottles from a tall cabinet, poured two drinks. “Why don’t you go to the Decker girl? She’s the one who said she could identify the men who killed Riccio and Conroy. She’s the one who needs a bodyguard.”

Doolin went over to the table and picked up his drink. “I ain’t had a chance,” he said. “She works at Dreamland downtown, an’ it ain’t open in the afternoon.” They drank.

Halloran’s mouth was curved to a small smile. He picked up a folded newspaper, pointed to a headline, handed it to Doolin.

Doolin took the paper, a late edition of the Morning Bulletin, read:

MURDERED GIRL IDENTIFIED AS TAXI-DANCER

The body of the girl who was found stabbed to death on the road near Lankershim early this morning, has been identified as Mazie Decker of 305 S. Lake Street, an employee of the Dreamland Dancing Studio.

The identification was made by Peggy Galbraith, the murdered girl’s roommate. Miss Decker did not return home last night, and upon reading an account of the tragedy in the early editions, Miss Galbraith went to the morgue and positively identified Miss Decker. The police are...

Doolin put the paper down, said: “Well, well... Like I said...” There was a knock at the door, rather a curious rhythmic tapping of fingernails.

Halloran called: “Come in.”

The door opened and a woman came in slowly, closed the door. She went to Halloran and put her arms around him and tilted her head back.

Halloran kissed her lightly. He smiled at Doolin said: “This is Mrs Sare.” He turned his smile to the woman. “Lola — meet Mr Doolin — my bodyguard.”

Lola Sare had no single feature, except her hair, that was beautiful; yet she was very beautiful.

Her hair was red, so dark that it was black in certain lights. Her eyes slanted; were so dark a green they were usually black. Her nose was straight but the nostrils flared the least bit too much; her mouth red and full, too wide and curved. Her skin was smooth, very dark. Her figure was good, on the slender side. She was ageless; perhaps twenty-six, perhaps thirty-six.

She wore a dark green robe of heavy silk, black mules; her hair was gathered in a large roll at the nape of her neck.

She inclined her head sharply towards Doolin, without expression.

Doolin said: “Very happy to know you, Mrs Sare.”

She went to one of the wide windows and jerked the drape aside a little; a broad flat beam of sunshine yellowed the darkness.

She said: “Sorry to desecrate the tomb.” Her voice was deep, husky.

Halloran poured three drinks and went back to his chair and sat down. Mrs Sare leaned against the table, and Doolin, after a hesitant glance at her, sat down on the chair against the wall.

Halloran sipped his drink. “The strange part of it all,” he said, “is that I couldn’t identify any of the four men who came in that night if my life depended upon it — and I’m almost sure Winfield couldn’t. We’d been on a bender together for three days — and my memory for faces is bad, at best...”

He put his glass on the floor beside the chair, lighted a cigarette. “Who else did you mention, besides the Decker girl and Coleman and Winfield and myself, who might?...”

Doolin took the folded sheet of paper out of his pocket, got up and handed it to Halloran.

Halloran studied it a while, said: “You missed one.”

Mrs Sare picked up the two bottles and went to Doolin, refilled his glass.

Doolin stared questioningly at Halloran, his eyebrows raised to a wide inverted V.

“The man who was with Riccio and Conroy,” Halloran went on. “The third man, who was shot...”

Doolin said: “I didn’t see any more about him in the files — the paper said he wasn’t expected to live...”

Halloran clicked the nail of his forefinger against his teeth, said: “I wonder.”

Mrs Sare had paused to listen. She went to Halloran and refilled his glass and put the bottles on the floor, sat down on the arm of Halloran’s chair.

“Winfield and I went to The Hotspot alone,” Halloran went on. “We had some business to talk over with a couple girls in the show.” He grinned faintly, crookedly at Mrs Sare. “Riccio and Conroy and this third man — I think his name was Martini or something dry like that — and the three girls on your list, passed our table on their way to the private room...”

Doolin was leaning forward, chewing his cigar, his eyes bright with interest.

Halloran blew smoke up into the wedge of sun. “Winfield knew Conroy casually — had met him in the East. They fell on one another’s necks, and Conroy invited us to join their party. Winfield went for that — he was doing a gangster picture and Conroy was a big shot in the East — Winfield figured he could get a lot of angles...”

Doolin said: “That was on the level, then?”

“Yes,” Halloran nodded emphatically. “Winfield even talked of making Conroy technical expert on the picture — before the fireworks started.”

“What did this third man — this Martini, look like?”

Halloran looked a little annoyed. He said: “I’ll get to that. There were eight of us in the private room — the three men and the three girls and Winfield and I. Riccio was pretty drunk, and one of the girls was practically under the table. We were all pretty high.”

Halloran picked up his glass, leaned forward. “Riccio and Martini were all tangled up in some kind of drunken argument and I got the idea it had something to do with drugs — morphine. Riccio was pretty loud. Winfield and I were talking to Conroy, and the girls were amusing themselves gargling champagne, when the four men — I guess there were four — crashed in and opened up on Riccio and Conroy.”

“What about Martini?” Doolin’s unlighted cigar was growing rapidly shorter.

Halloran looked annoyed again. “That’s the point,” he said. “They didn’t pay any attention to Martini — they wanted Riccio and Conroy. And it wasn’t machineguns — that was newspaper color. It was automatics...”

Doolin said: “What about Martini?”

“For Christ’s sake — shut up!” Halloran grinned cheerlessly, finished his drink. “Riccio shot Martini.”

Doolin stood up slowly, said: “Can I use the phone?”

Halloran smiled at Mrs Sare, nodded.

Doolin called several numbers, asked questions, said “Yes” and “No” monotonously.

Halloran and Mrs Sare talked quietly. Between two calls, Halloran spoke to Doolin: “You’ve connections — haven’t you.” It was an observation, not a question.

Doolin said: “If I had as much money as I have connections, I’d retire.”

He finished after a while, hung up and put the phone back on the low round table.

“Martinelli,” he said, “not Martini. Supposed to have been Riccio and Conroy’s partner in the East. They had the drug business pretty well cornered. He showed up out here around the last of November, and Riccio and Conroy came in December tenth, were killed the night they got in...”

Halloran said: “I remember that — they were talking about the trip.”

Doolin took the cigar out of his mouth long enough to take a drink. “Martinelli was discharged from St Vincent’s Hospital January sixteenth — day before yesterday. He’s plenty bad — beat four or five murder raps in the East and was figured for a half dozen others. They called him The Executioner. Angelo Martinelli — The Executioner.”

Mrs Sare said: “Come and get it.”

Doolin and Halloran got up and went into the little dining room. They sat down at the table and Mrs Sare brought in a steaming platter of bacon and scrambled eggs, a huge double globe of bubbling coffee.

Doolin said: “Here’s the way it looks to me: If Martinelli figured you an’ Winfield an’ whoever else was in the private room had seen Riccio shoot him, he’d want to shut you up; it was a cinch he’d double-crossed Riccio and if it came out at the trial, the Detroit boys would be on his tail.”

Halloran nodded, poured a large rosette of chili sauce on the plate beside his scrambled eggs.

“But what did he want to rub Coleman an’ Decker for?”

Halloran started to speak with his mouth full, but Doolin interrupted him: “The answer to that is that Martinelli had hooked up with the outfit out here, the outfit that Riccio and Conroy figured on moving in on...”

Halloran said: “Martinelli probably came out to organize things for a narcotic combination between here and Detroit, in opposition to our local talent. He liked the combination here the way it was and threw in with them — and when Riccio and Conroy arrived Martinelli put the finger on them, for the local boys...”

Doolin swallowed a huge mouthful of bacon and eggs, said: “Swell,” out of the corner of his mouth to Mrs Sare.

He picked up his cigar and pointed it at Halloran. “That’s the reason he wanted all of you — you an’ Winfield because you’d get the Detroit outfit on his neck if you testified; Decker an’ Coleman because they could spot the LA boys. He didn’t try to proposition any of you — he’s the kind of guy who would figure killing was simpler.”

Halloran said: “He’s got to protect himself against the two men who are in jail too. They’re liable to spill their guts. If everybody who was in on it was bumped there wouldn’t be a chance of those two guys being identified — everything would be rosy.”

They finished their bacon and eggs in silence.

With the coffee, Doolin said: “Funny he didn’t make a pass at you last night — before or after he got Winfield. The same building an’ all...”

“Maybe he did.” Halloran put his arm around Mrs Sare who was standing beside his chair. “I didn’t get home till around three — he was probably here, missed me.”

Doolin said: “We better go downtown an’ talk to the DA That poor gal of Winfield’s is probably on the grill. We can clear that up an’ have Martinelli picked up...”

Halloran said: “No.” He said it very emphatically.

Doolin opened his eyes wide, slowly. He finished his coffee, waited.

Halloran smiled faintly, said: “In the first place, I hate coppers.” He tightened his arm around Mrs Sare. “In the second place I don’t particularly care for Miss Darmond — she can God damned well fry on the griddle from now on, so far as I’m concerned. In the third place — I like it...”

Doolin glanced at Mrs Sare, turned his head slowly back towards Halloran.

“I’ve got three months to live,” Halloran went on — “at the outside.” His voice was cold, entirely unemotional. “I was shellshocked and gassed and kicked around pretty generally in France in ’eighteen. They stuck me together and sent me back and I’ve lasted rather well. But my heart is shot, and my lungs are bad, and so on — the doctors are getting pretty sore because I’m still on my feet...”

He grinned widely. “I’m going to have all the fun I can in whatever time is left. We’re not going to call copper, and we’re going to play this for everything we can get out of it. You’re my bodyguard and your salary is five hundred a week, but your job isn’t to guard me — it’s to see that there’s plenty of excitement. And instead of waiting for Martinelli to come to us, we’re going to Martinelli.”

Doolin looked blankly at Mrs Sare. She was smiling in a very curious way.

Halloran said: “Are you working?”

Doolin smiled slowly with all his face. He said: “Sure.”

Doolin dried his hands and smoothed his hair, whistling tunelessly, went through the small cheaply furnished living room of his apartment to the door of the kitchenette. He picked up a newspaper from a table near the door, unfolded it and glanced at the headlines, said: “They’re calling the Winfield kill ‘Murder in Blue’ because it happened in a blue bathtub. Is that a laugh!”

A rather pretty fresh-faced girl was stirring something in a white saucepan on the little gas stove. She looked up and smiled and said: “Dinner’ll be ready in a minute,” wiped her hands on her apron and began setting the table.

Doolin leaned against the wall and skimmed through the rest of the paper. The Coleman case was limited to a quarter column — the police had been unable to trace the car. There was even less about Mazie Decker. The police were “working on a theory...”

The police were working on a theory, too, on the Winfield killing. Miss Darmond had been found near the door of Winfield’s apartment with a great bruise on her head, the night of the murder; she said the last she remembered was opening the door and struggling with someone. The “Best Minds” of the force believed her story up to that point; they were working on the angle that she had an accomplice.

Doolin rolled up the paper and threw it on a chair. He said: “Five hundred a week — an’ expenses! Gee! — is that swell!” He was grinning broadly.

The girl said: “I’m awfully glad about the money, darling — if you’re sure you’ll be safe. God knows its about time we had a break.” She hesitated a moment. “I hope it’s all right...”

She was twenty-three or — four, a honey-blonde pink-cheeked girl with wide gray eyes, a slender well-curved figure.

Doolin went to her and kissed the back of her neck.

“Sure, it’s all right, Mollie,” he said. “Anything is all right when you get paid enough for it. The point is to make it last — five hundred is a lot of money, but a thousand will buy twice as many lamb chops.”

She became very interested in a tiny speck on one of the cheap white plates, rubbed it industriously with a towel. She spoke without looking up: “I keep thinking about that Darmond girl — in jail. What do you suppose Halloran has against her?”

“I don’t know.” Doolin sat down at the table. “Anyway — she’s okay. We can spring her any time, only we can’t do it now because we’d have to let the Law in on the Martinelli angle an’ they’d pick him up — an’ Halloran couldn’t have his fun.”

“It’s a funny kind of fun.” The girl smiled with her mouth.

Doolin said: “He’s a funny guy. Used to be a police reporter in Chi — maybe that has something to do with it. Anyway, the poor bastard’s only got a little while to go — let him have any kind of fun he wants. He can afford it...”

They were silent while the girl cut bread and got the butter out of the Frigidaire and finished setting the table.

Doolin was leaning forward with his elbows on the table, his chin in his hands. “As far as the Darmond gal is concerned, a little of that beef stew they dish up at the County will be good for her. These broads need a little of that — to give them perspective.”

The girl was heaping mashed potatoes into a big bowl. She did not speak.

“The way I figure it,” Doolin went on — “Halloran hasn’t got the guts to bump himself off. He’s all washed up, an’ he knows it — an’ the idea has made him a little batty. Then along comes Martinelli — a chance for him to go out dramatically — the way he’s lived — an’ he goes for it. Jesus! so would I if I was as near the edge as he is. He doesn’t give a goddamn about anything — he doesn’t have to...”

The girl finished putting food on the table, sat down. Doolin heaped their plates with chops and potatoes and cauliflower while she served salad. They began to eat.

Doolin got up and filled two glasses with water and put them on the table.

The girl said: “I’m sorry I forgot the water...”

Doolin bent over and kissed her, sat down.

“As far as Halloran is concerned,” he went on — “I’m just another actor in his show. Instead of sitting and waiting for Martinelli to come to get him — we go after Martinelli. That’s Halloran’s idea of fun — that’s the kind of sense of humor he’s got. What the hell! — he’s got nothing to lose...”

The girl said: “Eat your dinner before it gets cold.”

They were silent a while.

Finally she said: “What if Martinelli shoots first?”

Doolin laughed. “Martinelli isn’t going to shoot at all. Neither am I — an’ neither is Mr Halloran.”

The girl lighted a cigarette, sipped her coffee. She stared expressionlessly at Doolin, waited.

“Halloran is having dinner with Mrs Sare,” Doolin went on. “Then they’re going to a show an’ I’m picking them up afterwards — at the theatre. Then Halloran an’ I are going to have a look around for Martinelli.”

He finished his coffee, refilled both their cups. “In the meantime I’m supposed to be finding out where we’re most likely to find him — Halloran is a great believer in my ‘connections.’”

Doolin grinned, went on with a softly satisfied expression, as if he were taking a rabbit out of a hat: “I’ve already found Martinelli — not only where he hangs out, but where he lives. It was a cinch. He hasn’t any reason to think he’s pegged for anything — he’s not hiding out.”

The girl said: “So what?”

He stood up, stretched luxuriously. “So I’m going to Martinelli right now.” He paused dramatically. “An’ I’m going to tell him what kind of a spot he’s in — with half a dozen murder raps hanging over his head, and all. I’m going to tell him that plenty people besides myself know about it an’ that the stuff’s on the way to the DA’s office an’ that he’d better scram toot sweet...”

The girl said: “You’re crazy.”

Doolin laughed extravagantly. “Like a fox,” he said. “Like a fox. I’m doing Martinelli a big favor — so I’m set with him. I’m keeping Halloran from running a chance of being killed — an’ he’ll think he’s still running the chance, an’ get his throb out of it. I’m keeping five hundred smackers coming into the cash register every week as long as Halloran lives, or as long as I can give him a good show. An’ everybody’s happy. What more do you want?”

“Sense.” The girl mashed her cigarette out, stood up. “I never heard such a crazy idea in all my life!...”

Doolin looked disgusted. He walked into the living room, came back to the doorway. “Sure, it’s crazy,” he said. “Sure, it’s crazy. So is Halloran — an’ you — an’ me. So is Martinelli — probably. It’s the crazy ideas that work — an’ this one is going to work like a charm.”

The girl said: “What about Darmond? If Martinelli gets away she’ll be holding the bag for Winfield’s murder.”

“Oh, no, she won’t! As soon as the Halloran angle washes up I’ll turn my evidence over to the DA an’ tell him it took a few weeks to get it together — an’ be sure about it. It’s as plain as the nose on your face that Martinelli killed all three of them. Those chumps downtown are too sappy to see it now but they won’t be when I point it out to them. It’s a setup case against Martinelli!”

The girl smiled coldly. She said: “You’re the most conceited, bullheaded Mick that ever lived. You’ve been in one jam after another ever since we were married. This is one time I’m not going to let you make a fool of yourself — an’ probably get killed...”

Doolin’s expression was stubborn, annoyed. He turned and strode across the living room, squirmed into his coat, put on his hat and jerked it down over his eyes.

She stood in the doorway. Her face was very white and her eyes were wide, round.

She said: “Please. Johnny...”

He didn’t look at her. He went to the desk against one wall and opened a drawer, took a nickel-plated revolver out of the drawer and dropped it into his coat pocket.

She said: “If you do this insane thing — I’m leaving.” Her voice was cold, brittle.

Doolin went to the outer door, went out, slammed the door.

She stood there a little while looking at the door.

Angelo Martinelli stuck two fingers of his left hand into the little jar, took them out pale, green, sticky with Smoothcomb Hair Dressing. He dabbed it on his head, held his hands stiff with the fingers bent backwards and rubbed it vigorously into his hair. Then he wiped his hands and picked up a comb, bent towards the mirror.

Martinelli was very young — perhaps twenty-four or — five. His face was pale, unlined; pallor shading to blue towards his long angular jaw; his eyes red-brown, his nose straight and delicately cut. He was of medium height but the high padded shoulders of his coat made him appear taller.

The room was small, garishly furnished. A low bed and two or three chairs in the worst modern manner were made a little more objectionable by orange and pink batik throws; there was an elaborately wrought iron floor lamp, its shade made of whiskey labels pasted on imitation parchment.

Martinelli finished combing his hair, spoke over his shoulder to a woman who lounged across the foot of the bed:

“Tonight does it...”

Lola Sare said: “Tonight does it — if you’re careful...”

Martinelli glanced at his wristwatch. “I better get going — it’s nearly eight. He said he’d be there at eight.”

Lola Sare leaned forward and dropped her cigarette into a halffull glass on the floor.

“I’ll be home from about eight-thirty on,” she said. “Call as soon as you can.”

Martinelli nodded. He put on a lightweight black felt hat, tilted it to the required angle in front of the mirror. He helped her into her coat, and then he put his arms around her, kissed her mouth lingeringly.

She clung to him, whispered: “Make it as fast as you can, darling.”

They went to the door and Martinelli snapped off the light and they went out.

Martinelli said: “Turn right at the next corner.”

The cab driver nodded; they turned off North Broadway into a dimly lighted street, went several blocks over bad pavement.

Martinelli pounded on the glass, said: “Okay.”

The cab slid to an abrupt stop and Martinelli got out and paid the driver, stood at the curb until the cab had turned around in the narrow street, disappeared.

He went to a door above which one pale electric globe glittered, felt in the darkness for the button, pressed it. The door clicked open; Martinelli went in and slammed it shut behind him.

There were a half dozen or so men strung out along the bar in the long dim room. A few more sat at tables against the wall.

Martinelli walked to the far end of the bar, leaned across it to speak quietly to a chunky bald headed man who sat on a high stool near the cash register:

“Chief here?”

The bald man bobbed his head, jerked it towards a door behind Martinelli.

Martinelli looked surprised, said mildly: “He’s on time for once in his life!”

The man bobbed his head. His face was blank.

Martinelli went through the door, up two short flights of stairs to a narrow hallway. At the end of the hallway he knocked at a heavy steel-sheathed fire door.

After a little while the door opened and a voice said: “Come in.”

Doolin stood on his toes and tried to make out the number above the door but the figures were too faded by weather, time; the electric light was too dim.

He walked down the dark street a half block and then walked back and pressed the button beside the door; the door clicked open and he went through the short passageway into the long barroom.

A bartender wiped off the stained wood in front of him, questioned with his eyes.

Doolin said: “Rye.”

He glanced idly at the men at the bar, at the tables, at the heavily built bald man who sat on a stool at the far end of the bar. The little bald man was stooped over a wide spread newspaper.

The bartender put a glass on the bar in front of Doolin, put a flat brightly labeled flask beside it.

Doolin said: “Seen Martinelli tonight?”

The bartender watched Doolin pour his drink, picked up the bottle and put it under the bar, said: “Yeah. He came in a little while ago. He’s upstairs.”

Doolin nodded, tasted the rye. It wasn’t too bad. He finished it and put a quarter on the bar, sauntered towards the door at the back of the room.

The little bald man looked up from his paper. Doolin said: “Martinelli’s expecting me. He’s upstairs — ain’t he?” The little man looked at Doolin. He began at his face and went down to his feet and then back up, slowly. “He didn’t say anything about you.” He spat with the admirable precision of age and confidence into a cuspidor in the corner.

Doolin said: “He forgot.” He put his hand on the doorknob.

The little man looked at him, through him, blankly.

Doolin turned the knob and opened the door, went through, closed the door behind him.

The stairs were dimly lighted by a sputtering gas-jet. He went up slowly. There was one door at the top of the first flight; it was dark; there was no light under it, no sound beyond it. Doolin went up another flight very quietly. He put his ear against the steel-sheathed door; he could hear no sound, but a little light filtered through under the door. He doubled up his fist, knocked with the heel of his hand.

Martinelli opened the door. He stood a moment staring questioningly at Doolin and then he glanced over his shoulder, smiled, said: “Come in.”

Doolin put his hands in his overcoat pockets, his right hand holding the revolver tightly, went forward into the room.

Martinelli closed the door behind him, slid the heavy bolt.

The room was large, bare; somewhere around thirty-five by forty. It was lighted by a single green-shaded droplight over a very large round table in the center; there were other tables and chairs stacked in the dusk of the corner. There were no windows, no other doors.

Halloran sat in one of the four chairs at the table. He was leaning slightly forward with his elbows on the table, his long waxen hands framing his face. His face was entirely cold, white, expressionless.

Martinelli stood with his back against the door, his hands behind him.

Doolin glanced over his shoulder at Martinelli, looked back at Halloran. His eyebrows were lifted to the wide V, his mouth hung a little open.

Halloran said: “Well, well — this is a surprise!”

He moved his eyes to Martinelli, said: “Angelo. Meet Mr Doolin — my bodyguard...” For an instant his wide thin mouth flickered a fraction of an inch upward; then his face became a blank, white mask again. “Mr Doolin — Mr Martinelli...”

Martinelli had silently come up behind Doolin, suddenly thrust his hands into Doolin’s pockets, hard, grabbed Doolin’s hands. Doolin bent sharply forward. They struggled for possibly half a minute, silently except for the tearing sound of their breath; then Martinelli brought his knee up suddenly, savagely; Doolin groaned, sank to his knees, the nickel-plated revolver clattered to the floor, slid halfway across the room.

Martinelli darted after it.

Halloran had not appeared to move. He said: “Wait a minute, baby...” The blunt Luger that Doolin had experienced in the afternoon glittered on the table between his two hands.

Martinelli made an impatient gesture, stooped to pick up Doolin’s gun.

“Wait a minute, baby.” Halloran’s voice was like a cold swift scythe.

Martinelli stood up very straight. Doolin got to his feet slowly. He bent over and held the middle of his body, rolled his head toward Martinelli, his eyes narrow, malevolent. He said very quietly, as if to himself: “Dirty son of a bitch — dirty, dirty son of a bitch!”

Martinelli grinned, stood very straight. His hands, cupped close to his thighs, trembled rigidly.

Halloran said slowly: “Don’t do it, baby. I’ll shoot both your eyes out before you get that shiv of yours into the air — and never touch your nose.”

Martinelli looked like a clothing store dummy. He was balanced on the balls of his feet, his hands trembling at his sides; his grin artificial, empty.

Doolin laughed suddenly. He stood up straight and looked at Martinelli and laughed.

Halloran moved his eyes to Doolin, smiled faintly.

He said: “Gentlemen — sit down.”

Martinelli tottered forward, sank into one of the chairs.

Halloran said: “Put your hands on the table, please.”

Martinelli obediently put his hands on the table. The empty grin seemed to have congealed on his face.

Halloran turned his eyes towards Doolin. Doolin smiled, walked gingerly to the other chair and sat down.

Halloran said: “Now...” He put one hand up to his face; the other held the Luger loosely on the table.

Doolin cleared his throat, said: “What’s it all about, Mr Halloran?”

Martinelli laughed suddenly. The empty grin exploded into loud high-pitched mirth. “What’s it all about! Dear God — what’s it all about!...”

Halloran was watching Doolin, his shadowed sunken eyes half closed.

Martinelli leaned forward, lifted his hands and pointed two fingers at Doolin. “Listen — wise guy... You’ve got minutes to live — if you’re lucky. That’s what it’s all about!”

Doolin regarded Martinelli with faint amusement.

Martinelli laughed again. He moved his hand slowly until the two fingers pointed at Halloran. “He killed Coleman,” he said. “He shot Coleman an’ I drove the car. An’ he killed Winfield himself. An’ his outfit killed Riccio an’ Conroy...”

Doolin glanced at Halloran, turned back to smile dimly, dumbly at Martinelli.

“He propositioned me into killing the dancehall dame,” Martinelli went on — “an’ now he’s going to kill you an’ me...”

Doolin grinned broadly but it was all done with his mouth. He didn’t look like he felt it very much. He looked at Halloran. Halloran’s face was white and immovable as plaster.

“Listen — wise guy!” Martinelli leaned forward, moved his hand back to point at Doolin. He was suddenly very intense; his dark eyes burned into Doolin’s. “I came out here for Riccio to make connections to peddle M — a lot of it — an’ I met Mr Halloran.” Martinelli moved his head an eighth of an inch towards Halloran. “Mr Halloran runs the drug racket out here — did you know that?”

Doolin glanced swiftly at Halloran, looked back at Martinelli’s tense face.

“Mr Halloran aced me into double-crossing Frankie Riccio an’ Conroy,” Martinelli went on. “Mr Halloran’s men rubbed Riccio an’ Conroy, an’ would’ve taken care of me if Riccio hadn’t almost beat ’em to it...”

Halloran said coldly, amusedly: “Oh — come, come, Angelo...”

Martinelli did not look at Halloran. He said: “I met Riccio an’ Conroy at the train that night an’ took them to that joint in Culver City to talk business to Mr Halloran — only I didn’t know the kind of business Mr Halloran was going to talk...”

“Is it quite necessary to go into all this?” Halloran spoke sidewise to Martinelli, smiled at Doolin. It was his first definite change of expression since Doolin had come into the room.

Martinelli said: “Yes,” emphatically. He scowled at Halloran, his eyes thin black slits. “Bright-boy here,” he indicated Doolin with his hand — “wants to know what it’s all about. I’d like to have somebody know — besides me. One of us might leave here alive — if I get this all out of my system it’s a cinch it won’t be Bright-boy.”

Halloran’s smile was very cheerful. He said: “Go on.”

“One of the men the Law picked up for the Hotspot shooting was a good guess — he’s on Mr Halloran’s payroll,” Martinelli went on. He was accenting the “Mr” a little unnecessarily, a little too much. “When I got out of the hospital Mr Halloran suggested we clean things up — move Coleman an’ Decker an’ Winfield — anybody who might identify his man or testify that Riccio shot me — out of the way. He hated Winfield anyway, for beating his time with the Darmond gal — an’ he hated her...”

Halloran was beaming at Doolin, his hand tight and steady on the Luger. Doolin thought about the distance across the big table to Halloran, the distance to the light.

Martinelli was leaning forward, talking swiftly, eagerly: “I brought eighty-five grand worth of morphine out with me, an’ I turned it over to his nibs here when we threw in together. I ain’t had a nickel out of it. That’s the’ reason I went for all this finagling — I wanted my dough. I was supposed to get it tonight, but I found out about ten minutes ago I ain’t going to get it at all...”

Martinelli smiled at Halloran, finished: “Mr Halloran says it was hijacked.” He stood up slowly.

Halloran asked: “All through, baby?”

Martinelli was standing very stiff and straight, his hands cupped at his sides.

Doolin ducked suddenly, exerted all his strength to upset the table. For a moment he was protected by the edge, could see neither Martinelli nor Halloran; then the big round tabletop slid off its metal base, crashed to the floor.

Halloran was holding Martinelli very much in the way a great ape would hold a smaller animal. One long arm was out stiff, the long white hand at Martinelli’s throat, almost encircling it. Halloran’s other hand held Martinelli’s wrist, waved it back and forth slowly. The blade of a short curved knife glistened in Martinelli’s hand. Except for the slow waving of their two hands they were as if frozen, entirely still. There was nothing human in their position, nothing human in their faces.

Doolin felt in that instant that Halloran was not human. He was mad, insane; but it was not the madness of a man, it was the cold murderous lust of an animal.

The Luger and Doolin’s revolver were on the floor near their feet. Doolin circled until he was behind Halloran, moved slowly towards them.

As he dived for one of the guns Halloran swung Martinelli around swiftly, kicked viciously at Doolin’s head. He missed once but the second caught Doolin’s hand as it closed over the Luger, sent the Luger spinning to a corner.

As Doolin half rose, Halloran’s long leg lashed out again, his heavy shoe struck the side of Doolin’s head. Doolin grunted, fell sidewise to the floor.

Doolin lay on his back and the room went around him. Later, in remembering what followed, it was like short strips of motion picture film, separated by strips of darkness.

Halloran backed Martinelli slowly to the wall. It was as if they were performing some strange ritualistic dance; their steps were measured; Halloran’s face was composed, his expression almost tender. Martinelli’s face was darkening from the pressure on his throat. Halloran waved the hand holding the knife slowly back and forth.

The next time the darkness in Doolin’s head cleared, they were against the wall, his head high, at a curious twisted angle above Halloran’s white relentless hand, his face purpling. Halloran’s other hand had slipped down over Martinelli’s chest.

Martinelli’s eyes bulged. His face was the face of a man who saw death coming, and was afraid. Doolin could no longer see Halloran’s face. He watched the knife near Martinelli’s chest, slowly.

Martinelli, some way, made a high piercing sound in his throat as the knife went into him. And again as Halloran withdrew the knife, pressed it in again slowly. Halloran did not stab mercifully on the left side, but on the right puncturing the lung again and again, slowly.

Doolin rolled over on his side. The revolver lay on the floor midway between him and Halloran. He shook his head sharply, crawled towards it.

Halloran suddenly released Martinelli, stepped back a pace. Martinelli’s knees buckled, he sank slowly down, sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his legs out straight. He sucked in air in great rattling gasps, held both hands tightly against his chest, tightly against the shaft of the knife.

He lifted his head and there was blood on his mouth. He laughed; and Doolin forgot the gun, stopped, stared fascinated at Martinelli. Martinelli laughed and the sound was as if everything inside him was breaking. His head rolled back and he grinned upward with glazing eyes at Halloran, held his hands tightly against his chest, spoke:

“Tell Lola we can’t go away now...” He paused, sucked in air. “She’s waiting for me... Tell her Angelo sends his regrets...” His voice was thick, high-pitched, but his words were telling, deadly, took deadly effect.

Halloran seemed to grow taller, his great shoulders seemed to widen as Doolin watched.

Martinelli laughed again. He said: “So long — sucker...” Halloran kicked him savagely in the chest. He drew his long leg back and as Martinelli slumped sidewise he kicked his face, hard, repeatedly.

Doolin scrambled swiftly forward, picked up the revolver, raised it.

Halloran turned slowly.

Doolin held the revolver unsteadily in his right hand, aimed at Halloran’s chest while the muzzle described little circles, pulled the trigger twice.

Halloran came towards him. Doolin made a harsh sound in his throat, scuttled backwards a few feet, held the revolver out limply and fired again.

Halloran’s face was cold, impassive; his eyes were great black holes in his skull. He came towards Doolin slowly.

Doolin tried to say something but the words stuck in his throat, and then Halloran was above him and there was a terribly crushing weight against Doolin’s forehead and it was suddenly dark.

Slowly, Doolin came to, lay a little while with his eyes closed. There were sharp twisting wires of pain in his head; he put his hand up, took it away wet, sticky.

He opened his eyes. It was entirely dark, a cold penetrating darkness; entirely still.

Suddenly he laughed, a curious hysterical sound in the quiet room; and as suddenly, panic seized him. He struggled to his knees, almost fell down again as the pain in his head throbbed to the swift movement. He got to his feet slowly, fumbled in his pockets and found a match, lighted it.

Martinelli’s body was slumped in the angle of floor and wall at one side of the room. There was no one else. Doolin’s revolver shone dimly on the floor in the flare of the match. The door was ajar.

Doolin lighted another match and picked up his revolver, his hat. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and the handkerchief was wet, dark. He walked, unsteadily, to the door, down the dark stairs.

One faint globe burned above the deserted bar. Doolin felt his way along the wall, lifted the heavy bar across the outside door and went out, closed the door behind him. It was raining lightly a thin cold drizzle.

He took air into his lungs in great gulps, soaked the handkerchief in a little puddle of rainwater and tried to clean his face. Then he went down the dark street swiftly towards Broadway.

The druggist looked at him through thick spectacles, gestured towards the back of the store.

Doolin said: “Fix me up some peroxide an’ bandages an’ stuff — I had an accident.” He went back to the telephone booth, found the number of the Fontenoy, called it, asked for Mrs Sare.

The operator said Mrs Sare didn’t answer.

Doolin hung up and went out and cleaned the blood from his face in front of a mirror. A little girl stared at him wide-eyed from the soda fountain; the druggist said: “Automobile.”

Doolin nodded.

The druggist asked: “How much bandage do you want?”

Doolin said: “Let it go — it’s not as bad as I thought it was.”

He put his hat on the back of his head and went out and got into a cab, said: “Fontenoy Apartments — Hollywood. An’ make it snappy.”

Lola Sare’s voice said: “Yes,” with rising inflection.

Doolin opened the door, went in.

She was sitting in a long low chair beneath a crimsonshaded bridge lamp. It was the only light in the room. Her arms were bare, straight on the arms of the chair, her hands hanging limply downward. Her dark head was against the back of the chair and her face was taut, her eyes wide, vacant.

Doolin took off his hat, said: “Why the hell don’t you answer your phone?”

She did not speak, nor move.

“You’d better get out of here — quick.” Doolin went towards her. “Halloran killed Martinelli — an’ Martinelli opened up about you before he died. Halloran will be coming to see you...”

Her blank eyes moved slowly from his face to someplace in the dusk behind him. He followed her gaze, turned slowly.

Halloran was standing against the wall near the door. The door had covered him when Doolin entered; he put out one hand and pushed it gently, it swung closed with a sharp click.

As Doolin’s eyes became used to the dimness of the room he saw Halloran clearly. He was leaning against the wall and the right shoulder and breast of his light gray suit was dark, sodden. He held the short blunt Luger in his left hand.

He said: “You’re a little late...”

The Luger roared. Lola Sare put her hands up to the middle of her breast, low; her head came forward slowly. She started to get up and the Luger leaped in Halloran’s hand, roared again.

At the same instant Doolin shot, holding the revolver low. The two explosions were simultaneous, thundered in the dark and narrow room.

Halloran fell as a tree falls; slowly, stiffly, his arm stiff at his sides; crashed to the floor.

Doolin dropped the revolver, walked unsteadily towards Lola Sare. His knees buckled suddenly and he sank forward, down.

There was someone pounding at the door.

Doolin finished dabbing iodine on his head, washed his hands and went into the little living room of his apartment. A first dull streak of morning grayed the windows. He pulled down the shades and went into the kitchenette, lighted the gas under the percolator.

When the coffee was hot he poured a cup, dropped four lumps of sugar into it absently, carried it into the living room. He sat down on the davenport and put the coffee on an end table, picked up the phone and dialed a number.

He said: “Hello, Grace? Is Mollie there?” He listened a moment, went on: “Oh — I thought she might be there. Sorry I woke you up...” He hung up, sipped his steaming coffee.

After a few minutes he picked up the phone, dialed again, said. “Listen, Grace — please put Mollie on... Aw nuts! I know she’s there — please make her talk to me...”

Then he smiled, waited a moment, said: “Hello darling... Listen — please come on home — will you?... Aw listen, Honey — I did what you said — everything’s all right... Uh-huh... Halloran’s dead — an’ Martinelli... Uh-huh... The Sare dame is shot up pretty bad, but not too much to give evidence an’ clean it all up... Uh-huh...”

He reached over and picked up the cup and took a long drink of coffee, smiled into the phone, said: “Sure — I’m all right — I got a little scratch on my head but I’m all right... Sure... Sure — we were right... All right, Honey — I’ll be waiting for you. Hurry up... G’bye...”

He hung up, curved his mouth to a wide grin, finished his coffee, lit a cigarette and waited.

Pigeon Blood

The woman was bent far forward over the steering wheel of the open roadster. Her eyes, narrowed to long black-fringed slits, moved regularly down and up, from the glistening road ahead, to the small rear view mirror above the windshield. The two circles of white light in the mirror grew steadily larger. She pressed the throttle slowly, steadily downward; there was no sound but the roar of the wind and the deep purr of the powerful engine.

There was a sudden sharp crack; a little frosted circle appeared on the windshield. The woman pressed the throttle to the floor. She was pale; her eyes were suddenly large and dark and afraid, her lips were pressed tightly together. The tires screeched on the wet pavement as the car roared around a long, shallow curve. The headlights of the pursuing car grew larger.

The second and third shots were wild, or buried themselves harmlessly in the body of the car; the fourth struck the left rear tire and the car swerved crazily, skidded halfway across the road. Very suddenly there was bright yellow light right ahead, at the side of the road. The woman jammed on the brakes, jerked the wheel hard over; the tires slid, screamed raggedly over the gravel in front of the gas station, the car stopped. The other car went by at seventy-five miles an hour. One last shot thudded into the back of the seat beside the woman and then the other car had disappeared into the darkness.

Two men ran out of the gas station. Another man stood in the doorway. The woman was leaning back straight in the seat and her eyes were very wide; she was breathing hard, unevenly.

One of the men put his hand on her shoulder, asked: “Are you all right, lady?”

She nodded.

The other man asked: “Holdups?” He was a short, middle-aged man and his eyes were bright, interested.

The woman opened her bag and took out a cigarette. She said shakily: “I guess so.” She pulled out the dashboard lighter, waited until it glowed red and held it to her cigarette.

The younger man was inspecting the back of the car. He said: “They punctured the tank. It’s a good thing you stopped — you couldn’t have gone much farther.”

“Yes — I guess it’s a very good thing I stopped,” she said, mechanically. She took a deep drag of her cigarette.

The other man said: “That’s the third holdup out here this week.”

The woman spoke to the younger man. “Can you get me a cab?”

He said: “Sure.” Then he knelt beside the blown-out tire, said: “Look, Ed — they almost cut it in two.”

The man in the doorway called to her: “You want a cab, lady?”

She smiled, nodded, and the man disappeared into the gas station; he came back to the doorway in a minute, over to the car. “There’ll be a cab here in a little while, lady,” he said.

She thanked him.

“This is one of the worst stretches of road on Long Island — for highwaymen.” He leaned on the door of the car. “Did they try to nudge you off the road — or did they just start shooting?”

“They just started shooting.”

He said: “We got a repair service here — do you want us to fix up your car?”

She nodded. “How long will it take?”

“Couple days. We’ll have to get a new windshield from the branch factory in Queens — an’ take off that tank...”

She took a card out of her bag and gave it to him, said: “Call me up when it’s finished.”

After a little while, a cab came out of the darkness of a side street, turned into the station. The woman got out of the car and went over to the cab, spoke to the driver: “Do you know any shortcuts into Manhattan? Somebody tried to hold me up on the main road a little while ago, and maybe they’re still laying for me. I don’t want any more of it — I want to go home.” She was very emphatic.

The driver was a big red-faced Irishman. He grinned, said: “Lady — I know a million of ‘em. You’ll be as safe with me as you’d be in your own home.”

She raised her hand in a gesture of farewell to the three men around her car and got into the cab. After the cab had disappeared, the man to whom she had given the card took it out of his pocket and squinted at it, read aloud: “Mrs Dale Hanan — Five-eighty Park Avenue.”

The short, middle-aged man bobbed his head knowingly. “Sure,” he said — “I knew she was class. She’s Hanan’s wife — the millionaire. Made his dough in oil — Oklahoma. His chauffeur told me how he got his start — didn’t have a shoestring or a place to put it, so he shot off his big toe and collected ten grand on an accident policy — grubstake on his first well. Bright boy. He’s got a big estate down at Roslyn.”

The man with the card nodded. He said: “That’s swell. We can soak him plenty.” He put the card back into his pocket.

When the cab stopped near the corner of Sixty-third and Park Avenue the woman got out, paid the driver and hurried into the apartment house. In her apartment, she put in a long-distance call to Roslyn, Long Island; when the connection had been made, she said: “Dale — it’s in the open, now. I was followed, driving back to town — shot at — the car was nearly wrecked... I don’t know what to do. Even if I call Crandall, now, and tell him I won’t go through with it — won’t go to the police — he’ll probably have me killed, just to make sure... Yes, I’m going to stay in — I’m scared... All right, dear. ‘Bye.”

She hung up, went to a wide center table and poured whiskey into a tall glass, sat down and stared vacantly at the glass — her hand was shaking a little. She smiled suddenly, crookedly, lifted the glass to her mouth and drained it. Then she put the glass on the floor and leaned back and glanced at the tiny watch at her wrist. It was ten minutes after nine.

At a few minutes after ten a black Packard town car stopped in front of a narrow building of gray stone on East Fifty-fourth Street; a tall man got out, crossed the sidewalk and rang the bell. The car went on. When the door swung open, the tall man went into a long, brightly lighted hallway, gave his hat and stick to the checkroom attendant, went swiftly up two flights of narrow stairs to the third floor. He glanced around the big, crowded room, then crossed to one corner near a window on the Fifty-fourth Street side and sat down at a small table, smiled wanly at the man across from him, said: “Mister Druse, I believe.”

The other man was about fifty, well set up, well-groomed in the way of good living. His thick gray hair was combed sharply, evenly back. He lowered his folded newspaper to the table, stared thoughtfully at the tall man.

He said: “Mister Hanan,” and his voice was very deep, metallic.

The tall man nodded shortly, leaned back and folded his arms across his narrow chest. He was ageless, perhaps thirty-five, forty-five; his thin, colorless hair was close-clipped, his long, bony face deeply tanned, a sharp and angular setting for large seal-brown eyes. His mouth was curved, mobile.

He asked: “Do you know Jeffrey Crandall?”

Druse regarded him evenly, expressionlessly for a moment, raised his head and beckoned a waiter. Hanan ordered a whiskey sour.

Druse said: “I know Mister Crandall casually. Why?”

“A little more than an hour ago Crandall, or Crandall’s men, tried to murder Mrs Hanan, as she was driving back from my place at Roslyn.” Hanan leaned forward; his eyes were wide, worried.

The waiter served Hanan’s whiskey sour, set a small bottle of Perrier and a small glass on the table in front of Druse.

Druse poured the water into the glass slowly. “So what?”

Hanan tasted his drink. He said: “This is not a matter for the police, Mister Druse. I understand that you interest yourself in things of this nature, so I took the liberty of calling you and making this appointment. Is that right?” He was nervous, obviously ill at ease.

Druse shrugged. “What nature? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry — I guess I’m a little upset.” Hanan smiled. “What I mean is that I can rely on your discretion?”

Druse frowned. “I think so,” he said slowly. He drank half of the Perrier, squinted down at the glass as if it tasted very badly.

Hanan smiled vacantly. “You do not know Mrs Hanan?”

Druse shook his head slowly, turned his glass around and around on the table.

“We have been living apart for several years,” Hanan went on. “We are still very fond of one another, we are very good friends, but we do not get along — together. Do you understand?”

Druse nodded.

Hanan sipped his drink, went on swiftly: “Catherine has — has always had — a decided weakness for gambling. She went through most of her own inheritance — a considerable inheritance — before we were married. Since our separation she has lost somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. I have, of course, taken care of her debts.” Hanan coughed slightly. “Early this evening she called me at Roslyn, said she had to see me immediately — that it was very important. I offered to come into town but she said she’d rather come out. She came out about seven.”

Hanan paused, closed his eyes and rubbed two fingers of one hand slowly up and down his forehead. “She’s in a very bad jam with Crandall.” He opened his eyes and put his hand down on the table.

Druse finished his Perrier, put down the glass and regarded Hanan attentively.

“About three weeks ago,” Hanan went on, “Catherine’s debt to Crandall amounted to sixty-eight thousand dollars — she had been playing very heavily under the usual gambler’s delusion of getting even. She was afraid to come to me — she knew I’d taken several bad beatings on the market — she kept putting it off and trying to make good her losses, until Crandall demanded the money. She told him she couldn’t pay — together, they hatched out a scheme to get it. Catherine had a set of rubies — pigeon blood — been in her family five or six generations. They’re worth, perhaps, a hundred and seventy-five thousand — her father insured them for a hundred and thirty-five, forty years ago, and the insurance premiums have always been paid...” Hanan finished his whiskey sour, leaned back in his chair.

Druse said: “I assume the idea was that the rubies disappear; that Mrs Hanan claim the insurance, pay off Crandall, have sixty-seven thousand left and live happily forever after.”

Hanan coughed; his face was faintly flushed. “Exactly.”

“I assume further,” Druse went on, “that the insurance company did not question the integrity of the claim; that they paid, and that Mrs Hanan, in turn, paid Crandall.”

Hanan nodded. He took a tortoise shell case out of his pocket, offered Druse a cigarette.

Druse shook his head, asked: “Are the insurance company detectives warm — are they making Crandall or whoever he had do the actual job, uncomfortable?”

“No. The theft was well engineered. I don’t think Crandall is worrying about that.” Hanan lighted a cigarette. “But Catherine wanted her rubies back — as had, of course, been agreed upon.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table. “Crandall returned paste imitations to her — she only discovered they weren’t genuine a few days ago.”

Druse smiled, said slowly: “In that case, I should think it was Crandall who was in a jam with Mrs Hanan, instead of Mrs Hanan who was in a jam with Crandall.”

Hanan wagged his long chin back and forth. “This is New York. Men like Crandall do as they please. Catherine went to him and he laughed at her; said the rubies he had returned were the rubies that had been stolen. She had no recourse, other than to admit her complicity in defrauding the insurance company. That’s the trouble — she threatened to do exactly that.”

Druse widened his eyes, stared at Hanan.

“Catherine is a very impulsive woman,” Hanan went on. “She was so angry at losing the rubies and being made so completely a fool, that she threatened Crandall. She told him that if the rubies were not returned within three days she would tell what he had done; that he had stolen the rubies — take her chances on her part in it coming out. Of course she wouldn’t do it, but she was desperate and she thought that was her only chance of scaring Crandall into returning the rubies — and she made him believe it. Since she talked to him, Wednesday, she has been followed. Tomorrow is Saturday, the third day. Tonight, driving back to town, she was followed, shot at — almost killed.”

“Has she tried to get in touch with Crandall again?”

Hanan shook his head. “She’s been stubbornly waiting for him to give the rubies back — until this business tonight. Now she’s frightened — says it wouldn’t do any good for her to talk to Crandall now because he wouldn’t believe her — and it’s too easy for him to put her out of the way.”

Druse beckoned the waiter, asked him to bring the check. “Where is she now?”

“At her apartment — Sixty-third and Park.”

“What do you intend doing about it?”

Hanan shrugged. “That’s what I came to you for. I don’t know what to do. I’ve heard of you and your work from friends...”

Druse hesitated, said slowly: “I must make my position clear.”

Hanan nodded, lighted a fresh cigarette.

“I am one of the few people left,” Druse went on, “who actually believes that honesty is the best policy. Honesty is my business — I am primarily a businessman — I’ve made it pay—”

Hanan smiled broadly.

Druse leaned forward. “I am not a fixer,” he said. “My acquaintance is wide and varied — I am fortunate in being able to wield certain influences. But above all I seek to further justice — I mean real justice as opposed to book justice — I was on the Bench for many years and I realize the distinction keenly.” His big face wrinkled to an expansive grin. “And I get paid for it — well paid.” Hanan said: “Does my case interest you?”

“It does.”

“Will five thousand be satisfactory — as a retaining fee?”

Druse moved his broad shoulders in something like a shrug. “You value the rubies at a hundred and seventy-five thousand,” he said. “I am undertaking to get the rubies back, and protect Mrs Hanan’s life.” He stared at Hanan intently. “What value do you put on Mrs Hanan’s life?”

Hanan frowned self-consciously, twisted his mouth down at the corners. “That is, of course, impossible to—”

“Say another hundred and seventy-five.” Druse smiled easily. “That makes three hundred and fifty thousand. I work on a ten per cent basis — thirty-five thousand — one-third in advance.” He leaned back, still smiling easily. “Ten thousand will be sufficient as a retainer.”

Hanan was still frowning self-consciously. He said: “Done,” took a checkbook and fountain pen out of his pocket.

Druse went on: “If I fail in either purpose, I shall, of course, return your check.”

Hanan bobbed his head, made out the check in a minute, illegible scrawl and handed it across the table. Druse paid for the drinks, jotted down Hanan’s telephone number and the address of Mrs Hanan’s apartment. They got up and went downstairs and out of the place; Druse told Hanan he would call him within an hour, got into a cab. Hanan watched the cab disappear in east-bound traffic, lighted a cigarette nervously and walked towards Madison Avenue.

Druse said: “Tell her I’ve come from Mister Hanan.”

The telephone operator spoke into the transmitter, turned to Druse. “You may go up — Apartment Three D.”

When, in answer to a drawled, “Come in,” he pushed open the door and went into the apartment, Catherine Hanan was standing near the center table, with one hand on the table to steady herself, the other in the pocket of her long blue robe. She was beautiful in the mature way that women who have lived too hard, too swiftly, are sometimes beautiful. She was very dark; her eyes were large, liquid, black and dominated her rather small, sharply sculptured face. Her mouth was large, deeply red, not particularly strong.

Druse bowed slightly, said: “How do you do.”

She smiled, and her eyes were heavy, nearly closed. “Swell — and you?” He came slowly into the room, put his hat on the table, asked: “May we sit down?”

“Sure.” She jerked her head towards a chair, stayed where she was.

Druse said: “You’re drunk.”

“Right.” He smiled, sighed gently. “A commendable condition. I regret exceedingly that my stomach does not permit it.” He glanced casually about the room. In the comparative darkness of a corner, near a heavily draped window, there was a man lying on his back on the floor. His arms were stretched out and back, and his legs were bent under him in a curious broken way, and there was blood on his face.

Druse raised his thick white eyebrows, spoke without looking at Mrs Hanan: “Is he drunk, too?”

She laughed shortly. “Uh-huh — in a different way.” She nodded towards a golf-stick on the floor near the man. “He had a little too much niblick.”

“Friend of yours?” She said: “I rather doubt it. He came in from the fire escape with a gun in his hand. I happened to see him before he saw me.”

“Where’s the gun?”

“I’ve got it.” She drew a small black automatic half out of the pocket of her robe.

Druse went over and knelt beside the man, picked up one of his hands. He said slowly: “This man is decidedly dead.”

Mrs Hanan stood, staring silently at the man on the floor for perhaps thirty seconds. Her face was white, blank. Then she walked unsteadily to a desk against one wall and picked up a whiskey bottle, poured a stiff drink. She said: “I know it.” Her voice was choked, almost a whisper. She drank the whiskey, turned and leaned against the desk, stared at Druse with wide unseeing eyes. “So what?”

“So pull yourself together, and forget about it — we’ve got more important things to think about for a little while.” Druse stood up. “How long ago?...” She shuddered. “About a half hour — I didn’t know what to do...”

“Have you tried to reach Crandall? I mean before this happened — right after you came in tonight?”

“Yes — I couldn’t get him.”

Druse went to a chair and sat down. He said: “Mister Hanan has turned this case over to me. Won’t you sit down, and answer a few questions?...” She sank into a low chair near the desk. “Are you a detective?” Her voice was still very low, strained. Druse smiled. “I’m an attorney — a sort of extra legal attorney.” He regarded her thoughtfully. “If we can get your rubies back, and assure your safety, and” — he coughed slightly — “induce Mister Hanan to reimburse the insurance company, you will be entirely satisfied, will you not?”

She nodded, started to speak.

Druse interrupted her: “Are the rubies themselves — I mean intrinsically, as stones — awfully important to you? Or was this grandstand play of yours — this business of threatening Crandall — motivated by rather less tangible factors — such as self-respect, things like that?”

She smiled faintly, nodded. “God knows how I happen to have any self-respect left — I’ve been an awful ass — but I have. It was the idea of being made such a fool — after I’ve lost over a hundred thousand dollars to Crandall — that made me do it.”

Druse smiled. “The rubies themselves,” he said — “I mean the rubies as stones — entirely apart from any extraneous consideration such as self-respect — would more seriously concern Mister Hanan, would they not?”

She said: “Sure. He’s always been crazy about stones.”

Druse scratched the tip of his long nose pensively. His eyes were wide and vacant, his thick lips compressed to a long downward curved line. “You are sure you were followed when you left Crandall’s Wednesday?”

“As sure as one can be without actually knowing — it was more of a followed feeling than anything else. After the idea was planted I could have sworn I saw a dozen men, of course.”

He said: “Have you ever had that feeling before — I mean before you threatened Crandall?”

“No.”

“It may have been simply imagination, because you expected to be followed — there was reason for you to be followed?”

She nodded. “But it’s a cinch it wasn’t imagination this evening.”

Druse was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. He looked intently at her, said very seriously: “I’m going to get your rubies back, and I can assure you of your safety — and I think I can promise that the matter of reimbursement to the insurance company will be taken care of. I didn’t speak to Mister Hanan about that, but I’m sure he’ll see the justice of it.”

She smiled faintly.

Druse went on: “I promise you these things — and in return I want you to do exactly as I tell you until tomorrow morning.”

Her smile melted to a quick, rather drunken, laugh. “Do I have to poison any babies?” She stood up, poured a drink.

Druse said: “That’s one of the things I don’t want you to do.”

She picked up the glass, frowned at him with mock seriousness. “You’re a moralist,” she said. “That’s one of the things I will do.”

He shrugged slightly. “I shall have some very important, very delicate work for you a little later in the evening. I thought it might be best.”

She looked at him, half smiling, a little while, and then she laughed and put down the glass and went into the bathroom. He leaned back comfortably in the chair and stared at the ceiling; his hands were on the arms of the chair and he ran imaginary scales with his big blunt fingers.

She came back into the room in a little while, dressed, drawing on gloves. She gestured with her head towards the man on the floor, and for a moment her more or less alcoholic poise forsook her — she shuddered again — her face was white, twisted.

Druse stood up, said: “He’ll have to stay where he is for a little while.” He went to the heavily draped window, to the fire escape, moved the drape aside and locked the window. “How many doors are there to the apartment?”

“Two.” She was standing near the table. She took the black automatic from a pocket of her suit, took up a gray suede bag from the table and put the automatic into it.

He watched her without expression. “How many keys?”

“Two.” She smiled, took two keys out of the bag and held them up. “The only other key is the passkey — the manager’s.”

He said: “That’s fine,” went to the table and picked up his hat and put it on. They went out into the hall and closed and locked the door. “Is there a side entrance to the building?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go out that way.”

She led the way down the corridor, down three flights of stairs to a door leading to Sixty-third Street. They went out and walked over Sixty-third to Lexington and got into a cab; he told the driver to take them to the corner of Fortieth and Madison, leaned back and looked out the window. “How long have you and Mister Hanan been divorced?”

She was quick to answer: “Did he say we were divorced?”

“No.” Druse turned to her slowly, smiled slowly.

“Then what makes you think we are?”

“I don’t. I just wanted to be sure.”

“We are not.” She was very emphatic.

He waited, without speaking.

She glanced at him sidewise and saw that he expected her to go on. She laughed softly. “He wants a divorce. He asked me to divorce him several months ago.” She sighed, moved her hands nervously on her lap. “That’s another of the things I’m not very proud of — I wouldn’t do it. I don’t quite know why — we were never in love — we haven’t been married, really, for a long time — but I’ve waited, hoping we might be able to make something out of it...”

Druse said quietly: “I think I understand — I’m sorry I had to ask you about that.”

She did not answer.

In a little while the cab stopped; they got out and Druse paid the driver and they cut diagonally across the street, entered an office building halfway down the block. Druse spoke familiarly to the Negro elevator boy; they got off at the forty-fifth floor and went up two flights of narrow stairs, through a heavy steel fire door to a narrow bridge and across it to a rambling two-story penthouse that covered all one side of the roof. Druse rang the bell and a thin-faced Filipino boy let them in.

Druse led the way into a very big, high-ceilinged room that ran the length and almost the width of the house. It was beautifully and brightly furnished, opened on one side onto a wide terrace. They went through to the terrace; there were steamer chairs there and canvas swings and low round tables, a great many potted plants and small trees. The tiled floor was partially covered with strips of coco-matting. There was a very wide, vividly striped awning stretched across all one side. At the far side, where the light from the living room faded into darkness, the floor came to an abrupt end — there was no railing or parapet — the nearest building of the same height was several blocks away.

Mrs Hanan sat down and stared at the twinkling distant lights of Upper Manhattan. The roar of the city came up to them faintly, like surf very far away. She said: “It is very beautiful.”

“I am glad you find it so.” Druse went to the edge, glanced down. “I have never put a railing here,” he said, “because I am interested in Death. Whenever I’m depressed I look at my jumping-off place, only a few feet away, and am reminded that life is very sweet.” He stared at the edge, stroked the side of his jaw with his fingers. “Nothing to climb over, no windows to raise — just walk.”

She smiled wryly. “A moralist — and morbid. Did you bring me here to suggest a suicide pact?”

“I brought you here to sit still and be decorative.”

“And you?”

“I’m going hunting.” Druse went over and stood frowning down at her. “I’ll try not to be long. The boy will bring you anything you want — even good whiskey, if you can’t get along without it. The view will grow on you — you’ll find one of the finest collections of books on Satanism, demonology, witchcraft, in the world inside.” He gestured with his head and eyes. “Don’t telephone anyone — and, above all, stay here, even if I’m late.”

She nodded vaguely.

He went to the wide doors that led into the living room, turned, said: “One thing more — who are Mister Hanan’s attorneys?”

She looked at him curiously. “Mahlon and Stiles.”

He raised one hand in salute. “So long.”

She smiled, said: “So long — good hunting.”

He went into the living room and talked to the Filipino boy a minute, went out.

In the drugstore across the street from the entrance to the building, he went into a telephone booth, called the number Hanan had given him. When Hanan answered, he said: “I have very bad news. We were too late. When I reached Mrs Hanan’s apartment, she did not answer the phone — I bribed my way in and found her — found her dead... I’m terribly sorry, old man — you’ve got to take it standing up... Yes — strangled.”

Druse smiled grimly to himself. “No, I haven’t informed the police — I want things left as they are for the present — I’m going to see Crandall and I have a way of working it so he won’t have a single out. I’m going to pin it on him so that it will stay pinned — and I’m going to get the rubies back, too... I know they don’t mean much to you now, but the least I can do is get them back — and see that Crandall is stuck so he can’t wriggle out of it.” He said the last very emphatically, was silent a little while, except for an occasionally interjected “Yes” or “No.”

Finally he asked: “Can you be in around three-thirty or four?... I’ll want to get in touch with you then... Right, I know how you must feel — I’m terribly sorry... Right. Goodbye.” He hung up and went out into Fortieth Street.

Jeffrey Crandall was a medium-sized man with a close-cropped mustache, wide-set greenish gray eyes. He was conservatively dressed, looked very much like a prosperous real estate man, or broker.

He said: “Long time no see.”

Druse nodded abstractedly. He was sitting in a deep red leather chair in Crandall’s very modern office, adjoining the large room in a midtown apartment building that was Crandall’s “Place” for the moment. He raised his head and looked attentively at the pictures on the walls, one after the other.

“Anything special?” Crandall lighted a short stub of green cigar.

Druse said: “Very special,” over his shoulder. He came to the last picture, a very ordinary Degas pastel, shook his head slightly, disapprovingly, and turned back to Crandall. He took a short-barrelled derringer out of his inside coat-pocket, held it on the arm of his chair, the muzzle focused steadily on Crandall’s chest.

Crandall’s eyes widened slowly; his mouth hung a little open. He put one hand up very slowly and took the stub of a cigar out of his mouth.

Druse repeated: “Very special.” His full lips were curved to a thin, cold smile.

Crandall stared at the gun. He spoke as if making a tremendous effort to frame his words casually, calmly: “What’s it all about?”

“It’s all about Mrs Hanan.” Druse tipped his hat to the back of his head. “It’s all about you gypping her out of her rubies — and her threatening to take it to the police — and you having her murdered at about a quarter after ten tonight, because you were afraid she’d go through with it.”

Crandall’s tense face relaxed slowly; he tried very hard to smile. He said: “You’re crazy,” and there was fear in his eyes, fear in the harsh, hollow sound of his voice.

Druse did not speak. He waited, his cold eyes boring into Crandall’s.

Crandall cleared his throat, moved a little forward in his chair and put his elbows on the wide desk.

“Don’t ring.” Druse glanced at the little row of ivory push buttons on the desk, shook his head.

Crandall laughed soundlessly as if the thought of ringing had never entered his mind. “In the first place,” he said, “I gave her back the stones that were stolen. In the second place, I never believed her gag about telling about it.” He leaned back slowly, spoke very slowly and distinctly as confidence came back to him. “In the third place, I couldn’t be chump enough to bump her off with that kind of a case against me.” Druse said: “Your third place is the one that interests me.

The switched rubies, her threat to tell the story — it all makes a pip of a case against you, doesn’t it?”

Crandall nodded slowly.

“That’s the reason,” Druse went on, “that if I shoot you through the heart right now, I’ll get a vote of thanks for avenging the lady you made a sucker of, and finally murdered because you thought she was going to squawk.”

All the fear came back into Crandall’s face suddenly. He started to speak.

Druse interrupted him, went on: “I’m going to let you have it when you reach for your gun, of course — that’ll take care of any technicalities about taking the law into my own hands — anything like that.”

Crandall’s face was white, drained. He said: “How come I’m elected? What the hell have you got against me?”

Druse shrugged. “You shouldn’t jockey ladies into trying to nick insurance companies...”

“It was her idea.”

“Then you should have been on the level about the rubies.”

Crandall said: “So help me God! I gave her back the stuff I took!” He said it very vehemently, very earnestly.

“How do you know? How do you know the man you had do the actual job didn’t make the switch?”

Crandall leaned forward. “Because I took them. She gave me her key and I went in the side way, while she was out, and took them myself. They were never out of my hands.” He took up a lighter from the desk and relighted the stump of cigar with shaking hands. “That’s the reason I didn’t take her threat seriously. I thought it was some kind of extortion gag she’d doped out to get some of her dough back. She got back the stones I took — and if they weren’t genuine they were switched before I took them, or after I gave them back.”

Druse stared at him silently for perhaps a minute, finally smiled, said: “Before.”

Crandall sucked noisily at his cigar. “Then, if you believe me” — he glanced at the derringer — “what’s the point?”

“The point is that if I didn’t believe you, you’d be in an awfully bad spot.”

Crandall nodded, grinned weakly. “The point,” Druse went on, “is that you’re still in an awfully bad spot because no one else will believe you.”

Crandall nodded again. He leaned back and took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed at his face.

“I know a way out of it.” Druse moved his hand, let the derringer hang by the trigger-guard from his forefinger. “Not because I like you particularly, nor because I think you particularly deserve it — but because it’s right. I can turn up the man who really murdered her — if we can get back the rubies — the real rubies. And I think I know where they are.”

Crandall was leaning far forward, his face very alive and interested.

“I want you to locate the best peterman we can get.” Druse spoke in a very low voice, watched Crandall intently. “We’ve got to open a safe — I think it’ll be a safe — out on Long Island. Nothing very difficult — there’ll probably be servants to handle but nothing more serious than that.”

Crandall said: “Why can’t I do it?” He smiled a little. “I used to be in the box business, you know — before I straightened up and got myself a joint. That’s the reason I took the fake rubies myself — not to let anyone else in on it.”

Druse said: “That’ll be fine.”

“When?” Crandall stood up.

Druse put the derringer back in his pocket. “Right now — where’s your car?” Crandall jerked his head towards the street. They went out through the crowded gambling room, downstairs, got into Crandall’s car. Crossing Queensborough Bridge Druse glanced at his watch. It was twenty minutes past twelve.

At three thirty-five Druse pushed the bell of the penthouse, after searching, vainly as usual, for his key. The Filipino boy opened the door, said: “It’s a very hot night, sir.”

Druse threw his hat on a chair, smiled sadly at Mrs Hanan, who had come into the little entrance hall. “I’ve been trying to teach him English for three months,” he said, “and all he can say is ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ and tell me about the heat.” He turned to the broadly grinning boy. “Yes, Tony, it is a very hot night.”

They went through the living room, out onto the terrace. It was cool there, and dim; a little light came out through the wide doors, from the living room.

Mrs Hanan said: “I’d about given you up.”

Druse sat down, sighed wearily. “I’ve had a very strenuous evening — sorry I’m so late.” He looked up at her. “Hungry?”

“Starved.”

“Why didn’t you have Tony fix you something?”

“I wanted to wait.” She had taken off her suit coat, hat; in her smartly cut tweed skirt, white mannish shirt, she looked very beautiful.

Druse said: “Supper, or breakfast, or something will be ready in a few minutes — I ordered it for four.” He stood up. “Which reminds me — we’re having a guest. I must telephone.”

He went through the living room, up four broad, shallow steps to the little corner room that he used as an office. He sat down at the broad desk, drew the telephone towards him, dialed a number.

Hanan answered the phone. Druse said: “I want you to come to my place, on top of the Pell Building, at once. It is very important. Ring the bell downstairs — I’ve told the elevator boy I’m expecting you... I can’t tell you over the phone — please come alone, and right away.” He hung up and sat staring vacantly at his hands a little while, and then got up and went back to the terrace, sat down.

“What did you do with yourself?”

Mrs Hanan was lying in one of the low chairs. She laughed nervously. “The radio — tried to improve my Spanish and Tony’s English — chewed my fingernails — almost frightened myself to death with one of your damned demon books.” She lighted a cigarette. “And you?”

He smiled in the darkness. “I earned thirty-five thousand dollars.”

She sat up, said eagerly: “Did you get the rubies?”

He nodded.

“Did Crandall raise much hell?”

“Enough.”

She laughed exultantly. “Where are they?”

Druse tapped his pocket, watched her face in the pale orange glow of her cigarette.

She got up, held out her hand. “May I see them?”

Druse said: “Certainly.” He took a long flat jewel case of black velvet out of his inside coat pocket and handed it to her.

She opened the case and went to the door to the living room, looked at its contents by the light there, said: “They are awfully beautiful, aren’t they?”

“They are.”

She snapped the case closed, came back and sat down.

Druse said: “I think I’d better take care of them a little while longer.”

She leaned forward and put the case on his lap; he took it up and put it back in his pocket. They sat silently, watching the lights in buildings over towards the East River. After awhile the Filipino boy came out and said that they were served.

“Our guest is late.” Druse stood up. “I make a rule of never waiting breakfast — anything but breakfast.”

They went together through the living room, into the simply furnished dining room. There were three places set at the glittering white and silver table. They sat down and the Filipino boy brought in tall and spindly cocktail glasses of iced fruit; they were just beginning when the doorbell rang. The Filipino boy glanced at Druse, Druse nodded, said: “Ask the gentleman to come in here.” The Filipino boy went out and there were voices in the entrance hall, and then Hanan came into the doorway.

Druse stood up. He said: “You must forgive us for beginning — you are a little late.” He raised one hand and gestured towards the empty chair.

Hanan was standing in the doorway with his feet wide apart, his arms stiff at his sides, as if he had been suddenly frozen in that position. He stared at Mrs Hanan and his eyes were wide, blank — his thin mouth was compressed to a hard, straight line. Very suddenly his right hand went towards his left armpit.

Druse said sharply: “Please sit down.” Though he seemed scarcely to have moved, the blunt derringer glittered in his hand. Mrs Hanan half rose. She was very pale; her hands were clenched convulsively on the white tablecloth.

Hanan dropped his hand very slowly. He stared at the derringer and twisted his mouth into a terribly forced smile, came slowly forward to the empty chair and sat down.

Druse raised his eyes to the Filipino boy who had followed Hanan into the doorway, said: “Take the gentleman’s gun, Tony — and serve his cocktail.” He sat down, held the derringer rigidly on the table in front of him.

The Filipino boy went to Hanan, felt gingerly under his coat, drew out a small black automatic and took it to Druse. Then he went out through the swinging door to the kitchen. Druse put the automatic in his pocket. He turned his eyes to Mrs Hanan, said: “I’m going to tell you a story. After I’ve finished, you can both talk all you like — but please don’t interrupt.”

He smiled with his mouth — the rest of his face remained stonily impassive. His eyes were fixed and expressionless, on Hanan. He said: “Your husband has wanted a divorce for some time. His principal reason is a lady — her name doesn’t matter — who wants to marry him — and whom he wants to marry. He hasn’t told you about her because he has felt, perhaps justifiably, that your knowing about her would retard, rather than hasten, an agreement...”

The Filipino boy came in from the kitchen with a cocktail, set it before Hanan. Hanan did not move, or look up. He stared intently at the flowers in the center of the table. The Filipino boy smiled self-consciously at Druse and Mrs Hanan, disappeared into the kitchen.

Druse relaxed a little, leaned back; the derringer was still focused unwaveringly on Hanan.

“In the hope of uncovering some adequate grounds for bringing suit,” Druse went on, “he has had you followed for a month or more — unsuccessfully, need I add? After you threatened Crandall, you discovered suddenly that you were being followed and, of course, ascribed it to Crandall.”

He paused. It was entirely silent for a moment, except for the faint, faraway buzz of the city and the sharp, measured sound of Hanan’s breathing.

Druse turned his head towards Mrs Hanan. “After you left Mister Hanan at Roslyn, last night, it suddenly occurred to him that this was his golden opportunity to dispose of you, without any danger to himself. You wouldn’t give him a divorce — and it didn’t look as if he’d be able to force it by discovering some dereliction on your part. And now, you had threatened Crandall — Crandall would be logically suspected if anything happened to you. Mister Hanan sent his men — the men who had been following you — after you when you left the place at Roslyn. They weren’t very lucky.”

Druse was smiling slightly. Mrs Hanan had put her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands; she regarded Hanan steadily.

“He couldn’t go to the police,” Druse went on — “they would arrest Crandall, or watch him, and that would ruin the whole plan. And the business about the rubies would come out. That was the last thing he wanted” — Druse widened his smile — “because he switched the rubies himself — some time ago.”

Mrs Hanan turned to look at Druse; very slowly she matched his smile.

“You never discovered that your rubies were fake,” he said, “because that possibility didn’t occur to you. It was only after they’d been given back by Crandall that you became suspicious and found out they weren’t genuine.” He glanced at Hanan and the smile went from his face, leaving it hard and expressionless again. “Mister Hanan is indeed ‘crazy about stones.’”

Hanan’s thin mouth twitched slightly; he stared steadily at the flowers.

Druse sighed. “And so — we find Mister Hanan, last night with several reasons for wishing your — shall we say disappearance? We find him with the circumstance of being able to direct suspicion at Crandall, ready to his hand. His only serious problem lay in finding a third, responsible party before whom to lay the whole thing — or enough of it to serve his purpose.”

Mrs Hanan had turned to face Hanan. Her eyes were half closed and her smile was very hard, very strange.

Druse stood up slowly, went on: “He had the happy thought of calling me — or perhaps the suggestion. I was an ideal instrument, functioning as I do, midway between the law and the underworld. He made an appointment, and arranged for one of his men to call on you by way of the fire escape, while we were discussing the matter. The logical implication was that I would come to you when I left him, find you murdered, and act immediately on the information he had given me about Crandall. My influence and testimony would have speedily convicted Crandall. Mister Hanan would have better than a divorce. He’d have the rubies, without any danger of his having switched them ever being discovered — and he’d have” — Druse grinned sourly — “the check he had given me as an advance. Failing in the two things I had contracted to do, I would of course return it to him.”

Hanan laughed suddenly; a terribly forced, high-pitched laugh.

“It is very funny,” Druse said. “It would all have worked very beautifully if you” — he moved his eyes to Mrs Hanan — “hadn’t happened to see the man who came up the fire escape to call on you, before he saw you. The man whose return Mister Hanan has been impatiently waiting. The man” — he dropped one eyelid in a swift wink — “who confessed to the whole thing a little less than an hour ago.”

Druse put his hand into his inside pocket and took out the black velvet jewel case, snapped it open and put it on the table. “I found them in the safe at your place at Roslyn,” he said. “Your servants there objected very strenuously — so strenuously that I was forced to tie them up and lock them in the wine cellar. They must be awfully uncomfortable by now — I shall have to attend to that.”

He lowered his voice to a discreet drone. “And your lady was there, too. She, too, objected very strenuously, until I had had a long talk with her and convinced her of the error of her — shall we say, affection, for a gentleman of your instincts. She seemed very frightened at the idea of becoming involved in this case — I’m afraid she will be rather hard to find.”

Druse sighed, lowered his eyes slowly to the rubies, touched the largest of them delicately with one finger. “And so,” he said, “to end this vicious and regrettable business — I give you your rubies” — he lifted his hand and made a sweeping gesture towards Mrs Hanan — “and your wife — and now I would like your check for twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Hanan moved very swiftly. He tipped the edge of the table upward, lunged up and forward in the same movement; there was a sharp, shattering crash of chinaware and silver. The derringer roared, but the bullet thudded into the table. Hanan bent over suddenly — his eyes were dull, and his upper lip was drawn back over his teeth — then he straightened and whirled and ran out through the door to the living room.

Mrs Hanan was standing against the big buffet; her hands were at her mouth, and her eyes were very wide. She made no sound.

Druse went after Hanan, stopped suddenly at the door. Hanan was crouched in the middle of the living room. The Filipino boy stood beyond him, framed against the darkness of the entrance hall; a curved knife glittered in his hand and his thin yellow face was hard, menacing. Hanan ran out on the terrace and Druse went swiftly after him. By the dim light from the living room he saw Hanan dart to the left, encounter the wall there, zigzag crazily towards the darkness of the outer terrace, the edge.

Druse yelled: “Look out!” ran forward, Hanan was silhouetted a moment against the mauve glow of the sky; then with a hoarse, cracked scream he fell outward, down.

Druse stood a moment, staring blindly down. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then turned and went into the living room and tossed the derringer down on the big center table. The Filipino boy was still standing in the doorway. Druse nodded at him and he turned and went through the dark entrance hall into the kitchen. Druse went to the door to the dining room; Mrs Hanan was still standing with her back to the buffet, her hands still at her mouth, her eyes wide, unseeing. He turned and went swiftly up the broad steps to the office, took up the telephone and dialed a number. When the connection had been made, he asked for MacCrae.

In a minute or so MacCrae answered; Druse said: “You’ll find a stiff in Mrs Dale Hanan’s apartment on the corner of Sixty-third and Park, Mac. She killed him — self-defense. You might find his partner downstairs at my place — waiting for his boss to come out... Yeah, his boss was Hanan — he just went down — the other way... I’ll file charges of attempted murder against Hanan, and straighten it all out when you get over here... Yeah — hurry.”

He hung up and went down to the dining room. He tipped the table back on its legs and picked up the rubies, put them back into the case. He said: “I called up a friend of mine who works for Mahlon and Stiles. As you probably know, Mister Hanan has never made a will.” He smiled. “He so hated the thought of death that the idea of a will was extremely repugnant to him.”

He picked up her chair and she came slowly across and sank into it.

“As soon as the estate is settled,” he went on, “I shall expect your check for a hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars, made out to the insurance company.”

She nodded abstractedly.

“I think these” — he indicated the jewel case — “will be safer with me, until then.”

She nodded again.

He smiled. “I shall also look forward with a great deal of pleasure to receiving your check for twenty-five thousand — the balance on the figure I quoted for my services.”

She turned her head slowly, looked up at him. “A moralist,” she said — “morbid — and mercenary.”

“Mercenary as hell!” He bobbed his big head up and down violently.

She looked at the tiny watch at her wrist, said: “It isn’t morning yet, strictly speaking — but I’d rather have a drink than anything I can think of.”

Druse laughed. He went to the buffet and took out a squat bottle, glasses, poured two big drinks. He took one to her, raised the other and squinted through it at the light. “Here’s to crime.”

They drank.

Hunch

Brennan turned off Sixth Avenue at Forty-Ninth Street and walked towards Broadway. It was a few minutes before seven; there were little knots of men around the tinhorn bookmakers who used the street as an office. Brennan elbowed his way through one of the groups, went into the drugstore of the Valmouth Hotel, sat down at the soda fountain and said: “Small glass of milk with a shot of chocolate in it.”

He watched the soda-squirt pour milk into the glass, squeeze the dark cloud of chocolate into its whiteness, set the glass on the green marble counter.

A woman sat next to him and put her hand down on the counter near the glass; her hand was very white and her nails were long — bright scarlet.

She said: “You wouldn’t high-hat an old pal, would you?”

Brennan turned his head slowly, smiled faintly with his mouth, said: “H’ are ya, Joice?” He picked up the glass. “What do you want to drink?”

“I want to drink Piper Heidsick Nineteen-eleven,” she said slowly, “but I will drink a lemonade — with plain water.” She spoke more to the soda-squirt than to Brennan.

The soda-squirt smiled, nodded.

Brennan sipped his milk. He asked: “How’s business?”

“Lousy.” She took a cigarette out of a small black suede bag. “Got a match?”

Brennan shook his head.

The soda-squirt took a paper of matches out of his shirt pocket, scratched one, lighted her cigarette.

She inhaled deeply, blew a thin gray cone of smoke at the electric fan on the end of the counter. “I guess I’ve lost my dewy freshness.”

Brennan nodded slowly, emphatically. “An’ if you don’t lay off the weed, and start taking care of yourself, you’re going to lose whatever you’ve got left.”

She said: “I haven’t had any weed for five weeks — an’ I’ve been getting a load of sun, on the roof, every day the sun’s been out.” She watched the soda-squirt serve her lemonade with a broad flourish, tasted it. “It’s not me — it’s a jinx.” She smiled without mirth. “Or all the chumps are still out at the World’s Fair.”

Brennan finished his milk, put a quarter on the counter.

She set down her glass, said: “That’s terrible,” turned to Brennan. “Come on upstairs — I want to show you something.”

Brennan grinned. He said: “I’ll buy you another drink, but I won’t go upstairs.”

“That’s not funny.” She smiled faintly and stood up, and Brennan stood up and they went through the lobby to the elevator, up to the sixteenth floor. She fumbled in her bag for the key; Brennan noticed that her hands were trembling, that she had suddenly paled until the deep red rouge on her cheeks looked black against the icy whiteness of her skin.

He said: “What the hell’s the matter?”

She put the key in the lock, turned it, swung open the door; Brennan went into the dimly lighted room. She followed him, closed the door. The shade was tightly drawn on the one window; a brightly figured negligee had been thrown over the lamp. There was a very slender, very beautiful girl lying across the bed; her head hung in a strange and broken way, down backward over the edge of the bed; her long straw-colored hair hung to the floor, made a twisted yellow pool on the dark rug.

Brennan knelt and put out his hand and stroked two fingers Hunch across her forehead, turned to stare expressionlessly up at Joice Colt.

“How come?”

Joice Colt shook her head. She was trembling violently; her eyes moved back and forth swiftly from Brennan to the girl on the bed. “I don’t know,” she said. “I came in about ten minutes ago an’ she was like that. I called Ed Harley, but he wasn’t in. I was afraid to call the police — her being in my room an’ everything. I couldn’t think. I went downstairs an’ went into the drugstore an’ tried to think — an’ then you came in...”

“Go on.”

Joice Colt shrugged, shook her head slightly, stood staring vacantly down at the girl on the bed.

“So now I’m supposed to do the thinking.” Brennan stood up, moved towards the door. He smiled, shook his head slightly. “Nuhuh, baby — I’m a busy man.”

Joice Colt laughed suddenly. She said: “You damned fool! — don’t you realize this is a swell story? I thought you were a newspaperman — or have you passed that up for straight P.I.?”

“Story!” Brennan grinned slowly. “Blond Beauty Bumps Herself Off in Forty-ninth Street Hotel — that kind of story is a dime a dozen. This” — he jerked his head towards the girl on the bed — “is probably the sixth today. Any leg-man can cover it.” He drew himself up with exaggerated pride, tapped his chest with a blunt finger. “I’m doing features.”

He put his hand on the doorknob, smiled gently at Joice Colt. “I’m sorry about the gal, but being sorry for her won’t help her now. I don’t quite see how you’re jammed up because she decided to commit suicide in your room. If you’re telling the truth, I think you’d better call the police. I’ll call my paper from downstairs and have them send somebody over that likes this kind of thing.” He half opened the door.

Joice Colt said slowly: “This is Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife. Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Maybe it wasn’t suicide.”

Brennan closed the door. “Now you’re talking sense,” he said. “When you give me that wide-eyed ‘that’s the way she was when I came in’ business, an’ then close up like a clam, I pass. You’re a lousy liar.”

He went to one of the two low armchairs, sat down, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “What’s it all about?”

Joice Colt took a cigarette out of her bag, lighted it. “Barbara and I have been practically living together for the last month,” she said. “She had the room across the hall but we always left our doors unlocked and sort of shared everything.” She smiled ruefully. “That is, whatever we had to share — which was nothing.”

Brennan suddenly noticed a green glass tumbler that had rolled partway under the bed. He got up and picked it up with his handkerchief and sniffed it, sat down again and put the tumbler on the table beside him.

He said: “Make it fast. We’ll have to call the Law pretty soon.”

“Barbara’s been cockeyed for the last couple weeks,” Joice Colt went on, “An’ every time she’d begin talking about killing herself. She talked about it too much — people who talk about it that much don’t do it.”

“What was the matter with her?”

“Everything. Antony cut off her allowance about three months ago. He’d fixed it up for her before he was put over. She didn’t have a dime. She was on the cuff to the bootlegger for a couple hundred an’ she was into the hotel for twice that much — she got her eviction notice yesterday...”

Brennan glanced at the girl on the bed. “How come Antony cut off her dough?”

“He probably heard she was playing around.”

“Was she?”

“Uh-huh.” Joice Colt was smiling a little. She took a deep drag of her cigarette.

“Who with?”

Joice Colt said: “Ed Harley,” as if the name were a bad taste in her mouth. Her eyes were narrowed to thin blue-fringed slits.

Brennan leaned back. He said slowly: “Well, well — your own true love. How come you and Barbara were so chummy if Harley aired you for her?”

“It wasn’t her fault. He gave her that razzle-dazzle works about starring her in one of his clubs an’ she was too limp to say no. Then he dropped her like a hot potato when Antony was wise to him, an’ got scared.”

Brennan curved his thin lips into something like a smile. “And Harley didn’t even take care of her bill in his own hotel?”

Joice Colt shook her head.

Brennan said: “Nice boy.” He stared thoughtfully at the girl on the bed. “It looks like there were plenty of reasons for her to do it — broke, kicked out of the hotel, given the gate by Harley, and Antony on his way up from Atlanta with blood in his eye.”

“Just the same, I’ll take the long end that it wasn’t suicide.” Joice Colt smashed out her cigarette. “She wasn’t the type.”

“Harley would probably want to shut her up.” Brennan picked up the tumbler again with his handkerchief, sniffed it. “And Antony would be a cinch for this kind of thing — if he’s half as haywire as they say he is — but he couldn’t get here from Atlanta if he was sprung this morning...”

“He could fly.”

Brennan nodded slightly. “We can check on that.” He was silent a little while and then he said slowly: “If it wasn’t suicide, and if Harley and Antony can establish alibis — you know who’s going to hold the bag, don’t you?”

Joice Colt stood staring vacantly down at him.

“Little Joice,” Brennan went on. “The DA can make a swell show out of your prison record, and the fact that Harley dumped you for Barbara — and you discovering the body...”

“That’s ridiculous.” Joice Colt laughed a little, without mirth.

Brennan nodded. “Uh-huh. Would you like to tell a jury of twelve good men and true how ridiculous it is?” He got up and went to the telephone, asked the operator to get the city desk of the Eagle, call him back. He leaned against the wall and smiled sleepily at Joice Colt. “I think we’d better vote for suicide for the time being,” he said. “Don’t you?”

She nodded abstractedly, went to one of the low chairs and sat down.

The phone rang and Brennan picked it up, said: “Hello, Johnnie. Barbara Antony, Lou Antony’s wife, bumped herself off in her room at the Valmouth... Yeah... Strychnine, I think... There are a lot of angles. One of them is that Lou got out of Atlanta this morning. Have somebody call the office in Atlanta and check on him — whether he took a train, or flew, or what have you... Yeah, Ed Harley’s another angle, but you’d better soft-pedal that. Make it suicide for now — I’m going to work on it and whip out a swell feature for tomorrow — save the spot page. An’ Johnnie, call Centre Street right away — have ’em send Freberg if he’s there — he’s the brightest boy on their whole doggone detective force; which isn’t saying a hell of a lot... Uh-huh. So long.”

Brennan hung up the receiver, took a shiny leather cigar-case out of his breast pocket, took out a cigar and stuck it into his mouth. He started back to his chair and then someone knocked at the door; he glanced at Joice Colt, turned and went to the door, opened it. A man with a blue silk handkerchief covering the lower part of his face stood in the doorway. He was a very tall, heavily shouldered man and he held a short automatic waist high in front of him.

Brennan looked at the automatic, said: “How do you do?” slowly.

The man came into the room and Brennan backed up; Joice Colt stood up and put one hand to her mouth. The man closed the door and stood with his back to it for a moment, then went swiftly to Brennan, jabbed the automatic viciously into his stomach. Brennan started to put up his hands and the man grabbed his shoulder suddenly, spun him half around, crashed the barrel of the automatic down hard against the back of his head.

Brennan saw Joice Colt’s white drained face. He heard her scream. Then his vision dulled and his knees gave way and he fell forward heavily.

He heard Freberg’s voice before he opened his eyes, recognized the nasal Scandinavian drawl. Freberg was saying: “Get a report of what’s in her insides before you do anything else. Then swear out a warrant for the Colt gal — I want her picked up tonight...”

Brennan opened his eyes; Freberg was bending over him. There was another man standing in the doorway. The other man said: “Okay,” and went out and closed the door.

Freberg was a slight blond man, about thirty-five. He grinned at Brennan, slid his arm under Brennan’s shoulders and pulled him up, held a dark brown pint bottle to his mouth. Brennan put up his hands and held the bottle, took a long drink. He glanced at the bed and saw that the Antony girl had been taken away; he and Freberg were alone in the room.

Brennan handed the bottle back to Freberg, said: “Oi jamina — my head!”

“Uh-huh.” Freberg took a drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Who did it?”

“Carnera.”

“I know — I know.” Freberg put the cork into the bottle and tucked it into his hip pocket. “What did he look like?” Brennan got laboriously to his feet, sank into one of the chairs. He noticed that the tumbler was no longer on the table, the carpet between the table and the wall glittered with splinters of green glass. He leaned forward and held his head in his hands.

He said: “Big guy — black hair. He had a handkerchief draped over his pan.”

Freberg sat down in the other chair.

Brennan asked: “What happened to Colt?”

Freberg shrugged. “Was she here when the big fella slapped you down?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When I got here,” Freberg went on, “the house dick was shooing away a lot of innocent bystanders. It seems somebody screamed in here and the guy in the next room called downstairs, and when the dick came up with a passkey he found the Antony gal very dead, and you, cold with that egg on the back of your head.”

“Nobody else?”

Freberg shook his head. “Nobody else.” He leaned back and tilted his hat back and scratched his head. “The doc figured her to have been dead about an hour. What happened?”

Brennan straightened up, said: “Give me another shot of that.”

Freberg took the bottle out of his pocket and handed it to Brennan. Brennan took a long drink and put the bottle on the table.

“She killed herself,” he said. “Strychnine, I guess...”

Freberg smiled, nodded.

“Colt came in and found her, dead. Colt called Ed Harley but he wasn’t in the hotel. She went downstairs to figure things out and ran into me in the drug store. I came up with her, and called Johnnie with the story and told him to call you.”

“An’ Carnera?”

“He came in and shoved a rod into my guts and then clipped me before I knew what it was all about.”

“He don’t fit into the suicide picture very well, does he?” Freberg lighted a cigarette, leaned back again and stared skeptically at Brennan.

Brennan did not answer.

Freberg said: “Listen. Joice Colt left the hotel about five-thirty this evening. Before she went out she shook up a highball for Barbara Antony that had enough strychnine in it to kill the National Guard. She came back about a quarter of seven — as near as the elevator boy can figure — and found out how well it had worked, and then she got scared. She called Harley to plant the idea with him that Barbara had committed suicide. Harley wasn’t in. She didn’t know whether to call the police or to take it on the lam. While she was trying to make up her mind she ran into you, and you looked like a swell sucker to plant the suicide angle with...”

Brennan said slowly: “You’re crazy, Gus. That’s full of holes. In the first place, Joice was Barbara’s pal — what the hell would she want to poison her for?...”

“Don’t give me that.” Freberg was leaning forward scowling. “Colt hated Barbara for taking Harley away from her.”

Brennan said: “Oh. How did you know about that?”

“Harley told me.”

Brennan nodded slowly, ponderously, with mock seriousness. “When?”

“A little while ago — he was up here while you were out.”

Brennan nodded again. “So Mister Harley told you that? And because Mister Harley owns this joint and a string of clubs, and has a sixteen-inch bankroll, and wields a lot of influence, you take his lousy steer and want to nail Joice for this?” Brennan’s tone was elaborately ironic.

Freberg said: “Don’t be a damned fool.”

Brennan’s smile was very thin. “What about Lou Antony getting out of Atlanta this morning?”

“I’ve got a tracer on him. He’s the reason the play looked so good to Colt. It’d look like Barbara killed herself because she was scared of Antony.”

“Uh-huh.” Brennan shook his head disgustedly. “What about the guy that bopped me? Does he fit into your murder picture any better than he fits into my suicide picture?”

Freberg said: “I don’t care about him. He was probably in some kind of cahoots with Colt...”

Brennan stood up, walked to the window, back. He said: “Lousy! I didn’t think such stupidity was possible!” He said it very emphatically.

Freberg started to speak but Brennan interrupted him. “What the hell makes you so sure it wasn’t suicide?”

Freberg said, as if he was making a great effort to speak deliberately, gently: “For one thing, there isn’t a sign of anything in here or in Barbara’s room that strychnine could have been in. For another thing...”

The phone rang. Freberg answered it, stood with the receiver at his ear, silent except for an occasional grunted affirmative. He finally said: “Okay — call you back,” hung up and grinned coldly at Brennan. “Antony caught the noon train out of Atlanta,” he said. “That train doesn’t get in until some time around eight tomorrow morning. So Antony’s out.” Freberg’s grin broadened. “And this strychnine — Somebody forced it down her throat, or stood over her with a club. How do you like that?”

Brennan said: “I like that fine. That gets us to the point.”

“What point?”

“Harley.”

Freberg shook his head slowly, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking sense. Your Mister Harley rubbed Barbara because he was afraid she’d squawk to Antony about the way he’d treated her.” Brennan was almost shouting; his eyes were hot, intent. “Harley stuffed that strychnine into her while Joice Colt was out. He figured that with Barbara out of the way he could bluff Antony into believing that the talk about him and Barbara was a lot of hooey.”

Freberg shook his head again. He said: “Harley was at the Glass Slipper from five o’clock on — until he came back here and talked to me.”

Brennan’s laugh dripped sarcasm. “So he told you that, too, did he?” he said. “I don’t suppose you went to the trouble to check on it. Mister Harley is too big a man to check on...”

Freberg stood up slowly. He said: “Listen, Brennan — when I want a two-by-four reporter to tell me what to do an’ what not to do I’ll send for you.” His voice was low, his words clear, distinct.

Brennan stared at him incredulously. “Do you mean you’re going to railroad Colt?”

“I’m not going to railroad anybody. I think she’s guilty as hell. I’m going to pick her up and let her railroad herself. And I don’t need any lousy newsdog to tell me what to do and what not to do.”

Brennan’s face got a little white. “No?” he said slowly. “But sometimes a lousy newsdog has intelligence at least a grade above a lousy dog’s son of a flatfoot.”

Freberg’s face was blank. He raised his head slowly and looked at Brennan and his blue eyes were cold and impersonal. He moved slightly sidewise then he lunged suddenly forward, there was sharp smack as his fist crashed into Brennan’s face.

Brennan moved very swiftly. He caught Freberg by the throat with his right hand drew his left far back and snapped it suddenly forward; he could feel his hard fist sink into the soft pallor of Freberg’s face. Freberg crashed into the wall, sank slowly to the floor.

Brennan stood with his feet wide apart, looking down at Freberg a little while. Then he picked up his hat and put it on and went to the door. He glanced back at Freberg once, expressionlessly, then he went out and closed the door. In the elevator he took out his watch, noticed that the crystal was broken. It was ten minutes after eight.

In the Eagle’s city room, Brennan leaned across the littered desk and waggled his finger at Johnson, the City Editor.

“I told you to have ’em send Freberg because he was the brightest boy they had — and so help me, he’s the prize dope of the season.” He straightened up. “I wanted you to know. From now on that bastard is on the wrong side of our list.”

Johnson was a squarely built pink-faced man. He peered at Brennan through thick tortoise shell glasses, said acidly: “I’ve asked you to lay off coppers for the last time, Cy. Don’t you realize that a paper like the Eagle owes its existence to the goodwill of the people like Freberg — the Police Department?”

Brennan smiled. He said softly: “Listen, Johnnie — have we ever gone very far wrong playing my hunches?”

“There’ll be a first time.”

Brennan leaned across the desk again, started intently at Johnson. “I’m going to stick Ed Harley for the Antony gal’s murder,” he said quietly. “That’s our spot page story for the early Sunday edition — I’ll have it finished ahead of the noon deadline tomorrow. I’m going to clean up the details tonight, an’ make the case tight if I have to choke a confession out of Harley. This is the strongest hunch I’ve had in years and I’m going to play it if I have to make a monkey out of Freberg, an’ the Police Department, an’ the whole damned city government.”

Johnson shook his head sadly. “It sounds swell,” he said, “but why the hell do you pick yourself such a tough one? Harley has an awful drag.”

Brennan said: “I like ’em tough.”

As he turned to go a short, sharp-faced man crossed in front of him, sat down sidewise on the edge of Johnson’s desk, said: “Hi, Cy.”

Brennan nodded, “Hi, Frank.” He started away.

The short man asked: “What did you hit Freberg with — an axe?”

Brennan turned. His eyes were wide, innocent.

“He came into the Station a minute ago with his face in a sling,” the short man went on. “He talked to the chief a little while and then three or four of those bastards came out and threw me out on my ear. They said to never darken their door again, or words to that effect.” He turned to Johnson. “They told me to tell you what you could do with the Eagle, too.”

Johnson was glaring at Brennan. He said slowly, incredulously: “Did you hit Freberg?”

Brennan nodded. “Uh-huh.”

Johnson said, “That’s bad!” with deep feeling.

“Self-defense.” Brennan made a wide and inclusive gesture with his hands.

The short man sang in a high, cracked voice: “He calls it self defense, but Freberg will probably call it assault and battery...”

Brennan scowled at the short man. “Freberg won’t call it,” he snapped. “I know where he buries the bodies. That’s why he took Hunch the beating I gave him in the first place.” He grinned. “One reason.”

Johnson shouted: “What the hell’s that got to do with it? I don’t care if they hang you! I’ve got a paper to get out — how am I going to do it without a Police Department tie-up?”

Brennan raised his eyes and his arms towards the ceiling in a melodramatic appeal to heaven. Then he leaned across the desk, spoke slowly, with infinite patience:

“Listen, Johnnie, I’m bringing you the scoop of the season — a story so big, an’ so hot, that you can write your own ticket.” He paused dramatically. “Do you think the police force is going to be in a position to discriminate against the Eagle after this story breaks — after the Eagle has made ’em look silly at their own racket?” He straightened up. “Why, you can throw five lines of credit their way and have ’em eating out of your hand!”

Johnson was staring morosely at the desk.

Brennan turned his head, snarled at the short man: “You don’t know what I’m talking about do you, Stupid?” He went around the corner of the desk, emphasized his words with a big blunt finger against the short man’s chest. “Ed Harley killed Barbara Antony — or had her killed. Get that fact planted in your skull so you won’t forget it, because there’s an angle of it I want you to work on. Now that they’ve kicked you out of the police station an’ you haven’t any place to play pinochle, you might as well go to work.”

He turned back to Johnson. “I think Harley slipped up on the glass he gave Barbara the whiskey and strychnine in — maybe he got excited or scared or heard somebody coming. Anyway the glass was there when I went up — it had fallen out of her hand and rolled under the bed, and it probably had a few more fingerprints than Barbara’s on it. I figure that Harley got to worrying about it and sent the big guy who slapped me down up to attend to it. You knew about the big guy, didn’t you?”

Johnson nodded.

The short man said: “I phoned in about him when Freberg called in from the hotel to report it.”

Brennan went on to Johnson: “The glass was smashed when I came to.” He paused a moment, then said: “I want Frankie” — he jerked his head towards the short man — “to work on the big fella — see if he can get a line on him. We ought to be able to tie him up with Harley...”

Johnson said: “Okay. This is your show — an’ it better be good.”

Brennan turned to emphasize again his words with a finger against the short man’s chest. “About six feet, two — or three. Very dark skin — black hair — pretty good clothes. He has a couple very deep lines between his eyes.” Brennan put his hand up and drew two lines down his forehead with his finger.

The short man bobbed his head, glanced at Johnson, turned and walked away down the big room between the double file of desks.

Brennan looked after him a moment then turned to smile down at Johnson. “Don’t look so sad, Johnnie,” he said. “If you’re scared you’re going to miss something from Centre Street we can stage a battle. You can fire me, an’ then call up the chief an’ tell him about it — tell him you’ve hung the can on me and the Eagle will be aces again.”

Johnson’s face brightened a little. He said: “That’s not a bad idea.” Then he added, ominously: “You know it’ll be on the square if this Harley angle doesn’t work, don’t you?”

Brennan grinned. “I’m betting my job that Harley rubbed Barbara,” he said. “An’ the hunch is so hot I’ll make you a little side bet — my life.”

Johnson smiled faintly, nodded. Then he stood up suddenly, shouted:

“Brennan — you’re fired! I’m damned tired of getting jammed up with the police on your account!”

Everyone in the big room turned to stare at them.

Brennan’s long, heavy face hardened: his eyes were cold, steady. He said slowly: “Okay, Johnnie.” Then he turned and went down the long room towards his desk in the corner near the door.

As he passed the switchboard the operator said: “Mrs Smith called you twice,” in a stage whisper.

Brennan nodded vacantly. “Well, well — Mrs Smith. Probably one of the Chicago Smiths. Did she leave her number?”

The girl shook her head.

“Why not? Haven’t I asked you a thousand times to get numbers?” The girl’s blank face twisted to something that was meant to be a sarcastic sneer. She said with exaggerated sweetness: “She wouldn’t leave it. She said she’d call again.”

“How long ago was the last call?”

“About twenty minutes.”

Brennan went to his desk, sat down.

He took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the bottom drawer, took out a quart bottle with about four inches of whiskey in its bottom and set it on the desk in front of him. Then he fished around in the drawer until he found a nickel-plated folding cup; he filled the cup with whiskey, drank it slowly and with very evident relish.

The phone on his desk buzzed. He glanced across at the switchboard girl; she nodded sweetly. He took up the receiver and said, “Hello,” and listened.

The voice was Joice Colt’s. She said: “I’ve called you several times but you weren’t in. I’m sorry I got you mixed up in this, Cy. I lied to you. I gave Barbara that stuff. I was going to beat it but I saw you in the drug store an’ it looked like a swell opportunity to put the finger on Harley. The man who slugged you was a friend of mine — he was waiting for me in the lobby when I took you upstairs. He thought it was a pinch an’ he came up and listened outside the door and heard you on the telephone an’ then he was sure it was a pinch. He busted in an’ smacked you down before I could stop him. We’ve got a car — we’re going places fast right now — far places. I could never beat that case. I just wanted to tell you so you wouldn’t get yourself into any more trouble on my account — an’ I’m sorry, Cy...”

Brennan’s voice was low, metallic. He said: “They’re making you say that, Joice. They’ve got a rod in your back an’ they’re making you say it. Try to give me some kind of slant on where they’ve got you. Are you uptown?”

“Yes.” There was a sudden sharp sound on the wire, like a needle drawn crosswise over a phonograph record. Joice Colt’s voice went on: “But I did, Cy — I did it. I — “ There was a click of disconnection.

Brennan reached the switchboard in something like three steps. He grabbed the operator by the shoulder, said, “Trace that call — quick,” so rapidly that words were all run together into one word.

The girl stared at him with dazed dull eyes.

Brennan’s eyes were bright, wild; he raised his hands and for a moment it looked very much as if he were going to strangle her. He yelled: “For the love of God! Quick! This is a matter of life and death! — can’t you get that through that peroxide!”

The girl’s face was almost equally divided between fight and the sarcastic sneer. She pressed in a plug, lisped, “Supervisor,” into the mouthpiece.

The few scattered men at desks at the end of the room had turned to watch them. As the girl went on in a low voice into the mouthpiece and Brennan stood silently, tensely beside her, they turned back to their work.

In about a minute the girl pulled out the plug, turned to Brennan. “It was a pay station — Bradhurst exchange,” she said. “That’s in Harlem. The supervisor’s going to call me back with the number in a minute.”

Brennan nodded, grunted: “Thanks.” He went slowly back to his desk, sat down and poured the rest of the whiskey into the cup. He drank it slowly, put the cup back into the drawer and dropped the empty bottle into the wastebasket. Then he sat staring thoughtfully at his hands.

It was a quarter after nine when Brennan got out of a cab near the corner of One Hundred and Thirty-sixth Street and Seventh Avenue. He paid the driver, crossed the street and shook hands with a slim blond young man who stood at the curb.

The young man ginned broadly, said: “Howdy, Cy.”

“Swell.” Brennan relighted his cold cigar. “Been waiting long?”

The young man shook his head. “Came up on the subway — that’s faster than a cab. I been here about ten minutes.”

Brennan said: “Listen Nick — we’ve got a big night ahead of us. All you need to know about it for now is that I’m going to stick Harley for the murder of Lou Antony’s wife. The Law figures a friend of mine, Joice Colt, did it — they’re looking for her. Harley or Harley’s men have got her but she knows too much for them to turn her in so — knows what they’ll do to her. A little while ago they made her call me a fake a confession — figured I’d go to it an’ drop the Harley angle I guess. The call came from a little bar around the corner” — Brennan gestured with his head — “on a Hundred an’ Thirty-seventh. That’s where we’re going first.”

Nick said: “Fine.”

They went around the corner down the dimly lighted street. The bar was about a third of the way down the long block — a dingy place with a frosted plateglass window. There were two pool tables crowded into a narrow space with a door at the farther end leading into a room at the back of the place. In the back room was a short imitation mahogany bar. There were a dozen or more Negroes around the pool tables, but when Brennan and Nick went into the back room there was no standing at the bar. There was a phone booth at the end of the bar nearest the door.

The bartender, a squat chocolate-colored man with polished hair, slid off his stool at the far end of the bar, came down to them and smiled ingratiatingly.

Brennan said: “Beer.”

Nick nodded and the bartender drew two tall headed glasses of beer from the spigot, set them on the bar.

Brennan’s eyes were cold, lusterless; they caught the Negro’s eyes, held them. There was little expression in Brennan’s face. The Negro smiled meaninglessly.

Brennan said: “About a half hour ago a lady used your telephone.” He jerked his head slightly towards the booth. “Who was with her — and where did they go?”

The Negro’s face was blank. He stuck his thick lips out, shook his head slowly. “Ah don’t know, sah,” he said. “They’s been a lot of people use that phone tonight.”

Brennan leaned slightly forward across the bar. “Who was with her and where did they go?” He spoke like an automaton, barely moving his mouth.

The Negro shook his head.

Nick said: “Think hard.” He had not appeared to move but he held a small Luger against the right side of his chest, its muzzle focused steadily on the Negro’s stomach. Brennan stepped over to the door leading to the poolroom. He stood for a moment in the opening, then closed the door, slipped a bolt in the lock and came back to the bar.

The Negro’s mouth opened slowly; his eyes moved from the Luger to Nick’s face, back to the Luger. He stammered: “Ah don’ know who they was.”

Nick did not move, nor speak; he took the cigar out of the corner of his mouth, held it between his fingers on the bar in front of him, stared at the Negro.

The Negro glanced once, hurriedly, towards the door of the room; then his eyes moved back to the Luger and he said: “One of the men was Ernie White — he works at the Gateway, down the street. Ah don’t know who the other one was. He was a big fella. He tol’ me to forget about them comin’ in but ah don’ see as it’s any of mah business.”

Brennan said: “Right.” He put a quarter on the bar, put the cigar back into his mouth. Nick slid the Luger under his coat, back into its holster; they went out of the place.

The small neon sign of the Gateway glittered about a half-block east, on the other side of the street.

Nick asked: “Ain’t the Gateway the place they used to call Ike an’ Jerry’s?”

Brennan nodded.

“Harley backed their places,” Nick went on, “an’ even if the joint has changed hands, I’ll bet he’s got a cut in it.”

Brennan grinned, relighted his cigar, said: “We’re getting warm.”

They crossed the street, went towards the Gateway.

Brennan pushed the button and after a minute or so a five-inch slit in the heavy door opened, two wide-set brown eyes surveyed them dispassionately.

Nick said: “Is Jerry here?”

The eyes moved horizontally back forth. “Jerry ain’t been here fo’ three months — This is the Gateway, now.”

“We’ll come in an’ have a drink.”

The eyes moved horizontally. “We ain’t open yet — we open at eleven.”

Nick said: “Aw, nerts! We want a drink now. Is Ernie White here?”

“Uh-huh — he’s heah. You know him?” The eyes moved up and down.

Brennan nodded.

The slit was closed, the door opened. They went through a short, wide passageway into a square room. The ceiling was low, the lighting indirect and soft. There was an elevated orchestra platform in one corner and a small square dance floor in the center. The walls were painted with wide vertical stripes of black and silver.

Brennan and Nick sat down at a little round table at one corner of the dance floor. The man who had let then in, a cream-colored Negro in dinner clothes, went to a table at the back of the room where a half dozen waiters were sitting; one of the waiters got up and came over and took their order. Brennan ordered straight Scotch and Nick ordered a whiskey sour.

The cream-colored Negro disappeared through a door near the orchestra platform and in a little while he came out with two men. One was fat and an entirely bald mulatto. The other was Ed Harley.

Harley was big, good looking. His dark curly hair was combed straight back from a wide, high forehead, his nose was straight, well cut; his eyes were wide, candid, smiling. He crossed the dance floor swiftly, said: “Well, well — Brennan — it’s good to see you.”

Brennan smiled up at him, said: “This is Mister MacRae — Mister Harley.”

Harley held out his hand and Nick took it without standing up, bobbed his head. Harley sat down, moved his smile to Brennan. “What’re you doing so far uptown at this time of the night?” he asked. “Things don’t get going up here until two or three o’clock.”

Brennan said: “We’ve got a date with Joice Colt.”

Harley’s face became very serious. “You shouldn’t kid about it Brennan,” he said — “the poor kid’s in a bad jam.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Do you know where she is?” Harley was leaning forward.

“Sure.” Brennan nodded slowly.

Harley’s eyes brimmed with sincerity. “I’d like to help her,” he said. “I’d like to help her get away — or something. Is there anything I can do?”

Nick said: “You can put your hands on the table.” Nick had tilted his chair back; his hands were deep in the pockets of his dark blue coat. The cloth of the right pocket bulged and a dark blunt point protruded towards Harley.

Harley cleared his throat. “Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for,” he said slowly. He looked up and back of Nick. The fat bald Negro who had come in with Harley was leaning against a table and he held a heavy nickel-plated revolver in front of his big paunch. His bulging eyes were fixed in white bloodshot vacancy on the back of Nick’s head; the nostrils of his wide, flat nose were flared. The cream-colored Negro in dinner clothes had circled to the outer door. He, too, held a revolver, and as Harley moved his head slightly, he came forward and stood about ten feet back of Brennan.

The waiters, at the table against the wall, whispered together and then were suddenly silent. The waiter who had taken Brennan and Nick’s order came in through one of the swinging doors to the kitchen with two drinks on a tray; he stared at Harley and at the fat Negro and then started back into the kitchen.

Harley said: “Bring the gentlemen their drinks.”

The waiter came over and put the glasses on the table and went back into the kitchen.

Brennan took the cigar out of his mouth and put it in an ashtray on the table. “You murdered Barbara Antony,” he said. He spoke without looking at Harley, his eyes were fixed on the white tablecloth. “You made it look like suicide — the suicide motive looked like a cinch, with Lou getting out of the pen and Barbara being scared of him and all. You thought Joice would back up the suicide slant but she didn’t go for it so big — and when your man came up to smash the glass you’d been careless enough to leave in one piece, he slugged me and took Joice with him so she couldn’t talk, and so it would look like she’d given Barbara the junk and ducked.”

Harley smiled sadly, shook his head. “Brennan, you’re off your nut,” he said.

“You’ve got Joice,” Brennan went on — “here or someplace. You made her pull that confession act for me over the phone from the little joint down the street because you were afraid I’d trace the call — an’ you didn’t think that nigger would talk...”

Harley interrupted, spoke with elaborate patience as if reasoning with a child: “In the first place, Brennan, I was at the Glass Slipper from five until seven-fifteen—”

Brennan said: “I’ll lay ten to one I can break that alibi.”

Harley shook his head again.

“And what’s more,” Brennan went on — “I’m so sure I can break it, an’ I’m so sure it happened the way I’ve said that I’ve written the story — it runs tomorrow, with swell pictures of you an’ Barbara in four colors.”

Harley laughed. Then he said very seriously, “Brennan, you’re crazy. If you run that story I’ll sue that cheap sheet of yours for every nickel it’s got. I’ll run you and Johnson and your whole damned outfit out of the newspaper business — out of New York, by God!”

“I’ll take that chance.” Brennan smiled easily, glanced up at the fat Negro behind Nick. “It’d be a swell clincher, an’ Johnson could write a pip of a finish for my story if anything should happen to Nick or me.” He turned his smile to Harley. “Johnson knows where we are — and he knows we’re after evidence against you.”

Harley did not answer.

Brennan went on: “Don’t you think you’d better have your boyfriends put those cannons away? They make me nervous.”

Harley stood up slowly. “You get to hell out of here Brennan” he said — “you and your two-bit gunman.” He glanced contemptuously down at Nick. “And go ahead with that story and see what happens to the Eagle. Go on — beat it!”

Brennan shook his head. He said: “Uh-huh. We came after Joice — we’ll take her with us.”

No one moved or spoke for perhaps ten seconds; then Brennan took his glass of whiskey up from the table and drained it.

Harley was very white. The skin was drawn tightly over his jaw muscles, his mouth drawn to a thin line. He twisted his body towards Nick slowly and then his face relaxed, puckered to a thin, forced smile. He said: “Okay.” He shook his head at the cream-colored Negro. “You and Ernie wait down here.” He jerked his head at Brennan and turned and went towards the door near the orchestra platform.

Brennan and Nick got up; Nick went swiftly behind Harley to keep close to him and Brennan followed more slowly. They went into a small office and Brennan closed the door; they crossed the office to another door, went through to a dimly lighted hallway and up two flights of heavily carpeted stairs. Harley knocked at a door at the end of the dark second-floor hallway. The door opened and Harley went in and Nick went in directly behind him. Nick had taken the small Luger out of his pocket, held it against Harley’s back. Brennan stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame.

The room was very large, very dimly lighted. There was a floor lamp with a deep red shade that threw a circle of warm light on a couch against one wall. Joice Colt was lying on the couch. She lay on her side and her eyes were nearly closed; her mouth was curved to a drunken and meaningless smile.

There was a man standing just out of the circle of light. There was not enough light to see him very clearly but he was a very tall man and there was something in the way he stood that made Brennan sure he was the man who had knocked him out in Joice’s room. Another figure, who in the semidarkness appeared to be a Negro woman, had opened the door; she stood with her hand on the edge of the door and her head was turned towards Harley and Nick.

Harley said: “Put it away, Sam.”

As Brennan’s eyes became used to the darkness he saw that the tall man held a gun in his hand — the same short, blunt automatic he had used on Brennan.

The tall man was silent, did not move.

“Put it away.” Harley’s toned was plaintive. “This guy” — he jerked his head at Nick who stood very close behind him — “is itching to let me have it.”

A new thin voice said sarcastically, “Fancy that!” from the darkness beyond the Negress.

At the same instant Harley whirled, grabbed Nick’s arm; there were two spurts of bright yellow flame in the darkness, and deep beating sound. Harley and Nick were locked in a low, savage dance; Nick’s gun roared, belched yellow flame. As Brennan went forward the lamp was struck, the room went black, lighted only by the searing yellow glare of gunfire. Brennan dimly saw Harley and Nick topple, fall, still locked together; then it felt as if something exploded in the top of his head, the darkness was split by a great blinding light and he fell forward, down, into nothingness.

The high-pitched brassy music of a phonograph came to Brennan before he opened his eyes. He listened to it a long time. It sounded very far away. His head was one vast pain and he did not want to open his eyes because it might hurt more. He was lying on his back and he moved one hand up slowly and felt his face; it was wet and sticky and he thought about it a little while and knew that it was blood. It was very hard to think.

After a while he opened his eyes and looked up at a dingy ceiling of another room. He knew when he opened his eyes that the phonograph was not far away, but was in the room, and he turned his head very slowly and saw it — a small garishly decorated box — on a table across the narrow room.

Brennan was lying on the floor and he painfully turned his head a little more and saw the fat, bald Negro who had been with Harley. He was lying across a low couch with a pile of cushions behind his back and shoulders; his big shiny head propped up against the wall. His bulging, heavy-lidded eyes were fixed on Brennan; as Brennan looked at him he lifted a brown wisp of cigarette to his thick lips, inhaled deeply. The air was blue-gray and heavy with the acrid smell of marijuana.

The phonograph went suddenly into the tonal contortions of running down. A door behind the couch opened and the Negress came into the room, crossed to the phonograph and wound it, started the record over again. She glanced down at Brennan, spoke over her shoulder to the fat Negro: “Yo’ boyfrien’ is comin’ around.”

The fat Negro nodded slowly.

Brennan sat up very slowly and carefully. He felt the top of his head gingerly with his fingers; there was a thin raw stripe across his scalp, a throbbing furrow through the thickness of his matted and sticky hair. He looked at his hands and they were dark with blood.

He started to get up and the fat Negro got up swiftly and came over and put his foot on Brennan’s shoulder and shoved very hard; his face was entirely expressionless as he put the middle part of his foot against Brennan’s shoulder and shoved and Brennan crashed into the wall and slid down on his side on the floor. Then the Negro drew back his foot and kicked Brennan very hard in the stomach and ribs. He was breathing very hard and there were little drops of perspiration on his vacant yellow face; he drew his foot back carefully and slowly and then kicked very swiftly and hard several times. Brennan groaned once, lay still.

The Negro turned and went back to the couch and sat down. He sat on the edge of the couch with his elbows on his knees and chin in his hands, stared at Brennan.

The Negress had turned from the phonograph to watch him. She shook her head slightly and said, “That ain’t good,” as if to herself; then went to him and reached down and took the thin cigarette out of the corner of his mouth and took several deep drags.

Brennan groaned and rolled over on his stomach. Very slowly he raised himself to his hands and knees, leaned against the wall.

The hoarse feminine voice of the phonograph blared to metallic crescendo: “Underneath the Harlem moon...”

The Negro got up and went to Brennan again and put his boot on his back and pressed him down to the floor. He looked back at the woman and grinned, and then he kicked the side of Brennan’s head hard, once.

Brennan did not groan anymore, nor move.

The Negro stood over him a moment, then turned and went to a door on the far side of the room. He said: “Ah’m goin’ up an’ see how Cappy is — be back in a minute.” He went out and closed the door.

Brennan stirred; he slid one hand along the floor slowly and touched the side of his mashed bloody face, put his hands flat on the floor and raised his body. It took him almost a minute to get to his hands and knees by bracing himself against the wall, working slowly a little higher, a little higher. His breath came in short, rattling gasps.

The woman stood in the middle of the room with the marijuana cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She watched Brennan with wide, hard, fascinated eyes as one might watch a complicated and difficult acrobatic stunt.

Then Brennan stood up. He held on to a small table against the wall and pulled himself up very slowly and leaned against the wall and the table. His face was a dark mask of bruised, bleeding flesh, his eyes bright, shiny, insane; he swayed back and forth drunkenly and stared at the woman. Then he lurched towards the door and the woman screamed; she ran past him to the door and pulled it a little open, screamed again.

Brennan crashed against the door, slammed it shut. He fumbled for the key and as the woman whirled and clawed at him he swung one arm in a wide arc, his forearm struck her throat and she slide sidewise along the wall, down to one knee. Brennan found the key and turned it, jerked it out of the door. He turned and staggered across the room and the woman got up and ran after him and threw her arms around his neck, dragged him down to the floor; her nails ripped across his face. He braced himself against the side of the couch and savagely threw her off; her head struck the phonograph stand and it tippled over, the tinny voice of the blues singer came to an abrupt end. The woman lay still.

Brennan again struggled to his feet. He drew the back of his hand across his face, started towards the door on the far side of the couch and crashed blindly into the wall. There was sudden pounding on the outside of the door, a muffled shout. Brennan felt his way along the wall the little distance to the other door, went through and closed and locked the door behind him. He vaguely registered that he was in a dimly lighted bedroom, lurched across to the one window and opened it.

It was raining a little. Brennan could see the indistinct outline of a roof about five feet below the window; he could not tell whether it came all the way under the window or not — it was very dark there. He got his legs somehow through the window and sat on the sill, and then he took a deep breath and pushed himself forward hard, with his hands and arms. He landed in a heap on the sloping graveled roof, crawled slowly, painfully down the slope. When he came to the edge he could see nothing but darkness beneath him, but a little light from a window some distance away made him feel in a dazed way that he wasn’t very far above the ground. He worked himself carefully over the edge and tried to hold on to the rough wet gravel with his hands to let himself down slowly, but he could not hold on very long. He fell.

He landed on his back in mud, and after a while he rolled over and got to his hands and knees and started crawling. He did not know where he was crawling; he crawled forward. Several times he stopped and sank down in the mud; the darkness went around him and it was full of bright blinding flashes and he thought he was going to vomit, but the feeling would pass and he would get up and crawl ahead.

After a long time he saw the reflection of light ahead and he went on a little faster and then he thought he heard a voice and there were hands on his body and he fought the hands, but there were too many of them, and he sank finally into a deep pool of darkness and hands and confused voices.

A voice that Brennan did not know said: “I’ll come back early this afternoon — change the dressings. He’ll be all right.”

Nick’s voice said: “Sure, he’ll be all right — he’s too tough.”

Brennan opened his eyes, squinted up at Nick; he could see with only one eye — he pulled one hand up slowly and felt his face. There was a bandage over all one side of his face; one eye was covered.

Nick grinned down at him. “How d’ya feel?”

Brennan grunted, “Swell,” as though he didn’t mean it very much.

Johnson’s square pink face, and the thin, bony face of a stranger leaned over the bed.

Nick’s head jerked towards the stranger. “This is Doc Chapell.”

Brennan nodded slightly.

The doctor said: “You stay in bed — I’ll be back this afternoon.”

His face disappeared and his voice said, “So long,” and then there was the sound of the door opening and closing.

Brennan lifted his head a little and looked around the room; it was his own room at the Park Royal. He asked: “What time is it?”

Johnson glanced at his heavy yellow watch. “Nine twenty-five.”

“Huh?” Brennan’s exposed eye opened wide. “It’s morning...” He started to sit up in bed and it felt suddenly as if the ceiling had fallen on his head. He lay back, closed his eyes, moaned: “I’ve got to do the story.”

Nick said: “I thought you’d done it. You told Harley—”

“Don’t be a sap.” Brennan scowled with his eye closed — “I said that to throw a scare into Harley.”

Johnson picked up the phone, said: “You can’t get up. I’ll call the office and have Renée come over — you can give her the story.” He dialed a number, mumbled into the phone.

Brennan opened his eyes and pulled the bandage a little off the covered one, stared up at Nick.

“So what?”

Nick said: “A copper found you crawling down an alley in the next block to the Gateway. He called an ambulance. We were leaving the Gateway after the pinch an’ we heard the ambulance an’ came over around the corner, an’ there you were — large as life — looking like you’d been run through a meatgrinder.”

“What do you mean, ‘pinch’?”

“We raided the Gateway...”

Brennan said: “How about beginning at the beginning?”

“I saw you go down when the fireworks started — upstairs,” Nick went on. “I don’t know whether I winged Harley or slugged him — he was pretty limp. I know I got the big guy — I didn’t know it then but I know it now...”

Johnson hung up the receiver, interrupted: “That was Sam Kerr — used to be a houseman at Harley’s joint on Long Island. He’s very dead.”

Brennan nodded.

“Every time I’d move,” Nick went on, “somebody — the guy who cracked ‘Fancy that!’ an’ started shooting, I guess — would take a shot at me. The light had been smashed an’ it was plenty dark. I was scared to shoot back because I wasn’t sure where you were, so I just laid there an’ didn’t breathe. I figured you were all washed up, from the way you fell — but I couldn’t be sure...”

Brennan moved his eyes to Johnson, said: “Order me some coffee, Johnnie.”

Johnson went to the house phone.

Nick sat down on the edge of the bed, lighted a cigarette. “In a little while I got tired of lying there doing nothing so I started edging in the direction I figured the door to be. The door was still open as far as I knew — it was dark in the hall, too. The dinge gal who had opened the door was moanin’ an’ groanin’ — carrying on something terrible — I figured the direction of the door from that. I finally found the door an’ there wasn’t anything to do but go on out.”

Brennan nodded.

Nick grinned sheepishly. “I didn’t want to leave you there but there wasn’t anything else to do — if I struck a match to find out where an’ how you were, that guy would’ve popped me sure — that didn’t make good sense.”

Nick looked appealingly at Brennan.

Brennan laughed, said: “For the love of God, go on, Nicky. Of course you couldn’t do anything else — you did exactly right.”

Nick looked immensely relieved.

Johnson turned from the house phone and came over and sat on the other side of the bed. He said: “Coffee coming up.”

“I crawled on down the hall,” Nick went on, “an’ on downstairs. The door to the Gateway office was locked so I went on out the street door an’ got to a telephone—”

“Wasn’t there anybody outside the joint?” Brennan interrupted — “Didn’t anybody hear that barrage?”

Nick shook his head. “I guess the whole layout is soundproof.”

Johnson said: “Those cabarets have to be soundproof if they’re in a building that anybody lives in — city ordinance.” He took off his glasses, polished them with a handkerchief. “Nick called me,” he went on, “and I called Centre Street and told ’em we located Joice Colt in Harley’s place uptown.” Johnson smiled. “I didn’t tell ’em you were in on it, because I’d just finished telling the chief I’d canned you. Then I hopped a train uptown and when I got there they were smashing down the door upstairs.” He put his glasses on.

They were silent a moment; Brennan was looking at Johnson, waiting for him to finish.

Nick shook his head, smiled faintly, said: “We didn’t find a thing, Cy — except Sam Kerr. Everybody else was gone. If it hadn’t been for Kerr, an’ a lot of bullets in the wall, the coppers would of thought it was a pipe dream. I guess Harley wasn’t much hurt — anyway — he was gone — an’ Colt an’ the guy that started shooting an’ the black gal. An’ there wasn’t anybody downstairs either — they’d all beat it.”

Brennan stared at the ceiling. He said slowly: “Well, anyway — we know my hunch was okay. Harley’s our man — my story will make that plenty clear—”

Johnson interrupted: “Your story isn’t going to prove it.”

“I’ll attend to that when they pick up Harley.”

“They’re not even going to pick up Harley — we haven’t been able to tie him up with Gateway yet. Joice Colt is still it so far as the police are concerned.

Brennan muttered: “The dumb bastards.“ Then he raised himself carefully, leaned on one elbow. “The story will stick Harley an’ put Colt in the clear — and it’ll be so tight nobody will be able to ignore it...”

Nick said “It won’t do her much good being in the clear if we don’t find her before Harley puts her out of the way.”

Brennan looked at Johnson. “Put everybody you can spare on locating her, will you, Johnnie?” He said. “Or locating Harley — where we find one, we’ll probably find the other.”

Johnson nodded.

“You go over to the Glass Slipper, Nick,” Brennan went on, “an’ check on the alibi Harley framed there yesterday. Put the old scare on whoever was in on it.”

Nick said: “Right.”

Someone knocked at the door and Nick got up and let a waiter in. The waiter put a tray with three pots of steaming coffee on the bed table, poured the coffee and held the check for Brennan to sign. When he opened the door to go out Renée Jackman came in. She was very tiny, very dark; had the reputation of being one of the best editorial secretaries in the newspaper business.

She looked at Nick and Johnson and came over to the bed, looked down at Brennan with wide, soft eyes, said softly: “Poor baby.”

Johnson pulled a chair close to the bed for her; she sat down and crossed trim silken legs, opened a notebook and held a pencil poised tremulously in midair. She smiled. “Ready, set, go...”

Nick was at the door. He said: “I’ll call you, Cy,” went out.

Johnson picked up one of the cups of coffee and offered it to Renée; she shook her head. Johnson gulped down most of it, put on his hat. He said: “I’ve got to get back to the office. Hurry it up, Cy.”

Brennan bobbed his head up and down. He was stirring sugar into his coffee.

Johnson turned at the door. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, “that I had a man at the depot when the Atlanta train came in. Antony was on it — he went to the Curson Hotel on Fifty-fifth.”

Brennan grunted “Uh-huh” over the edge of the coffee cup. Then he called after Johnson, who had opened the door: “Have somebody try to spot the place they took me after I was creased. Maybe it was next door to the Gateway or across the alley. Maybe you can pick up something there.”

Johnson nodded, went out and closed the door.

Brennan finished his coffee, put the cup back on the tray and leaned back against the pillows. He smiled at Renée.

She smiled back, raised the pencil again. “Ready, set, go...”

At about a quarter of eleven Nick called.

Brennan had finished dictating the story; Renée was sitting at the broad desk typing it for a final okay. She looked up and watched Brennan grin into the telephone, grunt affirmatively.

He hung up finally; turned to her. “Nick says there isn’t anyone at the Glass Slipper who saw Harley there between five and seven. They say if he was there he was in his office and nobody can swear to that.”

She nodded, went on with her typing.

Somebody knocked at the door and Brennan called “Come in.” Renée said: “It’s locked I guess.” She got up and opened the door and Joice Colt came into the room.

She stood inside the door and stared dully at Renée and then moved her eyes slowly to Brennan.

Renée closed the door.

Joice Colt went across the room and stood with her hands on the foot of the bed looking down at Brennan. Her eyes were wide, opaque; her face dead white. She said: “Harley is dead.” Then her eyes went back in her head and she slumped down softly to the floor.

Brennan got up as swiftly as he could and knelt beside her, said: “Bring me the bottle of whiskey in the closet” over his shoulder to Renée. Renée brought the whiskey and Brennan poured some of it between Joice Colt’s pale clenched lips; with Renée’s help he lifted her and put her on the bed. After a minute or so she opened her eyes.

Brennan was leaning over her. He said: “Where? How?...”

There was no flicker of understanding in Joice Colt’s eyes; Brennan whispered “Harley” and very slowly intelligence and life came back into her face. She laughed a little.

Brennan poured a stiff drink and she took the glass, eagerly, drained it.

“They thought I was so full of weed I didn’t know where I was — I didn’t know what was going on” she said. “But I knew, I knew...” She spoke swiftly, huskily; she seemed to want to say everything at once. “I remember when you came in — an’ then the little fella started shooting an’ I saw you fall. Then it was dark and I could hear people crawling in the darkness and I could hear the Negro girl moaning and I thought she had been hit — but she was only scared.”

Renée was standing at the foot of the bed staring at Joice Colt; Brennan was sitting on the side of the bed in his pajamas and his bandaged head and bruised face were thrust towards Colt.

“Then after a while somebody said ‘He’s gone’ and they were talking about the man that came in with you, I think — and they turned on another light. You were bleeding terribly and I thought you were dead, and Sam Kerr was dead, and the Negro girl was still groaning — but she was only scared. Harley got up and he and the little fella looked at you and you were alive and the little fella put his gun down by your head, but Harley said ‘No.’ Then two Negroes came in and Harley told one of them — the big fat man — to pick you up and take you someplace, and he told the girl to go along...”

Brennan asked: “Take me where?”

“I don’t know — over to Cappy’s, or somewhere that sounded like that.” Joice Colt put her hands up and jerked off her small tightfitting hat. “Then Harley made me get up and took me downstairs an’ out the back way. His car was out there. He thought I was so full of the stuff that I didn’t know what it was all about. I was pretty high — but not that high.”

She paused, glanced at the bottle; Brennan poured her another drink.

“Harley drove over to the river,” she went on. “I guess his idea was to slug me an’ roll me in — he drove out on a little dark wharf an’ stopped the car.” She tilted the glass to her mouth, drank most of the whiskey. “An’ then a guy who’d been lying down on the floor in the back of the car got up and stuck a rod into the back of Harley’s neck an’ said: ‘Stick your hands up, you — an’ get out of the car.’ The guy got out behind him and walked him over to the edge of the wharf and I could hear them talking there, but I couldn’t make out what they said. Then there were two shots close together an’ the guy came running back to the car. He looked at me and I acted like I’d passed out — I’d been riding that way, slumped down in the seat, since Harley brought me out of the joint — and he figured I was out cold an’ hadn’t recognized him, I guess. He beat it back up the street.”

Brennan was leaning forward; his eyes were bright, interested. “Who?”

“Lou Antony.”

Brennan smiled thinly, stood up. He said: “You’re nuts — Antony didn’t get in town till this morning.”

She repeated: “Lou Antony. He looks like a skeleton — like he was awfully sick — but I’d know that face anywhere.” She finished her drink.

Brennan glanced at Renée, turned back. “Why, damn it, Joice — that doesn’t make sense...”

Joice Colt said slowly: “Oh, yes, it does.”

Brennan was staring at her with wide bewildered eyes.

“Harley didn’t kill Barbara,” she went on, “Antony did. He beat Harley to it.”

Brennan sat down slowly in the chair beside the bed; he was smilingly slightly, mirthlessly, shaking his head slowly back and forth.

Joice Colt sat up and leaned against the head of the bed. “Harley called me late yesterday afternoon,” she said — “said he wanted to see me, to come over to his office at the Slipper. I went over about five-thirty. We had a few drinks an’ he hemmed and hawed about letting bygones be bygones and giving me a job and things like that. I couldn’t figure what it was all about an’ after a while I got suspicious, an’ while Harley was in the bathroom I scrammed out of the place. When I got back to the hotel an’ found Barbara dead I figured Harley for it right away. He’d called me over to the Slipper so I’d be out of the way, an’ at the same time establish his alibi while one of his hoods came up an’ did for Barbara. I told you I called him right away — I did, but at the Slipper, not at the hotel. He’d left the Slipper. I went downstairs, figuring I might catch him coming in, an’ I ran into you—”

Brennan interrupted suddenly: “Sure, sure — so what? Harley’s still it. He had one of his men kill her, even if he didn’t do the actual job himself...”

She shook her head. “No. He planned for one of his boys to do it — Sam Kerr — but Kerr was too late. He went up about six o’clock, when he was sure I was safe at the Slipper. He wasn’t going to poison her — that isn’t the way Harley’s mind works — he was going to choke her or cave in her head or something gentle and quiet like that. Kerr was the kind of lad Harley would pick for a job like that. When he got there he knocked at Barbara’s door an’ there wasn’t any answer, an’ he’d been officed that we were practically living together so he went to my door, but there were voices inside — a man’s voice an’ Barbara’s voice — so he sat down on the back stairs to wait for the man to come out.”

Brennan said: “How the hell do you know all this?”

“This is the way I heard Kerr tell it to Harley — an’ this is the way it was.” She said it very emphatically.

Brennan reached for the bottle and a glass, poured himself a drink.

“In a little while the man came out,” she went on, “and went downstairs past Kerr. Kerr didn’t pay any particular attention to him — figured he was one of Barbara’s casual boyfriends — but he saw enough of him to describe him vaguely to Harley. It was Lou Antony.”

Brennan drank.

Renée had come around and was sitting on the foot of the bed. She said: “You might buy us all a drink.”

Brennan was frowning into space. He handed her a glass and the bottle.

“Kerr went back and knocked at the door,” Joice Colt went on. “Nobody answered an’ he finagled around with a couple of skeleton keys but it was no go — an’ pretty soon he heard the elevator stop at the floor an’ he ducked back down the stairway. He played hide an’ seek with the elevator that way for about ten minutes, working on the lock — and then I came back. He saw me go in, and come out in a couple minutes. He didn’t know what the hell to do — his orders were to knock Barbara off, an’ being a conscientious soul with a one-track mind, he was beginning to think about busting the door in when I came back up with you. He listened outside the door but couldn’t make much sense of what he could hear so he finally knocked at the door an’ came in and sapped you before he even noticed that Barbara was already stiff.”

Brennan asked softly: “What about the glass?”

“What glass?”

“The glass under the bed — the one that had the strychnine in it. It was smashed when I came to.”

She said: “If you had some angle figured out about that glass it was your own idea — you knocked the glass off the table an’ smashed it when you fell.”

Brennan smiled sourly, said: “God! I’m a swell sleuth!” Then he snapped: “Why the hell didn’t you tell me about being with Harley, when you took me up to the room?”

“I didn’t have time.” Joice Colt reached for a cigarette on the bed table, lighted it. “I was trying to figure the thing out by myself — find out where I got off...”

“So what happened after Kerr slugged me?”

“I’m getting to that. Kerr saw that Barbara was dead an’ took it big. He evidently figured his best play was to take me along because he knew I could tie him up to Harley — an’ if I went into a good thorough disappearance it would look like I’d killed Barbara. I think he half figured that I’d killed her, anyway. He hustled me out an’ down the back stairs an’ out the service entrance. He kept close to me and had that rod in his pocket, shoved into my ribs. We got into a cab an’ went to his place over on Sixty-first an’ Lexington and he finally got Harley on the phone an’ told him what had happened. Harley told him to bring me to the joint uptown.”

Brennan was leaning back in the chair, staring bleakly at Joice Colt. He asked: “Who slipped you the reefers?”

“Kerr.” She smiled. “He smokes. I was awful jittery an’ he took pity on me, I guess.” She swung up to sit on the edge of the bed, facing Brennan. “We went uptown and met the fat nigger at the bar across the street from the Gateway, an’ they made me call you. Then they took me down to the Gateway and hustled me upstairs. The girl gave me some more weed — they figured I knew what was going to happen to me, I guess, an’ needed plenty anesthetic.” She put her hands up and patted her hair. “That’s all.”

Brennan got up and walked to the window, stood staring out into the rain. “Where’ve you been all night?” he asked over his shoulder.

“Riding around in a cab — trying to figure out what to do. Then I sat in a speakeasy down the street for a couple hours. Finally I called the Eagle to find out if they had any dope on you — I figured they’d put the chill on you uptown by this time. The telephone girl said you were home, so I took a chance on coming over.” She smiled wanly. “They’re dragging the city for me, according to the papers — I’m plenty hot. I get goose pimples every time I see a uniform. I—”

The phone rang. Joice Colt stiffened nervously, sucked in her breath sharply. Renée started to get up, but Brennan turned and went to the phone. He said: “Hello... Mister Louis? I don’t know any Mister Louis — what does he want?... Personal?... Does he look like a bill collector?... Okay — tell him to wait. I’ll call you back.”

Brennan put the phone down and went back to the window. He stood there a little while and then he turned and went to the desk and picked up the sheaf of typewritten pages that Renée had finished. “Well — I guess I’m the chump in this deal,” he said. “Here’s the swellest story I ever turned in — almost turned in.” He sighed, shook his head. “I ride a hunch, an’ bet Johnnie my job — an’ my life — that I’m right. I make a sucker out of myself for Freberg an’ the Department an’ the whole damned town to give the horse laugh. I bloody near get myself killed — an’ all because I’m sap enough to go into a big sympathy act for a tomato like you.” He inched his head emphatically towards Joice Colt.

She smiled coldly. “An’ because you hated Harley,” she said. “An’ because you think those trick hunches of yours are straight from...”

Brennan said, “Right,” very loudly. His expression was not pleasant. “I’ve played my hunches across the board since I was that high.” He held his hand at the height of his hip descriptively. “They’ve always worked out.” He patted his chest with his hand, went on very dramatically, very seriously: “If I can’t believe in my hunches, I can’t believe in myself!”

Joice Colt grinned broadly at Renée. “He’s delirious.”

Renée was smiling at Brennan. She said softly: “Listen, baby — the Antony slant is as good, or better, than Harley.” She glanced at her watch. “And we can just make it.” She got up and went to him, took the sheaf of pages from him and threw them into the wastebasket, sat down at the desk and put a sheet of paper into the typewriter.

There was a soft drumming of fingernails at the door. Brennan went to the door and opened it and there was a very thin man in a tightly belted dark raincoat standing there. His face was very thin, very gray; his dark eyes were sunken above sharp jutting cheekbones. Water dripped from the brim of his soft black hat, the bottom of his long raincoat.

He came into the room slowly. “I told the girl to announce me as Louis,” he said, “because I wanted to learn the number of your room before you had a chance to misunderstand my visit.” He spoke very precisely, with a trace of accent; his voice had the hollow toneless quality of a sick man. He smiled. “I am Antony.”

He stood quietly while Brennan closed the door. Renée and Joice Colt were staring at Antony with bright interested eyes.

Antony moved his smile from Renée to Joice to Brennan; he asked: “May I sit down?”

Brennan said: “Sure.” He jerked his head towards a chair, crossed behind Antony to a dresser near the door to bathroom, opened the top drawer.

Antony said very quietly, “Don’t do that.” His voice was almost pleading. He had not moved towards the chair; a heavy blue automatic glittered dully in his hand.

Brennan turned his head towards Antony, grinned slowly. “I was going to open a fresh one in your honor,” he said. He kept his eyes on Antony, reached slowly into the drawer and took out a bottle wrapped in tissue paper.

Antony went to the chair and sat down; he held the automatic on his lap.

Brennan tore the wrapper off the bottle, snapped off the cap; he took a fresh glass from the top of the dresser and poured a big drink. As Antony leaned forward to take it he was seized suddenly by a violent fit of coughing; he put the glass on the floor and took out a handkerchief and coughed for perhaps a half minute in a curious rhythmic way.

Brennan poured whiskey into three glasses on the bed table; he turned the chair near the bed to face Antony, sat down and picked up his glass.

Antony’s coughing ended as suddenly as it had started. He smiled apologetically at Brennan, picked up his glass from the floor and drank most of it. He said: “That is a good cough — yes?”

Brennan nodded.

“I have come to tell you something very funny,” Antony went on. He leaned back in the chair and his sunken pain-glazed eyes twinkled momentarily with amusement. “I have become soft, like a woman — I am Antony of whom many men were afraid and I have become soft and sentimental like — what you call it? — a pansy.” He laughed, and the sound was a harsh tearing sound deep in his body; he bent his head a little to one side, stared quizzically at Brennan. “Have you ever wanted something very much and then when you got it it was not very much — and you did not want anything very much?...”

Brennan smiled, shook his head slightly.

Antony went on in the clipped, precisely accented monotone: “For a long time I have wanted to kill two people. It was a fever to me — there was nothing else that was important. I lived for that — I planned it very carefully.” He gestured pointedly with one hand. “Now it is done — and I think there is nothing that is important to me any more.”

Brennan glanced at Joice Colt, drank the whiskey in his glass.

Antony again coughed violently; he leaned forward and held his chest tightly with his hands. When the fit had worn itself out he went on more slowly: “I had arranged it very carefully. I got off the train at Greenville and a friend of mine who looks very much like me took my reservation and my place on the train. I had a plane waiting there and I was flown to a private landing field near Paterson and I got here to New York about five thirty. I went to the Valmouth — I wanted to do it myself, you see — and there was no answer at Barbara’s door and I was about to go when she came to the door across the hall. She had heard me knocking at her door and she came to the door or your room” — he bobbed his head at Joice Colt — “and opened it...”

He leaned back, stroked the arm of the chair lightly with his fingers. “I had a present for Barbara,” he said — “I had a bottle of very fine bourbon to celebrate my homecoming. Barbara liked it very much.” His smile was a not a pleasant thing. “After a while I left Barbara and went to find Mister Harley — and after a while I found him...”

Brennan leaned forward slowly. No one said anything for perhaps a minute and then Brennan asked quietly: “So what?”

Antony shrugged. “This morning I went in a cab to Trenton and got back on the train and my friend stayed in Trenton. Last night I did not have time to read the papers. But I read them this morning and they said Miss Colt was wanted for Barbara’s murder. I do not want that...” He smiled at Joice Colt. “I thought they would think it was suicide. I do not want anyone else to be in trouble — and I have done what I wanted to do — I do not very much care what happens to me now...”

He laughed. “You see — I am soft like a woman. And then, too, I am not very well — I was not very well when I went to prison and” — he tapped his chest lightly with his fingers — “it is very damp down there — I do not think there is very much left of my lungs.” He was grinning broadly at Brennan. “It makes you very soft and sentimental when there is not much left of your lungs...”

Brennan asked: “Why did you think of coming to me?”

Antony shrugged again. “It was in the paper that you were with Miss Colt before she disappeared last night. You are a newspaperman — you would know best how to do this so that my friend who flew me here and my friend who took my place on the train do not become involved. And it is a good story for you — no?”

Brennan said: “No.” He stood up and went to the desk, stooped over and took the sheaf of typewritten sheets out of the wastebasket and tossed them on the desk. “No — that is not a good story,” he said. He tapped the sheets on the desk with the backs of his fingers. “This is the story.” He turned his head to nod at Renée. “Read it.”

Renée began reading in a small choked voice and Brennan went back and sat down. By the time Renée had read to the third page confidence had come back to her and she read well, spoke clearly, swiftly.

Antony was leaning far back in the chair and his eyes were half closed, his mouth was curved to a thin smile.

When Renée had finished they were all silent a little while and Antony said slowly: “It is a very interesting story.” He inclined his head towards Joice Colt. “You are sure it will make Miss Colt in the clear, yes?”

Brennan nodded. “She’s the only one who could have made Harley’s alibi stand up — and now that Harley has, uh, disappeared, the story’s a cinch.” He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees and stared very seriously at Antony. “You are quite sure there can be no leak on your side; I mean about your flying here, or being recognized by anyone yesterday, or anything like that?”

Antony shook his head slowly, said: “Quite sure.”

Brennan glanced at the clock on the dresser; it was eleven thirty-five. He turned to Renée, said: “You’d better hustle over to the office — you can write the finish there, after you get the first part in the work.”

She bobbed her head up and down, stood up swiftly and stuffed the sheaf of paper into her handbag. Her coat was on a chair near the door; she went to it and Antony got up and helped her put it on. She thanked him, said, “So long,” over her shoulder to Brennan and Joice Colt, went out and closed the door.

Antony crossed to Brennan and held out his hand. He had put the automatic back into the pocket of his raincoat and it made a great bulge there against the narrowness of his waist.

He said: “I must go, too.”

Brennan stood up and shook Antony’s hand. They stood silently a little while, smiling at each other a little.

Brennan said: “You’d better see a good doctor.”

Antony stuck out his lips, shrugged slightly, shook his head. “I think there are not any good doctors — for me,” he said. He turned and took Joice Colt’s outstretched hand and pressed it. Then he went to the door, and his shoulders were drooping and he was a very slight, very pitiable little figure going away like that in his tightly belted raincoat. He did not turn at the door; he went out and closed the door softly behind him.

Brennan sat down on the arm of the chair and picked up the telephone, dialed a number. He said: “Hello, Johnnie. Hold everything — Renée’s on the way over... Uh-huh, we were delayed a little. An’ never mind looking for Colt any more — she’s over here — I’m going to take a room for her here where she can lay low for a couple days while we cinch that Harley slant... Uh-huh — an’ I have a hunch they won’t find Harley. I think he’s scrammed — long gone — that’ll make it a lot easier...”

He was silent a little while, listening, and then he laughed heartily, said: “Well you know those old Brennan hunches, Johnnie — they never miss... Okay — I’ll be seeing you.” He hung up, grinned complacently at Joice Colt. “That sheet is gradually getting on to what a valuable man I am,” he said.

She was staring at him with wide hard eyes: one eyebrow was arched to a thin skeptical line, her red mouth curved humorously upward at the corners. She said with broad, biting sarcasm: “The old Brennan hunches — they never miss...”

Brennan laughed. “Well, practically never.” He shook his finger at her emphatically. “I have a hunch right now that you’d like a drink.”

She looked thoughtful a moment, nodded very seriously.

Brennan got up and poured two drinks. He went to the dresser and studied his bruised, discolored face in the mirror a little while and then he went back to the bed table and picked up his glass, gulped down the whiskey.

He blinked, put the glass back on the table and smiled wanly down at Joice Colt.

“That’s over,” he said. “I’m a sick man. I need a rest.”

Trouble-Chaser

Mae lived at the Mara Apartments on Rossmore. It was about nine o’clock when I got there and the party hadn’t got going. I mean by that that nobody was falling down and nobody had been smacked over the skull with a bottle. There were six or seven people there besides Mae and Tony — I didn’t know any of them, which was just as well. Tony opened the door, and made a pass at introducing me, and Mae came in from the kitchen and we went into a big clinch. She was demonstrative that way when she had two or three fifths of gin under her belt, whoever it might be.

Tony fixed me a drink. I took it because I knew better than to argue about a thing like that; I carried it around with me most of the time I was there and when anybody would ask me if I wanted a drink I’d show them the full glass.

Tony was Italian — from Genoa I think. He was very dark and slim, with shiny blue-black hair, bright black eyes, a swell smile. I’d known him for five or six years — I knew him back in New York when he was trying to build up a bottle business around the Grant Hotel. We’d never been particularly friendly but we always liked each other well enough. When he came to California he looked me up and I got him a job running case-stuff for Eddie Garda. I introduced Tony to Mae Jackman when she was a class C extra girl and not doing so well at it. They’d been living together for about a year. Tony was in business for himself and doing well enough to live at the Mara. Mae still worked in pictures occasionally and that helped.

Mae jockeyed me out into the kitchen as soon as she could. She leaned against the sink and sucked up most of a glass of gin and ginger ale and whispered dramatically: “We’ve got to get rid of Tony.”

I am not the most patient person in the world, with drunks. I looked at her with what I hoped would penetrate her gin haze as an extremely disgusted expression.

She went on hurriedly in the stage whisper: “I mean for a minute. I’ve got something I want to show you an’ I don’t want him busting in.” She finished her drink and then with a very wise and meaning look, said, “Wait,” and coasted back into the living room.

I poured the gin in my glass into the sink and filled the glass with ginger ale and ice.

She came back in a minute. “I sent him up to Cora’s to get some ice,” she said. Cora was Mae’s sidekick; she lived upstairs.

Mae steered me through the short corridor into the bedroom and closed the door behind us. She went to the dresser and dug around in the bottom drawer for a minute and came up with a folded piece of yellow paper and handed it to me. I unfolded it and held it under the light at the head of the bed; it was Louis L. Steinlen’s personal check for twenty-five hundred dollars. Steinlen was the executive head of the Astra Motion Picture Company.

I said: “That’s swell, Mae.” I handed the check back to her and she held it with the light shining down on it and looked at it and then looked up at me.

“It’s swell,” she said, “an’ it’s going to be a lot sweller.”

She smiled and her face lost its set drunken look for a moment. She was a very pretty girl and when she smiled she was almost beautiful.

I said: “So what?” I wasn’t very enthusiastic about staying in the bedroom with her because Tony might come back sooner than she expected and he was a long way from being stone sober — I didn’t want him to get any trick ideas.

Mae kept on smiling at me. She said: “So this is the amount” — she bobbed her head at the check — “of your cut for helping me make a deal with Steinlen.”

I had a faint idea of what she was getting at, but not enough to help much. I said: “What the hell are you talking about?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed. “We’re going to sell Steinlen his two-bit check for twenty-five grand,” she said.

I didn’t say anything. I felt like laughing but I didn’t — I waited.

“This little piece of paper,” she went on, “is worth its weight in radium.” She glanced down fondly at the check, then back up at me. She was not smiling any more. “Steinlen has been chasing me for months. Last weekend Tony went up to Frisco on business — I went to Arrowhead with Steinlen — on business.” She smiled again, slowly. She held the check in one hand and whipped the index finger of her other hand with it. “This is a little token of the deal.”

I said: “That’s quite a token.” I liked Mae at that moment about ninety percent less than I’d ever liked her, and she’d never been the kind of girl I’d want to take home and introduce to the folks. I didn’t tell her I thought she’d been extravagantly overpaid — that was pretty obvious. I waited for her to go on and let me in on what I had to do with it all.

She went into a fast song and dance about what a cinch it was going to be to take Steinlen for the twenty-five grand, about how it wasn’t technically blackmail because she was simply exchanging his check — a check that he’d have a hell of a hard time explaining to his wife — for the cash — ten times as much cash. She said the reason she wanted me to come in on it was because she thought I could make the deal better than she could and because we’d have to be careful not to let the twenty-five-hundred-dollar check get out of our hands before we got the cash.

When she finished I grinned at her without any particular warmth and said: “Why don’t you have Tony work with you on this?”

She said: “Don’t be a sap, Red — if Tony knew about this, or found out about it, he’d cut my throat.” Then she went on to cuss Tony out and explain that she was all washed up with him, and had been for a long time — and that she was going to scram to Europe as soon as she got her big dough.

When she got all that out of her system I lit into her and told her that in the first place she was crazy as a bedbug to figure on beating Steinlen out of anything, and in the second place I wouldn’t show in a deal of that kind if it was for a million, and a natural — I was getting along too well legitimately — and in the third place she was an awful sucker to finagle around with something that Tony might find out about before she could get away; I finally wound up by explaining to her, with gestures, that my job was keeping people out of trouble, not getting them into it.

She took it fairly easy. She said she was sorry I couldn’t see it her way, and that she’d have to find somebody else or do it herself. She said that however she worked it, it would have to be done quickly because Steinlen’s wife, who was Sheila Dale the Astra star, was due back from location the next morning — and Steinlen would be psychologically ripe for the touch with his wife coming in. Mae was a bright girl in some ways. It’s too bad she was so full of larceny — bad company I guess.

We went back out into the kitchen and she fixed a drink for herself and started fixing one for me and I showed her my full glass.

She said: “I know I don’t have to tell you to keep this under your hat...”

I smiled and shook my head and drank some of the ginger ale in a kind of silent toast to her success. Then I tried to talk her out of it again in a roundabout way but it was no go — she’d made up her mind. A couple drunks weaved out into the kitchen and Mae mixed drinks for them.

Tony came in while they were there, which was just as well because it didn’t look like Mae and I had been doing our double act all the time he’d been out.

He said: “Cora made me stay an’ have a couple drinks with her. She is very sad and won’t come down.” He went on to explain to me that Cora’s boyfriend had walked out on her, and what a heel he was, and what he, Tony, would do to him if he saw him. Tony’s voice was very soft and he spoke each word very quietly, very distinctly, with just a trace of accent.

I glanced at Mae while Tony was telling me in detail what he would do to Cora’s boyfriend; she was gargling another drink.

I shoved off pretty soon and went down and got into a cab and went back to the Derby. In a little while the fight crowd started drifting in and Franey and Broun and a bookmaker named Connie Hartley came in and we had a few drinks and sat around and told lies. I’d been on the wagon for a couple weeks and I was getting pretty sick of it — I had quite a few drinks. Hartley had some racing forms and Franey and I picked a few losers for Saturday.

After a while Franey and Hartley and I went out to the Colony Club and there was a friend of mine there who was a swell piano player. We listened to him and had a lot more drinks. I got home about four.

I woke sometime around eleven I guess, but I didn’t get up right away. I made a couple phone calls and then tried to get back to sleep but that was out. Finally I rolled over to the edge of the bed and looked down at the extra which had been shoved under the door. By twisting my head around I could read the headline:

ACTRESS STRANGLED IN HOLLYWOOD APARTMENT

I got up then, and sat on the bed and read the story. Mae Jackman had been murdered at around three-thirty in the morning, as near as the police could figure, in her apartment at the Mara. The body had been discovered at eight-thirty by the maid. The dragnet was out for Tony Aricci.

I had breakfast at a little joint down the street a few doors from the hotel. When I went back up to my room there was a man standing in the dim elbow of the corridor just outside my door. It was Tony. He stepped close to me and jabbed an automatic into my belly. I unlocked the door and we went into my room and closed the door.

I said: “What’s it all about?”

Tony’s face was something I still dream about when I have too much lobster and cherry brandy. His usually dark swarthy skin was gray; his mouth was a dark gray slit across the lower part of his face, and his eyes were stark crazy.

When he spoke it sounded like the words were coming up out of a well. He said: “You killed Mae.” There was no intonation — the words were of exactly the same pitch.

I didn’t feel especially good. I edged away from him slowly, sat down very slowly in the chair by the window. While I was doing that I was saying: “For the love of Christ, Tony — where did you get such a dumb idea?”

He said: “If you didn’t kill her you know who did. She’s been calling you for three days. You talked to her alone last night while I was at Cora’s — all the time I was away. There is something I do not know. I have known there was something I did not know for a long time. You must tell me what it is. If you do not tell me what it is I am going to kill you.”

If I have any gift for figuring whether people mean what they say, he meant it. I stalled, lit a cigarette.

I said: “Sit down, Tony.”

He shook his head very sharply.

I went on. “You’re on the wrong track, Tony. If that gang of drunks officed you that Mae and I were in the bedroom while you were upstairs — she took me in to show me the stills on her last picture. We talked about old times...” I leaned forward, shook my head slowly. “I thought you had killed her when I read it in the paper just now. I thought you’d had one of your battles and you’d gone a little too far.”

He wilted suddenly. He fell down on his knees beside the bed and the automatic clattered to the floor and he put his head in his arms on the bed and sobbed in a terrible dry way like a sick animal. He said brokenly and his voice was muffled by his arms, seemed to come from very faraway: “My dear God. My dear God! I kill her! — I kill her who I loved more than anything! Why, my dear God, do they say I killed her?...”

It was embarrassing to see a guy like Tony break down like that. I got up and picked up the automatic and dropped it into the pocket of my topcoat and patted Tony’s shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do and I didn’t know what to say, so I went back and sat down and looked out the window.

Pretty soon Tony got up. He said: “I had to go to Long Beach last night. I left Mae about one-thirty. All the gang had gone home. I did not get back until a little while ago. I stopped at Sardis for breakfast because I did not want to wake Mae up — and I saw the paper.” He cleared his throat. “I am going to Cora. Cora will know something — she will tell me what it is...”

I said: “No. You are not going to do anything like that. You can’t stay here because if the Law finds out I came to your place last night they’ll come here to ask me a lot of questions, but I’m going to take you to a friend of mine upstairs and I want you to stay with her until I come back. I’m going to see what I can do about getting you in the clear and if I can’t do that we will see what we can do about getting you out of town.”

He smiled in a way that was not pleasant to see. He said: “I do not care about the clear, and I do not care about getting away. I care about finding the man who killed Mae and cutting his heart out of his body.”

I nodded and tried to look as if I felt like doing the same thing. I steered him out of the room and we went up the back stairs to the eighth floor and I knocked at Opal Crane’s door. Opal was still in bed; she yelled, “Who is it?” and I told her and in a minute she came to the door and opened it. She was rubbing her eyes and yawning and when I introduced Tony to her and told her I wanted her to let him stay there a little while she didn’t look very enthusiastic.

She jerked her head at Tony, who had sat down and was staring out the window, and said: “Hot?”

I nodded.

She looked a little less enthusiastic and I asked her if she thought I’d ask her to do it if I wasn’t sure it was all right. She shook her head and yawned some more and went into the bathroom.

I said to Tony: “I’ll be back or call you as soon as I can.”

He bobbed his head up and down vacantly and then he said: “Give me my gun.”

I said: “No. You won’t need it, and I might.”

I left him sitting by the window staring out into the gray morning and went out softly and closed the door.

Back in my room I called up Danny Scheyer who is a police reporter on the Post. I asked him to find out all he could about the inside on the Jackman murder, whether the police were satisfied that it was Tony or were working on any other angles, I asked him particularly to find out if a check that might have some bearing on the case had been found on Mae or in the apartment. Scheyer had a swell in at headquarters and I knew he’d get all the dope there was to get. I told him I’d call him again in a little while.

It was almost twelve-thirty and I figured Steinlen would be at lunch but I called up anyway. He was at lunch and I talked to his secretary. I told her I wanted to make an appointment with Steinlen for around one-thirty and she asked what I wanted to see him about. I told her to tell him that Mister Black, from Arrowhead, would be over at one-thirty and that his business was very personal. Then I went over to the Derby and had some more coffee.

I called Scheyer again from the Derby and he said they hadn’t found anything on Mae or in the apartment that meant anything and that it looked like a cinch for Tony Aricci.

I said: “Maybe not.” I told Scheyer he’d get first call on anything turned up and thanked him.

Steinlen was younger than I’d figured him to be — somewhere between thirty-five and forty. He was a thin, nervous man with a long, bony face, deep-set brown eyes. His hands were always moving.

He said: “What can I do for you, Mister Black?”

I leaned forward and put my cigarette out in a tray on his desk and then leaned back and made myself comfortable. I said: “You can’t do anything for me but I can do an awful lot for you.”

He smiled a little and moved his head up and down. “People are doing things for me all the time,” he said, “That’s the reason I’m getting so gray.” He scratched his long nose and then put his hand down on the desk and drummed with his fingers. “What are you selling?”

“I sell peace of mind,” I said. “They used to call me the Trouble-Chaser back East; I kept people out of jams — and when they got into jams I got them out. I worked at it then — now it’s more or less of a hobby.”

He was still smiling. He said: “Go on.”

The way he kept moving his hands made me jumpy. I still had my topcoat on and I was practically lying down in the chair; I had my hand on Tony’s gun in my coat pocket.

I said: “You murdered Mae Jackman.”

His face didn’t change. He stopped drumming on the desk with his fingers and he was entirely still for maybe ten or fifteen seconds. He was looking straight at me and he was still smiling. Then he shook his head very slowly and said: “No.”

I said something a little while ago about a gift for figuring whether people mean what they say. Something like fifteen years of intensive study and research into the intricacies of draw and stud poker are pretty fair training for that sort of thing. I mean I’m not exactly a sucker for a liar, and so help me I believed Steinlen.

I said: “Who did?”

Steinlen shook his head again slowly. “Aricci, I suppose.” By that time my sails were flapping. I’d been so sure Steinlen was it, and now I was so sure he wasn’t — I felt like I’d been double-crossed. Anyway, I wasn’t going to let it go at that. My hunch was that Steinlen was telling the truth but I don’t play my hunches that far. I wanted to know.

I said: “Aricci didn’t do it.” I said it as if I was sure of it.

Steinlen laughed a little. “You are very sure.”

I told him I was very sure and told him why. I told him that if Aricci had killed Mae the check would have figured in it and if Aricci had the check he, Steinlen, wouldn’t be alive to be talking about it.

When I mentioned the check Steinlen’s expression changed for the first time. His face became almost eager. He said: “Are you sure the police did not find the check?”

I nodded.

He asked: “Who, besides yourself, knew about it?”

“Only you,” I said, “and, evidently, whoever has it now.” I lit a cigarette and watched Steinlen’s face. I said: “As long as that check is in existence it’s an axe over your head. If the police get it, it will tie you up with the murder. If Aricci gets it or finds out about it, he’ll kill you as sure as the two of us are sitting here.”

Steinlen was staring blankly out the window. He nodded slightly.

“I think you’d better tell me all you know about the whole business,” I went on. “Maybe I can get an angle.”

He swung around in the swivel chair to face me; he was smiling again. He said: “Did you come here to arrest me?”

I shook my head. “Not necessarily. I wouldn’t put the pinch on anyone unless there wasn’t anything else left to do. I came here convinced that you did the trick and I intended getting it in writing and then giving you about twenty-four hours head start. I wasn’t especially fond of Mae, and I think her check idea was pretty raw, but I like Tony pretty well and I know he’s innocent and I’m not going to have him holding the bag.”

He said: “And you are sure of my innocence, too?”

I smiled a little and said: “Pretty sure.”

He started drumming on the desk again. He said: “Mae telephoned me about two this morning. She was very drunk. She said that Tony had gone out, that she was alone.”

I said: “Uh-huh. Tony went to Long Beach. He left the apartment about one-thirty.”

Steinlen scratched his nose. “Can’t he establish an alibi in Long Beach?”

“Not with the people he was doing business with. They wouldn’t be worth a nickel as an alibi.”

Steinlen nodded, went on: “Mae told me what she wanted — twenty-five thousand dollars in cash. She said if I didn’t give it to her she was going to Mrs Steinlen with my check and tell her that I had seduced her and then tried to buy her off for twenty-five hundred...” He smiled crookedly. “Her idea was very sound — the check was irrefutable proof. Picture producers don’t give extra girls twenty-five-hundred-dollar checks as birthday gifts...”

I said: “That was a very chump piece of business for you to do. How come?”

Steinlen laughed shortly, bitterly, shook his head. “I guess we all think we’re character sharks,” he said. “I thought she was on the level.”

One of the phones on his desk rang and he picked it up and told his secretary to put whoever was calling on. While the connection was being made he said, “Pardon me,” and then he said, “Hello, Sheila,” into the phone. He talked to her for several minutes; he asked her how the location trip had been and whether she had received his last letter. Every fifth word was darling or baby or honey. Finally he asked her if she was coming to the studio and said he’d try to get home early and hung up.

He said; “That was Mrs Steinlen — she just got back from location in Arizona.”

Then he went on about Mae. He said she’d insisted on his meeting her at the corner of Rosewood and Larchmont — she didn’t want him to come to the Mara because somebody might see him come in. The corner of Rosewood and Larchmont was only a couple blocks from the Mara. He explained to her that he couldn’t get the money in the middle of the night, but she was very drunk; she said he’d better get it and hung up on him. He’d decided to meet her and reason with her and talk her out of it until the next day, anyway, so he’d have time to figure out what he was going to do. He went to the corner of Rosewood and Larchmont and waited from two thirty-five until almost four o’clock. She didn’t show, so he figured that Tony had come back and she couldn’t get away; he went home and tried to sleep. The first thing he knew about the murder was when he read it in the paper after he got to the studio, about ten o’clock.

The more he talked the dizzier I got about the whole layout. It would have been a cinch for Tony to start to Long Beach and then sneak back — he was suspicious of Mae, anyway — and catch her going out to meet Steinlen. He would probably have knocked her down and frisked her and found the check and that would have been that. Tony was a pretty bad boy when he was mad. But if that’s the way it had been and Tony had put on that act for me so I’d help him — then Tony was the greatest actor in the world and wasting his time bootlegging. He was not only the greatest actor in the world but I was degenerating into a prize sucker and losing my eyesight.

On the other hand, Steinlen didn’t even have the alibi of having been at home. He said he’d been on the corner of Rosewood and Larchmont from two-thirty-five till almost four. Mae had been killed around three-thirty. Steinlen could have pulled that off very nicely — he didn’t have a leg to stand on, except that I thought he was telling the truth. Maybe Steinlen was the world’s greatest actor. It was a cinch Mae hadn’t strangled herself.

I began to think very seriously about chucking the whole thing — after all, it was none of my business — if I wasn’t careful I’d be getting myself jammed up.

Steinlen said suddenly: “I’ll give five thousand dollars for that check.”

That made it my business. I told Steinlen I’d call him later and left the studio.

Tony had gone. Opal said he’d sat at the window for about a half hour without saying anything and then jumped up suddenly and gone.

I went back down to my room and lay down on the bed and tried to figure things out. Tony and Steinlen were both naturals to have put the chill on Mae, but unless I was entirely screwy neither of them had.

It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I’d been overlooking a bet in Cora. Maybe there’d been some kind of jealous play on Tony that I didn’t know anything about. I remembered how long he’d stayed with her the night before and how much he’d carried on about her guy walking out on her. That might have been a gag to cover up something else. It was a pretty long shot but I was mixed up enough about the whole business by that time to try anything. I called Cora and she wasn’t in. I told the switchboard girl to ask her to call me. Then I lay down again and fell asleep.

When I woke up it was twenty minutes after four and the phone was ringing. It was Bill Fraley; he said Dingo, a horse we’d made a fair-sized bet on the night before, had romped in, we’d won four hundred and thirty dollars apiece. I told him I’d meet him over at the cigar store where Hartley made book and I took a shower and shaved and went downstairs.

When I stopped at the desk for my mail there was a fellow named Gleason — an assistant cameraman that I’d known casually for a year or so — leaning on the counter talking to the clerk. We said hello and I asked him what he’d been doing — and he said he’d just got back from location at Phoenix with the Sheila Dale outfit. He said he was living at the hotel and we gave each other the usual song and dance about calling each other up and getting together real soon, then I went over to the cigar store and met Bill and collected my bet from Hartley. Bill and I went into the Derby and had something to eat. I called up Cora again but she wasn’t in.

After a while I called Steinlen. A man answered the phone in his outer office, instead of the secretary. When he asked who was calling I had a hunch and said Mister Smith and when he asked what I wanted to talk to Steinlen about I said I wanted to talk to him about a bill that was long overdue.

The man said: “Mister Steinlen committed suicide about a half hour ago,” and hung up.

Fraley looked at me and said: “You look like you’d just seen a ghost.”

I told him I had.

Steinlen wasn’t the kind of guy to bump himself off. It looked very much like Tony to me; it looked like whoever had murdered Mae had reached Tony in some way and let him get a flash of the check. They could have explained having the check by saying that Mae had been afraid Tony would find it and had given it to them for safekeeping. In the state of mind Tony was in he’d go for that. It all fitted in with the Cora angle. She’d killed Mae, and when Tony went to her after he left Opal’s she’d shown him the check and told him that that was what Steinlen was after when he killed Mae.

I called up Danny Scheyer again. He said, “What about that scoop?” and I told him to hold everything and give me all the details of the Steinlen suicide. He said Steinlen had shot himself at about five o’clock in his office at the Astra Studio. Mrs Steinlen had been with him at the time and had tried to stop him. She had been unable to give any reason for Steinlen’s act, had been taken home in a hysterical condition. I told Scheyer I’d call him back.

Well, that let Tony out — and it looked very much like it stuck Steinlen. It looked like he’d given Mae the works, in spite of my hunch that he hadn’t. Maybe he hadn’t been able to find the check and was afraid it would turn up, or maybe his wife had found out about the Jackman affair and had figured he murdered her and had faced him with it.

Then Fraley said: “So Steinlen bumped himself off?”

I nodded.

Fraley smiled a little, shook his head. He said: “It’s a wonder he didn’t do it a long time ago — with that bitch wife of his...”

I took that a little. I said: “What do you mean?”

“I mean she’s the original jealous and vindictive female that all the others are copied from; she’s had her spurs in him ever since they were married.” Bill finished his coffee. “She was a plenty bad actor when I knew her back in Chi, and she’s had her nose full of junk for the last couple years — that makes her three times as bad...”

I said: “Heroin?”

Bill bobbed his head.

I said: “I didn’t know about that...”

Bill grinned, said: “You don’t get around very much. You’re the kind of bug they publish the fan magazines for.”

I had an idea. It turned out to be my only good idea for the day, which isn’t saying a hell of a lot for it. I went back over to the hotel and called the cameraman Gleason from downstairs. I asked him if Sheila Dale had come back with the rest of the company.

Gleason said: “Huh-uh. We finished all the scenes she was in yesterday — she flew back last night.”

I went up to my room and got Tony’s automatic. When I went back downstairs Fraley had come over from the Derby and was talking to the girl at the cigar counter. I asked him if he had any idea who Dale got her stuff from and he said he supposed it was Mike Gorman, or at least Gorman would have a line on it. I looked up Steinlen’s home address in the telephone book — and went out and got into a cab.

On the way out to North Hollywood I stopped at the apartment house on Highland Avenue where Gorman lived. A blonde gal in a green kimono came to the door and said Mike was asleep. I said it was important and went past her into the bedroom. Mike was lying on the bed with his clothes on. He was pretty drunk.

The blonde had followed me into the bedroom; I told her I wanted to talk to Mike alone and she made a few nasty remarks and went out.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and asked Mike if he’d been peddling junk to Dale. He laughed as if that was a very wild idea and shook his head and said: “Certainly not.”

I said: “Listen, Mike — something big is going to break and you’re going to be roped into it. If you’ll be on the level about this with me I can fix it.”

He shook his head again and said: “I haven’t sold any stuff for six months. It’s too tough...”

I got up and looked down at him and said: “All right, Mike — I tried to help you.”

When I started out of the room he sat up and swung around to sit on the edge of the bed. He said, “Wait a minute,” and when I turned around and went back he said: “What’s it all about?”

I used a lot of big words and asked him again about Dale and he hemmed and hawed and finally said he wasn’t Dale’s regular connection but he’d sold her some stuff a few times. He said he’d never done business with Dale personally — it was always through her maid, a German girl named Boehme.

I told Mike I’d see that his name didn’t get mixed up with what I referred to mysteriously as the “Case” and went back out to the cab.

On the way out through Cahuenga Pass I had one of those trick hunches that I was being followed but I couldn’t spot anybody and I wasn’t trusting my hunches very much by that time, anyway.

It was pretty dark. The Steinlen house was lit up like a Christmas tree upstairs. I told the driver to wait and walked up the driveway and around to the back door. A big Negress opened the door.

I said: “I want to see Miss Boehme. It is very important.”

The Negress told me to wait and in a minute a very thin, washed-out woman with dull black hair and very light watery blue eyes came to the door, said: “I am Miss Boehme. What do you want?”

I stepped close to her and spoke in a very low voice. I told her I was a friend of Gorman’s, that Gorman had been picked up and that his address book with her name in it as a customer had been found by the police. I told her Gorman had sent word to me to reach all his customers and tell them to get rid of any junk they had around.

She acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about for a minute, but I pressed it and she finally said okay and thanked me.

Then I told her I had an idea how she could beat the whole business and get her name out of it and said I wanted to use the phone. I went past her into the kitchen when I asked about the phone because I didn’t want to give her a chance to stall out of it. I wanted to get into the house.

She looked pretty scared in the light. She took me through the kitchen, through a dark hall, into a little room that was more a library than anything else. I asked her if there were any servants in the house that might be listening in at any of the other phone extensions and she said only the cook — the Negress. She said Mrs Steinlen was upstairs lying down.

The phone was on a stand near one of the windows. There was a big chair beside it and I sat down and picked up the phone. There wasn’t very much light in the room: there were two big heavily shaded floor lamps and one small table lamp on a desk in one corner. There was enough light though to watch the Boehme woman’s face.

I dialed a number and then I pushed the receiver hook down with my elbow so that the call didn’t register and then I let the hook up again. I was turning my body to watch Boehme when I clicked the hook — she didn’t see it. She was standing by the table in the middle of the room, staring at me and looking pretty scared.

When I’d waited long enough for somebody to have answered I said: “Hello, Chief. This is Red. I’m out at the Steinlen house — I’ve got Boehme and it all happened the way we’d figured... Mrs Steinlen flew back from Phoenix last night. She’d had some kind of steer that Steinlen was cheating so she didn’t let him know she was coming — she thought she might walk in on something. She did — she walked in on the telephone call from Mae Jackman and listened in on the phone downstairs. She got Mae’s address from that and sneaked back out and jumped in her car and went over there... Sure — she killed Mae...”

I was guessing, watching Boehme. She’d turned a very nice shade of Nile green; she was leaning against the table and her eyes looked like the eyes of a blind woman.

I went on, into the phone: “Steinlen didn’t know anything about it — he went over and waited for Mae on the corner of Rosewood and Larchmont and she didn’t show so he came home about four. Mrs Steinlen hid out someplace — probably with a friend or at a trick hotel where she wouldn’t be recognized — Steinlen didn’t even know she was back from location till this afternoon. Then she went to the studio and either scared Steinlen into his number or killed him herself and made it look like suicide — and I’ll lay six, two, and even she did it herself... Uh-huh — a nice quiet girl...”

Boehme straightened up and turned slowly and started for the door.

I raised my head from the phone and said: “Wait a minute, baby.” I took Tony’s gun out of my pocket and held it on my lap.

Boehme stopped and turned and stared at the gun a minute without expression. Then she swayed a little and sank down to her knees, leaned forward and put her hands on the floor. I put the phone down and stood up and took two or three steps towards Boehme.

A woman’s voice said: “You’re a very smart man, aren’t you?” The voice was very soft, with a faint metallic quality underneath, like thin silk tearing.

Boehme toppled over sidewise and lay still.

I turned my head slowly and looked at the doorway on my left. There was a woman there in the semidarkness of the hallway. As I looked at her she came forward into a little light; she was a very beautiful woman with soft golden hair caught into a big knot at the nape of her neck. Her eyes were large, heavily shadowed; her mouth was very red, very sharply cut. She wore a close-fitting light blue negligee and she held a heavy nickel-plated revolver very steadily in her right hand, its muzzle focused squarely on my stomach.

I was holding Tony’s automatic down at my side and I didn’t know whether Mrs Steinlen had seen it or not until she said, still in that gentle, unexcited voice: “Put the gun on the table.”

She still moved towards me slowly; she was no more than six or seven feet from me. I looked at her without turning my body towards her or moving; I didn’t know whether to make a stab at using the gun or to put it on the table. She was in the full light of one of the floor lamps now and there was an expression in her eyes — the hard glitter of ice — that made me figure I’d lose either way.

I took two steps forward so that I could reach the table, but I didn’t put the gun down. I held it down stiff at my side and looked at her and tried to calculate my chances.

She said: “It is too bad so smart a man must die.”

She circled slowly until she was on the other side of the table; we were facing each other squarely across the table.

Then a shadow came silently out of the dark hallway behind her — the hallway that led to the kitchen. Tony moved towards her slowly; he walked like a somnambulist with his arms outstretched; his eyes were glazed, fixed in a blank, meaningless stare on the back of her head.

She raised the revolver slowly and I saw the muscles of her hand tense a little. I think she felt there was someone behind her but she did not trust her feeling enough; she raised the revolver and stared at me with cold, glittering eyes.

Then one of Tony’s arms went around her white throat and his other arm went smoothly, swiftly out along her arm, his hand grasped her hand and the revolver. They moved like one thing. It was like watching the complex, terribly efficient working of a deadly machine; Tony twisted her arm back slowly, steadily, his arm tightened around her throat slowly, Her eyes widened, the white transparent skin of her face grew dark.

Then suddenly the muzzle of the revolver stopped at her temple and I saw Tony’s finger tighten on the trigger. I moved towards them as swiftly as I could around the table and there was a sharp choked roar and I stopped suddenly. Tony released her slowly and she fell forward with the upper half of her body on the table, slid slowly off the table down on to the floor; the revolver with her fingers tightened spasmodically around its butt banged against one of the table legs.

I did not move for several seconds; I stood staring at Tony. He was standing with his legs widespread, looking into space, looking at some place a million miles away. Then, slowly, expression came into his eyes — a curious, almost tender expression. He glanced down at the woman at his feet and smiled a little. She was lying on her back and the small black spot on her temple grew slowly larger.

Tony smiled again and said very softly: “That is for Mae, my beautiful lady.”

I went to him very swiftly. I said: “How the hell did you get out here?”

He did not answer; he stood smiling a little, looking down at the dead woman. I shook his shoulder. He raised his smile to me, said: “I have been following you all day. I saw you from the window, from that girl’s room when you went to the Derby. I went down and got in my car and waited until you came out and followed you to the studio. I have been following you all afternoon — I knew finally you would take me to the one who killed Mae...”

I jerked my head towards the kitchen, asked: “Did the Negro girl see you come in?”

He shook his head. He said: “A woman came out and went upstairs above the garage right after you came in. Maybe that was her — maybe she lives there.” I shoved his gun into his hands. I said: “Get out of here — quick.” He shook his head, shrugged, gestured with one hand towards the woman on the floor.

I repeated: “Get out — quick.” I put my hands on his shoulders and shoved him towards the hallway.

He turned his head and stared at me in a puzzled sort of way with his lips pursed. Then he shrugged again and went slowly to the hallway and disappeared into its darkness.

I sat down and called the Post; after a minute or so I got Scheyer. I said: “Here’s your scoop. Sheila Dale murdered Mae Jackman. I think she murdered Steinlen, too, or at least she bullied him into killing himself — we can check on that. She shot herself about two minutes ago — very dead. I saw her do it but I couldn’t stop her. Tell your boss to hold the presses for an extra and grab a load of law and get out here to Steinlen’s. I’ll give you the details when you get here.”

I hung up and went over and looked Mrs Steinlen over pretty carefully to be sure there weren’t any marks on her throat or any chance of Tony’s prints being on the revolver. Then I went out to the kitchen and got a glass of water to see what I could do about snapping Boehme out of the swoon.

The Negress came in from outside while I was getting the water. Her eyes were big as banjos. She said: “Didn’t ah heah a shot, Mistah?”

I told her she had, that Mrs Steinlen had shot herself. Her eyes got bigger.

“Daid?” I said: “Daid.”

I went back to the library and worked on Boehme. She came around in a little while and sat up and stared at Mrs Steinlen and at the revolver in her clenched outstretched hand, then she put her hands up to her mouth and started moaning.

I told her to shut up and asked her if she knew where the check was. She acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about and I reminded her that if she’d help me all she could I’d see what I could do about forgetting the junk angle — about her acting as go-between and laying herself open to a bad rap on a narcotic charge.

She looked a lot more intelligent when I mentioned that, and when I asked her about the check again she said she thought she could find it.

I was out of cigarettes but I found some in a box on the desk. I found an old edition of Stoddard’s Travel Lectures on one of the shelves and I sat down and made myself comfortable and read about Constantinople and waited.

Chinaman’s Chance

Decker, the big, bulldog jowled city editor, swung around and yelled: “Gay!”

The purplish moon of his face wrinkled to a scowl, split to another vast bellow:

“Gay!”

Every typewriter had stopped and a leaden, foreboding silence hung over the long room. Decker’s swivel chair wailed shrilly as he swung forward, stood up.

In the dusk of the farthest corner of the room a lanky figure slowly disentangled itself from the ill-assorted debris of a flat desktop and stalked unsteadily out of the shadows. As the light grew upon it, it materialized almost magically into a man.

Johnnie Gay stood six-foot-three in his socks. His long, leathery, good-natured face, heavily lidded blue eyes, and wide mouth went with six-foot-three.

He strolled down the double file of desks until he came to Decker’s and then he leaned forward and put his hands on the desk and very carefully and deliberately yawned in Decker’s face.

Decker leaned forward, too, and tapped a small stack of copy paper slowly with the back of his hand.

“This,” he said, “is the swellest damned newspaper story I ever read in my life.” He said it almost belligerently as if inviting argument. He raised his big head and swept the room with his scowl, repeated in booming crescendo: “... In my life!”

Gay looked very serious and bobbed his head up and down slowly.

Decker sat down. He leaned back in his chair and regarded Gay with what he probably considered a benign smile.

“Now I want you to hustle over to the Shepphard,” he said, “and get the inside on Pamela Arno’s marriage. They smuggled her in from Hollywood this afternoon and I’ve got a tip she an’ the Prince sail on the Ile at midnight. Take Peanuts with you and get some pictures...”

He spoke very swiftly. He leaned forward, picked up an enormous blue pencil and started scribbling busily.

Gay said: “Uh-huh.” He shook his head slowly.

Decker’s head snapped back.

Gay repeated, “Uh-huh,” turned slowly away.

“Uh-huh what?” Decker’s roar filled the room.

Gay didn’t turn back. He stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered back up the room, out the swinging doubledoors at the far end. He stopped at the third door on the left in the corridor, stared sleepily at the legend: Martin L. Beresford. Managing Editor.

Then he went into the small outer office, closed the door softly, crossed to the one marked: Private. He opened it.

Beresford was leaning back in a heavily carved chair, gazing dreamily at the ceiling. His secretary was sitting beside the wide desk, her pencil poised over a notebook. They both turned swiftly to stare at Gay as he crossed, leaned lightly against the desk and smiled down at them.

Beresford cleared his throat, rumbled: “Well, sir — what can I do for you?”

He was a broad, potbellied man with heavy sloping shoulders and a curiously thin face. His eyes were small dark-brown beads divided by a narrow nose.

Gay tilted his head a little to one side, spoke to the secretary: “Will you please leave us alone, Miss Cort?”

Beresford and Miss Cort both looked vastly surprised; she glanced questioningly at Beresford and then closed her notebook, stood up and went swiftly to the door. She turned in the doorway, asked: “Would you like me to type what you’ve given me, sir?”

Beresford nodded. She closed the door softly.

Gay said: “You’ve had Decker riding me for three weeks — ever since you’ve been here. The Old Man sent you in to reorganize this sheet and that meant getting rid of me and Peanuts and Grayson as far as you were concerned. You’ve hated me ever since I showed you up for the louse you were on the old Times in Chi. You couldn’t hang the can on Peanuts or me because the Old Man liked us, so you’ve tried to work us to death — an’ tell us how good we were...”

He slid around the corner of the desk until he was almost directly above Beresford.

“I’ve been on the Crandall graft probe,” he went on gently, “washed it up tonight. Fifty-eight hours without sleep. Now Decker puts me on the Arno story because” — he leaned, over Beresford, almost whispered — “you happen to know Pamela Arno and I were engaged, and that she gave me the air — and that I wouldn’t go near her...”

He straightened.

Beresford stood up, cleared his throat noisily. “This is entirely uncalled for,” he blustered. “I assure you that—”

Gay smiled, said softly: “That’s the way I wanted you...”

His right fist shot suddenly up and out and there was a sharp smack; Beresford’s head snapped back. There was a second sharper smack and Beresford slid slowly along the arm of the chair, crashed to the floor. He held his hands over his face, yelped: “Help!”

Gay leaned over him. “And I’ll tell you what you can do with the Star-Telegraph and the job,” he said. He put his hands on the chair and leaned very close over Beresford and whispered.

The door flew open and Miss Cort stood a split second on the threshold, her eyes wide with stunned horror, then she screamed.

Gay straightened and turned to smile thinly at her. He went round the desk, across to the door. Miss Cort leaned against it weakly, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes wide on Gay. He patted her shoulder as he passed, crossed the outer office and went out into the dim corridor.

The double doors to the city room burst open and Decker rushed out, followed by several men. He almost ran into Gay in the semidarkness, stopped so suddenly that one of the men behind bumped into him.

Gay pressed the elevator button.

“Where you going?” Decker roared.

Gay leaned close to the bars of the elevator shaft, looked down and pressed the button again. Then he turned to Decker, said softly: “To bed.”

The phone at the end of the short, almost deserted, bar tinkled merrily. The bartender picked up the receiver, said: “Hello... Mister Gay?... Who wants ’im?... Mister Decker?...”

He turned to regard Gay expressionlessly. Gay shook his head. The bartender said: “He ain’t here, Mister Decker — ain’t been here for two or three days...”

He hung up, waddled back to lean on the bar facing Gay. “What’ll it be? Same thing?...”

Gay finished his drink, shook his head wearily, said: “No, Paddy — I’m going to bed.” He slid a quarter across the bar and turned away. He turned back in the doorway. “And if there are any more calls tell ’em I’m dead and don’t want to be disturbed.”

He went through a short narrow hall, turned abruptly and climbed three flights of carpeted stairs.

The phone was ringing in his apartment. He took up the receiver and balanced it delicately against the edge of the table lamp, undressed swiftly and fell into bed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

It was about five minutes later when he was awakened by someone shaking him, launched a swing at the dim noisy disturbance that would probably have been lethal if it had landed. Instead, it whistled harmlessly through the air and Gay, following through, fell very definitely out of bed. He sat up, rubbing his eyes and his bumped head.

Peanuts Nagel gazed down at him sadly. “That’s right,” he said. “Try to kill a guy for trying to help you...”

Gay muttered, “G’way,” and started climbing back into bed.

Nagel was a rosy-cheeked stocky youngster from Wyoming. He had the reputation of being the best news photographer in New York but he was a great deal prouder of having once been known as the best rough-and-tumble fighter in Cheyenne. He grabbed Gay’s limp shoulder and swung him around and shook him until his teeth clicked.

“Listen,” he shouted. “Decker’s on the level about this! I never saw him so worked up! He says it’s a matter of life and death!”

“T’hell with ’im.” Gay put his hands up groggily and pushed thin air.

Nagel knocked his hands down, sighed deeply, drew his open hand back and took very deliberate aim; then he slapped the side of Gay’s face, hard.

Gay snapped to his feet as if some secret spring had been released. He was suddenly fully awake; his expression was no longer weary but tight, grim, menacing.

Nagel said: “I’m sorry, Johnnie, but it’s the only way I could snap you out of it...”

Gay took one step forward, balanced lightly on the balls of his feet. Nagel stepped back, said: “Johnnie — if you’ll only—”

The door flew open so hard that it banged against the wall and a chubby, breathless little man rushed into the room. He stood a second, blinking at Gay and Nagel, and then he trotted over and stood glaring up at Gay with blazing eyes.

“Where’s Pamela?” he demanded.

Gay stared down at him dumbly, then he closed his eyes and shook his head sharply, opened his eyes and glanced swiftly at Nagel.

He said sourly: “What the hell is this — a gag?”

“Where’s Pamela?” the little man repeated in a slightly higher key.

Nagel moved his head slowly from side to side. “All I know is Decker said I had to find you. He said Pat Mulhearn, Pamela Arno’s manager, had called up and said it was a matter of—”

“Life and death...” Gay interrupted. He jerked his thumb at the little man. “This is Mulhearn — an’ if you’ll tell me what he’s talking about I’ll be very much obliged.”

He turned and snatched up a dressing gown from the foot of the bed, slipped into it.

Mulhearn spoke so rapidly that the words were all run together: “Pamela left the hotel at five o’clock. She came to my room and said you were in trouble and had sent for her and she was going to see you. She said she’d be back at seven at the latest.” He stuck up a pudgy hand, and looked at his wristwatch. “It’s ten after nine and I ain’t heard from her...”

His voice had risen to a plaintive wail. He almost sobbed: “What’ve you done with her, Johnnie?...”

Except for Mulhearn’s panting it was entirely still. Gay stared from Mulhearn to Nagel, back to Mulhearn with wide bewildered eyes. Then his arm shot out and he gripped Mulhearn’s shoulder, shook it savagely.

“Is this a joke, Pat? You know we’ve been washed up for almost a year. You say she said she was coming to me?...”

Mulhearn nodded.

Gay laughed. There was bitterness in the sound of it, and a kind of joy, too.

“She didn’t mean it,” he said. “She was stringing you...”

Mulhearn noticed the telephone suddenly, grabbed it and jiggled the hook. He called the Hotel Shepphard and asked for Suite 14-R. Then he said: “Hello, David my lad. Have you heard from Pamela?”

Then he listened, and his mouth fell open slowly and the dark blood mounted in his chubby face. He hung up and closed his mouth and swallowed.

“Somebody’s got her,” he said.

Gay leaned over the wide central table in the drawing room of Suite 14-R and studied the sheet of yellow paper intently.

The message was neatly typewritten. It read:

“If you want to see Miss Arno alive send one man to the northeast corner of 34th Street and 11th Avenue at 10:30 p.m. sharp with $100,000 in unmarked tens, twenties, and fifties. If you let the police or newspapers in on this you’ll never see her again. Remember — one man and nobody else. We mean business.”

He glanced at his watch; it was nine twenty-eight.

Prince David Sanin, Pamela Arno’s fiancé, sat on the opposite side of the table, his thin face haggard with worry. Mulhearn paced up and down, muttering inaudibly.

Sanin said: “I’ve called everyone I know — my bankers, my attorney, everyone... It is impossible to get so large a sum that soon; perhaps if we had another hour...”

Gay drew one hand slowly down over his face. “Did you tell ’em what you wanted it for?”

Sanin indicated the piece of yellow paper, shook his head. “I was afraid to over the phone,” he said.

Gay nodded. “How did this get here?”

“They put it under the door. I was telephoning friends to see if — uh — Miss Arno was there and when I turned from the phone it was under the door...”

Someone knocked. Gay crossed swiftly and opened the door a little. It was Nagel.

Gay said: “I thought I told you to wait downstairs.”

Nagel edged in past him. “Sure — only I wanted to tell you the lobby is full of leg-men. Maybe somebody’s been tipped off...”

Mulhearn stopped pacing to snap: “We’ve had reporters in our hair all afternoon. They’re after the marriage story and pictures. They know we intended to sail on the Ile at midnight, but they can’t know anything about this...”

Gay said, “You’re sure you didn’t tell Decker what you wanted me about?”

“’No. I told him I wanted you an’ I made it strong — that’s all.” Mulhearn shook his head impatiently.

Gay crossed to one of the tall narrow windows and stared out into the darkness. It had started to rain and thin wind-swept sheets whipped across the panes, made Fifth Avenue a black and yellow blur. Gay’s face was a cold implacable mask but there was deep pain in his eyes — the shadow of tearing anxiety.

Nagel was reading the yellow paper. He whistled softly and fumbled self-consciously with the small camera which he always carried.

“Maybe I’d better get a shot of this now,” he said.

Gay turned slowly and Nagel took one look at his face and slipped the camera back into his pocket.

Mulhearn put his hands flat on the table, leaned forward and squinted at Gay.

“Who’d know about you and Pamela, Johnnie?” he asked. “Who’d call and say they were calling for you and that you needed her?”

Gay shook his head slowly. “Lots of people know about us,” he said. “But I don’t know one who’d fake a call from me and expect her to come...”

Mulhearn said: “There’s where you’re wrong, my lad.” He glanced quickly at Sanin, went on to Gay: “This is a desperate situation an’ no time to spare people’s feelings. There’s many the time Pamela herself hasn’t been at any pains to hide the way she felt about you. I’ll stake my life she would’ve come any time you sent for her...” There was something very suggestive of tears in the little man’s eyes. “It’s the likes of me that’s to blame for things like this — driving her away from the things she wanted, making a career for her, making her a Princess!...”

He sat down. “We got her a career,” he went on forlornly. “In less than a year she was the biggest box-office name in pictures — an’ she was almost a Princess... And now what good is it?”

It was entirely silent for a moment except for the sound of rain lashing against the windows. Gay was staring at Mulhearn as if he had just awakened from a bad dream, Sanin was gazing expressionlessly at the table, and Nagel stood restlessly near the door.

Then Sanin stood up so swiftly that his chair toppled over and crashed to the floor. He turned his green-white face to Gay.

They were all looking at him. A strange expression twisted Mulhearn’s chubby face and he spoke as if to himself: “Who could have known that that would get her?”

Sanin almost screamed: “Well — say it! And it’s true, it’s true — I did it, I’m to blame, but I didn’t know it would turn out like this...”

He stood very straight, his face itching convulsively, went on in a metallic sing-song monotone: “This afternoon she told me she couldn’t go through with it, that she wouldn’t sail tonight. I was desperate — insane with grief — I love her and it was like the end of my life... My one idea was that if I could get her aboard that ship — away from this country — it would all be all right. I called a friend of mine, a countryman, and told him to call her and say you needed her, to come to his place. I knew she’d go. Then he was to take her aboard the ship just before it sailed...”

Sanin’s voice had again almost risen to a scream: “It was crazy, crazy — but I was a crazy man!” His knees buckled suddenly and he sank down to the floor with his arms and head and the upper part of his body on the table, buried his face in his arms, sobbed brokenly: “I love her...”

Mulhearn had risen. They were all staring at Sanin and there was no sound.

Then Gay was beside Sanin, shaking his shoulder. He said softly, swiftly: “Who was the man? Where does he live?”

Sanin didn’t answer for a moment and Mulhearn shouted: “Speak, man — there’s no time to lose!”

Sanin said hoarsely: “Drovna — he lives at 411 East 39th — I’ve called him a dozen times but there’s no answer...”

Gay snapped: “Wait here, Mulhearn — I’ll call you.”

He darted to the door, out; Nagel a step behind him.

Sanin moaned: “Drovna was my good friend. I cannot understand...”

Mulhearn glared down at him and his pale blue eyes narrowed slowly, his jaw set. He very methodically unbuttoned his coat and vest and took them off, rolled up his sleeves.

Traffic was heavy, it was nearly ten when the cab pulled up in front of four-eleven and Gay and Nagel jumped out into driving, slashing rain.

Gay told the driver to wait and they ran across the sidewalk, ducked under the awning of the delicatessen that occupied the ground floor of the narrow four-story building.

Nagel grumbled: “I don’t know what good comin’ here is — they’ll be long gone by now...”

Gay didn’t answer.

They went into the shallow hallway next to the delicatessen and Gay lit a match and looked at the mailboxes.

“Third,” he said, and they went swiftly up two flights of stairs.

They listened carefully, with their ears close to the door; then Gay twisted the knob, pushed, hammered on the heavy panel. No one answered; there was no sound from inside. He went as far back from the door as he could in the narrow hall and crashed his shoulder against the heavy oak but it stood. The second time it gave a little, and the third; the fourth time, it flew open and he stumbled to his knees on the threshold of a small brightly lighted room.

There was a slight swarthy man lying on his side on the floor near an overturned card table. His eyes were closed and his legs were drawn up, and the tan carpet beneath him was darkly stained.

Gay got up, crossed swiftly and knelt beside him. Nagel turned in the open bedroom doorway, said: “Nobody else.”

“Get a doctor,” Gay spoke over his shoulder. “I think there’s one on the second floor.”

Nagel trotted out of the room.

The swarthy man had been stabbed several times. Gay found a bottle of brandy in the kitchen and poured some of it between his lips; he moaned and tried to put his hands up to his face.

Gay leaned close, whispered: “Take it easy...” Then: “What happened? Where’s Miss Arno?”

The man opened his eyes and stared up at him glassily. “They took her away...”

“Who?”

The man moaned again and tried to roll over on his back. Gay cradled his head on his arm.

“Frank,” he murmured, “and another man. I had them to help if she was hard to handle — I thought they were all right. I told her about David getting me to do it — she thought it was funny — she took it all right...”

His face was suddenly old with agony, he gasped: “Everything was fine until about eight o’clock. We played cards — the four of us... She didn’t try to get away. Then Frank’s friend stuck a knife in me — she screamed and they gagged her — they stabbed me again. I—”

He had risen to one elbow and he went limp suddenly, there was blood on his mouth.

Nagel came in followed by a short bespectacled man in a plaid dressing gown carrying an instrument case. The short man shook his head, clucked, said: “Drovna again! Vun day it’s a cold in d’ haad — naxt day it’s gollstones...”

He squatted beside Drovna, put down his case and made a hurried examination.

“This time” — he raised his eyebrows significantly — “it’s sahmthing!”

Gay watched anxiously as he ripped off Drovna’s shirt. Asked: “Do you think he’ll be all right” — he glanced at his watch — “in a little while?”

The doctor shook his head slightly without looking up.

Gay turned to Nagel. “I’m going over to Eleventh Avenue,” he said. “I want you to stay here until I call you.” He crossed to the telephone and scribbled the number on the back of an envelope. “I’ll tell you to bring it to a certain place. Never mind what I say — as soon as I call, leave the receiver down, and get to another phone and trace the call; then come there and come as fast as you can. You can bring the US Marines if you want to but make it fast...”

Nagel’s face was a pink diagram of disapproval. He said: “Johnnie — you’ll never make it. These guys are out for blood. Let’s call copper...”

“Can’t.” Gay picked up the instrument case, held it at arm’s length and examined it critically. “If they think there’s anyone with me they won’t pick me up. The Law’d be a cinch to show out of turn.”

He tipped the case suddenly and dumped its contents gently on the floor. The doctor lifted his eyebrows to twin questioning V’s.

Gay smiled at him. “Hope you won’t mind my using this,” he said. “I’m meeting some gentlemen who expect me to have a hundred thousand dollars in currency — this’ll make it look possible.”

The doctor stuck out his lips. “That’s a lot of money...” He shrugged slightly, bent again over Drovna.

Gay went swiftly to the door, turned to Nagel. “Stand by that phone,” he said emphatically.

The doctor spoke without looking up: “See you gat my case back — it’s my Sunday vun...”

Nagel said: “Don’t do it, Johnnie. If you had the dough it’d be tough enough, but without the dough it’s murder. You haven’t got a Chinaman’s chance...”

Gay had gone.

A ferry whistle tooted far out on the Hudson.

Gay stood in the partial shelter of a warehouse and turned his back to the wind and rain. It was twenty minutes to eleven; several cars had passed him but none had stopped. He stood close against the building and lit a cigarette.

Then, across the wide deserted expanse of Eleventh Avenue, a car without lights swung suddenly out of the pitch darkness between two wharves. It swerved diagonally between pillars of the viaduct, slid to a stop at the curb.

Gay picked up the case and crossed the sidewalk. There were three men in the car — the driver, and two in the tonneau.

One said: “Got it?”

Gay nodded.

“Get in.”

The driver leaned back and opened the door of the tonneau, Gay climbed in and sat between the two men. He could not see their faces in the darkness. One of them searched him swiftly.

The man on his left said: “Go on quick, Tony.” The car lurched forward. The other man was fumbling with the case; he opened it, a small flashlight flared. He growled:

“Say! — What the hell is this? It’s empty!”

Gay laughed. “Do you think anybody’d be sap enough to turn over the money before they saw that Miss Arno was all right?”

The man on his left said wearily: “Stop the car.”

The brakes screamed shrilly. The man jammed the muzzle of a big automatic against Gay’s side, hard. “We ain’t playing, Mister,” he said. “Where’s the money?”

“It’s where I can call for it as soon as I know she’s all right — as soon as you turn her over to me...”

The man snorted noisily. “An’ how are we supposed to get it?”

Gay said: “That’s simple. As soon as I see Miss Arno I’ll call and have the money sent any place you say. You can send a man to pick it up — or a hundred men if you want to. As soon as he gets it he can call and say it’s okay — you’ll have your dough and I’ll have Miss Arno.”

The driver spoke for the first time in a guttural stage-whisper: “That sounds all right...”

“Shut up!” The man with the automatic was silent a moment, then he put the gun between his knees and took out a heavy silk handkerchief and bound it tightly around Gay’s eyes.

He said, “Go on,” and then he leaned close to Gay and said: “One wrong move an’ you an’ the girl both get it — don’t forget it.”

Gay nodded. The car was moving forward swiftly. They turned a half-dozen corners, drove for almost ten minutes. They stopped twice to make sure they weren’t being followed; the first time, the driver jabbered about a bakery truck that he was sure he’d seen when they turned off Thirty-fourth Street but the truck passed and didn’t show up again.

They finally stopped, Gay was pulled out of the car and led through the rain for a hundred feet or so. Then they were out of the rain and someone pounded on a door and there was a great deal of whispering; they went down two short flights of stairs.

Pamela’s voice said, “Johnnie!” breathlessly.

Gay jerked his arm away from the man on his right and tore the handkerchief from his eyes.

She was sitting on a small rickety folding chair with her hands tied together behind the back of it, her ankles bound to the lower crosspiece. Her honey-colored hair hung in awry curlycues about her shoulders and her large delicately shadowed eyes were wide with excitement and a kind of exultation. Gay hadn’t seen her for nearly a year; he was sure she’d never been so beautiful.

He said: “Darling... Are you all right?”

She nodded. “I’m all right now... I’ve been practically scared to death...” Her lips curved to a smile. “But now — I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy...”

Gay looked about. They were in a fairly large basement. There was a worn pool table and there were four or five more folding chairs; against one wall, a neatly made-up cot with a drop light over it and a small table at its head loaded with magazines, bottles, and a telephone. There was one small dingy window high above the cot.

There were four men. All of them wore masks. The one who had done the talking in the car was a heavily built blond man in a neat blue serge suit. He said: “Get on the phone.”

Gay went over and sat down on the cot; he remembered Drovna’s number without looking at the envelope, picked up the phone and dialed it. The big blond man was leaning over his shoulder watching; the dial buzzed back from the fourth number and he reached over suddenly and knocked the phone out of Gay’s hands.

“That’s Drovna’s number,” he shouted. “What are you trying to do?”

Gay said gently: “My partner’s there, waiting for my call — with the money.”

“What about Drovna?”

“Drovna was dead when we got there.”

The blond man pursed his thick lips, looked at the others. “Okay,” he said. “Go on an’ call, but we’re not going to wait here for the call to be traced and the Law to move in on us. Tell your man to be at the top of Mitchell Place where it runs up from First Avenue in fifteen minutes. We’ve got two cars; two of us’ll go in one and two of us’ll take you and her nibs” — he jerked his head towards Pamela — “in the other. When your man pays off they can signal us from the first car and we’ll let you out. If he ain’t there, or if he don’t pay off, you’re both going to take a nice long ride...”

Gay felt like all of his insides had turned to water. He’d told Nagel not to pay any attention to what he said on the phone, to leave it and get to another phone and trace the call. Now it was no good tracing the call; there’d be no one there.

He picked up the phone. He’d have to make Nagel listen some way. He dialed the number again and waited. He could hear the phone ringing evenly but there was no answer.

He smiled as reassuringly as he could at Pamela, waited.

The phone buzzed on and on. He hung up and dialed again. It was the same as before; there was no one there.

With the receiver clamped tightly against his ear, he spoke suddenly into the transmitter as if there’d finally been an answer:

“Where you been? — the phone’s been ringing for two minutes! Listen — be at the end of Mitchell Place above First Avenue in fifteen minutes. Bring the money... Yeah, she’s all right...”

The phone buzzed rhythmically. He had to stall for time — to think.

“Yeah — we’ll be in another car,” he went on. “When you give ’em the money they’ll signal our car and we’ll be turned loose... Okay...”

He hung up, crossed and knelt beside Pamela.

She said: “It is all right?”

He nodded, smiled. “I hope so,” he whispered.

“Let’s get going.” The blond man, who had followed him across to Pamela, squatted and fumbled with the thin rope that bound her hands.

Gay untied her ankles. She stood up, stretched; then she turned and very simply, very quietly, went into his arms. They held each other tightly, did not speak.

The blond man said: “Never mind the love scenes — let’s go.”

A fifth man, without a mask, came swiftly down the stairs and advanced two or three paces into the light. He was holding his hands carefully above his head. He said:

“This guy” — he nodded at Gay — “didn’t call anybody. I was on the extension upstairs and there wasn’t any answer.” His face twisted to a hard smile.

No one moved for a moment; then the blond man took the big automatic out of a shoulder holster. “What the hell you holding your hands up for?”

The smiling man said: “Because there’s a copper behind me with a sawed-off shotgun pointed at the middle of my back.”

There was a crash and the tinkle of falling glass; Nagel’s voice piped up suddenly from the opposite side of the basement: “Hold it, everybody...”

There was a blinding flash. Gay saw Nagel’s head and shoulders framed in the squat window; he was holding a camera and a burnt-out flashlight bulb, grinning happily. There was a uniformed man beside him with a leveled automatic rifle.

Then everything happened at once. The blond man swung his gun towards the window and Gay aimed a blow at his jaw. The man slumped, his pistol dropping; the lights went out and the world was full of flailing arms and legs and blue flares and roar — and darkness.

He yelled, “Pamela!” and then something banged against his head and for a moment his mind seemed blank. He heard her calling him and fought his way free, staggered towards the sound of her voice. His outstretched hands touched her hair suddenly and he put his arm around her, they went together swiftly along the wall.

She whispered: “Darling! — are you hurt?”

He shook his head in the darkness and he could feel blood streaming down his forehead, into his eyes. He fell forward and the darkness closed in again.

Nagel was talking. “Johnnie wanted me to wait at Drovna’s,” he said, “an’ trace his call. I figured that was too long a chance — too many things can go wrong when you’re trying to trace calls. So I borrowed a bakery wagon — Gosh! that reminds me; the driver don’t know I borrowed it yet! — an’ followed him...”

Gay opened his eyes. They were in a cab and he could feel Pamela’s arm around his shoulders.

Nagel’s voice went on: “I played hide an’ seek with those guys all the way to the place; I saw ‘em take Johnnie in an’ I got to a phone an’ called the strongarm squad. By the time they got there I’d located that window...”

Gay lifted one hand slowly and touched his head, it was covered with bandages.

Pamela’s arm tightened around his shoulder. “Is it better, Johnnie?” she whispered.

He said: “Sure — I’m all right...” He sat up groggily, turned and took her hand. “How’re you?”

“I’ve never been so happy.”

The cab drew up at the side entrance of the Shepphard. They went up.

Mulhearn was practically jumping up and down with excitement and joy. Nagel looked around, asked, “Where’s his Highness?”

Mulhearn glanced at his watch. “David should be passing Ambrose Light about now,” he said. He cleared his throat, smiled slightly. “He remembered he had a very important appointment in Paris...”

The phone rang and Nagel answered it, turned to Gay. “Decker says Beresford’s fired and you’re back — with a raise. Well, I got to get over to the plant an’ see how my pictures are.”

He took Mulhearn’s arm on the way to the door, steered him gently out.

Pamela’s head was on Gay’s shoulder. He kissed her hair, said softly: “I’ve something awfully important to ask you, darling...”

She held him tightly, whispered: “What, Johnnie?” He did not answer. “What is it, Johnnie?” She turned gently — and looked up at him. He was asleep. She smiled and carefully disengaged herself, got up and fixed the cushions around his bandaged head. She went into the bedroom and came back with a blanket, spread it over him and tucked him in tenderly. Then she knelt and kissed his lips and whispered: “Good night...”

555

The cab swerved crazily to the curb, stopped. The driver jumped out and crossed the sidewalk in three steps, swept into the little cigar store like a great chocolate-colored cyclone.

The squat Negro behind the counter regarded him sleepily. “Whassa mattah wif you, Lonny?” he drawled. “You got ants?” Lonny was tall, raw-boned. His eyes were shiny with excitement, his dark, good-natured face split to a wide grin.

“Ants Ah got,” he chanted, “ol’ lucky ants!” He leaned across the counter, went on in a hoarse stage whisper, “Willie, Ah jus’ had the sweetes’ dream. They was three bears runnin’ aroun’ in a circle, an’ suddenly they stopped an’ got in line an’ looked at me — an’ they all had big white fives painted on theah foahheads! Then the bigges’ one said, “Get goin’, Lonny...”

He whipped five crumpled dollar bills out of his pocket and slapped them down on the counter, smoothed them carefully.

“An’ heah Ah is! Get them five skins down on five-five-five — an’ get all ready to pay off. Nothin’ can stop me today. Ah’m right!”

Willie Armstrong picked up the bills and dropped them into a drawer.

His store was one of the hundred or more Harlem branches of the Numbers Game where one could bet any amount from a penny to five dollars on a three-number combination determined by the odds posted on the first race at Aqueduct, and Willie was accustomed to black boys with “unbeatable” hunches. He scribbled three fives and $5.00 on a slip of paper, added a mystic hieroglyphic that meant okay and pushed it across the counter. Lonny picked it up, folded it devoutly and tucked it into his watch pocket. “Len’ me your pencil, Willie,” he said. “Ah want to figure out how rich Ah is.” Willie handed him the stub of pencil and he was lost for a minute or so in a maze of scribbled figures on the edge of a newspaper. “Hot dawg!” he finally gurgled. “Twenty-seven-fifty foah a nickel makes two thousan’ seven hunnerd an’ fifty smackers foah Lonny!” Willie bobbed his head up and down wearily. “’At’s right. All you gotta do is win.”

“Don’ worry about me winnin’.” Lonny emphasized his assurance with a long finger against Willie’s chest. “Ah know mah stuff... Ain’t this the fifth of the month?” Willie nodded. “Ain’t this nineteen thutty-five?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Ain’t Ah layin’ five dollahs on the line?”

Willie’s woolly head jiggled up and down rhythmically.

Lonny drew himself up to his full height, boomed conclusively, “Man! Ah cain’t miss! Everythin’ is jus’ lousy wif fives!”

He waited a moment for that pronouncement to sink in, then strode majestically to the door, turned.

“Ah’ll be back aroun’ one,” he said, “wif a wheel-barra to cart away mah money.”

He grinned expansively and went out into the bright morning.

Morning business was unusually good; by twelve-thirty Lonny had made four trips, two of them “buck hauls” which in the language of cab drivers means a fare of a dollar or more.

Then, driving back up Amsterdam Avenue from downtown, he stopped for the traffic light at a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street and just before the light changed, a beefy, red-faced man came out of the corner drugstore, hurried across and climbed into the cab.

Lonny turned with a wide smile. “Yas, suh. Wheah to?” This was his fifth fare of the day; that “Ol’ Lucky Five,” he reflected.

The man snapped, “Fifty-five East Hundred an’ Fiftieth — an’ make it fast!”

Lonny’s eyes goggled. His fifth haul, and the man wanted to go to...

The screech of horns and the man’s sharply repeated, “I said make it fast!” bumped Lonny out of his ajar-jawed amazement. The light had changed. He shifted swiftly and they rattled across the intersection, on up Amsterdam Avenue.

Lonny clicked down his meter flag in a daze; he was far too lost in stunned contemplation of this supernatural repetition of fives to notice that his passenger was scowling through the rear window, nervously fingering something that bulged under his left armpit.

After several blocks the man leaned forward suddenly. “Turn off right at the next corner,” he snapped.

Lonny was feverishly calculating the distance to the address on a Hundred and Fiftieth Street. He glanced at the meter; if he could only make it tick to fifty-five cents the cycle of fives would be complete. He nodded mechanically and turned left.

The man pounded on the glass, shouted, “Hey, you dumb mug! I said turn right!”

Lonny grinned apologetically over his shoulder, stepped on the brake. “Ah’m sorry, Mistah,” he mumbled. “Ah guess Ah didn’ heah you.”

He swung the cab around and headed east.

Twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five cents; the meter ticked on and Lonny’s heart and hopes beat with it. They had turned north again on Lenox Avenue, were approaching a Hundred and Fiftieth. He realized with a sudden sinking twinge that the meter wouldn’t make it; it seemed to have curled up and died at thirty-five, then it clicked to forty and he sighed. It would never make it.

If he could only cross a Hundred and Fiftieth, act like he’d missed it, they’d have to go on for two blocks to reach the next east-bound street. That, according to his calculations, would just about make it. He set his jaw, stepped on the gas.

The man hammered on the glass, yelled: “Hey! You passed it!”

Lonny slowed down a little and turned an elaborately innocent mask to his practically apoplectic passenger.

“Gee! Ah guess Ah did, at that,” he said.

The man shoved the door open suddenly and stepped out on the running board, swung to the street. That was something Lonny hadn’t counted on; he jammed on the brakes, twisted in his seat to call plaintively:

“Ah’m sorry, Mistah, Ah plumb missed it. Get back in an’ Ah’ll get you theah in jig-time.”

But the man was crossing the street swiftly. He glanced back and his mouth moved viciously and a sound as of distant, angry waves came faintly to Lonny’s ears.

He wailed, “You foahgot to pay me,” but another cab — a very shiny and new one — had cut in between them and he disconsolately watched the man get into it and whirl away around the corner, east on a Hundred and Fiftieth.

He knew that shiny new cab. It belonged to Clint Waller, and more than the break in his chain of fives, more than the loss of his fare, that weighed like a bitter leaden pill in Lonny’s insides. Clint Waller had crossed his path before, unpleasantly. There was the matter of an argument over a crap game after which Lonny had come to in the hospital with a slashed cheek, and there was the matter of a certain high-yellow gal...

He savagely jerked the gear lever into reverse, backed into an alley, spun around the corner. He was too intent on catching up with Clint Waller to notice the dark green sedan that had followed from a Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, stopped half a block back on Lenox while its occupants narrowly watched his passenger change cabs, then followed swiftly east.

He roared across a Hundred and Fiftieth, darting miraculously in and out of traffic, gaining rapidly. He came abreast of the green sedan. Then he saw Clint’s cab pull up and stop in front of Fifty-five, the red-faced man get out; he shoved the throttle to the floor. The sedan cut in swiftly, slowed, and as it passed there was sudden thunder, and orange flame spouting from its side; the red-faced man sank down to his knees and fell forward, smashed his face against the running board.

Lonny kicked the brake, tires shrieked as the cab shuddered to an abrupt stop.

He saw Waller start to get out, then stop and put his two hands up to his chest, slide slowly sideways and crash to the floor. He saw a knot of people gather, grow magically like bees clustering about a lump of sugar. He sat, staring dumbly at the milling crowd, the skin of his forehead creased to thin dark bars of bewilderment; as if there was something he wanted terribly to understand, something maddeningly elusive.

Willie Armstrong’s cigar store was crowded; Willie was at the phone, the daily number was due. Lonny elbowed his way to the counter. Willie mumbled into the transmitter, listened, hung up.

“Eight-three-six,” he said. He riffled the pages of a soiled paperbound book. “That’s Clint Wallah’s numbah — right on the haid. He had it foah fifteen cents; he win — let’s see — eighty-two fifty...”

Lonny raised his head slowly, bewilderment still clouded his eyes, twisted his smooth dark face. He was silent a moment, staring unseeingly at Armstrong, then he smacked his big fist down on the counter, boomed:

“Dawg gone! That Clint Wallah’s the luckiest son-of-a-gun Ah evah seen!”

Death Song

Jacobsen, the assistant director, yelled “Hold your hammers!”

The pounding at the far end of the stage stopped.

Carl Dreier raised his head, said softly, wearily: “Turn ’em over.”

I held on to the arms of my chair and waited for what I knew was going to happen.

The sound mixer called out the number, the assistant cameraman snapped his slap-stick under the microphone and moved swiftly out of the scene, Maya Sarin came through the right upstage door in the narrow hallway set and walked a little unsteadily towards the camera. Creighton, the leading man, came through the door and ran after her. He came abreast of her about ten feet from the camera and they stopped and faced each other.

He put his hands gently on her shoulders, gazed deep into her dusky, violet-shadowed eyes.

“Darling!” he whispered, his voice quivering with emotion. “Darling! You can’t leave me like this!...”

Then it happened.

She said: “Oh, yeah, I can.” Her voice was thick with alcohol. She wasn’t tight — she wasn’t even drunk — she was cock-eyed.

Creighton started to say something like “But, darling...” and then he swallowed his words and emotion and turned squarely towards Dreier, put his hands on his hips, snapped shrilly: “Mister Dreier — I refuse to try to work with a drunken woman any longer!”

Sarin turned wide glassy eyes to stare vacantly in the general direction of the camera.

“Why w’as matter?” she asked innocently, incredulously. “I don’t know what Mist’ Creighton’s talking about...”

Then her expression changed swiftly, her eyes narrowed to ominous black-fringed slits and she swung her open hand to the side of Creighton’s jaw. If they didn’t hear that smack up on Hollywood Boulevard they weren’t listening — it was a pip.

I thought Creighton was going to go into his swoon for a minute, then he put one hand slowly up to his spanked face and turned and walked back up the hallway, out the door.

Sarin whirled towards the camera. “... ’S a frame-up!” she screamed. “Everybodeesh trying to ace me outa thish picsher. I won’t stand—”

Dreier stood up. He was a tall heavy shouldered man with prematurely gray hair, a narrow sharply chiseled face softened by sympathetic eyes, a generous mouth. He looked very tired. He tapped one leg of the tripod with his walking stick and the cameraman snapped off the camera motor. It was silent except for the sound of Sarin’s indignant panting.

Dreier said quietly: “In view of the fact that we are five days behind schedule after eleven days on this picture, and that the company has been waiting for you, Miss Sarin, since eleven thirty this morning” — he glanced at his watch — “and it is now ten minutes after five... And in view of the fact that we have been trying to complete this one simple scene properly for two days and have been unable to because of your condition...”

His accent was very precise. He turned and walked away.

She was after him like a spitting, snarling she-cat; she grabbed his shoulder, swung him around, screamed: “Oh, no, you don’t — you don’t walk out on me! I’m perfectly cap’ble of doing thish shene! I—”

Drier was standing still, looking down at her; I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a startling change in a man’s face. It was like white luminous metal; his light blue eyes had darkened and his soft mouth had straightened to a thin, savage line. His fury seemed all the more deadly because it was contained, all held inside him.

His voice sliced the silence like an icy knife: “Take your hand off my shoulder.”

Sarin dropped her hand and stepped back a pace or two, slowly. Dreier turned and walked swiftly away.

News gallops in a studio. I didn’t go to my office because I knew the phone would be burning up with calls from Bachmann. I wanted to figure out what I was going to say.

I was listed on the payroll as a gagman but that wasn’t the half of it. Conciliator in Extraordinary would have been better. Bachmann was the boss of B.L.D. Pictures, and some time, way back in the sweet silent days when we turned them out in a week for eight grand, he’d conceived the fairly nutty idea that I was a natural-born peacemaker. He’d never got over it when I’d returned to Hollywood after three or four years of trying to find out what made China go, I’d found Bachmann with a studio slightly smaller than Texas and my old job waiting for me.

I’d worked on five pictures for B.L.D. and gradually, insidiously, almost with my knowing it, Maya Sarin had become my special charge. And what a charge! — it would have taken six men and a boy to keep up adequately with her and Bachmann knew it. His faith in me was touching, not to say sublime.

Death Song was her first picture with Dreier, and in addition to being Chinese technical expert, and a few other ill-assorted whatnots I was supposed to be Sarin’s Spiritual adviser and wetnurse. She could suck up more whiskey in less time than any half dozen longshoremen I’d known in a long experience of longshoremen. I’d done everything I could to avert the inevitable blow-off. So what! — so it’d happened.

I stalled in the Publicity Department a little while and had my shoes shined and got to Bachmann’s office gradually. Sarin was coming out as I went in. I started to say something light and laugh-provoking, and she glared at me like a wounded lioness; I moved to one side and swayed in the wind as she went past.

There was a girl waiting to see Bachmann in the outer office. She had dark red hair and dark brown eyes and a skin like thick cream.

Bachmann’s secretary got up and started for the door of his private office. She said: “Mister Bachmann wants to see you right away, Mister Nolan—”

Bachmann jerked the door open, blasted me with an icy stare, yelped: “Come in here!” The secretary looked worried. She said in a small voice: “May I see you just for a moment first, Mister Bachmann?”

Bachmann snapped “No!” repeated: “Come in here, Nolan.”

I bobbed my head at the creamy-skinned angel, said: “This lady was here first...”

She smiled at me and murmured: “Thank you — I’m in no hurry.” The voice went with the rest of her.

Bachmann looked like he was about a half jump ahead of apoplexy. That was all right with me because when he gets that way he becomes speechless. I gave the angel my best bow and marched past him into the office. He slammed the door and started walking up and down.

In about a minute he got his voice back, shouted: “Well — what are we going to do?”

I was looking out the window. I saw Sarin come out of the downstairs door of the Administration Building and start across the lawn towards the dressing rooms. I said: “How about leaving the picture business flat and going back to cloaks and suits?”

Bachmann looked like a thug and was one of the swellest all-around men I’ve ever known. He couldn’t help it about his pan. He wasn’t paying any attention to what I said. He yelled: “You’ve got to talk to Dreier!”

I nodded.

“Dreier likes you,” he went on. “You’ve got to make him understand that the release date of Death Song is set. It’s sold! It’s got to be finished in three weeks at the outside!”

I nodded again. I was still looking out the window and I saw Sarin disappear into the Dressing Room Building. She looked like she was going somewhere. I said: “You can’t make pictures with a sponge for a star. We’re five days behind schedule. The call was for eleven-thirty this morning because we worked late last night with the mob. Sarin didn’t even get to the lot till four and she was paralyzed...”

I turned to Bachmann. “I think the best thing to do is scrap everything we’ve shot — it’s lousy anyway — and start over with another girl.”

Bachmann lifted his shoulders in such a high shrug that his head almost disappeared like a scared turtle’s.

“What other girl! You’re talking like an idiot! You know as well as I do that Maya’s name is sold with the picture...”

I went over and looked up at a big photograph of her on the wall, grunted: “Uh-huh.”

Bachmann’s voice kept popping behind me: “You’ve got to talk to Dreier. Maya says he doesn’t like her — that he keeps on riding her and won’t give her a chance to straighten out. She says—”

I heard the door open, Dreier’s soft voice:

“What else does she say?”

I turned around. Dreier came in and closed the door, sank into a big chair.

Bachmann went behind his desk and sat down, too.

Dreier said: “Will you please replace me, Jack? I guess I can’t take it.”

He turned from Bachmann and smiled wearily at me.

Bachmann looked like he was about to do a backflip. Then the old beaten-animal expression crept into his eyes. I knew that look; it’d take a giant of willpower to say no to him when he used it.

He said tremulously: “Carl. You wouldn’t desert me, too?”

Dreier laughed. He was silent a moment and then he said: “No, Jack — I guess I wouldn’t. Not if you’re going to cry about it.” He raised both hands resignedly and brought them down hard on his knees. “What do you want me to do?”

“Talk to Maya.” Bachmann was leaning forward, smiling eagerly. “Reason with her—”

I grinned.

Bachmann glared at me, went on to Dreier: “Make her understand you don’t dislike her — that it’s for the good of the picture — that we’ve all got to cooperate—”

One of the phones on Bachmann’s desk buzzed. He picked it up said: “Yes — what is it?... Please don’t bother me, Miss Chase — I’m busy!” He slammed up the receiver.

Dreier stood up. “All right, Jack,” he said. “I’ll try again.”

“Fine!” Bachmann turned to me. “You go with him, Pat.”

I looked at my watch. It was five-forty. I had to see a dog about a man at six-thirty; I said: “Maya’s off me — I haven’t been able to talk to her for three days. I think Carl can do better by himself.”

Dreier was smiling. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to see the rushes first — last night’s stuff. Then I’ll see what I can do with her.”

He went to the door, turned his tired smile to me. “Want to look at them with me?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t got time — I’ll look at ’em in the morning.”

Dreier nodded and went out and closed the door.

Bachmann was leaning back in his chair glaring at me with elaborate disgust. “A fine smoother-over you’re turning out to be!” he said.

“That smoother-over business is your idea,” I reminded him, “not mine. Me — I like a good fight — I’m the kind of a guy that starts revolutions.”

I gave him a trick grin and bowed out. The creamy angel was still sitting in the outer office. She smiled at me again and I took it and smiled back and almost smashed my kneecap against the door because I wasn’t looking where I was going.

I was still thinking about her when I got into my car, and figuring that maybe the deal with the man and the dog wasn’t so important after all.

Traffic was heavy on Melrose; I cut up Gower and got out of the worst of it but it took me nearly twenty minutes to get to the hotel.

I was getting into the bathtub when the phone rang. The switchboard girl said: “Theah’s a Mistah Hammah callin’, Mistah Nolan...” She kind of crooned it, like: “Theah’s a cotton field a callin’, honey chile.” You could slice that Deep South accent with a dull cleaver.

“On the phone, or is he downstairs?”

“On the wiah, Mistah Nolan. He’s in the hotel but he wants to talk to you on the wiah...”

Hammer played occasional bits in pictures and was sort of all-around handyman for Joe Ciretti. Ciretti was the Big Bad Wolf of the Coast underworld. He was also Maya Sarin’s current suitor.

I told the girl to put him on and sat down and waited for the click, said “Hello,” as disagreeably as I could.

His nasal, high-pitched voice quavered over the wire: “H’are ya, Old Timer? What’s the good word? How’s everything?”

“Everything’s been swell — up to now. I’m in a hurry — what’s on your mind?”

Hammer said: “Me and a friend of mine want to have a little talk with you.”

I said: “Not a chance — I’ve got to be out of here in ten minutes and I’m just getting into the tub. Give me a ring later.”

“Later won’t do. We want to talk to you now!” The tone of his voice had changed; all the amusement had gone out of it and it was almost plaintively serious.

Another voice rapped over the wire suddenly. It was sharp, staccato, with a slight Latin accent:

“Listen, you! Look out the window — the one on your right. Look at the window across the court!”

I twisted around in the chair and looked through my wide open window at the one the voice was shouting about. It was about twenty-five or thirty feet away, open, dark.

I started to say, “So what,” or something equally bright and then I stopped there was a thin blue rifle barrel sticking out a few inches over the lower sill and it was pointing, as nearly as I could measure the angle at that distance, at my right eye. I could see a man’s head and shoulder vaguely outlined against the darkness of the room.

The voice went on: “Now put the phone down on the table and put your hands up — high; then get up and unlock the door and go back and sit down. And don’t forget — you’re covered all the way to the door.”

I did exactly that. I wanted to see what the play was about. I unlocked the door and opened it a couple of inches and went back and sat down. I kept my hands up and watched the rifle barrel and waited.

In a couple of minutes Hammer and a thick set, swarthy guy with bright beady eyes and blue-black hair came in and closed the door.

I looked back at the window and the rifle barrel was gone. I said: “Do you gentleman mind if I put on my pants?”

Hammer was a thin, medium-sized Swede with a thick butter-yellow mustache. He grinned a little, piped: “Never mind your pants — we like you this way.” He waved his hand at blue-black hair. “This is Joe Ciretti — he wants to talk to you.”

I got up and grabbed a bathrobe off the bed, slid into it. “First,” I said, “you’d better let me in on what all this strong-arm stuff is about. I don’t like it and when I don’t like something I get in a bad mood, and when I’m in a bad mood I’m a bad talker — or listener.”

Ciretti’s eyes widened innocently on Hammer; he lifted his hands in front of him as if he was holding a watermelon, said: “Strong-arm stuff! I don’t know what Mister Nolan is talking about — do you, Gus?” His was the sharp, staccato voice of the telephone.

I went over to the door and opened it, said: “You boys have seen too many moving pictures. It’s a pleasure, Ciretti — sometime I’ll play Indian and cowboy with you but right now I’m in a hurry. Give me a call at the studio—”

Ciretti waltzed over and very suddenly, magically, a big blue heater appeared in his hand; he jabbed it into my belly, rasped: “You go back and sit down — quick!”

Something in his tone made me realize that he might be on the level. I felt like a sap who’d been caught trying to make a four-card straight stand up, sat down.

Ciretti went on: “I’ve called you five, six times at the studio today.”

“That’s dandy,” I said. “I didn’t go near my office all day.”

Ciretti sat down near me, leaned forward and let the big automatic dangle loosely between his legs. “Just one thing I want understood,” he ground out. “Then you can go about business and we’ll go about ours.”

“That’ll be swell.”

“You, nor this guy Dreier,” he went on, “nor Bachmann, nor anybody else is going to freeze Maya out of this picture.”

I opened my mouth like a black bass and gave him a stunned gasp.

“Who,” I asked gently, “ever gave you the screwy idea that anyone was trying to freeze her out of anything?”

“She told me.” His voice was like a couple of billiard balls rubbed together. “She says you’re all trying to railroad her out of pictures.”

I said: “You know her better than I do. You know she’s been stiff for weeks, and yet you fall for an insane angle like that. It doesn’t make sense.”

“She says she has to drink to keep going — with everyone against her.” Ciretti straightened up and eased the automatic back into its holster, slowly. He looked worried, as if he actually believed what he was saying and didn’t know what to say next. The poor chump was evidently in love with little Maya.

Hammer was staring at the ceiling, whistling soundlessly, making a very bad job of trying to look unconcerned.

“If that’s all you wanted to see me about,” I said, “and why you picked on me instead of Dreier or Bachmann or someone who really cuts ice at B.L.D. I can’t imagine — you can tell Maya that if she’ll pull herself together and lay off the jug everything’ll be simply elegant.”

I turned to Hammer. “I still don’t savvy all the brandishing of guns and—”

Ciretti interrupted, said swiftly: “I thought you were trying to duck me — and I wanted you to know how I felt about it. You’ve got to give her a break.”

My watch was on the table. I looked at it and it was sixteen minutes after six. I started to stand up and the phone rang; I sat down again and picked up the receiver.

The girl said: “Mistah Bachmann callin’, Mistuh Nolan.”

I told her to put Bachmann on and said: “Hello, Jack,” and listened. After about a minute I stuttered something like “Okay, I’ll be right over,” and hung up and looked at Ciretti.

I said: “Maya’s out of the picture.”

He stood up slowly. “What do you mean? They can’t—”

I took a deep breath, went on: “She’s been murdered. They just found her in her dressing room. Dreier’s been arrested.”

I thought Ciretti was going to explode or fall flat on his face or something. He looked like he couldn’t breathe and his white face got a little purple and he tried to speak and couldn’t. I felt sorry as hell for him.

He finally managed to gasp: “Where’s Dreir? Where have they taken him?”

I said: “I don’t know. Anyway, I’ll lay six, two, and even he didn’t do it. I don’t know anything about it yet, but Dreier’s not a murderer.” And I was remembering his face when he’d turned on Sarin on the set.

Ciretti went unsteadily to the door and went out without looking back. Hammer followed him and closed the door.

I took a two-minute shower and hustled into some clothes. Then I cantered to the door and opened it and started out and ran smack into the angel. Her creamy skin was about five shades lighter and her dark brown eyes were liked saucers. Beautiful saucers.

“The girl said your line was busy,” she stammered, “so I got the number of your room and came up. I–I had to see you right away...”

I was steering her towards the elevator. I said: “Sure. What about?”

The elevator door slid open and we got in; she glanced at the elevator boy and didn’t answer. We were in the car, roaring down Vine Street by the time she managed to say: “Maya Sarin’s been murdered!”

I looked at her sidewise and missed an oil truck by inches, grunted: “Uh-huh. How did you know?”

“I saw her — I went to her dressing room and found her lying there, dead.” I felt the angel shudder beside me and heard her take in breath swiftly, sharply.

“What did you go to her dressing room for?”

She said: “I guess I’d better begin at the beginning.”

I nodded, swung into Sunset Boulevard.

She began at the beginning and talked nearly all the way to the studio. In a large nutshell it went something like this:

She’d come to Hollywood from some place in Kansas to crash pictures, but pictures had crashed her. She’d worked extra a couple times at B.L.D. and Titanic and then there’d been a great open space without work and finally without coffee and doughnuts. She’d answered an ad that turned out to be the Nick Galbraith Detective Agency; they’d put her to work tailing some sucker for divorce evidence and then they’d sent her to Maya Sarin who it seems was one of their best undercover clients and Maya had given her a note to Bachmann asking him to give her some kind, any kind, of a job on the lot.

The idea seemed to be that Maya’s dipsomania was aggravated by a supercharged persecution complex and she wanted the angel to keep her eyes and ears open and find out who was conniving against her at B.L.D. She said that Maya acted like she was scared to death of something and didn’t seem to be quite sure what it was.

From then on the plot thickened. She’d been waiting to present her note to Bachmann when Maya had stormed in after the blow-off on the set. A couple minutes after Maya went into the private office a woman whom she recognized as Mrs Bachmann came in and talked about the weather with the secretary. And Maya was shouting her head off inside — they could hear practically every word she said.

By the time the angel had reached that point in her story I was standing on the brakes for the stoplight at Melrose. I leaned back and listened with both ears.

She was pretty excited. She said: “Finally Miss Sarin screamed: ‘You straighten this thing out and see that I get a square deal around this dump or I’ll tell that high and mighty wife of yours some things that’ll make her hair curl!’ Mrs Bachmann got as white as a sheet and marched out of the office.”

I said: “Is it possible that anybody in the western hemisphere doesn’t know that Bachmann and Maya Sarin used to be — well — friendly?”

The stoplight snapped green; I shifted and let the clutch in and glanced swiftly at the angel. She was smiling a little. “Probably not anybody,” she said — “except Mrs Bachmann.” She hesitated a moment, went on: “In a few minutes Miss Sarin came out and you came in. The secretary wanted to tell Bachmann about his wife being there but he was too excited to listen. I got up and looked out the window and saw Miss Sarin go across the lawn to the dressing rooms and after a minute Mrs Bachmann followed her.”

“To the dressing rooms! I saw Sarin, too, but I left the window as soon as she disappeared.”

She nodded. “Then, after you and Mister Dreier left, the secretary went in and Bachmann came rushing out and apologized and said he’s be back in a few minutes. He looked terribly worried. I watched from the window and he went over to the dressing rooms, too. I waited about a quarter of an hour and he didn’t come back. The secretary went home and I thought maybe Bachmann had forgotten about me and wouldn’t come back to the office so I went to Miss Sarin’s room to ask her what I’d better do. I was curious about what’d happened, too. I knew where her room was from the time I’d worked there. She didn’t answer when I knocked and I opened the door and she was lying on the floor, dead.”

“What time was it?”

“It must have been about five minutes after six.” The angel was almost whispering. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have any business there, or at least it would take a lot of explaining and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Then I remembered that Miss Sarin had told me about you and that you were the only person on the lot she thought she could trust. I hurried back to Bachmann’s office. He hadn’t come back. I called the agency and told them what had happened and asked the boy at the information desk where you lived and took a cab and came to your hotel...”

I said: “What’s your name?”

“Laird — Dolores Laird.”

I thought it was a nice name.

The rest of the night was an odds-on favorite nightmare that began with reporters ganging us when we got out of the car. We finally made the Sarin dressing room and it was so jammed with assorted Law that the walls were bulging. Everyone had a different theory.

Nick Galbraith, the angel’s boss, said it was a cinch for Sarin’s maid. Sarin had sent her off the lot to get something — probably a bottle — as soon as she’d returned to the dressing room and according to Galbraith the maid had sneaked back and beaned her with the “blunt instrument”; that was the only thing they all agreed on.

The blunt instrument was an oversize vibrator that was still lying on the floor near the chalked-off space where the body had been found.

A detective lieutenant named Lawson insisted that Creighton was the murderer. Creighton’s dressing room was across the hall and when the maid had come back from her errand and found Dreier bending over the body she’d screamed and Creighton had dashed in and he and the maid had pointed the finger at Dreier. Dreier, it seemed, wouldn’t talk and most of the coppers favored one or another variation of the Dreier theory. He was being held at the Hollywood Station.

Bachmann sat and groaned.

Then a radish-nosed captain from LA got a brilliant idea and asked Galbraith how come he knew about Sarin’s chill so soon. Galbraith had to tell ’em about Miss Laird and they started working her over. Why hadn’t she called for help? — why hadn’t she called the police? — how long had she been in the dressing room? — what was the reason for “personal enmity” towards Maya Sarin?

I said I’d vouch for Miss Laird and they all looked at me as if I was one of those arrangements with electric teeth that deep-sea nets bring up. Who was I? Where was I at the time of the crime?

I had a swell answer for that. I said: “What was the time of the crime?” They all scratched their heads and asked a lot more questions and finally decided that the murder had occurred between five-thirty-five and five minutes after six — if Miss Laird was telling the truth.

I called the projection room and found out that Dreier hadn’t left there till almost ten after. That gave Lawson a fresh start on his Creighton angle and they all started poking questions at Creighton who was sitting in a corner looking scared.

I winked one of my most reassuring winks at Miss Laird and jockeyed Bachmann out into the hall; we walked down to the far end. I told him in a few one- and two-syllable words that I knew about him and Mrs Bachmann both going to the Dressing Room Building — and why.

He looked at me with his eyes hanging out on his cheeks and said: “Pat! I swear to you that neither of us had anything to do with it.”

“Nobody says you did. But if Miss Laird saw both of you go into the building it’s probable that someone else saw you, too. I just want to be sure you’re in the clear.”

He put his hand against the wall to steady himself, whispered: “Mrs Bachmann talked to Maya and Maya got mad and put her out of the room. She was coming down the hall from the room, crying, when I got here. I took her out to her car — it was parked in the alleyway out there — and we sat and talked for a long while and then we heard Maya’s maid scream... Carl was going into the projection room when we came out of the building and he saw us — he saw that Ruth was crying. I guess when he found Maya dead he thought we had something to do with it and that’s the reason he won’t say anything.”

I patted Bachmann’s arm and steered him back towards the dressing room and told him I had an idea I wanted to work out in detail, that I was going to run along and would call him later. As a matter of fact the only idea I had at that point was to talk to Mrs Bachmann.

They were still working on Creighton. Radish-nose was yelping about putting the pinch on everybody and a little guy from the DA’s office was running him a close second for noise by pointing out, with gestures, that there were four entrances to the Dressing Room Building and that anybody on the lot between five-thirty and six-fifteen was technically under suspicion.

They’d forgotten about Miss Laird for the moment; I officed her and we edged out.

Lieutenant Lawson was coming out of the phone booth in the hallway downstairs. He said: “I just talked to the Doc. He says her nibs was killed some time in the half-hour before he got to her — that’d make it sometime after ten minutes to six. An’ he says she was loaded with heroin... He says all the licker was for was to hold the H down an’ keep her from blowin’ her noodle entirely.”

I said: “If she was that high maybe she sapped herself with the vibrator.”

He looked at me as if he thought I was on the level about it and galloped back upstairs.

We ducked out the private entrance through the Purchasing Department to keep from being swamped by reporters and walked around the block to the car.

Dreier was out, as far as I was concerned. So was Creighton and the maid. That left Bachmann, who I was sure had told me the truth or what he believed to be the truth, and Mrs Bachmann. I didn’t know her very well; I was trying to think of five or six good reasons why she shouldn’t have got mad, too, while they were going round and round, and picked up the vibrator and let Maya have it.

I didn’t have to wait long for all six reasons. It was pretty dark by that time. We got into the car and somebody walked over from a car that was parked across the street and said: “Mister Nolan — you’ve got to do something!” It was Ruth Bachmann.

I said: “Sure — I’ll do anything I can. Where do I begin?”

She glanced at Miss Laird and went on, “I think Mister Dreier is needlessly sacrificing himself because he saw Jack and me come out of the dressing rooms — and I was crying. Miss Sarin put me out of her room” — her voice broke a little — “and I think l should tell the police I was there and what happened and then Mister Dreier will feel free to clear himself.”

Something in the way she said it gave me all my reasons at once; either she was telling the truth or I was a Tasmanian watchmaker — which I wasn’t.

I said: “You sit tight and let things go the way they are for a little while and everything’ll be all right. I’ve got an idea.”

She agreed after a minute and went back across the street; I started the car and swung into Melrose and wished I had an idea.

Back at the hotel I asked the clerk who the guy who lived across the court from me was.

He said: “Hotaling — Francis J. Hotaling.” He’d lived there five days.

The name was familiar as hell. We went up to the room and fixed a drink and I beat my head against the wall a little bit trying to remember, and one of them worked. Hotaling was a fellow who had been pointed out to me by some of the boys around the Brown Derby as a “Connection.” That meant if you wanted anything on the mossy side of the Law — anything from square-cut emeralds to marihuana — he was the guy to see. He had a pan that looked like it had been through a wringer and worked in gangster pictures occasionally but his main racket was getting things for people who wanted them very badly — people who could pay — and he majored in dope.

So Mister Hotaling was pegged — and that wasn’t all. I called up Jacobsen, the assistant director. Hotaling had worked the last three days on Death Song. I told Jacobsen to meet me at the studio in an hour, hung up and said: “Dolores — you are about to see Pat Nolan, the great detective, at work. Fix us a drink.”

I jumped out to the elevator and sat on the button and had a long heart-to-heart talk with the elevator boy. He checked. When I went back to the room the phone was ringing. It was the Nick Galbraith Detective Agency. He wanted to know where he could find Miss Laird. I told him I’d just put her on a train for Kansas, and clicked the receiver and told Deep South to send up a waiter. The waiter showed up in a couple minutes and we ordered dinner.

Have you ever seen an angel eat oysters? It’s marvelous.

Bachmann said: “We can’t do it — it’s bad taste, with this terrible thing happening to Maya and all...”

He and Jacobsen and Dolores and I were sitting in his office.

I did a fair imitation of staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Bad taste! Is it bad taste to nail the murderer? Is it bad taste to—”

Jacobsen interrupted: “I think it’s a swell idea.”

I took a bow.

“Why not give this information to the police — let them handle it?” Bachmann was gazing vacantly out the window.

“Because they’ll ruin it! Because our only hope is to force a quick confession before they know what’s hit ’em.” I stood up. “For God’s sake, Jack — where’s your showmanship?”

He swung around wearily, said: “All right — go ahead. But I think—”

I’d grabbed Dolores’ hand and we were on our way; we didn’t hear what Bachmann thought. Jacobsen pattered along behind us, ducked into his office and grabbed the phone.

By a quarter of twelve we had a complete night-crew on Stage Six. I’d told the chief carpenter what I wanted and prop-boys, grips, juicers, and what have you were scampering around like ants at a picnic.

We worked all night. I talked Dolores into taking a nap, which she probably faked; by daylight we had the whole layout working like a piece of well-oiled machinery. Jacobsen had called Mary Fallon, Sarin’s double and stand-in, and my other principals for six-thirty and when they got there we cleared the set and rehearsed for a couple hours and then knocked off for breakfast.

The general call was for nine-thirty. The idea that we circulated around was that we were going to start Death Song over as if nothing had happened, because we had to meet the release date — the old “The show must go on” gag.

I was taking over as director until Dreier came back and we were starting with a corner of one of the big sets with about thirty extras and four bit players. We were, according to the dope that I had everyone on the lot broadcasting, going to clean up all the big stuff first while we were trying to find a girl for the Sarin part.

At a little before nine-thirty I left the restaurant and dashed over to Stage Six. Everything was ready; Jacobsen had draped a collection of the toughest mugs in Hollywood along a wall that was supposed to be one end of a prison yard. They wore San Quentin rompers and they included Hammer and Francis J. Hotaling. Jacobsen had called both of them for bits, at seventy-five slugs a day.

I chinned with the cameraman a minute and sat down under the camera, nodded at Jacobson; he and his kickers yelled: “Quiet everybody!”

Bachmann was standing a little way back of me with a couple of other B.L.D. executives; Dolores was sitting on the arm of my chair with her elbow on my shoulder, which was exactly where her elbow should be.

I snapped in to the loudspeaker: “Gentlemen, as Mister Jacobsen has informed you, this is the scene where you look up and see the airplane that is signaling to someone in the prison. At first you are talking to each other, moving about, smoking. The sound of the airplane is your cue. When you hear it, look up — not all at once but a few at a time. Shall we rehearse it or do you all understand?”

They bobbed their heads in concert.

I put the loudspeaker down and said: “Turn ’em over.”

The soundman called the number and the assistant cameraman clicked his sticks, scuttled out of the scene. I lifted my right hand and the whole stage was plunged into pitch darkness.

It was entirely silent, entirely black; I felt Dolores’ hand tighten on my shoulder.

There was thin slithering sound and, suddenly, a little light. The wall had split, slid back, and we were all looking into an exact replica of Maya Sarin’s dressing room. The light grew in it as it grows when an electric dimmer is reversed, on a small stage. Everything else was in darkness.

Maya was sitting at her dressing room table staring drunkenly in the mirror. It was Mary Fallon, of course, but in those circumstances she looked more like Maya than Maya ever thought of. She was wearing the double of the costume Maya had been murdered in.

I expected a big triple-action gasp but I guess everyone who wasn’t in on it was too surprised to gasp, or didn’t have the wind for it. You could have heard a pin feather fall.

There was a knock at the dressing room door and Maya — I mean Mary — called “Come in,” huskily — with Maya’s voice. Hammer and Francis J. Hotaling came in. The makeup man had accomplished a miracle with those two; they were a couple old-timers that came nearer doubling Hammer and Hotaling than anyone else I could find in the files and they were dressed exactly as Hammer had been dressed when he and Ciretti crashed in on me, and as Hotaling had been dressed when he reached the studio.

Maya swung around and said: “Wha’ d’ yuh want?” and Hotaling put his hand in his pocket and answered: “We got that stuff for you.” Maya stood up and Hammer edged around behind her and picked up the vibrator and slammed her over the head. Then they both scurried out of the room and the lights dimmed and it was pitch dark again. And still — so still I could hear Dolores’ heart pounding beside me.

That went on for about a minute and then Hammer — the real Hammer — screamed. The lights came on and there was a lot of Law milling around and Hammer was still screaming.

We all sat in Bachmann’s office: Bachmann and Jacobsen and Dreier, who had been released, and the angel and I.

There was a knock at the door and Bachmann said: “Yes.” The secretary opened the door and Lawson, the dick from the Hollywood Station, waltzed in.

He said: “Everything’s under control. Hammer thought we were going to hang the rap on him and squealed. We caught Ciretti in the bathtub. He’s been crazy mad at Maya for four or five days — ever since be caught her playing post office with his chauffeur — and getting crazier all the time. And he’s been scared, too. She’s been so high with alky and heroin and what-not she’s been shooting off her mouth about where she got it...”

“Which was from Hotaling, huh? — and Hotaling was Cirretti’s man?” I wanted to be sure about that.

Lawson nodded. “Uh-huh. Both of them, with Hammer, had decided what to do about it. Ciretti had Hotaling move into the room across from yours because he figured he could jockey Maya into going to your room and bump her off there and make it look like you did it. But Maya was sore at you and wouldn’t go for it.”

I said: “Isn’t that dandy.”

Lawson went on: “Ciretti and Hammer were there last night when Hotaling came in from the studio and said Maya and Dreier had had a battle on the set. That looked like gravy to Ciretti — he hurried over to the studio and went in the extra gate with Hotaling’s pass — they look a lot alike, anyway. He wanted to put the chill on her himself on account of the jealous angle. He smacked her down and then rushed back to the hotel. He could see you were in your room — across the court — and he suddenly had the bright idea of putting on that act for you — figuring it would double as an alibi and make it look like he was broken hearted over her death.”

And that was, in a manner of speaking, that.

Dreier and Dolores and I walked out towards the set together. Dreier kept looking at her in a very quaint way and finally he asked: “Have you ever worked in pictures, Miss Laird?”

She smiled sidewise at me, said: “Yes, a little.”

We all stopped and Dreier turned to me. “You know,” he you-knowed in a faraway voice, “we’ve got to replace Maya very quickly. What do you think of Miss Laird for the part?”

I said I thought she’d be swell, but I knew a better part that she’d fit even more perfectly. She and I grinned at each other like a couple of kids and Dreier looked at us wide-eyed for a minute and then turned quietly and walked away.

Pineapple

The man in the dark-brown camel’s hair coat turned east against the icy wind. Near First Avenue he cut diagonally across the deserted street towards an electric sign: Tony Maschio’s Day and Night Tonsorial Parlor.

A step or so beyond the sign, just outside the circle of warm yellow light from the shop, he stopped and put down the suitcase he was carrying, produced a cigarette and a lighter. He stood close to the building with his back to the wind, flicked the lighter several times without producing a flame, then turned back into the wind and went on towards First Avenue.

He forgot his suitcase. It sat in the darkness just under the corner of Tony’s plate-glass window and if anyone had been close enough to it they might have heard it ticking between screaming gusts of wind — merrily, or ominously, depending upon whether one took it for the ticking of a cheap alarm clock or the vastly more intricate and alarming tick of a time-bomb.

The man walked up First Avenue to Thirteenth. He got into a cab on the northwest corner, said, “Grand Central,” and leaned back and looked at his watch.

It was nine minutes after one.

At sixteen minutes after one Tony Maschio came out of the backroom, washed his hands, whistling a curiously individual version of “O Sole Mio,” and turned to grin cheerily at the big bald man who sat reading a paper with his feet propped up on the fender of the stove.

“You are next, Mister Maccunn,” he chirped brightly.

Tony Maschio looked like a bird, a white-faced bird with a bushy halo of black feathers on his head; he spoke with an odd twittering lilt, like a bird.

Maccunn folded his paper carefully and unfolded his big body as careful from the chair, stood up. He was about fifty-five, a very heavily built, heavily-jowled Scot with glistening shoe-button eyes, a snow-white walrus mustache.

He lumbered over and sat down in Number One Chair, observed in a squeaky voice that contrasted strangely with his bulk:

“It’s a cold, cold night.”

For eight years Maccunn had come to Tony’s every Friday night at around this time; for eight years his greeting, upon being invited into Tony’s chair, had been: “It’s a cold night,” or “It’s a hot night,” or “It’s a wet night,” or whatever the night might be. When it was any of these things to an extreme degree he would repeat the adjectives in honor of the occasion. Tony agreed that it was a “cold, cold night” and asked his traditional question in turn, with a glittering smile:

“Haircut?”

Maccunn did not have so much as a pin feather hair on his broad and shining head. He shook it soberly, as was his eight-year habit, closed his eyes, and Tony took up his shears and began trimming the enormous mustache with deft and graceful gusto.

Angelo, who presided over Number Two Chair, was industriously shaving the slack chin of a slight gray-faced youth in overalls. Giuseppe, Number Three, had gone out for something to eat. Giorgio, Number Four, was sitting in his chair, nodding over an ancient number of The New Art Models Weekly. There were no other customers in the shop.

At nineteen minutes after one the telephone rang.

Maschio put down his shears and comb and started to answer it.

Angelo said:

“If that’s for me, boss — tell her to wait a minute.”

Maschio nodded and put his hand out towards the receiver, and the telephone and wall came out to meet him, the whole side of the shop twisted and curled and was a smothering sheet of white flame, and pain. He felt his body torn apart as if it were being torn slowly and he thought “God! — please stop it!” — and then he didn’t feel any more, or think any more.

Maccunn raised his head once and looked down at the right side of his chest and it seemed curiously flat, curiously distant; he lowered his head and was still. Angelo moaned.

The wind was like an icy wall.

In the reporters’ room of the Ninth Precinct Police Station, Nick Green was playing cooncan with Blondie Kessler, when the Desk Sergeant yelled from the next room:

“Blondie! Pineapple at Tony Maschio’s Barber Shop on Seventh — nothin’ left but a grease spot!”

Kessler put his cards face down on the table and stood up slowly.

He said very simply: “Dear, sweet Jesus!”

Green looked up at him with elaborately skeptical disdain. “Every time I get a swell hand,” he muttered plaintively, “something happens so you have an excuse to run out on me.”

Kessler, moving towards the door, yipped: “Come on.”

Nicholas, sometimes “St Nick,” Green was thirty-six — with the smooth tanned skin, bright China-blue eyes of twenty, the snowy white hair of sixty. He was tall and slim and angular, and his more or less severe taste in clothes was violently relieved by a predilection for flaming red neckties.

His nickname derived from his rather odd ideas about philanthropy. He had been at one time or another a tent-show actor, a newspaperman, gambler, gun runner, private detective, and a few more ill-assorted whatnots, and that wide experience had given him decidedly revolutionary convictions as to who was deserving and who was not.

A stroke of luck combined with one of his occasional flashes of precise intuition had enabled him to snatch a fortune from a falling stock market and for three years he had used his money and the power it carried to do most of the things young millionaires don’t do. He numbered legmen, Park Avenue debutantes, pickpockets, touts, bank robbers and bank presidents, wardheelers, and international confidence men among his wide and varied circle of friends, and he had played Santa Claus to more than a few of them at one time or another. He found the devious twistings and turnings of politics, the complicated intrigues of the New York underworld exciting, spent more of his time in night courts than in nightclubs and was a great deal prouder of his accuracy with a Colt .45 than he was of his polo.

He got up and followed Blondie Kessler out of the reporters’ room and down the corridor. In his car — a black and shiny and powerful coupé — they careened around the corner and roared north. Green swerved to miss a sleepily meandering cab by inches, asked:

“Now, about this Maschio?”

Blondie was a police reporter on the Star-Telegram. His hair was as black as St Nick’s was white. He was a squat stocky Dutchman almost as broad as he was long and he had a habit of staccato, almost breathless expression, particularly when he was a little excited.

“Tony Maschio is — or was — Gino’s brother. He’s run a barbershop where a lot of the town’s big shots go to have their fringes trimmed for eleven or twelve years, an’ he’s been partners with Gino an’ Lew Costain in a high-powered gambling syndicate on the side. His shop was a little bit of a two-by-four joint, but Tony an’ his hand-picked barbers were artists and it was usually full of names from Wall Street or Park Row.”

Kessler was silent a moment; and Green invited: “And...”

“And — Bruce Maccunn, my Managing Editor, has been dropping in at Tony’s for a mustache trim an’ a mudpack every Friday night for as long as I can remember. I’ve located him there a half dozen times in the last two or three years — late Friday nights.”

Green whistled softly. “And...”

Kessler had no time to answer; the car slid to the curb across the street from the pile of smoking ruins that had been Maschio’s barbershop. In spite of the hour, the glacial wind, the usual gallery of morbidly curious had gathered. Several firemen, policemen, and an ambulance squad from the Emergency Hospital were industriously combing the debris of bricks and steel and charred wood.

Kessler was the first reporter on the scene; he scurried about from one to another after information. Green strolled over to join two men who were standing a little way down the street in earnest conversation. One of them was Doyle, a plainclothesman whom he knew slightly, and the other was a wild-eyed Italian who was explaining with extravagant gestures that if he hadn’t lingered in the corner lunchroom for a second cup of coffee he, too, would have been blown to bits. He, it appeared, was Giuseppe Picelli, Tony’s Number Three Barber, and he’d been on his way back to the shop when the explosion occurred.

Green jerked his head towards the heap of wreckage. “How many have they found?”

“Don’t know.” Doyle chewed his unlighted cigar noisily. “Most of ’em are in pieces — little pieces. We’ve identified Tony an’ one of his barbers, but there’s a lot of pieces left over. This guy” — he nodded at Picelli — “says Bruce Maccunn was there — came in jus’ before he left.”

Picelli bobbed his head up and down, jabbered excitedly: “Sure, Mister Maccunn came in as I went out — an’ there was another fellow — I don’t know him... An’ Tony an’ Angelo an’ Giorgio...”

“That all?” Green was blowing hard in his bare hands to warm them.

“That’s all were there when I left — but Gino an’ Mister Costain were coming over. Tony was expecting them...”

Green and Doyle looked at each other.

Doyle grunted: “If Lew Costain got there for the blow-off it makes my job about eight hundred percent harder. I don’t guess there are more than eight hundred people in New York that’d like to see him in little pieces.”

Kessler galloped over. He was a little green around the mouth and eyes.

“Mac g-got it!” he stuttered. “They just dug him out — or wh-what’s left of him...”

Doyle tried to light his cigar in the screaming wind. “Why did Gino Maschio an’ Costain get it,” he growled. “Maybe there’s not enough left of them to find out, but if Picelli here knows his potatoes they were in the shop or on their way to the shop — an’ if they were on their way they would’ve showed up by now.”

Kessler gurgled: “Where’s a telephone?”

“There’s one in the lunchroom around the corner on Second Avenue.” Picelli waved his arm dramatically.

A police car, its siren moaning shrilly, pulled up and a half dozen assorted detectives piled out.

Kessler grabbed Green’s arm, shouted, “Come on, Nick — I gotta telephone an’ I wanna talk to you.” They hurried towards Second Avenue.

Green grinned down at the tugging, puffing reporter.

“You look like a crazed bloodhound,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ve got another one of those red-hot Kessler theories.”

“Theory my eye! I’ve got the whole business — the whole bloody shebang!”

“Uh-huh.” Green’s grunt was elaborately incredulous.

Kessler snorted. “Listen, John Sallust was released from Atlanta three days ago!”

“So what?”

Kessler’s mouth made an amazed O. “So what! So Bruce Maccunn was the man who rode Sallust — in the paper — an’ finally stuck him for the Arbor Day Parade bombing nearly five years ago. So Sallust swore by the beards of Marx and Lenin he’d get Maccunn. So, after a half dozen appeals and new trials and whatnot he finally got a commutation and what does he do but make good and plant a pineapple under the man who put him behind the bars!”

They turned the corner.

Green murmured softly: “Blondie, my child — you’re just as dippy as a bedbug — an especially dippy bedbug.”

Kessler stopped suddenly, stood with his arms expressively outstretched and said:

“For the love of God — do you mean to tell me you don’t get it? Maccunn, more than anyone else, or all the rest of ’em put together, hung that rap on Sallust. The Government wanted to drop the case on insufficient evidence, but Maccunn hated radicals like poison an’ wouldn’t let ’em. His editorials yelled about corruption and anarchy and it finally worked. What’s more natural than Sallust wanting to wipe Maccunn as soon as he got out?”

Green shook his head slowly. “Nothing’s more natural,” he admitted. “Only I happen to know Sallust a little and he’s much too bright a guy to do anything like this three days after he’s sprung — or any other time.”

Kessler’s mouth flattened to a thin, sarcastic line.

“I followed his case very closely,” Green went on, “and he was railroaded if anybody ever was. He’s really a swell guy who has his own ideas about the way the country should be run. I’ll bet he never saw a bomb in his life.”

“Nuts.” Kessler half turned. “It all fits like a glove. He’s an anarchist an’ those boys say it with dynamite. He couldn’t blow up the whole paper — that was too big an order — and Maccunn never lit long enough at his home for that to be practical, but he went to Tony Maschio’s every Friday night between twelve-thirty and one-thirty. It’s open and shut.”

Green smiled sadly, shook his head, murmured: “Mostly shut.”

“That’s my story an’ I’ll stick to it.” Kessler turned and went into the lunchroom.

Green walked slowly back towards his car, whispered into the wind:

“An especially dippy bedbug.”

The hands of the big clock over the information desk pointed to one forty-one. The great concourse of Grand Central Station was speckled with the usual scattered crowd.

On the wide balcony above the west side of the concourse, the man in the dark-brown camel’s hair coat who had forgotten his suitcase in front of Tony Maschio’s walked slowly back and forth. The collar of his coat was turned up and his hands were thrust deep in his pockets; his large dark eyes were fixed on Gate Twenty-Seven, which led to the one-forty-five Boston train, and his head turned slowly as he walked back and forth.

He was a powerfully built man of uncertain age and as much of his face as could be seen above the heavy coat collar was unnaturally flushed.

Suddenly he stopped pacing and leaned forward against the marble balustrade. He had caught sight of a man of about his own build and coloring — moving swiftly across the concourse. The man’s most striking features were the grace with which he moved and his bright yellowish-green velour hat. He flashed a ticket in front of the conductor and disappeared through Gate Twenty-Seven.

The man in the dark-brown coat hurried down the great stairway, across to one of the ticket windows. When he turned away he held a little piece of pasteboard and he strode with it through Gate Twenty-Seven. He walked the length of the train to the first coach back of the baggage car and swung aboard.

He found the man he was looking for in the smoking car of the third Pullman back. There was no one else in the smoking room; the porter was making up a berth at the other end of the car.

The man in the dark-brown coat held the curtain aside with one arm and leaned against the side of the narrow doorway.

He said: “Hello.”

The other swarthy man was sitting next to the window, reading a paper. He put the paper down and looked up and his color changed slowly, curiously, until his face was almost as yellow and as green as his jauntily cocked hat. He did not speak.

From outside, the conductor’s voice came in to them: “All aboard...”

The man in the dark-brown coat smiled a little; he whispered:

“Let’s walk back and look at the lights.”

The train began to move, slowly.

The other man’s empty eyes were on one of the big pockets of the dark-brown coat where something besides the big man’s hand bulged the material. He did not move, seemed incapable of moving.

The man in the dark-brown coat repeated: “Let’s walk back...” Then he crossed swiftly and grabbed the other’s coat collar with his free hand and jerked him to his feet, shoved him to the door and out into the narrow corridor; they went towards the rear of the train.

They went through four cars, most of them with the berths made up and curtains drawn, encountered only a heavily breathing drunk in pajamas who had mislaid something, and two sleepy porters. The last car was partly compartments, partly observation car. As they entered it, a red-haired brakeman passed them without looking at them and went forward. They went to the observation rear end and the man in the green hat said: “This is far enough, Lew, if you want to talk.”

The man in the brown coat smiled. His right hand moved the coat pocket suggestively. He nodded his head sidewise, erupted, “Out on the platform, Gino. Then no one will hear us.”

Gino took one glance at the bulged coat pocket, and opened the door to the observation platform.

The train was just coming out of the tunnel to the elevated tracks and the rosy glow of midtown Manhattan was reflected by the gray wind-driven clouds. The wind slashed like an icy knife and green-hat mechanically turned up his collar, shivered violently.

Following him, the man in the dark-brown coat pulled the door shade down — both window shades were drawn — and closed the door tightly. He jerked his hand from his pocket. There was a momentary flash of something bright and glittering as he swung his hand up and down in a short arc against the other’s skull. The hat went whirling away into the wind and darkness and the man sank to his knees, toppled forward to crush his face against the floor.

The man in the dark-brown coat knelt beside him and went through his pockets swiftly, carefully. In the inside pocket of his suitcoat he found a thick packet of currency, slipped it into his own inside pocket.

A new sound, the faint stutter of an incoming train on the adjoining track, grew above the roar of the wind. The man glanced ahead, around the corner of the car, seemed for a moment to be calculating the distance away of the approaching headlight, then stooped again, swiftly.

Hurriedly he stripped off the man’s overcoat, then his own. He struggled into the former — a rather tight-fitting tweed Chesterfield — and somehow forced the other man’s arms and shoulders into his own big dark-brown camel’s hair; then he finished transferring the contents of his own inside pockets — several letters, a monogrammed cigarette case and other odds and ends — to the inside pockets of the unconscious man.

The stutter of the approaching train grew to a hoarse scream. He boosted the limp body onto his shoulder, stood up, and when the blinding headlight of the train on the adjoining track was about twenty-five or thirty feet away, he dumped his burden over the side-rail of the observation platform down onto the track in front of the onrushing locomotive.

Then he turned swiftly and went back through the observation car. As he reached the third car forward the train slowed and he heard a far-off voice shout:

“Hundred an’ Twenty-fifth Street.”

When the train stopped and a porter opened the doors of the vestibule between the third and fourth car, the man, now in a tightfitting tweed Chesterfield, swung off and sauntered down the stairs that led from the station to the street.

As he crossed the street towards a cab he heard the conductor’s thin far-off wail above the wind: “All aboard...”

He climbed into the cab, snapped: “Three thirty-two West Ninetieth — and make it fast.”

Green lit a match and examined the mailboxes carefully. The second one on the left rewarded him with a dingy label upon which:

JOHN DARRELL SALLUST

PAULA SALLUST

had been typewritten in bright-blue ink.

He rang the bell under the label and after a minute the lock of the outside door buzzed; he went in and climbed two flights of narrow stairs to Apartment B5. The door was ajar; he knocked and a man’s high-pitched voice called:

“Come in.”

Green went into a very large and bare studio, dimly lighted by two floor lamps in opposite corners and a small but very bright desk lamp on a wide central table.

The high-pitched voice: “Well, Mister Green — this is an unexpected pleasure.”

Green took off his hat and went to the wide table. He bowed slightly.

“Might you, by any chance,” he inquired blandly, “have been out this evening — since, say eleven o’clock?”

John Sallust was a thin, consumptive-looking Englishman with a high bulging forehead, stringy mouse-colored hair, and cold gray eyes, so light in color that they appeared almost white. He sat straddling a chair, his chin resting on his clasped hands on the back of the chair.

“I not only might have,” he said evenly — “I was. I only got home about a quarter of an hour ago.”

Green glanced at the square heavy watch on the inside of his left wrist; it was fifty-two minutes after one.

Sallust turned his head. “This is Paula, my sister. This is Nick Green. You’ve probably heard me speak of him.”

She was half sitting, half lying on a low couch against one of the long walls of the room, a very dark, very diminutive girl with porcelain-white skin, a deep-red mouth and large oddly opaque eyes.

She nodded and Green bowed again slightly.

“We went to a theater.” She sat up slowly. “We went to a theater and John brought me home afterwards — it must have been about ten-thirty — and then he went for a walk.”

Green smiled. “That’s simply dandy. Now, if you two can jump into your hats and coats and the three of us can get out of here in about one minute flat” — he raised one snowy eyebrow and grinned at Sallust — “you won’t have to take another of those very unpleasant trips to jail.”

Paula leapt to her feet, almost screamed: “Jail!”

Sallust’s thin face twisted to a wry smile. “You choose a rather bizarre time to joke, Mister Green,” he said softly.

Green was looking at his watch. “Maybe in two minutes,” he whispered as if to himself.

Paula crossed to him swiftly.

“What are you talking about?” she gulped. “What is it?”

“I haven’t time to tell you about it, now. Take my word for it that the Law will be here in a split-jiffy to arrest your brother for the murder of Bruce Maccunn and a half dozen or so innocent bystanders. Let’s go first and talk about it afterwards...”

Sallust did not move. His eyes moved swiftly to his sister once, then back to Green. He muttered: “No.”

Green stared at him blankly. “No? No what?”

Sallust shook his head a little. “I returned three days ago,” he said gently, “from the better part of five years in prison, I was as I believe you call it, framed. I was accused by lies, tried by lies, convicted by lies...”

He cleared his throat and straightened in the chair, gazed very intently at Green.

“I know you very slightly, Mister Green. I have been led to believe at one time or another that you are in some way sympathetic to our cause, but I have just returned from a painful five-year lesson in misplaced trust. I do not know what you are talking about, now, but I know that I have done no wrong and I shall stay exactly where I am.”

It was entirely silent for a moment and then Paula’s voice rang softly, tremulously: “Perhaps you’re making a mistake, John. Mister Green is—” She stopped.

Green put his hand up and rubbed the heel of it slowly down the left side of his face. His eyes were fixed more or less vacantly on a small turkey-red cigarette box on the table. Very suddenly he went forward and as Sallust sprang to his feet, Green’s arm moved in a long looping arc, his knuckles smacked sharply against Sallust’s chin; Sallust crumpled and fell to his knees, clutched blindly at the chair, went limp.

Paula was too surprised to scream, or move; she stood with her hands to her mouth, her great eyes fixed on Green in startled amazement.

Green mumbled, “Sorry,” shortly, stooped and swept Sallust’s slight figure up into his arms and moved towards the door. “Come on,” he grunted over his shoulder, “and make it snappy.”

She followed in stunned silence; at the door he turned and jerked his head at her coat and she took it up from a chair and put it on like a somnambulist motivated and moved by something unknown, something irresistible.

The bleak Greenwich Village street was deserted; Green carried Sallust across the glistening sidewalk and put him in the car, hurried around to climb in behind the wheel. Paula stood hesitantly on the sidewalk; the cold air had brought back her momentarily dimmed senses and she reflected that it was not too late to scream, reflected further, after glancing up and down the street, that it was more or less useless. She got into the car and closed the door, put her arm around Sallust and waited.

Just east of Eighth Avenue, Green slowed and pulled over to the curb to allow two speeding police cars to pass, then turned and watched them skid to the curb outside the building where the Sallusts lived.

He grinned at Paula. “My timing wasn’t so hot,” he observed. “The Law was about three minutes less efficient than I figured.”

She turned from watching the men swarm out of the cars and run into the house. Her inclination to scream was definitely gone; she tried to return his smile.

“What is it all about?” she whispered. “I don’t understand...”

“Neither do I yet.” He let the clutch in and the car rounded the corner, whirred north on Eighth Avenue. “I’m sorry I had to resort to that to get your brother out, but I thought he got a raw deal before and I want to do what I can to prevent his getting another one. After five years on the inside he shouldn’t mind a sock on the jaw if it saves him even one night in the cooler.”

Green’s apartment was on East Sixty-first; the elevator boy helped him with Sallust, who was beginning to stir and moan feebly; Green explained that he was very drunk and when they reached his apartment on the top floor they put Sallust on one of the divans in the huge living room. The elevator boy went away.

Green turned to Paula. “He’ll be all right in a little while,” he said. “The main thing is that he’s not to show up outside of this place until certain matters — I’m not quite sure what, yet, so I can’t tell you about them — are straightened out. Do you trust me enough to help, and to see to it that he stays here?”

She nodded.

Green smiled slightly. “Your word?”

She nodded again, returned the faint shadow of a smile.

He went towards the door.

“I’ll be back or give you a ring as soon as I can. Make yourself at home. If you get hungry or thirsty try the icebox.”

He went out and closed the door.

Downstairs, he admonished the night clerk. “There’re a man and woman in my apartment and I want them to stay there. I think they will, but if they get tough call Mike and let him handle them.”

The clerk nodded; he was accustomed to more or less curious orders from Mister Green. Mike was the janitor, a husky Norwegian who had performed odd jobs of a strong-arm nature for Green upon more than one occasion.

Green turned in the doorway. “And if they make any telephone calls, keep a record of who they call and what they have to say.”

The clerk nodded again. Green went out into Sixty-first Street and walked to a drugstore.

At eighteen minutes after two the phone on Blondie Kessler’s desk jingled cheerily for the tenth time in twenty-five minutes.

He whirled from his typewriter, picked up the receiver and yelped: “Hello.”

Green’s voice hummed silkily over the wire: “How many more identifiable pieces have they dug out of Tony’s? And how’s that red-hot Kessler theory coming along?”

Kessler scowled sourly into the transmitter.

“That Kessler theory is holding its head up and taking nourishment very nicely, thank you!” he barked with elaborate irony. “We found a chunk of the fuse with a foundry label on it, a place in Jersey—”

Green interrupted: “Don’t tell me. Let me guess... Sallust used to work there, or anyway, he used to live in Jersey, or maybe he went to Jersey once to visit his aunt.”

Kessler snorted: “All right, all right. I say Sallust is a cinch for this job, you say not. I’ll bet — I’ll bet you fifty dollars.”

Green snapped: “Bet.”

Kessler cackled shrilly. “The clincher is that Sallust and his sister took a powder about a minute and a half before the boys in blue swept in. Their next-door neighbors heard them go out and from the timing it looks like it was a tip.”

Green sighed. “Maybe I’m the bedbug, after all,” he murmured. “And how about my first and most important question — what else have they dug up?”

“Nothing more that they could make sense of. They’ve got a lot of arms and legs that might have been Gino or Costain or who-have-you.” Green’s voice droned on: “I’m still curious about whether Gino and Costain got to Tony’s before the fireworks. Has anybody tried to locate them?”

“Uh-huh. Gino was supposed to leave for Boston on a late train, after he went to Tony’s. A business trip according to his wife. She don’t know whether he reached Tony’s or whether he made the train or not. She’s going nuts. Then I reached Costain’s girl and she said Lew started for Tony’s about midnight, said he was going to stop by a couple places first. She hasn’t heard from him since. She’s jumping up and down and yelling and screaming, too, and calling me back every two minutes.”

There was silence for several seconds, then Green’s voice concluded dreamily:

“Don’t forget, Blondie, that Lew Costain has, or had, more enemies than any other picked dozen highbinders in this town. Maccunn had one, or at least you’re trying to hang his chill on one. Whether Costain reached Tony’s or not, he was headed there, and in some strange way that seems more important to me than the fact that Sallust wanted Maccunn’s blood. With all due respect to the Kessler theory, of course... And don’t forget the fifty...”

The phone clicked, an electric period.

Kessler looked like he was going to take a large bite out of the transmitter for a minute, then he hung up slowly and turned back to his typewriter with enormous disgust.

Harley, the City Editor, was working feverishly, trying very hard not to whistle. He, for one, had hated Maccunn as a slave driver, and now it looked like he’d be moving into the big oak-paneled office on the seventh floor and be writing M.E. after his name.

He looked up as Kessler hung up the receiver, yelled: “Anything new?”

Kessler shook his head. “Nothing new, only that guy Green is losing his mind.”

Solly Allenberg, short and fat, was sitting in his cab near the corner of Forty-ninth and Broadway, when Green crossed the street to him.

Allenberg stopped short in the middle of a yawn and his face lit up like a chubby Christmas tree.

“Hello, Mister Green,” he croaked heartily. “Where you been keeping yourself?”

Green leaned on the door.

“I’ve been around,” he said. “How’ve you been doing, Solly? How are the kids?”

“Swell, Mister Green, just swell. The wife was asking about you just the other night. I told her—”

Green interrupted quietly: “Lew Costain’s been murdered.”

Solly’s thick mouth fell open slowly. “Murdered? What the hell you talking about?”

Green’s head bobbed up and down.

“He was at Tony Maschio’s tonight when the firecracker went off — he and Gino...”

Solly said: “I was just reading about it in the paper, but it didn’t say nothing about Mister Costain.”

“They hadn’t identified him when they snapped that Extra out.”

Green reached past Solly and clicked down the taxi-meter flag. “Let’s take a ride,” he suggested — “only let’s take it inside, where it’s warm and where we can get a drink.”

Solly tumbled out of the cab and they crossed the slippery sidewalk and went into the Rialto Bar. They both ordered rye. Green studied Solly’s reflection in the big mirror behind the bar.

“How long have you been working for Lew?” he began. Solly hesitated and Green went on swiftly: “Listen. I knew him pretty well, liked him. I intend to find who rubbed him out and you can help me, if you will...”

Solly gulped his drink. “Sure,” he blurted — “I wanta help.” He glanced at his empty glass and Green nodded to the bartender to fill it up.

“I never really worked for him,” Solly went on. “He was scared of cars — scared to drive his own car in town. He got the batty idea two, three years ago I was a swell, careful driver, so he’s been riding in my cab most of the time since. Whenever he’d light anywhere for awhile or go home an’ go to bed or anything like that, he’d tell me an’ I’d pick up what I could on the side. He paid me a flat rate of a sawbuck a day no matter what the meter read an’ some days he wouldn’t use me at all, so it worked out swell.”

“Did you take him anywhere tonight?”

“Uh-huh.” Solly drank, nodded. “I picked him up at his apartment a little after midnight an’ took him to the corner of Bleecker an’ Thompson Street. He said he wouldn’t need me any more tonight.” Green tasted his rye, made a face and put a twenty-dollar bill on the bar.

Solly said, “Don’t you like it, Mister Green?”

Green shook his head and edged the glass along the bar with the side of his hand until it was in front of Solly.

Solly regarded it meditatively. “I’ll be damned,” he said, “a swell guy like Mister Costain getting the works like that...” He picked up the glass.

Green was lighting a cigarette. “Who did it?”

Solly shrugged. “There is a lot of guys who never liked him, because they didn’t understand him. He was — uh — ec—” Solly stopped, tasted his fresh drink and tried again: “He was ec—”

“Eccentric?”

Solly bobbed his head.

Green persisted: “But who hated him enough and had guts enough to tip him over?” Solly drained his glass, then closed one eye and looked immeasurably wise. “Well, if you ask me,” he said quickly, “the guy who had plenty of reason to, an’ maybe enough guts to, was plenty close to home... Did’ja ever meet a fella named Demetrios — something Demetrios? A Greek — tall shiny-haired sheik with a big smile?”

Green shook his head.

Solly leaned closer. “He worked as a kind of bodyguard an’ all-around handyman for Mister Costain. Mister Costain liked him...” Solly’s voice dissolved to a hoarse stage whisper. “I happen to know that Demetrios an’ June Neilan, Costain’s girl, was like that” — he held up two grimy fingers pressed close together — “right under Costain’s nose.”

Green’s brows ascended to twin inverted Vs. “That’s a good reason for Costain to hang it on the Greek,” he objected, “but not the other way around.”

“Wait a minute. You don’t get it.” Solly’s face split to a wide grin. “I happen to know this Demetrios has tried to let Costain have it in the back a couple times, only it went wrong, an’ Costain didn’t even tumble to who it was. I happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

“Why didn’t you tell Costain?”

Solly stared hard at his empty glass.

Green smiled faintly. “Did Demetrios pay off?”

Solly nodded sheepishly. Green rapped on the bar and the bartender filled both glasses.

“It’s just like it always is,” Solly croaked philosophically. “Costain was crazy jealous of everybody except the right guy, an’ distrusted everybody except the guy who was holding the knife.”

“Where did Costain live? Some place on West Ninetieth, wasn’t it?”

“Uh-huh. Three thirty-one.”

Green picked up his change and Solly gulped both drinks and they went out and started across the slippery sidewalk towards the cab.

A slight, white-faced man with his coat collar turned up and the brim of his soft black hat turned down as much as possible to cover his face came up to them and said, “Hello, Solly. Hello, Mister Green,” in a soft muffled voice. He took a short snub-nosed revolver out of his overcoat pocket and shot Solly in the stomach twice. Solly slipped and fell side-wise against Green and they both fell; Solly took two more slugs that were intended for Green. The cold magnified the roar of the gun to thunder. The wind whipped around the corner and the brim of the white-faced man’s hat blew up and Green recognized Giuseppe Picelli, Number Three Barber.

Then Green and Solly were a tangled mass of threshing arms and legs on the icy sidewalk and Picelli turned and ran east on Forty-ninth Street.

On the third floor of the rooming house at Three thirty-two West Ninetieth, directly across the street from Three thirty-one, a man sat motionlessly at the window of the large dimly lighted front room. He had taken off the tweed Chesterfield he had worn when he left the Boston train at One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, and his suit coat; he sat in his deep-pink silk shirtsleeves on the edge of a heavily upholstered chair, leaning forward to peer steadily through the slit under the drawn window shade.

From time to time he lighted a fresh cigarette from the butt of the last, glanced at his watch; these were the sole disturbances to his rigid immobility, his entirely silent vigil.

At two thirty-six the phone rang. He picked it up from the floor with his eyes on the slit, grunted: “Yeah.”

He listened silently for perhaps a minute, then said: “What the hell difference does it make whether Green recognized you or not if he’s dead?... Oh, you’re not sure. They both fell, but you’re not sure” — his tone dripped sarcasm — “Well, you’d better make sure. I don’t care how you do it, you’ve had your orders. Check on it some way and then come on up here, and be careful when you come in.”

He put the phone on the floor, lighted a fresh cigarette.

Demetrios said: “I don’t know nothing about it.”

Doyle glanced swiftly at the detective lieutenant who had accompanied him. “Well, we figured you’d want to know,” he mumbled. Demetrios pulled his bright-yellow dressing gown more closely around his shoulders, shivered slightly, nodded.

They were in Demetrios’ small apartment on Seventy-sixth Street. He’d been in bed, asleep; Doyle and the lieutenant had pounded on the door for three or four minutes before they’d succeeded in waking him.

The detective lieutenant stood up, stretched, yawned extravagantly.

Someone knocked at the door.

Doyle opened it and Green came in. He nodded to Doyle and the lieutenant, jerked his head at Demetrios.

“I don’t know this gent, but I want to have a little talk with him,” he said. “Will somebody please introduce me?”

Demetrios stared at him unpleasantly. “Is this guy a dick?”

Doyle grinned, shook his head. “Huh-uh. This is St Nick Green. He’s a nice fella. You two ought to know each other.”

Demetrios stood up angrily. “What the hell you mean coming into my house like this?” He whirled on Doyle and the lieutenant. “You, too. You got a warrant? I don’t know nothing about Costain—”

Doyle clucked: “Tch, tch, such a temper!” He smiled at Green. “Don’t mind him. We woke him up an’ he’s pouting.”

Green sat down on the arm of a chair.

“Speaking of Costain,” he said softly, “has he turned up yet?” He turned to Doyle. “Something tells me he wasn’t at Tony’s and that he’s still in one piece.”

They were all looking at Green; Demetrios and the lieutenant with more or less puzzled expressions, Doyle with a broad grin.

Doyle laughed. “You’re a little behind the times, Nicky,” he boomed. “They found what was left of Costain on the New York Central tracks at a Hundred an’ Twenty-first Street a little while ago. No mistake about it this time. He was identified by a lot of papers an’ stuff in his pockets.”

The lieutenant said: “That’s why we woke up his nibs, here. We thought he might know something about it.”

Demetrios turned and closed the window savagely. “I don’t know nothing about it,” he snarled. “I told Lew I didn’t want no part of it. I been in bed since ten o’clock an’ got a witness to prove it. There’s been three phone calls through the switchboard, so the operator knows I was in.”

Green asked gently: “Told Lew you didn’t want any part of what?”

“Any part of nothing! Me an’ him was washed up. He’s been screwy for the last week. He thought everybody was trying to double-cross him.”

Green purred: “Everybody probably was.”

Doyle repeated: “Any part of what, Demetrios?”

Demetrios sat down. “He was tipped off yesterday that Gino an’ Tony were juggling the books. One of Tony’s barbers called him an’ said instead of the syndicate going into the red like it’s supposed to been going the last few weeks, it’s been cleaning up important money. Costain never paid any attention to the business. He didn’t have no head for figures. He furnished the original bankroll an’ trusted Gino an’ Tony to take care of the business.”

The lieutenant muttered: “Christ! what a character shark! Trusting Gino and Tony!”

“They were going to take a powder, according to Lew’s info,” Demetrios went on. “Gino was going to shag a boat out of Boston for Havana an’ Tony was going to Florida by rail an’ meet him there. Between them they were supposed to have about four hundred grand. Lew told me about it an’ said he’d made a date to meet both of them at Tony’s at a quarter after one tonight. He wanted me to go along, but I couldn’t see it. It looked like a dumb play. Anyway, me an’ him was washed up and I been in bed since ten o’clock.”

The lieutenant snapped: “You’re good enough for us, Demetrios, as a material witness. Get on your clothes.”

“That’s what I get for trying to help you dumb bastards,” Demetrios bleated. He got up and went into the bathroom.

Green stood up, crossed quietly to Doyle and the lieutenant, whispered: “Don’t pick him up. Tell him to stand by for a call in the morning and let him go. I’ll lay six, two, and even he doesn’t go back to bed, but goes out. We can wait outside and if he doesn’t lead us somewhere I’m a Tasmanian watchmaker.”

Doyle looked doubtful, but the lieutenant seemed to like the idea.

He called: “Let it go, Demetrios. But stick around for a call in the morning.”

Demetrios appeared in the bathroom doorway in his pajamas. He looked a little bewildered.

“Can I go back to bed?”

Doyle said: “Sure. Get some sleep. You’ll probably need it. After all, we wouldn’t be getting nowhere in figuring out what this’s all about if it wasn’t for you.”

Demetrios nodded glumly, went over and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Doyle grunted, “G’night,” and he and Green and the lieutenant filed out.

Demetrios sat silent for two or three minutes and then got up and went to the door, opened it and looked up and down the hall. Then he closed the door and crossed to the private telephone that stood on the stand beside the bed, beside the regular house phone. He sat down on the bed again and dialed a Schuyler number, said:

“Hello, honey. Listen. The big news just came through. They found ‘im on the New York Central tracks, uptown. Uh-huh. I guess he left the pinwheel at Tony’s an’ picked up Gino on the Boston train. Only Gino saw him first... A couple coppers just stopped by an’ told me. They thought I might like to know.”

He laughed quietly. “Sure, I gave ’em enough so they know he blasted Tony’s. They can figure the rest of it out for themselves. Now, listen. They’re probably waiting for me outside, but I’m going to duck out through the basement.” He glanced at the alarm clock on the dresser. “It’s a quarter of three. I’ll be over there in half an hour at the outside unless they tail me an’ then I’ll have to lose ’em. You throw some things in a bag an’ be ready to leave. We’ll take a little trip. Someplace where it’s cool... Okay, baby — ’Bye.”

He hung up, dressed swiftly and took a traveling bag out of a closet, began stuffing clothes into it.

Green’s car was parked on the other side of Broadway, on Seventy-sixth. He went into an all-night drugstore on the corner and called the Star-Telegram, asked for Kessler.

Kessler grunted, “Hello,” wearily, snapped out of it when he recognized Green’s voice.

“Hey, Nick! I just heard somebody took a shot at you,” he yelped. “You all right?”

“I’m okay. I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.”

“That’s swell!” Kessler whooped. “Everything’s swell! I just put the Star-Telegram exclusive on Sallust to bed. What a story! It oughta be on the streets in an hour.”

Green said softly: “Blondie, if you want to keep your job, and keep the Star out of an awful jam, kill it.” Then, before Kessler could answer, he went on: “I just left Demetrios’ apartment. He’s the tall good-looking Greek that worked for Costain. Doyle and his partner are waiting for him to show, to tail him, but I’m afraid he’ll get past them and I have a very merry hunch where he’s going.”

Kessler interrupted: “But listen, Nick—”

“You listen.” Green’s tone was ominous. “Hold that story for at least an hour, and leap up to Three thirty-one West Ninetieth with some Law, fast. I’ll be outside, or if I’m not, I’ll be upstairs in Costain’s apartment. Come up, and come quick. This is going to be the payoff on everything that’s happened tonight and it’ll make your Sallust story look like a want ad.”

“But listen...” Kessler sounded like he was about to cry.

Green snapped: “I’m depending on you. Make it fast and make it quiet. And don’t forget to bring along that fifty skins.”

He hung up the receiver and went out and got into his car, drove to Amsterdam Avenue, up Amsterdam to Eighty-ninth, turned west. He parked just off Riverside Drive on Ninetieth, about a hundred and fifty feet west of the entrance to Three thirty-one.

Then he lighted a cigarette and sat still and waited.

The man in the third-floor front room at Three thirty-two didn’t smoke any more; he simply waited, his eyes at the slit under the window shade. Occasionally he leaned back in the big chair, but for only a few seconds at a time and only after ten minutes or so of rigid, wary immobility.

At four minutes after three someone knocked at the door. He got up and opened it swiftly. Giuseppe Picelli came in; the man went back to the window.

Picelli sat down, said dully: “Got Solly. Green got away. There was ice...”

“There was ice,” the man at the window repeated slowly. “All right, there was ice. How long were they together?”

“Green came up to Solly — Solly was in his cab. They went into the bar and I called you. Two or three minutes after I came out of the booth, they came out. I went up to them on the sidewalk...”

“And there was ice.”

The man at the window stiffened suddenly, shaded his eyes from the dim light in the room. He peered intently through the slit for perhaps ten or fifteen seconds, then stood up and picked up his suit coat and put it on.

“Come on, Joe. We’re going places,” he said.

He took a big blue automatic out of the pocket of the tweed Chesterfield and stuck it against his stomach, under the belt, pulled the points of his vest down over it.

The two men went together out of the room and down two flights of stairs, out of the rooming house and across the street to Three thirty-one.

The elevator boy stared wide-eyed at the man who had been sitting at the window.

“Jeeze, Mister Costain,” he stuttered. “I thought — Miss Neilan has been going crazy — calling up the newspapers every few minutes...”

Costain did not answer.

They got off at the fourth floor, went to the door of the front apartment on the right. Costain took a bunch of keys out of his pocket and unlocked it, opened it. They went in and closed the door.

June Neilan was a very pretty platinum blonde with wide blue eyes, orange lips that looked as if they had been put on to stay. She turned and stared at Costain and her creamy skin went gray.

Demetrios’ hand moved swiftly upward across his chest and then he looked at the snub-nosed revolver in Picelli’s hand, changed his mind and dropped his hands to his side, slowly.

Costain said: “Sit down.”

June Neilan walked unsteadily to the nearest chair, sat down. Demetrios stood still.

Costain went to Demetrios and reached inside his coat, jerked a .35 automatic out of a shoulder holster and handed it back to Picelli. Then he doubled up his right fist and swung hard at Demetrios’ jaw. Demetrios moved backward a little and Costain’s fist cut his cheek; two tiny drops of blood started out on the white skin just beneath the cheekbone.

Costain drew his fist back and swung again; this time his timing was better, there was a soft splat as his fist struck Demetrios’ jaw, Demetrios reeled backward against the wall. Costain went after him, cocked his right again. June Neilan said, “Please don’t, Lew,” dully. Costain’s right fist ripped into Demetrios’ throat, his left smashed his nose. Demetrios made a curious strangling sound and slid sidewise down the wall to the floor.

Costain was panting, his heavy florid face was purple. He drew his foot back and kicked Demetrios’ face, hard, again and again; it made a soft, smacking sound like someone snapping their fingers in water and Demetrios’ face darkened with glistening deep-red blood. Someone pounded on the door.

Costain did not seem to hear; he raised his foot and stamped on Demetrios’ face so hard that the bones of the nose and cheek crunched like crumpled paper. Picelli whimpered: “Boss — there’s somebody outside...”

Costain did not turn his head; he panted: “Okay — let ’em be outside. I’m busy...”

The pounding came on the door again.

June Neilan was staring at Costain and Demetrios blindly; she jumped up suddenly and ran to the door. Picelli was a split second too late. She turned the lock, the door swung open and Nick Green stood in the opening.

Costain turned from Demetrios and jerked the big automatic out of his belt, shot twice. June Neilan spun around as if a heavy unseen hand were on her shoulder, twisting her slight body.

Green felt the sleeve of his coat lift, tear, a hot stab of pain in the outer muscle of his left arm. He shot once from a little above the hip. Costain bent forward slowly as if in an extravagant bow; then he sank to one knee and raised his head, stared vacantly at June Neilan.

She was holding on to the edge of the door with her two hands. Her eyes went back in her head suddenly and her body folded; she fell.

Green came forward into the room.

Picelli was shivering violently and his face looked very pinched and small; his revolver fell to the floor and he raised his hands slowly.

Costain’s mouth twisted upward a little to a kind of grin, he toppled sidewise and as he struck the floor he straightened his right arm until the muzzle of the big automatic was jammed into Demetrios’ stomach.

The dark doorway was suddenly crowded with faces, men. Doyle and Kessler and two detectives from the Ninth Precinct Station came into the room. One of the detectives picked up Picelli’s and Demetrios’ guns, the other knelt beside June Neilan.

Doyle went past Green and stood looking down at Costain. Costain had emptied the big automatic into Demetrios’ stomach; he rolled over and raised his head a little, grinned up at Doyle, then at Green.

“That was a good job,” he whispered. “That was the best job I’ve ever done...”

His head fell back. Doyle stooped over him.

“He’ll be all right, I think,” Green said slowly. “I tried to shoot him in the leg and in the shoulder...” He turned to Kessler with a very faraway expression on his face. “I wonder why.”

The detective kneeling beside June Neilan looked up. “The gal hasn’t got a scratch,” he mumbled. “She bumped her head on the door when she fell but that’s all.”

Green said: “I guess she fainted. Costain’s a lousy shot.”

He peeled off his overcoat and his suit coat, sat down and rolled up his shirtsleeve. The wound on the arm was slight, a crease; one of the detectives wrapped a clean handkerchief around it and tied it.

Kessler was staring blankly at Costain. “I still don’t get it,” he stuttered. “How many times can you kill one guy? Who was the guy they — they found on the tracks?”

Doyle was at the phone.

Green smiled at Kessler. “That’d be Gino,” he said. “Picelli tipped Costain that Gino and Tony were running out on him with all the syndicate’s dough. Costain left the ticker at Tony’s and then caught up with Gino on the late Boston train. He probably got the bright idea that if he made it look like he’d been killed he could sneak back to a spot where he could watch the apartment, he might catch Demetrios and his girlfriend in the act.”

Doyle hung up the receiver and turned to listen.

“He’s probably been suspicious of them for a week or so,” Green went on. “That was his reason for keeping away from her until Demetrios showed. He planted his things on Gino and tossed him under the train; he wasn’t sure it’d work or how long it’d take for ’em to find what was left of Gino, so he called Picelli and told him to check on it. Picelli checked and sure enough, the report had gone out that Costain’s body had been found. Then all Costain had to do was wait for Demetrios to turn up to break the big news to the girl.”

Green rolled his shirtsleeve down and got up and put on his coat.

“Picelli shot Solly Allenberg tonight because Solly drove Costain to the corner of Bleecker and Thompson. That’s about a half block from where Maxie Sillmann lives and Maxie’s the boy who specializes in plain and fancy pineapples. Costain wanted to be sure no one got to Solly because Solly knew a little bit too much about the whole business, and he probably had Picelli watching him. My guess is that Picelli called him back and told him Solly and I were in the bar and that I’d been at Tony’s after the blast, so Costain told Picelli to let both of us have it.”

Green was looking at Picelli. Picelli nodded slightly.

Kessler had perked up amazingly; he suddenly dashed for the telephone.

Green said: “Wait a minute, Blondie. I’ve got a couple of important calls to make.”

He crossed to the telephone and sat down and called the Receiving Hospital, asked about Solly Allenberg. He waited a minute, then shook his head and whispered, “That’s too bad,” hung up the receiver and looked at Kessler. “I’ll take that fifty, now,” he said softly.

Sockdolager[27]

I’m Finn; thirty-three, white, unmarried, and a professional gambler. By professional I mean up until six or seven years age I was an amateur and turned over most of the money I made — which was plenty — to the bookmakers. That got to be pretty monotonous. I finally broke the monotony by the simple expedient of becoming a bookmaker.

Late last Fall I came out to California — Los Angeles. It was my first trip but it was just like coming home because practically all my friends were here. I took a big apartment in the Strip on the edge of Hollywood — the Strip is where the speakeasys and class nightclubs used to be when there was still reason to speak easily and when you could tell the difference between a class club and a honkytonk — and listened to propositions. I had a bankroll as big as your thigh.

I finally picked the proposition that looked best and it turned out to be — to put it modestly — a pip. Fritz Kiernan and I went into partnership and inside of six weeks we had the juiciest play on the Coast. We had two spots, one in the center of Hollywood and one for ladies only in a house in Beverly Hills.

That Number Two spot was an inspiration. The Santa Anita track had just opened and all Southern California had gone nag-nutty. We got the cream in Number Two; at two o’clock of any afternoon in the week you could stand in the middle of the main room and poke your finger in the eye of anywhere from ten to two dozen picture stars, wives of stars, “cousins” of producers, and just plain rich women. If you think men are natural gamblers you ought to see a lot of gals who can afford it in a bunch. A two grand parlay was chickenfeed.

We got most of the she class play that didn’t go to the track, and after the track closed for the season about a million new horse players had been made and we had wire service to all the eastern tracks and kept on getting it. Our Number One place was holding its head up, too. The proverbially flourishing green bay tree was a stunted sapling alongside of us; we were rolling in dough.

Then one night a couple months ago — it was a Friday because I’d been to the regular Friday night fights at the American Legion Stadium — I was sitting in the Brown Derby with two or three of the boys and a waiter brought a phone over and plugged it in and piped: “Mister Kiernan wants to talk to you.”

I nodded at the girl at the switchboard, said: “Hello.”

Kiernan’s voice was a shade and a half above a whisper: “Listen, Sean...”

He was one of the even half-dozen people who pronounce my name the way it should be pronounced: Shane.

I listened.

“I’m out at the house — my house...”

I said: “You sound like you were in a coal mine. Stop whispering.”

There was a meaningless jumble of sound and then: “Somebody took a shot at me...”

His voice faded away. I yelled “Fritz” but there wasn’t any answer. The phone hadn’t clicked off so I didn’t waste time trying to call him back. I was out of the Derby in nothing flat, roaring out Sunset Boulevard.

He lived to hell and gone out in Bel-Air. I took all the shortcuts I could remember and made sixteen cylinders do even better than the salesman had promised but it took the best part of half an hour.

The house was all by itself on a private road about a quarter of a mile off the main highway. I pulled up and snapped off my headlights and took the front steps in one jump. The front door was partway open. There was a big tanned athletic looking gent in a light camel’s hair coat lying on his back just inside; his eyes were wide open and one of his legs was sticking out through the doorway. There was a bullet hole in the middle of his chest, high. I’d never seen him before. I stepped over him and went across to Fritz.

He was lying near the big table in the middle of the room with one arm hooked over a chair and the other twisted under him. One of his legs was twisted under him, too. It looked like three or four heavyweights had worked him over for an hour or so; I’ve seen quite a few badly beaten up men at one time or another but never anything like that. He was very dead.

The phone was on the floor a little ways beyond his body. I picked it up and wiggled the receiver a couple times and it buzzed; I called the police station in LA — I didn’t know anybody in the Beverly Hills or Hollywood Divisions and I wasn’t in the mood for a lot of trick questions from strange coppers. I finally got a detective lieutenant named Moore, whom I’d met through Fritz, on the wire and told him about it.

Then I went over as far away from Fritz as I could and sat down and thought I was going to be sick. I’m not exactly a nance when it comes to carnage but he looked like he’d been stepped on by an elephant. I sat there trying to adjust myself to the idea of him being dead — I liked him as well as any man I’d ever known and it was no cinch — and then I heard a noise behind me and damn near dislocated my neck turning around.

It was the Norwegian woman who cooked and kept house for the Kiernans. She was wearing a white kimono with yellow and green and purple chrysanthemums on it. She looked from one body to the other and then at me and then back at Fritz. I thought her eyes were going to fall out on her cheeks.

I asked: “See anybody here tonight?”

She shook her head slowly without taking her eyes off Fritz. “No, sir — only Mister Kiernan.”

“Hear anything?”

“I heard three shots...”

“All at once?” She turned to me. “No — there were two, and then after several minutes there was another.”

“What’d you do?”

She hesitated a moment, said slowly: “I locked my door and stayed in my room.”

“Where’s Mrs Kiernan?”

“Went to Palm Springs this morning.” She was about winded.

I said: “You’d better get dressed — the police will be here in a few minutes.”

She clucked mournfully a couple times and hurried away. I caught her in the doorway with one more question: “Did Mister Kiernan mention that he was having visitors tonight or anything like that?”

She shook her head. “No, sir — nothing at all. I cooked his dinner and he ate by himself and then came in here. I went to bed at nine o’clock.” She clucked some more and disappeared.

In about a minute I heard a car pull up and stop out in front and I got up and went out on the porch. It was pretty dark but when my eyes got used to it I saw a coupé parked down the driveway about forty feet. It didn’t look like a police car and no one got out so I stalled, waiting for whoever was in the car to play. They didn’t. I finally strolled over and stuck my puss in. Myra Reid was sitting hunched down back of the wheel, her face green-white in the glow of the dashlight.

Myra was a kind of perennial “baby star”; she never seemed to get very far in pictures and she never seemed to be hungry. I think it all began when some contest judge dubbed her “Miss Most Beautiful Legs in Minneapolis.” Minneapolis lost a fair stenographer and Hollywood got the legs. She had a “long term” contract at one of those collapsible studios on Gower Street and made enough money to have a nice address in Toluca Lake and a flash car for front so she could run up bills.

Every so often a bunch of self-appointed talent sharks would get together and vote her and a couple dozen of her pals the “most promising young actresses of the coming year.” She’d been “promising” for about five years.

With my customary flair for the unique and penetrating question, I asked: “What are you doing here?”

She stuttered something about having a date with Fritz.

Fritz wasn’t a chaser. I knew that Myra was on our books for about four grand and figured it might have something to do with that.

She was ahead of me, went on: “I wanted to talk to him about the money I owe you; I called him up after dinner and he said he’d be home all evening. Didn’t he tell you?”

I shook my head and reached in and turned the nickel cap on the dashlight so I could see her face better. She was pretty shaky.

I said: “Well — why don’t you go in?”

She managed to smile. “I was just getting out of the car when you came out on the porch. I didn’t know who it was so I waited.”

I nodded and opened the door of the car and waited for her to get out. She put one foot out on the running board, hesitated, chirped: “Fritz is all right, isn’t he?...”

“Sure — Fritz is fine. Why?”

She laughed self-consciously. “I just wondered...”

I said: “Fritz is dead.”

She stared at me a few seconds without saying anything. Then she put her hands up to her mouth and moaned something that sounded like “Oh my God!...”

I waited. It was a good hunch. If I’d started asking questions she’d probably have closed up like a clam but instead she went entirely screwy and started babbling about “Mel” and “her career” and “poor Fritz” and a couple dozen other things. Pieced together it went something like this:

She’d made the date with Fritz at his house because she wanted to have a heart to heart talk about paying off a little at a time, and he was always so busy at the club.

My own guess was that she’d figured she might go into her baby star routine for him and he’d break down and tear up her markers or take it out in trade, or something. Maybe not.

Anyway, she was all set to leave for Bel-Air when in walks Mel, her current chump — fiancé was her word — and says: “Where are you going, my pretty maid?”

“I’m going to Fritz Kiernan’s on business,” says she — honest lass.

“Business my eye!” says he, or words to that effect, and the battle was on.

Mel, I gathered, was a lovely boy, but given to jealous rages in which he completely blew his noodle. This had been one of his best, and after building it for about an hour he’d stamped out with the loudly proclaimed intention of wiping such scum as Fritz Kiernan off the face of the earth, or some equally lousy curtain line. It seems he’d missed the point that Myra had made the date and that it was business, and a few inconsequential details like that.

She beat him to her front door and stood there with her arms spread out, yelping “No, no — not that!” or whatever seemed appropriate and he clipped her on the button and she went bye-bye. Nice fella.

I asked her what Mel looked like and she managed to tell me, with sob effects; I knew who the husky lying in the doorway was. All of which got me exactly nowhere in trying to figure out what’d happened. It was a cinch Mel hadn’t beaten Fritz to death; no one man could’ve done that without a sledgehammer. And if Fritz shot Mel where was the gun? And how could he shoot anybody if he was dead? And what did he say, “Somebody took a shot at me,” on the phone for? Mel didn’t sound like the type to take a shot at anyone; he’d be a bare-hander. None of it made sense.

I asked Myra if Mel ever carried a gun, just to be sure, and she shook her head.

Then I tried to lay out the little I knew about it in chronological order in my mind and kept on getting nowhere, fast. The only thing I was sure of, or thought I was sure of, was that Myra was telling the truth and was in a fair way of being smack in the middle of the worst jam a gal like her can draw. She believed in her career whether anyone else did or not and a scandal like that would put her on the shelf for good, even if they didn’t stick her as an accomplice or accessory or what-have-you.

So impulsive, big-hearted Finn bleated: “Listen, Myra — the Law will be here in a minute. You duck, and duck quick. And if they tie you up with this in any way keep your mouth shut until I get in touch with you. Got it?”

She stopped sobbing long enough to bob her head up and down.

“Under any circumstances don’t crack about coming here tonight, or seeing me. And don’t try to reach Mel — he won’t be home tonight.”

She looked at me big-eyed, nodded again.

I didn’t tell her any more about Mel; she’d find out about that soon enough. I watched her out of sight and went back into the house.

The whole piece of business with Myra was the kind of thing I’d call anybody else a sap for doing. It got me into plenty of trouble but I’d probably do it again the same way. I guess everybody has to be a sucker one way or another.

The cook had put on her best bib and tucker in honor of the occasion. A couple patrolmen in a radio car got to the house a little before Moore and got difficult with her and I objected and they got difficult with me; Moore got there just in time to save one of the cops and probably me from a good sock on the nose.

Moore was pretty new on the homicide squad — I think he’d been in the narcotic division or something like that — but he had an Italian named Amante with him who was as efficient as any half-dozen dicks I’ve ever seen.

He was a short gray-haired gent with wide-set intelligent eyes and a nice smile. Inside of half an hour he’d heard all I had to say and all the cook had to say. He’d found the spot on the porch where Fritz had been standing when whoever it was took the first shot at him. He’d decided that that first shot missed and he’d found the slug buried in the side of the house near the door. The second shot had creased Fritz’s leg and smacked into the house alongside of the other and there was a thin trail of blood from the porch into the house.

That, according to Eagle Eye Amante, was when Fritz had called me. Then the “party or parties unknown” which meant Mel and somebody else according to Amante’s theory, had followed him into the house and dragged him away from the phone and proceeded to systematically beat him to death.

That being accomplished some slight difference of opinion had arisen and he or she or they had let Mel have it. And to top it Amante found the revolver, lacking three slugs, that both Fritz and Mel had been shot with under the table near Fritz’s body. They’d have to dig the lead out of the house and out of Mel before they could be sure, of course, but it looked like a cinch.

It was swell reasoning as far as it went. And when Amante found a lot of stuff on Mel that identified him as Melville Raymond, including a wire thanking him for some flowers, signed Myra, I almost broke down and told all, but her story was still with me and I believed it and Amante’s version didn’t jibe with it at all. Call it a hunch, call it anything you like; I kept my trap closed and followed Amante’s leads in my best “Marvelous, Mister Holmes” manner.

One thing that worried me was how Mel had come out to Bel-Air. If he’d been by himself what had happened to his car? If he’d come in a cab I figured the driver would report it as soon as the story broke and that would complicate Amante’s theory a little.

The coroner and his outfit finally got there and checked perfectly with Amante. Fritz had been beaten to death — the leg wound was superficial — and Mel had died from a slug from the same gun high in the chest, shattering the breastbone and lodging in the spine.

I didn’t get home until about two-thirty. I still had to call Barbara Kiernan at Palm Springs and tell her the bad news. I hated that job because I knew she’d take it big — tear her hair and wring her hands and whatnot. She was that kind of gal, a hair tearer. I decided to put off calling till morning, and then after I got into bed I thought what the hell, I might just as well get it over with.

The cook had given me Maude Foley’s number in Palm Springs. Maude was Barbara’s sidekick and had a house down there where Barbara spent most of her weekends. I called long distance and finally got a sleepy “Hello” from Maude. That was a break — her answering instead of Barbara. I told her what had happened in as few words as possible and told her to tell it to Barbara any way she thought best. I got to sleep a little after three.

Amante called me at eleven-thirty in the morning and asked if I could stop by the station about one. Next to grave-yards and hospitals I like police stations least so I suggested we meet at the Biltmore and have lunch and he said okay.

Maude Foley called a little later and said she and Barbara were out at the house and that Barbara was pretty badly broken up. I promised to stop by later in the afternoon.

I drove out to Number Two in Beverly and told the housemen to soft pedal talking about Fritz’s murder; the morning papers were full of the case and there’d be plenty of talk without our own men joining the chorus. Then I stopped by the place in Hollywood on the way downtown and suggested the same thing to the boys there.

I was about ten minutes late at the Biltmore and found Amante in the grill with a long skinny shiny-haired guy who he introduced as Arthur Delavan of the Department of Justice.

Amante wanted to know all about Fritz — what he’d done back east, who his enemies were and why, that kind of thing. I gave him all I could, which wasn’t much. Fritz had hustled a string of books in New York and Boston, same as Hollywood, only on a smaller scale. As far as I knew he didn’t have an enemy in the world. And so on.

Delavan didn’t have much to say. I finally asked how come he was interested in a case that was so strictly local and he said he wasn’t particularly interested, he’d just come along for the ride, or words to that effect. I said “Oh, I see” out loud, but to myself I said “Nuts, baby — you’re plenty interested.”

Amante said he had several men working on Mel Raymond and he wouldn’t be surprised if something important turned up during the afternoon. They hadn’t been able to get a line on the gun because the numbers had been filed off and there weren’t any fingerprints.

He finally got around to the most important piece of evidence that had turned up so far: Mrs Bergliot, the Kiernan cook, had admitted that she thought she’d heard a woman’s voice in the living room after she’d gone to bed. That was all they could get out of her. She didn’t recognize the voice and she said she might have been dreaming. I wondered why she hadn’t told me about it.

Amante watched me very closely while he was telling me about Mrs Bergliot and so did Delavan. I began to feel pretty uncomfortable but I don’t think I showed it.

After lunch we left each other with a hey nonny-nonny and assurances of mutual cooperation and I drove out Wilshire doing a lot of wondering. I’d about decided to call up Myra and tell her to sail her own boat, to go down and tell Amante her story and see if he believed it, when I turned off Wilshire on Crescent Heights Boulevard to cut over to the apartment. There’s very little traffic on Crescent Heights that far south and it saves a lot of time.

In the second block a dark blue roadster came up from behind and passed and when it was a few feet ahead somebody opened up on me with an automatic. I think it was an automatic — I only had a split second flash of it. The first shot made a neat hole in the windwing and thudded into the seat near my shoulder. I jerked the wheel as hard as I could and heard two more shots bite into the side of the car as it bounced up over the curb, across a lawn, and stopped within inches of the front door of a pink stucco house.

I leaned out and watched the roadster go north like a bat out of hell. Then I got out and looked at the holes in the side of the car. The people who lived in the pink house were evidently not at home; a couple neighbors strolled over to watch me maneuver the car back on to the street. I guess they thought I was drunk and that the car had backfired when it went out of control; they didn’t crack about any shooting.

Outside of the damage to the car it’d accomplished one thing very definitely: I’d decided what to do about Myra. Fritz murdered and somebody trying to murder me meant an entirely new angle — one that certainly didn’t have anything to do with the Mel-Myra combination.

I drove a few blocks and stopped at a drug store and called and told Myra Amante was working on Mel and would probably get to her before long and for her to sit tight. She said she’d been trying to get me at home: her colored maid knew Mel had been at her house Friday night and had probably overheard some of the battle. She wanted to know whether she should give the maid a couple month’s salary, or what.

I told her that if she did she’d be paying off blackmail when she had a long gray beard, and if they picked her up to play dumb — which shouldn’t be hard — because no one would believe her story and it would only get her jammed up so tight that no one could get her out of it.

Then I called Amante. After talking to about half a dozen assorted assistants I finally got him and said: “Somebody tried to shoot me on Crescent Heights Boulevard about ten minutes ago — three slugs in my new car. Who do I charge it to?”

He said: “That’s very interesting.”

I told him it was not only interesting, it was assault with intent to do great bodily harm and I didn’t like it. I asked if it changed his theory any and he said it didn’t. I gave him a description of the roadster and that was that.

Then I stopped at the place in Hollywood and picked up Harry Gaige. He’d been a sort of protection-man for Fritz for a long time, had the reputation of being fast and accurate with anything from a water-pistol to an elephant-gun. I figured if strangers were taking potshots it would be a good idea for him to travel around with me for a while. I told him about it on the way out to the Kiernan house.

Maude Foley let us in. She said she’d loaded Barbara with bromides and she’d quieted down; she was upstairs trying to sleep. I told Maude all there was to tell, except about Myra, and tried to get angles from her but she didn’t have any. I wanted something — anything — to work on; I knew I’d get some kind of a lead sooner or later but I wanted it to be sooner.

We had a few drinks and tried to figure out who would want to knock off both Fritz and me, and why, but we didn’t get very far. When we left it was about a quarter of five. The newsboys were yelling their heads off at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevard; we bought a paper and there it was in three-inch headlines: ACTRESS ARRESTED IN KIERNAN MURDER.

They’d picked up Myra and her maid, and the maid had evidently talked enough to last any five ordinary women the rest of their lives. They were holding Myra incommunicado charged with practically everything in the book.

Amante got a great spread as the hero of the occasion, the man who had solved the great Bel-Air Murder Mystery; the story was a little lean on exactly what his “solution” was, exactly what had happened, but it said he “broadly hinted” a complete case with all the details and “sensational developments” within a few hours.

Harry read the story to me as we rolled on down Wilshire — I was driving as fast as I could without taking chances on a pinch — and after he’d finished he was quiet for a minute and then he croaked: “That guy Amante hates publicity, don’t he?”

Amante wasn’t in his office; I located Moore and he said he guessed Amante was still working on the Reid woman. I said I wanted to help him work on her and Moore said it couldn’t be done but when I indicated in a few well chosen words how invaluable my services would be he had a sudden attack of smartness and got me a pass.

I told Harry to wait. He looked around at all the Law and asked wistfully if I minded if he waited in the pool hall across the street and I said it was all right and went up to the jail.

Myra’s face lit up like a Christmas tree when she looked up and saw me grinning at her through the bars. The grin was about ninety percent phoney but she didn’t know that. The maid’s story made it impossible for her to keep up the clam act — she’d have to talk.

Amante didn’t act so gay about the interruption at first but when the screw unlocked the cell door and I went in and sat down on the cot beside Myra and said, “Okay, baby — Now that we’re all here you can tell Mister Amante what really happened,” he entered into the spirit of the thing and got just as happy as a lark. I guess he’d been giving her the works without getting a word out of her; he didn’t ask how or why or how many, it was enough for him that somebody could make her open up.

I said: “First, before Miss Reid begins — I told her not to talk if she was picked up because I’m convinced she had nothing to do with the murders and I want her to get a break.”

Amante and the big copper with him glanced at each other but didn’t say anything.

I smiled at Myra, went on to Amante: “Are you willing to forget your theory for a minute and listen to her side of it and give her all you can?”

The big fella grunted something about “obstructing justice” — I don’t think he was very fond of me — but Amante grinned and whinnied: “Sure... sure...”

I leaned forward, smiled my sweetest smile and finished like a Dutch Uncle: “Fritz Kiernan was my partner and one of my best friends. I intend to find out who really killed him. This kid,” I nodded at Myra, “is gummed up enough without hanging a rap that won’t stand up on her because it fits in with a theory. Give me a little time and I’ll hand over the parties that killed Fritz, and Raymond, and tried to kill me this afternoon.”

Amante said, “Sure — sure,” again.

I gave Myra the office and she went into her version of Friday night. She told it just about the way she’d told it to me. It didn’t sound quite so good with Amante and the big lug giving her the fishy eye all the time but it still sounded like the truth — to me.

When she got to the part about coming out to the Kiernan house after she came to, and about me telling her to duck, Amante looked at me as if I’d betrayed him and all his family and then finished by stealing his rollerskates.

He gurgled in a voice practically trembling with heartbreak: “What did you want to do that to me for?”

I kept from laughing in his face by a hair, shook my head. “I didn’t want to do anything to you — I wanted to give an innocent girl the only chance she had to avoid getting tied up with this.”

Myra went on with her story and when she finished, Amante sat staring at her with a dead pan for a minute or two and then got up and he and his boyfriend and I went back down to his office. I winked at Myra and patted her shoulder and she gave me a big smile before we left.

There were five or six reporters in the corridor outside the office. They ganged around Amante when we got out of the elevator and he said he’d have something for them in a few minutes.

He mumbled, “Sit down, Mister Finn,” when we went into the office and waved at a chair, and he sat down at his desk and rifled through some papers and scribbled a few notes. Then he looked up at the big copper and said, “Let those boys in.”

The reporters draped themselves around the room and Amante leaned back and smiled at them like an alderman the night before election.

“Well, boys,” he cooed tenderly, “here it is... The Reid woman owed Kiernan and Finn nearly four thousand dollars and couldn’t pay off. She liked Kiernan pretty well so she figured she might as well combine business and pleasure and last night she called him to make a date. His wife had gone out of town so he told her to come on out to the house...”

Amante leaned forward and opened a drawer and took a thick yellow cigar out of a box. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and squinted across the end of it at me for a fraction of a second, went on:

“She was all set to leave for Kiernan’s around nine-thirty when Raymond, who’s been running around with her for several months, dropped in unexpectedly. She’s been up to the neck with Raymond for some time — they’ve battled practically every time he’s been at the house for the past two weeks. Her maid will testify to that.”

He glanced at me again and slid the cigar to the other corner of his mouth.

“She told Raymond where she was going and he objected and she got mad and they went round and round. They were still at it at twenty after ten when the maid left to go home. Finally Raymond, crazy with jealousy, ran out of the house and jumped in his car and started for Kiernan’s. She followed him in her car. He had a big Duesenberg — we found it this afternoon parked on the highway below Kiernan’s house — and he beat her there by a few minutes...”

Amante stopped to light his cigar. He didn’t look at me any more but went on to the reporters:

“Kiernan was out on the porch taking the air, or maybe Raymond called him out. Raymond stood in the driveway and shot at Kiernan twice; the first shot missed and the second nicked his leg. Kiernan ran into the house and called Mister Finn” — he waved his hand airily in my general direction — “and said, ‘Somebody took a shot at me.’ About that time Miss Reid arrived and Raymond had to make good; or maybe she got there after he’d followed Kiernan into the house. Anyway, Raymond dragged Kiernan away from the phone and beat him with the butt of the gun and then threw the gun down and finished by kicking his skull in. Miss Reid probably tried to stop him — I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt — and then she saw the gun and picked it up, and when Raymond started to go she shot him...”

Amante had turned to me again with an expression like a cat practically bloated with canaries.

“But before she shot him she told him a few unprintable details about his ancestry and so forth, and...” — he paused to give it the proper melodramatic touch, finished slowly — “Mrs Bergliot, the housekeeper, overheard her... This afternoon Mrs Bergliot positively identified her voice!”

He let that sink in, then built up to his clincher in a hurry:

“After she shot Raymond she tossed the gun under the table — she was wearing gloves so there weren’t any prints — and beat it quick. She drove around for a few minutes and finally parked on the highway near the entrance to the private road to figure out what to do. She knew it was too late to frame an alibi and she knew Raymond would be traced to her and the maid would spill her guts... And then Mister Finn showed up, like an angel from heaven. She recognized his car — a blind man could spot that sixteen cylinder calliope of his — and she thought to herself: ‘If I drive back up there and make Finn believe I just got here, that Raymond socked me at my house and I just came to, then I’ll have Finn on my side and as Kiernan’s partner he’ll carry a lot of weight.’ She’s a bright girl...”

He was leaning forward with his arms spread out on the desk, giving me the cat-full-of-canaries business for all it was worth.

“It appealed to her instincts as an actress,” he went on, “and it worked out even better than she’d planned. Mister Finn not only went for her story hook, line, and sinker; he got so absolutely lousy with chivalry that he told her to go on home and go to bed and forget about the nasty old murders and he’d take care of everything!”

He leaned back and folded his arms. “If I didn’t believe Mister Finn acted in good faith — that he actually believed in Miss Reid’s innocence — there’d be a charge of withholding evidence, possibly even a charge of being accessory after the fact against him. However it has all worked out satisfactorily and I shall let these matters rest.”

One of the reporters snickered. The big copper was sitting on the corner of the desk grinning merrily and Amante’s sneer was the kind people probably wear just before they get their throat cut by the sneeree.

I sat and calculated my chances of suddenly diverting everyone’s attention by staring out the window or yelling “Fire!” or something and then hurdling the desk and pushing that sneer back where it came from, but they were too long; I couldn’t even have got past the big baboon. I sat still and wondered if it could get any worse.

Amante snapped: “That’s all, boys.”

The reporters dived for the door as a man. Amante wiggled his head at the baboon and he, after a last long withering look at me, followed them out and closed the door.

I said: “That was capital fun.”

He looked at me very seriously. “I’ve got to look out for my job,” he bellowed. “If you hadn’t sent Reid away last night I’d’ve had the whole case on ice this morning. I don’t intend to be head of a homicide squad all my life — I’m going places, and quick indictments and quick convictions are going to take me there—”

I interrupted: “Do you mean you actually believe last night happened the way you told it?”

“Absolutely.” He nodded slowly, was silent a moment, went on: “The newspapers are for me and that’s the way I want them. You acted out of turn and you’ve got to take the rap for it — with the newspapers.”

I uh-huhd and got up and walked over to the window, stood there a minute; then I went over to the desk and said: “I thought you were an intelligent guy and you’ve turned out to be just as nutty as a bedbug.”

He grinned with one side of his face.

“And I’m going to show you how nutty,” I went on, warming up. “I’m going to make you acknowledge publicly — in your beloved newspapers — that you’re all wet on the Kiernan case. Christ knows I’ve got plenty of reasons to. Number one: I happen to want to know who really killed Kiernan — and Raymond — and tried to give me the business this afternoon — a fact which you seem to have left entirely out of your calculations. Number two: I promised my dying great-aunt that I’d never stand by and see somebody rail-roaded...”

I stopped for breath and to think up a few more reasons. Amante sat grinning through a cloud of smoke, chewing his cigar happily.

“Number three,” I went on — “you’ve made me look like a prize sucker for the edification of a lot of yokels. And last but not least — you called my new car a calliope...”

We both laughed; he because he thought it was funny, and I because I thought it wasn’t.

Then, having delivered myself of all that horrah about what I was going to do, and why, I walked out of the office wondering where the hell I was going to begin.

I found Harry in the pool hall across the street and told him what had happened while we drove out Third Street. We got home a little before seven and I called Gene Curley and said I had a job for him and his brother and for them to come over to the apartment.

The Curley boys used to have a two-by-four detective agency in Philadelphia; they’d been on the Coast several years working at whatever turned up. Gene had been a bouncer in a downtown crap joint until it was conclusively knocked over and Frank had alternated between an occasional job of divorce sleuthing and extra work in pictures.

When they arrived I gave them a couple slugs of Scotch and began with Gene. I told him who Mrs Bergliot was and said I wanted him to tail her and keep a detailed report of everywhere she went, everything she did and everyone she saw.

Then I told Frank he was on the payroll too, but I didn’t have anything better for him to do for a while than ride around and see how many dark blue Buick roadsters with cream-colored canvas tops and spare tire covers he could find, to check licenses and stolen car lists and things like that. I knew it was a million to one shot that he’d turn anything up but I figured I’d have more important work for him pretty soon.

I gave them a century advance, sent them on their way rejoicing and called the desk for late editions of the evening papers. The Kiernan case stories were simply fine. They played me up as the smart young man from Broadway who turned out to be the great granddaddy chump — the one all the other chumps try to imitate. They made Amante’s struggle and triumph against the overwhelming odds of my stupidity look like St George giving the finger to the Dragon. When I tell you the subtlest crack they made was to call me “Sir Galahad Finn” it’ll give you a rough idea of what it was like when they really let themselves go.

I took a shower and shaved — I cut myself an even half-dozen times thinking about what a swell time Amante must be having reading the papers — and Harry and I went over to the Trocadero for dinner. I was pretty low and confined myself to a hearty meal of Scotch and soda. The place was packed and our table was smack in the center of the room on the edge of the dance floor. It didn’t particularly help my state of mind to have friends of mine stop at the table and give me the double talk “Hello,” and know what they were thinking.

Charley Hollberg was giving a big dinner directly across the dance floor from us and I knew practically everyone in the party. Hollberg was the local slot machine magnate; his monthly rake-off was supposed to be around ninety grand. Between dances I got enough raised eyebrows to make a nice fright wig from that table alone.

There was a tall good-looking Spick sitting next to Charley who looked over and nodded brightly a couple times. I couldn’t peg him until Harry reminded me that he’d been down to our Number One place a few times and I remembered he was the guy who’d made several big bets and had got chummy and asked Fritz and me a lot of questions about our take and running-nut and things like that. Fritz had told me something about him coming down one afternoon when I wasn’t there and saying he’d decided to locate in California and open a book and asking Fritz if we’d consider selling out. Fritz laughed it off.

Monte Keith and his ex-wife were in Charley’s party, too; they sat down at our table after a dance and Monte was about to fall under the table and insisted on buying wine. Then I bought some wine and then Monte bought wine and it went on like that for some time. I got home around three-thirty and got to sleep as soon as the bed stopped going round like a merry-go-round and started rocking like a cradle.

I got up about eleven. Harry was a pretty good cook and whipped up a swell breakfast. The late editions of the Sunday morning papers treated me a little better; there were only a couple dozen references to the “chivalrous Mr. Finn.”

Then I called up Barbara to give her the inside on Amante and the piece of business with Myra Reid and got a delightful surprise. Maude answered the phone and put on the chill for me. When I said I wanted to talk to Barbara she said she didn’t think Barbara wanted to talk to anyone who would try to cover up for Fritz’s murderers, and she didn’t think she wanted to talk to me either and hung up.

Harry said: “What’s the matter? — you in the doghouse there, too?”

I nodded and sat and thought about it a while and got sorer and sorer; when I got to the stage where I was about to pop Harry in the eye, just for luck, I dressed and we went out to the Kiernan house.

No one answered the bell. We took turns pounding on the door and Barbara finally opened it and stood there glaring at us. She was a very beautiful woman — a natural blonde with big blue eyes and a lot of curves — but the last twenty-four hours had played hell with her; her eyes were dull and sunken and she looked like she’d been crying for a couple months.

I was all set to read the riot act but when I saw her I calmed down and said: “Listen, Barbara — you and I have never been what you might call buddies, but you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. The Reid girl didn’t have anything to do with it. Amante is making a grandstand play and I’m going to wrap it around his neck; I’m going to find out who really killed Fritz if it takes—”

She interrupted: “I don’t care what you’re going to do.” Her voice was like little chunks of lead falling into a rain-barrel. “Please go away.”

I said: “Barbara. I—”

“Please go away.” She was standing very straight and tall and looking at a place about two feet back of my neck. “And I wish you wouldn’t come here anymore; I’ve asked Mister Gottler to get in touch with you about purchasing your share of the business. You’ll hear from him.”

She stepped back and closed the door.

One time when I was about six my mother spanked me in front of company and as I remember the way I felt it was about the same as I felt standing there on the Kiernan porch looking at the door. I looked at Harry and I think if he’d made the wrong crack or smiled it would have been the end; I would have strangled him, or tried to, and then committed hari-kiri with the foot scraper.

But Harry looked properly indignant and asked who the hell Gottler was; I told him he was Fritz’s attorney and we went down and got in the car. Gene Curley was sitting in his heap a couple hundred feet from the entrance to the private road with his eye peeled for Bergliot. He waved. Instead of going back through Beverly I drove on out to the beach and up the beach road towards Malibu.

Harry snorted: “What does she want the business for? — and who does she think she’s going to get to run it who won’t steal everything including the light bulbs and linoleum in a week?”

I said I didn’t know.

“If she don’t want to go on with the partnership,” he insisted, “why doesn’t she sell out to you?”

I said I still didn’t know. Barbara cracking about buying me out was the last thing I’d expected. It didn’t make sense any way I looked at it. She could have the business but what would she do with it? She didn’t know a filly from a furlong; and the cash I’d give her for her end would buy an awful lot of something — anything — she could understand.

The more I thought about it the trickier it looked, but thinking about it gave me an idea. I asked Harry the name of the Spick in Charley Hollberg’s party at the Trocadero. He’d wanted to buy the business, too, and thinking about him made me suddenly realize that he’d been in the back of my mind all day; I remembered him from somewhere besides Hollywood.

Harry didn’t know his name. We turned around and went back to the apartment and Harry got on the phone and called a few people. He got a little here and a little there; finally he hung up and turned away from the phone, said:

“Name’s Axiotes — he’s a Greek. Used to be an acrobat. Then he was a ten-twenty-thirty chiseler around Brooklyn — got mixed up in the Kroll-Schmalz beer war — served three years and has been living on the fat of the land ever since he got out in ’32. You probably saw his picture in the tabloids when he was indicted with Kroll. Been out here about two months — lives at the Alton Apartments on Kenmore.”

I got on the phone and got Frank Curley, first try, at the Hollywood Plaza and told him to forget about blue Buicks for a while and start keeping tabs on Axiotes. I don’t know exactly why I was so interested in him but his face kept playing pussy-in-the-corner in the back of my mind and I wanted to know more about him.

We went out to Number Two about four-thirty and I worked with the bookkeeper a couple hours. Then Harry and I had dinner at Musso-Franks and went to a picture show. We got home at eleven.

Gene Curley had left a twenty-four hour report on Mrs Bergliot at the desk. It didn’t amount to much. She hadn’t been out of the house Saturday night. Late Sunday afternoon a woman who looked like she might be her sister had picked her up in an old Chevrolet at the backdoor and they’d gone to a house on Larchmont a little ways off Melrose. There was a sign in front of the house: CORA HAVILAND: SPIRITUAL SCIENCE. They’d been there about an hour and then the woman had dropped Bergliot back at the Kiernan house. That was all.

Harry and I played a couple games of cooncan and went to bed. Monday was just

Monday except for one development that I could’ve got along just as well without. Amante called up around noon and after a lot of ap-cray about the weather and “How’s everything” and all that, he said he thought I might like to know that Myra Reid was the sole beneficiary in Raymond’s will and it amounted to about a hundred and seventy-five grand. They’d found the will and a lot of bonds and stuff in a safety deposit box he had under an assumed name.

I told Amante I was glad to hear it and thanked him and asked if Myra was still incommunicado. He said she wasn’t and he expected she’d be very happy to see me. Then he chuckled — one of the dirtiest chuckles I’ve ever heard — and hung up.

I barged downtown and up to the can to see Myra. She said she didn’t know anything about the will and, so help me God, I still believed her. Her lawyer was there — a funny little guy with a snub nose and a fringe of red hair who looked capable. I tried to cheer Myra up, which was no cinch because I didn’t know what to say. The best I could do was say I was working on it and it was pretty much in the dark but I expected something to break any minute.

There was nothing important from the Curleys on Bergliot or Axiotes when I got home. Bergliot had been to the Place on Larchmont again but that was all.

Tuesday started to be just Tuesday but it ended like the Fourth of July and Christmas, mixed.

The funeral was at one o’clock at an undertaker’s on Sunset Boulevard. There was a pretty big crowd. Barbara looked awful. I think she’d hoisted a few tall ones to get her through the afternoon — she’d always been a good two-fisted drinker — and that helped a little but she still looked like she’d been pulled through a wringer.

She wasn’t so heavy on me as I’d expected; she nodded and almost smiled. I stood pretty close to her during the services, and afterwards we talked a little in a strained self-conscious way. She said she and Maude were sailing for Honolulu Wednesday afternoon and I told her I thought it was a swell idea to get away from it all for a while. I started to tell her I hadn’t heard from Gottler yet but decided to let it lie.

On the way out of the chapel I ran into Delavan, the FBI man Amante had introduced me to. He was wearing glasses and I couldn’t place him for a minute but he grinned and stuck out his hand and piped “H’ are ya” and I said “Fancy meeting you here” or something original like that.

He looked vague and said he was just looking around and then he asked if he could buy me a drink. I called Harry and the three of us went over to the Derby.

I stalled for a while waiting for Delavan to open up but he didn’t and I finally asked: “Well — what’s it all about? You didn’t come to the funeral just to smell the flowers.”

He smiled, gargled a little of his highball and opened up: “Would it surprise you to know that I think Amante is wrong?”

I shook my head. “No. Anybody with anything above the ears ought to know he’s wrong.” But it sounded good to hear somebody say it.

He took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. “Has anyone made any more passes at you since Saturday?”

“No.”

“Funny,” he said, “that they made that one attempt and then let you alone.”

I agreed that it was funny. We didn’t say any more for a little while and then Delavan leaned back and looked up at the ceiling and spoke as if he was talking to himself: “Has it occurred to you that since Repeal, gambling has become a major industry?”

I nodded. “Sure. That’s one of the reasons I’m in it.”

“A lot of men,” he went on, “were left holding the bag — men with organizations, money, power, that they didn’t have any use for any more. Some of them called it a day and took up golf or bought a string of yachts, but some of them didn’t want to call it a day. The Government had taken the big profits out of alcohol so they had to find something else with big profits...”

He put his glasses back on and sucked up some more of his drink. “The yearly turnover on slot machines alone is estimated at fifty or sixty million dollars; lotteries yield another seventy. In the last year horse racing has been legalized in eleven states and the rake-off promises to amount to all the rest put together in a year or so.”

I called the waiter and ordered another round. My ears were cocked for the point Delavan was driving at and I felt it coming.

He leaned forward and squinted through his glasses, went on: “Suppose that a big undercover organization — maybe the biggest ever — was in process of formation and that it was determined to get a stranglehold on all important gambling in every community in the country. It’d buy up the little fellows, or scare them out; it’d buy the in-betweens, or if the in-betweens were too big to buy it’d dispose of them in whatever way seemed best...”

Harry asked: “What about the biggies — men like Grant in Chicago, or McElroy?”

“Grant left for England a week ago, under pressure I think.” Delavan smiled slightly. “I don’t know about McElroy.”

He waited a minute for it to sink in and then he said slowly: “Eight top bookmakers with big six-figure plays have sold out or turned up missing in the last month. I happen to know that three of them have been murdered — two in New Orleans and one in Detroit. That’s the reason I flew down here from Frisco when I heard about Kiernan.”

I finished my first highball and got a good start on the second; I was getting into the spirit of the thing and felt like I had five or six new leases on life.

Harry barked: “Does Amante know about this?”

Delavan bobbed his head up and down. “Uh-huh. But he thinks it’s a lot of baloney.”

The three of us sat grinning at each other for a minute like three kids planning to tip over Farmer Brown’s privy on Halloween.

Then Delavan looked at his watch and said he had to get back to his hotel and we paid the check and left. Outside, while we were waiting for the boys to bring our cars from the parking station, I cracked casually:

“Ever hear of a fella named Axiotes?”

Delavan nodded and his pan was just as dead as a buckwheat cake.

I said: “Oh yeah — one other thing: Mrs Bergliot, who identified Myra Reid’s voice, is a Spiritual Scientist — hangs out at Cora Haviland’s on Larchmont.”

Delavan got into his car, chirped: “Thanks. I’ll give you a ring later on tonight or in the morning.”

We drove over to Number One and I played Hearts with Connie Hurlburt and a couple boys from San Diego for a while but my skull wasn’t in it. Delavan had me all hopped up on the new slant and I wanted action, but he hadn’t suggested anything and he certainly acted like he knew what he was doing.

We went home about six-thirty and caught up with our drinking. Harry finagled with the radio and I sat and made a light luncheon of my fingernails and waited for Delavan to call. He didn’t, but Frank Curley called and said Axiotes was out, that he’d been out all day. Frank had followed him as far as Crenshaw and Wilshire and lost him in traffic and gone back to wait.

Then he said a woman who had been in and out with Axiotes twice in two days had driven up to his place in her own car about five o’clock and he’d got a peep at her license after she went into the apartment. Her name was Maude Foley and she had another gal with her who was pie-eyed.

I tried to get Delavan at his hotel, but no go.

Then Charley Hollberg called up and said he had to see me right away and asked if I could come over to his bungalow at the Ambassador. I told him I was busy but he kept insisting that it was very important and he couldn’t tell me about it over the phone and I finally said I’d come, figuring that maybe it really was important.

I left word at the desk that if Delavan called to tell him I’d be back in an hour or call in for a message.

Hollberg had a swell set of jitters. He gave us a quick drink and waved his eyebrows around mysteriously and said he couldn’t talk in the house and we went out and started walking across the lawn towards the hotel. It was pretty dark.

Hollberg said: “I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this, Finn, but—”

There was sudden crashing sound and a long spurt of blue fire from the darkness of the arbor near the bungalow. Something burnt its way into my shoulder and I fell down on my face.

I twisted on to my side and pulled my knees up. Harry was squatting a few feet away and Hollberg was lying on his back between us with his arms and legs spread out. The sound and the blue fire had stopped. There were several figures running towards us from the far side of the lawn, beyond Harry, and suddenly the sound and fire began again. I set myself for a slug, and then Delavan was kneeling beside me.

He asked: “How is it, Finn?”

I sat up. “Shoulder... just a little one.” It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d figured when it hit — just a crease across the muscle.

The men with Delavan had gone on towards the arbor, there were several more scattered shots.

Harry said: “Hollberg got it in the belly.”

I got up and took off my coat. Harry ripped off my shirt-sleeve and folded it and tied it around my shoulder. There wasn’t very much blood.

One of Delavan’s men came running back from the arbor, wheezed: “They had a car on the other side.”

Delavan was bending over Hollberg, snapped, “See if you can head ’em off at Seventh Street,” without looking up.

The man galloped back into the darkness.

Delavan straightened up, spoke to Harry: “Take care of Hollberg.” He turned to me. “I’m going to Axiotes’... You’d better get to a doctor.”

I told him I was okay and I’d come along. He shrugged, said, “Suit yourself” — we ran across the lawn to Wilshire where his car was parked. There was a man standing beside it and Delavan told him to go back and give Harry a hand.

Axiotes’ apartment was only a few blocks away. As we swung into Kenmore, Delavan said: “I got to your place a few minutes after you left; the telephone girl told me about Hollberg calling and I took a chance on you being there.”

I told him it was the best chance I’d heard about for a long time.

Frank Curley spotted us when we pulled up in front of the apartment. He said Axiotes hadn’t come back and so far as he knew, no one had been in or out of the place since he’d talked to me. We told him to give us two buzzes on the downstairs bell if Axiotes or anybody he recognized started up. Delavan took a big blue automatic out of the side pocket of the car and handed it to me and we went in and got into the elevator.

On the way up I said: “You’ve got a pretty good idea who we’re going to find here, haven’t you?”

He smiled a little, nodded. “Fair. I’ve had Foley followed for two days...” He was silent a moment, went on: “Axiotes’ brother was her first husband.”

There was a small door a little ways down the hall from Apartment M that looked like it might be the kitchen entrance. Delavan rang the front doorbell and I stood flat against the wall near the small door; it opened at the second ring and one of the biggest, broadest guys I’ve ever seen stuck his knob out and peeked down the hall at Delavan.

I shoved the muzzle of the automatic against the back of his neck and told him to take it easy. Delavan came down and the three of us went into the kitchen.

The big fella belonged in a sideshow; he stood about six-six and was almost as wide. The best part was his head though — it looked like it had been made for him when he was a baby and he’d never got around to having it changed. He looked at us reproachfully as if he was pretty hurt at the dirty trick we’d played on him, and he kept his hands up and went ahead of us into the living room.

Maude Foley was standing in the middle of the room; she stared at the giant and then she moved her blank eyes to Delavan and then to me. Her face was as expressionless as a mop.

As I went towards her the giant moved a little to one side and as I passed he shifted suddenly and aimed a haymaker at me that would probably have caved my skull in. Delavan tapped him as pretty a tap as I’ve ever seen behind the ear with the butt of the gun and he went down like a dynamited chimney.

I went past Maude to the bedroom door; Barbara Kiernan was stretched out on the bed snoring peacefully.

Maude said dully: “I guess it’s all over but the shouting.” Her voice was surprisingly even, unemotional. She went over to a wide divan and sat down.

The bell rang sharply, twice.

Delavan crossed and flattened himself against the wall so the door would cover him when it sprung open. He bobbed his head at me and I snapped off the bedroom lights and stood in the darkness just inside the doorway.

In a little less than a minute a key clicked in the lock and the door opened. Axiotes stood a split second staring at the giant who was curled up comfortably on the floor. There was a man behind him, in the hall, carrying a violin case. Axiotes’ eyes jerked to Maude and in the same instant his hand flashed upward across his chest.

Delavan said: “Easy does it, George.”

He stepped around the door and jammed his gun against Axiotes’ side. The man in the hall half-turned as I went into the light with the big automatic; he saw me and stopped and the two of them came in and Delavan closed the door. Then he took their guns and motioned for them to sit down.

Axiotes crossed and sank into a big chair near the bedroom door and the other man — a thin, tubercular looking youngster — sat on the opposite side of the divan from Maude.

Delavan called his headquarters and told them to send another car and a couple of men; then he sat down facing Axiotes, purred: “Want to tell us all about it now, or are you too tired?”

Axiotes grinned with his mouth but his eyes were sombre; he didn’t say anything. Maude spoke suddenly: “I want to tell about it, and I’ll be goddamned glad to get it off my chest!...”

Axiotes looked at her but his expression didn’t change.

Delavan mumbled, “That’ll be fine,” softly.

Maude stood up and went to a cabinet against the wall and poured herself a stiff drink. She tossed off most of it, turned and leaned against the cabinet, said:

“Axiotes is my brother-in-law. We always got along pretty well and when he came out from New York seven or eight weeks ago I invited him down to my place at Palm Springs.”

She spoke of Axiotes as if he wasn’t there. She finished her drink and put the glass down, went on: “He met Barbara there and started romancing her. She liked him and they got pretty chummy...”

She glanced at me swiftly. “Barbara and Fritz’d been married eight years but they hadn’t worked at it the last two or three.”

Axiotes was staring at Maude with the same mechanical grin. His hands were tight on the arms of the chair and he didn’t move, just sat and grinned at her unpleasantly.

“The first I knew about that — that happening to Fritz,” she went on, “was about two-thirty Saturday morning. I’d been expecting Barbara all day and was worried. She and George and that big ape” — she pointed at the giant — “came in together. Barbara was hysterical. I put her to bed and tried to find out what had happened but she passed out, and then you called and told me Fritz had been murdered.”

She was silent a moment, staring at the floor; then she poured another drink and went back and sat down on the divan.

“Barbara was almost crazy when she woke up in a couple of hours but I finally got it out of her. She and George were coming down to my place together but they stopped here and started drinking and kept it up all afternoon. Barbara got paralyzed. She remembered it in flashes after that; she remembered George telling her they were going out and force Fritz to give her a divorce so he could marry her and then they picked up the ape someplace, and the next she remembered they were in front of the house and Fritz came out on the porch and George shot at him, twice...”

Delavan turned and smiled at me a little. He put his gun on his lap and took out a cigarette and lighted it, settled back in the chair.

Maude sipped her drink, glanced swiftly at all of us, went on: “The next thing she knew they were all in the house and the ape was kicking the life out of Fritz and she was screaming her head off. A man she didn’t know — that was Raymond — appeared in the doorway suddenly and George shot him. Then she fainted, and when she came to they were halfway to Palm Springs. George and the ape brought her to my house and left.”

Someone knocked at the door and Delavan got up and opened it. The men he’d sent for were there and he told them to wait and closed the door and went back and sat down.

“We drove into town early and called George and he came out to the house.” Maude was speaking swiftly now, staring dully at Axiotes. “He gave us a long song and dance about not meaning to kill Fritz — that he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing, that sort of thing. Barbara fell for it — she’s crazy about him, anyway, and he worked on her sympathy and told her how much he loved her and how jealous he’d been of Fritz... But I didn’t fall for it, and before he left we had a session by ourselves, downstairs. He got mad and spit out the whole thing...”

Axiotes leaned forward slowly and put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Maude since she’d been talking.

She watched him dully. “He’d come out here to buy out Fritz and Finn and McLennon and a few more gamblers with big clienteles — or run them out, or get control of their business in any way he could. He didn’t say who he was acting for but intimated that it was someone big in the East. Fritz wouldn’t sell and when George met Barbara he made a big play for her thinking he’d be able to reach Fritz that way. When he found out Fritz and Barbara hadn’t been getting along for a long time he changed his plans and it worked out” — she gestured vaguely with her hands — “this way.”

She glanced swiftly at Delavan, then turned again to Axiotes.

“He told me the police were working on the theory that Raymond was the key to the whole business and that that was a great break for us. Us! — he talked about us all the time as if we were just as guilty as he! And he said if I didn’t play ball with him he’d see that Barbara was stuck as the instigator of the whole thing...”

Maude laughed a little hysterically. “He’s a great convincer. He laid it on thick and I was scared. I told him Mrs Bergliot had hinted to me that she’d recognized Barbara’s voice and he said he’d take care of her with some money. I told him she wasn’t the kind of woman you could take care of that way and he wanted to know all about her and I said she was mixed up with some spiritualist cult on Larchmont. He took down the address and said he’d see what he could do about it...”

Delavan said: “We picked up Cora Haviland, the leader of that outfit this evening. Axiotes gave her two thousand dollars to go into a trance and tell Bergliot the voice she’d heard was Myra Reid’s.”

Maude smiled faintly, went on: “Then he said you” — she nodded at me — “were the only other person he was worried about; that he thought you knew more than you were telling and he was having you followed. I guess when you went to see Amante he thought he’d better get rid of you quickly and they tried it when you were driving home. Barbara was asleep when George left and when she woke up I gave her a lot of Luminol and she slept through the afternoon and night. When she woke up Sunday morning I told her what George had said and she was scared to death, too. I wanted to tell you about it but she vetoed that. I think that in her heart she’s still in love with George...”

Her eyes moved to Axiotes and the two of them stared silently, expressionlessly at each other for a moment. Then she turned back to me, went on swiftly, almost breathlessly:

“He called Sunday morning and said he was coming out, we were expecting him when you came in the afternoon; that’s the reason Barbara worked the gag about you shielding Myra Reid so hard — she was afraid George would come while you were there. He called later and said he couldn’t make it and she started drinking and she’s been at it ever since; I sobered her up enough to get to the funeral, but she started again as soon as it was over and insisted on coming here. And here we are.”

Maude finished her drink and put the glass down on the floor. “I guess that’s about all...”

It was entirely quiet for a few moments. All of us were looking at Maude. Then the giant groaned and rolled over on his stomach and I heard something behind me and turned around. Barbara was standing in the bedroom doorway. She held a nickled revolver loosely in her right hand.

She said, “No — that isn’t all,” thickly.

She swayed suddenly and put her free hand up to steady herself and then her other hand tightened on the revolver and it roared five times with the tick-tock regularity of clockwork. I whirled and saw Axiotes half rise out of the chair and his body jerk as the last two slugs went into it; then he sank slowly back and his surprised face went loose and soft and his head sank forward to his chest.

Delavan was standing with his gun focused on Barbara but as I watched he lowered it, and maybe I imagined it but I thought he smiled a very little. Maude sat staring dumbly at Barbara, and the other man — the t.b. — had jumped up and backed against the wall.

Someone pounded on the door.

Barbara went down suddenly; the revolver dropped from her hand and her knees gave way and she slumped down in the doorway, sobbing.

The giant groaned again and rolled over and sat up groggily.

Delavan crossed to the door and opened it, said: “Come in, boys.”

The doctor tightened the last stitch and snipped off the ends of the gut.

Delavan said: “Hollberg’s been under Axiotes’ thumb for a month; he was afraid to do anything without an okay. Axiotes made him call you tonight and ask you over to the bungalow. Hollberg thought he was putting the finger on you but Axiotes figured he’d kill two birds with one automatic rifle.”

The doctor finished and helped me put my coat on and Delavan and I went out to his car. We drove out Sunset a little ways and then I said:

“The only thing that doesn’t fit in is the business on Crescent Heights Boulevard when they tried to get me. How could Axiotes be so sure I smelled a rat that early in the game? I’d already been to see Amante and it seems to me Axiotes would figure I’d already spilled whatever I knew and could be counted out.”

Delavan didn’t answer. In a few minutes we pulled up in front of my place and I got out and asked him to come up for a drink.

He grinned at me silently for a moment and then he asked: “Have you ever taken a good look at my car?”

I shook my head and stepped back a couple steps and looked at it. It was a dark blue Buick roadster with a cream-colored top and cream-colored tire covers.

Delavan was watching me and suddenly he threw his head back and laughed until I thought he was going to bust a lung. He finally quieted down enough to sputter:

“I was sure you knew a lot more than you gave out when you and Amante and I had lunch; one of my men picked me up afterwards and we followed you.”

I leaned against the door of the car and said: “Oh.” There wasn’t anything else to say.

Delavan had calmed down to a broad smile.

“We hadn’t gone more than five or six blocks before we knew we weren’t alone,” he went on — “there was another car following you and pretty soon they spotted us and ducked up a side street. They disappeared while I was deciding which one to follow and, anyway, they had us pegged so we kept on after you. I was sure you had some kind of an inside but I was afraid you’d lay down on it, and it suddenly occurred to me that if I threw a scare into you or made you mad you wouldn’t lay down — you’d give us some action...”

He chuckled some more and pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

“The fella with me was Ormiston, who is one of the best shots in our outfit, so I changed seats with him and when you turned off on Crescent Heights I told him to let you have it close enough to look good without mussing up the car too much.”

I said, “Oh,” again.

“Then a couple blocks further along Ormiston jumped out and hailed a cab, and when you came along he tailed you to the drug store and went into the next booth and heard you call Myra Reid and Amante. I’ve been following your leads ever since — that’s all I had to go by. I’ve had men tailing your men — the two you’ve had on Bergliot and Axiotes—”

I cleared my throat and tried to look intelligent, interrupted: “And me?”

He nodded. “Uh-huh — and you.”

I felt like two cents but there wasn’t anything I could do about it but laugh with him. I said: “The least you can do, under the circumstances, is come up and have a drink.”

Harry was waiting. He yelped: “Hollberg has a fifty-fifty chance.” He turned to Delavan. “Your boys lost ’em.”

We told him we’d found ’em and I sketched the business at Axiotes’ for him.

The three of us had quite a few drinks. Delavan called up his headquarters and said he was cleaning up some very important evidence in the Kiernan case and he didn’t leave till about one-thirty.

Harry and I had a nightcap and talked it all over and then I went to bed and had a beautiful dream. It was mostly about the expression on Amante’s face when he heard the news.

Dutch Treat

Lefty Bowman and I played Spit-in-the-Ocean to see who’d take whose vacation when. I won, or maybe I lost — I forget which. Anyway, I took the last two weeks in July. I spent a week in Bermuda and a couple of days in Havana, got back to town on the twenty-ninth. The Old Man met me at the dock and on the way uptown told me all about the Castell business.

It was the biggest lick of its kind in twenty years. On the night of the twenty-first a collection of unset emeralds had been stolen from the safe of Castell Ltd, in London. There wasn’t anything to work on, or if there was Scotland Yard hadn’t found it; the stones had simply disappeared. The insurance company that carried the policy had offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds and its American office had called in the Old Man the day before I got back.

It seems someone in the London office had a big highly polished hunch the stuff had been rushed to the States, and a half-dozen assorted English sleuths were on their way to New York.

Our firm — the Old Man was it, Lefty and I just worked for him — handled more insurance cases than anything else and had a pretty swell reputation — as reputations of confidential investigating outfits go.

When the Old Man stopped for breath I suggested that he get to the point — what angles did we have to work on? He said there weren’t any angles. I asked him if he meant we were to go to work with nothing but the fact that somebody in England had a hunch a million dollars’ worth of stolen emeralds were somewhere in America, and he said yes.

I told him what I thought, and he asked since when did we need facts to work on? We’d find our own facts.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get a lead. I went to the branch of the insurance company and talked to a British gent named Wister who had less to say, for his size, age, and weight, than any insurance man I ever saw. I called up a few people who might have bright ideas where anything as hot as the Castell stuff might be, if there was enough money in it. Maybe a thirty-three and a third percent split on twenty thousand pounds wasn’t enough money; none of them had anything to say, and said it very emphatically. I got down to the Immigration Bureau at about four-thirty and after wading through several acres of red tape I got a list of everyone who’d come in from England during the past few days. There were two names in the lot that meant something — maybe.

One of them, Lina Ornitz, ran a restaurant on upper Broadway. She’d been born and raised in London, spent most of her mature life in one or another English prison. In the year of 1932, in her badly preserved late fifties, she’d married a Russian with a couple of thousand dollars and they’d come to New York and opened the restaurant. There hadn’t been a reputable British crook in the last thirty years that Lina didn’t know and have some kind of line on. And she’d been visiting England! She’d left New York on the tenth of July and returned on the twenty-eighth.

It was a little after seven when I got off the subway and walked up Broadway to the restaurant. Ornitz was sitting behind the cigar counter. He grunted, “Hello, Mister Keenan.” He weighed about two-ninety in his sock feet and didn’t stand around more than he could help. I asked for Lina.

He said she was home, he expected her in a few minutes.

For eleven years I’ve made it my business to know people like the Ornitzes — know them pretty well. I said I’d go on over to the flat. They lived about a block and a half away, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue.

Ornitz said: “Maybe you’ll miss her.” He picked up the telephone. “I’ll see if she’s left.”

I sat down at the counter and ordered a bowl of cold borscht and he dialed a number, waited a minute, said:

“Hello, Lina... Mister Keenan is here to see you... Uh-huh — how long?... All right, I tell him.” He hung up. “She’s leaving now. She’ll be here in a couple minutes.”

I finished my borscht, waited. I told Ornitz I’d heard Lina had been away and he beamed and told me how good business had been and how Lina had been able to afford a trip back to England to visit her folks. I’d already figured out that on the ship she’d crossed on she couldn’t’ve had more than six days in London. When I asked Ornitz how long Lina had been away he grinned and said: “Not even three weeks. She got homesick.”

We talked about this and that for another ten minutes. Lina didn’t show. I finally said: “I guess she got stuck. I’ll go on over and see what’s keeping her.”

Ornitz shrugged, mumbled something about the undependability of women. I paid my check and went over to the flat. I knocked several times but no one answered so I tried the door, pushed it open, yelled, “Hey! Is anybody home?” There was still no answer; I crossed the living room to the kitchen. Lina Ornitz was lying face down on the kitchen floor with the handle of an ice pick sticking out of the left side of her back, a little below the shoulder blade.

She was very dead. I called Nick Moore at the precinct station and called Ornitz and told him something had happened and that he’d better come home. Then I looked around.

The back door was unlocked, led to a rickety stair, an alleyway running to the street; there was a half-full flask of Chianti on the kitchen table, one stained glass; there were a dozen or so telephone numbers scrawled haphazardly in pencil on the wallpaper around the telephone. I made a list of all that were legible.

I’d just finished a swift but fairly neat check on the contents of most of the drawers and closets when Ornitz puffed in. I sat him down in the living room and broke the news as gently as I could. I was getting into my stride on who’d want to liquidate Lina, why she’d gone to England, and a few leading questions like that when Nick Moore wandered in with a plainclothesman and a cop.

I told Nick about coming to pay a social call and finding Lina, and turned Ornitz over to him. I figured his “Who done it?” technique was better than mine and I had a hunch Ornitz was just as dumb as he sounded, anyway — and just as innocent. He didn’t know what it was all about — any of it. He just sat with his mouth open and shook his head. I told Nick I’d call him later and checked out.

As I crossed Ninety-first Street diagonally toward Amsterdam Avenue a dark blue Buick coupé roared out from the curb, missed me by a hair. A slug ripped through my left coatsleeve and thudded into the side of a parked car. The blue coupé melted into traffic before I could spot the number.

A couple of men ran out of a delicatessen and stood on the curb arguing about whether one of them had heard a shot or not. I took off my coat and folded it and carried it over my torn shirtsleeve.

I dropped in on Jack Gordean at the Martinez on the way downtown. His was the second possibly warm name I’d found on the passenger lists; he’d come in from London on the twenty-seventh. He was a big-time gambler and the only thing that might tie him up with the Castell case was the fact that he was lousy with money and had a decided taste for shady, and profitable, investments. I thought maybe he’d branched out into emeralds but after about five minutes I decided he hadn’t. In this business you get so you can make a damned good guess about things like that after you talk to a guy.

Jack and I had a couple beakers of Scotch and then I went back to my hotel and called Lina’s numbers. The first one turned out to be a wholesale grocer and the second was Ornitz’s Aunt Sadie: they ran like that till I got to number eight. That one was familiar. I looked through my address book, found it — it was the branch office of the Burke-Reynolds Insurance Company. I’d jotted it down while I was waiting to see Mister Wister. I tried the rest of the numbers but none of them meant anything.

The Old Man called and I told him I had a fair lead. He said what makes you think so and I told him for one thing Lina Ornitz had been murdered the day after she got back from London, and for another thing the sleeve of my practically new suit had been ripped by a bullet and I’d need another.

He said: “That’s fine. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

When I finished talking to the Old Man the telephone girl called and said a man named Dekker had called while my line was busy, said he’d call again in a few minutes. I couldn’t place the name.

I was too tired. I took a shower and put on some clean clothes and went down to the bar, told the telephone girl to page me if Mister Dekker called again.

I was getting a running start on my Planter’s Punch when a man sat down on the next stool, smiled sidewise and said:

“I am Hans Dekker. I hope you will forgive my dropping in so informally.”

He was short and round. His head was too big for his body and his round face was like a cake with pink icing, his round China-blue eyes popped in an almost perpetual stare. He moved his fat hands nervously on the bar, said softly:

“I have reason to believe that you are interested in recovering some stolen emeralds.”

His voice was very low, velvety; his accent very precise.

I took a long drink. “We can help each other a great deal,” he went on.

“I know where they are. You, most certainly, will never find them without my help.”

I waited, but he stared at his hands and was silent.

“In the first place,” I said, “who are you, and in the second place, what makes you think I’m interested in stolen emeralds?”

He shrugged slightly, smiled slightly. “I have been so informed.” He took a thick green cigar out of his vest pocket, bit off the end and lighted it.

I said: “And what about the first place?”

“I am Hans Dekker. I am in the jewelry business.” His smile widened. “If you are wondering whether I have been in England lately, I have not. I came to this country from Amsterdam three years ago and I have not been back.”

I said: “Drink?”

He shook his head.

I looked at him for a minute and then said: “I don’t suppose you might, by some strange coincidence, know a woman named Lina Ornitz?”

His eyes were thoughtful, opaque. He shook his head slowly.

“Or drive a blue Buick coupé?” I went on.

“No.” He turned squarely toward me and his head moved slowly, negatively from side to side.

I said: “What’s your proposition?”

“What is yours?” He smiled again.

“You get a third of the reward money.” I told the bartender to whip me up another Planter’s Punch. “That will amount to about thirty-three thousand, three-hundred dollars.”

“That is not enough.”

I said: “I work for a living. That’s all I can offer. If you want more I’ll have to talk to my boss.”

He shrugged. “I want half.”

I sipped my fresh drink, took a chance. “Why don’t you get ’em by yourself? Then you’ll get the whole twenty thousand pounds.”

He shrugged again, very elaborately, slid off the stool.

I said, “Wait a minute,” and went to the phone and called the Old Man and told him about it. He said to offer him half and my right eye, as long as we got the stones. I didn’t tell him the Dutchman had fallen into my lap; it was just as well for him to think I’d ferreted it all out. He asked where he could meet us and I said I didn’t know yet, I’d call him back.

I went back to the bar and said: “You’ve made a deal.”

Dekker grinned so broadly it looked like his throat was cut and bellowed: “Good! Now we have a drink.”

We had two. I stuck to rum and he drank straight gin. I tried to get him to talk but he would only smile and shake his head and say: “Wait.”’

He insisted upon paying for his round. I walked outside with him and he said he’d meet me at the corner of Eighth Street and Tenth Avenue at a little after eleven and got into a cab. I went in to the desk and wrote down the number of the cab so I could get a line on him in case he didn’t show, then I looked up Wister’s home telephone number, called.

A woman answered, said: “Mister Wister is not in. This is Mrs Wister — may I take a message?” You could cut her English accent with a can opener.

I told her who I was and she asked me to wait a minute, then Wister came on, snapped:

“Hello, Mister Keenan — what can I do for you?”

I said I’d like to see him for a few minutes if it wasn’t too much trouble.

He said: “Certainly! Come right on over.”

The Wisters lived in a big apartment house on East Sixty-third. Mrs Wister opened the door; she was one of those sleek, shiny-eyed, unmistakably London gals with a mouthful of broad a’s. She asked me to sit down and disappeared.

Wister came in in a minute, shook hands. He said: “Well, Mister Keenan — any news?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh. Quite a lot. Have you heard about Lina Ornitz?”

He hesitated a split second too long, wrinkled his forehead and stared at me thoughtfully.

“Ornitz? I don’t believe I remember the name.”

I said: “That’s funny. They found your telephone number in her flat.”

He did a beautiful job of trying to remember, blurted suddenly: “Oh, yes — that’s the woman who rang me up this afternoon, wanted some additional information about the reward.” He smiled easily. “Had never heard of her before.”

It was half hunch, half wild guess; I took a long jump in the dark.

I said: “I’m afraid you’ll hear a lot more of her. The police are on their way to arrest you for her murder.”

It was entirely still for about ten seconds; neither of us moved nor spoke. Then Mrs Wister came in through the doorway that led to the rear of the apartment. She was holding a small blue automatic very steadily, waist high in front of her. Wister stood up.

I figured I might as well go the limit, went on: “And they picked Dekker up a little while ago. He squawked bloody murder — he’s still talking.”

Wister yelped suddenly: “Dekker killed the Ornitz woman. She was going to bring the stones in and then backed out at the last minute! Dekker was afraid she’d squeal!”

Mrs Wister was staring at me expressionlessly. She snapped, “Shut up, John,” out of the side of her mouth and then went on as if she were talking to herself: “I think this bastard is lying...”

I grinned. I said: “You said it, sister — I was guessing. The Law doesn’t know anything about it yet, but they’ll have to before long. I don’t think you had anything to do with Lina’s murder. I came here to give you a head start. There’s nothing in my contract that says anything about pinching anybody. All I want are the emeralds and the hundred grand Burke-Reynolds will pay for them.”

Wister was a very pale green. He stammered: “You mean — you mean you won’t turn us in?”

I said: “No, I don’t mean that. I’ll turn in everything I know as soon as I get the stones but I don’t want a lot of coppers in my hair until I do get them. That’s a break for you.”

Mrs Wister was smiling unpleasantly. She said: “What’s to prevent my shooting you, now — and saying you forced your way in here and threatened us?”

She meant it.

I had to press my luck. “The principal thing,” I said, “to prevent you is that my boss is waiting downstairs and he knows the whole setup.”

They looked at each other and I thought it was a good time for me to get up and mosey to the door. Then I turned and said to Wister:

“If there’s anything you want to tell me that’ll help prove Dekker murdered Lina Ornitz, now would be a good time.”

I think he wanted to talk, but he looked at the lady and then looked down at the floor. I opened the door.

“One last thing,” I said, “you two won’t get very far. If you want to do the smart thing you’ll show up at our office in the morning and we’ll talk it all over and see what we can do.”

Then I went out and closed the door and took a deep breath. The sweat was thick on my forehead; Mrs Wister had a cold eye.

It was ten minutes of eleven. I called the Old Man because I wanted him to cover me when I met Dekker but his line was busy. I waited a minute and tried again but no go, so I jumped into a cab and told the driver if he could get me to Eighth Street and Eleventh in nine minutes flat I’d buy him a new hat.

He made swell time; I got out at a saloon about a block and a half above where I was supposed to meet Dekker and gave the driver his hat money and called the Old Man again. The line was still busy. I walked on down to Eighth Street.

Dekker rolled up in a cab in about five minutes. He got out and paid the driver and crossed the street to me, yipped heartily: “Well, well — we are both on time.”

I nodded. We started down Eleventh Avenue. It was deserted except for a couple of passing trucks. Dekker glanced behind us several times, seemed satisfied that we weren’t being followed.

I had taken my gun out of the shoulder holster, tucked it into a thin hip holster under the waistband of my trousers, against my stomach. My coat covered it fairly well.

I said: “They just arrested Wister for the murder of Lina Ornitz.”

Dekker stopped as if he’d suddenly run into a stone wall, turned, croaked: “What do you know about Wister?”

I stopped and faced him. “Not much. That’s what I want to check — with you. I want to know all about Wister.”

He came very close and put one hand on my arm. “Listen,” he said. “I will tell you about this thing. It will not change our agreement — our deal?”

I told him it wouldn’t change our deal as long as we got the emeralds. I wondered what he’d do with fifty thousand dollars when he was sitting in the electric chair for the murder of Lina Ornitz but I didn’t mention it.

He said: “Wister and his brother David who works in the London office of Burke-Reynolds were behind it. David was the brains — he has been doing it for two years with other branches of the company, all over the world.”

I turned and he turned with me; we walked on, slowly.

“There were five of us in it this time,” he went on, “David and John Wister; Jolas, the man who actually stole the stones — we will meet him in a little while; and Lina Ornitz and myself. David Wister could make it very easy for Jolas to get things that were heavily insured by the company. He knew where they were kept and all about the burglar alarm and other measures that were taken to safeguard them — that was his job with the company.”

Dekker paused a moment, went on:

“It was all a very fine scheme. Jolas would turn the stones over to Lina Ornitz and she would bring them to New York. She’s slick at this game and has had several girls working for her, smuggling smaller stuff, for several years. Then, she would bring them to me to re-cut and I would call the police. She would ostensibly escape just before the police arrived and I would give them a wrong description of her and turn the stones over to the insurance company and collect the reward.”

I said: “And it’d split five ways — twenty thousand dollars apiece — yourself and Lina, Jolas and the Wisters?”

He nodded. “But Lina was scared at the last minute — there was too much fuss in the papers, and she would not go through with it, so Jolas brought them.”

We turned down a dark alleyway leading to one of the disused North River wharves; Dekker was a little in front of me, on my left.

“That is where we are going now,” he finished. “Jolas came in tonight on a Dutch tramp that is anchored out in the stream.”

I said: “What the hell makes you think he’ll turn the stuff over to us? And why didn’t you go out by yourself?”

Then I guess whoever decides such things figured I’d had enough luck for one night. Dekker was laughing suddenly. I did not hear him but I could see his round pink face in the faint glow of a distant arc-light, and that is the last I remember for a little while. Something hit the back of my head very hard and I fell forward into darkness.

I opened my eyes and looked up into yellow fog. I was lying on my back in the bottom of a small motor launch and the muffled engine was beating a few inches from my head. I guess I slid back into the dark for a little while because the next I remember I was being carried up a short gangway and dumped on a slippery steel deck. My hands and feet were tied and my head felt lopsided.

There wasn’t very much light but I could hear the launch going away and Dekker’s voice jabbering softly in Dutch for a moment, then lapsing into his stilted, precise English. I turned my head and tried hard to listen.

I knew enough Dutch and could catch enough of the English to know he was propositioning the skipper. The point seemed to be that the skipper didn’t know what Jolas — evidently his only passenger — was carrying, and Dekker was telling him all about the emeralds, with lots of adjectives and gestures, and trying to sell him the idea of upping anchor and shoving off for St Thomas or Kingston or Halifax, anywhere out of the States where they could cash in on the stones.

I found out later that Dekker had brought a case of instruments along and was all set to go to work at his trade. I didn’t understand what he proposed doing with Jolas but I found out about that in a little while.

I guess he made it sound pretty good to the Captain because I heard him give some orders in Dutch and in a little while I heard the winch puffing and the anchor chain rattling up. I couldn’t move and it wasn’t a lot of fun lying there and thinking what a damned idiot I’d been and wondering what was going to happen to me.

Then I heard two shots aft a little ways. I tried to sit up but someone came up behind me and kicked me in the head and I went bye-bye again. When I came to that time I was lying in the scupper and the deck was shaking under me; we were underway. The thing that interested me most, though, was that someone was crawling toward me along the scupper; I could see the outline of a man’s head and shoulders very faintly against an afterdeck light.

Then the man’s head was near mine and he was whispering. It was Jolas. I found out later he had a slug in his belly and one high in the right side of his chest. Dekker had left him for dead and he’d managed to crawl over about forty feet of littered, slippery deck.

He gasped something unintelligible, the only recognizable word of which was revolver, and I suddenly felt my hands slip free. I heard a knife click on the deck as it slid from his hand and he slumped forward, down; I twisted around and groped in the darkness, found the knife and cut the line around my ankles.

It is certain that Jolas had no idea who I was; he knew only that I was tied up and was very evidently opposed to Dekker. He raised his head a little and tried to speak again; I leaned very close to him and above the shriek of the wind and the roar of the engines made out the words:

“Revolver... in coat... cabin...”

He succeeded in raising one arm a little, pointing aft.

It probably took me ten minutes to crawl forty feet. A seaman passed twice and someone who looked like a Chinese mess-boy. I flattened myself against the deck in the shadow of the bulkhead and they went by without noticing me.

The door of a cabin was open, swinging in the wind; I waited until the deck was clear, jumped up and ran across to it. I hadn’t realized how groggy I was until I stood up; I barely made the cabin, stumbled and fell inside. It was very dark. I guess I must have been pretty nutty. I didn’t think anything about whose cabin this might be — I just took it for granted it must be Jolas’. I got up as soon as my head stopped spinning, found the clothes press in one corner and groped for a coat.

Anyway I found a revolver. It was an old-fashioned eight-shot Krupp and loaded. I stuck it into my pocket and felt my way along the bulkhead toward the door; bumped into the washbasin. That was one of the swellest breaks of the evening; I filled the basin with cold water, doused my head, and felt like three or four new men.

The next five minutes were something like a three-ring circus, something like a shooting gallery. It’s surprising how much hell one man with a gun and a grudge and nothing to lose can raise on a ship. Especially when he isn’t expected.

I went forward, up to the bridge without running into anybody. Dekker and the skipper were bent over the chart-table; there was one man at the wheel and another with his nose pressed against the glass of one of the wheelhouse ports.

I shot Dekker. I didn’t think about it at all. I just shot him where it would hold him for a while, and his knees got soft and went outward, and he sank down to the deck. The Captain whirled around and jerked at one of the drawers in the chart table. I only had seven cartridges and I had to make all of them work; I squeezed the Krupp again and I’ll be damned if I didn’t miss him — at about ten feet. I guess I was about three-quarters slug-nutty. I got him, second shot, and the other two men put up their hands.

A guy started up the bridge ladder behind me and I got him first shot, too. That was all. I told the man at the wheel to put the ship about, and I held the revolver so that it was plenty conspicuous and told the other man — he turned out to be the Mate — to tell the radio man to call the police radio boats and tell them to stand by.

The Mate seemed to think everything I asked him to do was very reasonable. He was a very bright guy. That was about all, except for about a million cops and a lot of noise.

Jolas was dead. Dekker was tried in New York and was stuck, among other things, for Lina’s murder. He’d been scared of Lina turning them in ever since she’d backed out on bringing the stones over.

He was over at the flat when Ornitz called from the restaurant and told her I wanted to see her, and when she said she was going over to see me, a private dick, he didn’t take any chances. Then he waited for me outside, watched me go in, and when I came out he tried to let me have it from the blue coupé. He thought I knew a lot more about the whole setup than I did. When he missed he figured the best thing to do was proposition me about a split on the reward, and if I bit he could eliminate me at the earliest opportunity.

The Wister boys are in a Limey prison for long enough. I don’t know what happened to Mrs Wister but I don’t worry about her much. I think she can do a pretty good job of taking care of herself.

I had a headache for a couple of weeks that moved back and forth between the place Dekker’s sidekick smacked me with a timber and the spot back of the ear where the guy on the ship kicked me. But my cut of the reward paid for a lot of aspirin.

The Tasting Machine

In fine weather, of which there was a spate that summer, it was the whim of M. Etienne de Rocoque to emerge from his restaurant in East Sixty-first Street at exactly six-thirteen of an evening and stroll west to Fifth Avenue, south to Sixtieth, east to Park Avenue, north to Sixty-first, and so back to the restaurant and home. It had been discovered by long and diligent experiment that the time he now habitually chose for these somewhat circumscribed excursions was the approximate sixteen minutes between the last home-hurrying stragglers of the commercial day and the first diversion-bent explorers of the night: the streets were comparatively deserted.

He was invariably accompanied by Bubu, a Nubian dwarf, who trotted about two paces behind and a little to the left of his master carrying a narghile from which the latter drew long, deeply pleasurable puffs of green Surinam tobacco, dispensed them in great green clouds upon the silky evening air. They were — Etienne globular and enormous in polka-dotted seersucker and Persian slippers, wielding a vast palmetto fan, Bubu tiny and tatterdemalion in a ragged cloth-of-gold jerkin, his eager little ape-face glistening like an eggplant — a striking and somehow heartwarming pair.

Etienne’s immensity had confounded medical science, most especially biochemistry, for a long time. Early in life he had worn his liver and certain other gastrically essential equipment down to tenuous and entirely decorative nubbins, had at the time we now observe him subsisted on thin cornmeal gruel and distilled water for upwards of eleven years, but he still tipped the scale at three hundred and three pounds in his shantung shorts. This anomaly had led at least one Harvard professor, nameless here, who had devoted most of his mature life to protein research, shrilly to cry “No!” and fling himself backwards into the Charles River.

On the evening with which this tale is most intimately concerned, a wisteria cab drew close to the curb as Etienne and Bubu were waiting for the light to change at Madison Avenue, a man wearing a curly, obviously false beard thrust his head out and went “His-s-st!” Etienne, after a brief glance, continued across the street, west; he never spoke to strangers.

As they crossed Park Avenue on the homeward lap, the wisteria cab again stopped directly in front of them with a thin shriek of brakes, and the man again popped his head out of the window hoarsely to whisper, “His-s-st! I must speag to you!” His accent was deep Balkan Peninsula, darkly belying his blond beard and what Etienne now, on second inspection, saw to be an even blonder wig. For answer, he exhaled a thick cloud of green smoke which momentarily obscured the entire cab and when it had cleared away, they were alone. Bubu giggled soundlessly; they went home.

There, doffing his slippers and wilted seersucker, Etienne enjoyed a tepid shower, then wandered in monstrous nakedness to a front window of his living quarters above the restaurant, peeped; as he had more than half suspected, the cab was across the street. He snapped his fingers. Bubu, slicing a pomegranate in the kitchen, two floors below and in the rear of the house, though mute, was gifted with preternaturally acute hearing, jumped at the first snap and galloped up the stairs.

“Go” — Etienne indicated the cab — “Go and bid the bearded stranger enter.”

Bubu grimaced up at him in stunned wonder for a moment and, after a simple handspring, clattered down the stair. Gertrude, the myna bird, who had been indulging in unaccustomed silence since Etienne’s return, now, after a deep sigh, sang out, “Man the pumps, men — we’re heading into a sou’wester.” There was often a certain incongruity in Gertrude’s pronouncements, in that while her words and usually her sentiments were most uncouth, her diction was perfect — perhaps a little too much so.

Etienne watched Bubu scuttle across the street and make signs to the stranger, then crossed to sit on a wide divan; in a matter of moments the stair creaked — a touch ominously, he thought — Gertrude gave with a thick and obscene guffaw, and Bubu, bowing to the floor, waved the bearded man into the room.

He was a young man, thin of shank and broad of shoulder — a tall young man with a kind of steely beauty about him. He wore a simple black sack suit, black sneakers, a plain white shirt, and a narrow black four-in-hand tie, carried a large squarish object in Christmas paper: a bit of an anachronism because it was the middle of July. Etienne inclined his head towards a nearby chair, and the young man gratefully sank into it, put the obviously heavy package on the floor between them.

“I am moz happy you decide to speag wiz me now,” he gurgled, “elz I ’ave to bozzer you day after day until you do.”

Etienne nodded almost imperceptibly. “You may as well remove your whiskers,” he suggested, “and your wig.” He picked up the big palmetto fan, fanned. “It is very warm.”

“Ett eez eendeed,” said the young man. “Zank you, zank you!” And whipping off his blondness he shoved it into his pocket, disclosing a long tanned Greco face, also bearded, but blue-black, a cap of shiny blue-black hair.

“The accent, too, is obviously a strain,” Etienne went on after a moment. “It is entertaining at first but would wear on me terribly in a little time. Shall we dispense with it?”

“Very well, sir,” the young man said in perfect English, a touch stiffly.

“And now” — Etienne’s roving, faintly amused eyes had come to rest upon the gaudily sealed and beribboned package — “and now, what, in an exceedingly banal but blessedly short phrase, have we here?”

“Ah!...” The young man leaned slowly forward until his long nose almost touched a kind of conical projection protruding from the top of the package; his dusky gaze was fixed upon the small still life — a pear, a pipe, a mandolin — that Braque himself had tattooed upon Etienne’s left chest these many years ago. “Ah, Monsieur de Rocoque,” he intoned breathlessly, “we have here the answer to all your problems, all your prayers — the dearest wish of your heart... We have here,” his nose grazed the conical projection, “the Tasting Machine...”

Etienne’s, it must be stated somewhat parenthetically here, is not a restaurant in the ordinary sense. No one can buy a meal there — a plat, a sweet, nor even a glass of wine. Etienne de Rocoque, Chef de Cuisine Transcendantale, is infinitely beyond being a restaurateur and has so been for many years. His is a clientele conspicuous for its far-flung sparseness, an even hundred pampered stomachs scattered about the earth. But once each month or so he plans and cooks and serves one dinner, or one luncheon, or, perhaps, even a breakfast, and to that boon are invited two or three — five on a really festive occasion and never more than seven — of the fortunate few who grace his guest list.

From Montreux comes, mayhap, the Duc d’Ange, Montfiore Toeplitz from Madrid, Ling Hang Lo from Chungking, The Hon. Jezebel Gapeingham, O.B.E. from Bath. And Etienne, in this time, redolent of steam and sweat and spices, lopes about his kitchen plucking gastronomic pearls, one after another, out of his pots and pans and ovens to set before these favored four and finally, wilting with joy, presides at table — to taste, alas, only their pleasure.

There is his cross. It is not so much that he cannot share these viands, these fabled wines with them — the pain of that is dulled by years — but that his whole life is limited now, designed for, geared to, actually dependent upon their appreciation of his work, their grunts and groans and low-pitched moans of ecstasy. Here is the crux of the matter, then — whisper it softly, softly — even the most superlatively attuned palate sickens of wonder, in time... There is his cross...

Etienne had paled. This, a phenomenon of whiteness which, even when he was fully clothed, had been known to affect the beholder with a kind of nameless terror, was now, in his huge nudity, little short of stupefying. The young man drew back, closed his eyes. Bubu ran to hide his head in a corner; Gertrude hummed a bar of “Throw out the Life-line,” delicately belched. Then Etienne’s blood surged to his veins again and he pinkened back to life.

“What do you know, dark youth,” he demanded in a thunderous whisper, “of my problems, my prayers, my heart’s dearest wish?”

“That which I do not know I have divined,” said the young man quietly, opening his eyes. “Such is the frailty of flesh that you have come now, finally, to founder in perfection.”

Etienne pondered this at length. Here, in a simple and felicitous turn of phrase, this extraordinary fellow had named his malady. Perfection...

“And how,” he slowly lowered his stare to the package, “and what has this contraption to do with me?”

“Everything.”

“And how did you come by it?”

“I invented it.”

The young man had leaned forward to tear off almost savagely the ribbons, the bright paper; a glossily dark gray box resembling a small phonograph was revealed, its simplicity marred only by four jointed metal arms on one side, folded now, at the extremities of which were deftly welded a knife, a fork, a spoon, and a kind of two-pronged hook. There was a small round aperture in the same side, and the conical projection on top, which now turned out to be a plexiglass tube containing a single hair-thin filament.

“I invented it,” the young man repeated, then breathed devoutly, “for you.”

Bubu had turned from the corner, and Gertrude swooped to light upon his shoulder; together they approached to examine the gift with timid skepticism. It is typical of Etienne that he did not laugh, nor smile, nor anything, but accepted the validity of the machine as easily as he would have accepted the color of an Oncidium orchid — not so much from naïveté as from a kind of congenital innocence of cynicism.

And now, although the young man had pressed no buttons, turned no knobs, Etienne momently became aware that the machine was working. There was a deep but gentle whirring sound and slowly, very slowly, one of the metal arms — the one with the fork — was unfolding, reaching out and — snick! — it had suddenly speared the largest, ripest, and most luscious grape from a cluster on a nearby salver. Quickly it carried this dripping, glittering morsel to the aperture and popped it in; the filament glowed, ever so faintly, and then — Etienne felt his whole soul shudder slightly with gratification — the machine sighed...

Softly, languidly, it heaved a tiny sigh of satisfaction.

“Observe that, having chosen the best grape on the bunch, it spurns the rest,” the young man murmured. “It, too, is designed only for perfection...”

But now the two-pronged hook was reaching towards the salver, seized, with the speed of light, a magnificently unblemished tangerine. The knife went snicker-snee and peeled it in a twinkling. It, too, disappeared into the aperture, and the machine moaned gently, slaveringly smacked its internal lips.

Bubu clapped his heavily bejeweled hands tinklingly in small Nubian delight. Gertrude whistled shrilly, warbled “Damn my eyes — but that’s a pretty sight!” Etienne rose. The young man stirred, smiled up at him.

“No longer,” he crooned, “shall you be subject to the idiosyncrasies of your patrons’ moods, Monsieur: quirks of digestion, ravages of time, and repletion upon the taste buds and the gastric system. No longer need your spirit cringe beneath the human equation with all its foibles and fallibilities...” He rose. “The Machine is infallible. Its taste is exquisite. And” — his lips curved for a split second to something almost frighteningly like a sneer — “it will never wear out...”

They stood there. The thin suggestion of a sneer had swiftly gone from the young man’s mouth, and he was smiling almost tenderly. Gertrude chortled, screeched, “Damn my bloody eyes!” and flew back to her perch. The cuckoo clock on the floor below distantly caroled seven.

“This is it” — Etienne groped for adequate words — “this, indubitably, is beyond adequate words... But how did you know? And what, dark youth, is your name?”

“I divine...” The young man extracted a square of cobalt linen from his sleeve and gently blew his nose. “And my name is Vincent.”

“If you have divined this” — Etienne had squatted to examine more closely the wondrous mechanism; it was silent now, its filament cold, its arms demurely folded — “then, Vincent, you have divined that, though penniless, I am vastly rich in jewels and doodads and sundry tokens that admirers of my art have left for me.”

The young man nodded, his face expressionless.

Etienne rose again and stroked his jowls. “My treasure chests and coffers bulge and overflow with diamonds, rubies, square-cut emeralds. Ask what you will.”

The young man slowly shook his head.

“But,” Etienne fell back apace, “I cannot accept this miracle as a gift!”

The young man stopped shaking his head; his voice was barely audible: “I had thought, rather, of a trade, Monsieur.”

Etienne beamed. “A trade! Excellent! Then name it!”

The young pan’s eyes were fixed upon the small still life that Braque had wrought.

“I had thought, Monsieur,” he said, “of Mercedes...”

There was a moment of fraught silence. Then Bubu hid his face in his hands, sank to the floor, and frightfully, soundlessly sobbed; Gertrude screamed raucously, “Man the lifeboats, men! Stand by to abandon ship!” Etienne? Etienne was as one turned to stone; his lips framed the word, but no sound came forth.

The young man whispered, “Mercedes,” smiled, then stooped to pluck a single grape from the salver and consume it.

“Mercedes...”

In the immediately ensuing three and one-half seconds, an aeon of time, a universe of space, a billion thoughts crowded through Etienne’s brain, simmered away to these:

How did this young upstart know of Mercedes — and what? Mercedes, whose skin was as the petals of the moonflower, whose hair was Thracian silk, whose mouth was carven, yielding coral. Mercedes, whom he, Etienne de Rocoque, had, after wading through veritable seas of blood, snatched from the harem of a mighty caliph at the age of three and reared in luxury these full fifteen years, inviolate from the world. Mercedes, who even now he could hear splashing happily in her perfumed bath. Never had she set her perfect foot beyond his door — yet this unspeakable poltroon had mouthed her name! How? How?

And then he saw that Bubu, feigning still to sob, had crawled behind the villainous youth and now was winking up at his master invitingly. All he need do is push — and push he did; Vincent, taken entirely unawares, stumbled back with one of the unintelligible oaths favored by knaves and varlets, turned a highly unlikely double somersault, and smacked his skull smartly against the newel post.

“Quickly,” bellowed Etienne, “into the freezer with him!” And moving with well-nigh incredible speed, he snatched up the youth’s limp upper body, Bubu grabbed his feet, and they clattered down the stairs.

Gertrude slowly raised one pink and wrinkled talon to scratch her ear. “Glory be to God,” she muttered. She sat thinking for a time in silence, jumped when she heard the door of the freezer slam two floors below. Then, conscious of something moving in the room, she turned, looked down; the Tasting Machine, by some means of locomotion known only to God and its inventor, had crept across to just beneath her perch, its fork was poised, whish-t-t through the air at the exact moment Gertrude took wing, snipped out one of her tail feathers.

She alighted on the topmost branch of the rubber plant and, breathing heavily, watched it in frightened fascination.

“Glory be to God,” she muttered. “Glory be to God...”

In Etienne’s kitchen and pantries adjacent thereto, there were seven refrigerators. There was one, to begin little, with a capacity of a shade under one hundred and two cubic inches, limited to caviar and the eleven, perfect daisies which he affected as a centerpiece at his rare dinners. There was one for ices, sherbets, mousses, and star sapphires (he had a theory that sapphires are at their best at 16.6 degrees Centigrade and always kept his at that temperature), one for certain cheeses, one for fish, one for fruit, and one for miscellaneous. And there was the Crucifreeze...

This formidable compartment, the largest and coldest of the lot, was the masterpiece of L. Shiver & Sons. Hung there in rigid, frost-glazed putrefaction a brace of woodcock that Etienne himself had shot in the late summer of 1924. Hung there a collection of meat and game to slaver the mouths of the gods: goose and grouse, bear and bull, moose and manatee, teal and terrapin. Hung there, now, between a haunch of venison and a neatly halved wild boar: Vincent.

The temperature in the Crucifreeze averaged thirty-two degrees below zero, and even in the moment they were within, hanging Vincent up by his heels, Etienne’s nakedness turned a pale and rather interesting azure. They hurried out, and he closed and doublelocked the door. Bubu scurried around in small, tight circles in sheer excitement, and Etienne, sitting himself down tailor fashion on the meat block, fell to examining the objects that had fallen from Vincent’s pockets when they turned him upside down.

There was a business card:

VINCENT VINCENT INC.

“You name it — We invent it.”

Purple Building

808 Lexington Avenue RH 4-6509

There were four sonnets “To Mercedes,” a package of Home Run cigarettes, a nickel, three dimes, and an Egyptian penny. There were two keys tied together with sulphur-yellow ribbon: one was to Etienne’s back door, the other was to Mercedes’ apartment, which comprised the second floor of the house.

Etienne goggled down at these in agape amazement. It must be understood that no man but Etienne and Bubu (who didn’t count, because he was a eunuch) had looked upon Mercedes’ beauty — and lived — since he had abducted her, at the tender age of three, from the seraglio of Yussuf Ben in Khur. True, he allowed her to fly her kite from the roof in pleasant weather, but she was always heavily veiled and...

The kite! He leaped from the meat block and dashed up the back stairs, snatched up a vast towel in passing, wrapped it around his middle, and emerged on the roof. There it was, two hundred yards or so to the north, northeast — the Purple Building! What simpler than for Mercedes to choose a day when the wind was right to communicate, kitewise, with Vincent Vincent, if she so chose? He staggered back and would have fallen if Bubu, who had followed close behind, had not supported him, and for the third time that evening Etienne paled.

“Perfidy,” he piteously wailed, “thy name is woman!” Leaning on Bubu’s shoulder, he reeled back down the stair.

It must here be made of record, somewhat painful record, that Etienne, king among chefs, was a veritable emperor among lovers. The words he whispered into Mercedes’ shell like ears were pure poetry; each morning, noon, and night his impassioned wooing discovered some new expression to delight her heart, bauble to adorn her white perfection, outré and exquisite confection to tempt her tongue. Except, and now we come to the painful part, except for one little thing.

When, in the carefree years of his extreme youth’s extremity, Etienne had by dint of Gargantuan eating and drinking bouts destroyed his digestion, he had also, in spectacular excesses of amorous dalliance, played frightful havoc with his glandular organization. And so, perforce — it must be faced — his well-nigh perfect lovemaking was only well-nigh perfect.

At Mercedes’ door he dismissed Bubu with a heartrending smile, unlocked the door with Vincent’s key, and crossed the tiny cuneus foyer to the bedchamber. Mercedes was still in her bath. He stood a moment listening to her laughter, listening to her sweet voice lifted in a childish song, then crossed to the eastern window. It commanded a perfect view of the Purple Building. In the bottom drawer of a commode he found a Bluejacket’s Manual of Semaphore Signaling, a pair of binoculars, tracing paper that bore the outline of two keys. The evidence was complete and irrefutable. But one thing more he must discover — had the keys been used?

He sat down on a vermilion taffeta tuffet and considered ways and means of Mercedes’ execution. Shooting, stabbing, blunt instruments were emphatically out of the question. To mar the wondrously wrought ivory of that beloved body! Etienne shuddered, gulped in pain. Poison, perhaps, something swift and pleasant to the taste. And then she came into the doorway, fresh from her bath, still with the tinkling song upon her lips, and he looked upon her beauty and knew that he could never murder her.

“Darling,” she said, and her voice was a golden bell, “I am of delight to see you.” She crossed to him and stooped and kissed his forehead. Her mouth was like warm silk.

“Have I been good to you?” he asked, a little tremulously.

“You have been to me an angel,” she said simply. “You are the kindest and best man in all the world, and with all my heart I love you.”

“Have I ever denied you anything?” The Braque still life beneath his left nipple quivered slightly. “Had you not but to wish for Richebourg ‘04, or spun-glass slippers, or” — he bobbed his head at her bed in the opposite corner — “a platinum-mounted trundle bed?”

“You have denied me nothing. You are my bounteous and most munificent lord and master.” Her eyes had fallen on the damning evidence which he had spread out on the tuffet. “And now, because of mistaken jealousy, I am about to die.”

“Mistaken!” It was a broken cry from a breaking heart. “Mistaken?”

She sat down beside him, tenderly fondled his toes. “Mistaken, my love. It all began so innocently, Etienne, almost in jest, this gentle nightmare.”

“Jest!”

She nodded. Her enormous eyes flooded with tears for a moment. She dried them with a tiny kerchief, snuffled delicately, went on:

“One day, less than a month agone, my kite, caught in a capricious down draft, disappeared into an open window of the building there, and when I drew it down, someone had written upon it; these were the words: ‘Veiled enchantress of the roof, I am a poor inventor dry of inspiration and close to perishing. Let me look but once upon your face before I go. I ask no more!’

“What harm, thought I,” she continued, “what harm in granting this poor devil his dying wish, and so, only for an instant, mind you, I lowered my veil. That, I thought, was an end of it.”

“What harm,” Etienne echoed hollowly. “What harm!”

“But no.” Mercedes rose, paced to the door and back in obvious agitation. Dear Allah, thought Etienne, what loveliness. “No,” she said, sinking down beside him, “a few days later my kite once more — what Fates and Furies direct these things? — swooped to that window, and this time he wrote, ‘A plot’s afoot against your master, Etienne de Rocoque, and we must join in a counterplot to foil it!’”

“A plot!” Etienne half rose, sank back.

“Aye. And dangling from my kite were these.” She indicated the binoculars, manual, tracing paper. “Through infinite trial and error, I learned to communicate with him by semaphore from the window there. He swore that if I breathed a word to you about this dark conspiracy against you, all was lost. He told me his name, learned mine.”

“The plot then, what of that?” Etienne cried. “Who was involved?”

Mercedes shook her head. “I begin now to believe that it was only a figment, a tissue of lies,” she said. “Because,” she lowered her eyes, and her whole delightful body flushed a fragile pink, “a week ago he sent me a sonnet.”

“By wigwag?”

She nodded.

“The keys, then,” he demanded gently, “what of the keys?”

“That was before,” she murmured. “He said that he must have some means of gaining entrance to the house, to — these were his words—‘Nip the fiendish designs upon de Rocoque in the bud, just as they are about to flower.’”

Etienne sighed. “My child, my sumptuous child,” he patted her hand, “you have been taken in.”

“I know it now!” She leaped to her feet and danced a little dance. “I know it now, my own true love, my king, my benefactor. But I did it all for you! Can you forgive?”

“The keys,” Etienne’s voice was barely audible, “he never used the keys?”

“Never.” Her innocence was a sword, a shield, a banner. “Never!”

Etienne was smiling, went on in a shaky whisper: “And the Tasting Machine. What of that?”

She stopped in mid-pirouette and gazed at him in puzzlement. “The what?”

“This varlet Vincent followed me home a little while ago. He had a machine that he said he had invented especially for me, and when I asked its price, he said — Etienne’s voice broke a touch — “its price was you.”

Her petaled face darkened; a half hue with anger, curved to a kind of agony. She caught her breath. “The knave,” she muttered in a small spasm of loathing. “The unspeakable blackguard! What have you done with him?”

Etienne rose. “I have put him away,” he said, “in a place where he may dwell for a little while upon the bitter lees of vanity and youthful presumption. For only a little while, my sweet. Then I shall burden him with gold and jewels and send him on his way.”

“And the Machine?”

“It is an interesting novelty. At some time after nine I am expecting guests, the first in several months. It may amuse them.” He crossed to the door.

“I want to see it!” She ran to him, clapping her hands in childish joy. “I must see it!”

“Later,” he said, and he stooped to kiss her nose. “Later, my one...”

Then he went out through the tiny foyer, closed and locked the door.

When Etienne came to the front room of his own apartment on the third floor, the day was duskening, there was the small drum of distant thunder. He turned on the lights, and saw, to his startled amazement, that Gertrude had fainted, was hanging upside down from a branch of the rubber plant. Swiftly and gently he disengaged her clenched talons and, hurrying into the bathroom, waved a phial of smelling salts beneath her beak. After a time she opened one eye.

“What is it, my saffron beauty?” he purred solicitously.

She opened her other eye and regarded him dully, expressionlessly. She said no word. He released her and she fluttered out, through the corridor and down the back stairs. Etienne frowned, shrugged, fell to dressing. As was his wont when expecting guests, he wore a belted smock, pantaloons of stiffly starched white duck, a tall and extravagantly flared chef’s cap. His chest glittered with jeweled medals — only a small part of his collection, but enough to cover an area of one square cubit.

After a last more or less resigned glance at his reflection in the mirror, he went back to the front room and, picking up the entirely quiescent Tasting Machine, carried it down to the Salle à Manger, placed it on one end of the table, and went on to the kitchen. Bubu was peeling a mangosteen; Gertrude was nowhere to be seen. Etienne peeked into an oven, uncovered a steaming pot and sniffed, gave its contents a reflective stir.

“Where is that absurd bird?” he finally demanded. Bubu turned a fast back somersault, gestured towards the garden.

“She swooned,” Etienne continued, “swooned dead away. It’s probably the heat.”

He went then to the big slate upon which, only as a reminder, he sometimes chalked his menus, scrawled:

Anguilles au Gris, Vert, et Rouge

Anchois Robespierre

Oeufs de Rocs en Gelée

Veloute d‘Eperlans Central Park

Agulhacreola au Sauce Nacre

Sylphides à la Crème de Lion Mann

Endive Belge au Goo

Grives, Becfigues, et Béguinettes

et Merles de Corse Bubu

Bubu, avidly watching, swelled with pride. Etienne must indeed be in a magnificent mood thus to honor him in naming a brand new dish. Etienne cocked his head and grinned at Bubu’s glee, scrawled on:

Hamburger 61st Street

Coots avec Leeks Navets Farcis Bleu

Ballotines de Oison Mercedes

He stopped and was thoughtful, went to an open window that gave upon the garden. The sky was writhing with thunder clouds and, by an abrupt flash of lightning, he saw Gertrude in the magnolia tree abstractedly tearing a large white blossom into bits. He whistled, but she only glanced fleetingly, fleetingly, in his direction, then lifted her head and bayed mournfully at the darkling, tumultuous sky. It was an eerie sound.

“Bright-feathered imbecile,” he muttered tenderly. “She’ll get soaking wet in another minute.”

A few drops of rain pattered on the sill. He whistled once more, crossed back to the slate, and added:

Salade de Concombres, Ambergris

et Choux Jaune

Jambon à la Prague

Sous la Cendre Teak

Fraises Réve de Bébé Blaque

Péche Attila

Bavaroise Gertrude

He was thoughtful again, crossed to the smallest of the refrigerators, and gently removed the eleven perfect daisies which would serve as an epergne. Opening the refrigerator, he thought of Vincent. It would not do to leave that brash youth too long in the Crucifreeze. Perhaps another half hour of chilled meditation upon his sins would suffice, then Etienne would free him, pay him handsomely for the Tasting Machine, and send him packing. It was well for Vincent — he smiled wryly — that he was not a vindictive man.

There was a bowl of caviar in the small refrigerator, the luminous, absinthe-greenish kind. It had been flown from Baku the previous day. It occurred to Etienne that it might be as well to test the Machine once more before his guests arrived. He took the bowl into the dining room and placed it on the table; almost immediately the Machine began to hum, whirr softly, ever so softly. The spoon arm slowly unfolded, reached out and — snup! — engulfed a great mouthful, snatched it to the aperture, popped it in. The filament began to glow, and then, sibilantly, sensually, unmistakably, the Machine chortled with pleasure.

Etienne heaved a great and beatific snortle. It worked, and perfectly. He carried the bowl back into the kitchen and put it in the small refrigerator. The Machine’s voice followed him for a moment with thin whines of anguish. That was as well, he decided. Let it be ravenous for the feast to come.

He listened then. He could hear Bubu in the cellar — clink and stumble, rumble, plink — as he chose wines to accompany dinner; he could hear the rain outside, a tenuous shuffle of thunder, Gertrude wetly baying at the sky; he could hear the distant surf of tires on Park Avenue.

And then he heard another sound — a slam, a click, a closed door. He wondered for a little while where it came from, then abruptly dropped his spoon and closed a pot, hurried to the Salle. The door was closed, locked.

He pounded on it lightly, then more heavily, then hard. A horrid sweat grew suddenly upon his flesh.

“Mercedes!” he shouted. “Are you there?”

There was no answer and no sound. He smiled a pea-green smile and tried to pull himself together. His nerves... Obviously an errant breeze had sprung. He need simply find the key... and...

The key, the only key, was inside, and this was a heavy, practically impregnable door. Ah, well, a locksmith...

“Bubu,” he called, but Bubu was in the cellar, and thunder quenched his voice. Thinking of keys, how could he have thought that Mercedes could be here? He himself had locked her door.

But wait! If she had traced the keys, and Vincent had made duplicates, then she, too, might...

From beyond the door there came — or did he only imagine it? — a faint, far hum, a tremulous, low-pitched moan of — what was it like, anticipation?

Etienne whirled, rushed up the stairs. Mercedes’ door was open. He shouted for her, shrieked her name. A crash of thunder worried away to silence. Dashing back down the stairs he fell, described a spinning parabola, and landed on his head. There was darkness...

He must have been unconscious for a full minute, perhaps more. When he sat up and ruefully rubbed his skull, it seemed that it was spring. Birds were singing, and a gentle fountain somewhere gently played. Then he knew it was the rain, a roaring cloudburst. And over it there was a great, expanding sigh of ecstasy that shook the house.

Etienne remembered then, and clawed his way along the corridor, weakly beat upon the door, and sobbed, “Mercedes!” And she answered him.

“Etienne!” she cried, and her sweet, tinkling voice was strained and harsh, like coarse silk tearing. “Etienne — I lied! I—”

And then her words were drowned in such a cataclysmic rhapsody of rapturous squeals and groans and slobbering slurr-ups of delight as to stun the ear and stop the heart. “Vincent!” she screamed at last, above this storm of gustatory joy, “Vincent, my love!”

And then her voice was stilled.

Bubu stood, his arms full of dusty bottles, staring down at his master in ajar-jawed astonishment. The rain had slacked, and in the garden Gertrude aped a nightingale, split the satin of her throat with melancholy song. And now the sounds beyond the door subsided slowly to a kind of satiated coda, a roundelay of little grunts and chucklings.

Etienne stumbled to his feet and stared unseeingly at Bubu. Then a little, very little life illumed his eyes.

“Fetch me the ax,” he said.

Mercedes’ robe was neatly folded on a chair, her spun-glass slippers glittered together on the floor. The Tasting Machine was silent, somnolent, its filament glowing with a blinding white-hot fever. Etienne took it gently into his arms and carried it to the cellar, held it poised for a moment above an open hundred-gallon cask of Thracian wine, then let it go. It came up thrice, and at the last time Etienne fancied — was it his overwrought imagination? — that it called out wispily for help, then choked and strangled, sank, and was entirely gone.

Back in the kitchen he opened an ironwood cabinet and removed a case of thin, brilliantly glistening knives, fell to sharpening them. Bubu was polishing glasses; Gertrude flew in through the open window, perched above the range, and preened her wet, bedraggled feathers.

“Pieces of eight,” she squawked. “Pieces of eight!”

The cuckoo clock on the floor above distantly caroled.

Etienne wondered, was it eight or nine? Or did it matter? He went to the slate, gazed at it reflectively for a little time, then slowly erased Hamburger 61st Street and scrawled in its place: Brochettes de Foie Vincent.

The front doorbell chimed.

“Please answer it,” he said to Bubu. “Sir Osbert Fawning and the Dowager Lady Swathe are often early.”

Fast One

A swift story of gambling, big-time politics and sudden death in Los Angeles and Hollywood, the new WILD WEST!

Kells walked north on Spring. At Fifth he turned west, walked two blocks, turned into a small cigar store. He nodded to the squat bald man behind the counter and went through the ground-glass paneled door into a large and bare back room.

The man sitting at a wide desk stood up, said: “Hello” heartily, went to another door and opened it. He said: “Walk right in.”

Kells went into a small room, partitioned off from the other by ground-glass paneled walls. He sat down on a worn davenport against one wall, leaned back, folded his hands over his stomach, and looked at Jack Rose.

Rose sat behind a small round green-covered table, his elbows on the table, his long chin propped upon one hand. He was a dark, almost too handsome young man who had started life as Jakie Rosencrancz, of Brooklyn and Queens. He said: “Did you ever hear the story about the three bears?”

Kells nodded. He sat regarding Rose gravely, and nodded his head slowly up and down.

Rose was smiling. “I thought you’d have heard that one.” He moved the fingers of one hand down to his ear and pulled violently at the lobe. “Now you tell one. Tell me the one about why you’ve got such a load on Kiosque in the fourth race.”

Kells smiled faintly, dreamily. He said: “You don’t think I’d have an inside that you’d overlooked, do you, Jakie?” He got up, stretched extravagantly and walked across the room to inspect a large map of Los Angeles County on the far wall.

Rose didn’t change his position. He sat staring vacantly at the davenport. “I can throw it to Bolero.”

Kells strolled back, stood beside the table. He looked at a small watch on the inside of his left wrist. He said: “You might get a wire to the track, Jakie, but you couldn’t reach your eastern connections in time.” He smiled with gentle irony. “Anyway, you’ve got the smartest book on the coast — the smartest book west of the Mississippi, by God! You wouldn’t want to take any chances with that big Beverly Hills clientele, would you?”

Kells turned and walked back to the davenport, sank wearily down, and again folded his hands over his stomach. “What’s it all about, Jakie? I pick two juicy winners in a row, and you squawk. What the hell do you care how many I pick? The Syndicate’s out, not you.”

He slid sideways on the davenport until his head reached the armrest. He pulled one long leg up to plant his foot on the seat, sprawled the other across the floor. He intently regarded a noisily spinning electric fan on a shelf in one corner. “You didn’t get me out in this heat to talk about horses.”

Rose wore a lightweight black felt hat. He pushed it back over his high bronzed forehead, took a cigarette out of a thin case on the table and lighted it. He said: “I’m going to reopen the Joanna D. Doc Haardt and I are going to run it together — his boat, my bankroll.”

Kells said: “Uh-huh.” He stared steadily at the electric fan, without movement, or change of expression.

Rose cleared his throat, went on: “The Joanna used to be the only gambling barge on the Coast, but Rainey moved in with the Eaglet, and then Max Hesse promoted a two-hundred-and-fifty-foot yacht and took the play away from both of them.” Rose paused to remove a fleck of cigarette paper from his lower lip. “About three months ago, Rainey and Doc got together and chased Hesse. According to the story, one of the players left a box of candy on the Monte Carlo — that’s Hesse’s boat — and along about two in the morning it exploded. No one was hurt much, but it threw an awful scare into the customers, and something was said about it being a bigger and better box next time, so Hesse took a powder up the coast. But maybe you’ve heard all this before...”

Kells looked at the fan, smiled slowly. He said: “Well, I heard it a little differently.”

“You would.” Rose mashed his cigarette out, went on: “Everything was okay for a couple weeks. The Joanna and Rainey’s boat were anchored about four miles apart and their launches were running to the same wharf, but they both had men at the gangways frisking everyone who went aboard, and that wasn’t so good for business. Then somebody got past the protection on the Joanna and left another ticker. It damn near blew her in two; they beached, finally got into dry-dock.”

Kells said: “Uh-huh.”

“Tonight she goes out.” Rose took another cigarette from the thin case and rolled it gently between his hand and the green baize of the table.

Kells said: “What am I supposed to do about it, Jakie?”

Rose pulled the loose tobacco out of one end of the cigarette, licked the paper. “Have you got a match?”

Kells shook his head slowly.

Rose said: “Tell Rainey to lay off.”

Kells laughed — a long, high-pitched, sarcastic laugh. “Ask him to lay off.”

“Run your own errands, Jakie.” Kells swung up to sit, facing Rose. “For a young fella that’s supposed to be bright,” he said, “you have some pretty dumb ideas.”

“You’re a friend of Rainey’s.”

“Sure.” Kells nodded elaborately. “Sure, I’m everybody’s friend. I’m the guy they write the pal songs about.” He stood up. “Is that all, Jakie?”

Rose said: “Come on out to the Joanna tonight.”

Kells grinned. “Cut it out. You know damn well I’d never buck a house. I’m not a gambler, anyway; I’m a playboy. Stop by the hotel sometime and look at the string.”

“I mean come out and look the layout over.” Rose stood up and smiled carefully. “I’ve put in five new wheels and—”

“I’ve seen a wheel,” Kells said. “Make mine strawberry.” He turned, started toward the door.

Rose said: “I’ll give you a five-percent cut.”

Kells stopped, turned slowly and came back to the table. “Cut on what?”

“The whole take, from now on.”

“What for?”

“Showing three or four times a week... Restoring confidence.”

Kells was watching him steadily. “Whose confidence, in what?”

“Aw, nuts. Let’s stop this goddamned foolishness and do some business.” Rose sat down, found a paper of matches and lighted his limp cigarette. “You’re supposed to be a good friend of Rainey’s. Whether you are or not is none of my business. The point is that everyone thinks you are, and if you show on the boat once in a while, it will look like everything is under control, like Rainey and I have made a deal; see?”

Kells nodded. He said: “Why don’t you make a deal?”

“I’ve been trying to reach Rainey for a week.” Rose tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Hell! This coast is big enough for all of us; but he won’t see it. He’s sore. He thinks everybody’s trying to frame him.”

“Everybody probably is.” Kells put one hand on the table and leaned over to smile down at Rose. “Now I’ll tell you one, Jakie. You’d like to have me on the Joanna because I look like the highest-powered protection at this end of the country. You’d like to carry that eighteen-carat killer reputation of mine around with you, so you could wave it and scare all the bad little boys away.”

Rose said: “All right, all right.”

The phone on the table buzzed. Rose picked up the receiver, said “Yes” three times into the mouthpiece, then “All right, dear,” hung up.

Kells went on: “Listen, Jakie. I don’t want any part of it. I always got along pretty well by myself, and I’ll keep on getting along pretty well by myself. Anyway, I wouldn’t show in a deal with Doc Haardt if he was sleeping with the mayor. I hate his guts, and I’d pine away if I didn’t think he hated mine.”

Rose made a meaningless gesture.

Kells had straightened up. He was examining the nail of his left index finger. “I came out here five months ago with two grand and I’ve given it a pretty good ride. I’ve got a nice little joint at the Lancaster, with a built-in bar; and a pretty fair harem, and I’ve got several thousand friends in the bank. It’s a lot more fun guessing the name of a pony than guessing what the name of the next stranger I’m supposed to have shot will be. I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t want any part of anything.”

Rose stood up. “Okay.”

Kells said: “So long, Jakie.” He turned and went through the door, out through the large room, through the cigar store to the street. He walked up to Seventh and got into a cab. When they passed the big clock on the Dyas corner it was twenty minutes past three.

The desk clerk gave Kells several letters, and a message: Mr. Dave Perry called at 2:35, and again at 3:25. Asked that you call him or come to his home as soon as possible. Important.

Kells went to his room and put in a call to Perry. He mixed a drink and read the letters while a telephone operator called him twice to say the line was busy. When she called again, he said: “Let it go,” went down and got into another cab. He told the driver: “Corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard.”

Perry lived in a kind of penthouse on top of the Richard Apartments. Kells climbed the narrow stair to the roof, knocked at the tin-sheathed fire door. He knocked again, then turned the knob, pushed the door open.

The room filled with a roar. Kells dropped on one knee, just inside, slammed the door shut. A strip of sunlight came in through two tall windows and yellowed the rug. Doc Haardt was lying on his back, half in, half out of the strip of sun. There was a round, bluish mark on one side of his throat, and as Kells watched it grew larger, red.

Ruth Perry sat on a low couch against one wall and looked at Haardt’s body.

A door slammed some place in back.

Kells got up, turned the key in the door through which he had entered. He crossed quickly, stood above the body.

Haardt had been a big, loose-jowled Dutchman, with a mouthful of gold. His dead face looked like he was about to say: “Well... I’ll tell you...” A small automatic lay on the floor near his feet.

Ruth Perry stood up and started to scream. Kells put one hand on the back of her neck, the other over her mouth. She took a step forward, put her arms around his body. She looked up at him, and he took his hand away from her mouth.

“Darling! I thought he was going to get you.” She was half crying. “He was here an hour. He made Dave call you...”

Kells patted her cheek. “Who, baby?”

“I don’t know.” She was coming around. She spoke rapidly. “A nance. A little guy with glasses.”

Kells inclined his head toward Haardt’s body. He said “What about Doc?”

“He came up about two-thirty... said he had to see you and didn’t want to go to the hotel. Dave called you and left word. Then about an hour ago that little son of a bitch walked in and told us all to sit down on the floor...”

Someone pounded heavily on the door.

Kells and Ruth Perry tiptoed across to a small, curtained archway that led to the dining room. Just inside the archway Dave Perry lay on his stomach.

Ruth Perry said: “The little guy slugged Dave when he made a pass for the phone, after he called you. He came to a while ago, and the little guy let him have it again. What a boy!”

Someone pounded on the door again and the sound of loud voices came through faintly.

Kells said: “I’m a cinch for this one if they find me here. That’s what the plant was for.” He nodded towards the door. “Can they get around to the kitchen?”

“Not unless they go down, and come up the fire escape. That’s the way our boyfriend went.”

“I’ll go the other way.” Kells went swiftly to Haardt’s body, knelt and picked up the automatic. “I’ll take this along to make your story good. Stick to it, except the calls to me, and the reason Doc was here.”

Ruth Perry nodded. Her eyes were bright with excitement.

Kells said: “I’ll see what I can get on the pansy, and try to talk a little sense to the telephone girl at the hotel, and the cab driver that hauled me here.”

The pounding on the door was almost continuous. Someone put a heavy shoulder to it, and the hinges creaked.

Kells started toward the bedroom, then turned and came back. Ruth Perry tilted her mouth up to him and he kissed her. “Don’t let this lug husband of yours talk,” he said, “and maybe you’d better go into a swoon to your alibi not answering the door. Let ’em bust it in.”

“My God, Gerry! I’m too excited to faint.”

“Papa knows best, baby.” He brought one arm up stiffly, swiftly from his side; the palm down, the fist loosely clinched. His knuckles smacked sharply against her chin. He caught her body in his arms, went into the living room and laid her gently on the floor. Then he took out his handkerchief, carefully wiped the little automatic, and put it on the floor midway between Haardt, Perry and Ruth Perry.

He went into the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. He raised the window and squeezed through to a narrow ledge. He was screened from the street by part of the building next door, and from the alley by a tree that spread over the backyard of the apartment house. A few feet along the ledge, he felt with his foot for a steel rung, found it, swung down to the next, across a short space to the sill of an open corridor window of the next door building.

He walked down the corridor, down several flights of stairs and out a rear door of the building. Down a kind of alley, he went through a wooden gate into a bungalow court and through to Whitley and walked north.

Cullen’s house was on the northeastern slope of Whitley Heights, a little way off Cahuenga. He answered the fourth ring, stood in the doorway blinking at Kells. “Well, stranger. Long time no see.”

Cullen was a heavily built man of about forty-five. He had a round, pale face, a blue chin and blue-black hair. He was naked except for a pair of yellow silk pajama trousers; a full-rigged ship was elaborately tattooed across his wide chest.

Kells said: “H’are ya, Willie?” went past Cullen into the room. He sat down in a deep leather chair, took off his panama hat, and ran his fingers through red, faintly graying hair.

Cullen went into the kitchen and came back with tall glasses, a bowl of ice, and a squat bottle.

Kells said: “Well, Willie—”

Cullen held up his hand. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Make me guess.” He closed his eyes, went through the motions of communing with himself. He opened his eyes, sat down and poured two drinks. “You’re in another jam,” he said.

Kells twisted his mouth into a wholly mirthless smile, nodded. “You’re a genius, Willie.” He sipped his drink. “You know Max Hesse pretty well. You’ve been out to his house in Flintridge?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know what Dave Perry looks like?”

“No.”

Kells put his glass down. “A little, black, pop-eyed guy with a waxed mustache. Wears gray silk shirts with tricky brocaded stripes. Used to run a string of trucks down from Frisco — had some kind of a warehouse connection up there. Stood a bad rap on some forged Liberty Bonds about a year ago and went broke beating it. Married Grant Rainey’s sister when he was on top.”

“I’ve seen her,” Cullen said. “Nice dish.”

“You’ve never seen Dave at Hesse’s?”

Cullen shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“All right. It wouldn’t mean a hell of a lot, anyway.” Kells picked up his glass, drained it, stood up. “I want to use the phone.”

He dialed a number printed in large letters on the cover of the telephone book, asked for the reporters’ room. When the connection was made, he asked for Shep Beery. He spoke evenly into the instrument: “Listen, Shep, this is Gerry. In a little while you’ll probably have some news for me... Yeah... Call Granite five-six-six-one... And Shep, who copped in the fourth race at ’Juana?... Thanks, Shep. Got the number?... Okay.”

Cullen was pouring another drink. “If all this is as bad as you’re making it look, you have a very trusting nature,” he observed.

Kells was dialing another number. He said, over his shoulder: “I win twenty-four hundred on Kiosque.”

“That’s fine.”

“Perry shot Doc Haardt to death about four o’clock.”

“That’s fine. Where were you?” Cullen was stirring his drink.

Kells jiggled the hook up and down. “Goddamn telephones,” he said. He dialed the number again, then turned his head to smile at Cullen. “I was here.”

The telephone clicked. Kells turned to it, asked: “Is Number Four on duty?” There was a momentary wait, then: “Hello, Stella? This is Mister Kells... Listen, Stella, there weren’t any calls for me between two and four today... I know it’s on the record, baby, but I want it off. Will you see what you can do about it?... Right away?... That’s fine. And, Stella, the number I called about three-thirty — the one where the line was busy... Yes. That was Granite five-six-sixone... Got it?... All right, kid, I’ll tell you all about it later. ’Bye.”

Cullen said: “As I was saying... You have a very trusting nature.”

Kells was riffling the pages of a small blue address book. “One more,” he said, mostly to himself. He spun the dial again. “Hello, Yellow? Lancaster stand, please... Hello. Is Fifty-eight in?... That’s the little baldheaded Mick, isn’t it?... No, no: Mick... Sure... Send him to two nine Iris Circle when he gets in... Two... nine... That’s in Hollywood; off Cahuenga...”

They sat for several minutes without speaking. Kells sipped at his drink and stared out the window. Then he said: “I’m not putting on an act for you, Willie. I don’t know how to tell it; it doesn’t make much sense, yet.” He smiled lazily at Cullen. “Are you good at riddles?”

“Terrible.”

The phone rang. Cullen got up to answer it.

Kells said: “Maybe that’s the answer.”

Cullen called him to the phone. He said, “Yes, Shep,” and was silent, listening for a little while. Then he said, “Thanks,” hung up and went back to the deep leather chair. “I guess maybe we can’t play it the way I’d figured,” he said. “There’s a tag out for me.”

Cullen said slowly, sarcastically: “What a pal! They’ll trace the phony call that your girlfriend Stella’s handling, or get to the cab driver before he gets to you. We’ll have a couple carloads of law here in about fifteen minutes.”

“That’s all right, Willie. You can talk to ’em.”

Cullen grinned mirthlessly. “I haven’t spoken to a copper for four years.”

Kells straightened in his chair. “Listen. Doc went to Perry’s to see me... What for? I was with Jack Rose being propositioned to come in with him and Doc, on the Joanna. They’re evidently figuring Rainey or Hesse to make things tough and wanted me for a flash.”

He looked at his watch. He said, “God! I wish that cab would show!”

Cullen was stirring ice into another drink.

Kells went on, swiftly: “When I open the door at Perry’s someone lets Doc have it, and goes out through the kitchen. Maybe. The back door slammed, but it might have been the draft when I opened the front door. Dave is cold, with an egg over his ear, and Ruth Perry says that a little queen with glasses shot Doc and sapped Dave when he spoke out of turn...”

Cullen said: “You’re not making this up as you go along, are you?”

Kells paid no attention to the interruption. “The rod is on the floor. I tell Ruth to stick to her story...”

Cullen raised one eyebrow and smiled faintly with his lips.

Kells said, “She will!” He went on: “...and try to keep Dave quiet while I figure an alibi, and try to find out what it’s all about. I smack her to make it look good, and then I get the bright idea that if I leave the gun there, they’ll hold both of them, no matter what story they tell. They’d have to hold somebody; Doc had a lot of friends downtown.”

Kells finished his drink, picked up his hat and put it on. “I figured Ruth to office Dave that I was working on it, and that he might keep his mouth shut if he wasn’t in on the plant.”

Cullen sighed heavily.

Kells said: “He was. Shep tells me that Dave says I had an argument with Doc, shot him, and clipped Dave when he tried to stop me. Shep can’t get a line on Ruth’s story, but I’ll lay six, two, and even that she’s still telling the one about the little guy.” He stood up. “They’re both being held incommunicado. And here’s one for the book: Reilly made the pinch. Now what the hell was Reilly doing out here, if it wasn’t tipped?”

Cullen said: “It’s a setup. It was the girl.”

Kells shook his head slowly.

“Dave knows it and is trying to cover for her,” Cullen went on. “She told you a fast one about the little guy, and I’ll bet she’s telling the same story as Dave right now.”

Kells said: “Wrong.”

Cullen laughed. “If you didn’t think it was possible you wouldn’t look that way.”

“You’re crazy. If she wanted to frame me she wouldn’t’ve put on that act. She wouldn’t’ve...”

“Oh, yes, she would. She’d let you go, and put the finger on you from a distance.” Cullen scratched his side, under the arm, yawned. Kells said: “What about Dave?”

“Maybe Doc socked Dave.”

“She’d cheer.”

“Maybe.” Cullen got up and walked to a window. “Maybe she cheered and squeezed the heater at the same time. That’s been done, you know.”

Kells shook his head. “I don’t see it,” he said. “There are too many other angles.”

“You wouldn’t see it.” Cullen turned from the window, grinned. “You don’t know anything about feminine psychology.”

Kells said: “I invented it.”

Cullen spread his mouth into a broad thin line, nodded ponderously. “Sure,” he said, “there are a lot of boys sitting up in Quentin counting their fingers who invented it too.” He walked to the stair and back. “Anyway, you had a pretty good hunch when you left Exhibit A on the floor.”

“I’m superstitious. I haven’t carried a gun for over a year,” Kells smiled to himself.

Cullen said: “Another angle — she’s Rainey’s sister.”

“That’s swell, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It might.” Cullen yawned again extravagantly, scratched his arms.

Kells asked: “Yen?”

“Uh-huh. I was about to cook up a couple loads when you busted in with all this heavy drama.” He jerked his head toward the stair. “Eileen is upstairs.”

Kells said: “I thought the last cure took.”

“Sure. It took.” Cullen smiled sleepily. “Like the other nine. I’m down to two pipes every other day.”

They looked at one another for a little while.

A car chugged up the short curving slope below the front door, stopped. Kells turned and went into the semidarkness of the kitchen. A buzzer whirred. Cullen went to the front door, opened it, said: “Come in.” A little Irishman in the uniform of a cab driver came into the room and took off his hat. Cullen went back to the chair and sat down with his back to the room. He picked up his drink.

The phone rang.

Kells came out of the kitchen and answered it. He stood for a while with the receiver to his ear, staring vacantly at the cab driver. Then he said: “Thanks, kid,” and hung up. He put his hand in his pocket and took out a small, neatly folded sheaf of bills. “When you brought me here from the hotel about four o’clock,” he said, “I forgot to tip you.” He peeled off two of the bills and held them toward the driver.

The little man came forward, took the bills and examined them. One was a hundred, the other a fifty. “Do I have to tell it in court?” he asked.

Kells smiled, shook his head. “You probably won’t have to tell it anywhere.”

The driver said: “Thank you very much, sir.” He went to the door and put on his hat.

Kells said: “Wait a minute.” He spoke to Cullen: “Can I use your heap, Willie?”

Cullen nodded without enthusiasm, without turning his head.

Kells turned to the driver. “All right, Paddy,” he said. “You’d better stall for an hour or so. Then if anyone asks you anything, you can tell ’em you picked me up here and hauled me down to Malibu. No house number — just the gas station, or something.”

The driver said: “Right,” and went out.

“Our high-pressure police department finally got around to Stella.” He went back to his chair, sat down on the edge of it and grinned cheerfully at Cullen. “How much cash have you got, Willie?”

Cullen gazed tragically at the ceiling, and groaned: “Goddamn! When is this man going to ask me for my right eye?”

“It was too late to catch the bank,” Kells went on, “and it’s a cinch I can’t get within a mile of it in the morning. They’ll have it loaded.”

“I get a break. I’ve only got about thirty dollars.”

Kells laughed. “You’d better keep that for cigarettes. I’ve got to square this thing pronto and it’ll probably take better than change — or maybe I’ll take a little trip.” He got up, walked across the room and studied his long white face in a mirror. He leaned forward, rubbed two fingers of one hand lightly over his chin. “I wonder if I’d like Mexico.”

Cullen didn’t say anything.

Kells turned from the mirror. “I guess I’ll have to take a chance on reaching Rose and picking up my twenty-four Cs.”

Cullen said: “That’ll be a lot of fun.”

The first street lights and electric signs were being turned on when Kells parked on Fourth Street between Broadway and Hill. He walked up Hill to Fifth, turned into a corner building, climbed stairs to the third floor and walked down the corridor to a window on the Fifth Street side. He stood there for several minutes, intently watching the passersby on the sidewalk across the street. Then he went back to the car.

As he pressed the starter, a young chubby-faced patrolman came across the street and put one foot on the running board, one hand on top of the door. “Don’t you know you can’t park here between four and six?” he said.

Kells glanced at his watch. It was five thirty-five. He said: “No. I’m a stranger here.”

“Let’s see your driver’s license.”

Kells smiled, said evenly: “I haven’t got it with me.”

The patrolman shook his head sadly at the stupidity of humankind. “Where you from?” he asked.

“San Francisco.”

“You’re in the big city now, buddy.” The patrolman sneered at Kells, the car, the sky. He seemed lost in thought for a half-minute, then he said: “All right. Now you know.”

Kells drove up Fourth to the top of the hill. His eyes were half closed and there was an almost tender expression on his face. He swore softly, continuously, obscenely.

His anger had worn itself out by the time he had parked the car on Grand and walked down the steep hill to the rear entrance of the Biltmore. He got off the elevator at the ninth floor, walked past the questioning stare of the woman at the key desk, down a long hall, knocked at the door of Suite 9D.

Jack Rose opened the door. He stood silently, motionlessly for perhaps five seconds, then he ran his tongue over his lower lip and said: “Come in.”

Kells went into the room.

A husky, pale-eyed young man was straddling a small chair, his elbows on the back of it, his chin between his hands. His sand-colored hair was carefully combed down over one side of his forehead. His mouth hung a little open and he breathed through it regularly, audibly.

Rose said: “This is Mister O’Donnell of Kansas City... Mister Kells.”

The young man stood up, still straddling the chair, held out a pink hand. “Glad t’ know you,” he said.

Kells shook his hand cursorily, and said, “I stopped by for my dough.”

“Sure,” Rose said. He went to a cabinet and took out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses. “Why didn’t you pick it up at the store?”

Kells walked across the room and sat down on the arm of a big, heavily upholstered chair. O’Donnell was in his shirtsleeves. O’Donnell’s coat was lying across a table, back and a little to one side of Kells.

Kells said, “I want it in cash.”

Rose put the bottle and glasses down on a wide central table. “I haven’t got any cash here,” he said; “we’ll have to go over to the store.” He went towards the telephone on a desk against one wall. “I’ll order some White Rock.”

Kells said: “No.”

Rose stopped, turned; he was smiling. O’Donnell unstraddled the chair and sauntered in the general direction of Kells. His pale eyes were fixed blankly on Kells’ stomach. Kells stood up very straight, took two long, swift sidewise steps and grabbed O’Donnell’s coat. The automatic in a shoulder holster which had been under the coat clattered to the floor. O’Donnell dived for it and Kells stamped hard on his fingers, brought his right knee up hard into O’Donnell’s face. O’Donnell grunted, lost his balance and fell over backward; he rolled back and forth silently, holding both hands over his nose.

Rose was standing by the central table, holding the whiskey bottle by the neck. He was still smiling as if that expression had hardened, congealed on his face.

Kells stooped and scooped up the gun.

There was a wide double door at one side of the room, leading to a bedroom, and beyond, directly across the bedroom, there was another door leading to a bath. It opened and a very blonde woman stuck her head out. She called: “What’s the matter, Jack?”

Kells could see her reflected indistinctly in one of the mirrors of the wide double door. He and O’Donnell were out of her line of vision.

Rose said: “Nothing, honey.” He tipped the bottle, poured a drink.

“Is Lou here yet?” She raised her voice above the sound of water running in the tub.

“No.” The blonde woman closed the door. O’Donnell sat up and took out a handkerchief and held it over his nose.

Kells said: “Now...” Rose shook his head slowly. “I’ve got about a hundred an’ ten.”

Kells rubbed the corner of one of his eyes with his middle finger. He said: “All right, Jakie. I want you to call the shop, and I want you to say ‘Hello, Frank?’ and if it isn’t Frank I want you to wait till Frank comes to the phone, and then I want you to say ‘Bring three thousand dollars over to the hotel right away.’ Then I want you to hang up. Have you got it?”

Rose picked up the glass and drank. “There isn’t more than four hundred dollars at the store,” he said. “It’s all down on the Joanna — for the opening.”

Kells looked at him steadily for a little while. Then he said, “All right. Get your hat.”

Rose hesitated a moment, looked down at O’Donnell, then walked over to a chair near the bedroom door and picked up his hat.

Kells said: “Now, Jakie, back into the bedroom.” Kells transferred the automatic to his left hand, took hold of the back of O’Donnell’s collar with his right. “Pardon me, Mister O’Donnell,” he said.

He dragged O’Donnell across the floor to the bedroom door — keeping Rose in front of him — across the bedroom floor to the bathroom. He opened the bathroom door, jerked O’Donnell to his feet and shoved him inside. The blonde woman screamed once. Then Kells took the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door, cutting the sound of the blonde woman’s second scream to a thin cry, locked it.

Rose was standing at the foot of one of the twin beds. The dark skin was drawn very tightly over his jaw muscles. He looked very sick.

Kells put the key in his pocket. He grinned, said: “Come on.”

They walked together to the outer door of the suite. Kells lifted one point of his vest, stuck the automatic inside the waistband of his trousers. He let his belt out a notch or so until the gun nestled as comfortably and as securely as possible beneath his ribs. Then he pulled the point of his vest down over the butt. It made only a slight bulge against the narrowness of his waist. He said: “Jakie, have you any idea how fast I can get this tool out, and how well I can use it?”

Rose didn’t say anything. He ran the fingers of one hand down over the left side of his face and looked at the floor.

Kells went on: “I’ve been framed for one caper today and I don’t intend to be framed for another. The next one’ll be bona fide — and I’d just as soon it’d be you, and I’d just as soon it’d be in the lobby of the Biltmore as any place else.” He opened the door and switched out the light. “Let’s go.”

They went down in the elevator, out through the Galleria to Fifth Street and up the south side of the street to Grand. They walked up the steep hill to the car.

Kells said: “You’d better drive Jakie. I haven’t got a license.”

Rose said he didn’t have a license either.

Kells laughed quietly. “You’re in the big city now,” he said.

Rose drove. They went up Grand to Tenth, over Tenth to Main. When they turned into Main, headed south, Kells twisted around in the seat until he was almost facing Rose. Kells’ hands were lying idly in his lap. He said: “Who shot Doc?”

Rose turned his head for a second, smiled sarcastically. “President Hoover.”

Kells licked his lips. “Who shot Doc, Jakie?”

Rose kept his eyes straight ahead. He turned his long chin a fraction of an inch towards Kells, spoke gently, barely moving his mouth: “Perry and the D.A. and all the papers say you did. That’s good enough for me.”

Kells chuckled. He said: “Step on it. Your boyfriend from Kansas City isn’t going to stay locked up forever.” He watched the needle of the speedometer quiver from twenty-five to thirty-five, “That’ll do.” They went out Main to Slauson, east to Truck Boulevard, south. Kells said: “You’re a swell driver, Jakie. You should’ve stayed in the hack racket back in Brooklyn.” He looked at the slowly darkening sky and went on, as if to himself: “There must be a very tricky inside on this play. The rake-off on all the boats together wouldn’t be worth all his finagling — shootings and pineapples and what have you.” He turned slowly, soft-eyed, towards Rose. “What’s it all about?”

Rose was silent. He twisted his lips up at the corners.

They neared the P & O wharf where the Joanna motor launches tied up. Kells said: “You look a lot more comfortable now that you’re getting near the home grounds. But remember, Jakie — one word out of turn, one wrong move, and you get it right in the belly. I’m just dippy enough to do it. I get awfully mad when a goose tries to run out on me.”

They left the car in a parking station, walked down the wharf. It was too early for customers. A few crap and blackjack dealers, waiters, one floor-man, whom Kells knew slightly, were lounging about the small waiting room, waiting for the first boat to leave. They all stopped talking when Kells and Rose went into the waiting room.

The floor-man said, “Hello, boss,” to Rose, nodded to Kells.

Rose said: “Let’s go.”

The man who owned the launches came out of his little office. He said: “Mickey ain’t here yet. He makes the first trip.”

Rose looked away from him, said: “Take us out yourself.”

The man nodded doubtfully, locked the office door and went out towards the small float where the four boats that ran to the Joanna were tied up. The dealers and waiters got up and followed him. The floor-man lingered behind. He acted like he wanted to talk to Rose.

Kells took Rose’s arm. “Let’s go over here a minute, first,” he said.

They crossed the wharf to where one of the Eaglet launches was moored at the foot of a short gangway. A big red-faced man was working on the engine.

Kells called to him: “Has Rainey gone aboard yet?”

The man straightened up, nodded. “He went out about six o’clock.”

Kells said: “You go out now and tell Rainey that Kells sent you. Tell him that I’m going aboard the Joanna to collect some money. Tell him to send some of the boys with you, and you come back and circle around the Joanna until I hail you to pick me up. Got it?”

The red-faced man said: “Yes, sir — but we’re expecting quite a crowd tonight — and one of the boats is out of commission.”

Kells said: “That’s all right. One boat can handle the crowd. This is important.” He grinned at Rose. “Isn’t it, Jakie?”

Rose smiled with his mouth; his eyes were very cold and faraway.

The red-faced man said: “All right, Mister Kells.” He spun the crank, and when the engine was running he put the big steel cover over it, cast off his lines and went to the wheel.

Kells and Rose went across the wharf and down onto the float and aboard the Joanna’s launch. A helper cast off the lines and the launch stood out through the narrows, down the bay.

Darkness came over the water swiftly.

They rounded the breakwater, headed towards a distant twinkling light. One of the dealers talked in a low voice to the man at the wheel; two of the waiters chattered to each other in Italian. The others were silent.

In the thirty-five or forty minutes that it took to come up to the Joanna, the wind freshened, and the launch slid up and down over the long, smooth swells. The lights of the Joanna came out of the darkness through a thin ribbon of fog.

Kells walked up the gangway a step behind and a little to the left of Rose. Several seamen and hangers-on stood at the rail, stared at them. They crossed the cabaret that had been built across the upper deck, went down a wide red-carpeted stairway to the principal gambling room. It ran the width and nearly the length of the ship. Dozens of green-covered tables lined the walls: blackjack, chuck-a-luck, faro, roulette, crap. Two dealers were removing the canvas cover from one of the big roulette tables.

They turned at the bottom of the stairs and went aft to a wide, white bulkhead. There were three doors in the bulkhead, and the middle one was ajar. They went in.

Swanstrom sat in a tilted swivel chair at a large rolltop desk. Swanstrom had been Doc Haardt’s house manager; he was a very fat man with big brown eyes, a slow and eager smile. A black and white kitten was curled up on his lap.

The swivel chair creaked as he swung heavily forward and stood up. He put the kitten on the desk. He said: “How are ya, Jack?”

Rose nodded abstractedly, cleared his throat. “This is Mister Kells... Mister Swanstrom.”

Swanstrom opened his mouth. He held out his hand towards Kells and looked at the door. Kells had stopped just inside the door; he half turned and closed it, pressed the little brass knob and the spring lock clicked. He stood looking at Rose, Swanstrom, the room.

There was a blue-shaded drop light hanging from the center of the ceiling and another over the desk. There was a big, old-fashioned safe against one wall, and beside it there was a short ladder leading up to a narrow shoulder-height platform that ran across all the bulkhead — the one through which they had entered. The bulkhead above the platform was lined with sheet iron and there was a two-inch slit running across it at about the height of a medium-sized man’s eyes. There were two .30–30 rifles on the platform, leaning against the wall. There was another narrow door back of the desk.

Rose went to the desk and sat down. He took a gray leather key case out of his pocket and unlocked one of the desk drawers. He slid the drawer open and took out a cigar box and opened it. He took out a sheaf of hundred-dollar notes, slid the rubber band off onto two fingers and counted out twenty-four. He put the rest back in the box, the box back in the drawer, locked it. He counted the money again and held it out towards Kells. “Now, if you’ll give me a receipt...” he said.

Kells took the money and tucked it into his inside breast pocket. He said: “Sure. Write it out.” His face was hard and expressionless.

Rose scribbled a few words on a piece of paper and Kells went to the desk and leaned over and signed it.

Swanstrom was still standing in the middle of the room looking self-consciously at Kells, a meaningless smile curving his mouth. He said: “Well, I guess I better go up and see if everything’s ready for the first load.”

Kells said: “We’ll all go.”

There was silence for a moment and then a new thin voice said: “Please lock your hands together back of your neck.”

Kells slowly turned his head and looked at the narrow white door behind the desk. It had been opened about three inches and the slim blue barrel of a heavy-caliber revolver was stuck through the opening. As he watched, the door swung open a little farther and he saw a little dark man standing in the dimness of the passageway. The little man was leaning against the wall of the passageway and holding the revolver pointed at Kells’ chest and smiling through thick-lensed glasses.

Kells put his hands back of his neck.

Rose came around the desk and took the automatic out of Kells’ belt. He held it by the barrel and swung it swiftly back and then forward at Kells’ head. Kells moved his hand enough to take most of the butt of the automatic on his knuckles, and bent his knees and grabbed Rose’s arm. Then he fell backwards, pulling Rose down with him.

The little man came into the room quickly and kicked the side of Kells’ head very hard. Kells relaxed his grip on Rose and Rose stood up. He brushed himself off and went over and kicked Kells’ head and face several times. His face was dark and composed and he was breathing hard. He kicked Kells very carefully, drawing his foot back and aiming, and then kicking very accurately and hard.

The kitten jumped off the desk and went to Kells’ bloody head and sniffed delicately. Kells could feel the kitten’s warm breath. Then everything got dark and he couldn’t feel anything any more.

There was very dim yellow light coming from somewhere. There were voices, too. One of them was O’Donnell’s voice but it was from too far away to make out the words. Then the voices went away.

Kells moved his shoulder an inch at a time and turned his head slowly. It felt as if it would fall in several pieces. He closed his eyes and moved his head slowly and very carefully. Then he opened his eyes. The yellow light was coming through a partially open door at the other end of a long dark storeroom. Kells could dimly see cases piled along the sides. He could see a man sitting on one of the cases, silhouetted against the pale light.

The man stood up and came over and looked down at him. Kells closed his eyes and lay very still, and the man walked back and sat down and put his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. There was thin jazz music coming from somewhere above, and the man tapped his foot in time.

Kells watched him for a long time; then the man got up and came over again and lighted a match and held it down near his face. Then he went away through the door and closed it behind him. In the moment that the door was open, Kells saw that the room was very big, and rounded at the end opposite the door — following the line of the ship’s stern. There were hundreds of cases piled along the sides. Then the door closed and there was darkness.

Kells got up slowly, holding his head between his hands. He took out a handkerchief and tried to wipe some of the dried blood from his face. He went swiftly to the door. It was locked. He leaned against the bulkhead, and sharp buzzing hammers pounded inside his skull. In a little while he heard the man coming back. He stood flat against the bulkhead just inside the door, and when the man came in Kells slid one arm around his neck and pulled it tight with his other hand. The man’s curse was cut to a faint gurgle; they fell down and rolled about the deck. Kells kept his arm pressed tightly against the man’s throat, and after a time he stopped struggling, went limp. Kells lay panting beside him for a few minutes without releasing his hold and then, when he was sure that the man was unconscious, got up. He stooped and fumbled in the man’s pockets, found a box of matches and a small woven-leather blackjack.

He went swiftly to the door and into a narrow L-shaped room where unused chairs, stools, tables were stacked against the walls. There was a hatchway and a steep sloped stair leading down to another compartment. Kells went silently down.

There was a paper-shaded light over a flat desk and there were two bunks. A man in overalls was snoring in one. There was a watertight door in one wall and Kells went through it to a dark passageway that led forward along the ship’s side.

About thirty feet along the passageway, he stepped on something soft, yielding; he lighted a match and held it down to the drained face of the little man who had said “Please lock your hands together back of your neck.” There was a dark stain high on the front of his shirt; the heavy blue revolver was gripped in his outstretched hand. He was breathing.

Kells pried the revolver out of the little man’s hand and stood up. He balanced the revolver across his fingers and a kind of soft insanity came into his eyes. He shook out the match and went back along the dark passageway, through the compartment where the overalled man was sleeping, up to the L-shaped storeroom. In the far end of the L there was another narrow door. Kells swung it open softly. Swanstrom was sitting at the desk with his back to the door. Another man, a spare, thin-haired consumptive-looking man, was sitting on a chair on the platform, one of the .30-30s across his knees. He looked at Kells and he looked at the big blue revolver in Kells’ hand and he put the .30–30 down on the platform.

Swanstrom swung around and opened his mouth, and then he smiled as if he was very tired.

Kells said: “Twenty-four hundred, and goddamned quick.”

A thin moan of saxophones came down to them from somewhere above.

Swanstrom inclined his head towards the desk. He said, still with the tired smile: “I ain’t got a key.”

The other door opened and Rose and O’Donnell came inside. They stood still for perhaps five seconds; O’Donnell was almost directly behind Rose. He closed the door and then he reached for the lightswitch on the bulkhead. Kells squeezed the big Colt. O’Donnell fell forward to his hands and knees, shook his head slowly from side to side, sank down and forward onto his face.

Most of Kells’ face was dark with dried blood. His eyes were glazed, insane. He said: “Anybody else?”

He swayed. He moved slowly towards Rose. Swanstrom was staring at O’Donnell; Swanstrom stood up, and in the same instant someone knocked heavily on the door, the knob was rattled. Someone shouted outside. Kells moved toward Rose. His cold eyes and the slim blue barrel of the revolver were focused on Rose’s belt buckle.

Rose licked his full lower lip, and sweat glistened on his dark forehead. He put one hand into his inside pocket and took out the folded sheaf of hundred-dollar notes, held them towards Kells.

Kells took them and nodded. He grinned, and the grin was a terrible thing on his bloody face. He backed slowly, carefully to the door through which he had entered. He said, “First man through gets one in the guts,” backed out and closed the door.

He went swiftly to the hatchway, down. The man who had been asleep had gone. Kells went through the passageway to the little man, lighted a match and saw that he was conscious. His eyes were open and he smiled up at the flare of the match and kicked viciously at Kells’ knee.

Kells said: “Now, now — Garbo.”

He gripped the little man by the collar and dragged him along the passageway. There was sudden faint light at the after end and he waited until a shadow came into the light, shot at it, once, twice. The sound was like thunder in the narrow space.

They went on laboriously, Kells dragging the little man, the little man cursing him softly, savagely. The after end of the passageway was dark now. Kells sucked in breath sharply. There was acrid smoke in the darkness; something more than the smell of black powder. It was like burning wood. Kells pressed his body against the bulkhead and risked another match.

A little way ahead there was a large rectangular port in the ship’s side, another on the inboard side of the passageway. It was evidently a coaling port. The match flickered out and Kells edged forward, felt in the darkness for the big iron clamps which held the port closed. They were stiff from disuse but he strained and tugged until all but one were unscrewed, laid back. The last he hammered with the butt of the revolver until it gave; thrust all his weight against the plate. It creaked, slowly swung outward.

The sea was black, oily. The fog had thinned a little and the ship rolled lazily on a long, even ground-swell. Far to the left, Kells could see yellow sky over Long Beach, and to the right a distant winking light that might be the Eaglet. There was no sign of the launch.

Then he heard shouting and the sound of people running on the deck above him. He waited, listened, looked at the sea. The black water reddened; Kells leaned far out of the port and saw a long tongue of flame astern. As he watched, the water and the sky brightened. All the after quarter of the ship was afire.

When he again looked forward, a launch had rounded the bow, was idling about two hundred yards off.

Kells stopped, put the revolver down, and took hold of the little man’s shoulders. “Pull yourself together, baby,” he said. “We’re going bye-bye.”

He lifted limp, dead weight, saw that the little man was again unconscious.

Kells untied and kicked off his shoes. He took out the revolver and fired twice into the red darkness. By the mounting glow from astern he thought he saw a white hand raised; the launch swung towards him in a wide circle.

He put the sheaf of crisp bills into his hip pocket, buttoned the flap. He took off his coat and threw it into the sea. He picked the little man up in his arms, got him somehow through the port, and dropped him. Then Kells stood on the lower edge of the port, took a deep breath, dived. There was darkness and the shock of cold water.

He came to the surface a few yards from the little man, reached him in two long strokes and hooked one hand under his armpit. The shock had revived him; he struggled feebly.

Kells grunted, “Take it easy,” and swam towards the launch.

The red-faced man whom Kells had talked to on the wharf leaned over the gunwale; together they hoisted the little man aboard. Then the red-faced man helped Kells. He had been alone on the launch. He went to the wheel.

Kells took off his trousers and wrung them out. He said: “How come you’re alone?”

The red-faced man put his wheel hard over, spat high into the wind. “Rainey said for you to go chase yourself,” he said. “I went back to the wharf and then I got to worrying, so I come out by myself.”

Kells squatted beside the little man, looked back at the Joanna. Her after third was an up and down pillar of flame.

“Looks like a fire to me,” he said. He looked down at the white, drawn face. “You’ve been playing with matches.”

The little man smiled.

“It’s a fire, sure enough.” The red-faced man touched the throttle. Then he added: “There ain’t much of a crowd. They’ll all have a lifeboat apiece.” He chuckled to himself. “You’re pretty wet,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

Kells said: “Eaglet.” He put on his pants.

Rainey sat in a big chair behind a desk. He was a very big, powerfully muscled man with straight black hair, a straight nose, and empty ice-gray eyes.

There was a woman. She sat at one side of the desk with a large glass in her hand. She was very drunk, but in a masculine way.

Kells stood across from Rainey. His expression was not pleasant. He said: “What’s it all about? Were you trying to get me killed?”

Rainey said: “Why not?”

The woman giggled softly.

Rainey turned his head without changing his blank expression, looked at the little man who had been carried into the cabin, laid on a couch. “Who’s your boyfriend?”

The woman said: “Nemo Kastner of K.C. — little Nemo, the chorus boys’ friend.”

Kells looked at the woman. She was blonde, but darkly, warmly. Her mouth was very red without a great deal of rouge, and her eyes were shadowed and deep. She was a tall woman with very interesting curves.

Rainey said: “This is Miss Granquist.”

Kells nodded shortly. He took a bottle and a glass from the desk, went to the little man.

Fay got up and went to one of the ports. He looked out at the Joanna, a spur of fire against the horizon. “Beautiful!” he said — “beautiful!” Then he turned and went over to where Kells knelt over little Kastner.

Kells held a glass of whiskey to Kastner’s mouth. Kastner drank as if he wanted it very much.

Kells looked up at Rainey. He dipped his head towards Kastner and said: “This is the young fella who rubbed Doc.”

Rainey twisted his mouth to a slow sneer. His eyes dulled. He said: “You shot Doc, you son of a bitch — and tried to hang it on Ruth.” Kells stood up slowly.

Kastner laughed quietly, carefully, as though it hurt his chest. “God almighty!” he said. “What a bunch of suckers.”

Kells and Rainey stood looking at one another for a little while.

Then the woman said: “You’d better get a doctor for his nibs.” She was sitting with her elbows on the desk, holding her face tightly between her hands.

Kastner shook his head. He laughed again as though moved by some secret, uncontrollable mirth. There was a little blood on his mouth.

Kells said: “You want a drink.” He poured more whiskey into the glass and sat down beside Kastner.

“What a bunch of suckers!” Kastner looked at the glass of whiskey. He looked at, and through, Kells. “Rose called Eddie O’Donnell and me after you left him this afternoon. He said Dave Perry had called while you were there and told him that Doc was at the joint in Hollywood waiting for you...”

Kells held the glass to Kastner’s mouth. He drank, closed his eyes for a moment, went on: “Perry knew that Rose was going to have Doc bumped — and he knew that Rose wanted to frame it on you. Only he’d figured on doing it on the boat. It looked like a good play.”

Kells said: “Why me?”

Kastner coughed and held one hand very tightly against his chest. “Rose thinks you’re a wrong guy to be on somebody else’s side — and he wanted to tie it up to Rainey.”

Kastner’s dark, near-sighted eyes wandered for a moment to Rainey. “Rose figures on airing everybody he ain’t sure of — he’s got a list. That’s why he sent for Eddie and me. He wants to move in on the whole town — him and Dave Perry and Reilly.”

Kastner stopped, closed his eyes. Then he went on with his eyes closed: “Doc was in their way, and besides, Rose wanted the boat for himself.”

Kells poured more whiskey into the glass. He said: “The Joanna came out tonight; how did they get the load?”

Kastner said: “She came out last night, and they worked all night transferring cargo from a couple schooners — twelve hundred cases. The play was to run it in, three cases to a launch, each trip. They’ve got a swell Federal connection at the wharf; the point was to get it by the cutters.”

Kastner coughed again. “That’s about all,” he said.

Rainey went back to the desk, sat down. Kells held the glass of whiskey toward Kastner, but Kastner shook his head. Kells drank a little of it.

Kastner went on listlessly: “Eddie and me went to Perry’s and I busted in and waited for you. Doc was scared. That’s the reason he’d wanted to see you: he had some kind of an in on what Rose was going to do and wanted help. He was scared pea green.”

Kells grinned at Rainey.

Kastner twisted on the couch. Then, suddenly, he spoke rapidly, as if he wanted to say a great many things all at once: “Eddie waited down on the street to give me a buzz on the downstairs bell when you started up. Rose had called Reilly and he was all set with three men to make the pinch — two in front and one in the alley.”

Kells asked, “How come you sapped Dave?”

“He was putting on an act for the girl so she wouldn’t think he was in on it. He got too realistic.”

Kells looked at Rainey and spoke to Kastner: “I thought Reilly was L.D.’s man.”

“He was. He was L.D.’s spot in the Police Department until Rose started selling him big ideas.” Kastner’s face was growing very white.

Kells said: “There’ll be a doctor here in a little while; I sent the launch ashore for one.” Then he walked to a port and looked out at the slowly lightening sky. He spoke without turning: “Reilly’s the Lou that Rose and O’Donnell were waiting for at the hotel...”

“And he’s the Lou they were waiting for on the boat — so they could let you have it resisting arrest — make it legal.”

Kells went over to the desk. Rainey was abstractedly playing with a little penknife; the woman still sat with her face between her hands.

Kells turned his head toward Kastner, asked very casually: “Who popped you?”

Kastner smiled a little. He said: “I don’t remember.”

The woman laughed. She put her hands on the table and threw her head back and laughed very loudly.

Kastner looked at her and there was something inexpressibly cold and brittle in his eyes.

Kells bent over the desk and took up a pen and wrote a few words on a piece of paper. He took the paper and the pen over to Kastner. He said, “It’ll make things a lot simpler if you sign this.”

The little man glanced at the paper and looked up at Kells. He said: “Nuts.” He grinned at Kells, and then his face tightened and he died.

Kells and Rainey sat at a table in Rainey’s apartment in Long Beach. The woman, Granquist, was asleep in a big chair. It was about eight-thirty, and outside it was gray and hot.

Kells said: “That’s the way it’ll have to be. None of us is worth a nickel as a witness.”

Rainey sipped his coffee and sat still for a little while, then he got up and went to the telephone and called Long Distance. He asked for a number in Los Angeles. He said: “Hello. This is Grant Rainey. I want to talk to L.D....” There was a pause, and then he said: “Wake him up.”

He waited a little while and then he said, “Hello, L.D.... There’s a friend of mine here with an idea...”

Rainey gestured and Kells got up and went to the phone. He said: “This is Kells... Reilly is double-crossing you. He and Jack Rose aim to take over the town. They’re importing a lot of boys from the East, and you’re on the wrong side of their list...”

There was a long silence during which Kells held the receiver to his ear and grinned at Rainey. Then he said: “My idea is that you reach Ruth Perry right away. She’s incommunicado, but you can beat that. Tell her there isn’t any use trying to protect Dave any longer. Tell her that I said so... Then see that she gets bail. When Dave finds out she’s confessed, he’ll have a lot of things to tell you... Sure — he’s guilty as hell...”

Kells hung up and went back to the table. He said: “That oughta be that.” He sat down and poured himself another cup of coffee and inclined his head towards Granquist.

Rainey said: “She came out to the boat last night and said she’d been here about a week from Detroit. She says she’s got a million dollars’ worth of information that she wants to peddle for five grand. She says it’ll crack the administration wide open, and that we can call our own shots next election.”

Kells laughed quietly.

Rainey went on expressionlessly: “I told her I wasn’t in politics and wasn’t in the market for her stuff, but she thought I was kidding her. She soaked up a couple bottles of Scotch and finally got down to twenty-five hundred. A few more slugs and she’d probably sell for a dollar ninety-eight. She says she needs new shoes.”

Rainey’s Negro houseboy came in from the kitchen and cleared away the breakfast things.

Kells stood up. He said: “I’m going to take a nap while the wheels of justice make a couple turns.” He went to the bedroom door, turned and spoke to the boy: “Call me in two hours.” He went into the bedroom.

When the houseboy woke Kells, Rainey had gone. Kells asked the boy to make some more coffee and shook Granquist awake.

“How about some Java?”

She said: “Sure.” They sat at the table and drank a great deal of coffee. Kells sent the boy out for a paper. RUTH PERRY CONFESSES HUSBAND SHOT HAARDT was spread across the front page.

Kells said: “Ain’t nature wonderful!” He got up and put on a suit coat that Rainey had given him. “I’m going to town.”

Granquist said: “Me too. Can I ride with you?”

They went down and got into a cab and went to the parking station near the P & O wharf where Kells had left Cullen’s car.

It was very hot, driving into Los Angeles. Kells took off his coat and drove in his shirtsleeves. His face was battered and Rainey’s shoes hurt his feet and he wanted very much to get into a bathtub and then get into bed.

He said: “Did you come out with Kastner and O’Donnell?”

Granquist looked at him and smiled sleepily. She said: “Uh-huh.”

“You O’Donnell’s girl?”

“My God, no! I just came along for the ride.” She slid down into the corner of the seat and closed her eyes.

Kells said: “Do you think O’Donnell shot Kastner?”

He looked at her. She nodded with her eyes closed.

He parked the car off Eighth Street and they went into a side entrance of the hotel, up the service stairway to Kells’ room. He said: “I’ll have to go downtown for questioning this afternoon — if they don’t pick me up before. I want to have four or five hot baths and a little shut-eye first.”

He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. When he came out, Granquist had curled up on the divan, was asleep. She had taken off her hat, and awry honey-colored hair curved over her face and throat.

The telephone buzzed while Kells was in the tub. It buzzed again after he had dressed. He answered it and the operator said, “Mrs Perry wants to talk to you.” Kells stared vacantly out the window and said: “All right — put her on.” Then he said: “Hello, baby... Swell... No, I’ve got to go out right away and I won’t be back until tonight. I’ll try to give you a ring then... Sure... Okay, baby — ’bye.”

Granquist stirred in sleep, threw one arm above her head, sighed. Her eyelids fluttered. Kells stood there for a while looking at her then went out.

Lead Party

Gerry Kells from the East, who pulled a “fast one” in West Coast gambling, skirts the edges of the political racket and sits in when the blow-off comes.

At one-thirty, Kells got out of a cab and went into the Sixth Street entrance of the Howard Hotel. In the elevator he said: “Four.” Around two turns, down a short corridor, he knocked at a heavy old-fashioned door.

A voice yelled: “Come in.”

There were three men in the small room. One sat at a typewriter near the window. He had a leathery good-natured face and he spoke evenly into the telephone beside him: “Sure... Sure...”

The other two were playing cooncan on a suit-box balanced on their laps. One of them put down his hand, put the suit-box on the floor, stood up.

Kells said: “Fenner.”

The man at the telephone put one hand over the mouthpiece, turned his head to call through an open door behind him: “A gent to see you, L.D.” The man who had stood up walked to the door and nodded at someone in the next room and turned to Kells. “In here.”

Kells went past him into the room and closed the door behind him. That room was larger. Fenner, a slight, silver-haired man of about fifty, was lying on a bed in his trousers and undershirt. There was an electric light on the wall behind the bed. Fenner put down the paper he had been reading and swung up to sit facing Kells. He said “Sit down,” and picked up his shoes and put them on. Then he went over and raised the blind on one of the windows that looked out on Spring Street. He said: “Well, Mister Kells, is it hot enough for you?”

Kells nodded, said sarcastically: “You’re harder to see than De Mille. I called your hotel and they made me get a Congressional Okay and make out a couple dozen affidavits before they gave me this number.” He jerked his head towards the little room through which he had entered. “What’s it all about, L.D.?”

Fenner sat down in a big chair and smiled sleepily. He took a crumpled package of Home Runs out of his pocket, extracted a cigarette and lighted it. “About a year ago,” he said, “a man named Dickinson — a newspaperman — came out here with a bright idea and a little capital, and started a scandal sheet called The Coaster.”

Fenner inhaled his cigarette deeply, blew a soft gray cone of smoke towards the ceiling. “He ran it into the ground on the blackmail side and got into a couple libel jams...”

Kells said: “I remember.”

Fenner went on: “I got postponements on the libel cases and I got the injunction raised. Now it’s the Coast Guardian: A Political Weekly for Thinking People. Dickinson is still the editor and publisher, and” — he smiled thinly — “I’m the silent partner. The first number comes out next week, no sale, we give it away.” Kells said: “The city campaign ought to start rolling along about next week...”

Fenner slapped his knee in mock surprise. “By George! That’s a coincidence.” He sat grinning contentedly at Kells. Then his face hardened a little and a faint fanatical twinkle came into his eyes. He spoke, and it was as if he had said the same thing many times before. “I’m a working boss, Mister Kells. I gave this city the squarest deal it ever had. They beat my men at the polls last time, but by God they didn’t beat me — and next election day I’m going to take the city back.” He paused and then very pointedly made the pun, “like Bow took Richman.”

Kells said: “I doubt it.” He smiled a little to take the edge off his words, went on: “What did you get from Perry?”

“Nothing.” Fenner yawned. “I got to his wife right after you called and gave her your message and arranged for her bail. She’s witness number one for the State. It took me a little longer to beat the incommunicado on Perry, and when I saw him and told him she had confessed that he killed Haardt, he closed up like a clam.”

Kells took off his hat and rubbed his scalp violently with his fingers. “It must have taken a lot of pressure to make a yellow bastard like him pipe down.”

Fenner said: “Who killed Haardt?”

“Perry’ll do for a while, won’t he?” Kells put on his hat.

“Are you sure you’re in the clear?”

“Yes.” Kells stood up. “You’ve got enough to work on. Lieutenant Reilly, who was your best on the force, is in a play with Jack Rose to take over the town and open it up over your head. Dave Perry was in on it. They want it all, and they figure that you and I and a few more of the boys are in their way.”

He walked over to the window and looked down at the swarming traffic on Spring Street. “Doc Haardt was in their way — figure it out for yourself.”

Fenner said: “You act like you know what you’re talking about.”

“I do.”

Fenner went on musingly: “One of the advantages of a reform administration is that you can blame it for everything. Maybe opening up the town for a few weeks isn’t such a bad idea.”

“But it’s nice to know about it when you’re supposed to be the boss...” Kells smiled. “And it won’t be so hot when it gets so wide open that a few of Reilly and Rose’s imports from the East come up here and shove a machine gun down your throat.”

Fenner said: “No.”

“Me, I’m going to scram,” Kells went on. “I came out here to play, and by God if I can’t play here I’ll go back to Broadway. My fighting days are over.”

Fenner stared quizzically at Kells’ battered face, smiled. “You’d better stick around,” he said — “I like you.”

“That’s fine.” Kells went to a table and poured himself a glass of water from a big decanter. “No, I’m going down to the station and see if they want to ask any questions, and then I’m going home and pack. I’ve got reservations on the Chief: six o’clock.”

Fenner stood up. “That’s too bad,” he said. “I have a hunch that you and I would be a big help to one another.”

He held out his hand. Kells shook it, turned and went to the door. Then he turned again, slowly. “One other thing,” he said. “There’s a gal out here — name’s Granquist — came out with a couple of Rose’s boys — claims to have a million dollars’ worth of lowdown on the administration. I can’t use it. Maybe you can get together.”

Fenner said: “Fine. How much does she want?”

Kells hesitated a bare moment. “Fifteen grand.”

Fenner whistled. “It must be good,” he said. “Send her out to my hotel. Send her out tonight — I’ll throw a party for her.”

“She’ll go for that. She’s Scotch-screwy.” Kells grinned and went out the door and closed it behind him.

He went into the Police Station, into the Reporters’ Room to the right of the entrance. Shep Beery looked up over his paper and said: “My God! What happened to your face?”

They were alone in the room. Kells looked with interest at the smudged pencil drawings on the walls. He sat down. “I got it caught in a revolving door,” he said. “Does anyone around here want to talk to me?”

“I do, for one.” Beery put the paper down and leaned across his desk. He was a stoop-shouldered gangling man with a sharp sad face, a shock of colorless hair. “What’s the inside on all this, Gerry?”

“All what?”

Beery spread the paper, pointed to headlines: PERRY INDICTED FOR HAARDT MURDER; WIFE CONFESSES. Beery’s finger moved across the page: GAMBLING BARGE BURNS; 200 NARROWLY ESCAPE DEATH WHEN JOANNA D. SINKS.

Kells laughed. “Probably just newspaper stories.”

“No fooling, Gerry, give me a lead.” Beery was intensely serious.

Kells asked: “You or your sheet?”

“That’s up to you.”

Kells trailed a long white finger over his discolored right eye. “If you read your paper a little more carefully,” he said, “you’ll find where an unidentified man was found dead near a wharf at San Pedro.” He put his elbows on the desk, leaned close to Beery. “That’s Nemo Kastner of Kansas City. He shot Doc Haardt on Jack Rose’s order and helped frame me for it. He was shot by O’Donnell, his running mate, when they had an argument over the cut for Haardt’s kill. He set fire to the ship...”

“...And swam four miles with a lungful of lead.” Beery had been thumbing through the paper; pointed to the item.

“Uh-huh.”

“Who shot O’Donnell?” Kells said: “You’re too goddamned curious. Maybe it was Rose... Is he going to live?”

“Sure.”

“That’s swell.” Kells took a deep breath.

“Now that’s for you,” he said. “Perry will have to take the fall for Doc’s murder for the time being. He was in on it plenty, anyway. Kastner’s dead and I couldn’t prove any of it without getting myself jammed up again. If anything happens to me you can use your own judgment, but until something happens this is all under your hat. Right?”

Beery nodded.

Kells stood up, said: “Now let’s go upstairs and see if the captain can think of any hard ones.”

They went out of the room into the corridor, upstairs.

The captain was a huge watery-eyed Swede with a bulbous, thread-veined nose.

Beery said: “This is Kells... He thought you might want to talk to him.”

The captain shook his head slowly. He looked out the window and took a great square of linen out of his pocket and blew his nose. “No — I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “Cullen and the cabdriver say you was at Cullen’s house yesterday afternoon when Haardt was shot.”

He looked up at Kells and his big mouth slit across his face to show yellow uneven teeth. “Was you?”

Kells smiled faintly, nodded.

“That’s good enough for me.” He blew his nose again noisily, folded the handkerchief carefully and put it in his pocket. “Perry’s the only one to say you killed Doc. Lieutenant Reilly thinks you did, but we can’t run this department on thinks... I think Perry’s guilty as hell.”

They all nodded sagely.

Kells said: “So long, Captain.” He and Beery started out of the room.

The captain spoke again as Kells went through the door.

“Where was you last night?”

Kells turned. “I was drunk,” he said. “I don’t remember.” His eyes glittered with amusement.

The big man looked at him and his face wrinkled slowly to a grin. “Me too,” he said. He slapped his thigh and laughed — a terrific crashing guffaw.

His laughter followed Kells and Beery down the stairs, through the corridor, echoing and reechoing.

Beery said: “See you in church, Gerry.”

Kells went out into the sunlight. He walked down First to Broadway, up Broadway to his bank.

The teller told him he had a balance of five thousand, one hundred and thirty dollars. He asked that the account be transferred to a New York bank, then changed his mind.

“I’ll take it in cash.”

The teller gave him five thousand-dollar notes, a hundred, a twenty, and a ten-dollar bill. Kells took the sheaf of twenty-four new hundred-dollar bills out of his pocket and exchanged twenty of them for two more thousand-dollar notes. He folded the seven thousand-dollar notes and put them in a black pin-seal cardcase, put the case in his inside breast pocket. He put the five hundreds and the smaller bills in his trouser pocket and went out and got into a cab.

He said, “Lancaster Hotel” and looked at his watch. It was twoforty; he had three hours and twenty minutes to get home and pack and make the Chief.

“Gerry.” Granquist called to him as he crossed the lobby.

He waited until she had crossed to him, smiled ingenuously. “Gerry in the hay, baby,” he said gently. “Mister Kells in public.”

She laughed softly — a metallic softness.

Kells said, “Did you get my note?”

“Uh-huh.” She spoke rapidly, huskily. “I woke up right after you left, I guess. Your phone’s been raising bloody hell. I’m going home and get some sleep...”

She held out a closed black-gloved hand, and Kells took his key.

He said: “Come on back upstairs — I’ve found a swell spot for your stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” Her face brightened.

They went to the elevator and up to Kells’ room. Granquist sat in a low, steel-gray leather chair with her back to the windows, and Kells walked up and down.

“L.D. Fenner has been the boss of this town for about six years,” he said. “The reform element moved in last election, but Fenner’s kept things pretty well under control — he has beautiful connections all the way to Washington...”

Kells paused while Granquist took out tobacco and papers, started to roll a cigarette.

“You wanted to sell your stuff to Rainey for five grand,” he went on. “If it’s as good as you think it is, we can get fifteen from Fenner... That’s ten for you and five for me” — he smiled a little — “as your agent...”

Granquist said: “I was drunk when I talked to Rainey. Fifteen’s chicken-feed. If you want to help me handle this the way it should be handled, we can get fifty.”

“You have big ideas, baby. Let’s keep this practical.”

Granquist lighted her cigarette. She said: “How would you like to buy me a drink?”

Kells went into the dressing room and took two bottles of whiskey out of a drawer. He tore off the tissue paper wrappings and went back into the room and put them on a table.

“One for you and one for me,” he said. He took a corkscrew out of his pocket.

The phone buzzed.

Kells went to the phone, and Granquist got up and took off her gloves and began opening the bottles.

Kells said: “Hello... Yes — fine, Stella... Who?... Not Kuhn, Stella — maybe it’s Cullen... Yeah... Put him on.” He waited a moment, said: “Hello, Willie... Sure...” He laughed quietly. “No, your car’s all right. I’ll send one of the boys in the garage out with it, or bring it out myself if I have time... I’m taking a powder... The Chief: six o’clock... Uh-huh, they’re too tough out here for me. I’m going back to Times Square where it’s quiet... Okay, Willie. Thanks, luck — all that sort of thing... G’bye.”

He hung up, went to the table and picked up one of the opened bottles. He said: “Do you want a glass or a funnel?”

Granquist took the other bottle and sat down. She jerked her head towards the phone. “Was that on the square — you’re going?”

“Certainly.”

“You’re a sap.” She tilted the bottle to her mouth, gurgled.

Kells went to a little table against one wall, took two glasses from a tray and went back and put them on the center table. He poured one of them half full. “No, darling — I’m a very bright fella.” He drank. “I’m going to get myself a lot of air while I can. The combination’s too strong. I’m not ambitious...”

“You’re a sap.”

Kells went to a closet and took out two traveling bags, a large suitcase. He took the drawers out of a small wardrobe trunk, put them on chairs.

“You’d run out on a chance to split fifty grand?” Granquist was elaborately incredulous.

Kells started taking things out of closets, putting them in the trunk. “Your information is worth more to Fenner than anyone else,” he said. “If it’s worth that much, he’ll probably pay it. You can send me mine...”

“No, goddamn it! You stay here and help me swing this or you don’t get a nickel.”

Kells stopped packing, turned wide eyes toward Granquist. “Listen, baby,” he said slowly, “I’ve got a nickel. I’m getting along swell legitimately. You take your bottle and your extortion racket and scram.”

Granquist laughed. She got up and went to Kells and put her arms around his body. She didn’t say anything, just looked at him and laughed.

The wide, wild look went out of his eyes slowly. He smiled. He said: “What makes you think it’s worth that much?”

Then he put her arms away gently and went to the table and poured two drinks.

At six o’clock the Chief pulled out of the Santa Fe station for Chicago. At about six-forty Kells dropped Granquist at her apartment house on the corner of Wilcox and Yucca.

“Meet you in an hour at the Derby.”

She said: “Okay — adiós.”

Kells drove up Wilcox to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga to Iris, turned up the short curving slope to Cullen’s house. The garage doors were open, he drove the car in and then went up and rang the bell. No one answered. He went back down and closed the garage doors and walked down to Cahuenga, down Cahuenga to Franklin.

He stood on the corner for a little while and then went into a delicatessen and called a Hempstead number. The line was busy, he waited a few minutes, called again.

He said: “Hello, the Mrs Perry... Swell... Listen: I’m going to be very busy tonight — I’ve got about a half hour... You come out and walk up to Las Palmas, and if you’re sure you’re not tailed come up Las Palmas to Franklin... If you’re not absolutely sure take a walk or something... I’ll give you a ring late... Yeah...”

He went out and walked over Franklin to Las Palmas. He walked back and forth between Las Palmas and Highland for ten minutes and then walked down the west side of Las Palmas to Hollywood Boulevard. He didn’t see anything of Ruth Perry.

He went on down Las Palmas to Sunset, east to Vine and up Vine to the Brown Derby.

Granquist was in a booth, far back, on the left.

She said: “I ordered oysters.”

Kells sat down. “That’s fine.” He nodded to an acquaintance at a nearby table.

“A couple minutes after you left me,” she said, “a guy came into my place and asked the girl at the desk who I was. She said, ‘Who wants to know?’ and he said he had seen me come in and thought I was an old friend of his...”

“And...”

“And I haven’t got any old friends.”

“What’d he look like?” Kells was reading the menu.

“The girl isn’t very bright. All she could remember was that he had on a gray suit and a gray cap.”

Kells said: “That’s a pipe — it was one of the Barrymores.”

“No.” Granquist shook her head very seriously. “It might have been a copper who tailed us from your hotel, or it might have been one of—”

Kells interrupted her suddenly. “Did you leave the stuff in your apartment?”

“Certainly not.”

Kells said, “Anyway — we’ve got to do whatever’s to be done with it tonight. I’m getting the noon train tomorrow.”

“We’re getting the noon train.”

Kells smiled, looked at her for a little while. He said: “When you can watch a lady eat oysters, and still think she’s swell — that’s love.”

He ordered the rest of the dinner.

Granquist carried a smart black bag. She opened it and took out a big silver flask, poured drinks under the table. “Just to keep our winnings turning,” she said.

The dinner was very good. After a while, Granquist asked with exaggerated seriousness: “Have I told you the story of my life?”

“No — but I’ve heard one.” Kells was drinking his coffee, watching the door.

“All right. You tell me.”

Kells said, “I was born of rich but honest parents...”

“You can skip that.”

He grinned at her. “I came back from France,” he said, “with a lot of sharp-shooting medals, a beautiful case of shell shock and a morphine habit you could hang your hat on.”

He gestured with his hands. “All gone.”

“Even the medals?”

He nodded. “The State kept them as souvenirs of my first trial.”

Granquist poured two drinks.

“I happened to be too close to a couple of front-page kills,” Kells went on. “There was a lot of dumb sleuthing and a lot of dumb talk. It got so, finally, when the New York police couldn’t figure a shooting any other way, I was it.”

Granquist was silent, smiling.

“They got tired trying to hang them on me after the first three, but the whisper went on. It got to be known as the Kells Inside...”

“And at heart you’re just a big, sympathetic boy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded his head slowly, emphatically. His face was expressionless. “Me — I’m Napoleon.” Granquist took a powder puff out of the bag and rubbed it over her nose.

Kells beckoned a waiter, paid the check. “And beyond the Alps lies Italy,” he said. “Let’s go.”

It was raining a little.

Kells held Granquist close to him. “The Manhattan is just around the corner on Ivar,” he said,”but I’m going to put you in a cab and I want you to go down to Western Avenue and get out and walk until you’re sure you’re not being followed. Then get another cab and come to the Manhattan. I’ll be in ten-sixteen.”

The doorman held a big umbrella for them and they walked across the wet sidewalk and Granquist got into a cab.

Kells stood in the thin rain until the cab had turned the corner down Hollywood Boulevard, then he went back into the restaurant.

Ruth Perry was sitting in the corner booth behind the cashier’s desk. She didn’t say anything. Kells sat down. There was a newspaper on the table and he turned it around, glanced at the headlines. He said: “What do you think about the Chinese situation?”

“Who was that?” Ruth Perry inclined her head slightly towards the door.

Kells put his elbows on the table and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “None of your business, darling,” he said. He looked up at her and smiled. “Now keep your pants on. I stand to make a ten or fifteen thousand dollar lick tonight, and that one—” he gestured with his head toward the door — “is a very important part of the play.”

Ruth Perry didn’t say anything. She leaned back and looked at the ceiling and laughed a little bit.

Presently she said, “What are you going to do about Dave?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not going to go on that stand and lay myself open to a perjury rap.”

Kells shook his head. “You won’t have to, baby. The trial won’t come up for a month or so and we can spring Dave before that” — he smiled with his mouth — “if you want to.”

They were silent a little while.

Then Kells said: “I’ve got to go now — call you around twelve.”

He got up and went out into the rain. He walked up to the corner of Vine and Hollywood Boulevard and went into the drugstore and bought some aspirin. He took two five-grain tablets and then went out and crossed the Boulevard and walked up Vine Street about a hundred yards. Then he crossed the street and walked back down to the parking station next to the Post Office. He stood on the sidewalk watching people across the street for a little while, then went swiftly back through the parking station and down the ramp to the garage under the Manhattan Hotel.

He got out of the elevator on the tenth floor and knocked at the door of ten-sixteen. Fenner opened the door.

Fenner said: “Well, Mister Kells — you didn’t catch your train.” He smiled and bowed Kells in.

They sat in the big living room and Fenner poured drinks. He poured three drinks and leaned back and said, “Where’s the little lady?”

“She’ll be up in a few minutes.”

Someone came out of the bathroom and through the bedroom. Fenner got up and introduced a dark medium-sized man that came in. “This is Mister Jeffers — God’s gift to Womanhood... Mister Kells.”

Kells stood up and shook hands with Jeffers. He was a motion picture star who had had a brief and spectacular career; had been on the way out for nearly a year. He was drunk. He said: “It is a great pleasure to meet a real gunman, Mister Kells.”

Kells glanced at Fenner and Fenner shook his head slightly, smiled apologetically. Kells sat down and sipped his whiskey.

Jeffers said: “I’m going up and get Lola.” He took up his glass and went unsteadily out of the room, through the small hallway, out the outer door.

“You mustn’t mind Jeffers.”

Kells said: “Sure.” Then he leaned back in his chair and stared vacantly at Fenner. “Have you got twenty-five grand in cash?”

Fenner looked at him very intently. Then he smiled slowly and shook his head. “No,” he said. “Why?”

“Can you get it — tonight?”

“Well — possibly. I—”

Kells interrupted him, spoke rapidly. “I’ve talked to the lady. She’s got enough on Bellmann to run him out of politics — out of the state, by God! You’re getting first crack at it because I have a hunch he isn’t sitting so pretty financially. It’s the keys to the city for you — it’s in black and white — an’ it’s a bargain.”

“You seem to have a more than casual interest in this...”

Kells nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said, smiled. “I’m the fiscal agent.”

Fenner stood up and walked up and down the room, his hands clasped behind him, a lecture platform expression on his face.

“You forget, Mister Kells, that the Common People — the voters — are not fully informed of Bellmann’s connections, his power in the present administration.”

“That’s what your Coast Guardian’s for.”

Fenner stopped in front of Kells. “Just what form does this, uh — incriminating information take?” Kells shook his head slowly. “You’ll have to take my word for that,” he said. He leaned forward and put his empty glass on the table.

The doorbell rang. Fenner went out into the hall, followed Granquist back into the room. Kells got up and introduced her to Fenner, and Fenner took her coat into the bedroom and then came back and poured drinks for all of them.

“Mister Kells has raised the ante to twenty-five thousand,” he said. He smiled boyishly at Granquist.

She took her drink and sat down. She raised the glass to her mouth. “Hey, hey.”

They all drank.

Granquist took a sack of Durham, papers out of her bag, rolled a cigarette.

Fenner said: “Of course I can’t enter into a proposition involving so much money without knowing definitely what I’m getting.”

“You put twenty-five thousand dollars in cash on the line and you get enough to put the election on ice.” Kells got up and went over to one of the windows. He turned and went on very earnestly: “And it’s a hell of a long ways from that now.”

Fenner pursed his lips, smiled a little. “Well — now...”

“And it’s got to be done tonight.”

Granquist got up and put her empty glass on the table.

Fenner said: “Help yourself, help yourself.”

She filled the two glasses on the table with whiskey and ice and White Rock. She said: “Do you let strangers use your bathroom?”

Fenner took her through the hallway to the bedroom and turned on the light in the bath. He came back and sat down and picked up the telephone, asked for Mister Dillon. When the connection was made, he said: “I want you to bring up the yellow sealed envelope that’s in the safe... Yes, please — and bring it yourself.” He hung up and turned to Kells. “All right,” he said. “I’ll play with you.”

Kells sat down and crossed his legs. He studied the glistening toe of his left shoe, said: “It’s going to sound like a fairy tale.” He looked up at Fenner. “Bellmann’s a very smart guy. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t be where he is.”

Fenner nodded impatiently.

Kells said: “The smarter they are, the sappier the frame they’ll go for. Bellmann spent weekend before last at Jack Rose’s cabin at Big Bear.” He leaned forward and took his glass from the table. “Rose has been trying to get a feeler to him for a long time, has tried to reach him through his own friends. A few weeks ago Rose took a big place on the lake, not far from Bellmann’s, invited Hugg and MacAlmon — Mac is very close to Bellmann — up for the fishing, or what have you. They all dropped in on Bellmann in a spirit of neighborliness, and he decided that he’d been wrong about Rose all these years. Next day he returned the call. When Hugg and Mac came back to the city, they left Rose and Bellmann like that” — he held up two slim fingers pressed close together.

Granquist came in, sat down.

Kells turned his head in her direction. Without letting his eyes focus directly on her, he said: “That’s where baby comes in.”

Fenner lighted a cigarette, coughed out smoke.

“She came out with friends of Rose from K.C.,” Kells went on. “Bellmann met her at Rose’s and took her big. That was Rose’s cue. He threw a party — one of those intimate, quiet little affairs — Rose and a showgirl, Bellmann and” — he smiled faintly at Granquist — “this one. They all got stiff — I don’t mean drunk, I mean stiff. And what do you suppose happened?”

Kells paused, grinned happily at Fenner. “Miss Granquist had her little camera along, took a lot of snapshots.” He turned his grin towards Granquist. “Miss Dipsomania Granquist stayed sober enough to snap her little camera.”

Fenner got up and took Granquist’s empty glass, filled it. He looked very serious.

Kells went on. “Of course it all came back to Rose in the morning. He asked about the pictures and she gave him a couple rolls of film that she’d stuck into the camera during the night, clicked with the lens shut, blanks. She discovered that the lens wasn’t open when she gave them to him, they had one of those morning after laughs about it. Bellmann had a dark green hangover; he didn’t even remember about the pictures until a day or so later, and then he wrote Miss Granquist a couple of hot letters with casual postscripts: ‘How did the snapshots turn out, darling?’ cracks like that.”

Kells got up, stretched. “You see, it gets better as it goes along.”

“What are the pictures like?” Fenner was standing near Granquist, his little pointed chin thrust towards Kells.

“Don’t be silly. They’re right out of the pocket of one of those frogs that work along the Rue de Rivoli.” Kells ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s not the point though. It’s not what they are, it’s who they’re of: Mister John R. Bellmann, the big boss of the reform administration, the Woman’s Club politician — at the house and in the intimate company of Jack Rose, gambler, Crown Prince of the Western Underworld — and a couple of, well, — questionable ladies.”

“And exactly what am I buying?”

“The negatives and one set of prints. My word that you’re getting all the negatives and that there are no other prints. The letters. And certain information as to what Mister Bellmann and Mister Rose talked about before they went under...”

The doorbell rang.

Fenner said: “That’ll be Dillon.” He went out into the hallway and came back with a sandy-haired, spectacled man. Both of them were holding their hands above their shoulders in the conventional gesture of surprise. Two men whom Kells had never seen before came in behind them. One, the most striking, was rather fat and his small head stuck out of a stiff collar. His tie was knotted to stick straight out, stiffly from the opening in his collar. He held a short blunt revolver in his hand.

The fat man said: “Go see if the tall one has got anything in his pockets.”

The other man went to Kells. He was a gray-faced nondescript young man in a tightly belted raincoat. He went through Kells’ pockets very carefully and when he had finished, said: “Sit down.” Dillon shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and the fat man, who was almost directly behind him, raised the revolver and brought the barrel down hard on the back of his head. Dillon grunted and his knees gave way and he slumped down softly to the floor.

The fat man giggled quietly, nervously. He said: “That’s one down. Every little bit helps.”

Kells sat down on the divan and leaned back and crossed his legs.

The fat man said: “Put your hands up, Skinny.”

Kells shook his head.

The young man in the raincoat leaned forward and slapped Kells across the mouth. Kells looked up at him, and his face was very sad, his eyes were sleepy. He said: “That’s too bad.”

Fenner turned his head, spoke over his shoulder to the fat man. “What do you want?”

“I don’t want you. Go sit down in that chair by the window.”

Fenner crossed the room, sat down.

The fat man said: “Reach back of you and pull the shades shut.”

Granquist said sarcastically: “Now pull up a chair for yourself, Fat.” She leaned forward towards the table. “Ain’t you going to have a drink?”

Kells said: “Don’t say ‘ain’t,’ sweet.”

The fat man sat down in the chair nearest the door. His elbows were on the arms of the chair and he held the revolver loosely on his lap.

He said: “I want a bunch of pictures that you tried to peddle to Bellmann, girlie.”

“Don’t call me girlie, you son of a bitch!”

Kells looked at Granquist, shook his head sadly. “That’s something you forgot to tell me about,” he said.

“I want all the pictures,” the fat man repeated, “an’ I want two letters — quick.”

Granquist was staring at the fat man. She turned slowly to Kells. “That’s a lie, Gerry. I didn’t crack to Bellmann.”

Fenner stood up. “I won’t stand for this,” he said. He thrust his hands in his pockets and took a step forward.

“Sit down.” The fat man moved the revolver slightly until it focused on Fenner’s stomach.

Fenner stood still.

Kells said: “Does the fella who sent you know that if anything happens to me, the whole inside gets a swell spread in the morning papers?...”

The fat man smiled.

“... The inside on Haardt and the barge and Perry, and the Sunday-school picnic at Big Bear?” Kells went on.

Granquist was watching him intently.

“I made that arrangement this afternoon.” Kells leaned sidewise slowly and put his empty glass on an end table.

The fat man looked at Fenner, and Kells, and then he looked at Granquist and at the bag tucked into the chair beside her. He said: “That’s a dandy. Let’s have a look at it, girlie.”

Granquist stood up in one swift and precise movement. She moved to the window so swiftly that the fat man had only time to stand up and take one step towards her before she had moved the drape aside with her shoulder, crashed the bag through the window.

Glass tinkled on the sill.

Kells stood up in the same instant and brought his right fist up from the divan in a long arc to the side of the grayfaced young man’s jaw.

The young man spun half around and Kells swung his right fist again to the same place. The young man fell half on the divan, half on the floor.

The fat man moved towards Kells, stopped in the center of the floor.

Granquist yelled: “Smack him, Gerry; he won’t shoot.”

Kells stood with his feet wide apart. He grinned at the fat man.

Fenner was standing near Granquist at the window. His eyes were wide and he tried to say something but the words stuck in his throat.

The fat man backed towards the door. “I ain’t got orders to shoot, but I sure will if you press me.” He backed out into the semidarkness of the hallway and then the outer door slammed.

Granquist ran across the room, stopped a moment in the doorway, turned her head towards Kells. She said, “I’ll get the bag,” and she spoke so rapidly, so breathlessly, that the words were all run together into one word. She went into the darkness.

Kells turned to Fenner. “Give her a hand,” he said.

He bent over the young man, took a small automatic out of the raincoat pocket and handed it to Fenner. “Hurry up — I’ve got to telephone — I’ll be right down.”

Fenner took the automatic dazedly. He looked at the man on the floor and at Kells, and then he came suddenly to life. “It’s in the court,” he said excitedly. “I can get out there from the third floor.”

“Maybe the bag was a stall. Don’t let her get out of your sight.” Kells sat down at the telephone.

Fenner hurried out of the room.

Kells waited until he heard the outer door slam, then got up and went to Dillon. He knelt and drew a long yellow envelope from Dillon’s inside breast pocket. It was heavily sealed. He tore off the end, spread the envelope by pressing the edges, and looked inside. Then, smiling blankly, he tucked it into his pocket.

He went to the broken window, raised it carefully and leaned out over the wet darkness of the court for a moment. He went into the kitchen and stood on the stove, looked through the high ventilating window across the narrow airshaft to the window of an adjoining apartment. Then he went into the bedroom and got his hat and Granquist’s coat and went out of the apartment, across the corridor to the elevator.

On the way down, he spoke to the elevator boy: “Is it still raining?”

“Yes, sir. It looks like it was going to rain all night.”

Kells said: “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

The night clerk came out of the telephone operator’s compartment.

Kells leaned on the desk. He said, “Your Mister Dillon is in ten-sixteen. He had an accident. There’s another man in there whom Fenner will file charges against. Have the house dick hold him till Fenner gets back.”

He started to go, paused, said over his shoulder: “Maybe you’ll find another one trying to get in or out of the court. Probably not.”

He went out and walked up Ivar to Yucca, west on Yucca the short block to Cahuenga. The rain had become a gentle mist for the moment; it was warm, and occasional thunder drummed over the hills to the north. He went into an apartment house on the corner and asked the night man if Mr Beery was in.

“He went out about ten minutes ago.” The night man thought he might be in the drugstore across the street.

Beery was crouched over a cup of coffee at the soda fountain. Kells sat down beside him and ordered a glass of water, washed down two aspirin tablets. He said: “If you want to come along with me, you might get some more material for your memoirs.”

Beery put a dime on the counter and they went out, over to Wilcox. They went into the Wilcox entrance of the Lido, upstairs to the fourth floor and around through a long corridor to number four-thirty-two.

Granquist opened the door. Her face was so drained of color that her mouth looked bloody in contrast to her skin. Her mouth was slightly open and her eyes were wide, burning. She held her arms stiffly at her sides.

There was a man lying on his face half in, half out of the bathroom. His arms were doubled up under his body.

Beery walked past Granquist, slowly across the room to a table. He turned his head slowly as he walked, kept his eyes on the man on the floor. He took off his hat and put it on the table.

Kells closed the door quietly and stood with his back against it.

Granquist stared at him without change of expression.

Beery glanced at them.

Kells smiled a little. He said: “This isn’t what I meant, Shep — maybe it’s better.”

Beery went to the man on the floor, squatted and turned the head sidewise.

Granquist swallowed. She said: “Gerry, I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

Beery spoke softly, without looking up: “Bellmann.”

Kells locked the door. He looked at the floor, then he went to the table and reached under it with his foot, kicked an automatic out into the light.

Granquist walked unsteadily to a chair. She sat down and stared vacantly at Beery bending over the body. She said in a hollow, monotonous voice: “He was like that when I came in. I stopped downstairs and then I came up in the elevator and he was like that when I came in — just a minute ago.”

Kells didn’t look at her. He took out a handkerchief and picked up the automatic and held it to his nose. He held it carefully by the handkerchief and snapped the magazine out of the grip, said: “Two.”

Beery stood up.

Kells laughed suddenly. He threw back his head and roared with laughter. He sat down and put the automatic on the table, wiped his eyes with the handkerchief.

“Goddamn!” he said brokenly. “Goddamn, it’s beautiful!”

Granquist stared at Kells and then she leaned back in the chair and her eyes were very frightened. She said: “I didn’t do it.” She leaned back hard in the chair and closed her eyes tightly. She said, “I didn’t do it,” over and over again.

Kells’ laughter finally wore itself out. He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief and then he looked up at Beery. “Well,” he said, “why the hell don’t you get on the phone? You’ve got the scoop of the season.”

He leaned back and smiled at the ceiling, improvised headlines: “Boss Bellmann Bumped Off by Beauty. Pillar of Church Meets Maker. Politician — let’s see — Politician Plugged as Prowler by Light Lady.”

He stood up and crossed quickly to Beery, emphasized his words with a long white finger against Beery’s chest. “Here’s a pip! Reformer Foiled in Rape. Killer says: ‘I shot to save my honor, the priceless inheritance of American Womanhood.’”

Beery went to the telephone. He said: “We’ve been a Bellmann paper — I’ll have to talk to the Old Man.”

“You goddamned idiot! No paper can afford to soft-pedal a thing like this. Can’t you see that without an editorial?” Beery nodded in a faraway way, dialed a number. He asked for a Mister Crane, and when Crane had answered, said: “This is Beery. Bellmann has been shot by a jane, in her apartment, in Hollywood... Uh-huh, very dead.”

He grinned up at Kells, listened to an evident explosion at the other end of the line. “We’ll have to give it everything, Mister Crane,” he went on. “It’s open and shut — there isn’t any out... Okay, switch me to Thompson — I’ll give it to him.”

Granquist got up and went unsteadily to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then seemed to remember that the door was locked. She looked at the key but didn’t touch it. She turned and went into the dinette, took a nearly empty bottle out of the cupboard and came back and sat down.

Beery asked: “What’s your name, sister?”

Granquist was trying to get the cork out of the bottle. She didn’t say anything or look up.

Kells said: “Granquist.” He looked at her for a moment, then went over to the window, turned his head slightly towards Beery: “Miss Granquist.”

Beery said, “Hello, Tom,” spoke into the telephone in a low, even monotone.

Kells turned from the window and crossed slowly to Granquist. He sat down on the arm of her chair and took the bottle out of her hands and took out the cork. He got up and went into the dinette and poured the whiskey into a glass and brought it back to her. He sat down again on the arm of the chair. “Don’t take it so big, baby,” he said very softly and quietly. “You’ve got a perfect case. The jury’ll give you roses and a vote of thanks on the ‘for honor’ angle — and it’s the swellest thing that could happen for Fenner’s machine — it’s the difference between Bellmann’s administration and a brand-new one.”

“I didn’t do it, Gerry.” She looked up at him and her eyes were dull, hurt. “I didn’t do it! I left the snaps and stuff in the office downstairs when I went out — the bag was a gag...”

Kells said: “I knew they weren’t in the bag — you left it in the chair when you went into the bathroom.”

She nodded. She wasn’t listening to him. She had things to say. “I ran back here when I left Fenner’s. I picked up the stuff at the office — had to wait till the manager got the combination to the safe out of his apartment. Then I came up here to wait for you.”

She drank, put the glass on the floor. She turned, inclined her head toward Bellmann. “He was like that — he must have come here for the pictures — he’d been through my things...”

Kells said: “Never mind, baby — it’s a setup.”

“I didn’t do it!” She beat her fist on the arm of the chair. Her eyes were suddenly wild.

Kells stood up.

Beery finished his report, hung up the receiver. He said: “Now I better call the station.”

“Wait a minute.” Kells looked down at Granquist and his face was white, hard. “Listen!” he emphasized the word with one violent finger. “You be nice. You play this the way I say and you’ll be out in a month, with the managers throwing vaudeville contracts at you. Maybe I can even get you out on bail.”

He turned abruptly and went to the door, turned the key. “Or” — he jerked his head towards the door, looked at the little watch on the inside of his wrist — “there’s a Frisco bus out Cahuenga in about six minutes. You can make it — and ruin your case.”

Outside, sultry thunder rumbled and rain whipped against the windows. Kells slid a note off the sheaf in his breast pocket, went over and handed it to her. It was a thousand-dollar note.

She looked at it dully, slowly stood up. Then she stuffed the note into the pocket of her suit and went quickly to the chair where Kells had thrown her coat.

Kells said: “Give me the Bellmann stuff.”

Beery was staring open-mouthed at Kells. “God! Gerry, you can’t do this,” he said. “I told Tommy we had the girl...”

“She escaped.”

Granquist put on her coat. She looked at Kells and her eyes were soft, wet. She went to him and took a heavy manila envelope out of her pocket, handed it to him. She stood a moment looking up at him and then she turned and went to the door. She put her hand on the knob and turned it, and then took her hand away from the knob and held it up to her face. She stood like that for a little while and then she said “All right,” very low.

She said, “All right,” again, very low and distinctly, and turned from the door and went back to the big chair and sat down.

Kells said: “Okay, Shep.”

About ten minutes later Beery got up and let Captain Hayes of the Hollywood Division in. There were two plainclothes men and an assistant coroner following close behind him.

The assistant coroner examined Bellmann’s body and looked up in a little while and said: “Instantaneous — two wounds, probably .32 caliber — one touched the heart.” He stood up. “Dead about twenty minutes.”

Hayes picked up the gun from where Kells had replaced it under the table, examined it, wrapped it carefully.

Kells smiled at him. “Old school,” he said, “along with silencers and dictaphones. Nowadays they wear gloves.”

Hayes said: “What’s your name?”

Beery said: “Oh, I’m sorry — I thought you knew each other. This is Gerry Kells... Captain Hayes.”

“What were you doing here?” Hayes was a heavily built man with bright brown eyes. He spoke very rapidly.

“Shep and I came up to call on my girlfriend here” — Kells indicated Granquist who was still sitting with her coat on, staring at them all in turn, expressionlessly. “We found it just the way you see it.”

Hayes glanced at Beery, who nodded. Hayes spoke to Granquist. “Is that right, Miss?”

She looked up at him blankly for a moment, then nodded slowly.

“That’ll be about all, I guess.” Hayes looked at Kells. “You still at the Lancaster?” Kells nodded.

“You can always reach me through Shep.”

Hayes said, “Come on, Miss.”

Granquist got up and went into the dressing room and packed a few things in a small traveling bag.

One of the plainclothesmen opened the door, let two ambulance men in. They put Bellmann’s body on a stretcher and carried it out.

Kells leaned against the doorframe of the dressing room, watched Granquist. “I’ll be down in the morning with an attorney,” he said. “In the meantime, keep quiet.”

She nodded vaguely and closed the bag, came out of the dressing-room. She said: “Let’s go.”

The manager of the apartment house was in the corridor with one of the Filipino bellboys, a reporter from the Journal and a guest.

The manager was wringing his hands. “I can’t understand it — no one heard the shots,” he said.

One of the plainclothesmen looked superiorly at the manager. He said, “The thunder covered the shots.”

They all went down the corridor except Beery and Kells. Beery said, “So long,” to the captain.

The manager stayed behind a moment. “I’ll close up Miss Granquist’s apartment.”

Kells said: “Never mind — I’ll bring the key down.”

The manager was doubtful.

Kells looked very stern. He whispered: “Special investigator.” He and Beery went back into the apartment.

Beery called his paper again with additional information: “... Captain Hayes made the arrest... And don’t forget — the Chronicle is always first with the latest...” He hung up, lighted a new cigarette from the butt of another. “From now on,” he said, “I’m going to follow you around and phone in the story of my life, from day to day.”

Kells asked: “Are you giving it an extra?”

“Sure. It’s on the presses now — be on the streets in a little while.”

“That’s dandy.”

Kells went into the kitchen, switched on the light. He looked out the kitchen window and then he went to a tall cupboard — the kind of cupboard where brooms are kept in a modern apartment — opened the door.

Fenner came out, blinking in the bright light. He said: “I would have had” — he swallowed — “would have had to come out in another minute. I nearly smothered.”

“That’s too bad.”

Beery stood in the doorway. He said: “For the love of God!”

Fenner went into the living room and sat down. He was breathing hard.

Kells strolled in behind him and sat down across the room, facing him.

Fenner took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth and forehead. He said: “I followed her as you suggested, and when she went in through the lobby, I came up the side stair intending to meet her up here.”

Kells smiled gently, nodded.

“I didn’t want to be seen following her through the lobby, you know.”

“No.”

Beery was still standing in the kitchen doorway, staring bewilderedly at Fenner.

“I knocked but she hadn’t come up yet,” Fenner went on, “so I opened the door — it was unlocked — and came in.”

Kells said: “The door was unlocked?”

Fenner nodded. “In a few minutes I heard her coming up the hall and she was talking to a man. I went into the kitchen, of course, and she and Bellmann came in. They were arguing about something. Bellmann went into the bathroom I think, and then I heard the two shots during one of the peals of thunder. I didn’t know what to do — and then when I was about to come out and see what had happened, you knocked at the door.”

Fenner paused, took a long breath. “I didn’t know it was you, of course, so I hid in the cupboard.”

Kells said: “Oh.”

“I thought it would be better if I didn’t get mixed up in a thing of this kind, anyway.”

Kells said, “Oh,” again. Then he looked up at Beery. “Sit down, Shep,” he said. “I want to tell you a story.”

Beery sat down near the door.

Kells stretched one long leg over the arm of his chair, made himself as comfortable as possible. “This afternoon I told Mister Fenner” — he inclined his head towards Fenner in one slow emphatic movement — “that I knew a gal who had some very hot political info that she wanted to sell.”

Beery nodded almost imperceptibly.

“He was interested and asked me to send her to his hotel tonight. I had a talk with her, and the stuff sounded so good that I got interested too — took her to Fenner’s myself.”

Fenner was extremely uncomfortable. He looked at Kells and dabbed at his forehead; his lips were bent into a faint forced smile.

“We offered the information — information of great political value — to Mister Fenner at a very fair price,” Kells went on. “He agreed to it and called the manager of his hotel and asked him to bring up an envelope containing a large amount in cash”

Kells turned his eyes slowly from Beery to Fenner. “When the manager came in a couple of benders came in with him. They’d been waiting in the next apartment, listening across the airshaft to find out what they had to heist — it was supposed to look like Rose’s stick-up — or Bellmann’s...”

Fenner stood up.

Kells said: “But it was Mister Fenner’s. Mister Fenner wanted to eat his cake and have crumbs in his bed, too.”

Fenner took two steps forward. His eyes were flashing. He said: “That’s a lie, sir — a tissue of falsehood!”

Kells spoke very softly, enunciating each word carefully, distinctly: “Sit down, you dirty son of a bitch.”

Fenner straightened, glared at Kells. He half turned towards the door.

Kells got up and took three slow steps, then two swiftly, crashed his fist into Fenner’s face. There was a sickening crackly noise and Fenner fell down very hard.

Kells jerked him up and pushed him back into the chair. Kells’ face was worried, solicitous. He said very low — almost whispered: “Sit still.”

Then he went back to his chair and sat down.

“He’s been overacting all evening.” Kells inclined his head towards Fenner. “One of the boys sapped the manager. They fanned me and made a pass for Granquist’s handbag. She tossed it out the window; I smacked one of them and the other one went after the bag. Granquist faked going after the bag too, and I sent Fenner after her, figuring that the stuff wasn’t in the bag and that she’d come back here and that the three of us would get together here for another little talk.”

Fenner was pressing himself back into the corner of the chair. He was holding his hands to his bloody face and moaning a little.

“When I sent Fenner after Granquist,” Kells went on, “I gave him a gun — one of the boys’. He was so excited about getting to the bag, or keeping G. in sight, that he forgot to frisk the manager for his big dough.”

Kells took the yellow envelope out of his pocket. “So I got it.” He leaned forward, pressed the edges of the envelope and a little packet of cigar coupons fell out on the floor.

“Almost enough to get a package of razor blades.”

Beery grinned.

Kells said: “Granquist headed over here, so Fenner knew that the bag had been a stall, followed her. When she came in past the office, he ducked up the side way and, figuring that she had come right up, knocked at her door.”

Beery said: “How did he know which apartment was hers?”

“He had us tailed from my hotel early this evening. His man got her number from the mailboxes in the lobby, gave it to him before we got to his place tonight.”

Beery nodded.

Kells said: “Am I boring you?”

“Yes. Bore me some more.”

“Bellmann had come up here after some things he wanted — some very personal things that he couldn’t trust anyone else to get. He probably paid his way into the apartment — I’ll have to check up on that — and didn’t find what he was looking for, and, when Fenner knocked, he thought it was either Granquist, who he wanted to talk to anyway, or whoever let him in.”

Kells took a deep breath. “He opened the door, and...” Kells paused, got up and went to Fenner. He looked down at the little twisted man and smiled. “Mister Fenner knows a good thing when he sees it — he jockeyed Bellmann into a good spot and shot him through the heart.”

Fenner mumbled something through his hands.

“He waited for a nice roll of off-stage thunder and murdered him.”

Beery said: “That’s certainly swell. And I haven’t got any more job than a rabbit.” He stood up and stared disconsolately at Kells. “My God! Bellmann killed by the boss of the opposition — the most perfect political break that could happen, for my paper — and I turn in an innocent girl, swing it exactly the other way, politically. My God!”

Beery sat down and reached for the telephone.

Kells said: “Wait a minute.”

Beery held up his right hand, the forefinger pointed, brought it down emphatically towards Kells. “Nuts!”

Kells said: “Wait a minute, Shep.” His voice was very gentle. His mouth was curved in a smile and his eyes were very hot and intent.

Beery sat still.

Fenner got up. He was holding a darkening handkerchief to his face. He tottered toward the door.

Kells went past him to the door, locked it. He said: “Both you bastards pipe down and sit still till I finish.”

He shoved Fenner back into the chair.

“As I was about to say — you were a little late, you heard Granquist outside the door, wiped off the rod — if you didn’t, I did when I put it back — put it under the table and ducked into the cupboard.”

Beery said slowly: “What do you mean, you wiped it off?”

Kells didn’t answer. Instead, he squatted in front of Fenner. “Listen, you,” he said. “What do you think I put on that act for — ribbed Granquist into taking the fall? Because she can beat it.” His elbows were on his knees. He pointed his finger forcibly at Fenner, sighted across it. “You couldn’t. You couldn’t get to first base.”

Fenner’s face was a bruised, fearful mask. He stared blankly at Kells. “A few days ago — yesterday — all I wanted was to be let alone,” Kells went on. “I wasn’t. I was getting along fine — quietly — legitimately — and Rose and you and the rest of these bastards gave me action.”

He stood up. “All right — I’m beginning to like it.” He walked once to the window, back, bent over Fenner. “I’m taking over your organization. Do you hear me? Fenner, I’m going to run this town for a while — ride hell out of it.”

He glanced at Beery, smiled. Then he turned again to Fenner, spoke quietly: “I was going East tomorrow. Now you’re going. You’re going to turn everything over to me and take a nice long trip — or they’re going to break your goddamned neck with a rope.”

Kells went to the small desk, sat down. He found a pen, scribbled on a piece of Venice stationery. “And just to make it ‘legal, and in black and white,’ as the big businessmen say — you’re going to sign this — and Mister Beery is going to witness it.”

Beery said: “You can’t get away with a—”

“No?” Kells paused, glanced over his shoulder at Beery. “I’ll get away with it big, young fella. And stop worrying about your job — you’ve got a swell job with me. How would you like to be Chief of Police?”

He went on writing, then stopped suddenly, turned to Fenner. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said. “You’ll stay here, where I can hold a book on you. You stay here, and in your same spot — only you can’t go to the toilet without my okay.” He got up and stood in the center of the room and jerked his head towards the desk. “There it is. Get down on it — quick.”

Fenner said: “Certainly not,” thickly.

Kells looked at the floor. He said: “Call Hayes, Shep.”

Beery reached for the telephone very slowly and deliberately.

Fenner didn’t look at him. He held his hands tightly over his face for a moment and mumbled, “My God!” — and then he got up and went unsteadily to the desk, sat down. He stooped over the piece of paper, read it carefully.

Kells said: “If Granquist beats the case — and she will — and you don’t talk out of turn, I’ll tear it up in a month or so.”

Fenner picked up the pen, shakily signed.

Kells looked at Beery, and Beery got up and went over and read the paper. He said: “This is a confession. Does it make me an accessory?”

Kells said: “It isn’t dated.”

Beery signed and folded the paper and handed it to Kells.

Kells glanced at it and looked at Fenner. “Now I want you to call your Coast Guardian man, Dickinson, and any other key men you can get in touch with, and tell them to be at your joint in the Manhattan in a half hour.”

Fenner went into the bathroom, washed his face. He came back and sat down at the telephone.

Kells held the folded paper out to Beery. “You’re going downtown anyway, Shep,” he said. “Stick this in the safe at your office — I’ll be down in the morning and take it to the bank.”

Beery said: “Do I look that simple? I’ve got a wife and family.”

Kells grinned. He didn’t say anything. He put the folded paper in his pocket.

“Anyway, I’m not going downtown. I’m coming along.”

Kells nodded abstractedly, glanced at his watch. It was twentytwo minutes past ten.

Outside, there was a long ragged buzz of faraway thunder. The telephone clicked as Fenner dialed a number.

They sat in Fenner’s apartment at the Manhattan and Beery, at Fenner’s insistence, poured many drinks. Fenner sat at one end of the divan, still holding a handkerchief to his face. That had been explained as a result of the holdup earlier in the evening. Hanline, Fenner’s secretary, was there and Abe Gowdy, Fenner’s principal contact man with the liberal element. They hadn’t been able to reach Dickinson.

Gowdy swung the vote of practically every gambler, grafter, thief, bootlegger and so on in the county, excepting the few independents who tried to get along without protection. He was a bald, paunchy man with big white bulbs of flesh under his eyes, a loose pale mouth. He wore dark, quiet clothes and didn’t drink.

Hanline was a curly-haired, thin-nosed Jew. He drank a great deal.

He and Beery and Kells all drank a great deal.

Kells paced back and forth. He said: “Try him again.”

Fenner reached wearily for the phone, asked for a Fitzroy number. He listened a little while and hung up.

Kells stopped near Fenner, looked first at Gowdy, then Hanline.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “Lee” — he indicated Fenner with a fond pat on the shoulder — “Lee and I have entered into a partnership.” He paused, picked up a small glass full of whiskey and cracked ice, and drained it.

“We all know,” he went on, “that things haven’t been so good the last three or four years — and we know that unless some very radical changes are made in the city government things won’t get any better.”

Hanline nodded.

“Lee and I have talked things over and decided to join forces.” Kells put down the glass.

Gowdy said: “What do you mean, ‘join forces,’ Mister Kells?”

Kells cleared his throat, glanced at Beery. “You boys have the organization,” he said. “You, Gowdy — and Frank Jensen, and O’Malley — and Lee here. My contribution is very important political information, which I’ll handle in my own way and at my own time — and a lot of friends in the East who are going to be on their way out here tomorrow.”

Hanline looked puzzled. Gowdy glanced expressionlessly at Fenner.

“Bellmann’s dead,” Kells went on, “and the circumstances of his murder can be of great advantage to us if they’re handled in exactly the right way. But that, alone, isn’t going to swing an election. We’ve got the personal following of all this administration to beat — and we’ve got Rose’s outfit to beat...”

Hanline asked: “Rose?”

Kells poured himself another drink. “Rose has built up a muscle organization of his own in the last few months — and a week or so ago he threw in with Bellmann.”

Hanline and Gowdy glanced at one another, at Fenner.

Kells said: “There it is.” He sat down.

Fenner got up and went into the bedroom. He came back presently, said: “It’s a good proposition, Abe. Mister Kells wants to put the heat on Rose—”

Kells interrupted: “I want to reach Dickinson tonight and see if we can’t get the first number of the Guardian on the streets by morning. There are certain angles on the Bellmann thing that the other papers won’t touch.”

Hanline said: “Maybe he’s at Ansel’s — but they don’t answer the phone there after ten.”

“Who’s Ansel?”

Hanline started to answer but Gowdy interrupted him: “Did you know that Rose was backing Ansel?” Gowdy was looking at Fenner.

Fenner shook his head, then spoke to Kells: “Ansel runs a couple crap games down on Santa Monica Boulevard — Dickinson plays there quite a bit.”

Kells said: “So Dickie is a gambler?”

Hanline laughed. “I’ll bet he’s made a hundred thousand dollars with the dirt racket in the last year,” he said. “And I’ll bet he hasn’t got a dollar and a quarter.”

Kells smiled at Fenner. “You ought to take better care of your hired men,” he said. Then he got up and finished his drink and put on his hat. “I’ll go over and see if I can find him.”

Beery said: “I’ll come along.”

Kells shook his head slightly.

Hanline stood up, stretched. He said: “It’s the first building on the south side of the street, west of Gardner — used to be a scene painter’s warehouse or something like that — upstairs.”

“Thanks.” Kells asked Fenner: “Dickinson’s the guy that was typewriting at the place downtown?”

Fenner nodded.

Hanline said: “If you don’t mind, I’m going back downstairs and get some sleep. I was out pretty late last night.”

“Sure.” Kells glanced at Gowdy.

Kells and Hanline went out, down in the elevator. Hanline got off at the fifth floor.

Kells stopped at the desk, asked for the house detective. The clerk pointed out a heavy, sad-eyed man who sat reading a paper near the door. Kells went over to him and said: “You needn’t hold the man Fenner was going to file charges against.”

The man put down his paper. He said: “Hell, he was gone when I got upstairs. There wasn’t nobody there but Mister Dillon.”

Kells said: “Oh.” He scratched the back of his head. “How’s Dillon?”

“He’ll be all right.”

Kells went out and got into a cab.

Ansel’s turned out to be a dark, three-story business block set flush with the sidewalk. There were big For Rent signs in the plateglass windows, and there was a dark stairway at one side.

Kells told the cabdriver to wait and he went upstairs.

Someone opened a small window in a big heavily timbered door, surveyed Kells dispassionately.

Kells said: “I want to see Ansel.”

“He ain’t here.”

“I’m a friend of Dickinson’s — I want to see him.”

The window closed and the door swung slowly open; Kells went into a very small room littered with newspapers and cigarette butts. The man who had looked at him through the window patted his pockets methodically, silently.

Another man, a very dark-skinned Italian or Greek, sat in a worn wicker chair tilted back against one wall.

He said: “Your friend Dickinson — he is very drunk.”

Kells said, “So am I,” and then the other man finished feeling his pockets, went to another heavy door, opened it.

Kells went into a very big room. It was dark except for two clots of bright light at the far end. He walked slowly back through the darkness, and the hum of voices grew louder, broke up into words:

“Eight... Point is eight, a threeway... Get your bets down, men... Throws five — point is eight... Throws eleven, a field point, men... Throws four — another fielder. Get ’em in the field, boys... Five... Seven out. Next man. Who likes this lucky shooter?...”

Each of the two tables was lined two deep with men. One powerful green-shaded light hung above each. The dice man’s voice droned on:

“Get down on him, boys... Ten — the hard way... Five... Ten — the winner... All right, boys, he’s coming out. Chuck it in...”

Kells saw Dickinson. He was standing at one end of one of the tables. He was swaying back and forth a little and his eyes were half closed, and he held a thick sheaf of bills in his left hand.

“Seven — the winner...”

Dickinson leaned forward and put his forefinger unsteadily down beside a stack of bills on the line. The change man reached over, counted it and put a like amount beside it.

“Drag fifty, Dick,” he said. “Hundred dollar limit.”

Dickinson said thickly: “Bet it all.”

The change man smiled patiently, picked up a fifty-dollar bill and tossed it on the table nearer Dickinson.

A small, pimpled old man at the end of the table caught the dice as they were thrown to him, put them into the black leather box, breathed into it devoutly, rolled.

Kells elbowed closer to the table.

“Eleven — the winner...”

Dickinson stared disgustedly at the change man as a hundred dollars in tens and twenties was counted out, lain down beside his line bet. The change man said: “Drag a C, Dick.”

“Bet it!” Dickinson said angrily.

Kells looked at the change man. He said: “Can you raise the limit if I cover it behind the line?”

The man glanced at a tall well-dressed youth behind him for confirmation, nodded.

Kells took a wad of bills out of his trouser pocket and put two hundred-dollar bills down behind the line. Dickinson looked up and his bleary, heavy-lidded eyes came gradually to focus on Kells.

He said, “Hello there,” very heartily. Then he looked as if he was trying hard to remember, said: “Kells! How are ya, boy?”

At mention of Kells’ name it became very quiet for a moment.

Kells said: “I’m fine.”

The little pimpled man rolled.

The dice man said: “Six — the easy one... He will or he won’t... Nine — pays the field... Six — right...”

The change man picked up Kells’ two hundred-dollar bills, tossed them down beside Dickinson’s bet.

Dickinson grinned. He said: “Bet it.”

Kells took a thousand-dollar note from his breast pocket, put it down behind the line. Dickinson said: “Better lay off — I’m right...”

“Get down on the bill.” Kells smiled faintly, narrowly.

“Goddamned if I won’t.” Dickinson counted his money on the table and the money in his hand: “Four hundred, six, eight, nine, a thousand, thousand one hundred and thirty. Tap me.”

The tall young man said: “Hurry up, gentlemen — you’re holding up the game.”

Several men wandered over from the other table. The little man holding the dice box said: “Jesus! I don’t want...”

Kells was counting out the additional hundred and thirty dollars.

Dickinson said: “Roll.”

“Eleven — the winner.”

The change man picked up Kells’ money, cut off a twenty for the house, threw the rest down in front of Dickinson.

The little man raked in the few dollars he had won for himself, walked away.

The dice man picked up the box.

Kells said: “Got enough?”

“Hell, no! I’ll bet it all on my own roll.” Dickinson held out his hand for the box.

“Make it snappy, boys.” The tall young man frowned, nodded briefly at Kells.

Dickinson was checking up on the amount. He said: “Two thousand, two hundred and forty...”

Kells put three thousand-dollar notes behind the line. The dice man threw a dozen or more glittering red dice on the table; Dickinson carefully picked out two.

“Get down your bets, men... A new shooter... We take big ones and little ones... Come, don’t come, hard way, and in the field... Bet ’em either way...”

Dickinson was shaking the box gently, tenderly, near his ear. He rolled.

“Three — that’s a bad one...”

Kells picked up his three notes, and the change man raked up the bills in front of Dickinson, counted them into a stack, cut off one and handed the rest to Kells.

“Next man... Get down on the next lucky shooter, boys...”

Kells folded the bills and stuck them into his pocket.

Dickinson looked at the tall young man. He said: “Let me take five hundred, Les.”

The young man didn’t look at him, but turned and walked over to the other table. Kells gestured with his head and went over to a round green-covered table out of the circle of light. Dickinson followed him. They sat down.

Kells said: “Can you get the paper out by tomorrow morning?”

Dickinson was fumbling through his pockets, brought out a dark brown pint bottle. He took out the cork, held the bottle towards Kells. He said, “Wha’ for?”

Kells shook his head, but Dickinson shoved the bottle into his hands. Kells took a drink, handed it back.

“Bellmann was fogged tonight and I want to give it a big spread.”

“The hell you say.” Dickinson stared blankly at Kells. “Well, wha’ d’ y’ know about that!” Then he seemed to remember Kells’ question. “Sure.”

Kells said: “Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute. Let’s have another drink.”

They drank.

Dickinson said: “Listen. Wha’d’y’ think happened tonight? Somebody called me up and offered me ten grand, cold turkey, to ditch L.D.”

“Ditch him, how?”

“I don’t know. They said all I had to do was gum up the works some way so that the paper wouldn’t come out. They said I’d get five in cash in the mail tomorrow, and the rest after the primaries.

“What did you say?”

“I said, ‘Listen, sister, L.D. Fenner’s been a goddamned good friend to me.’ I said—”

Kells said: “Sister?”

“Yeah. It was a broad.”

They got up and went through the semidarkness to the little room, out and downstairs to the street. It was raining very hard. Dickinson said he had a car, and Kells paid off the cab, and they went into the vacant lot alongside the building.

Dickinson’s car was a Ford coupé; he finally found his keys and opened the door.

Then a bright spotlight was switched on in a car at the curb. There was a sharp choked roar and something bit into Kells’ leg, into his side.

Dickinson stumbled, fell down on his knees on the running board; his face and the upper part of his body sagged forward to the floor of the car. He lay still.

Kells lay down in the mud beside the car and drew up his knees and he could taste blood in his mouth. His teeth were sunk savagely, deeply into his lower lip and there were jagged wires of pain in his brain, jagged wires in his side.

He knew it had been a shotgun, and he lay in the mud with rain whipping his face and wondered if Dickinson was dead. He waited for the gun to cough again.

Then the spotlight went out and Kells could hear the car being shifted into gear; he twisted his head a little and saw it pass through the light near the corner — a black touring car with the side curtains drawn — a Cadillac.

He crawled up onto the running board of the Ford and shook Dickinson a little, and then he steadily, painfully, pushed Dickinson up into the car — slowly.

He pressed the knob that unlocked the opposite door, and limped around the car and crawled into the driver’s seat. He could feel blood on his side; blood pounded through his head, his eyes. He pried the keys out of Dickinson’s hand and started the motor.

Dickinson was an inert heap beside him. He groaned, coughed in a curious dry way.

Kells said: “All right, boy. We’ll fix it up in a minute.”

Dickinson coughed again in the curious way that was like a laugh. He tried to sit up, fell forward and his head banged against the windshield. Kells pulled him back into the seat and drove out of the lot, turned east on Santa Monica.

Dickinson tried to say something, groped with one hand in the side pocket. He finally gave it up, managed to gasp: “Gun — here.”

Kells said: “Sit still.”

They went down Santa Monica Boulevard very fast, turned north on La Brea. Kells stopped halfway up the block and felt in Dickinson’s pocket for the bottle; but it had been broken, the pocket was full of wet glass.

They went up La Brea to Franklin, over Franklin to Cahuenga, up Cahuenga and Iris to Cullen’s house.

Kells’ side and leg had become numb. He got out of the car as quickly as be could, limped up the steps. Cullen answered the first ring. He stood in the doorway, looking elaborately disgusted, said: “Again?”

Kells said: “Give me a hand, Willie. Hurry up.” He started back down the steps.

“No! God damn you and your jams!”

Kells turned and stared at Cullen expressionlessly, and then he went on down the steps. Cullen followed him, muttering, and they got Dickinson out of the car, carried him up into the house.

Cullen was breathing heavily. He asked: “Why the hell don’t you take him to the Receiving Hospital?”

“I’ve been mixed up in five shootings in the last thirty-two hours.” Kells went to the telephone, grinned over his shoulder at Cullen. “It’s like old times — one more, and they’ll hang me on principle.”

“Haven’t you got any other friends? This place was lousy with coppers yesterday.”

“Wha’s the matter, darling?”

Kells and Cullen turned, looked at the stairway. Eileen, Cullen’s girl, was standing halfway down. She swayed back and forth, put her hand unsteadily on the banister. She was very drunk. She was naked.

She drawled: “Hello, Gerry.”

Cullen said: “Go back upstairs and put on your clothes, slut!” He said it very loudly.

Kells laughed. He said: “Call Doc Janis, will you, Willie?” He limped to the door, looked down at his torn, muddy, bloodstained clothes. “Loan me a coat, Willie,” he said. “I’ll get wet.”

A black touring car with the side curtains drawn was parked in the reserved space in front of the Manhattan. Kells had been about to park across the street; he slowed down and blinked at it. The engine was running and there was a man at the wheel. It was a Cadillac.

He stepped on the throttle, careened around the corner, parked in front of the library. He jumped out and took the revolver out of the side pocket, slipped it into the pocket of Cullen’s big coat; he turned up the deep collar and hurried painfully back across the street, down an alley to a service entrance of the hotel.

The boy in the elevator said: “Well, I guess I was right. I guess it’s going to rain all night.” Kells said: “Uh-huh.”

“Tch tch tch.” The boy shook his head sadly.

“Has Mister Fenner had any visitors since I left?”

“No, sir — I don’t think so. Not many people in and out tonight. There was three gentlemen went up to nine a little while ago. They was drunk, I guess.”

He slid the door open. “Ten, sir.”

Kells said: “Thank you.”

He listened at the door of ten-sixteen, heard no sound. He rang the bell and stood close to the wall with the revolver in his hand. The inner hallway was narrow — the door would have to be opened at least halfway before he could be seen.

It opened almost at once, slowly. A yellow-white face took form in the darkness, and Kells stepped into the doorway. He held the revolver belly-high in front of him. The yellow-white face faded backwards as Kells went in until it was the black outline of a man’s head against the orange light of the living room, until it was the figure of a short Latin standing with his back against the wall at one side of the door, his arms stretched out.

Beyond him, Fenner and Beery kneeled on the floor, their faces to the wall. On the other side of the room, O’Donnell stood with a great blue automatic leveled at Kells’ chest. O’Donnell was bareheaded and a white bulge of gauze and cotton was plastered across his scalp. His mouth was open and he breathed through it slowly, audibly. Except for the sharp sound of O’Donnell’s breathing, it was entirely still.

Kells said: “I’ll bet I can shoot faster than you, Adenoids.”

O’Donnell didn’t say anything. His pale eyes glittered in a sick face, and the big automatic was dull and steady in his fat pink hand.

Fenner leaned forward, put his head against the wall. Beery turned slowly and looked at Kells. The Mexican was motionless, bright-eyed.

Then Beery said, “Look out!” and something dull and terrible crashed against the back of Kells’ head, there was dull and terrible blackness. It was filled with thunder and smothering blue, something hot and alive pulsed in Kells’ hand. He fell.

There was a light that hurt his eyes very much, even when they were closed. Someone was throwing water in his face. He said: “Stop that, goddamn it — you’re getting me wet!”

Beery said: “Shh — easy.”

Kells opened his eyes a little. “The place is backwards.”

“This is the one next door, the one across the airshaft, where Fenner’s stick-up men were stashed. Fenner had the key.” Beery spoke very quietly.

“God! My head. How did I get in here?”

Beery said: “Papa carried you.” He stood up and went to the door for a minute, came back and sat down. “And what a piece of business! You were out on your feet — absolutely cold — squeezed that iron, one, two, three, four, five, six — like that. One in the wall about six inches above my head, five in baby-face.”

“That was O’Donnell.” Kells closed his eyes and moved his head a little. “Then I fell down.” He opened his eyes.

Beery nodded.

“Who hit me?”

“Rose.”

Kells looked interested. “What with — a piano?”

“A vase...”

“Vahze.” Beery said: “A vase — a big one out of the bedroom. I don’t think he had a gun.”

“Would you mind beginning at the beginning?” Kells closed his eyes.

“After you left, Fenner and Gowdy sat there like a couple bumps on a log, afraid to crack in front of me.”

Kells nodded carefully, held his head in his hands.

“After a while, Gowdy got bored and went home — he lives around the corner. I was sucking up a lot of red-eye, having a swell time. Then, about five minutes before you got here, the bell rang and Fenner went to the door, backed in with Rose and O’Donnell and the spiggoty. O’Donnell and the spick were snowed to the eyes. Rose said, ‘What did Kells get from the gal that bumped Bellmann, and where is it?’ Fenner went into a nose dive — he was scared wet, anyway. They made us get down on the floor—”

Kells laughed. He said: “You looked like a couple communicants.”

“—and Rose frisked both of us and started tearing up the furniture. Some way or other, I got the idea that whether he found what he was looking for or not, we weren’t going to tell about it afterwards.”

Beery paused, lighted a cigarette, went on quietly: “Rose was sore as hell, and O’Donnell and the greaser were licking their chops for blood. The greaser kept fingering a chiv in his belt — you know: the old noiseless ear-to-ear gag.”

Kells said: “Maybe. They popped Dickinson and me outside Ansel’s. If they’re that far in the open, they’d want to get Fenner too.”

“And Beery — the innocent bystander...”

“I doubt it, though, Shep. I don’t think Rose would have come along if it was a kill.”

“Well, anyway — he’d gotten around to the bedroom when you rang. He switched out the light and waited in there in the dark. You came in and went into your Wild West act with baby-face, and Rose came out behind you and took a bead on your skull with the vase — vahze. Then he and the greaser scrammed — quick.”

Kells reached suddenly into his inside pocket, then took his hand out, sighed. “Didn’t he fan me?”

“No. I grabbed O’Donnell’s gun when he fell — anyway, I think Rose was too scared to think about that.”

Kells said: “Go on.”

Beery looked immensely superior. “Well, the old rapid-fire Beery brain got to work. I figured that you had to be gotten out of there quick, and I remembered what you’d said about this place next door. Fenner was about to go into his fit. I got the key from him and talked about thirty seconds’ worth of sense, and carried you in here — and the gun.” He nodded at the revolver on the couch beside Kells. “Where’s Fenner now?”

“Over at the Station, filing murder charges against Rose and the greaser.”

Kells said: “That’s swell.”

“The housedick and a bunch of coppers and a lot of neighbors who had heard the barrage got here at about the same time. It was the fastest police action I’ve ever seen; must have been one of the radio cars. I listened through the airshaft. Fenner had pulled himself together and told a beautiful story about Rose and O’Donnell and the Mex crashing in, and O’Donnell getting rubbed in a fight with Rose.”

Beery mashed out his cigarette. “He’s telling it over at headquarters now — or maybe he’s on his way back. You’ve been out about a half hour.”

Kells sat up unsteadily. He said: “Give me a drink of water.” He bent over and very carefully rolled up his trouser leg, examined his injured leg.

A little later there was a tap at the door. Beery opened it and let Fenner in.

Fenner looked very tired. He said: “How are you, Gerry?”

“I’m fine, Lee — how are you?” Kells grinned.

“Terrible — terrible! I can’t stand this kind of thing.” Fenner sat down.

“Maybe you’d better take a trip, after all.” Kells smiled faintly, picked up the revolver. “Things are going to be more in the open. I’ll have to carry a gun.” He looked down at the revolver.

“By God, I’ll get a permit for a change,” he said: “Can you fix that up?”

Fenner nodded wearily. “I guess so.”

“And Lee, we made a deal tonight — I mean early — the twenty-five grand, you know. I’m going to handle the stuff, of course; but in the interests of my client, Miss Granquist, I’ll have to consummate the sale.”

Fenner looked at the floor.

“A check’ll be all right.”

Fenner nodded. “I’ll go in and make it out,” he said. “Then I’ll have to say goodnight — I’m all in.”

Kells said, “That’ll be all right.”

Fenner went out and closed the door.

Kells sat looking at the door for a moment and then he said: “Shep — you’re the new editor of the Coast Guardian. How do you like that?”

“Lousy. I don’t carry enough insurance.”

“You’ll be all right. A hundred a week and all the advertising you can sell on the side.”

“When do I start?”

“Right now. I parked Dickinson up at Bill Cullen’s. I’ll drop you there and you can get the details from him — if he’s conscious. I’ll turn the, uh — data over to you...”

Beery rubbed his eyes, yawned. He smiled a little and said: “Oh well, what the hell. I guess I’m beginning to like it, too.”

Kells looked at his wrist. “The bastards smashed my watch — what time is it?”

“Twelve-two.”

Kells picked up the telephone and called a Hempstead number. “Goddamn! I’m late.” He said: “Hello, baby... Sure... Have you got any ham and eggs?... Have you got some absorbent cotton and bandages and iodine?... That’s fine, I’ll be up in about ten minutes... I’ve been on a party.”

Velvet

A story of a gambling-politics racket on the West Coast.

Doctor Janis looked wiser than any one man could possibly be. His head was as round and white and bare as a cue ball; his nose was a long bony hook and his eyes were pale, immensely shrewd.

He jabbed forceps gently into Kells’ leg, said: “Hurt?”

Kells stuck out his lips, shook his head slightly.”No. Not very much.”

“You’re a goddamned liar!” Janis straightened, glared.

Bright sun beat through the wide east window; the big instrument case against one white wall glittered. Kells was half lying on a small operating table. He stared at the bright point of sunlight on the wall, tried not to think about the leg.

“Sweet God deliver me from a sadistic doctor,” he said.

Janis grinned, bent again over the leg, probed deeper. “That was a dandy.” He held a tiny twisted chunk of lead up in the forceps’ point, exhibited it proudly. “Now you know how a rabbit feels.”

“Now I know how it feels to be a mother. You’re as proud of a few shot as a good doctor would be of triplets.”

Janis chuckled, jabbed again with the forceps.

They were silent a little while.

“One of these days,” Kells said finally, “you’re liable to be making out one of those cherry little certificates for me — the kind the coroner insists on...”

“So what?”

“So maybe I’d better give you a case history.” Kells clamped his teeth tightly together for a moment, stared at the spot of sun. His face was white, drained. “Then you won’t have to use any of those cliché endings,” he went on, “like, ‘killed by party or parties unknown.’ You can make out a death certificate that’ll be a masterpiece.”

Janis was concentrating on the leg. He said: “I’m not interested — I know too much about the sex life of my patients now.”

Kells paid no attention. “It seems,” he said, “that Prince Charming — that’s me — came out here to soak up a load of California sunshine... ouch!”

Janis straightened and help up another chunk of lead. “Oh boy!” he said. “That was a pip.”

Kells scowled, took a deep breath, and went on: “It seems, further, that Jack Rose — that’s one of the villains — had heard about how rough I used to play — back East — and decided that I’d be an asset to his organization.”

Janis dipped the forceps in sterilizer. “When you begin to bore me I’ll stop listening,” he warned.

“When I said I didn’t feel like being an asset, the bastard — I’m still talking about Rose — framed me for Doc Haardt’s murder.”

Janis was looking out the window.

Kells changed his position slightly and went on. “A young fella named Kastner from K.C. rubbed Doc — and Dave Perry and Detective Lieutenant Reilly and another mug named O’Donnell were in on it...” He pause and stared at the circle of sunlight while Janis bent again over the leg. Kells continued: “Kastner’s dead. O’Donnell shot him in a lover’s quarrel. Now O’Donnell’s dead, and according to the police,” — Kells smiled wanly — “Rose killed him. I beat the blotter for Haardt’s kill by hanging it on Perry — he’s in jail. I knew his wife pretty well...”

Janis clucked. “Tch, tch, tch. I knew it’d get sexy.”

“Listen, it gets better as it goes along. I met a gal named Granquist who had a swell lot of lowdown on an undercover political meeting between Rose and Bellmann, who — if you don’t know — is, or was until last night, the boss of our present glorious city administration.”

Janis looked definitely interested. “You tell it pretty well,” he said. “Do you know the one about the travelling salesman and the farmer’s daughter?...”

“Shut up. I took the gal and her stuff to L.D. Fenner, who’d give his right arm to lick Bellmann. I asked Fenner twenty-five grand for it and we were about to make the deal when a couple heisters who Fenner had planted in the next apartment stuck us up. Fenner wanted the stuff, but he wanted the dough, too.”

Janis squeezed iodine on the leg.

Kells closed his eyes and went on. “We went round and round — Granquist got away and beat it back to her apartment where she’s socked the Bellmann stuff. I sent Fenner after her — found out how he’d timed the stick-up, and lit out after him. I picked up Beery of the Chronicle, on a hunch, and we walk in on — guess what...”

“How many guesses do I get?”

“Granquist and John R. Bellmann — and Bellmann had a couple slugs in his heart. It was a perfect angle to beat the Bellmann outfit on — it tied up with the stuff we already had. Bellmann had gone to her place to get the snapshots and some letters he’d sent her. She found him there and let him have it.”

Janis nodded and began wrapping bandage around the leg.

Kells said: “Only she didn’t... after she’d been pinched, I found Fenner in a closet. He’d beat Granquist to the apartment and found Bellmann there. It looked like his big opportunity to get rid of Bellmann once and for all. I put the screws on Fenner and scared him into signing a confession to use in case I couldn’t beat the case for the gal. We made a deal — I took over his organization, which means Gowdy and all that outfit — took over the whole goddamned business. Now I’m going to have some fun.”

Kells smiled, tight-lipped. “I got the Bellmann stuff from Granquist before she was pinched. I finally found Dickinson — that’s the editor of Fenner’s political paper, the Coast Guardian — and we were on our way to get out a special edition to run the dirt when Rose and O’Donnel — O’Donnell had not been popped yet — opened up on us with a shotgun.”

Janis finished bandaging the leg and secured the loose end neatly with two strips of adhesive.

Kells sat up slowly. “That’s about all. You saw Dickinson last night. He got most of the load. I dropped him at Bill Cullen’s, called you, and went back to Fenner’s, where I left Beery. Rose and O’Donnell had crashed in and were looking for the pictures when I got there. We had a swell battle. Somebody shot O’Donnell and Rose slugged me with a vase. When I came to, Fenner was over at the station filing charges against Rose for O’Donnell’s murder. When he came back, he gave me my check for twenty-five thou... and that’s that.”

“That was last night. Where have you been since then?” Janis asked.

“I had to get Beery started on the stuff for the Guardian — he’s the new editor. And I had a date.”

“Oh.”

Kells carefully tried his weight on the bandaged leg. He limped to the door, went back to the window, and picked up his hat.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you.”

It had rained all night; the air was sharp, clear. Kells left Janis’ office in the Harding Building, limped across Hollywood Boulevard, bought a paper and got into a cab. He said “Lancaster,” and leaned back and spread the paper. Then he sat up very straight. A headline read: WOMAN IN BELLMANN KILLING ESCAPES.

He glanced out the window at a tangle of traffic as the cab curved into Vine Street; then leaned back again slowly, read the story:

Early this morning, Miss S. Granquist, alleged by police to be the self-confessed slayer of John R. Bellmann, prominent philanthropist and reformer, was “kidnaped” from Detectives Breen and Rail after the car in which they were taking her from the Hollywood Police Station to the County Jail had been forced to the curb near Temple Street and Coronado, crashed into a fire plug. Officer Breen was slightly injured, removed to the Receiving Hospital. Rail described the “abductors” as “eight or nine heavily armed and desperate men in a cream-colored coupé.” He neglected to explain how “eight or nine” men and a woman got away in a coupé. Our motor-car manufacturers would be interested in how that was done. It is opportune that another example of the inefficiency of our police department occurs almost on the eve of the municipal primaries. The voters...

Kells folded the paper, knocked on the glass and told the driver to make it fast. They cut over Melrose to Normandie, out of the heavy traffic, over Normandie to Wilshire Boulevard and into the big parking circle of the Lancaster.

Kells told the driver to wait, hurried up to his room and changed clothes. He called the desk, was told that Mister Beery had called twice, called Beery back at the Howard Hotel downtown. The room line was busy. He took a long drink and went back down and got into the cab.

It took twenty-five minutes to get through the traffic on lower Seventh Street to the Howard.

Fenner opened the door of the small outer room on the fourth floor; they went through to the larger bedroom.

Kells said: “You’re down early, Lee.”

Fenner glanced at the rolled newspaper in Kells’ hand, nodded, smiled wanly.

“Where’s Beery?” Kells took off his hat and coat.

Fenner sat down on the bed. “He went over to the print shop about an hour ago. He ought to be back pretty soon.”

Kells sat down carefully.

Fenner asked: “How’s the leg?”

“Doc Janis picked eleven shot out of it like plucking petals off a daisy. It came out odd — he loves me.” Kells unrolled, unfolded the paper, looked over it at Fenner. “Do you know anything about this?”

“I do not.” Fenner said it very quietly, very emphatically.

“What do you think?”

“Rose.”

Kells stared at Fenner steadily. He moved his fingers on the arm of the chair as though running scales. He said: “What for?”

“She’s crossed him up all the way — he’s the kind of crazy guy that would take a long chance to get even.”

Kells sat staring blankly at Fenner for perhaps a minute. Then he said slowly: “I want you to call Gowdy — everybody you can reach who might have a line on it...”

Fenner got up and went to the phone. He called several numbers, spoke softly, quietly.

After a little while the outer door opened and someone came through the outer room. It was Beery. He said: “We can’t get it on the newsstands before noon.”

“That’ll be all right.”

Kells was still sitting deep in the big chair. Fenner was at the telephone. Beery took off his coat and hat, flopped down on the bed.

“Maybe I can get a couple hours’ snooze,” he said.

Fenner hung up the receiver and looked at Kells. “You might pick up something at the Bronx, out on Central Avenue. It’s a colored cabaret run by a man named Sheedy. Rose is supposed to be a partner — he was seen there last night.”

“Who’s Sheedy?”

Beery said: “A big dinge — used to be in pictures...”

“You know him?”

“A little.”

“Get on the phone and see if you can locate him. He wouldn’t be at his joint this time of day.”

Beery sighed, sat up. “The law’s looking for Rose too, Gerry,” he said. “You’re not going to get anything out of any of these boys.”

Kells half smiled, inclined his head towards the phone. Then he stood up.

“If that son of a bitch got her — which is a long shot” — he looked sideways at Fenner — “he’ll give her everything in the book. I got her into it — and by God! I’ll get her out if I have to turn the rap back on Lee and let the whole play slide.”

He turned, went to one of the windows. “And if Rose did get her and lets her have it, I’ll spread his guts from here to Santa Monica.”

Beery got up and went to the phone. “You’re getting goddamned dramatic about a gal you turned up yourself,” he said.

Kells turned from the window and looked at Beery and his eyes were cold, his mouth was partly open, faintly smiling.

He said: “Right.”

Sheedy couldn’t be located.

Fenner got Officer Rail on the phone and Kells talked to him. He said he couldn’t identify any of the men who had taken Granquist; he thought one of them was crippled, wore a steel brace on his leg. He wasn’t sure.

Kells called Rose’s place on Fifth Street; there was no answer. He called the Biltmore, was told that Rose hadn’t been in for two days. Mrs Rose was out of town.

Beery napped for an hour. Kells and Fenner sat in the outer room; Fenner read a detective-story magazine and Kells sat deep in a big chair, stared out the window. Hanline, Fenner’s secretary, stopped in for a minute. He said he’d speak to one of the bellboys downstairs, send up a bottle.

At a little after ten-thirty, the phone rang. Fenner answered it, called Kells.

A man’s high-pitched voice said: “I have been authorized to offer you fifteen thousand dollars for the whole issue of the Guardian, together with the plates and all data used in its make-up.”

Kells said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and hung up. He told Fenner to hurry down to the switchboard, try to trace the call; waited for the phone to ring again. It did almost immediately. The man’s voice said: “It will be very much to your advantage to talk business, Mister Kells.”

“Who’s your authority?”

“The Bellmann estate.”

Kells said: “If you know where Miss Granquist is, and can produce her within the next half hour, I’ll talk to you.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then the man said: “Wait a minute.” After a little while, a woman’s voice said: “Gerry! For God’s sake get me out of this!..” The voice trailed off as if she had been dragged away from the phone. The man’s voice said: “Well?”

Fenner came in, nodded to Kells.

Kells said: “Okay. Bring her here.” He hung up.

The phone rang again but he didn’t answer. He sat grinning at Fenner.

Fenner was excited. “West Adams — about a block west of Figueroa.”

“That wasn’t even a good imitation of the baby, but maybe they’ll come here and try to do business on that angle. That’ll be swell.”

“But we’d better get out there, hadn’t we?”

Kells said: “What for? They haven’t got her, or they wouldn’t take a chance faking her voice. They’ll be here — and I’ll lay ten to one they don’t know any more about where Rose or the kid are than we do.”

Kells went back to his chair by the window. “I told Shep to plant some men at the print shop in case there’s trouble there. Did he?”

Fenner nodded.

There was a knock and Fenner said, “Come in,” and a boy came in with a bottle of whiskey and three tall glasses of ice on a tray. He put the tray on a table; Fenner gave him some change and he went out and closed the door.

At twenty minutes after eleven a Mister Woodward was announced. Fenner went into the bedroom, closed the door. Woodward turned out to be a small yellow-haired man, wearing tortoise-shell glasses; about thirty-five. He sat down at Kells’ invitation, declined a drink.

He said: “Of course we couldn’t bring Miss Granquist here. She’s being sought by the police and that would be too dangerous. She’ll be turned over to you, together with a certified check for fifteen thousand dollars, as soon as the issue of the Guardian, the plates and the copy are turned over to us.”

Kells said: “What the hell kind of a cheap outfit are you? The stuff’s worth that much simply as state’s evidence — let alone its political value to your people.”

“I know — I know.” Woodward bobbed his head up and down. “The fact of the matter is, Mister Kells — my people are up against it for cash. They’ll know how to show their appreciation in other ways, however.”

“What other ways?”

“Certain political concessions after election — uh — you know.” Woodward glanced nervously at his watch. “And it is imperative that you make a decision quickly.”

Kells said: “I’m not in politics. I want the dough. Lay fifty thousand on the line and show me Miss Granquist” — he looked at his watch, smiled — “and it is imperative that you make a decision quickly.”

Woodward stood up. “Very well, Mister Kells,” he said. His voice had risen in pitch to the near-falsetto of the telephone conversation. “What you ask is impossible. I’ll say good-day.”

He started towards the door and Kells said: “Hold on a minute.” The big automatic that had been O’Donnell’s glittered dully in his hand. “Sit down.”

Woodward’s blue eyes were wide behind his glasses. He went back towards the chair.

Kells said: “No. Over by the phone.”

Woodward smiled weakly, sat down at the telephone stand. “Now you’d better call up your parties and tell them everything’s all right — that we made a deal.”

Woodward was looking at the rug. He pursed his lips, shook his head slowly.

“There’s a direct line in the other room,” Kells went on, “if you’d rather not make it through the switchboard.”

Woodward didn’t move except to shake his head slowly; he stared at the floor, smiled a little.

“Hurry up.” Kells stood up.

Then the phone in the bedroom rang. Kells could faintly hear Beery say “Hello.” It was quiet for a moment and then the bedroom door opened and Fenner stood in the doorway looking back at Beery.

Beery said: “You sure...? Just the press and the forms... All out?... All right, I’ll be right over.” The receiver clicked and Beery came into the doorway. He glanced at Woodward, grinned crookedly at Kells.

“They blew up the joint,” he said. “But nearly all the stuff was out. A hand press and a couple Linotypes were cracked up, and one guy’s got a piece of iron in his shoulder, but they discovered it in time and got everybody else and the sheets out. The originals are in the safe.”

He struck an attitude, declaimed: “The first issue of The Coast Guardian: A Political Weekly for Thinking People, is on the stands.”

Kells turned slowly, sat down. He looked steadily at Woodward for a while and then he said: “As a representative of the Bellmann estate” — he paused, coughed gently — “do you think you’re strong enough to beat charges of coercion, conspiracy to defeat justice, dynamiting, abduction — a few more that any half-smart attorney can figure out?”

Woodward kept his eyes down. “That was a stall about the girl. We haven’t got her, and we don’t know where Rose is...”

“So Rose has got her?”

Woodward looked up, spoke hesitantly: “I don’t know.”

“If you’ve got any ideas, now’s a swell time to spill them.”

Woodward glanced at Beery, Fenner, back at Kells. “My people don’t want to have anything to do with Rose,” he said. “He’s wanted for murder, and if he’s caught he’ll get the works.” He smiled again, went on slowly: “He called up this morning and said you shot O’Donnell — said he could prove it...”

Fenner laughed quietly.

Kells said: “Where did he call from?”

Woodward shook his head. “Don’t know.”

Beery had gone back into the bedroom. He came into the doorway again, pulling on his coat. “I’ll be back in about an hour, Gerry,” he said. He poured himself a short drink, swallowed it and went out making faces.

Kells asked Woodward: “Where can I find you?”

Woodward hesitated a moment. “I’ve got an office in the Dell Building — the number’s in the book.”

“You can go.”

Woodward got up and said: “Good-day, sir.” He nodded at Fenner and went out.

Kells took Fenner’s twenty-five-thousand-dollar check out of his inside coat pocket. He unfolded it and looked at it for a minute and then he said: “Let’s go over to the bank and have this certified.”

They went out together.

Kells slept most of the afternoon. Doctor Janis stopped by at seven. The leg was pretty stiff.

Janis said. “You ought to stay in a couple days, anyway. You’re damned lucky it was the edge of the fan that got you — Dickinson got the middle...”

Kells asked: “How is he?”

“He’ll be all right. He’s too tough.”

Janis put on his coat and hat, finished his drink, and went to the door. “You had a break,” he said. “Don’t press it.” He went out.

Kells telephoned Fenner. There had been several steers on Rose, all of them bad. Sheedy hadn’t been located. The Mexican who had been with Rose was probably Abalos, from Frisco. He lived at a small hotel on Main Street. The hotel was being watched. Reilly was being tailed.

Beery came up about eight. He sat down, grinned broadly, and ordered a highball. “Everything’s lovely,” he said. “All the evening papers carried the Guardian stuff, and I’m the fair-haired boy at the Chronicle office.” He put down his glass. “You want me to keep the Chronicle job too, don’t you?”

Kells said: “Sure.”

Beery stood up, stooped over the low table and mixed himself another drink. “I’m going to the fights. Swell card.”

“So am I.”

Beery squinted over his shoulder. “You’d better stay in the hay,” he said.

Kells swung up, sat on the edge of the bed. “Got your ducats?”

“Yeah. I was going to take the wife.”

“Sure — we’ll take her. Call up and see if you can get three together, close.” Kells got up and limped into the bathroom, turned on the shower.

Beery sat tinkling ice against the sides of his glass. When Kells turned off the shower Beery yelled: “The old lady don’t want to go anyway.”

Kells stood in the bathroom door, grinning.

Beery looked up at him and then down at his glass. “I guess she don’t like you very well.” He picked up the phone and asked for a Hollywood number.

Kells disappeared into the bathroom again and when he came out Beery smiled happily, said: “Okay. She’d rather go to a picture show.”

The seats were fifth row, ringside — two seats off the aisle. The second preliminary was in its last round when Kells and Beery squeezed past a very fat man in the aisle seat, sat down.

The preliminary ended in a draw and the lights flared on. Kells nodded to several acquaintances, and Beery leaned forward, talked to a friend of his in the row ahead. He introduced the man to Kells: Brand, feature sports writer for an Eastern syndicate.

Kells had been looking at his program. He asked: “What’s the price on Gilroy?”

“The boys were offering three to two before dinner — very little business. I’ll lay two to one on Shane.”

Gilroy was a New York Negro, a heavyweight who had been at the top of his class for a while. Too much living, and racial discrimination — too few fights — had softened him. The dopesters said he’d lost everything he ever had, was on the skids. Shane was a tough kid from Texas. He was reputed to have a right-hand punch that made up for his lack of experience.

Kells remembered Gilroy from Harlem; had known him well, liked him. He said: “I’ll take five hundred of that.”

Brand looked at him very seriously, nodded.

Beery looked disgusted. He leaned toward Kells and said quietly, “For God’s sake, Gerry, they’re grooming Shane for a title shot. Do you think they’re going to let an unpopular boogie like Gilroy get anywhere?”

Kells said: “He used to be very good. He can’t have gone as bad as they say in a year. I’ve only seen Shane once, and I thought he was lousy...”

“He won, didn’t he?”

“Uh-huh.”

Beery was looking at Kells sidewise with wide hard eyes.

The man sitting with Brand turned around and drawled: “You don’t happen to have any more Gilroy money, do you?”

“Sure.”

The man said: “I’ll give you eighteen hundred for a grand.”

Kells nodded.

Beery looked like he was going to fall off his chair. He muttered expletives under his breath.

A man crawled into the ring followed by two Filipinos with their seconds. The house lights dimmed.

“Ladies and gentlemen... Six rounds... In this corner — Johnny Sanga... a hundred an’ thirty-four...”

Kells said: “I’ll be back in a minute.” He got up and squeezed out past the fat man.

At the head of the corridor that led to the dressing rooms a uniformed policeman said: “You can’t go any farther, buddy.”

Kells looked at him coldly. “I’m Mister Olympic,” he said. “I own this place.” He twisted a bill around his finger, stepped close and shoved it into the copper’s hand, went on.

Gilroy was sitting on the edge of a rubbing table while a squat heavily sweatered youth taped his hands. A florid Jew sat in a chair tilted back against the wall, smoking a short green cigar. He stood up when Kells opened the door, said: “You can’t come in here, mister.”

Gilroy looked up and his face split in a huge grin. “Well Ah’ll be switch’ — Mistah Kells!” He got up and came towards Kells, held out his half-taped hand.

Kells smiled, shook hands. “H’are ya, Lonny?”

Gilroy’s grin was enormous. He said: “Sit down — sit down.”

Kells shook his head, leaned against the table. He glanced at the Jew and at the boy who had resumed taping the big Negro’s hand. He looked at Gilroy, said: “You win?”

“Shuah — shuah.” Gilroy’s grin was a shade less easy. “Shuah, Ah win.”

Kells kept looking at, him. Gilroy looked at the Jew, then looked back at Kells. He shook his head slightly. “How long you been out hyah, Mistah Kells?”

Kells didn’t answer. He stared at Gilroy vacantly. The Jew looked at Gilroy and then glanced icily, without expression, at Kells, went out of the room. The squat youth kept on taping Gilroy’s hand mechanically.

Gilroy said: “No. Ah don’t win.” He said it very softly.

“How much are you getting?”

Gilroy’s face had become very serious. “Nothin’,” he said. “Not a nickel.”

Kells rubbed the back of one hand with the palm of the other.

Gilroy went on: “Not a nickel — but Ah get plenty if Ah don’t throw it...”

“What are you talking about?”

The boy finished one hand. Gilroy flexed it, looked at the floor.

“They’ve put the feah of God in me, Mistah Kells. If Ah win, Ah don’t go home tonight — maybe.”

Kells turned to face him squarely. He said: “You mean you’re going to take a dive for nothing?”

“If that’s the way you want to put it — yes, sah.”

The boy started on the other hand. Gilroy went on: “Ah been gettin’ letters an’ phone calls an’ warnin’s for a week...”

“Who from?”

“Don’t know.” Gilroy shook his head slowly.

Kells glanced at his watch. He said: “Do you figure you owe me anything, Lonny?”

Gilroy looked at him and his eyes were big. “Shuah,” he said — “shuah — Ah remembah.”

“This is my town, now. I want you to go in and win, if you can. I’ll have a load of protection here by the time you get in the ring. You can stick with me afterwards.” Kells looked at him very intently, very seriously. “This is important.”

Gilroy was entirely still for a moment. He stared at his hands. Then he nodded slowly without looking up.

Kells said: “I’ll be back here afterwards.”

He went out of the room, closed the door. He found a telephone, called Fenner. Fenner wasn’t in, he had the call switched to Hanline’s room. When Hanline answered, Kells told him to send the two best muscle men he could locate to the entrance of Section R, Olympic Arena, quickly. Hanline said: “Sure — what’s it all about?”

“Nothing.” Kells said. “But what’s the use of having an organization if I don’t use it?”

On the way back to his seat, Kells saw Rainey. They walked together to an archway through which they could see the ring. The Filipinos were locked in a slow and measured dance; the electric indicator above the ring read ROUND FIVE.

Kells asked: “Who’s interested in Shane?”

Rainey shrugged. “His mother, I suppose.”

“Is this so-called syndicate building him up?”

“Sure.”

Kells pointed a finger, jabbed it at Rainey’s chest. “And who the hell is the syndicate?”

Rainey said: “Rose, I guess, and whoever his backers are.”

Kells looked at the ring. “Your guess is as good as mine. Get down on Gilroy.” He walked away with an elaborately mysterious and meaningful look over his shoulder.

Back in his seat, Kells tapped Brand’s shoulder. “If you gentlemen would like to get out from under,” he said, “you can copper those bets now.”

Brand turned to Kells’ wide smile. His drawling friend was engrossed in the last waltz of the Filipinos.

“I have information.” Kells widened his smile.

Brand shook his head, matched his smile, said: “No. Shane’s good enough for me.”

“That’s what I thought. That’s the reason I made the offer.”

Beery was yelling at one of the Filipinos. He glanced at Kells without expression, shouted at the ring: “Ask him what he’s doing after the show.”

The last preliminary was declared a draw. The semi-wind-up came up: six rounds, a couple of dark, smart flyweights, one on his way to a championship. It was a pretty good fight, but it was the favorite’s all the way.

The main event followed almost immediately. The announcer climbed into the ring — the referee, Shane, Gilroy, a knot of seconds. Shane got a big hand. Gilroy got a pretty good reception too — the black belt was well represented and Gilroy was well liked. The disk was tossed for corners, taping was examined and the referee’s instructions passed.

“Ladies and gentlemen... Ten rounds... In this corner — Arthur Shane — the Texas Cyclone... Two hundred an’ eight pounds... In this corner — Lon Gilroy... A hundred ninety-six...”

The announcer and seconds scrambled out of the ring. Gilroy and Shane touched gloves, turned towards their corners. At the gong, Shane whirled, almost ran across the ring. Gilroy looked faintly surprised, waited, calmly ducked Shane’s wild right hook. They exchanged short jabs to the body, and Shane straightened a long one to Gilroy’s jaw.

Shane’s hair was so blond it was almost white. It stuck straight up in a high pompadour above his round pink face, flopped back and forth as he moved his head. He was thick, looked more than his two hundred and eight pounds. Gilroy had put on fat since Kells had last seen him in action, but it looked hard. His rich chocolatebrown body still sloped to a narrow waist, straight well-muscled legs. He looked pretty good.

Shane came in fast again. Gilroy backed against the ropes, came out and under Shane’s right — they clinched. The referee stepped between them, and Gilroy clipped Shane’s chin as he sidled away. They exchanged short jabs to the head and body, fell into another clinch. Gilroy brought both hands up hard to Shane’s body. Shane danced away, came in fast again and snapped Gilroy’s head back with a long right. They were stalling, waiting for the other to lead, at the bell. The round was even.

The second and third rounds were slow — the second Shane’s by a shade, the third even.

Shane came out fast in the fourth, grazed Gilroy’s jaw with the long right, drove his left hard into Gilroy’s stomach. Gilroy straightened up and his mouth was open; Shane stepped a little to one side, took Gilroy’s weak counter on his shoulder and hooked his right to Gilroy’s unprotected jaw. There was a snap, and Gilroy sank down on his knees. The crowd roared. Several people stood up.

Gilroy took a count of eight, got up grinning broadly. He ducked Shane’s wild uppercut, stepped inside and pounded Shane’s body, but his punches lacked steam. The muscles of his face were taut, his eyes big — he had been hurt. They clinched. The round was Shane’s.

Gilroy held on during the first part of the fifth, but snapped out of it in time to smack Shane around considerably before the bell. Shane was tiring a little. It should have been Gilroy’s round but was declared even.

The sixth and seventh were Gilroy’s by a small margin. He seemed to have recovered all his speed; Shane brought the fight to him, made a good show of rushing but it didn’t mean much. Gilroy took everything Shane had to give — fought deliberately, hard, well.

The rounds stood two apiece, three even. Kells watched Shane between the seventh and eighth, decided that whatever the frame had been, he wasn’t in on it. He looked worried, but it didn’t look like the kind of worry one would feel at being double-crossed. His backers had evidently let him believe that he would win or lose fairly. As a matter of fact it hadn’t been bribery or a frameup, strictly speaking — they’d simply scared Gilroy and it had almost worked.

Brand turned around, smiled uncomfortably.

Kells whispered to Beery: “The eighth does it.” He looked at Gilroy. Gilroy was lying back, breathing deeply. He raised his head and stared intently at the faces around the ring. Kells tried to catch his eye but the seconds were crawling out of the ring, the gong sounded.

Shane rushed again and Gilroy stood very still, blocked Shane’s haymaker and swung his left in a long loop to Shane’s head. Shane fell as if he had been hit with an axe. Gilroy looked down at him wonderingly for a second, shuffled to a neutral corner. Everyone stood up. The referee was counting but he couldn’t be heard above the roar; his arm moved up and down and his lips moved.

Shane sat up, got unsteadily to his feet. Gilroy came in and put out his two hands and pushed him. Gilroy was smiling selfconsciously. Shane was all right; he shook his head and went after Gilroy, and Gilroy cuffed him on the side of the head, jabbed a short, straight left to his face. Shane stepped in close and swung his right in a wide up-and-down circle, hit Gilroy a good ten inches below the belt, hard.

Gilroy folded up slowly. He held his hands over the middle of his body and bent his knees slowly. His face was twisted with pain. He stumbled forward and straightened up a little and then fell down on his side and drew his knees up.

Shane was leaning against the ropes and his breathing was sharply audible in the momentary silence.

Then the ring filled with people; Gilroy was carried to his corner. The announcer was shouting vainly for silence. One of Shane’s seconds held the ropes apart for him; he stared dazedly at the crowd, ducked through the ropes, into the tunnel that led to the dressing rooms.

“Gilroy — on a foul.” The announcer made himself faintly heard.

Brand’s friend turned around and grinned wryly at Kells. He shook his head sadly. “The son of a bitch,” he said — “the dirty son of a bitch.”

“There’s something in what you say,” Kells said. He stood up an stretched.

At the entrance to Section R, Kells almost ran into the fat man who had stuck him up at Fenner’s. His tie was sticking out of his high stiff collar at the same cocky angle, his small head was covered by a big, violently plaid cap.

He stared at Kells’ shoes, said: “Hanline sent us.” He jerked his head at a fairly tall middle-aged man who looked like a prosperous insurance salesman. “This is Denny Faber.”

Kells laughed.

The fat one grinned good-naturedly. “I sure slipped up the other night,” he said — “the gal cramped my style.” He glanced at Beery, looked back at Kells’ shoes, went on: “My name is Borg.”

Kells introduced Beery. Then the four of them went through the crowd to the dressing rooms.

There were a dozen or more men — mostly Negroes — in the corridor outside Gilroy’s room. Kells shouldered through, opened the door. The florid Jew was standing just inside, smiling happily. He poked a finger at Kells.

“I told you we would win — I told you,” he said. He turned, frowned at Beery and Borg — Faber had waited outside.

Kells said: “These gentlemen are friends of mine.”

They came in behind him.

Gilroy was lying on the rubbing table. His face was covered with little beads of sweat. He turned his head, said: “Hello, Mistah Kells.”

Kells went over to him. “How do you feel?”

“Ah’m all right. The Doc here says it’s jus’ a scratch” — he grinned with all his face — “jus’ a scratch.”

The doctor nodded to Kells.

Kells turned to Borg, said: “Get a cab and wait outside the little gate, down at the end...” He gestured with his hand.

“We got a car.” Borg started towards the door.

“That’s fine — we’ll be out in a few minutes.” Gilroy sat up slowly, picked up a towel and wiped his face. He said, “How about a showah, Doc?”

The doctor said it would be all right. He was putting on his coat.

Kells took a roll of bills out of his pocket, slipped one off and gave it to the doctor.

Beery was standing near the door. He jerked his head and Kells went over to him. Beery asked quietly: “Brand gave you a check?”

Kells nodded.

“The other guy paid off in cash?”

“Yes.”

“Gimme. You run a chance of getting into plenty of excitement tonight. I’m going home — I’d better take care of the bankroll.”

“I’ve got Fenner’s check too, and somewhere around ten grand soft.” Kells smiled, shook his head. “Every time I sock something in a bank, something happens so I can’t get to it. Something’s liable to happen to you...”

“Or you.”

“Uh-huh — so I’ll keep the geetus.” Kells went back and sat down on the table. Gilroy’s manager, the Jew, began a long and vivid account of why Gilroy was the “coming champion.”

“I tell you, Mister Kells — your name is Kells, ain’t it? — Lonny is better than Johnson in his flower — in his flower...”

Beery said: “I’ll call you in the morning.” He and the doctor went out together.

Gilroy came out of the shower, dressed. On the way to the car, Kells asked: “Do you know Sheedy?”

“Vince Sheedy? Shuah.” Gilroy stayed close to Kells, watched the people they passed, carefully. “His place is right aroun’ the corner from my hotel.”

“Let’s go there and celebrate. I want to meet him.”

Borg and Faber were sitting in a big closed car outside the little gate. Beery was in the tonneau.

Kells said: “I thought you were going home.”

“Oh, what the hell — I’d just as well come along and see the fireworks — if any.” Beery sighed.

Kells and Gilroy got in beside him. Kells leaned forward, spoke to Borg: “Gilroy, here, has had some scare letters. We’re going to take care of him for a few days.”

Borg said: “Sure.”

Gilroy told them how to get to Sheedy’s place. Kells watched through the rear window but couldn’t spot anyone following them. Traffic was heavy. They went down Sixteenth to Central Avenue, turned south.

The entrance to Sheedy’s Bronx Club was tricky. They left the car in a parking station, went down a narrow passageway between two buildings. Gilroy knocked at a door in the side of the passageway — it was opened and they went downstairs, through a large kitchen, into a short hallway.

Gilroy said: “There’s a front way in, but this is the best because we want a private room” — he looked at Kells for confirmation — “don’t we?”

Kells nodded.

Gilroy tried one of the doors in the hallway. It was locked. He tried another, opened it and switched on the light.

The room was small. There was a round table with a red-andwhite tablecloth in the middle of the room, and there were six or seven chairs and a couch. Gilroy pressed a button near the door.

Borg and Faber sat down and Kells stretched out on the couch. Beery studied the photographs — mostly clipped from “Art Models” magazines — on the walls.

A waiter came and Gilroy told him to get Sheedy. Sheedy turned out to be a very tall, very yellow skeleton. Dinner clothes hung from his high, pointed shoulders as though the least wind would whip them out like a flat black sail. He nodded to Beery. “I am very happy to meet you, Mister Kells,” he said. His accent was very precise. Kells guessed that if the name meant anything special to him he was a remarkable actor.

Gilroy asked: “Was you at the fight, Vince?”

“Yes... I lost.” Sheedy smiled easily.

Gilroy giggled. “Hot dawg! It serves you right — nex’ time you know bettah.”

Sheedy raised his brows, nodded sadly.

“Hash us up a load of champagne—” Gilroy made a large gesture. “An’ send some gals back to sing us a song.”

Sheedy said: “Right away, Lonny” — bowed himself out. He was back in about a minute, asked Kells to come into the hallway. “Some fellows just came in” — he inclined his head towards the front of the place — “asked if Lonny was here. I said no.”

“Who are they?”

“Man named Arnie Taylor — a Negro — and three white boys. I don’t know them.”

Kells said: “Who’s Taylor?”

Sheedy shook his head. “I don’t think he’s a particular friend of Lonny’s.”

“Where’s Rose?” Kells spoke very softly, quickly.

Sheedy looked surprised. Then he sniffled slowly. “I’m afraid you’ve got some wrong ideas,” he said.

Kells waited; Sheedy went on: “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

Kells looked at him sleepily, silently.

Sheedy said: “He was here last night — I haven’t seen him since.”

“Thanks.” Kells turned to go back into the room.

Sheedy caught his shoulder. “Rose and I do a little business together,” he said — “that’s all.” He was smiling slightly, looking very straight at Kells.

Kells said: “Liquor business?”

Sheedy shook his head.

“White stuff?”

Sheedy didn’t say anything.

Kells looked at the door to the cabaret. He said: “Tell Taylor Lonny’s back here.”

Sheedy said: “I’m under one indictment here, Mister Kells. If there’s any trouble and it gets loud, I’ll lose my license.”

“It won’t get loud.”

The door to the cabaret opened and a very light-colored Negro with straight blue-black hair came into the hallway. There was a white man behind him, and the white man took a stubby revolver out of his coat pocket.

The Negro said: “Sorry, Vince.”

Sheedy put his hands up.

Kells clicked a button-switch on the wall with his elbow, but the lights in the hallway stayed on.

The white man stayed at the end of the hallway, about ten feet away from them. He was short, with a broad bland childlike face. He held the revolver close to his stomach, pointed indiscriminately at Kells and Sheedy.

Taylor came up to them, felt Kells for a gun.

Sheedy started to speak, and then the room door opened and Gilroy stood outlined against darkness.

He asked: “Wha’s the mattah with the lights?”

Taylor turned his head, jerked an automatic out of his belt, swung it towards Gilroy. Kells slammed his open left hand down hard on Taylor’s arm and then he got his other arm around Taylor’s neck and hugged him back close to the wall so that Taylor was between him and the short white man.

The white man turned and disappeared through the door to the cabaret, Sheedy after him. Then Borg came out past Gilroy and clubbed his gun, tapped Taylor back of the ear. Taylor went limp and Kells let him slide down awkwardly to the floor.

Gilroy said: “Well, for goodness’ sake!”

They turned off Whittier Boulevard and drove a long way along a well-paved road. The road ran between fields; there were a few dark houses, and occasionally a light at an intersection.

Kells sat on the left side of the tonneau and Borg sat on the right side and Taylor was between them. Gilroy and Faber were in front. Gilroy had insisted on coming. Beery had gone home.

Kells said: “Where’s Rose?”

Taylor made a resigned gesture with one hand. “I tell you, Mister Kells — I don’ know,” he said. “If I knew—”

Borg swung his fist around hard into Taylor’s face. Borg grunted with the effort and there was the sharp slight sound of his arm moving swiftly and then the soft spat as his big hand crushed Taylor’s face.

Taylor whimpered and put his arms up over his face. He tried to slide farther down in the seat, and Borg put his arm around his shoulders and held him erect.

“Where’s Rose?” Kells pursued relentlessly.

“I don’t know, Mister Kells... I swear to God I don’t know...” Taylor spoke into the cloth of his coat sleeve; the words were broken, sounded far away.

Borg pulled Taylor’s arms down from his face very gently, held his two hands in his lap with one of his hands, and swung his fist again.

Taylor struggled and freed one of his hands and put it over his bloody face. “I tell you I got orders that was supposed to come from Rose,” he panted — “but they was over the phone... I don’t know where they was from...”

They rode in silence for a little while, except for the sound of Taylor’s sobbing breath. Then they turned into a dirt road, darker, winding.

Kells said: “Where’s Rose?”

Taylor sobbed, mumbled unintelligibly.

Gilroy turned around and looked at Taylor with hurt, soft animal eyes. Then he looked at Kells, and Kells nodded. There was a little light from a covered globe on the dashboard. Gilroy kept looking at Kells until he nodded again and then Gilroy tapped Faber’s arm, and the car stopped, the headlights were switched off.

Kells took the big automatic out of a shoulder holster. He opened the door and put one foot out on the running board, and then spoke over his shoulder to Borg: “Bring him out here. We don’t want to mess up the car.”

Taylor screamed and Borg clapped his hand over his mouth — then Taylor was suddenly silent, limp. His eyes were wide and white and his lips moved.

Borg said, “Come on — come on,” and then he saw that Taylor couldn’t move and he put his arms around him and half shoved, half lifted him out of the door of the car. Taylor couldn’t straighten his legs. He put one foot on the running board and his knees gave way and he fell down in the road.

Gilroy got out on the other side. He said: “Ah’m goin’ to walk up the road a piece.” His voice trembled. He went into the darkness.

Taylor was moaning, threshing around in the dust.

Kells squatted beside him. Then he straightened up and spoke to Faber: “Pull up about thirty feet.” Faber looked surprised. He let the clutch in and the car moved forward a little ways. Kells squatted beside Taylor in the darkness again, waited. He held the automatic in his two hands, between his legs. The dim red glow of the taillight was around them.

Taylor rolled over on his back and tried to sit up. Kells helped him, held one hand on his shoulder. Taylor’s eyes were bulging; he looked blindly at the redness of the taillight, blindly at Kells — then he said very evenly, quietly: “He’s in Pedro — the Keystone Hotel...” Fear had worn itself out, had taken his strength and left him, curiously, entirely calm. He no longer trembled, and his voice was even, low. Only his eyes were wide, staring.

Kells called to Borg and they helped Taylor back to the car. They picked up Gilroy a little way ahead. He stared questioningly at Taylor, Kells.

Kells said: “He’s all right.”

They headed back towards town.

The night clerk of the Keystone in San Pedro remembered the gentlemen: the dark, good-looking Mister Gorman and the small and Latin Mister Ribera. They had checked in early yesterday morning, without baggage. They had made several long-distance calls to Los Angeles during the day, sent several wires. They had left about seven-thirty in the evening; no forwarding address.

It was a quarter after one. Kells checked his watch with the clock in the lobby, thanked the clerk and went out to the car. He got in and sat beside Borg, grunted: “No luck.”

They had taken Gilroy home — Faber had stayed with him.

Borg asked: “Where to?”

Kells sat a little while silently staring at nothing. He finally said: “Drive down towards Long Beach.”

Borg started the car and they went down the dark street slowly. The fog was very thick; street lights were vague yellow blobs in the darkness.

Kells had an idea, tapped Borg’s knee suddenly. “Have you ever been out to Rainey’s boat?”

Borg hadn’t. “I ain’t much of a gambler,” he said. “I went out to the Joanna D. once, before it burned up — with a broad.”

“Do you remember how to get to the P & O wharf?”

Borg said he thought so. They turned into the main highway south. After about a half hour, they turned off into what turned out to be a blind street. They tried the next one and had just about decided they were wrong again when Borg saw the big white P & O on the warehouse that ran out on the wharf. They parked the car and walked out to the waiting room.

Kells asked the man in the office if the big red-faced man who ran one of the launches to the Eaglet was around.

The man looked at his watch. “You mean Bernie, I guess,” he said. “He oughta be on his way back with a load of players.”

They sat down and waited.

Bernie laughed. He said: “You ain’t as wet as you were the last time I saw you.”

Kells shook his head. They walked together to the end of the wharf.

Kells asked: “You know Jack Rose when you see him?”

“Sure.”

“When did you see him last?”

Bernie tipped his cap back, scratched his nose. “Night before last,” he said, “when you and him went out to the Joanna.”

“If you were wanted for murder in LA and wanted to get out of the country for a while, how would you do it?” Kells asked.

“God! I don’t know.” Bernie spat into the black water alongside the wharf. “I suppose I’d make a pass at Mexico.”

“If you were going by car you wouldn’t be coming through Pedro.”

“No.”

“But if you were going by boat?...”

Bernie said: “Hell, if I was going by boat I wouldn’t go all the way to Mexico. I’d go out and dig in on China Point.”

Kells sat down on a pile. “I’ve heard of it,” he said. “What’s it all about?”

“That’s God’s country.” Bernie grinned, stared through sheets of mist at the lights of the bay. “That’s the rum runners’ paradise. All the boys in the racket along the Coast hang out there. They come in from the mother ships — and the tender crews... I’ll bet there’s a million dollars’ worth of stuff on the’island. They steal it from each other to keep themselves entertained...”

“How long since you were there?”

“Couple years — but I hear about it. They got a swell knock-down drag-out café there now — the Red Barn.”

Kells said: “It isn’t outside Federal jurisdiction.”

“No. A cutter goes out and circles the island every month or so. But they pay off plenty — nobody ever bothers ’em.”

“That’s very interesting,” Kells stood up. “How would Rose get out there?”

Bernie shook his head. “A dozen ways. He’d probably get one of the boys who used to run players to the Joanna to take him out. It’s a two-hour trip in a fast boat.”

They walked back towards the waiting room.

Kells said: “It’s an awfully long chance. Do you suppose you could get a line on it from any of your friends?”

“I don’t think so. I know a couple fellas who worked for Rose and Haardt, but with Rose wanted, they wouldn’t open up.”

Bernie took out a knife and a plug of tobacco, whittled himself a fresh chew.

Kells said: “Try.”

“Okay.”

They went into the waiting room and Bernie went into the telephone booth.

Borg had found a funny paper. He looked up at Kells and said, “I’ll bet the guys that get up these things make a pile of jack — huh?”

Kells said they probably did.

Borg sighed. “I always wanted to be a cartoonist,” he said.

Bernie came out of the booth in a little while. “There’s a man named Carver got a string of U Drive pleasure boats down at Long Beach,” he said. “He says a couple men and a woman hired one about eight-thirty and ain’t come back yet. One of ’em sounds like Rose. The other one was a little guy; and the woman he don’t know about — she was bundled up.”

Kells smiled as if he meant it, said: “Come on.”

“We wouldn’t get out there till daylight in my boat. Maybe I can borrow the Comet — I’ll go see.”

Bernie went out and came back in a few minutes, shaking his head.

“He wants fifty dollars till ten in the morning,” he said. “That’s too damn much.”

Kells took a sheaf of bills out of his pocket, peeled off two.

“Give him whatever he wants out of this,” he said. “And does he want a deposit?”

“No.” Bernie started for the door. “He keeps my boat for security.”

Kells and Borg followed him out, across the wharf, across a rickety foot bridge and down to a wide float.

Bernie gave the man who was waiting there one of the bills, said: “I’ll pick up the change when I come back.”

The man asked: “Don’t you want me to come along?”

Bernie glanced at Kells. Kells said: “Thanks — no. We’ll get along.”

The Comet was a trim thirty-foot craft; mahogany and steel and glistening brass. She looked very fast.

Bernie switched on the running lights and started the engine. The man cast off the lines; Bernie spun the wheel over and they swung in a wide curve away from the float and out through the narrows to the cut that led to the outer bay.

The fog was broken to long trailing shreds, but thick. The swell was long, fairly easy.

Bernie snapped on the binnacle light. “I hope I ain’t forgotten the course,” he said. “I think it’ll clear up when we get out a ways — but I’m usually wrong about fog.”

Borg said, “That’s dandy,” with dripping sarcasm.

Kells went down into the little cabin, lay down on one of the bunks. He watched red and green and yellow buoy lights slide swiftly by the portholes. After a while they rounded the breakwater and there weren’t any more lights to watch.

Kells was awakened by Bernie whispering: “We made it in an hour and fifty minutes.” Then Bernie went outside.

It was very dark. Borg was lying in the other bunk, groaning faintly.

Kells said: “What the hell’s the matter?”

Borg didn’t answer.

“You aren’t sick!” Kells was emphatically incredulous.

It was quiet for a minute and then Borg said slowly: “Who’s the best judge of that — me or you?”

Kells got up and went outside. Bernie had doused the running lights; there was a thin glow from the binnacle — and darkness. The fog felt like a wet sheet.

Bernie said: “There’s a big cruiser tied up on the other side of the wharf. I coasted by close — I don’t think there’s anybody aboard.”

“Any other boats?”

“I couldn’t see any.” Bernie switched off the binnacle light. “There’s another little cove on the other side of the island, but nobody uses it.”

Kells said: “We’re not tied up, are we?”

“Sure.”

Kells looked at Bernie admiringly. “You’re a wonder. It didn’t even wake me up.”

Bernie chuckled. “You’re damn right I’m a wonder.”

They climbed up on the wharf, crossed quietly. The cruiser was big, luxurious, evidently deserted — Bernie couldn’t make out the name. Except for a few rowboats and the Comet, it was the only boat at the wharf.

Kells said: “Well — I guess I’m wrong again.”

They walked up the wharf, and Bernie found a path and they walked along the bottom of a shallow gully, up to the left across a kind of ridge.

The fog was so heavy they didn’t see the light until they were about twenty feet from it. Then they went forward silently and a big ramshackle shed took form in the gray darkness. The light came from a square window on the second floor.

Bernie said: “This used to be a cattle shelter — they’ve built onto it. I guess it’s the place they call the Red Barn.”

They found a door and Kells knocked twice. There was no answer so he turned the knob, pushed the door open.

There was a kerosene lamp at one end of a short bar. The room was long, windowless; the ceiling sloped to a high peak at one end. There was a stairway leading up to a balcony of rough timbers, and there was an open door on the balcony leading into a lighted room.

At first Kells thought the downstairs room was deserted; then by the flickering, uncertain light of the lamp he saw a man asleep at one of the half dozen or so tables. There was another man lying on a cot against one wall. He rolled over. “Wha’ d’ you want?” he said sleepily. Kells didn’t answer — the man looked at him blearily for a moment and then grunted and rolled back with his face to the wall.

A man came out on the balcony and stood with his hands on the railing, silently staring down at them. He was of medium height, appeared in the inadequate light to be dark, swarthy.

Kells said: “How are chances of buying a drink?”

The man suddenly stepped out of the doorway so that a little more light fell on Kells’ upturned face. Then he threw back his head and laughed noiselessly. His shoulders shook and his face was twisted with mirth, but there was no sound.

Bernie looked at Kells. Kells turned and glanced at the man on the cot, looked up at the swarthy man again. The man stopped laughing, looked down and spoke in a hoarse whisper:

“Sure. Come up.”

He turned, disappeared into the room.

Kells said “Wait,” to Bernie. He went up the stairs two at a time and went into the room.

It was a fairly large room, square. There were a few rather good rugs on the floor, a flat-topped desk near the far wall, several chairs. There were two big lamps — the kind that have to be pumped up, hiss when lighted.

The man closed the door behind him, went to the desk and sat down. He waved his hand at a chair but Kells shook his head slightly, stood still.

The man’s face was familiar. It was deeply lined and the eyes were very far apart, very dark. His mouth was full and red, and his hair was very short, black.

Kells asked: “Where do I remember you from?”

The man shook his head. “You don’t.” There was some sort of curious impediment in his speech. Then he smiled and said, “I’m Crotti.”

Kells pulled a chair closer to the desk. He said: “I’ll still buy a drink.”

Crotti opened a drawer and took out a squat square bottle, a glass. He pushed them across the desk, said: “Help yourself.”

Kells poured himself a drink, sat down.

He knew Crotti very well by reputation, had once had him pointed out in a theater crowd in New York. A big-timer, he had started as a minor gangster in Detroit, become in the space of three or four years a national figure. A flair for color, a certain genius for organization, good political connections had kept him alive, out of jail, and at the top. The press had boomed him as a symbol: the Crime Magnate — in New York he was supposed to be the power behind the dope ring, organized prostitution and gambling, the beer business — everything that was good for copy.

Crotti said: “This is a miracle.” His voice was very thin, throaty.

Kells remembered that he had heard something of an operation affecting the vocal cords that Crotti always spoke in this curiously confidential manner.

He asked: “What’s a miracle?”

Crotti leaned back in his chair. “In the morning,” he said, “your hotel was to be called, an invitation was to be extended to you to visit me — out here.”

He opened a box of cigars on the desk, offered them to Kells, and carefully selected one.

“And here you are.”

Kells didn’t answer.

Crotti clipped and lighted his cigar, leaned back again. “What do you think of that?” he said.

Kells said: “What do you want?”

“Since you anticipated my invitation, may I ask what you want?”

Kells sipped his drink, shrugged. “I came out for a drink of good whiskey,” he said.

He looked around the room. There were two closed doors on his right, a window on his left. In front of him, behind Crotti, there was another large square window — the one he had seen from the outside. He finished his drink and put the glass on the desk.

“I’m looking for a fella named Jack Rose,” he said. “Ever hear of him?”

Crotti nodded.

“Know where he is?”

“No.” Crotti smiled, shook his head.

They were both silent for a minute. Crotti puffed comfortably at his cigar and Kells waited.

Crotti cleared his throat finally and said: “You’ve done very well.”

Kells waited.

“You helped eliminate a lot of small fry: Haardt, Perry, O’Donnell — you’ve run Rose out of town, and you have the Fenner and Bellmann factions pretty well in hand. You can write your own ticket...”

“You make it sound swell.” Kells poured himself a drink. “What about it?”

“I’m going to cut you in.”

Kells widened his eyes extravagantly. “What do you mean — cut me in?”

“I’m going to clean up all the loose ends and turn the whole business over to you...”

Kells said: “My, my — isn’t that dandy!” He put the full glass down on the desk. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Crotti flicked ashes from his cigar, leaned forward.

“Listen,” he said. “Things are pretty hot back East. I’ve been running a couple ships up here with stuff from Mexico for a year. Now I’m going to move all my interests here, the whole layout. I’m going to take over the Coast.”

“And?...”

“And you’re in.”

Kells said: “I’m out.”

Crotti leaned back again, studied the gray tip of his cigar. He smiled. “I think you’re in,” he said.

Kells took a little tin box of aspirin out of his pocket, put two tablets on his tongue and washed them down with the whiskey.

“You seem to have kept pretty well in touch with things out here,” he said.

Crotti said: “Yes. I sent an operative out a few weeks ago to look things over — a very clever girl...” He took the cigar out of his mouth. “Name’s Granquist.”

Kells sat very still. He looked at Crotti and then he grinned slowly, broadly.

Crotti grinned back. “Am I right in assuming that you were looking for Rose because you thought he had something to do with Miss Granquist’s — uh — escape?”

Kells didn’t answer.

Crotti stood up. “I always take care of my people,” he said as pompously as his squeaky voice would permit. He went to one of the doors, swung it open. The inner room was dark.

Crotti called: “Hey — Swede.”

There was no answer and Crotti went into the room. Kells could hear him whispering, evidently trying to wake someone up.

Kells unbuttoned his coat, shifted the shoulder holster. Crotti reappeared in the doorway, and Granquist was behind him. Crotti went back to his chair, sat down.

Granquist stood in the doorway, swaying. Her eyes were heavy with sleep and she stared drunkenly about the room, finally focused on Kells. She sneered as if it was difficult for her to control her facial muscles. She put one hand on the doorframe to steady herself.

She said thickly: “Hello, bastard.”

Kells looked away from her, spoke to Crotti. “Nice quiet girl,” he said. “Just the kind you want to take home and introduce to your folks.”

Crotti laughed soundlessly.

Granquist staggered forward, stood swaying above Kells. “Bastard framed me,” she mumbled — “tried t’ tag me f’ murder...”

She put one hand out tentatively as if she was about to catch a fly, and slapped Kells very hard across the face.

Crotti stood up suddenly.

Kells reached out and pushed Granquist gently away and said: “Don’t be effeminate.”

Crotti came around the desk and took Granquist by the shoulder and pressed her down into a chair. She was swearing brokenly, incoherently. She put her hands up to her face, sobbed.

Crotti said: “Be quiet.” He turned to Kells with a deprecating smile. “I’m sorry.”

Kells didn’t say anything.

It was quiet for a little while except for Granquist’s strangled, occasional sobs. Crotti sat down on the edge of the desk.

Kells sat staring thoughtfully at Granquist. Finally he turned to Crotti, said: “I played the Bellmann business against this one” — he jerked his head at Granquist — “because it was good sense, and because I knew I could clear her if it was necessary. Then when she got away I figured Rose had her and went into the panic. I’ve been leaping all over Southern California with a big hero act while she’s been sitting on her ass over here with an armful of bottles...”

He sighed, shook his head. “When I’m right, I’m wrong.”

Then he went on as if thinking aloud: “Rose and Abalos, and a woman — probably Rose’s wife — hired a boat at Long Beach tonight and didn’t come back.”

Crotti glanced at Granquist. “Rose had an interest in one of the big booze boats,” he said — “the Santa Maria. She was lying about sixty miles off the Coast a couple days ago. He probably headed out there.”

He puffed hard at his cigar, put it down on an ashtray, leaned forward.

“Now about my proposition...” he said. “You’ve started a good thing, but you can’t finish it by yourself. I’ve got the finest organization in the country and I’m going to put it at your disposal so that you can do this thing the way it should be done — to the limit. LA county is big enough for everybody—”

Kells interrupted him. “I think I’ve heard that someplace before.”

Crotti paid no attention to the interruption, went on: “—for everybody — but things have got to be under a single head. This thing of everybody cutting everybody else’s throat is bad business — small-town stuff.”

Kells nodded very seriously.

“We can have things working like a charm in a couple weeks if we go at it right,” Crotti went on excitedly. “Organization is the thing. We’ll organize gambling, the bootleggers, the city and state and federal police — everything.”

He stood up, his eyes glittering with enthusiasm. “We can jerk five million dollars a year out of this territory — five million dollars!”

Kells whistled.

Granquist had put her hands down. She was sitting deep in the chair, glaring at Kells. Crotti picked up his cigar and walked up and down, puffing out great clouds of blue-gray smoke.

“Why, right this minute,” he said, “I’ve got a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of French crystal cocaine on one of my boats — a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars’ worth at the market price. All it needs is protected landing and distribution to a dozen organized dealers.”

Kells nodded, pouring himself another drink.

Crotti sat down at the desk, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

“And you’re the man for it,” he said. “My money’s on you...”

Kells said. “That’s fine,” smiled appreciatively.

“Your split is twenty-five per cent of everything.” Crotti crushed his cigar out, leaned back and regarded Kells benignly. “Everything — the whole take.”

Kells was watching Crotti. He moved his eyes without moving his head, looked at Granquist. “That ought to pay for a lot of telephone calls,” he said.

“Then it’s a deal.”

“No.”

Crotti looked as if he’d found a cockroach in his soup. “You mean it isn’t enough?” he said incredulously.

“Too much.”

“Then why not?”

Kells said: “Because I don’t like it. Because I never worked for anybody in my life and I’m too old to start. Because I don’t like the racket, anyway — l was aced in. It’s full of tinhorns and two-bit politicians and double-crossers — the whole goddamned business gives me a severe pain in the backside.” He paused, glanced at Granquist.

“Rose and Fenner both tried to frame me,” he went on. “That made me mad and I fought back. I was lucky — I took advantage of a couple breaks and got myself into a spot where I could have some fun.” He stood up. “Now you want to spoil my fun.”

Crotti stood up too. He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I want to show you how to make it pay.”

Kells said: “I’m sorry. It’s a swell proposition, but I’m not the man for it — I guess I’m not commercially inclined. It’s not my game.”

Crotti shrugged elaborately. “All right.”

Kells said: “Now, if you’ll ask the man behind me to put his rod away, I’ll be going.”

Crotti’s lips were pressed close together, curved up at the corners. He turned and looked into the big window behind him — the man who stood just inside the doorway through which they had entered was reflected against outer darkness.

Crotti nodded to the man and at the same moment Granquist stood up, screamed. Kells stepped into line between Crotti and the door, whirled in the same second — the big automatic was in his hand, belching flame.

The man had evidently been afraid of hitting Crotti, was two slugs late. He looked immensely surprised, crashed down sideways in the doorway. Crotti was standing with his back to the window, the same curved grimace on his face.

There were pounding steps on the stair. Kells stepped over the man in the doorway, ran smack into another — the man who had been asleep on the cot — at the top of the stair. The man grabbed him around the waist before he could use the gun; he raised it, felt the barrel-sight rip across the man’s face. There were several more men in the big room below, two on the stairs, coming up.

He planted one foot in the angle of the floor and wall, shoved hard; locked together, they balanced precariously for a moment, fell. They hit the two men about halfway down, tangled to a twisted mass of swinging arms, legs. The banister creaked, gave way. Kells felt the collar of his coat grabbed, was jerked under and down. He struck out with the gun, squeezed it. The gun roared and he heard someone yell, and then something hit the center of his forehead and there was darkness.

The fog was wet on Kells’ face. He opened his eyes and looked up into grayness. He rolled over on his side slowly. There was nothing but thick, unbroken grayness. He held his hand in front of him at arm’s length and it was a shapeless mass of darker gray. He sat up and leaden weights fell in his skull like the mechanism that opens and closes the eyes of dolls. He lay down again and turned his head slowly, held his watch close. It was a little after six, full daylight, but the fog made it night.

Then he heard someone coming, the crunch of feet on gravel. He reached for the gun, found the empty holster, noticed suddenly with a sharp sensation in the pit of his stomach that his coat was gone.

Someone squatted beside him, spoke: “How d’ you feel?” It was Borg. Kells could see the vague, thick outline of his head and shoulders.

Kells said: “Terrible. Where the hell’s my coat?”

“God! Me saving his life and he wants his coat!” Borg giggled softly.

“What happened?”

“Everything.” Borg sighed, sat down in the gravel with his mouth close to Kells’ ear. “After you and the navigator went ashore, I went on the wharf and laid down for a while. Then, in a couple minutes, somebody came out and I thought it was you till I seen there was four of them. I ducked behind some ropes and stuff that was laying there, and they came out and saw our boat and jawed awhile in some spick language. Then they lit out for some place and I got up and tailed them and run into the navigator.”

There was the sound of a shot suddenly, some place below and to Kells’ left, muffled.

Borg said: “That’s him now — what a boy!”

Kells sat up.

Borg went on: “He was carrying on about smelling trouble up at some kind of barn, and he wanted a gun. I wouldn’t give him mine, so he said he was going back to the boat and bust open a locker or something where he thought there was one. He—”

There was another shot.

Kells said: “What the hell’s that all about?” He jerked his head towards the sound, immediately wished he hadn’t.

“That’s him — he’s all right. Wait’ll I tell you...” Borg shifted his position a little, went on: “I went on up the path and I’ll be damned if that navigator didn’t catch up with me, and he had the dirtiestlooking shotgun I ever saw. When we got to the house, he said, ‘You go in the front way and I’ll go in the back,’ so I waited for him to get around to the back — and about that time, there was two shots inside.”

Kells rolled over on his stomach. Borg twisted around, lay beside him.

“I went in and you were doing a cartwheel downstairs with three or four guys on your neck. There was another guy there, and he made a pass at me and I shot him right between the eyes...”

Borg leaned close to Kells, tapped his own head between the eyes with a stubby forefinger. Kells said: “Hurry up.”

“God, I’m hurrying. They were tearing hell out of you and I was trying to pick one of ’em off when the navigator came in the back way and started waving that shotgun around. He yelled so much that they had to see him. Then another guy came out on the balcony and I took a shot at him, but I guess I missed — he ducked back into the upstairs room.”

Borg sighed, shook his head. There was another shot below, then two more, close together.

“Well — I got off to one side to give the navigator a chance,” Borg went on, “but he had a better idea — he came over on my side and we jockeyed around till I could get a hold of you, and then we backed out the front — me dragging you, and the navigator telling the boys what a swell lot of hash they’d make if he let go with that meat grinder. When we got outside, I drug you a little to one side—”

Kells interrupted: “Didn’t I have my coat?”

“Hell, no! You were lucky to have pants the way those guys were working you over... We tried to carry you between us but we couldn’t make any headway that way — it was so dark and foggy we kept falling down. So the navigator fanned tail for the boat, and I drug you through a lot of brush and we got up here after a while. A half a dozen more guys went by on the way to the house — the island’s lousy with ’em. If it hadn’t been for the fog...”

Kells asked: “Bernie’s at the boat, now?”

“Sure — and a swell spot. The fog’s not quite so heavy down there and he can pick ’em off as soon as they show at the head of the wharf. Only I thought he’d shove off before this...”

“He’s waiting for us, sap.” Kells rose to his knees.

“Oh yeah? Maybe you can figure out a way for us to get there.”

Kells asked: “Which direction should the side of the cove be?”

“I haven’t the slightest.”

Kells got shakily to his feet, rubbed his head, then started down a shale bank to his left. He said: “Come on — we’ll have to take a chance.”

Borg got up and they went down the bank to a shallow draw. An occasional shot sounded on the far side of a low ridge to their right. The fog wasn’t quite so thick at the bottom of the draw; they went on, came out in a little while onto a narrow beach. There was a jagged spit of rock running out across the sand from one side of the draw. The fog was thinning.

They waited for the next shot; then Kells, calculating direction from the sound, said, “Come on” — they ran out along the rocks to the edge of the water.

Kells kicked off his shoes, waded in; Borg followed. The fog was heavy over the water — they swam blindly in the direction Kells figured the Comet to be. After a little while, the end of the wharf took form ahead, a bit to the right. They circled towards it, came up to the bow of the big cruiser. They swam around the cruiser, under the wharf and up to the Comet’s stern.

Kells grabbed the gunwale, pulled himself up a little way and called to Bernie. Bernie was crouched in the forward end of the cockpit behind the raised forward deck. He whirled and swung the gun towards Kells, and then he grinned broadly, put down the gun, crawled over and helped Kells climb aboard. He muttered, “Good huntin’,” went back and picked up the gun; Kells helped Borg.

Borg was winded; he lay at full length on the deck, gasping for breath. Kells started towards Bernie, and then his bad leg gave way, he fell down, crawled the rest of the way.

He said: “Get the engine started — I’ll take that for a minute.”

Bernie gave him the gun and a handful of shells, went down to the engine. Kells called to Borg, told him to work his way to the after line, cut it. There was a shot at the head of the wharf, a piece of wood was torn from the edge of the cowling, fell in splinters.

Borg rolled over slowly, got to his knees. He was still panting. He looked reproachfully at Kells, fumbled in his pocket and took out a small jackknife, started worming his way aft.

The engine went over with a roar.

There was an answering roar of shots from the shore.

Bernie came galloping up to the wheel. Kells glanced back at Borg, saw him sawing at the stern line; he took a bead on the bow line, pulled the trigger. The line frayed; Kells aimed again, gave it the other barrel.

Bernie said: “That’s enough — I can part it now...” He slid the clutch in, threw the wheel over.

Kells was hastily reloading. He glanced back at Borg, saw the stern line fall, saw Borg sink down exhausted, so flat that he was safe.

The bow line snapped. They skidded in a fast shallow arc toward the head of the wharf. There was a rattle of gunfire. Kells pushed the shotgun across the cowling, sighted. Two puffs of smoke grew over an overturned dinghy on the beach; he swung the barrel towards the smoke, pulled the trigger.

Then they straightened out, headed through the mouth of the cove towards the open sea. Bernie kicked the throttle. A few desultory shots popped behind them.

Kells put down the gun, sat down on the deck and rolled up his wet trouser leg. The leg wasn’t very nice to look at — Doc Janis’s dressing was hanging by a thin strip of adhesive. Kells called Borg.

Borg got up slowly. He came forward, squatted beside Kells.

Bernie yelled: “There’s some peroxide and stuff in the for’d locker on the port side — I busted it open.”

Borg went into the cabin.

Kells fished in his trouser pockets, brought out a wad of wet bills and some silver, spread it out on the deck beside him. There was a thousand-dollar note and the eight hundreds which Brand’s friend had paid off with after the fights. There was another wad of fifties, hundreds, and smaller bills. Fenner’s twenty-five-thousand-dollar check, Brand’s for a thousand, and around eight thousand in cash had been in the coat. And Fenner’s confession.

Kells looked up; Bernie was looking at him, grinned.

“Wet as usual,” he said. “You better take off your clothes an’ get in a bunk.”

Kells said: “Step on it. I’ve got to call up a friend of mine.”

He picked up several of the wet bills, folded them, put a halfdollar inside the fold to give them weight, slid them across the deck to Bernie.

“That ought to cover damages on the boat, too,” he said.

Borg came out of the cabin with an armful of absorbent cotton and adhesive and peroxide.

Kells picked up some more bills, rolled them into a ball and shoved them into Borg’s free hand, said: “Try to buy yourself a yacht with that...”

He counted what was left.

Borg poured peroxide on the leg.

Kells said: “I came out here with two grand.” He shoved the bills into a heap. There was a little pile of silver left. He counted it with his finger.

“Now I’ve got two — and seventy cents.” He picked up the silver, held it in his palm, smiled at Borg.

“Velvet.”

Bernie shouted: “God! I hope I remember the way back!”

Kells said; “Don’t let that worry you.” He stared forward into the fog.

The Heat

When Gerry Kells refused to join a racket, he was framed for murder, robbed, and shot up; so he decided to turn around and collect.

There was a small zebra galloping up and down the footboard. He was striped red, white, and blue, like a barber pole; his ears were tasseled, flopped back and forth awkwardly. Then he faded into a bright mist; the room tipped over to darkness. Kells yelled...

Then it was raining again outside. Gray...

After a while, Kells opened his eyes and looked up at Borg, said: “Hello, baby,” softly.

Borg giggled. He said: “Don’t be sentimental.”

Doc Janis came over and stared bleakly down over Borg’s shoulder. He said: “By God! I never saw such a tough egg.”

Kells blinked at him, closed his eyes. He heard Janis talking to Borg as if from a great distance: “Give him all the whiskey he wants, but no more of this. Understand?”

Kells wondered idly what this was. He mumbled, “Gimme drink a water,” and fell asleep.

When he awoke he lay with his eyes closed listening to rain beat against the windows. He lay like that a long time, without moving, and the past weeks slid into a long strip of motion picture film through his mind, before his closed eyes.

There had been Rose — Jack Rose, ambitious to rule the western underworld. That had been the beginning. All Kells had wanted was to be left alone — he had come to Los Angeles to get away from action. But his reputation had come with him, and when he had turned down Rose’s offer of partnership, Rose had framed him for murder, because Rose thought he was planning to muscle in.

He had beaten that all right and whipsawed Rose. Now Rose was wanted for murder and was gone.

And Fenner — Fenner, the little boss of the “out” administration. Fenner’s foot had slipped too. He had overplayed his hand, had shot and killed Bellmann, his political enemy, and Kells had scared him into signing a confession and had held it over his head and had taken over his organization.

Kells had had fun for a little while. They had wanted to give him action — he gave them action. He and Shep Beery, the reporter; and Borg, who had been Fenner’s bodyguard; and Granquist, the girl from Kansas City. They’d had a swell time juggling the city, playing everything three ways from the Jack.

Granquist! Granquist had turned out to be the slip-up. She’d been Crotti’s agent all the time — Crotti, the Big Boy, head of the biggest crime ring in the country. She’d taken Kells for a swell buggy-ride. She’d waited until he got everything whipped into shape, and then she’d gone to Crotti, and Kells, not knowing that, had followed her.

Well, Crotti had propositioned him and he’d turned Crotti down. And he’d lost his coat in the fight at Crotti’s place on China Point. He’d lost his coat with a lot of cash and Fenner’s certified check for twenty-five thousand, and, most importantly, Fenner’s confession.

And he’d lost Granquist. That was a break — she’d not have a chance to doublecross him again, anyway. Everyone else had tried it and lost, but she’d succeeded.

Everybody wanted his scalp now — everybody except the ones he’d put out of commission in one way or another.

And his wounded leg... He moved it carefully and held his teeth together.

He said, “What time is it?” opened his eyes.

Borg and Shep Beery were playing cards on a table in the center of the room. Beery said: “That’s twice I’ve ruined my hand waiting for three-hundred pinochle.” He got up and came over to the bed, grinned down at Kells.

“What do you care — you’re not going any place.”

Kells looked past Beery at Borg, looked around the room. He said: “What the hell is this?”

Borg was shuffling the cards. There was a bridge lamp beside the table and the light fell squarely on his fat, pale face. He shook his head sadly without looking up.

“Slug-nutty.”

Beery sat down on the edge of the bed. He whispered confidentially: “This is the Palace, Gerry — you’re the Prince of Wales...”

“I’m Mary, Queen of Scots.” Borg looked up, smiled complacently.

Kells closed his eyes. “Give me a drink,” he said.

Beery reached over and took a tumbler, a big bottle from a stand beside the bed, poured a drink. Kells sat up slowly, carefully.

Beery handed him the glass. “You’ve been out like a light for a few days. We didn’t figure the hotel was a good spot right now so we moved you over here. It’s the Miramar, on Franklin.”

Kells held the glass with both shaking hands, tipped it, drank deeply.

Borg got up, came over and leaned on the foot of the bed. “Where do you remember to?” he asked.

Kells handed the empty glass to Beery, lay down. “When we got back from the island, I phoned Fenner — and had Bernie get a bottle...”

“Four bottles... And you sucked up three of ’em. I had to practically clip you to get a swallow. You said your leg hurt, and you wanted to get drunk...”

Kells said: “Sure, I remember...”

“You did.”

Beery chuckled. “Uh-huh,” he said. “You did.”

“Then when we got you into the hotel,” Borg went on, “an’ into bed, you started having the screaming heebies, and the Doc give you a shot in the arm — so you got worse...” Kells smiled faintly. His eyes were closed.

“The Doc was running around in circles wringing his hands because he thought the leg was going to gangrene or something. You started roaring for more M, and then when I left you alone for a minute you got up and found a tube of Hyoscine someplace, and a needle...” Borg paused, straightened up, and finished disgustedly: “And I’ll be goddamned if you didn’t shoot the whole bloody tube!”

Beery said: “Then you began to get really violent — tried to do a hundred an’ eight out the window, wanted to walk across the ceiling — things like that. We smuggled you out of the hotel and brought you over here.”

Kells said: “Give me a drink, Shep.”

He sat up again slowly, took the glass.

“How many days?”

Beery said: “Four.”

Kells drank, laughed.

“Four bottles — four days... Four’s my lucky number.” He squinted at Borg. “Once I bet four yards on a four-to-one shot in a fourth race on the Fourth of July...” He handed the glass to Beery, sank back on the pillow. “My horse came in fourth.”

Borg snorted, turned and went into the bathroom. Kells looked around the room again. “Nice joint,” he said. “How much am I paying for it?”

“I don’t know.” Beery lighted a cigarette. “Fenner has some kind of lien or mortgage or something on the building — he said he’d take care of the details.”

“It was his suggestion — bringing me here?”

Beery nodded.

“Where is he?”

“Long gone. When you told him that Crotti had his confession of the Bellmann kill, he scrammed. I got him on the phone just before he checked out of the Manhattan and he said he’d call over here and fix it for the apartment — said he’d get in touch with you later.”

Kells smiled. “All the big boys... It’s simply a process of elimination. Fenner and Rose gone — Bellmann dead. Now if we can only angle Crotti into committing suicide...” He paused, glanced at Borg coming back into the room. “Did Fat, here, tell you all about the island sequence?”

Borg said: “Sure I told him — all I knew.”

“Crotti propositioned me to come in with him on a big play to organize the whole Coast,” Kells went on. “Will you please tell me why these bastards keep dealing me in, and then figure that if I’m not for ’em I’m against ’em? First Rose — but that was an out-and-out frame; then Fenner thought he and I’d make a great team. Now, Crotti — and the funny part of that one is I think he was on the square about wanting me with him.”

Beery said: “It must be the way you wear your clothes.”

“Sure. It’s just your natural charm.” Borg made a wry face, went back to the table and began laying out solitaire.

“Of course Crotti’s got the right idea about organization.” Kells rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “But the fun in an organization is being head man.”

Beery said: “The other night at Fenner’s, when you were putting on that act for his sidekick Gowdy, you said you had some friends on the way out here. Was that a gag?”

“Certainly. I wanted to impress Gowdy with my importance to his outfit. You can get my friends in the East into a telephone booth.”

“Well, if Crotti says war” — Beery got up and went over to one of the rain-swept windows — “we’re sitting pretty...”

“Uh-huh.” Borg looked up at Kells. “In a pig’s eye. We three, an’ whatever strong-arm strength Gowdy swings — and that doesn’t amount to a hell of a lot...”

“And against us...” Beery turned from the window, stuck his hands deep in his pockets. “There’s all Crotti’s mob — and that’s supposed to be the best in the country. There’s Rose, with his syndicate behind him, and all the loogans he’s imported from back East. There’s the Bellmann outfit — they weren’t very efficient when they blew up the print shop the other day, but you can’t figure from that—”

“And by God! — most of them are in uniform,” Borg interrupted. Beery smiled faintly, nodded. “Uh-huh,” he said. “We’re in a swell spot.”

Kells was staring at the ceiling. He said: “Now’s a good time to get out.”

Beery looked at Borg; Borg took a toothpick out of his vest pocket, stuck it in his mouth and went back to his solitaire.

“I didn’t mean that,” Beery said. “Only, what are we going to do?”

“Get out.” Kells’ eyes were fixed blankly on the ceiling. “I’ve been pretty lucky up to now. Partly because everybody that’s been against me has figured that the inside would get a big press spread if anything serious happened to me.”

He looked at Beery. “Through you — spread through you, I mean. That doesn’t make it very safe for you.”

Beery was looking at the floor. “The luck’s beginning to run out,” Kells went on. “I dropped all the dough I’d made since I’ve been out here, on the island — because I was dumb enough to get heroic about that bitch Granquist — and she was Crotti’s plant all the time...”

Beery said: “You didn’t tell me about that.”

“I’m telling you now. She was sent out here by Crotti to look things over — start the organization ball rolling.”

“Well, well. Damned clever, these Swedes.” Beery sat down at the table.

No one said anything for a minute. Beery watched Borg play solitaire. Kells’ eyes wandered again to the ceiling.

“You’re absolutely right,” he finally said. “We’d better take a sneak while we’re all in one piece.”

Beery stood up. He went over to the stand by the bed and poured himself a drink. He waved the glass at Kells. He said: “We’ve gone too far — an’ it’s too much fun. We can still smack the Bellmann administration down — and anyway, these bastards don’t know whether we’re strong or not. You’ll be up and around in a couple days — we can count on a hand from Rainey, if we need it...”

Borg was staring at the cards. He said, “Sure,” without looking up.

“No.” Kells shook his head slowly. “It’s too tough — you boys have been a great help, but—”

“Shut up! You can crawl out if you want to, but I’ll stick — I’m having a swell time.” Beery grinned down at Kells then gulped his drink.

Borg looked up, said, “Sure,” quietly. He stood up.

Kells laughed. He glanced at the bottle on the bedstand. “Draw three, Shep.”

They had dinner sent up from Musso-Frank’s, on the Boulevard. Doctor Janis stopped by about nine o’clock.

“Two days,” he said — “two more days at least. Then you can go out for a little while, if you take it easy — on crutches.”

Kells was sweating; his eyes burned and he yawned a great deal. He said: “Maybe I’d better have one more load in the arm, Doc, to sort of taper off on.”

“You’ll taper off on whiskey and milk, young fella — and like it.” The doctor put two small pills on the stand. “If you get too jumpy you can take these before you go to sleep.”

Janis and Beery went out together; Beery was going home. Borg played solitaire for a while, and Kells sat up in bed, tried to read the papers.

Borg said: “Denny Faber is still trailing around with Gilroy.”

“You can call him off — Gilroy ought to be okay by now.”

At eleven Borg stood up, stretched, said: “I’m going bye-bye.” He went into the bedroom — Kells was on the wall bed in the living room. Borg came back in his underwear, got Kells a glass of water, made a pass at tucking him in.

“If you want anything,” he said, “just yell and fire a few shots and throw your shoe through the window. I’m a very light sleeper.”

Kells said he would.

Borg went back into the bedroom, and Kells turned out the lights, tried to sleep. He heard the bell in the big church on Sunset Boulevard strike twelve. Rain drummed against the windows, and the wind was blowing.

Sometime around one, he got up, hobbled into the bath. He scrubbed his teeth and got back to the bed by using a chair for support, hopping slowly on one foot. He took the pills Janis had left, washed them down with whiskey and water. He slept after a while — heavily, dreamlessly.

When he awoke, he lay rigid for a little while listening to rain beat against the windows. Then a voice whispered close to his ear: “Wake up, darling.”

Kells lay very still, turned his eyes toward the darkness. Granquist said: “Wake up — darling.” Kells moved his head until he could see the silhouette of her crouched body against the pale reflected light of the wall.

She spoke rapidly, breathlessly: “Are you all right, darling — can you walk? We’ve got to get out of here right away...”

He smiled a little and raised his head and said: “Will you please go away?...”

She sank to her knees beside the bed and tried to take his head in her arms.

“Please,” she said. “We’ve got to go quickly. Please...”

Kells put her arms away and sat up and pulled the pillow up behind him. “How the hell did you get in?”

“I put on an act for the night man — told him I wanted to surprise you. He came up and let me in with the passkey...”

“Go on — surprise me.”

“Gerry.” Granquist’s eyes were big in the faint light; drops of rain glistened on her small dark hat, her dark close-fitting coat. “I’ve been in an awfully bad spot since you shot up Crotti’s camp. I got away this afternoon when Fenner came out to do business about his confession — Crotti didn’t know anything about it, but he let Fenner think he did...”

“What do you mean, Crotti didn’t know about it?” Kells put his hand on her wrist.

“I got to your coat first — I’ve got Fenner’s confession and his certified check for twenty-five thou — and your cash...”

She clicked open a small handbag, took out a handful of crumpled paper and currency, dropped it on the bed. He looked down at it a little while and then he let his head fall back again against the pillow, bent it slightly down sidewise.

He said: “You’re a strange gal.” He put his hand on her wrist again, held it tightly.

She tried to speak. She got up and walked to the window and then back, sat down on the edge of the bed.

Kells asked: “Why do we have to leave here?”

“Because you haven’t Fenner’s protection any longer — he thinks Crotti has this” — she nodded at the stuff on the bed. “The whole layout is against you now — Crotti, Rose, Fenner, the Bellmann people...”

Kells switched on the lamp beside the bed. He unfolded and smoothed out the sheet of Venice stationery with Fenner’s shakily signed confession.

“We have this,” he said. “Fenner hasn’t played ball — I can stick it into him and break it off. And we’ve got around thirty-five grand. We’re in a swell spot to play both ends against the middle...”

“No, Gerry.” Granquist’s voice was harsh, strained. “Please, no, Gerry — let’s go away, quick. I’m scared...”

Kells was silent a while, looking at her abstractedly.

Then he said: “The middle against both ends, by God!”

He put out one arm and cupped his hand against the back of Granquist’s neck and pulled her to him.

In the morning the sun came out warm, bright.

At about nine-thirty, Borg came out of the bedroom in trousers and a green silk undershirt. Granquist had had things sent up from the commissary, was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. Borg leaned against the side of the door and looked at her, and then he smiled blankly at Kells, said: “Well, well.”

“From now on” — Kells bent his head to one side — “Fenner’s on the other team.”

Borg went to the table and sat down. “I still like your side,” he said, “and I want to pitch.”

“You’re not very bright. See if you can get Faber on the phone — tell him to come up here.”

Borg reached for the phone, dialed a number.

Granquist brought breakfast in on a big tray. There was orange juice and an omelette and toast and coffee. It was all very good.

Borg finally got Faber and talked to him a little while, and then he looked up Woodward’s number in the Dell Building, downtown, dialed it, took the phone to Kells.

Kells said, “Hello,” and asked for Woodward, and then he said: “This is Kells. If you come out to the Miramar Apartments on Franklin and Cherokee, in Hollywood, I think we might do a little business.” He hung up, smiled at Granquist.

“You’ll have to duck while he’s here, baby,” he said. “He’s the undercover legal representative for the Bellmann administration, and you’re still number one suspect for Bellmann’s shooting — you’ll have to lay low till we hang it on Fenner, and make it stick.”

She nodded.

After a little while someone knocked at the door, and Borg got up and let Beery in. Beery threw his hat on a chair, stared with bright, surprised eyes at Granquist, said: “Well — it’s a small world.”

She smiled. “Coffee?”

Beery nodded and Granquist went out into the kitchen.

Kells said: “Fenner went out to see Crotti yesterday.”

Beery sat down, smiled down his nose.

“Now we don’t have to worry about kicking any of our crowd in the tail,” Kells went on, “because we haven’t got any.”

Beery raised his brows, said: “Crowd?”

“Uh-huh — crowd.”

Beery glanced around the room, back to Kells. “Since this joint was Fenner’s suggestion,” he said, “wouldn’t it be a swell time to move?”

Kells shook his head slowly. “What for? Any of ’em can find me if they want me — and they’ll all be wanting to before long. This is as good a spot as any...”

Granquist came in with coffee and toast on a small tray. Beery stood up, bowed, took the tray and sat down.

Kells said: “I’m going to turn on the heat, Shep — only this time I’m going to make it pay. It’s been for fun up to now — now it’s for dough.”

Borg was playing solitaire at the table. He looked up and said “Hooray,” dryly.

“The lady” — Kells inclined his head towards Granquist — “picked up all the stuff I lost at Crotti’s. Fenner thinks Crotti’s got his confession, but I’ve got it — and Fenner’s going to find out about that. So is Woodward, who ought to be willing to give his eye teeth — and the mayor’s eye teeth — for it as soon as he finds out what it is. He’s on his way up here now.”

Beery lighted a cigarette.

“They can both buy it,” Kells went on, “and for plenty.” He turned to Borg. “See if you can get Hanline at the Manhattan.”

Borg picked up the phone, dialed a number.

“You remember Hanline,” Kells said to Beery. “He’s Fenner’s secretary.” Beery nodded.

Borg mumbled into the phone and handed the phone to Kells after a moment.

Kells said: “Hello — Hanline?... Tell that boss of yours that I’ve got the stuff he’s dealing with Crotti about. Tell him that in the next two hours I’m going to sell it to the best offer... He’ll know what I mean... Tell him that the bidding starts at fifty grand, and that he’d better be goddamned quick...”

Kells hung up, grinned at Beery. “Now watch things happen,” he said.

Beery was looking at Granquist. “Where does Miss G get off if you peddle Fenner’s confession back to him? It’s the one thing that leaves her in the clear.”

Kells moved his grin to Granquist. “We’ve figured that out,” he said.

The phone rang and Borg answered it. “Send him up,” he said, and hung up. He said, “Faber,” over his shoulder, went to the door.

Granquist looked questioningly at Kells.

Kells shook his head. “Borg’s running mate,” he said. “I’ll give you twelve guesses where I’m going to send him.”

Faber came in, said hello to Kells and Beery, half nodded to Granquist, and sat down.

Kells said: “Drink?”

“Sure.”

Kells looked at Granquist and she got up and went into the kitchen, came back with a bottle and a glass and handed them to Faber. He poured himself a drink.

Kells said: “Fenner isn’t your boss any longer — how do you like that?”

Faber glanced at Borg. He tipped the glass to his mouth, took it down when it was empty, said: “I like that fine.”

“I want you to go to the Villa Dora out on Harper” — Kells looked up at Borg — “your car’s still here, isn’t it?”

Borg said: “Yeah.”

“Take the car,” Kells went on, “and hang on the front of that place until you see three big pigskin keesters go in and find out which apartment they go to. I don’t know who’ll have them, but there’ll be three — and they’ll probably come up in a closed Chrysler.”

Faber said: “Uh-huh.” He picked up the bottle and poured himself another drink. He looked at Beery, then at the rest of them quickly. “Anybody else?”

Beery nodded; Granquist went out and got another glass.

Kells said: “Call here pronto — but I mean pronto. Spot a phone, and call here the minute you connect. We’ll be over right away and pick you up.”

Faber nodded, drank. He put down his glass and stood up. “Villa Dora — that’s below Sunset Boulevard isn’t it?”

Beery said: “Yes — between Sunset and Fountain.”

Kells was looking out the window. “They’ll probably come in between two this afternoon and nine tonight. You’d better get something to eat before you go out.”

Faber said: “Okay.” He put on his hat and said, “So long,” and went out.

Beery smiled at Kells. “Are you going mysterious on me?”

“Those three cases are full of cocaine” — Kells was looking at Granquist — “according to my steer. A hundred and fifteen thousand dollars’ worth — and there’s a hundred and fifteen thousand dollars in cash waiting for them some place in the Villa Dora. It’s Crotti’s stuff, and I have a hunch Max Hesse is on the buying end. I don’t want the junk — I want the dough.”

Beery stood up. He said: “Gerry — you’re losing your mind. When you buck Crotti you’re bucking a machine. They’ll have a dozen guns trained on that deal — every angle figured—”

Granquist interrupted: “He’s right, Gerry — you can’t...”

“What do you think about it?” Kells was staring morosely at Borg.

Borg put a black ten on a red Jack. “It’d be a nice lick,” he said.

Kells put his leg down carefully, stood up. He held out his arm to Beery. “Give me a hand, Shep,” he said.

Beery helped him across the room.

When Kells came back, Borg said: “The Doc called. He says he’s sending over some crutches for you — an’ for you to keep off that leg.”

Beery helped Kells back to the big chair. He sat down and put his leg up on the other chair, muttered: “I don’t want any goddamned crutches.”

Then he turned his head to smile at Granquist. “Isn’t it about time you brought us all a drink, baby?”

Granquist got up and went into the kitchen.

Kells asked: “What time is it?”

Beery was standing beside Kells’ chair. He glanced at his watch, held it down for Kells to see: eleven-five.

At eleven-twenty, Woodward was announced. Granquist went into the bedroom and closed the door, and Borg let Woodward in.

Woodward’s eyes were excited behind wide-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses. He bowed nervously to Beery and Borg, sat down in the chair near Kells at Kells’ invitation.

“How would you like to buy the originals of all the dirt on Bellmann?” Kells began.

Woodward smiled faintly. “We’ve discussed that before Mister Kells,” he said. “I’m afraid it’s too late to do anything about it now — your Coast Guardian has published several of the pictures and the story...”

Kells said: “You can doctor the negatives and claim they’re forgeries — and I can give you additional information with which you can prove that the whole thing was a conspiracy to blackmail Bellmann.”

Woodward pursed his lips. He glanced at Beery, said: “Don’t you think we might discuss this alone, Mister Kells?”

Kells shook his head shortly.

“In addition to all that,” he went on “the pictures and the information — I can give you” — he paused, leaned forward slightly — “absolute proof that L.D. Fenner shot Bellmann.”

Woodward’s eyes widened a little. He leaned back in his chair and wet his lips, stared at Kells as if he wasn’t quite sure that he had heard correctly.

“L.D. Fenner killed Bellmann,” Kells repeated slowly. He took a crumpled piece of paper out of the breast pocket of his dressing gown, straightened it out and tossed it on Woodward’s lap.

Woodward picked it up and held it close to his face, put his hand up and adjusted his glasses. He put the paper back on the arm of Kells’ chair in a little while. He cleared his throat, said: “Who is Beery, who witnessed Fenner’s signature with you?”

Kells inclined his head towards Beery, who was sitting at the table watching Borg’s solitaire.

Woodward said: “How much do you want?”

“Plenty.” Kells picked up the piece of paper, held it by a corner. He grinned at Beery. “It’s lousy theater,” he said. “The ‘incriminating confession’” — he said it melodramatically. “All we need is the Old Homestead, some papier-mâché snow, and a couple of bloodhounds.”

“And you ought to have a black mustache.” Beery looked up, smiled.

Woodward said: “As I told you — my, uh — people are pressed for cash.”

“I don’t give a damn how pressed they are. They can do business with me now — big business — and get their lousy administration out of the hole, or they can start packing to move out of City Hall. This is the last call...”

Woodward started to speak and then the phone rang. Borg answered it, put his hand over the transmitter, nodded to Kells. Then he got up and brought the phone over.

Kells said: “Hello... Wait a minute — I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

He spoke to Woodward: “In case you’re figuring this for a plant, I want you to talk to this guy. You’d know Fenner’s voice, wouldn’t you?”

Woodward nodded. He took the phone from Kells, hesitantly said: “Hello.”

Kells reached over and took the phone back. He spoke into it, smiled at Woodward, and said: “Hello, Lee... That was Mister Woodward, a big buyer from downtown... Uh-huh... Now don’t get excited, Lee — we haven’t made a deal yet... Why don’t you come on over?... Yes — and bring plenty of cash — it starts at fifty grand... Okay, make it snappy.”

He hung up, stared vacantly at Woodward’s cravat.

“Now I’m not going to argue with you,” he said. “You heard what I told Fenner. You’d better get going — first here, first served.”

Woodward stood up. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. He put on his hat, nodded to Beery and Borg and started towards the door.

Kells said: “And don’t get ideas. If you come back here with the law, and try to hang a ‘conspiracy to defeat justice’ rap on me, I’ll swear that the whole goddamned thing is a lie — and so will my gentlemen friends.” He jerked his head at Beery and Borg.

Woodward had turned to listen. He nodded, then turned again and went out and closed the door.

Kells said: “This is going to be a lot of fun, even if it doesn’t work.”

“You said something about being all washed up with the fun angle...” Beery got up and poured himself a drink. “You said something about being out for the dough.”

“Watch it work.” Kells leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

Fenner put thirty thousand-dollar notes on the arm of Kells’ chair. Kells took the piece of crumpled paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to Fenner, and Fenner unfolded it and looked at it and then took a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and touched the flame to a corner of the paper.

Kells said: “Now get out of here while you’re all together.” He said it very quietly.

They were alone in the room.

Fenner said: “What could I do, Gerry? I had to go to Crotti when you told me he had this.” He put the last charred corner of paper in an ashtray. “It took me a couple days to get to him — I was damned near crazy...”

“Right.” Kells moved his head slowly up and down and his expression was not pleasant. “You were plenty crazy when you offered Crotti my scalp.”

Fenner stood up. He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking out the window for a minute, then he turned and started towards the door.

“I’ll give you a tip, L.D.,” Kells’ voice was low, and he stared with hard cold eyes at Fenner. “Take it on the lam — quick.”

Fenner opened his mouth and then he closed it, swallowed.

He said: “Why — what do you mean?”

Kells didn’t answer; he stared at Fenner coldly. Fenner stood there a little while and then he turned and went out. Borg and Granquist came out of the kitchen.

Kells said: “Thirty. I wonder if we’ll do as well with Woodward. These guys don’t seem to take me seriously when I talk about fifty thousand. Maybe it’s the depression.”

At a few minutes after one, Woodward telephoned.

The crutches that Janis had called about had been delivered, and Kells was practicing walking with them. He put them down, sat down at the table and took the phone from Borg.

He said, “Hello,” and then listened with an occasional affirmative grunt. After a minute or so he said, “All right — make it fast,” and hung up.

He grinned at Granquist. “Twenty more,” he said. “Up to now it’s been a swell day’s work. If we get it...”

Borg said: “Do you mind letting me in on how the hell you’re going to sell this thing to Woodward when you’ve already sold it to Fenner?”

Kells took two more pieces of creased crumpled paper from his pocket, tossed them on the table in front of Borg.

Borg looked at the two, smiled slowly. “How about making them up in gross lots?” he said.

Kells inclined his head towards Granquist. “The lady’s work,” he said. “She used to be in the business — she went over to the Venice early this morning and snagged the letterheads.”

Granquist was sitting in the big chair by the window. Kells picked up the two pieces of paper and put them back in his pocket, got up and hobbled over to her, sat down on the arm of the chair.

“God! You’re awfully quiet, baby,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

She looked up at him and her eyes were frightened.

“I want to go — I want us to go,” she said huskily. “Something awful’s going to happen...”

Kells put his arm around her head, pulled it close against his chest.

“If we get the twenty from Woodward,” he said very quietly — “and the big stuff from Crotti, it’ll make almost two hundred grand—”

“We’ve got enough,” she broke in. “Let’s go, Gerry — please.”

He sat without moving or speaking for a little while, staring out the window at the brightness of the sun. Then he got up and went back to the table and took up the phone and asked the operator to get him the Sante Fe ticket office.

When the connection had been made, he said: “I want to make reservations on the Chief, tomorrow evening — a drawing room — two...”

Granquist had turned. She said: “Tonight! Gerry.”

Kells smiled at her a little. He shook his head and said: “Yes... Kells, Miramar Apartments in Hollywood — send them out.”

Then he hung up and reached across the table for the bottle and glasses, poured drinks. He raised his glass.

“Here’s to Crime — and the Chief tomorrow night.”

Granquist got up and came to the table and picked up one of the glasses. She said, “Hey, hey,” and smiled across the table at Kells.

There was a knock at the outer door and Granquist went into the bedroom, and Borg got up and let Woodward in.

Woodward was very nervous. He put two neat sheafs of thousandand five-hundred-dollar notes on the table, said: “There you are, sir.”

Kells tossed one of the forged confessions across the table and slid one of the thousand-dollar notes out of the sheaf, examined it carefully.

Woodward said: “And the other things — the pictures and things?...”

“They’re downtown. I’ll call Beery to turn them over to you — at the Howard Hotel.”

Woodward nodded. He went over to the window and adjusted his glasses, peered closely at the paper. He turned to say something and then there was a sharp sound and glass tinkled on the floor. Woodward stood with his mouth open a little while, then his legs buckled under him slowly and he fell down and stretched one arm out and took hold of the bottom of one of the drapes. He rolled his head once back and forth, and his glasses came off and stuck out at an angle from the side of his head. His eyes were open, staring.

Kells said: “Well...”

Borg was half-standing. He moved his arm and very deliberately put the cards down on the table. Then he straightened and moved toward Woodward’s body.

Kells said: “Don’t go near the window, sap.”

Granquist came into the bedroom door and stood with one hand up to her face, staring at Woodward.

Borg said: “It must have been from that joint.” He pointed through the window to the tall apartment house halfway down the block.

Kells stood up. “Bring me my clothes,” he said.

Granquist didn’t move. She stood staring at Woodward blankly. “

Bring me my clothes,” Kells said gently.

Borg went swiftly to the bedroom door, past Granquist into the bedroom. He came back almost immediately with a tangled mass of clothes under his arm. He held a short blunt revolver in one hand, down straight at his side.

Granquist went to a chair against one wall and picked up her coat and put it on. She went to the table and stood with both hands on the table, leaning forward a little.

Kells sat down and took his clothes from Borg, one piece at a time, put them on.

The phone rang.

Kells picked it up, said: “Hello... Shep — we’re shoving off. Woodward’s just been shot — through the window, from the roof of the place next door... Uh-huh. And he paid off with marked bills, so there’s probably someone waiting outside to make a pinch... Maybe some of Crotti’s boys tailed Fenner — your guess is as good as mine... Call me in a half hour at the Lancaster. If I’m not there I’ll be in jail — or on a slab... Hell! No. Let ’em find him... ’Bye.”

He hung up, finished dressing rapidly. He got up and limped to one side of the big window and pulled the cord that closed the drapes. Woodward’s hand was clenched on the bottom of one of the drapes and it moved a little as the drape closed. The paper had fallen, lay a little way from his other hand.

Kells stood looking down at Woodward for a minute, then he went to the table and picked up the two thin stacks of money and put them in his pocket. Granquist said, “My God, Gerry — don’t take them if they’re marked.”

He glanced at her and smiled with one side of his mouth. “Let’s go,” he said.

Borg had gone back into the bedroom. He came into the doorway and he had put on his shirt and coat; he went to a mirror near the outer door and put on his hat.

Granquist stooped and picked up the crutches.

Kells shook his head, said: “My leg feels swell.”

They went out into the corridor.

There was a man standing near the elevators but he paid no attention to them, entered one of the elevators while they were still halfway down the hall.

They waited a minute or so, got into the same elevator when it came back up. It was automatic — Kells pushed the sub-basement button.

He said: “Maybe...”

Borg watched the sixth floor go by through the little wired-glass window. “The basement is as good a hunch as any,”he said. “There’s a garage with a driveway out onto Cherokee. Maybe we can promote a car — or if we can get down to Highland, to the cab stand...”

“Why didn’t you call a cab?” Granquist was leaning back in a corner of the elevator.

Kells looked at her vacantly, as if he hadn’t heard.

“Maybe this is a lot of hooey,” he said — “maybe we’re a cinch. But if that was Crotti” — he gestured with his head up toward the apartment — “he’ll have a dozen beads on the place.”

The elevator stopped and they went into a dark corridor, down to a door to the garage. There was a tall man with a very small mustache asleep in a big car near the archway that led out into Cherokee. He woke up when Borg stepped on the running board.

Borg asked: “How’re chances of renting a car?”

The man rubbed his eyes, climbed out and stood between Kells and Borg. He said: “Sure. I got a Buick an’ I got a Chrysler.”

“Are either of them closed?” Kells leaned on Granquist’s shoulder, winked at Borg meaningly.

The man said: “Yeah — the Buick.”

He went towards a car five down the line from the one he had been sleeping in.

Kells said: “That’ll do. How much deposit do you want?”

“You want a driver?”

“No.”

Borg opened one rear door of the car and helped Granquist in. The man said: “No deposit if you live here. It’s two an’ a quarter an hour.”

“Maybe we’ll be out all night — you’d better take this.” Kells gave the man two bills, got in through the front door carefully. He put his leg out straight under the dashboard.

Borg went around to the other side and squeezed in behind the wheel. He pressed the starter, and the man reached in and pulled the choke and the engine roared. Borg scowled at the man and pushed the choke back in. They swung in a wide circle out through the archway into the sunlight.

Kells turned and spoke sharply to Granquist: “Lie down on the seat.”

She muttered something unintelligible and lay down on her side across the back seat.

They turned swiftly down Cherokee, and a spurt of flame came out of a close-curtained limousine to meet them, lead thudded, bit into the side of the car. Borg stepped on the throttle, they plunged forward, past.

Kells looked back at Granquist. She was lying with her eyes tightly closed and her face was very white. He put one arm back towards her and she rose suddenly to her knees, put her hands on his shoulder.

He smiled. “We’re all right, baby,” he said softly. “They build these cars in Detroit — that’s machinegun country.”

Borg was crouched over the wheel. He spoke out of the side of his mouth: “Are they coming?”

Kells was looking back, shook his head. “They’re turning around — they were parked the wrong way.”

Granquist slid back to the seat.

They turned west on Yucca to Highland, jogged up Highland to Franklin, turned west on Franklin. They stopped between Sycamore and La Brea a little while and watched through the glass oval in the back of the car; the limousine had evidently been lost.

Borg got out and looked at the side of the car.

“It must have jammed,” he said. “Four little holes, and a nick on one of the headlights. One of ’em missed the carburetor by about an inch — that was a break.”

Kells said: “Let’s go over and see how Faber is making out.”

Kells was leaning back in his seat. “So they’re finally getting around to machineguns...” He straightened and glanced back at Granquist. “Now we know it’s Crotti. Maybe...”

She nodded. “I think I remember that black car,” she said. “It’s one he’s been using out of Long Beach.”

“Let’s go over and see how Faber is making out,” Kells said.

Borg climbed back into the car and they went on up Franklin to La Brea and down La Brea to Fountain. At the corner of Fountain and Harper they parked under a big pepper tree.

Kells turned around and spoke to Granquist: “You take this car — you can drive it, can’t you? — and go down to the Lancaster and wait for us.” He reached into his pocket, fished out a key. “Go up to my room and pack all the stuff that isn’t already packed. Call up the Santa Fe and tell ’em to send the reservations there. If we get everything cleaned up tonight, we’ll drive down to San Bernardino and lay low tomorrow and get the Chief out of there tomorrow night.”

Kells and Borg got out of the car, and Granquist climbed over into the front seat. She said, “Be careful,” without looking at Kells, and there was something resigned and a little bitter in the way she said it. She shifted gears and let the clutch in a little way and the car moved ahead.

Kells said: “Beery’ll be calling in a little while. Tell him to come up to the hotel as soon as he can.”

Granquist nodded without turning and the car moved ahead swiftly.

Kells and Borg crossed to the west side of Harper and walked slowly up towards Sunset Boulevard. Kells’ limp was pronounced.

Borg asked: “How is it?” He ducked his head towards Kells’ leg.

“All right.”

They went slowly and without speaking up Harper, and a little way below the Villa Dora, Faber stuck his head out of Borg’s car. They went over to it and Kells got into the tonneau and sat down; Borg stood outside, leaned on the front door.

Faber said: “Nothing yet.”

Kells sat for several minutes staring absently at a long scratch on the back of the front seat. Then he said: “Let’s go in and see what we can find.” He leaned forward.

Faber lifted the flap of the right side pocket, slipped a black Luger out onto the seat beside him. He turned and looked at Kells and nodded at the gun. Kells said, “Yes,” absently, and reached over and took the gun and stuck it into the waistband of his trousers, pulled the points of his vest down over it.

“We’re going in to try to find a hundred and fifteen grand in cash,” he said. “I don’t know who’s got it — we’ll have to try the mailboxes and see if we can get a lead.”

Borg said: “We probably won’t.”

Kells opened the door and started to get out.

“Why don’t you wait here and I’ll see if I can find anything?” Borg took a light-colored cigar out of his outer breast pocket and bit off the end.

Kells looked at him a moment sleepily, nodded, and sat down.

Borg went up the street and disappeared into the Villa Dora. He was back in a few minutes with a soiled envelope on which he had scrawled the names of all the occupants.

Kells took it, looked at it, and asked: “Are you sure this is all?”

“Yeah.” Borg nodded. “It’s a big joint, but I guess the apartments are big too — there are only twelve mailboxes.”

Kells studied the names. Then he said: “MacAlmon — that’s Bellmann’s silksock ward heeler. I thought he lived in Beverly Hills.” He stared at the envelope. “That’d be a tricky piece of business — if MacAlmon was go-between on the white stuff. I can figure his tie-up with Max Hesse — if Hesse is really the buyer — but how the hell would Crotti get to him?”

Faber looked interested at the mention of Crotti’s name. He said: “Maybe this would be more fun for me if I knew what it was all about.”

Borg said: “Crotti’s delivering a load of C, and the hundred and fifteen we want to locate is what somebody up there” — he jerked his head towards the apartment house — “has got to pay for it with.”

“Oh.” Faber turned to Kells. “Count me out — I don’t want any part of Crotti.”

Kells smiled slowly. He said: “Okay.”

Faber started to get out of the car and then he looked at Kells’ hands; Kells had slipped the Luger out of his waistband, was holding it loosely on his lap.

Borg said: “Aw for God’s sake, cut it out.” He looked from Kells to Faber.

Kells was smiling faintly at Faber. He said very seriously: “Your cut is ten grand. You’ve got one coming now — an’ you can have it, but you’ll have to stick around until this is over.” He put his hand into his pocket and slid out a roll of bills, pulled one off and held it towards Faber.

Faber looked at it a little while, then he grinned sourly, said: “Well — if I’ve got to stay I might as well work.” He took the bill, folded it carefully and put it into his watch pocket. “Deal me in — ten grand’ll buy a lot of flowers.”

“Me — I want to be cremated.” Borg was staring soberly into space. “No flowers, but plenty of music.” He glanced at Kells. “You know — Wagner.”

Kells said: “Let’s go and see if Mister MacAlmon is in.”

He and Faber got out of the car and they all went up the street and into the Villa Dora.

Mister MacAlmon was in. He stood in the middle of his big, highceilinged living room with his hands in the air.

Kells said: “I’m sorry about this. I haven’t anything against you or Hesse — if Hesse is in with you on it. But I’ve got plenty against Crotti, and plenty against your whole bloody combination. I’ve been out here five or six months and I’ve been double-crossed to death. I’m goddamned tired of it — and I need the dough.”

MacAlmon was almost as tall as Kells. His thick brown hair was combed straight back from a high narrow forehead, and his eyes were dark, sharp.

He said: “This is plain robbery. How far do you think you’re going to get with it?”

“Don’t be silly,” Kells looked at the stack of currency on the table. “I’ll have the Federal narcotic squad on their way out here in two minutes — and I’ll see that you’re here when they get here. Then all they’ll have to do is wait for the stuff to come in. When you’re pinched on a dope deal that’s this big, see who you can get to listen to a squawk about money.”

Borg was leaning against the outer door, spinning the blunt revolver around his forefinger. Faber had waited outside.

Kells went to the telephone on a low round table, picked it up. “I’ve never called ‘copper’ on anybody in my life,” he said. “But here it is...” He spun the dial.

MacAlmon put his hands down. He said: “Wait a minute.” He sat down in a big chair and leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. He looked at Kells and his face was flushed and he tried very hard to smile. “Wait a minute.”

Kells said into the telephone: “Information — what’s the number of the Federal Building?” He waited a moment and then said, “Thank you,” pressed the receiver down with his thumb.

MacAlmon said: “How would you like to make twenty-five more?” He inclined his head towards the money on the table.

“This is enough.” Kells shook his head. “All I want is a fair price for the time I’ve put in. This is it.”

MacAlmon leaned back in the chair. “The stuff that’s being delivered here this afternoon is worth exactly twice what’s being paid for it, to me — my people,” he said. “I don’t care who gets the money — if you’ll hold off until the transfer has been made and the stuff is in my possession, I’ll give you a twenty-five grand bonus.”

Kells said: “No.”

Someone knocked at the door.

Borg pressed his lips together and let his eyelids droop, shook his head sadly. He held the blunt black revolver loosely in his hand and looked at Kells.

Kells framed the word, “Faber,” with his lips. Borg kept on shaking his head. Kells took the Luger out of his belt and crossed the room and stood close to the wall; he nodded slightly to Borg.

Crotti and two other men came in. One of the men was carrying a big pigskin kitbag; one carried two. Crotti looked at MacAlmon and then he turned his head and looked at Borg. He hadn’t seen Kells. The man with one bag put it down on the floor, straightened. Borg closed the door.

Kells said: “Hello.”

The man who had been carrying one bag took one step sidewise towards Borg. At the same time he jerked an automatic out of a shoulder holster, sank to one knee and swung the automatic up toward Borg. Borg’s gun roared twice.

Crotti had taken two or three steps forward. His head was turned towards Kells and his black wide-set eyes were big, his thick red mouth hung a little open.

The man with two bags still stood just inside the door. His small face was entirely expressionless; he bent his knees slowly and put down the bags. The other man looked up at Borg and his face was soft and childlike and surprised; then he toppled over on his side.

MacAlmon was standing up.

Kells moved toward Crotti.

Borg was standing, staring at Crotti, and his revolver was focused on Crotti, and then he moved suddenly forward, very swiftly for a fat man, and took the revolver barrel in his left hand and swung the gun back and brought it down hard on the back of Crotti’s head. Crotti was still looking at Kells. His eyes went dull and he fell down very hard.

The man with two bags had turned and put his hand on the doorknob. Kells said, “Hey,” and the man turned and stood with his back against the door.

Kells went to the door swiftly and reached past the man and turned the key in the lock and took it out and put it in his pocket. He went back to the table and put down the Luger, scooped the money up and stuffed it into his pockets. He glanced at MacAlmon, indicated the three kitbags with his eyes.

“Now you’ve got it. What are you going to do with it?”

MacAlmon was staring down at Crotti. Borg was watching the man at the door.

Kells said: “We’re off.”

Borg went to the man at the door and patted his pockets, felt under his arms.

They went out through the kitchen, out through the service entrance into the hall. They heard someone pounding at the front door as they went out. They went down the hall, down the back stairs and out a side door to a small patio. At the street side of the patio, Borg stood on a bench and looked over the wall. He shook his head and stepped down and said: “The son of a bitch is gone.”

Kells said: “Maybe we can get through to the next street.”

They went to the other end of the patio and through a gate to a kind of alleyway that led down to Fountain. They went down the alleyway and turned west on Fountain. They went into a drugstore on the corner and Kells drank a Coca-Cola while Borg called a cab.

While they were waiting for the cab, Kells bought some aspirin, swallowed two tablets.

Borg said: “That’s just a habit. That junk don’t do you no good.”

Kells nodded absently.

In a little while the cab came along.

Kells and Granquist and Beery and Borg sat in Kells’ room at the Lancaster.

“Here’s the laugh of the season...” Beery tilted his chair back against the wall. “The apartment at the Miramar was in Fenner’s name. We had the maid service cut out — none of the help ever saw you there...”

Kells finished his drink, put the glass on a table.

Beery went on like a headline: “Fenner is being sought for questioning in connection with the Woodward murder.”

Borg chuckled.

“And, of course, there’s an indictment out for him for Bellmann’s shooting on the strength of the confession they found on Woodward.” Beery tilted his chair forward, reached for his glass. “The Woodward one is now being blurbed as ‘The Through the Window Murder.’”

Kells asked: “Who found the body?”

“Some glass from the window fell down into the driveway and somebody went up to find out who was carrying on.”

Granquist said: “There must be something there they can trace to us.” She didn’t look very happy. She tipped her glass.

Kells glanced at her, grinned at Beery. “Miss Pollyanna G will now recite—”

She interrupted him: “Let’s go, Gerry — please...” She stood up.

Kells said: “Buy us all a drink, baby.”

He spoke to Beery: “Of course they can reach us. Woodward must have had someone standing by to go into the marked money act — I’d swear those bills are marked.” He got up and went towards the desk and said over his shoulder, “They can trace us through Doc Janis — or telephone calls — or something.”

Beery shook his head. “They’ll be tickled to death to hang the whole thing on Fenner.”

“Do you think they’ll be so tickled they’ll drop the case against me entirely?” Granquist turned from the table, came towards them with three tall glasses between her hands.

Kells said: “Shep and I will find out about that in about a half hour.”

“And we’ll find out what happened at MacAlmon’s after you left.” Beery stood up and took his drink from Granquist.

There was a knock at the door.

Granquist froze, with a glass held out towards Borg. Beery opened the door and a porter came in.

He smiled, nodded to Kells. “You want your luggage to go down, sir?”

Kells said: “Yes. The trunk’s to go on the Chief tomorrow night. Put the other stuff where we can load it into a car.”

The porter said: “Yes, sir.” He tilted the trunk and dragged it out through the door. Beery went back and sat down.

Borg had taken his drink from Granquist. He said: “What I want to know is how the hell am I going to get my automobile.”

Kells turned from the desk. “Will you please stop wailing about that wreck of yours?” he said. He held out a singly folded sheaf of bills and Borg reached up and took it.

Kells went back to his chair and sat down. He tossed another sheaf of bills in Beery’s lap.

Beery looked down at it for a moment and then he picked it up and stuck it in his pocket. He said: “Thanks, Gerry.”

Granquist gave Kells a tall glass and he tipped it to his mouth. “Stirrup cup.”

They all drank.

The porter came back into the room, loaded himself down with hand luggage, and went out.

Kells said: “We’re all in a swell spot. The baby here” — he nodded towards Granquist — “is still wanted for Bellmann’s murder — maybe. You, Shep, and I have got to go down and okay our signatures on Fenner’s confession — and maybe they’ll want to talk to me about Woodward, or what happened at MacAlmon’s. And if there’s been any squawk from MacAlmon’s they’ll be looking for Fat.” He grinned at Borg.

Beery took a long envelope out of his inside coat pocket, turned it over several times on his lap. “If this doesn’t square any beef they can figure,” he said, “I’m a watchmaker.”

The porter came back into the room and took up the last of the hand luggage. He said, “Shall I put these things into a cab, sir?” Kells nodded. They all finished their drinks and went out to the elevator, down to the cab stand.

They took two cabs. Kells and Beery got into the first one. Granquist and Borg got into another, and all the hand luggage was put in with them. Kells told the driver of the second cab to keep about a half-block behind them when they stopped downtown.

Then he went back to the other cab and got in with Beery and said: “Police Station.”

Beery signed the affidavit and pushed it across the desk to Kells.

Captain Larson blew his nose. He said: “You understand you both will be witnesses for the state when we get Fenner?”

Kells nodded.

“An’ this Granquist girl — she’s a material witness too.” The captain widened his watery blue eyes at Beery, leaned far back in his swivel chair.

Kells read the affidavit carefully, signed.

Larson said: “What do you know about the Woodward business?”

“Nothing.” Kells put his elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand, stared at Larson expressionlessly. “I lost Fenner’s confession shortly after it was signed — before I could use it. Woodward evidently got hold of it some way and was trying to peddle it back to Fenner.”

“If Fenner was in his place at the Miramar when Woodward was shot, how come he left the confession there?” Larson was looking out the window, spoke as if to himself.

Kells shook his head slowly.

Larson said: “I suppose you know you’re tied up with all this enough for me to hold you.” He said it very quietly, kept looking out the window.

Kells smiled a little, was silent.

Beery leaned across the desk. “Fenner killed Bellmann,” he said. “That’s a swell break for the administration. It’d be even a better break if all the dirt on Bellmann that the Coast Guardian published was proven to be fake — wouldn’t it?”

Larson turned from the window. He took a big handkerchief out of his pocket, blew his nose violently, nodded.

Beery took the long envelope out of his pocket and put it on the desk and shoved it slowly across to Larson.

“Here are the originals of the photographs and a couple letters. You can burn ’em up and then defy the Coast Guardian people to produce them — or you can have ’em doctored so they’ll look like phoneys.”

Larson looked down at the envelope. He asked: “Who are the Coast Guardian people?”

Kells smiled, said: “Me — I’m them.”

Larson slit the envelope, glanced at its contents. Then he put the envelope in the top drawer of his desk and stood up. Kells and Beery stood up too. Larson reached across the desk and shook hands with them. They went out of the office, downstairs.

Kells said: “It looks like MacAlmon hasn’t squawked — maybe he got away with the junk after all.”

They passed the Reporters’ Room and Beery said: “Wait a minute — maybe I can find out.” He went in and telephoned and came out, shook his head. “Nothing yet.”

Their cab was across the street. Kells looked up First Street to where the cab that Granquist and Borg were in had been parked on the other side of Hill Street. It had gone.

He stood there a moment looking up First, then he said, “Come on,” and they crossed the street. “What happened to the other cab?” Kells asked the driver.

The driver shook his head. “I don’t know. It was there a minute ago, an’ then I looked up an’ it was gone.”

Kells got into the cab, stared through the open door at Beery. His face was hard and white. “We were going to an auto-rental joint over on Los Angeles Street and hire a car and driver to take us down to San Bernardino. But she didn’t know the address — they couldn’t have gone over there.”

Beery said: “Maybe they were in a ‘no parking’ zone and had to go around the block.”

A short gray-haired man came out on the steps of the Police Station and called across to Beery: “Telephone, Shep — says it’s important.”

Beery ran across the street and Kells got out of the cab and followed as fast as he could. That wasn’t very fast; his leg was hurting pretty badly. When he went into the Reporters’ Room, Beery was standing at a telephone, jiggling the hook up and down savagely, yelling at the operator to trace the call. Then he said: “All right — hurry it. This is the Police Station,” hung up and looked at Kells.

The man who had called Beery to the phone glanced at them and then got up and went out into the hall.

They looked at one another silently for a moment and Beery sat down on one of the little desks. He said: “They’ve got her.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know — Crotti and MacAlmon I guess. You’re supposed to do business with MacAlmon...”

“What do you mean, business?” Kells was standing by one of the windows, his mouth curved in a hard and mirthless grin.

“They want their hundred and fifteen, and they want it quick. I don’t know who I talked to — I couldn’t place the voice. He said the price goes up twenty-five grand a day — and they’ll send you one of her teeth every day, just to remind you...”

Kells laughed. He looked out the window and laughed without moving his head, and the sound was cold and dry and rattling. He said: “To hell with it. Where did those saps get the idea that she means that much to me? All she’s given me is a lot of grief — I don’t want any part of her.”

Beery sat staring at Kells with a very faint smile on his lips.

“I’m in the clear — I’ve got mine. I’m going.” Kells went unsteadily towards the door and then he turned and held out his hand towards Beery. Beery stood up and took his hand and shook it gravely.

Kells said: “Why, goddamn it, Shep — she’s double-crossed me a half dozen times. How do I know this isn’t another one of those trick Scandinavian gags of hers? She was Crotti’s gal in the first place...”

Beery nodded slowly. He said: “Sure.”

Kells turned again towards the door. He took two or three steps and then he turned again and limped wearily over to one of the desks, sat down. He sat there for a little while staring into space. Then he said: “See if you can get MacAlmon, Shep.” Beery smiled, picked up the phone.

There were six men in MacAlmon’s big living room at the Villa Dora. Crotti sat sidewise at a desk against one wall, leaned with one elbow on the big pink blotter that covered the desk. His thick red lower lip was thrust out, curved up at the corners in a fixed and meaningless smile.

There were two men sitting in straightbacked chairs on the other side of the room. One was Max Hesse. He was fat, ruddy-cheeked, blond; his suit looked like it might have been cut out of a horse blanket. The other man was dark and slight. He fidgeted a great deal. He had been introduced simply as Carl.

Kells sat in one of the big armchairs near the central table and Beery sat on the edge of the table.

MacAlmon paced from the door to the table, back again.

Kells said: “Certainly not. You haven’t got Granquist here — I haven’t got the dough. Turn her over to me in the open and without any haggling and you can send anyone you want to a spot I’ll give them, with an order from me. They can call you with an okay when they get the money. Then we’ll walk.”

Crotti moved his fixed smile from MacAlmon to Kells. He said: “You are very careful.” The soft slurred impediment in his speech made it sound like a whisper.

Kells nodded without speaking, without looking at him.

Hesse laughed, a high dry cackle.

MacAlmon glanced at Crotti then stopped his pacing, spoke to Kells: “She is here!” He raised his eyes to the balcony that ran across half of one side of the room. He called: “Shorty.”

One of the three doors on the balcony opened and a squat overdressed Filipino came out and leaned on the balustrade. He tipped his bright green velour hat to the back of his head, stared coldly, expressionlessly at MacAlmon.

MacAlmon said: “Bring her down.”

The Filipino went back into the room and then came into the doorway with Granquist.

Her hair was loose, hung in straw-colored and angular disorder over her shoulders. Her eyes were wide, unseeing. A white silk handkerchief had been stuffed into her mouth, and her hands were knotted behind her back.

Kells said: “Take that goddamned gag out of her mouth.” He spoke almost without moving his lips.

Beery stood up.

“I am very sorry.” Crotti spoke sidewise to Kells. “She raised a lot of hell...” He nodded to the Filipino.

The Filipino reached up delicately and flicked the handkerchief out of her mouth by one corner. She caught her breath sharply; her eyes rolled up whitely for a second and then she closed them and swayed sideways with one hip against the balustrade.

Kells stood up slowly.

Crotti said: “Sit down.”

Granquist opened her eyes and turned her head slowly and looked down at Kells. She opened her mouth a little and tried to speak. Then the Filipino took her arm and guided her down the stair, to a low chair between Kells and Crotti. She sank down into it, and the Filipino took a small knife out of his pocket and reached behind her and cut the twisted cord that held her hands. She leaned back and put her hands up to her face.

MacAlmon walked to the door and back.

Crotti asked: “How do you feel, sister?”

Granquist didn’t move or show in any way that she had heard.

Kells sat down in the big chair, and Beery sat down again on the edge of the table.

Kells took a thin black card case out of his pocket and took out a card and spoke over his shoulder to Beery: “Got a pencil?”

MacAlmon had come back from the door and was standing near Kells. He took a silver pencil out of his vest pocket, handed it to him. Hesse got up and went out into the kitchen and came back with a glass of water and put it down on the arm of Granquist’s chair. He tapped her shoulder, smiled down at her. She took her hands away from her face for a moment and stared blankly up at him, then she put her hands back over her eyes.

“How many men have you got outside?” Kells glanced at Crotti.

Crotti wasn’t smiling any more. His wide-set eyes were very serious.

He said: “Two — one car.” He took a dark green cigar out of his breast pocket, bit off the end, lighted it.

Kells was watching him, smiling faintly. Crotti looked up from lighting his cigar, nodded slowly, emphatically.

Hesse said: “I’ve got just my chauffeur — he is waiting...”

Kells put the card down on the arm of his chair, scribbled something on it. He said: “You can send Carl, here” — he jerked his head towards the slight nervous man — “and whoever’s outside after the dough. Beery will go along and tell ’em where to go.” He was looking at Carl. “When you’re paid off, Beery will call us here and you can okay it for your boss.” He nodded at Crotti.

Crotti was smiling again. He said: “All right.”

Carl got up and came over and picked up the card. Beery was at the telephone; he made a note of the number.

Kells went on: “Maybe the spick had better go along too.”

The Filipino looked at him coldly. Crotti shook his head. Kells grinned, shrugged.

He said: “I’ll see you later, Shep.”

Beery nodded and put on his hat, went to the door with Carl. They went out.

Kells called to Beery as he was closing the door: “Tell that cab driver to sit on it — we’ll be out in a little while.”

MacAlmon went to a wall switch, snapped on several more lights. Then he went over and lay down on a wide divan under the big front windows. The drapes were tightly drawn.

Kells glanced at the tall clock in one corner. It was seven-fifty.

Hesse had taken MacAlmon’s place at pacing up and down the floor.

Kells got up and limped to Granquist’s chair, sat down on one arm of it and leaned close to her with his hand on her shoulder.

She whispered, “Gerry — I’m so sorry,” without looking at him.

“Shut up, baby.” He smiled down at her and pushed her hands gently down from her face.

“How’s your leg?”

He said: “Swell.” He patted his leg gingerly with one hand.

She moved her head over against his side. “It happened so damned quick,” she said — “I mean quickly. They pulled up alongside of us and two of them got into the cab and stuck a rod into the driver and me and we came out here. Borg jumped out as soon as he saw them and ran down First Street — the car they came up in went after him...”

Kells said: “He got away — he was waiting for us outside the station. He’s got the hundred and fifteen down at a little hotel on Melrose. That’s where Shep’s taking Crotti’s boys...”

Granquist sighed, whispered: “That’s a lot of money.”

Kells shook his head slowly. “That’s the first really illegitimate pass we’ve made — maybe we didn’t deserve it.” He rubbed his forehead violently. “What happened to the cab with our stuff in it?”

“It’s out in the driveway. They sapped the driver — he’s upstairs sleeping it off.”

They were silent a little while and then Kells said: “We forgot to send back the car we rented from the Miramar — remind me to do that as soon as we can.”

“Uh-huh.” Granquist’s voice was muffled. Her face was close against his side.

Kells got up and went into the kitchen. He tried the back door but it was locked and there was no key in it. When he came back, Crotti had straightened around at the desk, was bent over it reading a paper.

Kells asked: “How’s the fella my fat friend popped this afternoon?”

Crotti turned his head, nodded. “He’s all right.”

The phone rang and Kells answered it.

MacAlmon swung up to sit on the edge of the divan. Crotti turned slowly in his chair towards Kells. Hesse stopped near the door. The Filipino was tilted back in a chair near the stairway that led up to the balcony and the rooms upstairs. His hat was pulled down over his eyes and he did not move.

Kells said, “Yes, Shep,” into the telephone: He listened a little while and his face was cold and hard, his eyes were heavy. Then he said, ‘All right,” and hung up the receiver.

He spoke, more to Granquist than to any of the rest of them: “Borg’s gone.”

Granquist leaned forward slowly. Hesse said: “Who is Borg?”

“The guy who’s got your hundred and fifty grand.” Kells smiled slowly at Hesse.Then he glanced at the Filipino and there was a black automatic in the Filipino’s hand. He was still tilted back against the wall and his hat almost covered his eyes.

Crotti stood up. He moved a little towards Kells and then he stood very straight and stared at Kells and the muscles of his deeply lined white face twitched a little. He shook his head almost imperceptibly towards the Filipino.

He said slowly: “No — I will do it myself, Shorty,” like they do in the movies.

He put his hand to his side, under the arm, under his coat, and took out a curiously shaped German revolver. He held it down straight at his side for a moment and then he raised it towards Kells. He raised it as if he would like to be raising it very slowly and deliberately, but couldn’t; he raised it very swiftly.

Kells’ shoulders were hunched together a little. His chin was in and he looked at Crotti’s feet and his eyes were almost closed.

Granquist stood up and her face was dead white, her hands were clawed in front of her body. She made no sound.

Then there was a sharp crashing roar. It beat twice, filled the room with dull sound.

Kells still stood with his shoulders a little together, his eyes almost closed.

Crotti swayed once to the left. His expression was querulous, worried; the revolver fell from his hand, clattered on the floor. One of his legs gave way slowly and he slipped down to one knee, fell slowly, heavily forward on his face.

Kells turned his head swiftly, looked up. Borg was grinning down at him from the balcony; the short blunt blue revolver was lisping smoke in his hand. The Filipino was bent over, holding his wrist between his hand and knees. He whirled slowly on one foot — his hat had fallen off and his broad flat face was twisted with pain.

Borg said: “By God! Just like they do in the movies.”

Hesse was at the door.

Borg swung the revolver around towards him, said: “Wait a minute.”

MacAlmon hadn’t moved. He was still sitting on the edge of the divan, staring at Crotti.

Kells said: “Let’s go.”

They stopped near a drugstore near Sixth and Normandie. Borg pulled up ahead of them in the other cab and he and the driver transferred Kells’ luggage to the one cab.

Kells said to the driver: “You can call up and report where this cab is if you want to.” He gestured towards the second cab. “The driver is out at the joint we just left — Apartment L.”

Borg said: “Maybe. They’re probably all out of there by now.”

“They wouldn’t take the driver.”

“They might — he could testify against ’em.”

Kells and the driver went into the drugstore to telephone. Kells called Beery at home, said: “Swell, Shep... Did you have any trouble getting away?... That’s fine... Borg got to worrying about giving all that dough back so he ducked over to MacAlmon’s place and climbed in a window... Uh-huh. The crazy bastard damn near got me the works, but if he hadn’t been there I wouldn’t be here — so what?... I don’t know whether to give him a punch in the nose or a bonus... I have an idea Crotti would’ve tried to smack me down whether Borg had been there to put the cash on the line or not. I don’t think he liked me very well... Yeah — I said liked... So long, Shep, and good luck — I’ll send you a postcard.”

Kells hung up and went out and got into the cab with Granquist and Borg.

The driver turned around, asked: “Where to?”

“How’d you like to make a long haul?” Kells glanced at Granquist, smiled at the driver.

The driver said: “Sure. The longer the better.”

Kells said: “San Bernardino.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.

The Dark

And here is the shocking last installment to Fast One.

Gerry Kells came west to play around a bit, choosing Hollywood and LA for his playground. That was all he wanted to do — play and be left alone. And that’s what he started to do.

But he brought with him a reputation of being a “fast one,” a high-class muscle-man, and the big boys in the west coast rackets sought him out.

Bellmann and Fenner were fighting for political control. Bellmann was already in; Fenner wanted in and Bellmann out. Jack Rose was a Bellmann man; he wanted for his share the gambling and liquor racket. Rose tried to enlist Gerry Kells as a potent fighter, but Kells wouldn’t enlist, and the fireworks started.

They framed Kells for a murder. Kells shifted the charge to Ruth Perry’s husband. Then they shot Kells, but didn’t finish the job, and Kells went haywire.

One by one the big fellows went out. Fenner shot Bellmann; Kells, letting the girl, Granquist, carry the charge, took over Fenner’s organization. Then Crotti, a public enemy from the east coast, got in the way and was rubbed out.

Kells tried to run away from that one with the spoils of the fight. But his crowd had dwindled. Only Borg, the former bodyguard for Fenner, and the girl, Granquist, were with him when he jumped a cab for San Bernardino to take the train east.

The room was about thirty by fifteen. There were six booths along each long side. At one end there was a door leading to a kind of kitchen and at the other end there was a door that led to steps down to the alley. There was a small radio on a table beside the door that led to the kitchen and there was a clock on the wall above the table. It was five minutes past nine.

Kells and Granquist and Borg sat in the third booth on the right, coming in. There was no one in any of the other booths.

The cab driver went back to the door to the kitchen and called: “Jake.” Then he bent over the radio, snapped it on.

A man came out of the kitchen, said “Hi” to the driver, came up to the booth. He was a tall man, about fifty-five, with a long crooked nose, a three- or four-day growth of gray beard. He wiped his hands on his dirty gray-white apron.

Kells asked: “Do you know how to make a whiskey sour?”

The man grinned with one side of his mouth, nodded.

“Okay — and put some whiskey in it.”

Granquist was rubbing powder onto her nose, holding her head back and looking into a small mirror which she held in one hand, a little higher than her head.

She said: “Me too — an’ ham and eggs.”

Borg had slid low in the seat. His chin was on his chest and his eyes were closed. He asked, “Got any buttermilk?” without moving or opening his eyes.

The man shook his head.

Kells said: “Give him a whiskey sour, too — and give all of us ham and eggs. Fresh eggs.”

He raised his head, called to the driver: “Is that all right for you?”

A dance orchestra blared suddenly out of the radio. The driver turned his head, smiled, nodded.

Jake went back into the kitchen.

Granquist called to the driver: “See if you can get Louie Armstrong.”

Jake stuck his head through the door, said: “He don’t come on till eleven.” His head disappeared.

Kells grinned at Granquist.

She said: “Let’s dance.”

“Don’t be silly.” He glanced down at his leg.

“Oh, I’m sorry, darling.” Her face was suddenly serious, concerned. “How is it?”

He shook his head without looking at her, was silent; after a minute or so he watched Jake come in with four tall glasses on a scarred tin tray.

Jake put the tray on the table, spoke over his shoulder to the driver: “Turn ’er down to ten — that’s KGPL the police reports to the radio cars.” He pronounced the first syllable of radio to rhyme with sad. He walked back towards the kitchen. “Last night they held up the gas station down on the corner an’ we knew it here right away. I went downstairs an’ saw the bandit car go by — sixty miles an hour.” He jerked his head violently up and to the left an unspoken “By Crackey!”

The driver turned the dial, then came to the booth and took one of the tall glasses. He sat down on the table directly across the narrow room. He said, “Here’s mud in your eye,” drank.

It was quiet a little while, except for the hiss of frying eggs in the kitchen.

Then the radio hummed slowly, buzzed to words: “KGPL–Los Angeles Police Department... Calling car number one thirty-two — car number one three two... At Berkeley and Gaines streets — an ambulance follow-up... That is all... Gordon.”

Granquist held her glass in both hands, her elbows on the table. She tipped the glass, drank, said: “Not bad. Not good, but not bad.”

Kells raised his head, called towards the kitchen: “Bring out the bottle, Jake.”

Borg opened his eyes, stared gloomily at his drink.

The radio sputtered to sound: “KGPL... Attention all cars — attention all cars... Repeat as of eight-fifteen on Crotti killing... Persons wanted are: Number One — Gerard A Kells. Description: six foot one — a hundred and sixty pounds — about thirty-five — red hair — sallow complexion — wearing a dark blue suit, black soft hat — walks with a limp, recent leg wound...”

Jake came out of the kitchen carrying a bottle of whiskey by the neck. He put it on the table and Kells took out the cork and tipped the bottle, sweetened Granquist’s, Borg’s, and his own drink. He waved the bottle at the driver. The driver slid off the table and came over and held out his glass and Kells poured whiskey into it. The driver went back and sat down on the table and Jake went back into the kitchen.

He said, “Ham an’ eggs coming up,” over his shoulder as he went through the door.

The radio droned on: “Number Two — a woman, thought to be Miss Granquist — first name unknown — also wanted in connection with Bellmann murder. Description: five eight — a hundred and twenty pounds — twenty-seven — blonde-high color... Number Three — Borg — Otto J. Description: five six — a hundred an’ ninety pounds — forty — sandy complexion... Particular attention cars on roads out of Los Angeles: these people are probably trying to get out of town... Don’t take any chances — they’re dangerous... That is all... Gordon.”

The driver put his glass down, slid off the table. He said, “I forgot to turn off my lights,” started towards the door.

Borg said: “Sit down.” He had not raised his head or straightened up in his seat. The heavy snub-nosed revolver glittered in his left hand.

Kells stood up slowly, squeezed out of the booth and limped back to the kitchen door. He stood in the doorway and said: “You can put down that phone and bring out our ham and eggs now.”

He continued to stand in the doorway until Jake came out past him with four orders of ham and eggs on a big tray. Jake’s nose and forehead were shiny with sweat. He put the tray on the table and stood wiping his hands on his apron.

The driver turned and went back and sat down on the table. He was very pale and there was a weak smile on his face. He picked up his drink.

Borg gestured with his head and Jake went over and sat down in the booth with the driver.

Kells went into the kitchen.

Granquist’s eyes were hard, opaque. She took one of the plates of ham and eggs off the tray, sat staring down at it.

Kells’ voice came from the kitchen: “Madison two four five six... Hello — Chronicle?... City desk, please... Hello — is Shep Beery there?...” There was a short wait.

Then he lowered his voice and they could not hear.

He called another indistinguishable number, talked a long time in a low voice.

Granquist ate mechanically. Borg finished his drink, got up and handed the driver’s plate across to him. The driver sat down beside Jake, sliced the fried ham into thin strips.

After a while Kells came in and sat down. He pushed his plate away, poured whiskey into the glasses on the table.

He said quietly: “They’ve picked up Shep.”

No one said anything. Granquist tipped her glass and Borg stared expressionlessly at Kells.

“And they’ve been tipped to our reservations on the Chief tomorrow night — they’re watching all trains, all roads — they’ll ride that train to Albuquerque.” Kells drank. He looked at Granquist, then slowly turned his head and looked at Borg. “And they’ve tied us up with Abner here — or his bus.” He moved his head slightly towards the cab driver.

Borg said: “Beery’s talked.”

“No.” Kells shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t think so.”

Granquist put down her glass. “Don’t be a sap, Gerry,” she said — “he has.”

Kells leaned across the table and slapped her very sharply across the mouth.

She stared at him out of wide, startled eyes and put her hands up to her face, slowly. Kells looked at her mouth and his face was very white, his eyes were almost closed.

Borg was sitting up very straight.

Kells’ hand was lying palm up on the table. Granquist put out one hand slowly and touched his and then she said, “I’m sorry,” very softly.

Kells shook his head sharply, closed his eyes tightly for a moment, then opened them and looked down at the table. He said: “I’m sorry too, baby.” He patted the back of her hand.

He stood up and leaned against the back of the booth, stared a long minute at Jake and the driver.

The driver looked up from his plate, said: “Ain’t we goin’ on to San Berdoo?”

Kells didn’t show that he had heard. His eyes were blank, empty. He spoke sidewise to Borg: “I’m going back into town and find out what it’s all about.”

Granquist stood up swiftly. Her eyes were very bright and her face was set and determined. She said: “So am I.”

Kells bent his head a little to one side. “You’re going to stay here — and Fat is going to stay here. If I don’t make out, I’ll get a steer to you over the radio — or some way.” He moved his eyes to Borg. “You snag a car and take her to Las Vegas or some station on the UP where you can get a train.”

Borg nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I’m going to find out what happened to the immunity we were promised by Beery’s pal, the captain,” Kells went on. “He’s supposed to have the chief of police in his pocket — and the DA is his brother-in-law.” He poured a drink. “Now he puts the screws on us for knocking over Crotti, Public Enemy Number One.” He drank, smiled without mirth. “God! That’s a laugh.”

Kells glanced at Granquist, moved his head and shoulders slightly, turned and went out into the kitchen. She followed him. He was half sitting on a big table, and she went to him and put one arm around his shoulders, one hand on his chest. She moved her head close to his.

He spoke very quietly, almost whispered: “I’ve got to go by myself, baby. It’s taking enough of a chance being spotted that way — it’d be a cinch if we were together.”

“Can’t we wait here till it cools off, or take a chance on getting away now?” Her eyes were hot and dry; her voice trembled a little.

Kells said: “No. That’d mean getting clear out of the country — and it’d mean being on the run wherever we were. I had that once before and I don’t want any more of it.”

He took a small package wrapped in brown paper out of his inside breast pocket and handed it to her. “There’s somewhere around a hundred and ninety grand here,” he said. “Don’t let Borg know you’ve got it. I think he’s okay but that’s a lot of money.”

She took the package and put it in one of the big pockets of her long tweed topcoat.

Kells asked: “Have you got a gun?”

She nodded, patted her handbag. “I picked up the Spick’s — the guy who was with Crotti.”

Kells kissed her. He said: “I’ll get word to you some way, or be back by tomorrow noon. Watch yourself.”

He limped to the door, through it into the other room.Granquist followed him to the door, stood leaning against the frame; her face was dead white and she held her deep red lower lip between her teeth.

Kells spoke over his shoulder to the driver: “Come on.”

The driver jumped up and followed him to the outer door.

Kells turned at the door, said, “Be seeing you,” to Borg. He did not look at Granquist. He went out and the driver went out after him and closed the door.

On Kenmore near Beverly Boulevard, Kells leaned forward and tapped on the glass. The cab swung to the curb and the driver slid the glass. Kells asked: “Are you married?”

The driver looked blank for a moment, then said: “Uh-huh — only we don’t get along very well.”

Kells smiled faintly in the darkness. “Maybe you’d get along better if you took her for a little vacation down to Caliente — or Catalina.” He held out four crumpled bills and the driver reached back and took them. He held them in the dim light of the taxi meter and whistled, and then he stuck the bills hurriedly in his pocket and said: “Yes, sir.”

Kells said: “I want you to remember that you took us up to Lankershim and that we transferred to another car there and headed for Frisco. Is your memory that good?”

“Yes, sir.” The driver nodded emphatically.

“If it isn’t,” Kells went on — “I give you two days. My friends here would be awfully mad if anything happened to me on account of your memory slipping up.” He lowered his voice, spoke each word very distinctly: “Do you understand what I mean?”

The driver said: “Yes, sir — I understand.”

Kells got out and stood at the curb until the cab had turned down Beverly, disappeared. Then he went to the drugstore on the corner and called the taxi stand at the Lancaster, asked if Number Fiftyeight was in. He was on a short trip, was expected back soon. Kells left word for Fifty-eight to pick him up on Beverly near Normandie, went out of the drugstore, west.

His leg didn’t hurt so badly now. He wasn’t quite sure whether it was a great deal better or only momentarily numb. Anyway, it felt a lot better — he could walk fairly comfortably.

The cab detached itself from northbound traffic at the corner of Normandie, pulled into the curb. Fifty-eight, the stubby, baldheaded Irishman, stuck his head out and grinned at Kells.

Kells climbed into the cab, asked: “H’ are ya?”

Fifty-eight said: “Swell — an’ yourself? Where to?”

“Let’s go out to the apartment house on the corner of Yucca and Cahuenga first.” Kells leaned back.

They went over Normandie to Franklin, west on Franklin to Argyle, down the curve of Argyle and west two more blocks to Cahuenga. Kells got out, said, “I won’t be long,” and went into the apartment house on the corner. He asked at the desk for the number of Mister Beery’s apartment, went into the elevator and pressed the third-floor button.

Florence Beery was tall — almost as tall as Kells — slim. Her hair was very dark and her eyes were big, heavily shadowed. She stood in the doorway and looked at Kells, and her face was a hard, brittle mask.

She said slowly: “Well — what do you want?” Her voice was icy, bitter.

Kells put up one arm and leaned against the doorframe. He asked: “May I come in?”

She looked at him steadily for a moment, then she turned and went through the short hallway into the living room. He closed the door and followed her into the living room, sat down. She stood in the center of the room, staring at the wall, waiting.

Kells took off his hat and put it on the divan beside him. He said: “I’m sorry about Shep—”

“Sorry!” She turned her head towards him slowly. Her eyes were long upward-slanted slits. “Sorry! This is a hell of a time to be sorry!” She swayed a little forward.

Kells said: “Wait, Florence. Shep wouldn’t be in the can if he hadn’t come in with me. He wouldn’t be ten or twelve grand ahead, either. The dough hasn’t been so hard to take, has it?”

She stood staring at him with blank unseeing eyes, swaying a little. Then she sobbed and the sound was a dry, burnt rattle in her throat, took two steps towards him blindly. She spoke, and it was as if she was trying to scream — but her throat was too tight, her words were low, harsh, like coarse cloth tearing:

“God damn you! Don’t you know Shep is dead — dead!”

The word seemed to release some spring inside her — sight came to her eyes, swift motion to her body — she sprang at Kells, her clawed hands outstretched.

He half rose to meet her, caught one of her wrists, swung her down beside him. The nails of her free hand caught the flesh of his cheek, ripped downward. He threw his right arm around her shoulders, imprisoned her wrists in his two hands; then he took her wrists tightly in his right hand, pressed her head down on her breast with his left. She was panting sharply, raggedly. She gasped, “God! God!” over and over again. Then she relaxed suddenly, went limp against his arm — her shoulders went back and forth rhythmically, limply — she was sobbing and there was no sound except the sharp intake of breath.

Kells released her gradually, gently, stood up. He walked once to the other side of the room, back. His eyes were wide open and his mouth hung a little open, looked black against the green pallor of his face. He sank down beside her, put his arm again around her shoulders, spoke very quietly: “Florence. For the love of Mary! — when? — how?”

After a little while she whispered without raising her head: “When they were taking him to the Station — from a car — they don’t know who it was...”

Kells was staring over her shoulder at a flashing electric sign through the window. His eyes were glazed, cold — his mouth twitched a little. He sat like that a little while and then he took his arm from around her shoulders, picked up his hat and put it on, stood up. He stood looking down at her for perhaps a minute, motionlessly. Then he turned and went out of the room.

It was ten-fifty when the cab swung in to the curb in front of a bungalow on South Gramercy.

Fifty-eight turned around, said: “You’d better be wiping the blood off your face before you go in, Mister Kells.”

Kells mechanically put the fingers of his left hand up to his cheek, took them away wet, sticky. He took out a handkerchief and pressed it against his cheek, got out of the cab and went towards the dark house.

After he had rung the bell four or five times, a light was switched on upstairs, he heard someone coming down. The lower part of the house remained dark, but a light above him — in the ceiling of the porch — snapped on. He stood with his chin on his chest, his hat pulled down over his eyes, watching the bottom of the door.

It opened and Captain Larson’s voice said: “Come in,” out of the darkness. Kells went in.

The light on the porch snapped off, the light in the room was snapped on. The door was closed.

It was a rather large living room which, with the smaller dining room, ran across all the front of the house. The furniture was mostly Mission, mostly built-in. The wallpaper was bright, bad.

Larson stood with his back to the door in a nightshirt and big, fleece-lined slippers. He held a Colt .38 revolver steadily in his right hand. He said: “Take a chair.”

Kells sat down in the most comfortable-looking chair, leaned back. Larson pulled another chair around and sat down on its edge, facing Kells. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees — he held the revolver in his right hand hanging down between his legs, picked his nose violently with his other hand, and said: “What’s on your mind?”

Kells tipped his hat back a little and stared at Larson sleepily.

“You gave me a free bill this afternoon,” he said, “in exchange for some stuff that would have split your administration — your whole political outfit — wide open.” He paused, changed his position slightly. “Now you clamp down on me because somebody gets the dumb idea I had something to do with the Crotti kill. What’s the answer?”

“Crotti’s the answer.” Larson spat far and accurately into the fireplace, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He leaned back and crossed his legs and held the revolver loosely in his lap. “There’s a lot of water been under the bridge since I seen you this afternoon,” he went on. “In the first place I didn’t give you no free bill, as you call it — I told you that you and your gal would probably be wanted for questioning in connection with a lot of things. An’ I hinted that if you wasn’t around when question time came we wouldn’t look too far for you.” He took a crumpled handkerchief from the pocket of his nightshirt, blew his nose gustily. “Crotti’s something else again.”

Kells smiled slowly. “Crotti was your Number One Gangster,” he said. “If I had something to do with his killing I ought to be getting a medal for it — not a rap.”

A woman’s cracked querulous voice came down the stairs: “What is it, Gus?”

Larson spat again into the fireplace, looked at the stairs. “Nothin’. Go on back to bed.”

He turned back towards Kells and his big loose mouth split to a wide grin. “You’re way behind the times,” he said. “Crotti hooked up with my people this morning. They were tickled to death to get an organization like his behind them and they were plumb disappointed when you bumped him off. That’s one of the reasons there’s a tag out for you.”

Kells held his handkerchief to his bleeding cheek. He said: “What are the other reasons?”

“Jack Rose moved into Crotti’s place.”

Kells laughed soundlessly. “You’re kidding.”

“No.” Larson spun the revolver once around his big forefinger. “Rose made a deal with Crotti a couple days ago. When Crotti was shot this evening, Rose didn’t lose any time putting the pressure on my people and they didn’t lose any time putting it on me. You’re it.”

“But Rose is wanted for the O’Donnell—”

“Not any more.” Larson chuckled. “I told you you wasn’t keeping in touch with things. For one thing, L.D. Fenner shot himself about eight o’clock tonight. He was the only one there was to testify against Rose on the O’Donnell angle — so that’s out. And Rose says you killed O’Donnell — says he’ll swear to it, an’ he’s got another witness.”

Kells said wearily: “Is that all — I’m only wanted on two counts of murder?”

“That’s all for tonight. Matheson called me up a couple hours ago an’ said the Perry woman had phoned in, drunk, an’ said she wanted to repudiate her confession that Dave Perry killed Doc Haardt.” Larson grinned broadly, stood up. “Maybe we can tie you up to that in the morning.”

He took two sidewise steps to a small stand, picked up the telephone receiver with one hand, and squatted down until his mouth was near the transmitter. He held the revolver in his right hand, watched Kells closely while he spoke into the phone:

“Gimme Michigan six one one one, sister. Uh-huh... Hello, Mike — this is Gus... Kells is out here — out at my house... Come on out an’ get him... Uh-huh.”

He hung up the receiver, stood up and went back to the chair and sat down.

“You been mixed up in damn near every killing we’ve had in the past week,” he said. “It looks to me like you been our Number One Gunman — not Crotti.”

Kells leaned forward slowly.

Larson said: “Sit still.”

Kells asked: “What do you think my chances are of getting to the Station on my feet?”

“Wha’ d’you mean?” Larson was blowing his nose.

“I mean they got Beery on the way in after he’d been pinched tonight. I mean your desk sergeant has tipped Rose that I’m out here by now — he’ll be here by the time your coppers are — will be waiting outside. They’ll take me in to a slab.”

Larson said: “Aw, don’t talk that way.” He squinted his eyes as if he was trying to remember something, then said proudly: “You got a prosecution complex, that’s what you got. A prosecution complex.”

Kells stood up.

Larson nodded his head emphatically at the chair, snapped: “Sit down.”

Kells said slowly: “I work pretty fast, Gus. I’ll bet you can shoot me through the heart an’ I’ll have my gun out an’ have a couple slugs in your belly before I hit the floor.” He smiled a little. “Let’s try it.”

Larson said, “Sit down,” loudly.

“I’ll bet you can’t even hit my heart — I’ll bet you’re a lousy shot.” Kells took a short step forward, balanced himself evenly on both feet.

Larson was white. His big mouth hung a little open.

Kells said: “Let’s go.” His hand went swiftly to his side.

Larson’s shoulders moved convulsively, his right hand went forward, up, with the revolver. At the same time he threw his head forward and down, fell forward out of the chair. The revolver clattered on the floor.

Kells was standing on the balls of his feet, an automatic held crosswise against his chest. He stared down at Larson and his eyes were wide, surprised.

He said, “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” under his breath.

Larson was on his hands and knees; his big shoulders and thick neck were pulled in tightly, rigidly.

Kells stooped and picked up the revolver, stuck it into his overcoat pocket. Then he laughed quietly, said: “Copper yellow. That’s the first time my reputation ever did me any good.”

He went to the door swiftly, turned once to glance hurriedly at Larson. Larson had risen to his knees. He did not look at Kells; he looked at the wall — he was breathing heavily.

Kells opened the door and went out and closed it behind him.

Fifty-eight said: “There it is.”

They were parked in the deep shadow between two street lights in the next block to the one Larson’s house was in. A big touring car had come up quietly, without lights, stopped across the street from Larson’s.

Kells didn’t say anything. He sat huddled in a corner of the cab and although the night was fairly warm he shivered a little.

After a few minutes another car swung around the corner, pulled up in front of Larson’s. Kells leaned forward and watched through the glass. Three men got out and went into the house. In a little while they came out; one of them went across the street and stood beside the car that had come up first, the others got into the other car and drove away.

Then the man got into the second car, its lights were switched on and it too drove away.

Kells said: “Give ’em enough room.”

Fifty-eight waited until the other car was more than halfway down the long block, then he let the clutch in slowly. Kells felt in his pockets until he found the tin box of aspirin tablets, took two. The other car turned left on Third Street. Fifty-eight stepped on it, swung into Third; there were two taillights about a block and a half ahead. He followed the faster one north on Rossmore, got close enough to see that he’d guessed right, fell back.

They turned west again on Beverly, to La Brea.

Kells was sitting sideways on the seat looking through the rear window. He leaned forward suddenly, spoke rapidly to Fifty-eight: “Keep that car in sight — an’ you’ll have to do it by yourself. I’ve got something else to watch. We’re being tailed.”

“Sure,” Fifty-eight said.

They turned off La Brea, west on Santa Monica Boulevard.

Then Kells was sure they were being followed. The car was a big blue or black coupé — shiny, powerful.

On Santa Monica, a little way beyond Gardner, Fifty-eight said over his shoulder: “They’re stopping.”

“Go on past ’em — slow.”

Kells squeezed back into the corner, saw four men get out of the touring car and start across the street. He thought one of them was Detective Lieutenant Reilly; wasn’t sure. He didn’t recognize any of the others.

Fifty-eight asked: “What’ll I do?”

“Go on — slow.” Kells took the automatic from its shoulder holster, balanced it across his hand. He watched the big coupé come up slowly.

It overtook them in the second block, stayed alongside.

Kells said: “Turn off right, at the next side street.” He was deep in the dark corner of the cab, watching the coupé narrowly. Then the driver of the coupé put up his hand and Kells saw that it was Borg. They turned together into the side street, drove up about a hundred yards to comparative darkness. Borg parked a little way ahead of the cab.

Kells got out and went up to the coupé. He said. “That’s the way people have accidents,” unpleasantly.

Borg was silent.

Granquist was sitting very low in the seat beside Borg. She straightened, said: “Your other driver spilled his guts an’ the tip went out on the joint we were at—”

Borg interrupted her: “That’s a swell invention, the radio. I don’t know what we would’ve done without it.”

“Then while we were getting out,” Granquist went on, “the call went out to the car in Larson’s neighborhood to go and pick you up — we got the address from that. Fat couldn’t find a car so we hired this one at a garage—”

“An’ damn near busted our necks getting to Larson’s,” Borg finished.

Kells asked: “Where did you pick me up?”

“We were turning off Third onto Gramercy when you turned into Third.” Borg lighted his stump of cigar. He bent his head towards Granquist. “Miss Eagle-eye here thought she spotted you in the cab — an’ I thought she was nuts. She wasn’t.”

“Did you know I was following another car?”

Granquist said: “Sure.”

“That was one of Rose’s cars.” Kells put one foot on the running board, leaned on the door. “It was planted across from Larson’s to smack me down when the cops brought me out.” He hesitated a moment. “That’s what happened to Shep when they were taking him in.”

Borg swallowed, started to speak: “They...” He was silent.

Granquist said: “Gerry — for God’s sake, get in and let’s get out of here.” Her voice was low, almost hoarse; she spoke very rapidly. “Please, Gerry, let’s go now — we can make the Border by three o’clock...”

“Sure. In a little while.” Kells was looking at the black and yellow sky.

It began to rain a little.

Borg said: “So what?”

“That car stopped at Ansel’s.” Kells jerked his head back towards Santa Monica Boulevard. “Ansel runs a crap game that’s backed by Rose — I’ve been there. It’s a pretty safe bet that Rose is there — that his carload of rods went back there to report to him.”

Borg said: “Uh-huh. So, what?”

Kells stared at Borg vacantly.” So I’m going up an’ tell Rose about Beery — about Beery’s wife.”

Granquist opened the door suddenly, got out on the sidewalk on the other side of the car. She held her arms stiff at her sides and her hands were clenched; she was trembling violently. She walked up the sidewalk about thirty feet — walked as if she was making a tremendous effort to walk slowly. Then she turned and leaned against a telephone pole and looked back at the car.

Kells watched her. He could not see her face in the darkness, only the dim outline of her body. He turned slowly to Borg.

“You can wait here,” he said. “Or maybe you’d better wait down at the first corner this side of Ansel’s. And stay with the car — both of you.”

Borg said: “All right.”

Kells walked up to Granquist. He stood looking down at her a little while, asked: “What’s the matter, baby?”

Her voice, when she finally answered, was elaborately sarcastic. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?” Then her tone changed abruptly — she put one trembling hand on his arm. “Gerry, for God’s sake, don’t do this,” she said. “Let it go — please — this time...”

He was smiling faintly. He shook his head very slightly.

She took her hand from his arm. Her voice was suddenly acid, metallic. “You — and your goddamned pride! Your long chances — your little tin-horn revenge!” She laughed shrilly, hysterically. “You’ve seen too many gangster pictures — that’s what’s wrong with you...”

Kells was staring at her expressionlessly. He turned abruptly, strode back towards the car.

She was behind him, sobbing, trying to hold his arm.

“Gerry!” Her voice was blurred by tears. “Gerry — can’t you think of me a little — can’t you let this one thing go — for me? For us?”

He shook her hand off his arm, spoke briefly to Borg: “An’ stay with the car this time — I’ll be wanting it in a hurry, when I want it.”

Borg said: “Okay. First corner this side of the joint.”

Kells went back to the cab, got in, said: “Take me down to Gardner, about a half-block the other side of the Boulevard.”

Fifty-eight grunted affirmatively and swung the cab around in the narrow street.

Kells glanced back through the rear window. Granquist was standing motionlessly in the middle of the street, silhouetted against the glow of a street light on the far corner.

It began raining harder, pounded on the roof of the cab. Fiftyeight started the windshield wiper and it swished rhythmically in a wide arc across the glass.

They stopped in the shelter of a wide palm on Gardner. Kells got out.

Fifty-eight asked: “Can I help, Mister Kells?”

Kells shook his head. “I’ll make out.” He peeled two bills off the roll in his pocket, handed them to the little Irishman. He turned swiftly and went into the darkness between two houses, heard Fiftyeight’s “Thank you, sir,” behind him.

The driveway ended in a small garage; there was a gate at one side of it leading to a kind of narrow alley. Kells crossed the alley and walked north along a five-foot board fence for about a hundred feet. Then he climbed over the fence and went across a vacant, weed-grown lot towards the rear end of the building that housed Ansel’s.

It was a three-story business block, dark and forbidding in the rain; no light came from the rear, and the side that Kells could see seemed entirely windowless. He remembered that at one time it had been a scenery warehouse.

It was raining hard by now — he rolled his coat collar up, pulled the brim of his soft hat down.

He slipped once in the mud, almost fell. In righting himself he remembered his wounded leg suddenly, sharply. It was throbbing steadily, swollen and hot with pain.

He went close to the building. It was very dark there, but looking up he could see the vague outline of a fire escape against the yellow glow of the sky.

He smiled to himself in the darkness, put the back of his hand against his forehead. It was hot, dry.

He felt his way along the wall of the building until he was under the free-swinging end of the fire escape. It was almost four feet beyond his reach. He went back the way he had come, to the fence, went along it until, in the corner the fence made with a squat outbuilding, he found a fairly large packing case. He stood on it and found that it would hold his weight; he balanced it on his shoulder and carried it back into the shadow of the building.

Standing on the box, he could just reach the end of the fire escape; he put his weight on it, slowly. It creaked a little, came slowly down.

When the bottom step was resting on the packing case he crawled slowly, carefully up to the first landing. He lay on his side, held the free-swinging part so that it would come up noiselessly. Then he stood up.

Two windows gave on the second landing. One was boarded up snugly, no light came through. Kells put his ear to it, could hear only a confused hum of voices. The other window had been painted black on the inside, but a long scratch ran diagonally across one of the four panes. He took off his hat, put his eye close to the scratch.

He was looking into the office that ran almost the width of the building, was partitioned off from the big upstairs room by a wall of rough, unpainted pine boards.

The first person he saw was a woman whom he had never seen before. She was sitting on a broad desk, talking to two men. One of the men was in ill-fitting dinner clothes, was unfamiliar — the other man turned as he watched; Kells recognized him as Lieutenant Reilly.

Reilly was heavy, shapeless. A cast in one eye gave his bloated, florid face a shrewdly evil quality. He was holding a tall glass of beer in one hand; he lifted it, drank deeply.

There were two large washtubs full of bottled beer and ice on the floor near the desk.

Another woman, unfamiliar, in a bright orange evening gown, crossed Kells’ line of vision, stooped and took two bottles from one of the tubs, disappeared.

Kells’ lips framed the word “Party.” He was grinning.

Then he saw Ruth Perry. She was sitting on a dilapidated couch at one side of the room. She was swaying drunkenly back and forth, talking loudly to the man beside her. Kells put his ear to the pane but couldn’t quite make out the words.

The man beside her was MacAlmon — MacAlmon who had seen Crotti killed, who had filed the charges against Kells and Granquist and Borg.

Then the rough pine door in the middle of the far wall opened and two men came in. In the moment the door was open, Kells saw a swirl of people around one of the crap tables in the big gambling room. Then the door closed; Kells looked at the two men.

One of them was a short-bodied, long-armed man whom Kells remembered vaguely from somewhere. His face was broad and bland and childlike.

The other was Jack Rose.

Kells slid the big automatic out of its holster.

Rose’s long, tanned, good-looking face was cheerful; his thin red mouth was curved to a smile. He crossed the room, sat down beside Ruth Perry, and spoke across her to MacAlmon.

Kells looked thoughtfully down at the three dark slippery flights beneath him. Looking down made him suddenly dizzy — he blinked, shook his head sharply, put one hand on the railing for support. He thought he was going to be sick for a moment but the feeling passed. He was very hot and the rain felt terribly cold on his head.

Then he looked up again, at the door. There was a big planed two-by-four up and down its middle that could be swung sideways into two iron slots — one on each side of the door.

As he watched, the woman and Reilly and the other man whom he had seen first took up their glasses, went out of the room. That left — as nearly as he could judge — six or seven people. Rose, Ruth Perry, MacAlmon, the short man who had come in with Rose, the woman in the orange dress; perhaps two or three more men or women whom he hadn’t seen.

He looked at the crosspieces between the four panes of the window, felt their thickness with his fingers. Then he stood up and braced himself against the railing, released the safety on the automatic, put one foot against the crosspieces and pushed suddenly with all his weight. They gave way with a small splintering noise, glass tinkled on the floor.

Kells stumbled on the lower part of the window frame, almost fell. He saved himself by grabbing the upper edge, but felt a long sharp splinter of glass sink into the flesh of his hand. He held the automatic low, put one foot slowly down to the floor, then the other.

The woman in the orange dress looked as if she was going to scream, but the man beside her took her arm suddenly, roughly — she put her free hand up to her mouth, was silent.

Rose had stood up; one hand was behind him. Kells jerked the automatic up in a savage gesture — Rose put his hands up slowly. Ruth Perry and MacAlmon were still sitting on the couch, and the short man was standing near them with his back to Kells, looking at Kells over his shoulder. The short man and MacAlmon put their hands up slowly.

Kells went swiftly sideways to the door, swung the bar. A great deal of noise came through the wall from the outer room and it occurred to him that perhaps the crashing of the window hadn’t been heard outside.

Ruth Perry was staring blearily at Kells. She said: “Shay — whatch ish all about?” MacAlmon put down one hand and put it over her mouth, said: “Shut up.” MacAlmon was dead white.

Kells looked at the other man — the one he hadn’t seen before, the one with the woman in the orange dress. He, too, put his hands up, rather more rapidly than the others had.

Someone pounded on the door, a voice shouted: “What’s the matter in there?” Kells looked at Rose.

The automatic was rigid in his hand, focused squarely on Rose’s chest.

Rose looked at the gun, swallowed.

MacAlmon said: “Nothing...”

Rose swallowed again. He smiled weakly, licked his lips. “We’re playing games.”

There was laughter outside the door — a man’s laughter and a woman’s. The voice asked: “Post office?”

The woman in the orange dress giggled. Then her eyes went back in her head and she slumped down softly to the floor.

Ruth Perry pushed MacAlmon’s hand away, stood up. She swayed, stared drunkenly at Kells. She shook her head sharply, staggered forward, and said: “Well, I’m a dirty name — ish Gerry — good ol’ son of a bitch Gerry. Lesh have a drink.” She stooped over one of the tubs, almost fell.

Kells was standing with his back to the door. His face was bloody and blood dripped from his cut left hand. He took a handkerchief out of his overcoat pocket, held it to his face.

He said: “We’ll take a walk, Jakie.”

Rose moved his shoulders a little, half nodded.

Ruth Perry lost her balance, sprawled down on the floor. She sat up slowly and leaned against the wall.

Kells was staring at Rose. His eyes were bright and cold and his mouth was curved upward at the corners, ever so little. He said: “Come here.”

Rose came across the room slowly. When he was close enough, Kells put his left hand on his shoulder suddenly, spun him around, slid his hand down to jerk a small caliber automatic out of Rose’s hip pocket.

Kells said: “We’re going out of here now. You’re going to walk a little ahead of me, on my right. If we have any trouble, or if any of these gentlemen” — he jerked his head toward MacAlmon and the short man and the other man — “forget to sit still, I’m going to let your insides out on the floor.”

He swung the bar up straight, took the key out of the door. “Do you understand?”

Rose nodded.

Ruth Perry staggered clumsily to her feet. She had picked up an ice pick that was lying by one of the tubs; she waved it at Kells. She said: “Don’ go, Gerry — ’s a swell party.” She weaved unsteadily towards him.

Kells dropped Rose’s gun into his left coat pocket, shifted his own gun to his left hand and shoved Ruth Perry away gently with his right.

She ducked suddenly under his outstretched arm, straightened up and brought her right hand around in a long arc hard against his back. The ice pick went in deep between his shoulder blades.

Kells stood very still for perhaps five seconds. Then he moved his head down slowly, looked at her.

Rose half turned and Kells straightened the automatic suddenly, viciously against his side. Rose put his hands a little higher, slowly lowered his head.

Ruth Perry was clinging to Kells with both arms. She had taken her hand away from the handle of the ice pick and her arms were around his waist, her face was pressed against his shoulder.

He moved the fingers of his right hand up into her hair and jerked her head back. She opened her eyes and looked up into his face; she was pale, white-lipped. Then she opened her mouth and threw her head back against his hand and laughed.

He smiled a little and took his hand from her hair, took his arm slowly from around her shoulder. He put his hand against her breast, pushed her gently away. She staggered back against the wall and slid slowly down to the floor. She lay there laughing, and there was no sound but the sound of her laughter and the low buzz of voices outside.

Kells reached back with his right hand, pulled the ice pick halfway out. He swayed, leaned against the door a moment, jerked it the rest of the way out. It fell and stuck in the floor, the handle quivering.

He straightened then, swung the door partly open, stuck the automatic in his big overcoat pocket and said: “Let’s go.”

Rose put his hands down. He opened the door the rest of the way and went out of the room. Kells went out behind him, closed the door, and said: “Wait a second.”

Rose half turned, looked down at Kells’ overcoat pocket. The muzzle of the automatic bulged the cloth.

Kells watched Rose, locked the door quickly with his left hand. They started down the long room together; Rose a pace to the right, a pace ahead.

There were perhaps thirty or thirty-five people — mostly men — in the room; most of them around the two crap tables, several at two small green-covered tables, drinking.

The lighting was as Kells remembered it: Two powerful shaded globes over the big tables lighting all the rear end of the room. Toward the front of the room — the street — the light faded to partial darkness, black in the far corners.

Kells said, “Talk to me, Jakie,” out of the side of his mouth.

Rose turned his head and twisted his mouth to a terribly forced grin. His eyes were wide, frightened. “What’ll I talk about?”

Several people turned to look at them.

Kells said: “The weather — an’ walk faster.”

Then someone crashed against the locked door behind them. In the same moment Kells saw Reilly. He had risen from one of the smaller tables, was staring at Rose.

He said: “Jack — what the hell?...”

Then he looked at Kells, his hand dipped toward his hip.

Kells shot from his pocket — twice. Someone yelled.

Reilly put his two hands against the middle of his chest, slowly. He sat down on the edge of the table, slid slowly down as his knees buckled, fell backward half under the table.

Another gun roared and Kells felt the shoulder of his coat lift, tear; felt a hot stab in the muscle of his upper arm.

Rose was running towards the other end of the room, zigzagging a little, swiftly.

Kells started after him, stumbled, almost fell. He jerked the big automatic out of his pocket, swung it towards Rose. Then the door beyond Rose opened and someone came in. Kells couldn’t see who it was; he staggered on after Rose, stopped suddenly as Rose stopped.

Borg said, “Cinch,” out of the darkness.

Kells’ gun roared and almost simultaneously another roared, flashed yellow out of the darkness near the door.

Rose’s hands were together high in the air. He spun as though suspended by his hands from the ceiling, fell down to his knees, bent slowly forward.

Kells went to him swiftly and put the muzzle of the automatic against the back of his head and fired three times., “Compliments of Flo Beery,” he grunted, and straightened and watched Rose topple forward, crush his dead face against the floor.

He turned to look towards the rear of the room, and in that instant the two big lights went out, and it was entirely black.

Borg’s voice whispered beside him: “Oh, boy! Did I have a swell hunch when I turned off the lights in the little room outside — they could pick us off going out if I hadn’t.”

Borg led him to the door and they went across the little room in the darkness. Kells stumbled over something soft — Borg said: “I had to sap the doorman — he wasn’t going to let me in.”

Borg swung the heavy outer door wide and they went through to the stairs.

About halfway down, Kells put his hand out suddenly and groped for the banister — his body pivoted slowly on one foot, crashed against the wall. He slid to his knees, still holding the banister tightly.

Borg put his hands under Kells’ arms, locked them on his chest and tried to lift him.

Kells muttered something that sounded like, “Wait — minute,” coughed.

Borg pried his hand off the banister and half dragged, half carried him the rest of the way downstairs.

It was raining very hard.

Kells straightened suddenly, pushed Borg away, and said: “I’m all right” Then he leaned against the building and coughed, and the cough was a harsh, tearing sound deep inside him. He stood there coughing terribly until Borg dragged him away, shoved him into the car that had come swiftly up to the curb.

Granquist was at the wheel. She said, “Well — hell...” sarcastically, as if she had been wanting to say that, thinking about saying that for a long time.

Kells’ head sagged to her shoulder. There was blood on his mouth and his eyes were closed.

Borg climbed in behind him, closed the door.

Granquist threw her arms around Kells suddenly and pressed his head close against her shoulder. Her eyes were wide, stricken; her lower lip was caught between her teeth — she almost screamed: “Gerry — darling — for God’s sake, say something!”

Borg was looking back through the side window at the dark archway that led to the stairs.

He said: “Let’s get going.”

Kells raised his head and opened his eyes. He waved an arm in the general direction of the car across the street — the car they had followed from Larson’s.

Borg said: “We ain’t got time to jim it up — besides, they got a flock of cars.” He reached in front of Kells, shook Granquist, shouted: “Let’s go!”

She looked up blankly, then she mechanically took her left arm from around Kells and grasped the wheel. She let the clutch in and the big coupé slid away from the curb.

“Duck down Gardner.” Borg snapped on the dashlight, pulled Kells’ overcoat and suit coat off his shoulder, ripped his shirt open and looked at the wound on the outer muscle of his left arm. “Just a crease,” he said. Then he glanced through the rear window and went on: “Turn right, here — no — the next one. This one’s full of holes.”

Granquist was bent over the wheel, staring intently through the dripping windshield. She jerked her head at Kells and asked: “Why’s he coughing blood?” She spoke in a small, harsh, breathless voice.

Borg shrugged, went on examining Kells.

He glanced again through the rear window, said: “Here they come — give it everything.”

They swung around a corner and the car leaped ahead, the engine throbbed, thundered. When Borg looked back again the headlights that marked the pursuing car were almost three blocks behind them.

He had bent Kells forward, was examining his back. He said: “God! He’s bleeding like a stuck pig from a little hole in his back. Wha’ d’ya suppose done that?”

Kells straightened suddenly, sat up, struggled into his coat. He looked at Granquist, smiled faintly and put up one hand and rubbed it down over his face. He said: “I guess I passed out — where we going?”

“Doctor’s.”

Kells said: “Don’t be silly. We’re going north — fast.” He started coughing again, took out a handkerchief and held it to his mouth.

Borg said slowly: “I thought south — I guess I’m a lousy guesser.”

“I told the cab driver who turned us in north — they’ll probably figure us for south — the Border.” Kells spoke hoarsely, with a curious halting lisp. He leaned forward and began coughing again.

Granquist swung the car right, around another corner.

Borg was looking back. After a couple of blocks, he said: “I think we’ve lost ’em.”

Kells sat up again as Granquist turned east on Sunset Boulevard. He said: “The other way, baby — the other way.”

“We’re going to a doctor’s.” She was almost crying.

Kells put his two hands forward and pulled the emergency brake back hard. The car skidded, turned half around, stopped.

Kells said, “Drive, Fat,” wearily. He looked down at Granquist and went on patiently: “Listen. We’ve got one chance in a hundred of getting away. Every police car and highway patrol in the county is looking for us by now...”

Borg had opened the door, jumped out. He ran around the car and opened the other door and climbed in. Granquist and Kells moved over to make room for him.

Then, before Borg could close the door, a car bore down on them on Borg’s side — a car without lights. Yellow-orange flame spurted from its side as it swerved sharply to avoid hitting them — Borg sank slowly forward over the wheel, sank slowly sideways, fell out the door into the street. The car was going too fast to stop suddenly — it went on towards the next corner, slowing. Flame spurted from its rear window; the windshield shattered and showered Kells and Granquist with glass.

Kells moved very swiftly. He crawled across Granquist, slammed the door shut, had flipped off the emergency and was headed west, in a second, before the other car had turned around. He shifted to high, pressed the throttle to the floor.

Granquist was slumped low in the seat.

Kells glanced at her, asked: “You all right, baby?”

“Uh-huh.” She pressed close against him.

They went out Sunset at around seventy miles an hour, went on through Beverly Hills, out Beverly Boulevard. At the ocean they turned north. The road was being repaired for a half-mile or so; Kells slowed to forty.

Granquist had been watching through the rear window, had seen no sign of the other car. She was close against Kells, her arm around his shoulders. Her eyes were wide, excited.

She kept saying: “Maybe we’ll make it, darling — maybe we’ll make it.”

Kells started coughing again — Granquist held the wheel while he leaned against the door, coughed terribly, as if his lungs were being torn apart.

Rain swept in through the broken windshield.

Kells took the wheel again, said in a choked whisper: “I’ll get a doctor in Ventura — if we get through.” He stepped on the throttle until the needle of the speedometer quivered around seventy again.

There were very few cars on the road.

A little way beyond Topanga Canyon, Kells threw the car out of gear, jerked on the brake.

He said: “I guess you’d better drive...”

Granquist helped him slide over in the seat, crawled across him to the wheel — they started again.

Kells leaned back in the corner, was silent.

As they neared the bridge south of Malibu, Granquist slowed a little. There was someone swinging a red lantern in the middle of the road. Then she pressed the throttle far down, veered sharply to the left past a car that was parked across the road.

She glanced back in a little while and saw its lights behind her, pressed the throttle to the floor.

The road curved a great deal. Granquist was bent forward over the wheel and the rain beat against her face; her eyes were narrowed to slits against the wind and the rain.

There was the faint sound of a shot, two, behind them, a metallic thud as a bullet buried itself somewhere in the body of the car.

Kells opened his eyes, turned to look back. He grinned at Granquist and his face was whiter than anything she had ever seen. He glanced ahead, said: “Give it hell, baby.” Then he groped in his pocket, pulled out the big automatic. He smashed the glass of the rear window with the muzzle and rested the barrel on his forearm. He sighted and fired.

He swore softly. “Missed,” he said.

He fired again, and as the car behind them swerved crazily off the road and stopped. “Bull’s-eye.” Kells laughed soundlessly.

They passed two cars going the other way. Kells, looking back, saw one of them stop and start to turn around. Then they went around a curve and he couldn’t see the car any more.

He glanced at the speedometer. “You’ll have to do a little better. I think there’s a fast one on our tail now.”

She said: “The curves...”

“I know, baby — you’re doing beautifully. Only a little faster.” He smiled.

Granquist asked: “How’s the cough?”

“Swell — I can’t feel it any more.” He patted his chest. “I feel a lot better.”

She braced herself and used the brake hard as they went around a sharp curve.

“There’s a pint of Bourbon in the side pocket. We got it from Jake back at the trick speakeasy...”

Kells said: “My God! Why didn’t you tell me about it before?” He reached for the bottle.

“I forgot...”

She jerked the wheel suddenly, hard, screamed between clenched teeth.

Kells felt the beginning of the skid; he looked outward, forward into blackness. They were in space, falling sidewise into blackness; there was grinding, tearing, crashing sound. Falling. Black.

There was a light somewhere. There was a voice.

Kells moved his arm an inch or so, dug his fingers deep in mud. The rain beat hard, cold on his face.

The voice come from somewhere above him, kept talking about light.

“I can’t get down any farther,” it said. “We got to have more light.”

Kells tried to roll over on his side. There was something heavy on his legs, he couldn’t move them, couldn’t feel them. But he twisted his body a little and opened his eyes. It was entirely dark.

He twisted his body the other way and saw the broad beam of a flashlight high above him in the darkness. The rain looked like snow in the light.

He pushed himself up slowly, leaned on one elbow, saw something white a little distance away. He got his legs, somehow, out of the dark sharp metal that imprisoned them and crawled slowly, painfully, towards the whiteness.

The whiteness was Granquist. She was dead.

Kells lay there awhile in the mud, on his belly, with his face close to Granquist’s face.

He could not think. He could feel the awful, barbed pain in his body; after a while, fear. He looked up at the light and a wave of panic swept suddenly over him, twisted his heart. He wanted to go into the darkness, away from the light. He wanted the darkness very much.

He kissed Granquist’s cold mouth and turned and crawled through the mud away from the light, away from the voices.

He wanted to be alone in the darkness; he wanted the light to please go away.

He whispered, “Please go away,” to himself, over and over.

The ground was rough; great rocks jutted out of the mud, and there were little gullies that the rain had made.

After a while he stopped and turned and looked back and he could not see the light any more. Still he crawled on, dragged his torn body over the broken earth.

In the partial shelter of a steep sloping rock he stopped, sank forward, down.

There, after a little while, life went away from him.

Afterword

The novel Fast One was originally serialized in Black Mask magazine in five episodes between March 1932 and September 1932. These five related tales attracted intense comment by both Black Mask magazine readers, and by its writers, all of whom recognized that these stories represented a kind of culmination of the hardboiled style upon which Black Mask’s fame rested.

In the years following the serialization of Fast One, especially in the wake of comments by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, the literary masters of the Black Mask narrative, Paul Cain’s achievement became recognized as something more than merely the toughest, most compact, and visceral example of Black Mask story-telling.

None of Cain’s contemporaries, however, was able to explain very specifically why Fast One cast such memorable power as a crime story narrative. Looking back after eighty years of refinement in the formulas of American popular entertainment, especially those tales of the rise of urban crime initiated by Black Mask writers, we can now see that Cain’s attitude, and the attitude of the protagonist couple who navigate all the corrupting forces of action in Fast One, foreshadow the detached, poised, and disengaged, self-reliant persona that has emerged in twentieth century American film, song, and popular fiction as the essential American hero, who faces death and corruption with poise in a morally compromised American society.

Fast One is one of the first American novels in which the anti-hero exists on the edge of annihilation merely for the gamble and joy of living to the fullest in the present moment while all around him lesser characters lead lives of desperate greed and corrupt plotting. Though Cain’s novel has no moral center, and though all its characters are flawed, Cain’s anti-hero Kells is never greedy for personal, material gain, or for political power.

What the Black Mask crime story tradition had already established in American writing when Cain debuted with the first installment of Fast One was the violently corrupted urban landscape of major American cities under siege from many different outlaw forces of political and commercial crime.

What Cain brought to this tradition with Fast One and his other Black Mask tales, was a varied array of heroes and anti-heroes from hard-boiled detectives, stunt-men, and Hollywood studio trouble-shooters to grifters, goniffs, reporters, and even to an elegant retired judge who all exhibited a kind of amoral gambler’s grace in the face of the constant threat of moral and physical annihilation.

This disengaged, existential Cain hero is not a Carrol John Daly vigilante, nor a complex professional Dashiell Hammett lawman, nor an elegantly voiced Raymond Chandler romantic. These classic Black Mask models for hard-boiled heroes no longer easily serve today’s entertainments.

Perhaps the amoral vision that Cain presents in the casual death-defying behavior of his protagonists is the reason that some readers, and some critics, still find Cain’s crime writing disturbing. Perhaps not, since it is just this behavior, and thinking, that made the “deranged” and suicidal L.A.P.D. Sergeant Riggs, the lethal weapon of the eponymous 1987 film so appealing to a huge, contemporary audience.

That Cain could have entered crime writing “on his feet running” with his first published work is a stunning achievement.

That Cain immediately drew a kind of hushed and startled reaction from the then current Black Mask masters is even more amazing.

The fact that both Fast One and Seven Slayers, a selection of Cain’s Black Mask tales, have always been in print since their first publication (often in pirated editions of which there are more for Cain than any other Black Mask author), and that even now, so many years after its initial publication, Fast One remains an anomaly in tone and structure, and a disturbing mystery to many professional writers and devoted fans of detective fiction, is the best tribute to Cain’s enduring achievement.

While the classic hard-boiled mannerisms and rituals developed in Black Mask between the 1920s and 1940s have become so familiar that contemporary practitioners who wish to write in the hard-boiled tradition must struggle to avoid clichés and dated visions of nobility and morality, Cain used the forms and devices of the Black Mask school to create a work that remains forever modern (or postmodern) and — for many readers — a foreboding work that leaves the audience uncomfortable in the its unflinching look at the edge of morality, and over that edge into the abyss of oblivion.

The unromantic, startling ending to Fast One remains a problem for readers and critics who cannot accept and face the unknown in all gambles, nor accept the certainty that all bets end with death.

Those readers who have no sense of the gamble will always find something to be disturbed by in Cain’s writing. Gambling is the essential, recurring theme in Cain’s crime fiction, and the key to the central character’s motivation and appeal in the novel, Fast One.

Kells’ role as a gambler in Fast One determines how he operates as an existential anti-hero. He, and his companion Cain protagonists take their chances simply because that is how they live, how they feel alive. Near the beginning of the novel, Kells refuses a five percent piece of a gang leader’s action, just as he will refuse all offers that require his allegiance to any group, on either side of the law:

Kells had straightened up. He was examining the nail of his left index finger. “I came out here five months ago with two grand and I’ve given it a pretty good ride. I’ve got a nice little joint at the Lancaster, with a built-in bar; and a pretty fair harem, and I’ve got several thousand friends in the bank. It’s a lot more fun guessing the name of a pony than guessing what the name of the next stranger I’m supposed to have shot will be. I’m having a lot of fun. I don’t want any part of anything.”

Risk-taking is an elemental part of Kells’ identity, and part of the reason he and similar Cain protagonists are probably the first significant anti-heroes in American detective fiction, possibly in American popular entertainment. Cain’s anti-heroes are not driven by money, ideology, or even the professional self-respect of Hammett’s protagonists — and certainly not by morality. Kells and his fictive brethren are all amoral. But their amorality is so much cleaner and more appealing than all the greedy grasping of the criminal types that surround them.

Cain’s anti-heroes also appeal because this existential attitude frees them from so many societal constraints. Cain’s anti-heroes are all on the go, as if to slow down might drown them. They are breathless like Goddard’s hoodlum anti-hero, but also beyond fear like Sergeant Riggs, the lethal weapon.

We recognize Kells in so many of today’s anti-hero’s, from Samurai swordsmen and government snipers to criminal hit men, Western gamblers, space jockey alien hunters, and of course, all the deadly rogue cops of popular entertainment. Cain captured, for the first time, an amoral attitude that is now so pervasive it is almost invisible.

Although Cain uses recurrent devices, and protagonist types, he also presents more diversity in characters, and narration than most critics have observed. Cain tells tales in the first person and the third person. His trouble-shooters, stunt men, and criminal types are offset by the more refined Druse, the retired judge, of Pigeon Blood. Cain is comfortable depicting any segment of American society; his fearlessly disengaged protagonists can emerge from any class, but will always live on the edge of disaster and temptation, racing from one thrilling episode to the next with a kind of amoral grace.

Cain’s existential hero, the Fast One, possesses a unique purity of purpose that separates him from all the lesser characters of the novel or story in which he appears. After more than eighty years of experimentation in American popular entertainments, Cain’s invention remains an enduringly attractive model for today’s American action hero.

Keith Alan Deutsch

Story Sources

“Black” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 15 #3, May 1932. © 1932 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Parlor Trick” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 15 #5, July 1932. © 1932 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Red 71” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 15 #10, December 1932. © 1932 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“One, Two, Three” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 16 #3, May 1933. © 1933 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Murder Done In Blue” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 16 #4, June 1933. © 1933 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Pigeon Blood” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 16 #9, November 1933. © 1933 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1960 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Hunch” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 17 #1, March 1934. © 1934 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1951 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Trouble-Chaser” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 17 #2, April 1934. © 1934 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1951 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Chinaman’s Chance” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 18 #7, September, 1935. © 1935 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1952 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“555” originally appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly, 14 December 1935. Copyright © 1935 by The Red Star News Company. Copyright renewed 1963 and assigned to Argosy Communication, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with Argosy Communications, Inc.

“Death Song” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 18, #11, January, 1936. © 1936 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1953 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Pineapple” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 19, #1, March 1936. © 1936 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1953 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Sockdolager” originally appeared in Star Detective, Volume 1 #1, April, 1936. © 1936 by Red Star News, The Frank A. Munsey Company. © 1953 renewed by Popular Publications, Inc. successor-in-interest to the Frank A Munsey Company. Reprinted in Tales from The Black Mask Morgue Series by permission of Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“Dutch Treat” originally appeared in Black Mask, Volume 19 #10, December, 1936. © 1936 by Pro-Distributors, Inc.; copyright renewed 1953 by Popular Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission Keith Alan Deutsch proprietor and conservator of the respective copyrights, and successor-in-interest to Popular Publications, Inc.

“The Tasting Machine” originally appeared in two parts, Gourmet Magazine, November 1949 and December 1949.

Примечания

1

Joseph Shaw, discarded introduction to The Hard-Boiled Omnibus (1946), box 5, folder 6, of the Joseph T. Shaw Papers (2052), UCLA’s Young Research Library. Quoted more extensively in E. R. Hagemann, “Introducing Paul Cain and His Fast One: A Forgotten Hard-Boiled Writer, a Forgotten Gangster Novel,” Armchair Detective 12, no. 1 (January 1979): 75.

2

William Brandon, “Back in the Old Black Mask,” The Massachusetts Review 28, no. 4 (Winter 1987): 707.

3

Ibid., 708.

4

Joseph Shaw, “Greed, Crime, and Politics,” Black Mask (March 1931), 9. Quoted in Frank MacShane, The Life of Raymond Chandler (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1976), 46.

5

Irvin Faust, “Afterword,” in Fast One (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 311.

6

See Lynn F. Myers, Jr. and Max Allan Collins, “Chasing Shadows: The Life of Paul Cain,” in The Complete Slayers (Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2011), 13–17, for information on Sims’s ancestry and early childhood.

7

Myers and Collins, 17; Los Angeles City Directory (1923), 2810.

8

Louis Adamic, Laughing in the Jungle: The Autobiography of an Immigrant in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932), 218.

9

Los Angeles City Directory, 2810.

10

Myrna Loy and James Kotsilibas-Davis, Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming (New York: Knopf, 1987), 42. See also Larry Carr, “Myrna Loy,” in More Fabulous Faces: The Evolution and Metamorphosis of Dolores Del Rio, Myrna Loy, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, and Katharine Hepburn (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), 55.

11

Tom Weaver, “Shirley Ulmer,” in I Was a Monster Movie Maker: Conversations with 22 SF and Horror Filmmakers (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2001), 233.

12

Peter Bogdanovich, “Edgar G. Ulmer,” in Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Film Directors (New York: Knopf, 1997), 575.

13

David A. Bowman, “Cold Trail: The Life of Paul Cain,” in Fast One (Berkeley, CA: Black Lizard, 1987), vii. See also Dennis Fischer, “The Black Cat,” in Boris Karloff, ed. Gary J. Svehla and Susan Svehla (Baltimore: Midnight Marquee, 1996), 94–95.

14

Bowman, viii.

15

Ibid.

16

Myers and Collins, 29–30.

17

Mark Schorer, Sinclair Lewis: An American Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961), 727. See also ibid., 707.

18

Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. Parts 3–4: Dramas and Works Prepared for Oral Delivery, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, Copyright Office, 1947), 206; Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series. Part 2: Periodicals, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: Copyright Office, Library of Congress, 1949), 76.

19

Gertrude Stein, Everybody’s Autobiography (New York: Random House, 1937), 4.

20

Idem, “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them,” in What are Masterpieces (Los Angeles, CA: The Conference Press, 1940), 87.

21

Marcel Duhamel, Raconte pas ta vie (Paris: Mercure de France, 1972), 549-50. This episode is also discussed in Peter Gunn, “Paul Cain, 1902–1966,” in Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 306: American Mystery and Detective Writers, ed. George Parker Anderson (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2005), 42.

22

Ibid., 549.

23

Ibid., 550.

24

Bowman, x.

25

Myers and Collins, 28.

26

Ibid., 22.

27

The Dictionary defines Sockdolager as “That which ends or settles a matter, as a decisive blow.”

Content

The Paul Cain Omnibus:
Every crime story and the novel Fast One as originally published
(Black Mask)

Paul Cain by Boris Dralyuk

Black

Parlor Trick

Red 71

One, Two, Three

Murder Done in Blue

Pigeon Blood

Hunch

Trouble-Chaser

Chinaman’s Chance

555

Death Song

Pineapple

Sockdolager

Dutch Treat

The Tasting Machine

Fast One

Lead Party

Velvet

The Heat

The Dark

Afterword

Story Sources

Примечания