A Horse’s Head

2. Kruger

The stench was definitely chloroform.

His father had lied to him at the age of six, telling him he was going to get lots of ice cream after the tonsil operation, but neglecting to mention that chloroform was the vilest-smelling of anesthetics. He would never forget that odor, and there were definitely traces of it in the coffin now. He supposed, of course, that he should be grateful he was alive, if indeed he was alive. He certainly felt alive. He seemed to be breathing, albeit with difficulty because of the tight pants and jacket; he noticed that someone had left the coffin lid open perhaps an inch or so, very thoughtful because otherwise he might have suffocated. But then, he had known they weren’t going to kill him because it would have been senseless and also a trifle wasteful to knock a man out if you were going to kill him. In the two seconds it took for everything to go black (everything actually went a sort of mauve, to be honest) he remembered realizing with soaring joy that they were not going to kill him, and then he fell to the floor.

Aside from the aroma of chloroform, the coffin was a very nice one indeed, lined with silk he could feel but not see since it was very dark in there even with the lid partly opened, roomy and quite comfortable. All in all, even though he wasn’t dead, he had to admit they had given him a coffin every bit as nice as Feinstein’s. In fact, and this was probably only pride of ownership, he had the feeling his coffin was even a little nicer than Feinstein’s. He did not know whether or not he was still on the airplane to Rome because he didn’t know how long he had been unconscious. He felt no sensation of movement, but maybe that was due to the comfortable padding of the coffin. He wondered why the original corpse had jumped out of the limousine on Fourteenth Street, and he also wondered who all those people in the stonecutter’s cottage had been, people of taste no doubt, witness the fine comfortable coffin and the beautifully tailored suit.

It was very quiet in the coffin.

He began to like being there. It afforded him the opportunity for a little contemplation, a luxury that had been denied him from the moment he had first laid a bet on the trotters at Yonkers. That was two years ago and, worse luck, he had won a hundred dollars. Well, all water under the bridge, he thought. I would not be on my way to Rome right now (or already there, for all I know) if I weren’t a horseplayer who’d been thrown down the stairs by Hijo, standing on the corner opposite S. Klein, Always on the Square. I would not be here right now if I were not Andrew Mullaney himself, which is after all the only thing to be, and a very nice thing to be when you own a comfortable coffin like this one. He was willing to bet not many people were blessed with such fine coffins, Irene should only see him now.

Since he had a lot of time on his hands and also a nice place for contemplation, he began thinking about Irene in earnest, and discovered as he always did that the image of her never varied. They had known each other for two years before getting married, and then had lived together in wedded harmony (he supposed) for an additional seven years before the divorce a year ago February; all in all, a good long time. But he always thought of her as she had looked when they met at the dance given by the Sons of Erin on Fordham Road, long red hair and sparkling green eyes, a saucy grin on her mouth, the absolute stereotype of every Irish girl whose skirts had ever been raised in a Dublin pub.

He thought how nice it would be if Irene were there in the coffin with him, they had never made love in a coffin. They had made love on a midnight train coming down from Quebec, where they had gone for a short vacation, and they had made love in the basement of their building at two a. m. while waiting for the clothes to get done, and they had almost made love on a Ferris wheel once, but Irene was afraid they wouldn’t be able to keep track of where they were once they got started and might end up screwing in front of everybody at Palisades. Still, they had almost. Well, almosts don’t count, Mullaney thought, a horse who almost shows doesn’t almost anything. Still, they had almost. It would probably be great fun in a coffin, too. Maybe not this coffin, because of the chloroform smell, but take a coffin like Feinstein’s, that would be a great coffin in which to make love.

Irene hadn’t known Feinstein at all; there were a lot of his friends she never got to meet, primarily because he himself had only met them after the divorce. She probably would have enjoyed someone like Feinstein, though, a truly great blackjack player with a fine sense of humor, and a rare piety, which is how he happened to get killed, but that was another story.

He wondered again if he was in Rome, and decided to try lifting the lid of the coffin, an excellent idea that had not occurred to him before this, so engrossed had he been in recalling Irene and the highly comical sequence of events that had led to Feinstein’s death. He tried the lid now, somewhat regretfully since he was enjoying his retreat very much indeed, and discovered that it moved quite easily. Well, he thought, all good things must come to an end, and he raised the lid completely, and then sat up and looked around the room. There were two windows in the room. There was a dresser against the far wall. Above it there hung a picture of an old man with a beard, probably Sigmund Freud. There was a lamp on the dresser. There was a chair across the room from the dresser. A man was sitting on the chair.

The man looked a lot like an Italian Everett Dirksen. He had white hair like Dirksen, and nice kindly puffy eyes like Dirksen, and his tie was sort of sloppily knotted the way Dirksen’s tie sometimes looked on television after a particularly heated session with Chet Huntley. The only thing about him, in fact, that did not look like Senator Dirksen was the gun in his hand, which, if Mullaney was not mistaken, appeared to be a very large American Colt. 45 automatic.

“Boo!” he said to the man, thinking he might faint dead away on the floor, the way they do in movies when a coffin opens and there’s a live person in it. But Dirksen just looked at him with his kindly puffy eyes, and nodded, as if he had known all along that Mullaney was only unconscious and that he would be waking up sooner or later. Mullaney shrugged. Dirksen got off the chair, went out of the room, and came back a moment later with another man who also looked like Dirksen.

“E desto, eh?” the new one said.

“Si,” the first one replied. “A questo momento.”

“Va bene” the new one said and walked over to the coffin. “Out,” he said to Mullaney in English. “Out of the box.”

The coffin was resting on two sawhorses. Mullaney climbed out of it with great difficulty, cautiously looping one leg over the rim and then the other, certain he would split the tight pants.

“Where’s the money?” one of the men said.

“Are you talking to me?” Mullaney asked.

“Yes. Where’s the money?”

“What money?” Mullaney said, and realized instantly he had said the wrong thing. The man who had been talking to him suddenly made a face that indicated to Mullaney Oh are we going to play that game, where you pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about and where I have to get rough perhaps, when you know very well what money I mean? That was what Mullaney read on his face, and all at once he didn’t look at all like Senator Dirksen, neither of them did, they looked instead like people who could possibly get very mean if you didn’t tell them where the goddamn money was.

“He doesn’t know where the money is, Henry,” the first man said.

“He doesn’t know where the money is, George,” the second man repeated.

They both had rather pained expressions on their twin faces, as if they were distressed by what they now felt they must do. It was obvious that what they now felt they must do was knock him around a little, Roman style. It seemed to him that he had been getting knocked around a little ever since Hijo threw him down the poolhall steps, and he really had no desire to get knocked around any further, in any style. At the same time, since he didn’t know where the money was, or even which money they were talking about, he couldn’t very well tell them what they wanted to know. It all looked hopeless. He decided to ask for the manager.

“Where’s Gouda?” he said.

“Gouda is dead,” Henry said.

“That’s not true. I saw him only a little while ago.”

“Was he alive?” George asked.

“Of course he was alive.”

“He’s dead now,” George said.

“How did he die?”

“A terrible highway accident,” George said, and looked at his twin.

“Terrible,” Henry repeated.

The room was very still. Mullaney cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I’m certainly sorry to hear that.”

“Yes,” George agreed. “Where’s the money?”

“I don’t know,” Mullaney said.

“We figured it had to be in the coffin,” Henry said.

“Well then maybe it is.”

“No. We looked.”

“Did you look carefully?”

“Very carefully. We even removed you and put you on the floor,” Henry said. “The money is definitely not in the coffin.”

“So where is it?” George asked.

“I told you. I don’t know.”

“We’d better take him to Kruger,” George said.

“That would be a small man who wears a letter K on his tie, right?” Mullaney said.

“No. He’s dead.”

“He is?”

“They’re all dead,” Henry said.

“The accident,” George said.

“Terrible,” Henry said.

“Take him,” George said, and son of a bitch if Henry didn’t hit him on the head again.

The nice thing about getting hit on the head, Mullaney thought, is that it hardly hurts at all. It’s over so quickly, whap, that you hardly realize its happening. And while its happening there are these really rather extraordinary colors that go shooting and bursting and rocketing all over the place, somewhat like a Greenwich Village event, though done with considerably more style. However, the terrible thing about getting hit on the head, Mullaney realized as he awakened in a moving automobile, was that whereas it didn’t hurt much at the time, it sure as hell hurt a lot afterward.

“Ow,” he said, and rubbed the back of his neck, and then silently added Henry’s name to the list of dirty rats who needed getting. “Why’d you do that?” he said.

“To transport you,” Henry, who was driving, said.

“If you needed to transport me, all you had to do was ask. I’m a reasonable person, all you had to do was ask.”

He didn’t know where in Italy they were. They seemed to be coming through a suburban area that looked very much like New Jersey — the outskirts of Rome, no doubt. His head hurt, and he was angry with Henry and not exactly delighted with George, either, who sat silently on the back seat of the big Italian whatever-kind-of-car-it-was, holding a very un-Italian gun in his hand, a .38 Smith & Wesson Detective’s Special which his cousins in the Bronx branch of the Mafia had undoubtedly heisted from the body of a good dead cop and then mailed in a candy box to Rome.

“What kind of gun is that?” Mullaney asked.

“A very good one,” George said, thereby ending the conversation.

“What kind of car is this?” Mullaney asked Henry.

“Cadillac,” Henry replied.

“Pretty fancy,” Mullaney said.

He was in a very surly mood, and was beginning to feel highly uncooperative. In a few moments he planned to punch George right in the mouth, take the gun out of his hand, and hit Henry on the back of the head with it, see how he liked getting hit on the back of the head. In the meantime, he was resting, gathering his strength. What I’ll do, he thought, is kick George in the leg instead. Then when he bends over to grab his shin, I’ll throw him on the floor and take his gun away and then give Henry the old one-two right at the back of the head, pow, Henry, how do you like that little blow to the medulla oblongata? These Roman guys wanted to fool around with Andrew Mullaney, well, maybe they didn’t know just who they were fooling around with here. Maybe he ought to inform them he was the only guy in his graduating class at C. C. N. Y. who could do seventy-four pushups, at a time when lots of kids were Communists. Or perhaps they would like to be told that he had once busted a very husky advertising man from Madison Avenue square on the jaw because first he had stated unequivocally that all girls with red hair were extremely passionate (which Irene was, but it was none of his damn business) and second that people who sold encyclopedias for a living were a little bit wrong in the head. Mullaney hit him with a devastating uppercut. And whereas the uppercut didn’t exactly knock the advertising man unconscious, it certainly dazed him a little; there were perhaps a dozen witnesses who were willing to corroborate that fact, if Mullaney cared to take the trouble. So perhaps these young Mafiosi here driving him all over the suburbs of Home did not realize they had got hold of a tiger. Well, he would show them soon enough. In the meantime, he kept marveling at the way American culture had engulfed Europe, billboards advertising American gasolines, signs in English catering to American tourists, ah, where were the glories of ancient Rome? The car was obviously closer to Rome itself now since Mullaney could see lights glowing on the distant horizon. He was pretty excited about the idea of being abroad, even if it had to be in the company of these two hoods taking him to see Kruger (there were bosses all over the world, it seemed). He could not wait to get out of the car and pinch his first Italian girl. He had once seen a movie with Jean Paul Belmondo, where Belmondo leaped out of the car and ran across the Champs Elysees and flipped a girl’s dress right up over her head, oh that had been a wild escapade. (Irene hadn’t liked it; suppose the poor thing hadn’t had any panties on? she asked, practically.) This was before they got divorced, when they still used to go to movies and things together. But he had always remembered that crazy nut Belmondo running across the Champs Elysees, whoops, up go your skirts, dearie! As the lights of Rome came closer and closer, he felt some of the same wild exuberance Belmondo must have known. What he would do was smash old George here right in the la panza, and then grab the gun and give Henry such a clunk, oh boy, he could hardly wait. Then he would run out of the car and across the equivalent of the Champs Elysees and the first Italian girl he saw, he would throw her skirts up over her head and then run away laughing. Then he would pinch the next Italian girl he saw, live it up a little, because once they found out he didn’t know where the money was, he was a dead duck anyway.

About that money, he thought, and he kept staring at the lights of Rome in the distance and thought how very much alike all big cities looked — but about that money — this city, this Rome, Roma Bella in the distance and fast approaching looked a lot like New York. But about that money, what am I going to tell them when they ask again and start putting bamboo slivers under my fingernails? Man, that Rome there sure looks a lot like New York, Mullaney thought, and then he recognized the toll booths, and realized they were approaching the Lincoln Tunnel.

“What the hell?” he said, startling even George, who he suspected had begun to doze on the back seat.

“Whats the matter?” George shouted. “What is it? What is it?”

“Just where are we?” Mullaney demanded. It was one thing to get pushed around, but it was another to be welshed out of a trip to Rome.

“We’re on our way to see Kruger,” George said. “Stop making noise near the toll booths.”

“Is this New Jersey?” Mullaney asked shrewdly.

“This is New Jersey.”

“You’re not even Italians!” Mullaney shouted.

“We are so!” George said, offended.

“Keep quiet while we go through the booth,” Henry said, “or there’ll be another terrible highway accident.”

He was angry now, oh boy now he was really angry. They had really got his Irish dander up this time, hitting him on the head and giving him such a headache, and then not even shipping him to Rome as they had promised. His anger was unreasoning and uncontrolled. He knew he could not blame either Henry or George for the empty promises the others had made, but neither could he get angry with the others because (as George had pointed out) they were all unfortunately dead. But he was angry nonetheless, an undirected black Irish boiling mad anger that was beginning to give him stomach cramps. In about two minutes flat, as soon as they were past the toll booths (he didn’t want any innocent people to get hurt if there was shooting), he was going to erupt into this automobile, rip George’s gun in half, wrap it around his head, stuff it down his throat, oh boy, you started up with the wrong fellow this time! They were past the toll booths now and approaching the tunnel itself, the blue-and-white tiled walls, the fluorescent lighting, the cops walking on the narrow ramparts, waving the cars on; Mullaney waited, not wanting to cause a traffic jam in the tunnel when he incapacitated these two cheap gangsters.

There were a great many cars on the road, this was Friday night, the start of the weekend. He could remember too many Friday nights long ago, when he and Irene had been a part of the fun-seeking throng, but he tried to put Irene out of his mind now because somehow thinking of her always made him a little sad, and he didn’t want to dissipate the fine glittering edge of his anger, he was going to chop through these hoodlums like a cleaver! But the traffic was dense even when they got out of the tunnel, and he didn’t get a chance to make his move until the car stopped outside a brownstone on East Sixty-first, and then he realized they had reached their destination and it was too late to do anything. Besides, by then he wasn’t angry anymore.

He got out of the car and thought They’re going to ask me about the money again, I’d better think up a good one. He wondered how much money was involved here. Probably a couple of grand, maybe even more, otherwise they wouldn’t be making all this fuss. He could feel George’s gun in the small of his back as they climbed the steps in front of the building. Across the street, a girl in a green dress laughed at something her boy friend said. Henry rang the bell. An answering buzz sounded, and they went inside.

“Upstairs,” George said.

The building was silent. Carpeted steps wound endlessly upward, creaking beneath them as they climbed. A Tiffany lamp, all glistening greens and yellows, hung from the ceiling of the second floor. As Henry walked beneath it, it bathed his head in a Heineken glow, giving him a thoughtful beery look. A flaking mirror in an ornate gold-leaf frame hung on the wall of the third floor. George adjusted his tie as he went past the mirror, and then began whistling tunelessly under his breath as they continued to climb. On the fourth floor, a bench richly upholstered in red velour stood against the wall, just outside a door painted in muted grey. Henry knocked on the door, and then patted his hair into place.

The door opened.

Mullaney caught his breath.

Kruger was a woman.

Into that hallway, she insinuated springtime, peering out at them with a delicately bemused expression on her face, cornflower eyes widening, long blond hair whispering onto her cheek. She might have been a fairy maiden surprised in the garden of an ancient castle, banners and pennoncels fluttering on the fragrant breeze above her. She turned to gaze at Mullaney, pierced him with a poignant look. A curious smile played about her mouth, the secret of her delicious joke erupting, Kruger is a woman, Kruger is a beautiful woman. He had once written sonnets about women like this.

He had once, when he was a boy and still believed in magic, written sonnets about delicate maidens who walked through fields of angel’s breath and left behind them dizzying scents that robbed men of their souls. When he’d left Irene a year ago, she had asked (he would never forget the look on her face when she asked, her eyes turned away, the shame of having to ask), “Andy, is there another woman?” And he had replied, “No, Irene, there is no other woman,” and had meant it, and yet was being dishonest. The other woman, the woman for whom he had left Irene a year ago, was this Kruger standing in the doorway with her shy inquiring glance, flaxen hair trapped by a velvet ribbon as black as a medieval arch. The other woman was Kruger; the other woman had always been Kruger. She leaned in the doorway. She was wearing a black velvet dress (he knew she would be wearing black velvet), its lace-edged yoke framing ivory collarbones that gently winged toward the hollow of her throat. Her hips were tilted, her belly gently rounded, her legs racing swift and clean to black high-heeled pumps. She leaned in the doorway and stopped his heart.

She was the gamble.

He had tried to explain to Irene, not fully understanding it himself, that what he was about to do was imperative. He had tried to explain that in these goddamn encyclopedias he sold to schools and libraries, there was more about life and living than he could ever hope to experience in a million years. He had tried to show her, for example, how he could open any one of the books, look, let’s take BA-BL, just open it at random, and look, well here we are, Balts, peoples of the East Coast of the Baltic Sea, have you ever seen the people of the East Coast of the Baltic Sea, Irene? Well, neither have I, that’s what I’m trying to tell you, that’s what I mean about taking the gamble, honey.

I don’t know what you mean, she said.

I mean the gamble, the gamble, he said, beginning to rant a little, he realized, but unable to control himself, I’m talking about taking the gamble, I’ve got to take the gamble, Irene, I’ve got to go out there and see for myself.

You don’t love me, she said.

I love you, Irene, he said, I love you really honey I do love you, but I’ve got to take the gamble. I’ve got to see where it is that everything’s happening out there, I’ve got to find those places I’ve only read about, I’ve got to find them. Honey, I’ve got to live. I m dying. I’ll die. Do you want me to die?

If you leave me, Irene said, yes, I want you to die.

Well, who cares about curses? he had thought. Curses are for old Irish ladies sitting in stone cottages by the sea. He knew for certain that somewhere there were people who consistently won, somewhere there were handsome sun-tanned men who held women like Kruger in their arms and whispered secrets to them and made love to them in the afternoon on foreign beaches, and later played baccarat and yelled Banco! and danced until morning and drank pink champagne from satin slippers. He knew these people existed, he knew there was a world out there waiting to be won, and he had set out to win it.

And had lost.

Had lost because Irene had said Yes, I want you to die, and slowly he had died, as surely as Feinstein had died (though that was really comical). He had taken the gamble, had thrown everything to the winds, everything, had been laying his life on the morning line for the past year now, had been clutching it to his chest across poker tables for the past year now, had been rolling it across green felt cloths for the past year now, and had lost, had surely and most certainly lost. This morning, he was down to his last twenty cents and squarely facing his inability to borrow even another nickel in this fair city of New York, and so they had put him in a coffin. He had very definitely lost.

Until now.

Now, this moment, he looked at Kruger standing in the doorway of the apartment and knew he still had a chance, knew by what he read on her face, knew that she was the lady he had set out to find on that February day a year, more than a year ago. He could not breathe; he had never stood this close to a dream before.

And then, because dreams never last too very long, a voice from behind Kruger said, “Is that you, boys?” and he looked past her into the room to see the ugliest, most evil-looking man he had ever seen in his life, and he realized at once that Kruger was not a pretty blond lady after all. Kruger was instead a two-hundred-and-ten-pound monster who came lumbering toward the doorway in a red silk dressing gown, dirty black fingernails, hair sticking up on his head and on his chest and growing like weeds on his thick arms and on the backs of his hands and over his fingers. This is Kruger, he thought, and if you don’t tell him where the money is, he is going to throw you to his crocodiles. You lose again, Mullaney, he thought, and the girl said, “Do come in.

They all went into the room.

He could not take his eyes off the girl. He followed her every movement in terror because he knew that Kruger could bend steel bars, Kruger could breathe fire, and he did not want Kruger to see him sneaking glances at the girl. But the girl kept sneaking glances back at Mullaney, like luck dancing around the edges of a crap table when the dice are running hot and you can’t roll anything but elevens, dancing and tantalizing, and watching him with that strange sweet wistful smile, walking as delicately as though she were in a meadow of mist.

Kruger bit off the end of a cigar, spit it into the fireplace where a real wood fire was blazing, and said, “Where’s the money?”

Always back to that, Mullaney thought. There was a miasma of evil emanating from Kruger, as strong as the stench of garlic, wafted across the room, penetrating the woodsmoke smell, thick and suffocating. Kruger could kill a bug by looking at it, he was evil, and he was strong, and he was mean, and Mullaney was afraid of him, and more afraid of him because he could not take his eyes off the delicate blond girl.

“I don’t know where the money is,” Mullaney said. “Would you happen to know who won the fourth race at Aqueduct today?”

“I have no idea who won the fourth race at Aqueduct,” Kruger said.

“Well, I have no idea where the money is,” Mullaney said.

“I believe otherwise. I suggest you tell me, sir, or we may be forced to kill you.”

He spoke very well for a man who looked the way he did, his cultured voice adding somehow to the terrible menace that rose from him like a black cloud from the smokestack of a steel mill, hanging on the air, dropping black particles of soot on Sunday church clothes. He stuck the cigar in his mouth, but did not light it. Mullaney had the feeling he was simply going to swallow it.

The girl was standing near the window, peering down into the street below, except occasionally when she turned to look at Mullaney with that same sad sweet smile on her face. He knew instinctively that she wanted him to save her from the clutches of such as Kruger. She wanted him to start a fight here, knock these fellows around a little, and then take her down to the casino, where he’d put twenty thousand francs on seventeen red and then maybe they’d go running barefoot along the Grande Corniche, that was what she wanted him to do. She wanted him to become what he thought he would become a year ago when he had flown the coop in search of some dizzy kind of freedom, finding nothing but cold dice and losing horses, dead hands and buried luck, finding none of the things he thought he was taking the gamble for, and managing to lose Irene into the bargain, the only thing that had ever mattered in his life until then. Now, here in this room, everything seemed within grasp once again. All he had to do was become a hero. All he had to ask of himself, all he had to expect of himself, was that he become a hero.

“If you kill me,” he heard himself say, “you’ll never find out where the money is.”

“That’s true enough,” Kruger said.

“I thought you’d be reasonable,” Mullaney said, and smiled like a hero.

“Oh, yes, I am a very reasonable man,” Kruger said. “I hope you are equally as reasonable, sir, because I think you know how obsessed one can become by the idea of possessing half a million dollars.”

“Yes,” Mullaney said, and then said, “Half a million dollars?”

“Or didn’t you realize it was that much money?”

“No, I didn’t realize that, I certainly never realized that,” he said, and knew at once that this was it, this was sweet luck keening to him from someplace, half a million dollars, if only he could be a hero. He felt himself tensing, knew instinctively that he would have to call upon every reserve of strength and intelligence he possessed if he was to get out of this room with what he wanted. He had come into this room thinking that all he wanted was to stay alive, but now he knew that he wanted the blonde as well, not to mention the money.

He suddenly knew where it was.

He knew with an intensity bordering on clairvoyance exactly where the money was. He almost grinned at his own ridiculously marvelous perception, he knew where the goddamn money was, he actually knew where it was.

“I know where the money is,” he said aloud, surprised when he heard the words.

“Yes, I realize that, sir,” Kruger said.

“And I’ll be happy to get it for you.”

“Good.”

“But...” He hesitated. Kruger stood facing him across the room, the only other player in the game. Mullaney was holding half a million aces, half a million lovely crisp rustling American dollar bills, warm and safe and snug, the best hand he’d ever held in his life. He almost burst out laughing. The girl, leaning against the window drapes, watched him silently, anticipating his opening bet.

“I’d have to go for it alone,” Mullaney said.

“Out of the question,” Kruger answered, calling and raising.

“Then we’d better forget it.”

“No, we won’t forget it,” Kruger said. “George,” he said, and George moved a step closer to Mullaney.

“That won’t help you a bit,” Mullaney said.

“Perhaps not. I have a feeling, however, that it will help you even less.”

“Well, if you want to get clever,” Mullaney said, and then could think of nothing further to say. George was very close now. The blued steel of the revolver glinted in the firelight. He flipped the barrel of the gun up so that the butt was in striking position. He smiled pleasantly, lots of people smile pleasantly before they commit mayhem, Mullaney reflected.

“Sir?” Kruger said.

“Just touch me with that gun...” Mullaney said.

“You realize, do you not...”

“... just touch me with it, and...”

“... that we can very easily drop you in the Hudson River...”

“I realize that.”

“... in little pieces?”

“Little pieces, big pieces,” Mullaney said, and shrugged.

“So I suggest you tell me where the money is. Now.”

“And I suggest you bet your jacks,” Mullaney said. “Now.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Or get out of the game.”

Kruger stared at him.

“Well?” Mullaney said.

Kruger was silent for a long time. Then he sighed and said, “How far is it?”

“How far is what?”

“Where the money is.”

“Its near,” Mullaney said.

“Take George with you,” Kruger suggested.

“Out of the question.”

“Henry then?”

“Neither of them. I go alone.”

“Why?”

“Put yourself in my position,” Mullaney said, not knowing what the hell he was talking about, “I need protection. I wouldn’t mind giving up five hundred thousand dollars,” — like fun I wouldn’t, he thought — “after all, that’s only money. But you can’t ask me to risk my life getting it because what’s the difference between that and getting killed right here in this room?” still not knowing what he was talking about, but realizing he was making sense because the men were studying him soberly and weighing his words, and the girl was glancing at him in approval and smiling encouragingly from where she stood in black against the red drapes. “If either George or Henry are recognized, I don’t think I have to tell you what could happen to me,” Mullaney said, not having the faintest idea what could happen to him especially since K and Gouda and the others were now dead, but figuring it never hurt to throw in dire predictions when you were dealing with people who had the power to make those predictions come true. “Think of my position,” he said.

“He has a point,” Kruger said. He kept studying Mullaney. “But think of my position,” he said reasonably. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll come back?”

“No guarantee at all. Except my word,” Mullaney said.

Kruger coughed politely. “I’m afraid that’s not enough for me,” he said.

“Well, what can I tell you?” Mullaney said, and shrugged. Come on, Kruger, he thought, you are walking right into the sucker bet, it’s sitting right here waiting for you, all you’ve got to do is come a wee bit closer, I’m going to let you pick up the bet all by yourself, come on, baby, come on.

“No,” Kruger said. “I don’t like the odds.”

“They’re the only odds in this game.”

“You’re forgetting that I can end this game whenever I choose.”

“In which case you lose all the marbles.”

“I’d be an idiot to let you out of here alone.”

“You’d be a bigger idiot to throw away half a million dollars.”

“If I let you go, I may be doing both.”

“Not if I gave you my word.”

“Please,” Kruger said politely, and then began pacing before the fireplace, his huge hands clasped behind his back. Mullaney kept waiting for him to have the sudden inspiration he hoped he would have had long before now, but Kruger only kept pacing back and forth, thinking. “Suppose I go with you?” he suggested at last.

“No.”

“Not too many people know me,” Kruger said.

“No, I couldn’t take that chance,” Mullaney said, waiting for lightning to strike, wondering how many permutations and combinations Kruger had to examine before he fell over the sucker bet that was right there at his very feet.

“I know!” Kruger said, and turned from the fireplace. Mullaney held his breath. “The girl,” Kruger said. “You’ll take the girl with you.

It’s about time, Mullaney thought. “Absolutely not,” he said.

“Why not?” Kruger asked, frowning.

“That’s the same thing as taking you or any of the others.”

“No,” Kruger said. “No, it isn’t. I beg your pardon, but it isn’t. The girl is not known.”

“I’m sorry,” Mullaney said. “I hate to be difficult, but either I go alone, or I don’t go at all.”

“Either you take the girl with you,” Kruger said, looming large and hairy and black and menacing and shooting up cinders and sparks from the evil smokestack that he was, “or you leave here in a coffin.”

“I arrived in a coffin,” Mullaney answered, “so I might just as well leave in one.”

“All right, George,” Kruger said, “kill him.”

“All right,” Mullaney said, “I’ll take the girl with me.”

“Good. George, get her a gun.”

George went to a cabinet against the wall, opened the top drawer, and removed from it a small pearl-handled .22. He showed the gun to the girl and said, “Do you know how to use this?”

The girl nodded, then took the gun and put it into her purse.

“If he does not go directly for the money,” Kruger said, “shoot him.”

The girl nodded.

“If he tries to contact either the others or the police,” Kruger said, “shoot him.”

The girl nodded.

“If he gets the money, and then refuses to come back here,” Kruger said, “shoot him.”

The girl nodded.

“Very well, go.” They started for the door, and Kruger said, “No, wait.” He walked very close to where Mullaney was standing, and said, “I hope you’re not lying to me, sir. I hope you really know where that money is.”

“I really know where that money is,” Mullaney said, because he really did know.

“Very well. See that you bring it back. We’ll get you if you don’t, you know.”

“I know,” Mullaney said.

Kruger opened the door. Mullaney and the girl stepped into the hallway and the door closed behind them.

“Hello, honey,” the girl whispered, and grinned.