Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 1, No. 12, December 1956

I am inviting you on this interesting drive from Reno to Los Angeles not because of the warm fresh air, the scenery, or the pretty blonde on the front seat. I invite you to help Matt Brady understand why those people are tailing him... that they’re itchy to ventilate him, at precisely the right moment, with a .45.

1.

I’d made this five-hundred mile haul to Reno and now this joker tells me I can’t unload. The thermometer outside was vaulting up around three figures and my rig stood against the curb, an assortment of roulette wheels and crap tables weighing her down. The smell of fresh paint hung heavy in the over-sized hall being made ready for the usual business hereabouts; the air-conditioning unit hadn’t been installed yet. I touched a sleeve to my forehead and turned back to the hard-jawed man at the lone desk in the barren room.

“Mr. Wirth,” I said briskly, “time is cash in the trucking business and you’re tying up my rig. You ordered this furniture and the company down in Los Angeles shipped it. Let’s find a place to put it.”

Wirth looked me over carefully, like a loan shark appraising a potential victim. Beads of perspiration glistened under his thinning hair, but the fingers idly turning his gold pen were calm and steady. He waved an arm toward the empty space around him.

“We’re not ready for the tables yet. There’s carpet to lay and—”

“You were ready a few minutes ago,” I countered quickly. “When I came in here you gave your men orders to stack the stuff along one side. And suddenly you change. Why?”

“I’ll pay for your time,” he said easily. “Add it to the bill. But we can’t take the furnishings off your truck until we’re ready. Tomorrow, maybe.”

He leaned back and gave me the personality treatment — a professional smile right off your television screen. The sign lettered across the glass in front said JAKE WIRTH’S PLACE in letters a foot high and, by the looks of the joint he was setting up, Wirth had plenty gold. Solid mirrors made up the walls along both sides, and neatly spaced above the glass were some of the finest etchings you’re likely to run across. Even a trucker could see they’d been turned out by a practiced hand. Except for his desk and chair, the floors were bare. An extension cord led from the phone back through a leather-upholstered door to what would be the office when the painters finished. A short dark-haired man in loose tweeds leaned against the mirror next to the door, a preoccupied look on his face. I swung back to Wirth for another try.

“It isn’t that easy,” I said. “I can’t homestead in Reno until they finish your place. This job is an extra for me — up on Saturday and back to L.A. on Sunday, home in time to hit my regular contract runs Monday morning. So I gotta roll, Mr. Wirth.”

“The tables stay right where they are.” His jaw snapped shut and behind him the jerk leaning against the mirror straightened and slid away from the glass. Then, almost as if it were an effort, Wirth smiled and stood up. He was as smooth as a well-fed salesman could be. The stickpin in his tie had a horseshoe of diamonds set in ebony and the design was repeated in miniature in his ring. His hair was combed carefully to make maximum use of what remained, and it was neatly barbered around the edges. He was making a point of being likeable, but I still wasn’t sold. I don’t like guys who tie up my truck. I don’t care much for men who change their minds too often, either.

Wirth made a show of reading the name lettered across the door of my rig. “Matt Brady Trucking Company, eh? And is that a shamrock I see under your sign? Well, Matt, you just take it slow and easy for awhile. I ordered delivery, but I can’t take it off your truck. So I have to pay — that’s business.” He came around the desk and put a friendly hand oh my shoulder. “We’ll get you out tomorrow maybe.”

“The delay time on that outfit is pretty steep,” I said. I wasn’t smiling; I didn’t want him to think he could kiss me off with a couple of bucks an hour. “If it runs to hotel bills and meals—”

“Sure. Sure thing. It’s all deductible from the cut Uncle Sam takes. And speaking of meals, I’ll buy lunch just to show you there’s no hard feelings. I’ve a phone call to make — want to get those boys right over to lay the carpet — and then we’ll go. Fair enough?”

There wasn’t much I could do. Wirth went back to another office to make his call and I began to wonder what was the matter with the phone on his desk. I’m a big boy now. What could he tell a rug company that wouldn’t be right for my ears? I looked at the phone, then at the guy in the tweeds. Next I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and made like a man looking for the time.

“What number do you dial for the time of day?” I asked him as I picked up the telephone receiver.

He pulled a flashy pocket watch, snapped the face cover open, and. gave me the cold eye. “Noon. On the dot.”

“Thanks,” I said, and dropped the receiver back on the cradle. But I’d heard the buzz — there wasn’t a thing wrong with the phone on the desk.

We ate at the Silver King, an extravaganza of chrome and colored glass which sported the usual assortment of crap tables in the center, ranks of one-arm bandits down one side, and some blackjack tables along the other. Jake Wirth and I sat at the counter and I’d eaten halfway through my sandwich before I noticed that a hunk of blonde fluff dealing blackjack was looking my way. I looked back. Wirth ordered pie for us and we went through that, but in between bites I kept sneaking a peek at the babe and wondering if maybe I shouldn’t try my luck at cards.

Wirth winked at me and nodded her way. “Cute, huh?”

I didn’t answer. Somewhere a voice whispered caution. Maybe I’m not overly ugly, but it’s for sure I never hung up any records as a lady-killer. A guy tries to keep a neat outfit. That’s business. Mine is a green shirt and pants that match and I keep them clean, but let’s face it — they’re strictly for work. The chauffeur’s license pinned to my cap said quite plainly that I wasn’t an executive. If a dame wanted to dig a little, the diamond stickpin next to me was a lot better picking than I could offer.

Then I glanced at Wirth’s thinning hair and excess poundage and told myself that maybe the blonde liked them Irish. I began to work on a way to excuse myself from the counter, because that babe making with the cards and the come-on was something special. Her blue eyes, along with a trace of freckles, gave her that trim, fresh look. The house uniform, a satin edition of what the dude-ranch cowgirl with a million bucks would wear, did a lot for her and, of course, she did plenty for the uniform. She knew what to do with a lipstick and, more important, what not to do with it. And she might trip, but she’d never fall flat on her face — if you know what I mean.

Someone handed Jake Wirth a note. He glanced at it, then signaled the waiter.

“Put both lunches on my bill,” he said. And then to me, “Sorry, Brady. I’ll have to get back to my place right away. Come by in the morning.”

He gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder then and left.

I flashed a look toward the card game and caught the blonde’s eyes. Sometimes it’s there. You’ve seen it now and then — everyone has. Maybe she’s sitting across from you in a subway or bus. Maybe you see her for a few seconds when the light comes on in a show. Or she might be in a car beside yours waiting for a light to change and you know that you’ll never meet in a hundred years, but the instant that your eye holds hers there is a leaping spark, a quickening of the pulse and you’re both aware that it’s there.

For the blonde and Matt Brady, the spark was alive.

I slipped a sawbuck out of my wallet and slid off the lunch-counter stool. It had been some time, but I thought I could hold my own in a blackjack game. I found a place at the end of her table.

“Ten,” I said. She stacked five, matched it, and poked the paper money down the slot in the table. She dealt nimbly. And when a hand broke, she scooped the loser’s bet into the tray and folded his cards under in one smooth sweep. I put two bucks on the table for the next deal. When the cards came around, I raised the corner of the top one and saw a K. I slid it over and checked the bottom. An ace! Blackjack, my first hand! I flipped the cards over.

“Nice start.”

She said it casually and pushed a stack of three silver dollars my way. And once again I got the feeling that the look in her eye was above and beyond the call of duty.

“Keep ’em coming,” I grinned.

What happened to me in that session of blackjack should happen more often. Only maybe I couldn’t take too much of it because playing in a fixed game is a little hard on the nerves — even when things are stacked in reverse. That’s right. I caught it about twenty minutes after I sat down. I played a lot of cards when I did a stretch in the service and a guy just naturally keeps tab on what’s been dealt. The game was going along, the blonde giving me an eye now and then as she had from the very first. Then I split a pair of aces for one card down on each. My first was a queen. When I raised the corner of the other for a peek, it was the ten of diamonds.

And the ten of diamonds had just busted a hand down the line. I glanced at it again, then checked the other players. They weren’t looking at me, so I risked one long tight look at the blonde’s face. Her left eyelid came down just a fraction of an inch and stayed there an instant — half a wink, a silent message that she was for me and to hell with the house.

There’s a little larceny in all of us, they say — that eternal yen to get something for nothing. The call of the fast buck. I settled back to milk this one for all the law — or the babe dealing — would allow. I raised my bets to five and she smiled at me. My hand still won almost every time. Then I went up to ten and the cutie with the cards lifted an eyebrow. Too strong. I went back to five. But I kept winning — winning like you do in one of those wonderful dreams where money rolls around your feet ankle-deep. At five bucks a hand, she was paying me off in the small brown chips embossed with a silver king and a number. Little by little I kept working them off the table and into my pockets, to keep the stack from getting high enough to attract attention.

It went like that until almost six o’clock. I’d lose one now and then, but over the long haul those brown chips in my pocket were getting to be quite a bulge. Then the blonde started looking at her watch. The third time she peeked at the thing I caught on.

“Where’s a good place to eat in Reno?” I asked the gent on my left. He didn’t answer until the cards were out. Then he checked his hand, pushed them into the square, and piled his money on top signifying he was holding.

“Two blocks down and a half over,” he said, his thumb jerking in the general direction of east. “Place called Slagle’s.”

“Thanks. Guess I’ll give it a try, after a bit.”

The babe dealing didn’t bat an eye. In fact, she ignored our little conversation so carefully that I knew she’d be there. It would be interesting to find out what kind of cut she expected. When her relief took over, the blonde disappeared through the employees’ door. I played four more hands and it cost me twenty bucks. Then I slipped off the stool, went to the cashier’s cage, and stacked my chips at the window. They paid me off in the green — an even four hundred and twenty clams. With the silver dollars I’d stashed away, the kick went up another twenty-seven. I walked out feeling like Dillinger.

2.

A few minutes later, I leaned against the plate-glass front of Slagle’s, blew smoke into the warm evening breeze, and watched the blonde fluff coming toward me. When she was close enough to hear a real low wolf whistle, I gave her one. She winked that halfway wink of hers and smiled.

“Wow!” I said.

“You like it?” She wasn’t being coy, but a tinge of pink came into her cheeks. They’re wearing them all over this year, I guess — a thin nylon blouse and a slip out of the same stuff so that a lacy bra shows up to good advantage. On her it wasn’t wasted. She linked her arm through mine and we went into the grill. The booth was on the side — of leatherette, and real cozy. A waitress dropped two menus and went her way.

I said, “I’m Matt Brady. I like to start with chilled wine — then steak.”

She smiled. “My name is Margaret Blake — Maggie for short. I don’t think I could improve on cold wine followed by a steak.”

“Sky’s the limit,” I grinned. Then I looked around like a guy who’s going to part with a deep dark secret. I leaned toward her. “Just cleaned up in a blackjack game down the street, babe,” I said out of the side of my mouth. “Over four hunnert fish. Let’s go first class.”

She smiled again and already it was doing things to me. Even before the wine came I felt a warm glow rising within. We took care of the unimportant pleasantries over the sparkling glass. Then the steaks arrived, broiled crisp and brown on the outside, and still kicking on the inside. By the time they cleared away the main dishes, we’d gotten down to our little hopes in life. She knew that the Matt Brady Trucking Company was my chief interest as well as my bread and butter. I learned that she’d dealt in the Silver King for over a year.

“You like the work?” I asked.

“The hours are good. Bart Akers — he’s our boss at the King — isn’t bad to work for. The pay’s good, too.”

“And the future?”

She hesitated on that one. “No. No future in dealing blackjack. And I’ve thought about that, Matt. My sister in L.A. is always asking me to come down there and take a job in something more stable. Maybe I will sometime, but I don’t know. I sort of like Reno.”

“It must be a fast life,” I admitted. Then I said: “This Jake Wirth — you know him?”

“I know who he is. He doesn’t know me, but he comes into the King now and then.”

The cutest dame in the place and Wirth didn’t know her? Maybe she was being modest about that, but she said he came in now and then. You don’t run a charge account in a place you patronize once in a while. Charge account? Hell, Wirth hadn’t even signed a tab. Just said “put it on the bill” and walked out. I drummed the table, then reached for cigarettes — always good for a stall while you think things out. I tapped the bottom of the pack, offered a smoke to Maggie, then snapped my lighter and put flame to our smokes.

Something wasn’t on balance, like a truck with one low tire. Someone wasn’t leveling with Matt Brady, and her name was Blake. I blew smoke toward the ceiling, looked across the table.

“Look, cookie,” I grinned. “Let’s get down to dollars, shall we? You tell me the cut and we’ll split the take. Then—”

“No cut, Matt. You won it. It’s yours.”

“Then what’s the angle, Maggie?”

“Does there have to be one?”

The ashes on my cigarette were getting long. I did something about that and that took a little time. When I looked up, the blonde’s eyes caught mine and held on.

I said, “I think there has to be one, Maggie. Take the first hundred truckers you see on any highway. Keep the seven that look a little Irish and let the rest go. Now line up the seven and take the one in the middle. That’s Matt Brady — strictly average in money, marbles, and all the rest. I’m not going to add a lot of drivel to the stuff you must hear every day. Let’s just say I couldn’t wear this license on my hat unless I could see well enough to drive, so I know where you stand in the line. You’re not in front of the guy in the middle.”

She laughed.

“And the angle we were talking about?”

“Matt, you won that money! Any other way would be — would be pretty bad for me. I mean if Bart Akers found out.”

“Okay. I won it. But just between the pair of us — why?”

She ground out her cigarette and this time she didn’t look at me. “Maybe I like one of the seven. Maybe I like the one in the middle.”

That stopped it. I couldn’t push it any farther without fishing for a bucket of compliments. She made a quick but expert repair job on her lips, snapped shut her bag, and we stood up. I dropped a bill to cover the tab and started for the door. But we didn’t make it.

We didn’t make it because about half-way there Maggie’s slender fingers clamped tightly around my arm and she stopped short.

“Matt!”

I glanced at her frightened face, then followed the line of her vision to a sedan along the curb. The husky looking our way wasn’t making any effort to get out of his car.

“Matt! He’s from the Silver King. He’s one of Bart Akers’ men.”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” I said and tried a small laugh.

“Don’t joke, Matt. We... we might have stepped into something.”

I turned her around casually and we started toward the rear exit. Her fingers hadn’t loosened any and I could hear the tight breathing in her throat. We slipped through a door marked EMPLOYEES, hesitated long enough to spot the door ahead of us and picked up speed again. Through a screen door, past a line of tall refuse cans and we were in the alley — and facing a tough gent who blocked our way. He stood with his feet apart and a sardonic grin on his ugly mug, heavy arms folded across his chest.

“Going somewhere, Maggie?”

She gasped. I didn’t say anything; he wasn’t here to talk. My left hand came over and gently worked Maggie’s fingers off my arm.

“Bart wants to see you, kid. You and this smart lug here.”

I led with a short hard right to his breadbasket, heard the grunt of pain, and started a full throttle left to his jaw. But halfway there, the left weakened and fell ineffectually on his shoulder. I was pitching toward the dirty concrete and the lights were going-out. Meanwhile, I smelled kitchen grease and motor oil and the alley felt hard against my face. Then there was nothing.

Now, it felt like the floor of a car. I didn’t stir, just lay still as I tried to pick up the thread of events. But before I could get everything ironed out the car stopped. I closed my eyes again, and waited. Someone got my knees, another man my arms. We bumped through a door and they dumped me unceremoniously on a soft carpet. I heard water running out of a tap, moaned, twisted a little, and opened my eyes.

“Get up, mister.”

I struggled to my knees. The blonde sat in a big chair, a handkerchief pressed to her face. Three of those present were overdressed and a little too tough. Hats pulled down. They could have been three torpedoes, some holdovers from the gangster years. Behind an out-sized oak desk, a fat hunk of suet in a gray pinstripe tilted back in his chair and eyed me with distinct distaste. He had two extra chins and a flabby lip. When he spoke, his eyes snapped.

“I said, ‘Get up!’ All the way up, mister.”

The pain in my head wasn’t eased by standing, but I made it. I ran fingers gingerly over the back of my noggin and found the tender spot. The fat one leaned toward me, his fat hands flattening out on the glass-topped desk.

“I ain’t even going to ask ‘Did you do it?’ mister,” he said sourly. “My boys saw it all. I don’t know how long it went on, but I know it did go on and that’s enough for me. And I ain’t a bit happy about it. Understand?” He finished with a glare, then turned toward Maggie. “What’d I ever do to deserve this?” he asked harshly. “I pay same wages as any other joint in Reno. I treat the dealers right. Ain’t no payoff after hours connected with workin’ for Bart Akers; nobody chases you around the tables after closing-time. Ain’t that so, Maggie?”

“Cut the hearts and flowers,” I said. I was feeling better and didn’t want the kid to take any more guff than she had to. Even another working-over would be better than letting Akers rant at the blonde. “So I corrupted one of your dealers. I got her to throw me a few bucks out of the Silver King. And now you’re broke, that it? A couple of hundred and the King is cleaned out. Jeez!”

That brought the fat boy’s attention back to me in a hurry. The thin jerk holding the glass of water threw it at my head. He opened the side of his face and said, “Let me smear this joker, Bart.”

I beat the boss to a reply. “You got a deal, tough guy. Toss your gun on the desk and I’ll try you for size.”

“Shut up!” It was fat-boy again, only now he had lunged to his feet, his face the color of a split beet. He glared across the desk at the pair of us. “We’re wasting time. I run this show.” Then he swung back to the blonde. “You’re through. Not just the King; you’re through in Reno. Get out of town. Get out by tomorrow noon. I’ll personally look up your address in the employees’ file and check to see that you’re out of wherever the hell you live. Understand?”

Maggie nodded, her eyes down, the handkerchief still pressed tightly against her face.

“And you, mister — we won’t be needing you any more either. I don’t give a damn when you leave town, but stay out of the Silver King. You hear me, boy? Stay away from my place.”

Before I could get in any deeper, Maggie got up and came over to me. Her fingers found my arm. “Come on, Matt. We’d better go.” Her voice was low and a little scared. She was right, of course. We’d played with fire and we were getting off with only a small burn.

Akers sat behind his desk, a nasty scowl on his thick face. Two of his hired help ranged behind him. The other, the thin jerk with the side-of-the-mouth talk and an over-tough look was leaning against the door. He didn’t move.

“Let them out, Varney.” It was the boss speaking from behind us, but Varney had to give us one more sneer. I worked my arm free of Maggie’s hand arid Akers saw me do it;

“Varney!” he snapped out.

Hard-boiled moved over to let us pass.

3.

The blonde had a second-floor apartment and a cool evening breeze was beginning to roll in from the desert. We sat on the lounge, a couple of empty coffee cups on the glass-topped table in front of us. I leaned back and tried to see how things had been and what thread ran through the whole thing that tied it all together. Wirth was holding up my truck. A blonde tossed four hundred bucks my way in a crooked card game and we were caught. She lost her job.

“I’m sorry as hell about your job, Maggie—”

“Thanks, Matt. Thanks, but we both know where we stand. It was nice of you to take the blame back in Akers’ office. I’ll always remember that, Matt. But this one was really on me all the way. I started it; you didn’t. Your head feel all right?”

Her soft hand came over my shoulder and stopped at my neck, her fingers gently working along the side of my face. I met her eyes and tried to read what lay underneath. She had started it, of course. But why?

“About the money, Maggie.” I laid the bills on the glass-topped table and stacked the silver dollars on top. “It’s over four hundred. You keep it, Maggie. I guess Bart Akers didn’t strip it off of us because he couldn’t risk possible claims that he strong-armed someone to get the winnings back. It’s yours.”

“No, Matt.”

“Sure,” I grinned. “I’ve got my trucking business and you’re fresh out of a job. Take the stuff. I’ll settle for the lesson I learned.” I stroked the top of my head. “Lucky I got a hard one.”

“Matt, I can’t.” Her hand was working at my neck again. “Some things you do for money and some you don’t. If I took the cash, Matt, I’d be a cheap chiseler and it didn’t start that way. Not really. I saw you sitting with Wirth and — I don’t know, Matt — somehow I wanted you to win.”

“What’ll you do now? That sister in L.A.?”

“I may as well. I’ve been wanting to see her. Maybe this does it. Maybe it’s a good thing, really, because there doesn’t seem to be very much of a future in dealing—”

“Look, Maggie,” I said quickly, “I’ll be making the run back to Los Angeles as soon as Jake Wirth gets his junk off my truck. Why not hold down the other side of the cab? It isn’t exactly Pullman, but I keep a clean rig and I’d be tickled pink to have company.”

“Why, Matt. I think that’s a perfectly sweet idea.” Her lips parted in the breathless air of a girl who’s just been invited to a prom. Only as I remember my school days, not many babes were surprised by a bid to the big moment. Most of them worked long and hard to get the right boy to ask. And I got the feeling all at once that the blonde beside me hadn’t been nearly as surprised as she might have been by the idea of going south with Matt Brady. Once again I sensed that things were slipping out of control, like a loaded truck on an ice-glazed street. I needed time. There were smokes in a tiny box on the coffee table. I lit two and held one out to the blonde.

“It’s a deal,” I said. What else could I say?

“I’ll pack in the morning,” she was saying. “Two suitcases and my little radio — that’s all I have.”

There wasn’t anything else to settle. I covered her hand with mine. She didn’t move it. She was curled up on the sofa, her feet drawn up under her with only a small ankle and one high-heeled shoe showing from under the filmy nylon skirt. The effect was more than perfect. Everything was wonderful — except there were so many things happening so fast I didn’t know where I stood.

Our eyes met and that spark danced between them. And suddenly, it didn’t matter that the pieces in this little puzzle were badly scrambled. It didn’t matter that the beautiful blonde seemed to weave in and out among them like a bright strand in the pattern of a rag rug. We leaned toward each other at the same time, our lips pressing together, our arms locking around each other.

“Matt — you shouldn’t have gotten mixed up with me. Why did it have to be you, Matt?”

I didn’t answer, just held her close. For a long time we were like that; then Maggie broke it and drew back. “We better take it easy, Matt,” she said.

“Sure, kid.” I got up and went to the open window and let the night air wash over me. When I turned back, I had things under control. I grinned. “You don’t have to work your passage south, Maggie. I’ll be here as soon as Wirth clears my truck. Ten, maybe, or a little after. We’ll be out of Reno by eleven; hit L.A. before midnight sometime.” Then I found my cap, walked to the door, and opened it. But the beautiful card-sharp came over and put her hand on the door. She slipped in between, the half-open door behind her, her hands on my shoulders.

“It isn’t like that, Matt. I—”

“Suppose you tell me just how it is,” I said. “There’s so much I don’t know about—”

She stood on tiptoe, her arms sliding all the way around my neck. I kissed her full on the mouth, her lips soft and trembling under mine. I heard her shoe touch the wood behind her. The door clicked shut.

At eight in the morning I leaned against my truck in front of Jake Wirth’s Place and waited for the lord of the manor to show. I’d phoned, and he’d said he would be right down, and his voice had been something less than cordial. I drew on a cigarette and wondered if the gambling barons had a grapevine, and if so was it fast enough to have taken the word to Jake about last night’s affair at the Silver King. When I saw Wirth striding along the street, his square jaw set in an even more rigid angle than usual, I knew he’d heard from Akers all right.

Wirth looked at me with apprehension. “Hell of a note, Brady,” he said briefly. Then he opened the door and we went in among the mirrors, etchings, and fresh paint. No carpets. “You managed to get into a peck of trouble after I left you yesterday, Brady.”

“And how about you getting that truck unloaded, Wirth—”

“We’ll get to that. Now on that lousy double deal you and that blonde worked on Bart, we don’t like that kind of thing in Reno, Brady. In fact, we don’t stand for it.” He gave me a cold look, tossed his hat on the bare desk, and went on a tour of his hall. If he expected me to follow along and explain, he was in for a surprise. I went across to the other side, looked in the mirror, and brushed a piece of lint off my green shirt. Then I looked up to see what the etchings had to offer. The name in the lower right hand corner caught my eye: Wirth. I moved to the next, although there wasn’t much point in it. It was plain they’d all been done by the same person, and very well done. By Wirth.

I went back to the desk and parked my fanny on the glass top. A talented man, Wirth. Etchings. Setting up a first-class gambling joint. Sharp operator. Just a rough diamond with a lot of facets. And choosy about which phone he uses when he calls someone to talk about carpets. I smoked and waited.

“We’ll get you unloaded right away, Brady,” he said casually. He sat down in his desk chair, looked up at me, and then got right up and went into his small office in back. When he returned, he had a chair for me. Jake Wirth didn’t like people sitting high enough to look down on him, apparently.

“I’ve got Joe out rounding up some workmen — ought to be here any minute. The quicker you clear Reno the better.”

“News travels fast,” I said.

“We manage. Anybody runs a roust on one of us, we pass the word along. The thing that makes me sore, Brady, is that I brought you into Bart’s place. In a way I was going good for you and—”

“Save the tears,” I cut in. “You don’t need a sponsor to get into a card game in Reno. Anybody with dough in his jeans can walk into the Silver King, put his cash on the table and his keister on a cushion. They’ll deal him a hand. What’s hurting you Wirth? You got a piece of the King?”

His jaw dropped open, then closed. He eyed me shrewdly. “Hell, no. It’s just that—”

“Then stop screaming.”

He rubbed a fist into the palm of his other hand. Then the old personality smile worked its way across his face. He was trying awfully hard to get along with Matt. Brady. I had deliberately needled him. He wasn’t the kind to take anything from anyone, but he was taking it now. I tried to figure why.

Joe turned out to be the same dark-haired gent I’d seen yesterday, but in a different set of tweeds. He had four assorted down-at-the-heel stumblebums in tow, ones he’d culled from the hanger-on list, I guessed. All we got from Joe was a lot of impractical suggestions, but the boys he’d found for the work were pretty anxious to collect their cash and get to a table, so we made out. When I swung the doors shut and locked my truck, I, figured the bill and took it in to Wirth. He raised an eyebrow.

“Considering the cash you sucked out of the Silver King, you got a lot of crust nicking me for delay,” he said sourly.

“Like you said yesterday — you ordered it and couldn’t take it off my truck. You pay — that’s business. And you’ll deduct it from the cut Uncle Sam takes.”

“Sure, but—”

“Would you have paid my losses if I’d gone to the cleaners, Wirth?”

His jaw muscles tightened. Then he relaxed and reached for his check book. I watched him write, his fingers holding the pen lightly, the words coming out smooth and round and as beautiful as any you’ve ever seen in the movies, when you get a close-up of someone writing a note. I glanced at the etchings on the wall, then back to the check. Jake Wirth had one hell of a pair of hands.

He got up and followed me out to my truck, his bird-dog Joe right behind him. I climbed up.

“Matt, damn if I don’t admire the speed you made picking up the blonde and getting her to throw Akers’ dough your way,” he told me. “It must have been a smooth operation. But don’t try a repeat on that. I’m telling you like a friend, Matt. Bart’s not a bit amused about this. And if some other house was to run into it, the association here would consider you a major menace to the business. You... you get my point, Brady?”

“If that’s meant in kindness, I’m obliged, Jake,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t do what I did again.”

Wirth waved. The smile on his face was something I didn’t like. Joe wore one that could have been a carbon copy and I didn’t like it any better. The last time some men looked at me like that I wound up with assorted cuts and bruises and a brief nap on cold steel...

My mind rolled back to my hitch during the war. Our communications outfit was aboard a Navy LST bound west for Saipan. We were bored, I guess. I got into a hassle with one of the white hats in the crew — those little arguments that get bigger and bigger. When it got down to the “let’s settle this” stage and we started for the ring they had roped off down on the tank deck, the gobs in the ship’s, company began giving me that sheep-to-the-slaughter look. But I’d mixed it up a time or two and figured I could get by as well as the next guy. We laced on the mitts and someone rang a bell. A short three rounds later the sailor put me away and it was a kindness, because what was happening to Matt Brady shouldn’t happen to anyone — even to pros getting maybe twenty thousand bucks for their licking. It turned out this gob was runner-up to the light-heavy champ of the Pacific Fleet. After the bloodshed, the boys were downright complimentary about my staying into the third, but I still remember the sad looks they gave me while the white hat and I were getting ready to tangle.

I still remember the lumps I took, too. And now Jake and his right-hand man were wearing the same “too bad, sucker” expression.

4.

Maggie was waiting when I rolled the big job up to the curb and went up to her apartment. She was ready for travel, her long golden hair set off by a ribbon the color of Kelly’s tie on March 17th. She’d passed up slacks in favor of something cool and low-cut. Her luggage wasn’t in sight and there was a hint of hesitation in the smile of greeting on her face. Stacked on the little coffee table in front of the sofa, exactly where I’d left it, was the bundle of twenties weighted down by the small mound of silver dollars. I nodded.

“Pretty generous tip for the maid, isn’t it?”

“Matt, I— You don’t have to be bothered with me on your trip back to L.A.,” she said, her eyes not meeting mine.

“Bothered! I’ve been looking forward all—”

“Matt—” She came toward me, those deep blue eyes slowly searching my face and when she stood next to me I put my arms around her and she leaned back. “Matt, I want to tell you how I feel about us.” Her hands left my shoulders and very gently their palms were placed over my eyes, her interlaced fingers resting on the bridge of my nose. The heels of her hands were cool along the side of my face and she had my vision completely blocked.

“You’ve got to take the money, Matt. Any other way would spoil things, would change me from a girl who happened to like a guy, into a money-grabbing little cheat. Will you take it, Matt?”

“Sure. And now—”

“Wait. There’s something else. I don’t want you to think you have to take me to Los Angeles. If I felt you thought you had to just because of — of last night, I’d feel awful. I mean that would make me something else I don’t want to be, and—”

I stopped the flow of words exactly like any other guy with half an ounce of sense would. It wound up in a first-class clinch. When we broke, the smile on her face was strictly what the gent had in mind when he composed the song about “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

“All right now?” I asked. “Shall we go?”

She became all business. “Sure, Matt. There’s an overnight bag and a suitcase in the kitchen.” Maggie picked up her little leather-bound portable radio and her purse and we went down the hall. With all the space behind the seat, there wasn’t any point in letting her baggage bounce around back in the van. I boosted the pair back out of the way, then set her little radio on top and helped her up. I hit the starter and we pulled out.

“We’re on our way, Maggie. No more worries?”

She patted my arm. “No, Matt. No worries.”

The first part of the trip I like to remember. Just the first couple of hundred miles from Reno down to Bishops — before I began to notice the tail we were wearing.

North of Bishop everything was wonderful. Empty, the big job cruised smoothly along, her Diesel turning over with the steady consistency of an expensive watch. The blonde was the cutest trick that ever graced the cab — and a great traveling companion besides. No breathless questions followed by obvious inattention while you raved on. No school-girl giggles at every other word. Just two adults who were getting up in their twenties and not trying to impress anyone. If losing her job at the Silver King was important to her, she kept it hidden. The talk was easy and relaxed. In Carson City I pulled off at a trucker’s service station to take on fuel.

“Coffee, Maggie?”

She hesitated and took a careful look around. Then she nodded toward a little cafe, linked an arm through mine, and said, “Sure. Let’s try this one and we can keep an eye on the suitcases.”

We had pie and coffee and went back to the truck refreshed. I rigged the desert air-cooler and hosed it up with water. We were on our way again. The wind over the wasteland was getting set for the heat of the day, but a tug on the cord leading out of the cooler rolled the evaporation drum halfway over and cooled the cab nicely. A mile or two slipped by. I noticed the blonde looking at me with an odd expression.

“Matt. I... I’ll bet your married.”

“Bad guess. But what brought it to mind?”

“There’s something about you — your easy sort of way. You’re used to having a girl around.”

I laughed. “Four sisters, three of them older. I had to get used to it. And you?”

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t say a word and I felt my fingers tighten on the wheel. I paid careful attention to rolling the truck down the highway, but suddenly the breeze had spilled out of my sails and I realized I’d been counting a lot on seeing Maggie when she settled in L.A. Great big dreams, but—

“I must have figured wrong,” I said softly. “But you got no ring. Where’s he hiding?”

Her hand stole along the green cloth on my sleeve and covered my knuckles on the steering wheel.

“He didn’t come back, Matt. He didn’t come back from a little island in the Pacific called Iwo Jima.” She said it without bitterness. A simple statement of fact that said more than a big, long speech could have. She’d learned to live with it. She could talk about it.

But I didn’t ask her to. I brought the conversation around to blackjack, how she’d learned about it.

She smiled a warm, bright smile and I was glad to see things back on a lighter level. “Just picked it up, Matt. It wasn’t a bad job. Probably not too different from dealing soup plates in somebody’s greasy spoon. In fact, I know it isn’t; I’ve done that too.” She leaned back. “I do run on, don’t I? What about you, Matt? Your lessons didn’t start in the Silver King.”

“Had four years practice,” I grinned, “with Uncle Sam to feed me if I happened to go broke.”

“What branch?”

“Army. Signal corps. After basic I latched onto an outfit working communications for beachheads. Tough a couple of times a year, but in between there were long stretches where we didn’t do much besides tune up equipment, replace tubes and batteries, and play cards. We overdid it; I seldom care for cards now.”

It went on like that for quite a spell, batting it back and forth from past to present and the like. We pushed along steadily and crossed into California just out of Topaz Lake. Being a truck, we had to roll in for a check-up. I swung the doors on the empty van; they took a quick peek and we were on our way again. We made Bishop and Maggie read the city-limits sign on the way in. We stopped for chow and once again she was very much concerned that we be able to watch the truck as we ate.

“You got gold in those suitcases?” I kidded.

“The Blake bankroll isn’t enormous but I’d hate to lose the few things I have.”

I didn’t think any more about it, but when we pulled out onto the highway and left Bishop the blonde mentioned the name again. She said it real clear, like an adult teaching a child to pronounce it.

“Bishop. Nice town, Bishop.”

“Sure,” I agreed, and shot a quick glance her way, “but it gets awful hot here and—”

She pointed at a kid off in the distance, galloping bareback on an old red horse, and changed the subject. We picked up a little speed and I checked the side mirror like a trucker will, just seeing how things stand. It was Sunday and some of the weekend tourists were headed home. There’d be a lot more of them as we closed in on L.A.

I didn’t notice anything special — not at first, I didn’t. Then I picked up a car quite a way back, one that seemed to hang on back there. The gleam on its chrome grill was pretty bright and it made a pattern. Only it didn’t get bigger and bigger in the rearview mirror and then flash past like they usually do. Just flashed in arid out of sight from time to time. The car was chugging along at the forty-five and fifty I held. I glanced at the blonde, but if she knew she gave no sign. We scooted along mile after mile, the endless strip of gray concrete passing under us. The car with all the chrome was still with us when Lone Pine loomed ahead.

“Matt — is anything wrong?”

“Wrong?”

I’d said it too quickly. Maggie gave me a reproachful look. “You haven’t said much lately,” she said.

I forced a big grin. “Just thinking about another cup of coffee, or maybe something cool. Let’s stop in Lone Pine.”

She nodded. I let the needle drop to forty; the car behind showed and began to close. Then it held off and stayed its distance. I shaved another five off the speed, but the driver was wised up and cut down, way down. He stayed out of sight a little while. In Lone Pine I would know for sure. I wheeled into the first place we came to and we got down for cokes. She watched the truck as we drank, but not me. I kept tab on the stretch of highway down which we had come. He didn’t show. He’d stayed out in the heat rather than run abreast of us in town.

Now I could quit worrying about whether or not he was tagging us. I could start wondering, instead, who in hell it was and what he found so attractive about the stern of Matt Brady’s truck.

On the way out Maggie read the town’s name.

“Lone Pine. Is Lone Pine another hot one, Matt?”

“Sure. They’re all hot on this run. Will be until we hit the coast.”

For the next hundred miles, I dealt light conversation off the top of my mind — the serious business at hand being right under the surface all the while. I couldn’t forget that car that had been on my tail. I had to know something about what was going on. I couldn’t ask the girl; she could be in the thing or out, but either way it wouldn’t help to ask her. The four hundred dollars I took from Bart Akers’ Silver King could be ruled out. If they had wanted the dough, they could have forced matters last night in their office. In fact, they had been careful not to mention the return of their cash. I kept turning it over and over, and I still hadn’t the remotest idea whether it was the Wirth or the Akers side of the puzzle back there.

The town of Mojave lay ahead. “Rest-stop, Maggie,” I said. “You can freshen up while I take on oil. Then I’ll let you stand guard duty.”

She nodded. Only this time I had no intention of keeping our little playmates out in the heat. This time I was going to let them come right on into town.

5.

I cruised along through the outskirts of Mojave and almost to the far end of the short main street, eased into a filling station, and checked the rearview. The big car was just holing up in a station two blocks back and on the other side. He could keep track of me from there. I waited until Maggie came back, then climbed down and went around the end of the building marked MEN. But I kept right on going. Once out of sight of my truck, I sped down the alley on the double. Two blocks, then a left turn and I casually eased down the half block toward the highway. I wondered who it would be — Akers’ hired hands, or Wirth’s.

When I got a peek at the big car, I worked a little farther along until I saw the man behind the wheel. It was Joe — Wirth’s bird-dog, the boy in the fancy tweeds. I turned my back to light a smoke and think. It was Wirth’s idea, then. He’d held me up for some reason he’d never told me, because he wasn’t any more prepared to unload the stuff on Sunday morning than he was on Saturday afternoon. But he had let me go Sunday. He’d all but kissed me good-bye. I blew a cloud of smoke and took a second look. I saw Varney climbing into the car on the other side!

I started back to my rig, the way I’d come. Joe and Varney — together. So Wirth and Bart Akers were running hand in hand. Sure, Wirth could say “put it on the bill” and walk out. He probably owned part — maybe most or all — of the Silver King.

That put Maggie in on the ground floor. I’d suckered in all the way. The phony card game. The big act where Matt Brady tried to play hero and got a crimp in his skull. And all the time the blonde had been making those eyes of hers do tricks, it had been just a game.

It wasn’t hard to see now. Wirth keeping me in Reno just long enough to steer me into the blonde. Some sleight of hand and the girl ordered out of town — but not before she’d laid the ground work about a sister in L.A. And even if I hadn’t suggested her coming with me, she could have angled it so I would. But why?

Why did Jake and Bart Akers groom a trucker down with four hundred clams and a doll and send him on his way to Los Angeles? The van was empty; I’d opened it at the State-line inspection. Only the girl and her things were on board. She could have gone by train. She could have been in that car two blocks behind my rig. Why didn’t they take the girl and her two suitcases in their car?

I stopped on that and lit another smoke. Any way you looked at it there was only one answer. Whatever it was I carried, it was too hot to handle. They could ride along behind to keep tab, but they didn’t want to be caught with it. That left a reasonable doubt on the blonde. If they didn’t want to bring it to L.A., she probably wouldn’t want to either.

Maybe she wasn’t all the way in. I wanted to believe that. I’d been so sure about that spark between us. So sure. And when I pulled myself up into the cab, before rolling out of Mojave with our escort, I looked long and steadily into Maggie’s face.

I still wanted to believe she wasn’t really selling me out.

For another seventy-five miles I tried to smile in the right places, and it must have been fairly successful because Maggie didn’t seem to know I’d caught wise. I kept hoping it was the other way, that she knew less about things than I did — but in San Fernando we came to the payoff.

“Mind stopping for a minute, Matt? I’d like to pick up some aspirin. I’ll find a phone book at the same time and call my sister to tell her I’m in town. All right?”

“Sure.” I said it with a grin, but I was going to watch this one closer than a load-limit inspector checking the scales under your wheel. I found a double-parking slot and worked the truck over to the curb.

“Be just a sec,” she called gayly.

There was a small drugstore right by the truck and she went in, then came out before she had had a chance to more than take a quick look around.

“They don’t have an L.A. directory, Matt. I’ll have to run back and try another store.”

I nodded. As soon as she started up the street I hunched over on my side and put my face as close as I could to the big mirror. That expanded the field of view. It was like looking out the window, only my head wasn’t sticking out of the cab. The blonde hurried along. About a block back, she hesitated for a careful look around. It looked like she nodded, but I wasn’t sure, before she turned into a store.

A bit farther on a car door opened toward the curb. A man in tweeds slipped across the walk and followed Maggie into the shop. The glow of a streetlight caught him long enough to remove any doubt... the blonde was getting together with Jake Wirth’s boy Joe.

Drumming my fingers on the steering wheel, I waited for her to come back, waited and chewed-on the latest development. One thing for sure — nothing was sacred now. Anything I could do to upset the speed of this cannonball was fair enough. I felt behind me for her suitcase, but the lock didn’t open. I’d need a key and Maggie never parted with her purse. But I had to know what I was carrying.

There’d have to be a way to get Maggie out, and still have the purse left in. I worked on that. Then I got out and went back to the rear wheels and squatted down on the sidewalk to peek under the truck. I waited for Maggie to come.

“Something wrong, Matt?”

I didn’t look up. I put my hand under and felt the hose coming down to the brake cylinder.

“What is it, Matt?”

“Air line. Plugged, I think. Can’t use the brakes.” Then I felt along the cylinder. “Maybe that’ll do it,” I said, and we climbed into the cab. I waited until she’d made herself comfortable and stowed her handbag. Then I reached under the dash and fiddled with nothing.

“No air.” I looked at her as I said it and saw the first signs of worry creeping across her face. She put a hand to her long yellow hair and I thought she tried to check the mirror on what was happening behind us.

“Maggie, you know that length of hose coming down back there? The one I just had my hand on?” She nodded. “Now look,” I went on slowly, “you watch the thing for me. You’ll see it jump when the air blasts through. It’ll jerk a little, like a garden hose when the water first comes on. Catch?”

“Yes, Matt, but—”

“Nothing to it,” I cut in. “I’ll work it free in a second and you’ll see the hose move. Then we can go.”

She climbed down and went back.

“Watching it?” I called.

“Yes, Matt.”

“Move yet?” I asked, my hand grabbing her purse. She answered a slow “No” while I made a quick pass through her bag. No keys. I brought out a gun instead.

“She moving now?” I called, and she answered, “Not yet, Matt.”

“Keep watching,” I said.

I checked the gun, a little .25 automatic, a vest-pocket edition, but plenty dangerous up to a few yards. The truck cab is only a few feet — I couldn’t allow this. I slid the clip free, then checked to make sure the chamber was empty. I dropped the bullets into my pocket and the gun back in her purse. Then I found the keys.

Moving fast, I hunched back toward the bags. She’d moved the little radio over by the open back window. I swung it down, slipped a key into the top suitcase, and raised the lid.

Green. Bales of green bills bound in packets with paper bands. They were twenties and I dared not think how much cash the suitcase represented. Involuntarily, my hand went to the smooth green paper. No use to open the other one. I was looking at more than enough dough to warrant knocking off a truck-driver when the time came. Brady was sure monkeying with a blowtorch this time!

Snapping the lid shut, I hoisted the leather radio back up, but the nearly-hidden gleam of a tube caught my eye.

There’d been no music out of the thing. Not a note. I stalled for time again. “Maybe now,” I called. “Keep an eye on it.”

“How long is this going to take, Matt?”

“Hold on,” I told her. “Just hold on, will yuh?”

I turned the radio quickly in my hands. Pressing the back down, I slipped it aside, but the works I saw were strictly not of the radio variety. Familiar to me, sure, but not radio. What I was holding was the chassis of a little walkie-talkie. I didn’t remember the number. B — C something. We’d used them often enough during the war. Someone had stripped away the case and tailored the works into this little portable radio shell.

Now I knew why the blonde had been so careful to pronounce the names of towns. A play-by-play report. A progress check every time Matt Brady turned the wheel. Our tail couldn’t have lost us if he’d tried. Not even at night.

We could do without any more of that kind of thing, too. I wrapped my fingers around the R-F amplifier tube, slipped it out, and replaced the back. Then I put her radio back on the miniature Fort Knox behind me and tramped on the brake pedal.

“Matt! It moved.”

“Come on, Maggie,” I called. “That does it. We’re ready to roll.” But we didn’t roll, not right away. I didn’t know which way to turn. I had to think. “We’ll build up a little air,” I said, my eyes glued to the dials.

They didn’t need watching, but I needed some time. I realized now that the bundle of bills behind had never seen the government mint. There could only be one reason Wirth wasn’t getting into the same car with the cash, for the trip south. That reason was twenty years on the rockpile. I thought about those etchings hanging on his walls. He was a master craftsman all right. The whole setup was plenty clear. He’d cut a set of plates and printed the phony twenties. A million dollars — two million, what did it matter? He’d picked a patsy, Matt Brady, to carry it down to a center of distribution. And Brady’d do the job for four hundred dollars and a smile — and maybe a hole in the head.

6.

I made one solid decision. We could do without the escort when I got to discussing things with Maggie. Traffic was pretty heavy when we pulled out into the stream. I eased along playing the lights, waiting for a break, the tail-car boxed in a block behind us.

Then Maggie Blake cracked up. She broke like a school kid jilted on the night of the big dance. We were riding along and suddenly she threw herself across the cab, her arms going around me, her fingers digging into the flesh along my neck. I felt her body shudder. Hysterical sobs pulsed through her and big tears cascaded down the side of her face. Those bright red lips trembled and stayed half open, but never a sound came out, just the racking sobs as she clung to me. I slipped my free arm around her and half-heartedly tried to ease the strain; in the back of my mind was the idea that this was just another trick — something else to keep Brady off balance.

Only if this show wasn’t the real McCoy, the kid next to me was wasting her time. She could have been among the top-ten actresses.

When the panic died away, I smoothed her hair. “Better now?”

“Better, Matt.”

“You could tell me about it,” I said softly.

“Sometime. I will, Matt, sometime. But we’re close enough now. I can take a cab up to Mamie’s house from here. So if you’ll let me out, Matt, I’ll—”

“We’ll talk about it, Maggie,” I grinned. An amber light flashed against us. I cruised into the intersection, swung right, and barreled away, leaving the black car in a block of tightly-packed cars. Next turn left, then a few more quick ones and I hit Victory Boulevard.

“Victory Boulevard!” She read it nice and clear. Go ahead, I thought. Shout it right into the thing, for all the good it’ll do you.

“Why are we turning down Victory Boulevard, Matt?”

“We’re leaving your little playmates behind, Maggie,” I said crisply. “I don’t know what’s going on, but we can do without Joe and Varney riding our tail.”

“We what?”

“Look, Maggie. We’ve been to the ball, but it’s over. Midnight. Cinderella kicks off the glass slipper. We unmask. Brady has been more than a little dense this week end, but he’s coming out of it.”

“Matt, I don’t understand—”

I said, “I think you do, Maggie. You’re in all the way. And you’ve had quite a part to play. Phony blackjack game, the build-up when Bart Akers’ boys picked us up, everything — including your little get together with Joe back in the drugstore in San Fernando.”

She slipped the catch on her handbag. Won’t this be cute, I thought, an empty gun in my ribs. I’ll laugh in her face. Then she closed the bag. We pulled up to a red light.

“Matt— Please, Matt, let me tell you about it. I—”

The yellow top of a taxi came abreast. A door opened, then slammed shut. Varney jumped on our running board, opened the door, and slid in beside Maggie.

“Don’t do anything foolish, Brady.” He brought out a service .45 the like of which I’d packed during the war. He held it on his knees, the business end right where you’d know it would be. He covered it with a handkerchief.

“The light’s, green, Brady. Just move along with the traffic. You get any more wise ideas and the world will be one truck-driver short.” Then he turned to the blonde. “You been talking too much?”

“I haven’t said a thing. Not—”

“Then don’t. We’ll follow Riverside Drive, Brady. Then up Los Feliz. I’ll call the turns. Make your stops carefully.”

Maggie asked about him coming in with us. He explained that when I gunned out to run for it, he had split with Joe. They’d covered the two main ways into town, him in the cab and Joe in the big car. We didn’t talk any more, just Maggie reading a sign now and then, probably because of the habit she’d started. We ended up in Hollywood: Kenmore, just off Franklin. The big black car was parked at the curb as we pulled up.

“Just sit tight, Brady,” Varney said quickly. “We’ll wait until Joe comes around to your side before you climb down.” I didn’t argue with the .45; it makes an awful hole. When Joe called up to me, I got out.

A large apartment-house door opened and spilled a shaft of yellow light on the lawn. An older couple started leisurely down the walk toward us.

“I’ll get the grips,” Joe said.

That left Varney with a hand in his coat pocket. He’d do the honors and escort me up the walk.

We met the older couple halfway. Just two citizens obviously in the chips. He could have been a business man — furniture maybe, or real estate. Or he might have been a minor movie executive. His face was pink and pudgy, and he wore a loud sports shirt decorated in tropical island designs. He was probably pushing sixty.

His wife, if she was that, linked an arm through Maggie’s, but a pair of cash-register eyes fastened on the suitcase in Joe’s hand. She wasn’t the talkative kind. She said then the only words she was to speak all evening long. Her voice was strident and carried at least two houses in each direction.

“Have a nice trip, dear?”

Maggie nodded. “Very.”

We were guests. Guests, in case any of the neighbors happened to be listening in or watching us. Oh, yes, we were company — until they got us inside that luxurious living room and closed the door.

“What the hell goes on here,” Pudgy barked. “Who’s this fellow? Who told you to bring him—”

“Keep your shirt on, Cain,” Varney answered. “It wasn’t our idea. Brady here drove the truck. He wised up somehow. We had to include him.”

I tried for humor. “If I’m in the way, I’ll leave.”

Cain glared at me, then gave his attention to the suitcase on the thick maroon carpet. Maggie slid the zipper on her bag and tossed the key. I shot a quickie at Varney, but his eyes were not on the money, they were on me. With the full light of the room on the packaged goods, Cain’s face softened. He scratched absently at his pink jaw, then lifted a packet of twenties for close examination.

“A clever bit of work,” he admitted softly. “Wirth does a first-class job.” His wife leaned over and ran loving fingers across the phony wealth before us. When Cain replaced the money, he closed the lid, and turned to me. For several endless seconds his eyes went over me, his face expressionless.

“We’ll hold a business conference, Mr.—”

“Brady.”

“Yes. Mr. Brady. We’ll have to decide what we can pay, Mr. Brady, to insure your silence.”

He nodded to his wife and went through a door on the far side of the room. She motioned Maggie and Joe toward the door, then followed them. We waited in silence until they filed back in.

“We’ve decided we can part with two thousand dollars, Mr. Brady,” Cain said. “Along with the money you received at the Silver King, that brings you in for almost twenty-five hundred.”

“That,” I said with conviction, “will buy a lot of quiet, Mr. Cain. So let’s put the guns away and—”

“Not so fast. You aren’t in until you take the cash, and we can’t take any chances until you’re definitely in as deep as we are. Once you get the money, any talking you do will be against yourself. You see how it is?” I nodded. “Varney and Joe will get into the truck with you. We’re paying in real money, of course, and you can drive them out to the ranch where they’ll get it for you. Then you can go on your way.”

There wasn’t any more to say. They weren’t buying my silence with money. Somewhere out along the road they’d cut me into their caper, but not in cash. Half a clip of lead — that would be my payoff. A strict guarantee that Matt Brady wouldn’t upset their little applecart. I glanced across the room at Maggie Blake, the blonde fluff — the decoy who led me into this. How was she liking it? I caught her eye, and something didn’t fit, because she wasn’t liking it at all. Panic was there. Panic, but behind it something else, something I couldn’t be quite sure of. She opened her little bag; her head snapped up.

“Wait. The note with your address — he’s got it.” That stopped the house. She reached into her purse again, then started toward me, her steps slow and deliberate, her attention on the purse. “We wouldn’t want him to have that paper in his pocket,” she said. “It could lead to trouble. I showed it to him after Varney gave it to me, and—”

Cain was looking at her as she made another forge through the purse. But when she came abreast of Varney, her hand flashed to his gun and pushed the barrel away from me. The purse fell to the floor and then her little automatic pressed against Varney.

“Drop it,” she said harshly. “Nobody moves.”

There wasn’t a sound, not a breath until Varney’s gun thudded to the carpet. The blonde was in command, but with a gun that wasn’t loaded. Only I knew the bullets were safely in my pocket.

Cain was first to recover. “Maggie! You’re out of your head!” he barked. “You can’t get away with a highjacking job here! We’ll—”

Her voice was steady, her words direct. “The house is already surrounded. I’ll, shoot if anyone moves. Varney first. You—”

“You’re, bluffing.” Cain’s face had turned from pink to a violent red. His eyes snapped; his heavy jaws shook. “Joe and Varney cruised back eight and ten miles to be sure that you weren’t being followed. You didn’t have our address until Varney gave it to you in San Fernando. That was your last Stop. There was no chance to pass it along.”

“It has been passed.” She was cool now. Cool, and moving almost by habit, like a G.I. who feels fear until H-hour and then the sand is under his feet and it’s carry on the old routine come hell or high water. “Every turn,” she was saying now. “A small walkie-talkie passed the word. Two years ago you made it. You ran the counterfeit money down here and killed the stooge. But this time the tail was out in front. Out in front, Mr. Cain, directed and kept informed by the walkie-talkie, shifting a street this way and a street that as needed. It was simple.”

I caught a look of anxiety on her face. She expected help any second, undoubtedly thinking it should have been here by now. And she looked determined enough to hold out until they came. Fine, except the gun she held was completely useless and the word hadn’t been passed over the walkie-talkie since San Fernando. I’d pulled the tube; the set was dead. There just wasn’t going to be any help for her.

Tension showed in every face. I glanced at the .45 Varney had been forced to drop. Even as I looked, the corner of my eye picked up the movement across the room of Joe’s hand. I dived for the gun, just as Maggie’s automatic clicked on an empty chamber. She gasped. Varney piled on me, his hand reaching for the gun, but I’d already closed on it. A gun barked. I squeezed off a pair of fast ones, saw Joe pitch and double up. Before I could turn the automatic on Varney, he’d flopped on the floor, his arms outstretched, a cry for mercy in his throat. I struggled to my knees and looked around. Cain lay cringing on the floor. His silent wife had disappeared, but I wasn’t worried about her. The blonde knelt beside me, the useless automatic in her small hand. Somewhere a window crashed and a woman screamed. Then the glass behind me shattered and a gun poked in from the darkness. The voice was loud and clear, and loaded with authority:

“Hold it! Don’t move! This is an arrest!”

There must have been half a dozen of them streaming through the lush apartment. Cain and his wife were in custody of two business-like gents and Varney was shackled to Cain.

I turned to Maggie Blake. “Would it do any good to ask where the hell you fit into this picture? Could I depend on one honest answer — just for a change?”

“Every time, Matt. From now on, every time.” Her voice said she wanted me to believe it. The purse lay open on the carpet, a lipstick and compact had spilled out of it. She nodded toward the purse. “Pull out the lining, Matt.”

The leather was loose along the top. I worked it away. There was a card, a white card, and pretty big. It was folded down the middle. I’ve never seen one, but I can read. The words TREASURY DEPARTMENT were there, and SECRET SERVICE. Some signatures of people I’d never heard of, but I recognized the picture.

“Must be another gag,” I said.

“No gags, Matt. It’s level from here on in.”

A tall man was coming our way. His face was drawn and lean, and more than a little careworn — like a colonel whose regiment has just come through a nasty day’s work. He stopped in front of us.

“What went wrong, Maggie?”

“My gun,” she said ruefully. “I was doing all right, but when I pulled the trigger there was nothing—”

Her voice stopped as I held my hand over hers, opened my fingers and allowed the bullets to fall into her palm.

“I didn’t mean your gun,” the tall man said. “Why didn’t you keep tipping us off on streets? We didn’t hear a thing after San Fernando — had to get to a phone and put in an all-cars call on the L.A. police radio. If they hadn’t spotted the truck we’d never have found you. Damn set must have—”

I had something for him, too. I fumbled in my pocket and tossed the little tube across to him. He turned it over and over in his bony hand. “How long have you had this?” he asked finally.

“Since Bishop. That’s where I first noticed the car following us.” I grinned. “The rest I found out in San Fernando while the girl frittered away her time watching the back wheels on my—” I moved just in time to avoid a sharp kick.

The tall boy in the gray hat spoke again. “Over a year we’ve worked on this one, Brady. Wirth’s a cute one in more ways than making plates. He can plan, too, and he’s strictly an opportunist. Never lays it out way in advance so you can dig up a stoolie and set a trap. Not Wirth. He waits for something new and different to turn up, wheels into gear and ships the money out before you can get organized. Like you. He probably never thought about using you until—”

“He didn’t,” I cut in. “He’d already ordered the stuff taken off my truck, then changed his mind and kept me around town.”

“Probably. We planted Maggie on him, had her wiggle into the setup, but Wirth trusted no one. The last time he shipped something out he killed the patsy who did the carrying. We’ll fry him for it if we can prove it. Either way, they’ve taken him into custody up north tonight. I radioed right after we lost you in Sari Fernando. They’ll round up Akers too.”

I thought about them knocking off the last one who’d made the trip and Maggie knowing it and still going on. I thought about her cracking up for those few minutes just out of San Fernando. I understood now. My hand found hers.

Tall Boy put a set of bony knuckles on her shoulder. “You’ve been under quite a strain, young lady!” he said and smiled. “We’ve called for a couple of rooms for you at the Biltmore, a little space where you can rest up and sort of collect yourself for a few days while we get the prosecution end of this thing rolling. I’ll have one of the boys drive you over.”

Her fingers tightened on mine a time or two. She caught my eye and gave me that slow half-wink.

“Come to think of it,” I said, “I’ll be going that way myself.”

“Thanks, boss,” she told the tall fellow quickly. “I’ll just let Matt run me over. I’m getting so I like trucks. They’re so... so—”

Then he smiled and waved an arm as he turned away.

We stepped out into the cool evening and walked toward my rig. A shaft of moonlight caught us and cast a shadow on the walk.

One shadow. We were close enough to make it do for the two of us.