Black Mask (Vol. 29, No. 3 — January 1947)

The man who put lovely Flame Harlin out of the way made a serious mistake — but it was his last. Flame was true to her name — a cookie who could never be cold. And after she was dead she fixed it so her murderer would be nice and cozy too — in a special chair that was wired for warmth.

Chapter One Chills and Thrills

It was early fall, and faintly chilly, outside. In my office, the thermometer was well over seventy, but Miss Townsbury had brought some chill with her.

Make no mistake, form no mental picture because of the ‘Miss’. She was between forty and fifty years of age, dressed in some brown and eye-repelling type of ribbed silk. An iceberg, in brown silk. Blue eyes, blue as frozen sea water, and features sharp as icicles, with an icicle’s thinness to her spare figure. There was nothing about her to indicate that she had ever melted or would ever melt.

She was telling me about the girl named Flame. Flame was the daughter of her brother’s second wife — if you follow me. That is, her brother had married twice. For his second wife, he had married a divorcee. This divorcee had a daughter by her first marriage. This daughter’s name was Flame, I hope it’s all clear.

Flame was missing.

Miss Townsbury had begun to suspect something was amiss when she wrote to Flame (Miss Flame Harlin) at her apartment in town, inviting her to come up and spend a weekend at the Townsbury country place. There had been no answer.

Miss Townsbury had phoned, twice, without success. This morning, she had come to town to do some shopping and had dropped in at the girl’s apartment. The accumulation of newspapers and mail at the front door, the accumulation of milk bottles at the rear door, had convinced Miss Townsbury that things were not as they should be.

I asked her if she had gone to the police.

She shook her head emphatically. “I didn’t think it wise to bring them into it, Mr. Jones.” She paused. “Not until we are sure that Miss Harlin is — really missing.”

If she wasn’t sure, why had she come to me? At twenty dollars a day (and expenses), I thought it best not to ask that question.

I asked some other questions.

Miss Harlin was an entertainer, a comedienne.

Did she sing? Did she juggle? Did she crack jokes?

She sang. “Though her voice wasn’t anything extraordinary, you understand. That doesn’t seem necessary, today, however. She had — whatever it is the public wants, today. Her songs were very well received.”

I knew what the public wanted, today and every day, and so did she. She was being genteel. I asked: “She isn’t married, of course?”

A thin, cool smile. “No. She was engaged, at one time, to a Mr. Rodney Carlton. There’s a possibility...” She stopped.

I said: “You think there’s a possibility they may have eloped?”

“Eloped?” The gaze came up to meet mine, then moved away. “Eloped? No. I suppose that could, be a polite phrasing.” The gaze direct again. “Miss Harlin, I might remind you, is an entertainer. She has always lived an undisciplined life. Her standards of conduct are theatrical standards. Am I being clear?”

I gave her a reproving glance. I said softly: “You’re being completely frank, Miss Towns-bury. Have you any reason, other than those, to believe that Miss Harlin might have done what you’re suggesting?”

The figure stiffened in my leatherette chair. “None. However, under the circumstances, you can see why I came to a private detective.”

“The police,” I told her, “are very discreet in matters of this kind. You wouldn’t need to fear any unpleasant publicity.” Not much, I thought, not much.

The cold eyes surveyed me haughtily. “Are you telling me, in your indirect way, that you don’t want this case. Mr. Jones?”

I hastened to correct her on that. I explained about ethics, and the necessity for private operatives to cooperate with the police, and the rest of the blarney that gives my work its high moral tone.

She relaxed again, with a rustle of heavy silk. She answered all the rest of my questions quickly and competently. When she rose to leave, she said: “I do think, if you don’t discover anything in a reasonable length of time, we should go to the police.”

I told her I thought that would be best.

She left, and I went to the window, as is my fashion. There was a Mercedes town car parked at the curb. As she approached it, a tall and dark man in a chauffeur’s uniform stepped out of the car to open the door on the curb side. I watched, until the Mercedes moved around the corner with a contemptuous snort from its tail pipe.

Such high-class trade I get in my shabby office. Was it my reputation? The penuriousness of my clients? What it was in this case, I didn’t find out until later. Anyway, I decided that I would go and see this Rodney Carlton, first.

Downstairs, I stood on the curb a minute, watching a kid punt a football. It kept sliding off his foot wrong — he wasn’t getting directly behind the ball. Well, he had a lot of years ahead of him.

I walked up two blocks, to where the Dusy was parked. I started her elegant motor, and headed her east.

The very-near-east, where the rooming houses are, I passed through. The upper-east, where the fine apartments are, I also passed through. In the far-upper-east, the neighborhood can’t make up its mind. There are some new apartments, and some fine old homes. There are some cottages, new and inexpensive, but pleasant and in good taste.

This Rodney Carlton’s address was one of the cottages. A low white place, with red shutters, with a red door. With a man in the front yard.

The man had a golf club in his hands. It looked like a nine iron. He was trying to chip some balls he had into a washtub in the middle of the yard. He’d play each shot carefully and easily, with fine form, but they were all short.

“More wrist,” I said. “You’re not getting enough wrist into them.”

He looked up at me and out at the car. He studied me. Then: “You can’t be a collector, not with a Duesenberg. Are you selling insur— Who the hell are you. anyway?”

I shook my head. “My name is Jones, Mortimer Jones. I’m looking for a girl named Flame Harlin.”

He stood frozen a moment, a thin, good-looking young man with dark hair, with apprehension in his dark blue eyes. “Flame — she’s missing? You — expected to find her here?” He was staring now, and his voice roughened. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I’m a private investigator,” I told him quietly. “Miss Townsbury has hired me to locate Miss Harlin, whom she has reason to suspect is missing.” What a hell of a sentence that was.

He was still staring. “That old battle-axe hired you? Why should she care? She doesn’t give a damn for Flame, either way.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I said. “I thought, perhaps, you—”

“Come on in,” he said, and started for the door. I followed.

Rodney Carlton indicated a chair, and took one himself. He said: “Miss Harlin and I were engaged, at one time, you understand. But I haven’t seen her for a month. How long has she been — been missing?”

“A week,” I said, “at the least. I’ll know more later.” I told him about the papers and the milk, about Miss Townsbury’s phone calls and her letter.

When I had finished, he was thoughtful. He was considering something, I could tell. Finally, he said: “I’ve—” He was blushing. “I’ve a key to — to Miss Harlin’s apartment, if—” He paused. “Could I go along, if we took a look in there?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “It’s just as illegal for two to enter as for one. I’d be breaking the law, either way.”

He rose. “I guess you private detectives don’t worry much about breaking the law. I’ll get a coat.”

The movies, I thought. It’s the movies that give people those kinds of ideas about us.

While he went to get his coat, I went quietly on my rubber heels to the desk. He was a poet, I saw. There was a half-bom child of his mood this moment in the typewriter. I read: Deep, where the ground is cold.

Then he was standing beside me, blushing again. “Bad?” he asked.

“I’m no judge,” I said.

“I have a small income,” he explained. “Thank God I don’t need to depend on that stuff for a living.”

“I’ve seen worse,” I said, “in print,” and hoped he wouldn’t ask me where

When we went out again, the sun was shining, and what had started as an early fall day was now a late summer day. Bury them, bury them deep... It stuck with me, for some reason.

The upper east side was where Miss Harlin lived. In a small and neat four-apartment building of stone and frame on a quiet, elm-shaded street. Her apartment was on the second floor.

I saw the papers, there. I pawed through them, and discovered that the earliest was eight days old. You’d think the paper boy would— But that was neither here nor there.

Eight days, then... Rodney Carlton handed me his key, and I fitted it, and the door swung open with a slight squeak.

The sunshine was slanting through the tall windows in the high living room. It was an expensively furnished, spacious and definitely feminine apartment — off-white and pastels the basic motif.

There was a faint and lovely fragrance haunting the air.

Everything was in order, everything shipshape. I asked him: “Did she have a maid? Wouldn’t the maid bring in the milk and the papers and pick up the mail downstairs?”

“She has no servants,” he said. “She can afford them, all right, but she claims she’d be bored silly all day, if she couldn’t clean house.”

We went from there to a bathroom in peach, to an ivory dining room, to a bedroom in orchid.

Nothing in the place. No exotic girl with a dagger in her throat, no distinguished gent with a neat hole in his aristocratic forehead, no blood, no mess, no clues at all.

The kitchenette was white tile, with a black rubber tile floor. Not even one dirty dish in the sink, nor one spilled grain of sugar. It was like a display home, all the way through.

I opened the back door and brought in the milk and put it in the refrigerator. There was some cheese in there, some wine, some butter, some cold meats.

There was nothing in the apartment to indicate a hurried trip, to indicate violence. It was as though she was gone for the day. But she’d been gone for eight.

I looked through some drawers. I looked through a scrapbook she kept, of newspaper items about herself. There might be something there. I took it along with me when we left.

Rodney was quiet, in the car. He was looking sick.

I asked: “Do you have a picture of her?”

He nodded.

“Could I borrow it?”

“Of course.” His eyes were straight ahead, on the road.

His poet’s imagination would be working now, thinking the unthinkable. I said: “Everything may be all right. We’re not sure of anything so far.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure, of course.”

The Dusy made no comment, purring softly under her hood, moving quietly through the upper east side to the far upper east side, to the cottage of Rodney Carlton.

I waited in the car while he went in to get the picture. When he brought it out, it was wrapped in brown paper. I didn’t open it, but put it on the seat beside me.

“Don’t think about it,” I said. “We don’t know anything.”

“Don’t think about it?” His voice was ragged. “She was my life, that’s all. She was all there is in the world for me.”

A typical poetic exaggeration, I thought. He hasn’t even seen her for a month, I thought.

I drove from there down to headquarters. I went in and up to the second floor, to the Missing Persons Bureau. Old Pop Delaney was behind his mission oak desk in there, manufacturing cheap cigar smoke.

“What d’ya know?” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

He had a round head, topped with snow-white hair. He had a smooth face, unwrinkled, though he was crowding seventy. But perhaps he’d never worried — he had always worked for the city. So had I, for a while.

I told him about the need for discretion. “You get all that carriage trade, don’t you?” he asked. “How do you do it, Jonesy?”

I ignored that. I showed him the picture, and looked at it myself for the first time.

A tinted picture. A girl with jet hair and Pacific-blue eyes and with that challenge, that bold and alluring something that makes men aware of the person possessing it, that something more than beauty.

“Hey,” Pop said. “All right, huh?” Then he frowned. “This the best you got?”

“It’s good enough for me,” I said.

“Yeh, but for reproduction, a glossy print would be better. You got any others?”

“Just that,” I said.

He rolled the cigar in his mouth, studying the picture. “O.K., I’ll do what I can. You can pick this up this afternoon.” He continued to roll the cigar and study the picture. He shook his head sadly. “I’m an old man, Jonesy,” he said, “an old, old man.”

I left him with his dreams.

I was just going through the big entrance door downstairs, when I heard a voice. The voice. My worst friend and unkindest critic, the boss of Homicide, Devine.

“What’s your hurry, Jones?” he wanted to know.

“No hurry,” I said. “That was my usual gait. How are things with you?” As though I cared, as though he couldn’t be dying, right at my feet, without my caring.

“O.K.,” he said. “No murders, no important ones, anyway. Got a vacation coming up, end of the month.” He smiled. “In on business?”

“N-o-o,” I lied. “Just dropped in to say ‘hello’ to some of the boys. I’m glad everything is quiet.”

“You never drop in at Homicide any more,” he said. “Not mad at us, are you? No hard feelings? We work together, don’t we, Jones?”

“Always,” I said. “Cooperation, as the Chief says.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Be good, boy.”

“I will,” I promised. “I’m going to cut my cigarettes down to two packs a day, any day now.” I left him, and went out into the sun.

He’d be checking now. He’d be prowling the department, trying to find out my business. He didn’t like me. He knew I could have his job, any time I wanted it, and he would never like me. But Pop would tell him nothing. Everyone at the department disliked him as much as I did.

The Dusy chuckled, when I kicked her into life.

Back at the office, I went up the stairs slowly, mulling over all I had seen and heard this morning, searching for a thread to untangle, searching for something that didn’t fit, some piece out of the proper focus. I found nothing.

I opened my door quietly. It’s never locked.

There was a man sitting in the leatherette chair on the customer’s side of my desk. A beefy man with a broad placid face, and eyes without expression. Wearing a cheap blue suit and a blue shirt with a brown tie. Wearing a tough expression he’d seen somewhere. A private operative we’re not too proud to have in the trade, a gent named Moose Lundgren.

“What’s cooking, Jonesy?” he wanted to know.

“Nothing much.” I went over to sit in my mahogany swivel chair. “Murder or two, couple of bank robberies — you know how it is.”

He smiled genially. “And hotel skippers and jealous husbands or wives and labor trouble — that’s how it is, huh?”

“Not labor trouble,” I said. “I leave that alone.”

He shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Maybe you can afford to be particular.”

I lit a cigarette out of the new pack, and offered him one, which he refused. I asked: “Something on your mind, Moose?”

He expelled his breath through his flabby mouth. “Well, that Harlin dame—”

I tensed, waiting. He seemed to be hesitating I said: “What’s about her?”

He smiled. “I saw you leave her apartment. I was watching it, at the time, and I wondered—” Again, he stopped, in his hesitant way. “What you got on her, Jonesy? What’s the angle?”

“What’s yours?” I countered. “You were watching her apartment? Why?”

He smiled expansively. “Why? Why would I be? For pay, of course. A party hired me to do it.”

“How long ago?” I asked him. “When did you start watching it?”

He froze up. That stubborn look came to his pig eyes, and he shook his head. “You ask too many questions.”

“You started it,” I told him. “I’ve got more questions than answers — I guarantee you that.”

He pulled a cheap cigar out of his breast pocket and took some time biting off the end. He lighted it slowly.

I thought, he’s going to get pompous now. He’s going to sound important.

He said: “This guy I’m working for is a pretty big operator, Jonesy. Kind of short-tempered, too. You and I would work better together.”

I laughed. I said: “I’ll decide that. Don’t try to scare me.”

He shrugged, a la Greenstreet. He studied his cigar. Then his muddy eyes met mine. “Val Every,” he said, and nothing more.

I was supposed to be impressed. Val Every had grown big with prohibition, and grown no smaller in the years since. I didn’t believe he’d need to hire a third rate shamus like Lundgren. He had enough guns of his own.

“He a friend of Miss Harlin’s?” I inquired pleasantly.

Moose nodded. “He’d like to be more than that. She worked for him, sang at the Pheasant. He wanted to marry her, Jonesy.”

“Marry?” I said, doubtfully. “He wasn’t a marrying man, the last I heard. Though he always did all right with the ladies, for a man his age.”

“He’s only forty-five,” Moose said. “I’m telling you, Jones, for this Flame Harlin, he’ll go all the way. He’s been a sick man since she left. He’s nothing to fool with, right now.”

“Since she left?” I said. “And when was that, Moose?”

He looked at me quietly a moment. “Week ago. Those papers up in front of her door are eight days old.”

“Well,” I said, “you know more about it than I do, probably. Or at least as much. What do you want from me?”

“Just who you’re working for.”

“A client,” I told him. “A client who prefers to remain anonymous for the moment.”

He rose slowly, and stood regarding his hat. “Are you sure that’s what you want me to tell Val. Jonesy?”

“You can tell him anything you want,” I said. “He’s your client.”

Again that shrug, and Moose was walking toward the door. About halfway there, he turned to look at me. He opened his mouth to say something, and then evidently decided against it. I heard his big feet going down the stairs.

The mail wasn’t much, just some bills. I put them carefully with the others, and went over to Mac’s.

I had a beer, first, a small one. I drank it slowly, thinking all the while.

Deep and cold and all alone, I thought, bury them, bury...

I didn’t realize I was thinking aloud until I saw Mac staring at me.

“Bury who?” Mac said.

“The Dodgers,” I said. “Why not?”

“Like hell,” Mac said. “Bury the rest of them, instead.”

“You got a small steak?” I asked.

He nodded. “Stringy and small, and I don’t think it’ll have much flavor, but you could call it a steak.”

“Cut-rate, no doubt, if it’s that bad.”

“The standard price.”

“Fry it,” I told him, “in your inimitable way. Garnish it with onions, and serve it deftly. Then chat with me while I eat it.”

“Sure,” he said, “I got nothing else to do. I can make a living off you, alone. My other customers don’t matter, only to me.”

I yawned, and sipped my beer.

When he brought it over, he brought another small beer along. There was only one other customer in the place, and he was nursing a Tom Collins.

“You know Val Every, don’t you?” I asked Mac.

“I guess everybody knows him.”

“Sure,” I said. “But you know him pretty well, don’t you? Didn’t you buy beer from him, during prohibition?”

“During prohibition,” Mac said stiffly, “I sold roofing.”

“Days — and hooch in your blind pig at night. Who you trying to kid, Mac?”

He said nothing, looking haughty.

“All right,” I said. “The Dodgers are fine. I hope they always win.”

“I had some dealings with Every,” Mac admitted. “If you got any with him, talk soft, Jonesy. Don’t irritate him.”

“I’ll try not to. But what I want to know is — would you figure him for the kind of guy who-’d want to marry some girl who worked for him?”

Mac shook his head. “I wouldn’t figure him to marry anybody. With his money, why should he get married? He never has, and he’s known some lulus. Why should he change now?”

“Love,” I said softly. “The great, basic urge, maybe.”

“We weren’t talking about love,” Mac corrected me. “We were talking about marriage, weren’t we?”

“A terrific love,” I went on, “for the first time in his life, probably. Would he want to many the girl?”

“Not Valentine J. Every,” Mac said flatly. “No. He wouldn’t marry a girl. He wouldn’t want to, either. He’s very set on the subject. With Every, girls are eighteen cents a dozen, ceiling price.”

I ate the rest of my steak in silence. As Mac had prophesied, it was stringy, small and unpalatable.

I ate it like a little Spartan, washing it down with beer.

Mac went down to the other end of the bar and explained to the man behind the Tom Collins why Ruby Bob Fitzimmons would have licked any living heavyweight.

I went back to the office, and phoned the dairy that kept delivering milk to the apartment of Flame Harlin. I told them to stop it until further notice. I did the same with the paper.

When I went out again, the kid was back in the street, and still trying to straighten out his punts.

He was doing a little better.

Chapter Two Jones on the Job

The day was warm, still, a lovely Indian Summer day. The Dusy’s tires sang on the hot asphalt, as I drove over to headquarters. Pop had my picture, ready and waiting.

He also had another customer, so I didn’t stop to chat. I could have gone back to the office, to comb through that scrapbook, but it was too nice for that.

I decided to run out and tell Miss Townsbury about the Every angle.

The home that housed Miss Townsbury was a weatherdulled gray stone affair, in a stand of virgin timber near the bay. There was a rolling, tree-studded lawn sweeping down from the front of the house. There were tables under these trees, and chairs. There were people, of both sexes, sitting in the chairs around the tables. Miss Townsbury must be having a party.

The Dusy’s big tires crunched the gravel as we rolled majestically up to the front door.

The man on the porch hadn’t been there when I drove up. But he was when I stepped from the car.

He was the tall and dark and hard-looking chauffeur. He examined me with a scrutiny I thought out of place. It was a police line-up type of examination.

“Your name?” he said, just like that.

I handed him one of my cards.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah, sure. Didn’t mean to be rough, Mr. Jones, but we had a kidnapping scare here, last week, and—” He tried a smile. “Miss Townsbury will see you, all right.” He started to walk away.

I said: “Did you notify the police about this attempted kidnapping?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to ask Miss Townsbury.” He was looking out at the Dusy. “That’s a lot of car you’re driving.”

I admitted it was, and he went around the side of the house.

The door was opening now, though I hadn’t pressed the bell button. The butler stood there, looking more like the standard type of servant, or what I think of as standard. I gave him my card.

From the lawn, I heard the sound of laughter, both sexes. The butler came back, and said Miss Townsbury would receive me, and I followed him into the pleasant, dim coolness of the house.

Right off the entrance hall, there was a small, high-ceilinged room, furnished and decorated in a sort of pastel green. Miss Townsbury was in here, knitting. She still wore the heavy brown silk. She had added a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles.

“Trouble, Mr. Jones?” she asked mildly. She indicated a chair.

“Information,” I said. “Maybe trouble. There’s somebody else looking for Miss Harlin.”

The knitting needles stopped for a moment, then continued. She said. “The police?”

“No,” I said. “A man named Val Every, a racketeer.”

The needles stopped again, and this time she looked up. “Val Every? He’s looking for... Isn’t he her employer? Isn’t he the former bootlegger?”

“The same,” I said. “He’s got a private operator working on it. This operative came to see me this noon.”

The needles went back to work. “You didn’t disclose my name?”

“No. I wondered, though, if we might not offer this detective some money for what information he’s gathered. He can be bought. I’m sure of that.”

She nodded, not looking up. “I’m willing to pay anything within reason, of course, Mr. Jones, but do you think he would have come to you if he had any information we don’t have? He may have come to you for the same purpose.”

“He did,” I said. “But I’ve uncovered nothing. I went through her apartment. I talked to Rodney Carlton, and—”

“You talked to him?” There was a harsh note in the muffled voice. “And what did that young man have to say?”

“He knew nothing. He hasn’t seen her for a month, he claims.”

“He’s lying.” The needles were resting in her lap, and her frozen blue eyes were glaring into mine. “He knows. He’s got her, somewhere. You concentrate on him, Mr. Jones.”

“I’ll learn all I can,” I said. Then: “The chauffeur tells me you almost had a kidnapping here, Miss Townsbury. Do you think it might have anything to do with—”

She shook her head vigorously. “Nothing, Mr. Jones. It was the daughter of one of my guests. It wasn’t an attempted kidnapping, it was a threat. Some crank, I’m sure. It’s being taken care of.”

She evidently didn’t want any more conversation on that topic. She went back to her knitting, and I promised, before I left, that I’d keep her informed of all developments.

Outside, the hostless guests were doing very well, merrily enjoying Miss Townsbury’s absence. On a bench near the drive, a slim red-haired girl was sitting, regarding me openly and genially.

“Hello, handsome,” she said.

I looked around, but there was no one there. Me, she meant.

“Don’t be coy,” she said. “You are handsome, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Even though you’re not tall, you’re handsome.”

Drunk, I thought. “Thank you,” I said, and climbed into the car.

She came over, to stand near me. Her eyes were a clear, bright shade of green. I saw the dilated pupils. Not drunk, I thought, no, no, no.

“Are we going for a ride?” she asked. “Shall I get a coat?”

From the porch, the butler’s voice cut in sharply. “Telephone, Miss Smith. It’s long distance.”

Without another word, she turned and walked toward the porch. I started the Dusy, and got out of there.

Going out, I noticed for the first time that the fence around the estate was high, and topped with barbed wire. And that there was a heavy gate, now open. The poplars flanking the fence screened it from casual notice.

I stopped to see Rodney Carlton on the way back. He was out in front again, with the nine iron. He had more wrist in them, now. They were landing in the tub. He didn’t look as if he were mourning Miss Harlin’s absence much.

He looked up when I got out of the car. “This national detective week, or something?”

“You’ll get used to me,” I assured him.

“You, maybe, but not that lard-beam that just left. Somebody should tell him about soap.”

“Lundgren?” I said.

“That’s the man.”

“What’d he want?”

“Information. He working for the old girl, too? Isn’t one of you enough for her?”

“He’s not working for her,” I said. “Did you mention Miss Townsbury’s name?”

“I did. Let her get a whiff of him. It’ll show her how the other half lives.”

If Lundgren knew that somebody as wealthy as the Townsbury maiden was interested in Flame Harlin, he’d get ideas. I asked Carlton: “Could I use your phone?”

He nodded toward the door, and went back to his chipping.

I phoned Miss Townsbury. I told her what had happened. I said: “Let me know if he bothers you. Let me know as soon as he does.”

She promised she would.

I noticed, on the way out, that there was nothing in the typewriter.

“Drop in again,” Carlton told me when I left. But I’m not sure he meant it.

I went back to the office, and studied the scrapbook. It was filled with dippings that may have held memories for her, but were meaningless to me. Just the story of her triumphs, large and small — the story of her climb. Up until eight days ago, she had been the featured attraction at Val Every’s elegant and expensive Golden Pheasant Club. There was nothing in there about her background.

About four, Miss Townsbury phoned. She said: “That Lundgren person phoned me for an appointment. I told him I’d send someone over to meet him at his office. You go over and find out what he wants.”

“Was he threatening in any way?” I asked.

“He wondered why I hadn’t gone to the police.”

“Hmmm,” I said, — in my thoughtful tone. “Well, I’ll run right over and set him straight.”

I ran right over in the Dusy. It was a grubby building near the warehouse section, containing (on the first floor) a harness maker’s shop and (on the second) the office of Elmer E. Lundgren, known in trade as ‘Moose’. I hadn’t, as a matter of fact, know until this minute that his first name was Elmer.

I went up the worn, wooden steps to the second floor and down a short and cheerless hall to his door. The door was open.

Moose Lundgren was sitting in a huge chair behind his desk, facing the door. His eyes were wide open, and he was staring at me. But he wasn’t seeing me. He wasn’t seeing anything.

He was dead.

His short thick neck was so heavy that his head hadn’t drooped backward or forward. It stood squarely on the big neck. The chair in which he sat had a high back which effectively supported his bulk. There was a small hole, a very small hole, in the center of his forehead — it looked as though it had been made with a .22 caliber shell. Somebody had done a big job with a small gun.

I kept my eyes from Moose while I phoned the police.

“Who is this calling?” the voice at the other end wanted to know.

I hesitated. Devine will be here, I thought. He’ll want to know what I was doing here. He’ll want to know the name of my client. He’ll be nasty. But I hesitated only a moment. “Mortimer Jones,” I said.

“You again,” the voice said, and some other things, not printable. “I hope they nail you this time.”

I told him about a nice hot place he could go to for the winter, and hung up. I went out into the hall to wait.

Finally, there was the sound of sirens. I was almost happy to hear them, even knowing they meant Devine.

Doc Walters, the M.E., was the first to arrive. There was an interne with him. I nodded toward the door and they went through it.

Then Devine’s right hand, Glen Harvey, was there. Glen tried a smile of greeting, but it was pretty sad. “You’re always in the middle of these things, aren’t you, Jonesy?” he said sadly. “No wonder you give Devine the willies.”

“I wasn’t going to wait, just for that reason,” I told him. “I was going to give a phony name and get out of here, but I thought there might be something I could help with.”

Glen nodded toward the office. “Got an angle on this?”

“Only that he was on a job for Val Every. There could be any number of angles on a deal like that.”

“Hell, yes,” Glen said dismally. Then casually: “How’d you happen to find him?”

“He owed me a sawbuck. I came over to collect it. The door was open—”

“Uh-huh. How’d you know he was on a job for Every? You guys talk over your clients like that?”

Tricky, Glen was getting. I said evenly: “No. I knew it, because he happened to tell me, last time I asked him for the sawbuck. He said that as soon as Every paid him for a job he was doing—”

“Don’t you guys work on a retainer?”

“Yes,” I said wearily. “We do. Anyway, I do. Try not to sound like the D.A., Glen. It’s been a bad day.”

“Well, well,” somebody said. I knew who it was without looking around. “If it isn’t Mr. Jones. Always, at the end of a hot day, just before I’m going to knock off, something’ll break. And Mr. Jones will be right in the middle of it.”

I turned to face Devine. “We were such friends, this morning,” I reminded him. “You’re not growing tired of me? I hope there isn’t someone else, now.”

Glen said: “Easy, boss. Jones has been giving me the story.”

Devine was white. He likes people to cower in front of him, to speak quietly and respectfully. He said hoarsely: “He’s been giving you the story, all right. He’s probably been giving you the business.” He was talking to Glen, but looking at me. “Wait right here,” he told me. “Right in this spot until I come out.”

Some reporters came, the print man, another interne, the man on the beat. Harvey was in with Devine and I had the hall to myself, more or less. I smoked two cigarettes. When the reporters came out to get my part of the story, I repeated what I had told Glen. Then, as I was finishing, Devine came out.

He heard the end of it, and drew me to one side. “You tell them about the Every angle?”

I hadn’t, and I shook my head.

The reporters were waiting. Devine said: “That’s all, boys. If anything breaks, you’ll get it. That’s all we have now.”

How he kowtowed to anyone who might do him good. I took my arm out from under his hand. I said: “You won’t be needing me right away, will you?”

His thin face was hard. “I will. You in a hurry?”

“I can think of a bettor place to spend my time,” I told him.

“Sure, but I want you now. You can come down to headquarters with me and dictate a statement. What happens to you after that would be up to the Chief. You’re his boy, aren’t you?”

“I’ll ask him,” I said. “I’ll tell him you think so.” Which was baby talk. But he brings out the worst in me.

“You can tell him any damned thing you please,” Devine said. “Just come along with me, now.”

I went along with him. Outside, the sun was setting fire to the west, and some of the afternoon’s heat was gone. The wholesale houses were closing up for the day. People were going home.

And Devine’s day might just be beginning, for all he knows, I thought. He’s overworked and over-bossed and underpaid. Maybe he’s earned his bad disposition.

But how about this servility in high places? my less tolerant half argued. How about his whining when things get rough? How about that, Mortimer, you damned sissy?

“Shall we go down in my car?” I asked. He nodded.

We climbed in, and I started the motor. There were no words, going down, either pleasant or otherwise. Devine was smoking a cigar and scowling. I kept my eyes on the traffic.

At headquarters, I dictated a statement while Devine went in to see the Chief. When I’d finished, when it was typed and signed, he told me: “The Old Man wants to see you.” He didn’t look at me.

The Chief was looking out the window when I entered his office. I waited respectfully, making no sound. There would be a speech, in a moment, and I’d listen to that respectfully, too. For he was a good, capable, honest man — if a little verbose.

Then the big, white-thatched head turned toward me. “This is a big town, Morty, a very big town.”

I agreed that it was.

He indicated a chair, and I took it. He offered me a cigar, which I refused. He put the tips of his fingers together, and studied his desk top. “If you won’t work for us, you should work with us. We need all the help we can get in a town this size.”

“I work with you,” I said. “I think you’ll remember all the times I’ve worked with you.”

He pursed his lips, and nodded. “Well, yes, when there’s a pinch to be made, you call us. But you’re working around us, now, aren’t you? You won’t reveal all you know about this.”

“I’ve told you all I knew, Chief.”

“Who’s your client?”

“That I can’t tell you. There’s no reason to think it has anything to do with Moose Lundgren’s death. His death was overdue. Devine’s probably told you why I went over to see Lundgren.”

The Chief looked annoyed. “Sure, sure, sure... Even if it’s true, it’s a hell of a story. I think you went over there to make a deal with him. Maybe you even know who killed him. I’m not believing a word of that fairy tale you told Devine. I want the facts.”

I looked down at my hands. “You’ve got all the facts I can give you,” I told him. “Talking won’t get us anywhere.”

There was a silence. His voice, when it came was low. “I’ve never threatened to take your license away from you, have I? Never?”

“I hope you’re not threatening it now,” I said. “You’ve got Every to work on. I gave you that. Would you rather have someone a little easier to crack? Is that why you want my client?”

“You know me better than that,” he said.

“O.K. I shouldn’t have said it. But old Pop Delaney was in on my current deal this morning, as soon as I got it. I could have called from Lundgren’s office, and then taken a powder. I’ve been working with the department all day. I’ve kept one thing secret, the name of my client. The Marines couldn’t get that, not from me, on this case, or any case, unless I want to tell them. That’s my stand, and that’s the way it’ll always be.”

“Delaney?” he said. “Somebody’s missing? You might have told me that before, Morty.”

“I though you’d know,” I said. “A girl is missing. A girl named Flame Harlin. She was the featured attraction at Val Every’s Golden Pheasant. That I know. That’s all I know.”

I didn’t tell him about Rodney Carlton, because Rodney would lead them to Miss Townsbury.

“O.K.,” the Chief said. “We’ll go ahead on that as far as we can. If it isn’t far enough, I’ll be calling you in again. Cooperation is what we want here, boy.”

“It’s no one-way street,” I said, “this cooperation. It works both ways. You might mention that to some of the gang.”

He smiled. “Like Devine? He getting in your hair again? Devine’s a hard worker, Morty. He puts in a lot of hours.”

“All right,” I said. “As a taxpayer, I’m not kicking. But if you could just keep him out of my cases. His touch is too heavy.”

The Chief smiled again. He’d had a change of mood. “We can’t all have your touch,” he said. “Some of us are more serious. Some of us work for a living.”

Glen Harvey was out in the corridor, talking to Doc Walters, and I stopped. Glen told me: “It was a .22, all right. What would that spell to you, Jonesy?”

“Some guy had a lot of confidence in his Shooting,” I said. “Or maybe he was too lazy to carry a heavy gun. It could spell anything.”

“Like a woman? That could be a woman’s gun, huh?”

“Right. But not between the eyes. A woman who could shoot like that could give exhibitions. You ever meet a woman who could place one like that?”

“Not lately,” Glen said. “What’d the Old Man want?”

“Just my views on how to improve the department,” I said. “Homicide stinks, to hear him tell it.” I left them with that.

I went back to the office, but there was nothing there. I went over to Mac’s and had some meat balls with spaghetti. Mac watched me anxiously while I ate it.

“Something wrong?” I asked.

He watched me put the last mouthful away. “I guess not,” he said, “by the way you ate it. I kinda thought that meat was spoiled.”

Nice guy. “The Dodgers stink,” I said, “and Mickey Walker couldn’t punch his way out of a paper bag.”

“Hah-hah,” Mac said. “Your opinion, just your opinion.”

“Besides which,” I went on. “You run a crummy joint. The only reason I come here is because it’s handy.”

“The only reason you come here,” he told me calmly, “is because no other joint in town would let you in. A gum-shoe, a shamus — they ain’t so democratic, them other joints.”

“Tonight,” I told him, “I’m going to the Golden Pheasant. I’ll bet they let me in. I’ll bet I get a ringside table.”

“That I want to see,” Mac scoffed. “You should live so long.”

“You should see me with my new suit on,” I said. I paid him, and left.

The new suit was a dark blue cheviot, looking like more than it had cost — I like to think. With it, I wore one of my two remaining white shirts and a blue and silver striped tie. I hoped that this Pheasant wasn’t one of those snobbish places where formal clothes only are admitted. Maybe the Dusy would impress them.

This Golden Pheasant was one of those snobbish places. The doorman looked down his nose at me, while he told me this. It was a long and thin and haughty nose. He didn’t even glance toward the Dusy, parked just across the street.

“It’s business,” I assured him. “It’s urgent business with Mr. Every and I’m sure he’ll fire you if he hears you’ve kept me out”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the doorman said. “I’m very sorry. Perhaps it would be better if you were to go some place and phone Mr. Every.”

“O.K.,” I said. “It’s about Miss Harlin. You tell him that when you see him.” I turned and started to walk away.

“Just a moment, sir.” There was some urgency in his voice.

I waited.

“You didn’t give me your name, sir. Mr. Every will want to get in touch with you, I am sure.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I told him. “He seemed to be a hard man to approach. Tell him I might drop back. Or I might not.”

He was worried, I could tell.

He said humbly: “Wouldn’t you care to wait inside?”

“In these clothes?” I said wonderingly. “In these old rags? Jeeves, I’m disappointed in you. Just tell him I might drop back.”

“You could wait in the bar, sir,” he suggested. “I’m sure there’d be no complaint. I’ll explain it to the bartender.”

I appeared to consider this. I pursed my lips and wrinkled my brow. “They have whiskey in there?” I asked him finally.

“Of course, sir. Including some bonded whiskey.”

“Well,” I relented, “in that case, I might wait around for a while.”

We went in together, and he went down to the end of the bar to explain it all to the bartender.

It was quite a place. There was silver in the decorating, and some pale blues. There was a misty, romantic quality in the atmosphere. All women would look glamorous in this light, all men interesting.

It was early, and there wasn’t much of a crowd. Through the archway, I could see that most of the tables were empty. The bar was semi-circular, attended by five men in white. Only two of them were busy at the moment, the others stood around in a sort of parade rest position. They looked well-disciplined.

One of the men in white was standing before me now.

“Scotch,” I said, “with seltzer.” I examined my nails and pretended that I wasn’t more at home in a spot like Mac’s.

It tasted like all Scotch tastes — like liquid smoke, but I drank it manfully, while I surveyed the place.

Whoever said crime doesn’t pay? He must have meant small crime doesn’t pay much. Val Every had made the money for this joint in a variety of ways, all of them dishonest. He was probably making money here — just meeting the payroll would be big business. And Val wasn’t the biggest operator in this town, not by a long, long way.

From the dining room, now, I could hear the sound of a violin — softly muted music, sad music.

It dug into me, inside, where I live.

Chapter Three No Logic in Love

Then a feminine voice brought me back to here and now. “Were you waiting for Mr. Every?”

A blonde. She’d been some places and seen some things, I would guess. That was in the dark blue eyes. She wasn’t hard. She was dressed daringly in a sheath of black satin, but she was dressed expensively. The humorous slant to her full mouth saved the face from being just another blonde’s face. She had all she needed.

“I am,” I said. “Has he come in yet?”

“Not yet.” She climbed up onto a stool next to me, and gestured the bartender over. “Rye,” she told him, “with a little water, Jim.”

“Right, Miss Meredith — same as always.”

She turned to me. “My first name is Judy, if you’re interested. Did you bring some news about Flame?”

I shook my head. I told her my name. “I just wanted to talk to Every about it,” I explained. “You work for him?”

She looked at me doubtfully. She smiled. “Work — why, yes, I guess it’s work. You might say I watch out for his interests.”

“Miss Harlin would be one of the interests?”

“Yes, damn it.” Her drink came, and she studied it. “Yes, she would be the big interest. I was hoping she was dead.”

I said: “The venom clamours of a jealous woman — poison more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.”

“Was she poisoned?” Judy asked. “Tell me she was poisoned.”

“No,” I said. “At least, not to my knowledge. It’s the music. I always quote the bard when I’m emotionally stirred.”

She sipped her drink. “It shows, doesn’t it — my jealousy? You noticed it.”

“Nothing shows that shouldn’t,” I assured her. “But wishing her dead — that’s a little rough, don’t you think? Why don’t you just wish she would fall in love with someone else?”

“Love?” she said, as though it were a foreign word. “Love? She’s not in love with him. She’s played him for a sucker ever since she started to work here.”

“And him? He’s in love with her, isn’t he?”

“Hmmm. He could be. He wants her badly enough. I... it’s hard to think of him in love with anything but money or power. If you know what I mean?”

“Just vaguely,” I said. Her glass was now empty. “Could I buy you another drink?” I asked.

She shook her head. “It would bring me dawn a grade. My drinks are all free. If customers start buying them for me, well, you know—”

I ordered another Scotch, and she a rye. The violin had stopped and somebody was getting hot with a piano. Eight out of the jungle, this piano, all left hand.

“What is she like?” I asked Judy.

“Flame? Like her name, sort of. I mean, there was fire there, there was a burning. Maybe it was just ambition, maybe it was just-greed.”

“And maybe you’re prejudiced.”

“That could be.” She looked at my glass. “You’re a slow drinker.”

I finished it in a swallow. “I think I’ll have rye, too, this time.”

The bartender filled mine up without comment. But he said to Judy: “Mr. Every isn’t going to like this, Miss Meredith. You remember last time—”

“To hell with Mr. Every,” Judy said. “If I can’t get it here, I’ll go somewhere else. Mr. Jones will take me, won’t you, Mr. Jones?”

“Gladly,” I said, and meant it. She was a comfortable girl to be with. Not quieting, but comfortable.

The bartender shrugged, and poured out the Whiskey.

There was a silence, and then she looked over at me. “You know where she is, don’t you? That’s what you came to tell Val.”

“I don’t know where she is. I’m looking for her.”

“You’re working for Val, aren’t you? He’d be afraid to have one of his own boys look for her.” She stopped then, and I looked over to find the bartender glaring at her.

“I’m not working for Val,” I said. “The guy who was is dead. He was killed in his office, this afternoon.”

I scarcely heard the guarded intake of her breath. Her face was set rigidly, her eyes were blank, staring at the backbar but not seeing it. “Dead,” she said in a whisper. “That fat man is dead?”

“That’s right.” I moved my glass around the circle of moisture on the bar. I kept my eyes from her stricken face.

Her voice was just above a whisper, now. “That’s what will happen to Val. He’s just like her — ambition is eating him up. He’ll get in over his head on this.”

“You love him, don’t you?” I said, looking at her.

She met my gaze blankly. “Is that bad, Mr. Jones?”

“Maybe, for you,” I said. “I don’t know him very well.”

The bartender was back, the man called Jim. He said firmly: “You’ll get one of your headaches if you have any more, Miss Meredith.”

She smiled at him. “One more headache won’t even be noticed, Jim. Another rye, please.”

He looked doubtful.

“Or I’ll take Mr. Jones away. And you know how Mr. Every will feel about that. You wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of Mr. Every, would you, Jim?”

His face colored. No man, I thought, should ever need to be humiliated like that.

I said quietly: “I’ll be responsible, Jim. Don’t worry about your job.”

“O.K.,” he said, and thanked me with his eyes. It wasn’t, I knew, his job he was worrying about. But I had let him think it was.

I said to Judy: “That rye’s a man’s drink. You should treat it with more respect.”

I never heard her answer, if there was one. At that moment, a quiet voice at my side said: “You were looking for Mr. Every?”

The man who spoke was short and round, dressed in beautifully-tailored dinner clothes. His face was round. It would have been a jovial face, excepting that his eyes were stone, just gray stone.

“I’ve been waiting for him,” I admitted, “for some time. Though it has passed very pleasantly.”

No expression in the gray eyes. “He’s here, now. He’ll see you. If you’ll follow me?”

I followed him. Along the bar, and through a hall, past the lounges. A door at the end of a short hall, here, and we went through it.

It was a big room. There was a mammoth desk in it, and one file cabinet, but it wasn’t properly an office. There was a fireplace, with a long, low coffee table perpendicular to that, and davenports, a pair of them, flanking the coffee table. Heavy burgundy drapes and a wine-ish rug. Some leather overstuffed chairs.

This Val Every I had seen before. I tried to remember where. He was fairly tall, and immensely wide across the shoulders. He had a square, masculine face which contrasted with his black, curly hair and the soft brown eyes.

He was sitting behind his desk, and he didn’t rise when I entered.

“I’ve seen you before,” he said.

I remembered, then. A punk who’d held up a grocery store on the west side. I’d been on the force, then, in my first year. I’d nailed him at his rooming house.

“Sure,” I said, “I’d forgotten your name. It was a long time ago.”

“Where was it?” he asked me.

“In a rooming house, on Vine. It was about that business on 12th and Vine, that grocery.”

“I’ll be damned,” he said. “You—” He used some naughty words. “How I used to hate your guts. And I’d forgotten...”

I said nothing. Stone-eyes said nothing. We both waited.

“That was the only time.” His voice was reminiscent. “The only time I was ever nailed.” He studied me like a specimen in biology class. “What do you know about Miss Harlin?”

“Nothing,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

There was some sound from Stone-eyes, and Every’s face seemed to freeze. He asked quietly: “Who you working for, chum? The city?”

I shook my head. “I’m a private operative.”

His laugh was nasty. “That’s a hell of a word for a shamus. Plumbers are sanitary engineers, and drummers are sales engineers. And you’re a private operative. I asked who you were working for, laddy.”

“My name is Jones,” I said. “You can call me Mr. Jones. Who I’m working for would be my business. I’m looking for Miss Flame Harlin. I thought you might have something I could use.” I turned to go.

“Just a minute, Mr. Jones.” It was Stone-eyes’ voice. It was gentle and quiet.

I turned to face him. He had a gun in his hand, a small gun. A Colt Bankers’ Special, the kind that handles a .22 caliber long rifle cartridge.

It was a silly little gun, a toy, and I might have laughed. Only Moose Lundgren had been killed with a .22.

“Mr. Every wasn’t finished talking to you, Mr. Jones.”

Val Every nodded his head toward one of the overstuffed chairs. “Sit down — Jones.”

I went over and sat down, trying to look more casual than I felt. I hadn’t brought a gun in with me. My .38 was locked in the glove compartment of the Dusy. It had been parked there for some time, and I wondered if there was a parking limit. The damnedest things went through my mind.

Val Every rubbed his hands together and then studied the palms. He expelled his breath, and looked at me. “Miss Harlin worked for me. I took a personal interest in her career, you understand. Lot of people getting mixed up in this lately.”

He stopped and I waited.

“Including the cops,” he went on. “They were just up at my place. Two of them. One named Devine. I forget the big guy’s name. I’ll have to fumigate the place, now. I haven’t had any trouble with the law for a long time. You tell them about me?”

“I told them what Lundgren had told me. I don’t want any trouble with the law, either. I usually tell them all I can.”

“Once a cop, always a cop,” Every said.

I made no comment.

“You’re pretty solid with the boys downtown, aren’t you, Jones?”

“We get along. I know most of them, the ones that matter, anyway.”

“You and the Chief, huh?”

I said nothing.

“O.K.,” he said. “I don’t want any trouble with the law, not right now. And I don’t want any trouble with you, not tonight. But stay out of my business, Jones. Keep your nose clean.”

“I’ll continue to look for Miss Harlin,” I told him. “So long as my client wants me to. When she tells me to quit, I’ll—”

“She?” Every said quickly. “You said ‘she.’ It’s a woman?”

Quiet, again. Every looked over at Stone-eyes, and back at me.

I cursed myself silently. I said: “No. I didn’t say ‘she’.”

He was smiling. “Never mind. That’s all for now, Jones.” He tamed to Stone-eyes. “When you go out, tell Judy I want to see her.”

Stone-eyes walked with me to the door. I stopped, while he opened it. I said: “That Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two. You’d better have a good story, when the time comes.”

“Wait,” Every said.

I turned and waited. He had risen, and was walking towards me. Stone-eyes closed the door quietly. The gun was again in his hand.

Every came close enough to breathe in my face. “Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two? How’d you know?”

“I found him. I was with the cops all day.”

Every looked at his boy. There was no expression in the gray eyes that looked back at him. “You know where I was, boss. You were with me, all the time.”

“Not all the time.”

“This guy’s a cop, boss. This is what he wants. They’d rather lie than eat.”

“If you guys can read,” I said, “it’ll be in tonight’s late edition. Or whatever they call the sheet that’s on the stands now. If you want me to hang around, I’d just as soon do it in the bar. That’s good rye out there.”

“A comedian,” Stone-eyes said. “We’ll tell you where to wait, gumshoe.”

Every said: “Wait out in the bar.”

Left them and went out into the bar. There was a bulky, well-fed-looking man sitting on a bar stool, drinking a beer. I didn’t need to see his face to tell it was Glen Harvey. His suits are even cheaper than mine, and fit worse.

He grinned when he saw me. “Have a drink on the taxpayers,” he said. “This all goes on the swindle sheet.”

Stone-eyes came out and walked down along the bar to where Judy Meredith was still sitting. She followed him back to the room.

“Whose idea was this?” I asked Glen. “You don’t look any more like a cop than if you were wearing the blue. What do you hope to get out of this, except a hangover?”

“On beer?” Glen said. “I’m just sitting here. It’s Devine’s idea, and Devine’s my boss, and you hadn’t oughta run him down. If he wants me to sit here and drink beer, I will.”

The bartender, not Jim, came over, and I ordered rye.

“You should have a tuxedo,” I said, to Glen.

“I’m no waiter,” Glen said. “I’m a guest.” He sipped his beer. “You know, that Moose Lundgren didn’t have enough to get buried on. And not a relative. They’re planting him in Potter’s Field tomorrow, Jonesy.”

The cold ground, I thought. Deep and cold and all alone. The violin was back, crying in its throaty way, making the bartenders look unhappy again.

“That fiddler gives me the willies,” Glen said.

Miss Judy Meredith, that lovely gal, would now be hearing the riot act. And from a joker like Every, There was no logic in love.

Judy came out after a few minutes looking no less happy than when she had gone in. She came directly over to where I was sitting, and climbed onto the adjacent stool.

Glen lifted his eyebrows, and coughed quietly, but I ignored him.

Judy said quietly: “Your friend’s from headquarters, isn’t he?”

“You’d have to ask him,” I said.

“Val,” she told me, “is burning out a bearing. He’s not fit company for man or beast.”

“Wait’ll he sees the papers,” I said. “You’d better find a place to hide, after that.”

She ordered a rye and water. She said: “Mr. Every won’t mind. He just said I could have one or two.”

He went to get it, and she turned to me. “What’s in the papers?”

“Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two,” I said.

“So—”

“So that’s what his boy carries, the little round man with the slate eyes.”

“Don’t others, too? Is that so unusual?”

“It’s very unusual. At least, among torpedoes.”

The man in white set her drink down in front of her. Glen coughed again, and I looked over at him, and then looked away.

“Do we have to stay here?” Judy asked. “We could get drunk anyplace, though it might cost you a little more.”

“Every wants me to wait,” I said.

“Oh. Then — you are working for him?”

“Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s find some place where the lights are dim, and the music soft. Let’s go some place and dance.”

“I’ll get my coat,” she said.

She left the bar. Glen said: “You’re rude. You know that, I guess. You should be more familiar with Emily Post.”

“She knows you’re a cop,” I told him. “I didn’t want her to get the idea we were too thick.”

He made no comment. He looked at me as — though I had just crawled out from under a stone, and then looked away.

Judy came with her coat, and we left. The doorman looked surprised when he saw me leave with the boss’s girl, but he made no comment.

We went to the Grotto, a fairly quiet spot on 41st, where the band is more concerned with danceable rhythms than trick arrangements, where there isn’t any floor show.

We danced and talked and drank. We didn’t get drunk. We didn’t talk about Every, or Flame or Stone-eyes.

About eleven-thirty, we left, and drove out the drive, way out beyond Brown Deer, beyond the hills, to the bay. There, on a high point, overlooking the water, I parked.

I was aware of her, you can bet. I was ready to sign on the dotted at the moment. But I just lit us a pair of cigarettes, and turned on the radio, and we sat, looking out at the water.

There wasn’t much conversation, and what there was I can’t remember now. All I remember is the perfume she wore, and the way her voice seemed to match the quiet of the night.

Then she said: “You might as well kiss me. I’ve been kissed before I met Every, and I’ll be kissed after he finds the grave he’s headed for. There’s no reason we should think of him.”

I kissed her. And for the moment, I know she wasn’t thinking of Every.

She sighed, as we drew apart again. She said: “You’re all right, Mortimer Jones. You’re the first man I’ve wanted to kiss in a long, long time. Maybe I ought to tell you about this.”

“You don’t need to,” I said. “Every wanted you to go, didn’t he? He sent you?”

“That’s right. He wanted me to find out who you were working for.”

“Do you want to know?”

“I don’t give a damn, personally,” she said. “And if Val wants to know, he can ask you himself.”

I didn’t kiss her again, though it was a struggle. We sat quietly listening to the radio and smoking, and about one o’clock we started back to town. We took our time, going back, and it was about two when I pulled the Dusy up in front of her apartment building.

It was a tall building, set back on a wide, deep lawn. Up around the seventh floor, there was a light burning in one of the apartments.

“That’s mine,” she said, “the one where the light is burning.”

“You leave it on?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “I didn’t.”

“Must be the maid,” I said.

“No.” She was getting out of the car, before I could get out to open the door. “No. It’s not the maid. She comes in by the day.”

“Look,” I said. “You think—”

“There’s nothing wrong, Mr. Jones,” she said. “Nothing at all. Goodnight — and thanks. Thanks for the lovely evening.” Then she was going up the walk, between the shrubs that bordered the lawn.

It was bright the next morning. The sun, undimmed by clouds, ran the mercury up into the eighties. It felt like summer again.

Even Mac looked chipper this morning, when I ordered ham and eggs. “This is more like it,” Mac said. “This is a day I might close up and take a drive out in the country.”

I knew he wouldn’t. He worked all the time, early and late. He would probably die with more hay in the bank than I’d ever seen. With no one to leave it to.

I finished my coffee, ground out my cigarette, and left. Sunshine flooded the street, and the kid was there, again, with the football. He still didn’t have it.

I went out there. “Look,” I said, “it’s like this.”

I took the ball from him, and took just one step, and put my foot into it. I could feel it was going to be all right, I could feel the solid impact of it. It went soaring, high into the cloudless sky, and dropped way down the block.

“See?” I said. “You’ve got to get behind the ball. You’ve got to get the feel of it.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks a lot, Mr. Jones.”

I felt pretty good. If the detective business fell off, maybe I could sign up with the Packers or the Bears. Or some college.

I walked back to the curb before I noticed the car that was parked directly in front of my office. It was a Mercury club convertible, a trim and sleek piece of fine merchandise.

There was a man behind the wheel. A neat little, round little man with stone-gray eyes. The window was down on his side, and he was looking at me.

I walked over there. “Quite a punt, wasn’t it?” I asked him.

“You’re cute,” he said evenly. “You’re quite a comedian.”

“How’s Every this morning?” I asked. “You two haven’t been squabbling, have you?”

“Some day,” he said, “I might put a hole in you. Just to see what comes out.”

“You’d better get more gun, if you do,” I said. “A guy with a twenty-two needs a lot of luck.” I was feeling rough after that punt.

He was getting out of the car, now, on the curb side. We went up the steps together, Stone-eyes in front. I didn’t want him behind me, even packing a .22.

Up there, he sat in the leatherette chair and I sat in my swivel chair. He looked at me gravely, rubbing his upper lip with the inner edges of his lower teeth, looking undecided. Then he said: “We got the papers last night, and we got them this morning. There was nothing in none of them about a twenty-two.”

“What caliber did it mention?” I asked.

“It didn’t mention any, none of the papers mentioned any.”

“So?”

“The boss is unhappy. We’re not as chummy as we were. I’d hate to think you’d lied about that. We’ll find out, understand. The boss has got contacts. He don’t have to read the papers. But I keep remembering you said that at the wrong time.”

“I was in a pretty hot spot,” I said. “I wasn’t worried about anybody but me at the time. I can’t think of any reason I should worry about you.”

His face hardened faintly. “When they figure out the hour it happened, the boss will be checking me against that, too. It might be rough, after that.”

I wondered why he was telling me all this, so I asked him.

“Because I figured maybe you were a little smarter this morning. I figured if you’d tell me who you’re working for, I could get things straightened out before the boss got any hotter. I could sort of wrap this up, and hand it to him.”

I shook my head. “No soap. Judy tried to get that out of me, last night, and missed. You haven’t got even half her charms.”

“No,” he said, “maybe not. But I’ve got a gun.”

He wasn’t lying about that. For it was in his hand, now. It was leveled toward a spot I estimated as right between my eyes. I didn’t flinch, or move my head.

I said: “That would be dumb. The kid saw you come in with me. The cops have been watching this place since yesterday morning. All kinds of people may have seen you come up here.”

He smiled a strange smile. “You wouldn’t be afraid of a twenty-two, would you, Mr. Jones?”

I had no answer to that.

It was then the phone rang. I started to reach for it, but Stone-eyes shook his head. He kept the gun trained on me, as he went over and lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” he said, “yes, this is Mr. Jones.”

Then he smiled, a happy smile. “Of course, Miss Townsbury,” he said. “I’ll be out there right away.”

He pronged the receiver. “Townsbury,” he said. “That’s the dame that runs the cure, isn’t it? That’s the old hag who cures the lushes.”

“I don’t know the name,” I said. “It must be a wrong number.”

“Sure,” he said. “Of course. We’ll probably meet again, shamus.”

I nodded. “I hope so. I certainly hope so.”

He stopped at the door. “You scare me,” he said, smiling. “You scare the hell out of me.” Then he was gone, and I heard his small feet, his light tread on the steps.

I phoned Miss Townsbury immediately, and told her what had happened. There was no answer from her for a few seconds. Then: “Perhaps you’d better run right out here. There are some things I had better explain to you.”

I agreed that might be a good idea.

Chapter Four Knit One, Kill One

There were no guests on the front lawn this morning, but I heard the sound of laughter from the rear of the house.

The Mercedes town car was near the entrance, and the tall dark chauffeur was dusting it leisurely. He nodded at me as I got out of the car.

“Miss Townsbury around?” I asked.

“In that same room. You can go right in.”

The front door was open. I went through, and down the dim hall to the pastel green room.

Knitting, again. “Close the door, Mr. Jones,” she said.

I closed the door and came over to sit in a frail-looking rocker.

“Who was that man who answered the phone in your office?”

“I don’t know his name,” I said. “He works for Val Every. He had a twenty-two on me, when the phone rang.”

“A twenty-two on you?” She looked up from her knitting. “You’ll have to be more explicit, Mr. Jones. What did you mean by that?”

“I mean this man had a gun pointed at me. The gun was a twenty-two caliber revolver. The same caliber that killed Lundgren.”

The needles stopped. “Lundgren?”

“The detective Every hired. He was killed yesterday. Didn’t you read about it in the papers?”

She shook her head. For the first time since I’d known her, her ice-blue eyes held apprehension. “Are we getting mixed up in this, in — murder?”

“I think we are. The police have been after me to reveal your identity. I’ll hold out as long as I can.”

She looked down at the floor, and up at me. “You’re on good terms with them, aren’t you? You can protect me in this?”

I had no answer for her, and said nothing. I had only questions.

Maybe she realized that, for she said: “You must be rather puzzled about this place. I feel that I should be frank with you.”

“You can rely on my discretion,” I said, in my smooth way.

“This place is used for curing alcoholism,” she said, and the needles were back at work. “Our patients are wealthy, all of them. We use a cure that might be frowned on in some medical circles. It’s a... a shock cure. We have had exceptional success. But, of course, publicity would destroy any hopes we might have for continuing the work. You can understand that, Mr. Jones?”

I said I could. But I asked: “The fences, with the barbed wire? The heavy gate?”

The needles never stopped. “There is a period in the cure when they want to quit. Despite the solemn promises they made, before they were admitted, they try to run out during that period. They try to leave at night. We can’t permit this. You may have wondered at Carl’s vigilance. Carl is my watchdog.”

I asked if Carl was the chauffeur, and learned that he was. I asked. “Is alcoholism the only thing you treat here, Miss Townsbury?”

“It is.” She put the needles in her lap, and looked at me with eyes that were suddenly, surprisingly soft. “There’s another story I’ve never told others, Mr. Jones. I’d like to tell you. I want you to understand that money doesn’t motivate me in this work. I have all the money I’ll ever need.”

I waited, wondering at this new softness.

“There was a man,” she said, “a young man, back when I, too, was young.” She hesitated, smiling faintly, sadly. “He was gifted, Mr. Jones, a man of promise, of talent and breeding. He could have been one of our great composers. He was headed for the stars. Until that vile alcohol ruined him, dulled that brilliant mind, blunted his sensitivity.” She paused. “It — killed him, finally.”

There was some more conversation, after that. I promised her I would protect her as well as I was able, that I would contact the Missing Persons Bureau confidentially. I didn’t tell her I already had.

I left her then, with her knitting and her memories.

Outside, the sun was hiding behind a cloud. I looked over at the stand of virgin timber, and over at Carl, still fiddling with the Mercedes. I heard the voices in the back, quieter, now.

Carl came over to stand next to the Dusy. “Everything’s going to be all right, isn’t it?” he asked me. “Miss Townsbury isn’t going to get into any trouble?”

“Time will tell,” I said. “Where’s the redhead this morning?”

He smiled. “She’s cured. She’ll be all right, now.”

“She was all right yesterday,” I said. “She’ll always be all right in my book.”

His smile was still there. “Well, that’s something else.”

He went back to the Mercedes, and I started the motor. The Dusy went murmuring down the drive, talking to herself.

So the bootlegger and the lady in silk were at odds. One who had made his fortune selling it, and one who was using her fortune in curing it.

That’s the way it looked, but there were so many angles, so damned many angles... And there was always Devine in the background, itching for my scalp.

Why couldn’t I get Stone-eyes off somewhere, and work him over a little? He was the small type I could handle, if he didn’t have the .22. But I was no longer with the department — I would need to use considerable finesse, instead of force.

And this Rodney Carlton, the poet with the nine iron? Who loved Miss Harlin desperately, but hadn’t seen her for a month. He struck me as being a trifle on the phony side. But I could be wrong — I’d been wrong before, on lots of people.

I decided to go to Mac’s first, to see if he had anything edible. There was a faint hollowness in my stomach. I upped the Dusy’s pace a bit, and let my mind wander where it would while I kept my eyes on the road.

I can be wrong, all right. I’d been wrong about Mac. There was a crudely penciled sign in the glass of his locked front door. Gone for the day it read. Out where the grass was green, where the wind swept the hills, my Mac would be now. Sans apron, sans dialogue, sans frown, out where it might already be raining.

For there was thunder in the north.

There was dampness in the air, here on my poor street. There was that quiet that precedes a storm sometimes. And there was a Chrysler Highlander sedan parked at the curb in front of my office.

The girl behind the wheel got out when she saw me, and stood waiting. She was wearing something simple in a printed blue, some draped material that did her proud.

“Good morning, Hawkshaw,” she said.

“Hello, Judy.” I feasted my eyes a while. “Won’t you step into my parlor?”

“Let’s sit in the car and watch the storm come up,” she suggested.

She climbed back in, and I followed her. “Every send you again?” I asked.

“Mmmmm. He didn’t disapprove.” She looked at me and smiled. “I think you did me some good, last night.”

The first drop of rain hit the windshield, and there were others, on the metal top. “The kiss?” I asked. “Or the dancing, or the brightness of my conversation? Or just my generally seedy appearance? That could be good for your ego, in a comparative way.”

“Just you. Just Mortimer Jones, that easy, gallant, good guy.”

“Enough,” I said, looking into the dark blue, the knowing eyes. “I’m blushing. I’m no ladies’ man.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said. “I’m no lady. But for a while, last night, I could have been. You treated me like a lady, Jonesy. It’s kind of early to tell, but you might even have cured me. Wouldn’t that be fine, wonderful?”

I said: “It could be temporary. Nobody’s ever confused me with Tyrone Power.”

Her laugh, a low musical chuckle from her lovely throat “No, your charm isn’t that tangible. Don’t be frightened, Philo. It’s not only you. There must be lots of other wonderful guys like you.”

I said stiffly: “I don’t remember coming off a production line.”

“Jonesy!” Her hand found mine. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, there must be other tolerant, gentle, decent men who’d find me attractive. I’m not hopeless, am I?”

“You could do all right,” I assured her, “in any league. If you really think this stupid infatuation of yours with Curly is finished, you could do all right.”

“It could be,” she whispered. “I’m hoping it is. Will you hold your thumbs for me, Jonesy?”

“I will,” I promised. And then the thought hit me. “Do you know Miss Townsbury? The nice little old lady who runs that place for alcoholics?”

“Know her!” Her laugh was short and sharp. “I was up there for treatment. Why do you think—” And she stopped. She stared at me. “Never mind,” she said. “I’m no stool pigeon, whatever else I’ve been.”

I said: “How would you like to take a drive with me out to a poet’s house?”

“Is he interesting?” she asked. “Is he handsome?”

“He’s handsome,” I said. “I think he might prove interesting.”

We drove out in the Chrysler, slowly, over the wet streets, the wipers working diligently to sweep the torrents of water flooding the windshield.

There was a riot car parked in front of the cottage. There was the meat wagon, and a department coupe, and a cop standing up on the porch, out of the wet. The Chrysler braked to a halt, and I got out. I told Judy: “I’m going in there. If I’m not out in three minutes, you’d better take off. That’ll mean I’m right in the middle of it.”

She looked at me wonderingly.

“Something,” I said, “must have happened to the poet.”

I closed the car door, and ran.

The man in uniform, on the small porch, stopped me. I told him who I was, and that I wanted to see officer in charge.

I got in, finally. Harvey was there, but not Devine. Adams was there and an assistant M.E. Rodney Carlton was there.

There was a small but bloody hole in the side of his neck.

The assistant M.E. thought it had nicked the jugular, and he had died within a very few minutes.

Harvey nodded. “He was alive when I got here.” Then he saw me. “Well,” he said. “You’re in this, too, aren’t you?”

“I was going by,” I lied. “I saw the wagon out front.”

“You’re a liar,” he said. He was glaring at me. “This guy talked to me, before he died. Most of it I couldn’t understand, but your name was clear enough.”

“All right,” I said, “I’m a liar. You want to run me in?”

Some of his quick anger was melting, and he looked uncomfortable. “Just hang around,” he said. “I’ll see you later.”

I walked leisurely over to the window, and saw Devine step from a department car. I saw Judy ride off in the Chrysler. Devine looked wet and miserable as he came scurrying up the walk, his head down.

He didn’t look any happier when he saw me. But he ignored me, at first, while he got the story from Glen. I listened.

Somewhere, Devine had got a lead on this Carlton, and he had sent Glen over. Glen had got here in time to hear a shot, a sharp little spat like a .22 makes. He had opened the door, when he heard that, and found Rodney Carlton on the floor, the hole in his neck.

Devine said: “Nobody in the house? Just him?”

“That’s all.”

“Somebody must have been here,” Devine said. “Somebody shot him.”

My eyes measured the distance from Carlton’s body to the kitchen arch. I saw the line of blood-drops leading from there. At least, it looked like blood, though it wasn’t very noticeable on that rug.

I went out into the kitchen. There was blood, a mess of it, on the floor near the door in here. I called them out.

“How’s this?” I suggested. “Somebody rings the doorbell in the rear. He goes to the door, and—”

I looked from Devine to Harvey.

“Let’s see what it looks like out there,” De-vine said.

There were a pair of trellises flanking the doorway, back here, effectively screening the view of the door from the neighbors. There was a small back yard, which was bordered by an open alley.

Devine looked at Glen Harvey. “Whoever it was,” he said quietly, “he could be in Hoboken, by now. He could be in Paducah.”

“Sure,” Glen said. “I called the Doc, after I got the guy’s story. He was still alive. I wasn’t chasing out, while he was still alive.”

“And what’d he tell you? Did he give you the murderer’s phone number, too, so we won’t have to go and get him, so we can just call him and have him drop down to the station? You’re armed, aren’t you? You got any reason for not going out that back door?”

Devine’s face was red, and getting redder. He would probably work himself into a frenzy, the way he was going. I said mildly: “He did tell Glen something. He mentioned my name, for one thing.”

Devine looked over at me, in his nasty way, and then looked at Glen. “That right? Jones in this one, too?”

Glen said evenly: “Carlton mentioned his name. He said something about putting her on a train. I don’t know who he meant by her. He said I should tell Jones that. And tell him she never came back from up there. The way it sounded, he thought, at first, that Jones was working for Every. That’s why Carlton told him he hadn’t seen her for a month.” Glen was looking at me, though he was talking to Devine.

“All right,” I said, “here’s something for you. This Carlton was engaged, at one time, to the girl Val Every’s looking for. Every’s number one torpedo carries a little Bankers’ Special, a Colt twenty-two. That could be a twenty-two hole in his neck. And Lundgren was killed with a twenty-two. What more do you need?”

“Just your part in it,” Devine said. “What about the train? And not coming back from up there. What’s that mean?”

“Nothing to me,” I lied. “The man was probably in a delirium.”

“And you’re not working for Every?” Devine said.

“That’s right.”

“Who are you working for, then? Now would be the time to open up, Jones. With two murders in two days, you could start playing it smart about now.”

I looked at him, and away. I said: “Grab Every. Keep him on an open charge. I think I got something.”

Devine said: “We’ll take care of the law, in this town. If you’ve got something on this, I want it.”

“What about Every?” I asked. “You’ve looked up all the files on him, haven’t you? What’s his big number, now?”

“Dope,” Devine said.

That tied it up. It was beginning to make sense. I said: “Grab him. Somebody’ll talk. Hold him. And I’ll want four men, maybe more. More would be wise. Two of them can ride in the back of the Dusy, under cover. The rest, I’ll place.”

“You?” Devine asked. “You giving orders, Jones?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” I said. “You can take it from here, if you want.”

They were taking out the body of Rodney Carlton. Devine looked at Glen, started to say something, and then changed his mind. He looked at me quietly.

Finally, he said: “We’ll talk this over down at the station.”

I agreed to that, and I rode down there with him in the department car. We had no dialogue, on the way down.

While he went in to see the Chief, I phoned Judy Meredith. I hoped she had gone right home.

She had. I asked her: “Would you mind answering just one question, one very important question?”

“Try me,” she said, “and see.”

“Did you ever take dope?”

It was a hell of a question, and put very bluntly. But I think she understood there was no malice in my asking it. I heard no sound excepting the rumble of thunder, outside, and the clack of a typewriter from somewhere inside.

And then she said: “Not for long. I found out, in time.”

Only that, and the click of the phone on her end as she hung up.

I phoned Miss Townsbury. “Something’s come up,” I told her. “I must see you, right away.”

She would be at home all day, she informed me.

Devine was still in with the Chief. I told Harvey: “I’m going across the street and get a sandwich. I’ll be back.”

I was still there, in the counter lunchroom, when Devine came in. He said: “The Old Man said O.K. Who do you want?”

“You and Harvey in the tonneau,” I said. “Melkins, Red Small, Jackson and Schulte. One of the M.E.’s, prepared to make an examination right on the spot. I think we can forget the warrants.”

“What’s it all about,” Devine said, “or am I being personal?”

I told him what I thought, and why, and he looked skeptical. But he didn’t discourage the trip. He would have liked to see me miss this one — the stage was properly set for me to look very silly if I missed.

We rode up that way, three of us in the Dusy, the others following in a squad car. I moved along at a smart clip. Without conversation, it was a boring trip, and neither of my riders seemed to be very much interested in conversing.

I put Schulte at the gate. We rode around the entire estate, and I put the others where I thought they should be, though only the gate really needed watching. But I hadn’t known this before coming up. Then Devine and Glen ducked down in back, while I drove up the gravel drive.

Carl wasn’t in sight this afternoon. Miss Townsbury herself came to the door. She was wearing the steel-rimmed glasses again. We walked back together to the pastel blue room. There was no knitting in sight.

I sat in the same rocker, and she in her knitting chair. I told her about the death of Rodney Carlton.

She showed no emotion at the news.

I said: “He didn’t die right away. He talked, before he died.”

There was emotion now — fear in the cold eyes, and a stiffening of the spine. “To — whom did he talk, Mr. Jones?”

“To me,” I lied.

There was some relaxation in her posture, some relief.

“Miss Harlin is dead, isn’t she?” I asked her suddenly.

Again, the stiffening. “Are you insane, Mr. Jones? If I knew she were dead, would I have engaged your services?”

“You might. You knew I was in with the department. You could do that to make the police think you were worried about her, as a sort of advance alibi. If you went directly to the police, they’d be coming up here. They’d be nosing into your business.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, without expression. She was only mouthing words.

“Maybe. Or maybe you wanted Every to think you were worried about her. Is he getting out of hand, Miss Townsbury?”

“I don’t know the man,” she said.

“You knew he was a bootlegger, though he was never well known by anyone outside of the department. You knew him, all right. He worked for you. His little fat friend knew you, too, though he tried to pretend in my office that he’d only heard of you. And Miss Meredith knows you, too. The tie-up’s there, all right. It’s clear enough.”

Light glinted off the lenses of her glasses. She was studying me, all pretense of indignation gone, sizing me up. She said: “You’ve managed to put quite a few unrelated facts together, haven’t you, Mr. Jones?”

“A few,” I admitted. “That redhead was the tip-off. I could see you had her well on the road. You bring the wealthy drunks up here, and cure them of their alcoholism. But you start them on something worse. Is it morphine? Opium?”

“And why would I do that?”

“So you can sell it to them. Or so Every can, through your cooperation. They aren’t likely to talk, your customers, are they?”

“Talk to whom?”

“To the police.”

“No,” she admitted. “They aren’t likely to go to the police. And neither are you, Mr. Jones. This place is well guarded.”

There was somebody else in the room. The chauffeur, Carl. The gun he had in his hand was a Colt Camp Perry model, a single shot pistol with a long barrel, a hell of a long barrel. It was a .22.

“That’s the gun that killed Lundgren and Carlton, isn’t it? Is that the one that killed Miss Harlin, too?”

Carl said nothing, the long barrelled gun held unwaveringly in his hand.

Miss Townsbury said: “All three of them made the mistake of trying to blackmail me. Is that the mistake you were trying to make, Mr. Jones?”

“No,” I said.

“Both Lundgren and that poet,” she went on, “knew that Flame came up here. That poet put her on the train that took her up here. Both of them know that was when she disappeared.” She looked down at the floor. “That’s why they died. They tried to blackmail me. That’s why she died, too, that night—” Her voice trailed off.

“Carl took care of them?” I asked. “All of them?”

Carl said: “What difference does it make to you, shamus? What difference is anything going to make to you, where you’re going?”

There was a sharp intake of breath from Miss Townsbury.

I said: “The man in the doorway will take care of me.”

Carl’s laugh was low. “That’s a pretty dusty gag, Jones. That’s a little old for me.”

From the doorway, Devine said: “You’d better put that toy away, big boy. This thing in my hand is a man’s gun.”

Carl never even turned before he dropped the gun to the carpet. It would be a long time, I knew, before Devine would let me forget this.

The department built up a case, all right. Some of Miss Townsbury’s patients talked, and after that, some of her former patients. Some of the organization’s small fry talked enough to sew all of them up — Every and Carl and the old girl and her staff. Judy wasn’t in on any of it. Carl’s gun had killed Lundgren and Carlton, but not Flame.

They found Flame the next day. In a shallow and poorly concealed grave in the woods. No coffin. In the cold, wet ground, with a knitting needle through her left eye, embedded in her brain...