House Dick

Novak turned around in time to see a man moving hurriedly toward the street door. Doctor Edward Bikel in a dark topcoat and dark hat. Bikel pushed through the revolving doorway almost knocking down an incoming bellhop. The hop dropped the bags and gave Bikel’s back a redfaced glare. Then he jerked up the bags and trudged toward the reception desk. Behind him followed two chesty ladies in tweed coats and sensible shoes. Career travelers on their husbands’ insurance money, and fond of cream sherry and English cigarettes.

His eyes returned to Bikel who was fitting himself into a taxi.

Novak walked through the doorway, waited until Bikel’s cab had pulled away and made a sign at the doorman. The lead cab ground up, and the doorman opened the door. Novak got inside and said, “Follow that cab.”

The driver half-turned and sneered, “Give me a reason, buddy.”

“The reason is I’m the hotel security man, and I’m asking for some quiet cooperation.”

The driver’s foot hit the accelerator and the taxi leaped ahead. “Cripes,” he complained. “I was only asking. This here’s a screwy town. That’s Al Fornella’s cab, and we’re on him like bumper tape.”

Novak sat back and stubbed his cigarette in the ashtray. The cab stayed on K Street, rounded the public library, passed the market and stayed on K another four blocks. At First Street the cab turned and drove north past Armstrong Tech.

The driver said, “He’s slowing. What do I do now?”

Novak sat forward. Bikel’s cab was making for the curb a block ahead. “Pass him, and go around the block. I want to spot where the fare goes.”

Bikel was getting out. He hurried up a walk that led to an old red brick house. As Novak went by he saw a flaked wooden sign over the porch steps: HOTEL JENSEN. GUESTS BY DAY, WEEK OR MONTH. Bikel jogged up the steps and opened the screen door. The waiting cab’s flag was still down. The driver was bent over, tuning the radio.

Novak’s cab went around the block slowly. As it came back onto First Street, Bikel’s cab pulled away. Framed in the rear window was the back of Bikel’s head. The driver said, “What now?”

“Let me out at the Jensen.” He read the meter, got out the fare and added a dollar. As the cab stopped Novak handed it to the driver.

“Thanks. Say, that’s okay. Any time, pal.”

“The name’s Novak.” He got out and walked up the sidewalk.

A four-story brick house old enough to have ten-foot bow windows and crenellated balconies, set far back from the street under tall elms that had won a stand-off battle with a scanty lawn. Roots lifted the walk unevenly, and dry rot had made away with most of the bannister supports along the front steps. Dusty windows deflected filtering sunlight, and the stillness made Novak tread lightly as he crossed the wooden porch.

Inside the door was a reception counter with a punch bell and a length of inkstained blotter. The curling calendar on the wall advertised a patent cough medicine. In better days it had been a reception hall where servants greeted guests and helped with their cloaks. The flowered hall-runner was worn down almost to burlap. At the far end there was a carved door with frosted glass panels. The door was partly open, and from the opening there peered a white-thatched head. Nothing more. The face was pale and wrinkled with surplus flesh. A pince-nez bridged the thin nose, a satin ribbon trailing away behind the door, it was a face so old as to be almost sexless, except for the way the white hair was parted and combed.

The door opened a little further, and Novak saw trousers, white suspenders and a striped, collarless shirt. Slippered feet shuffled toward Novak, and the voice piped, “We have a nice vacancy, young man. Two dollars a night. But for a week or more we could offer a nice discount. Would you care to see it?”

“I’m sorry. Dr. Bikel asked me to meet him here. I’m a little late so perhaps he’s already arrived.”

Disappointment gnawed the bloodless lips. “I...I don’t believe I know a person by that name.”

“Tall and thin. Wears glasses and dark clothes, also a pencil mustache.” Not much of a word picture, Novak thought as the old man shuffled closer.

Light spread downward from the old eyes. “That must be Dr. Barnes. Such a nice man. So very pleasant. Considerate, too. Yes, that would be Dr. Barnes. From out of town.” One finger tapped his lower lip. “Dr. Barnes arrived not long ago. But I believe I heard the door close. So he must have left.”

“Or it could have been me coming in,” Novak said helpfully. “I’ll just go on up and see if he isn’t there. What was the room number?” His face formed a frown of concentration.

The old man blinked and stared at Novak uneasily. Bothered by failing memory, probably. Wasn’t sure of the day or the month. A perfect place for Bikel.

The old man said, “The room is Number Four. Just walk up the stairway, and follow the hall down to the far end. At the back. It’s really quiet easy to find. All of our rooms are numbered. Number Four is a nice room. For Dr. Barnes we made a special rate—he being a medical man and all.”

“A credit to his profession,” Novak murmured and began walking up the long stairway.

At the jog there was a tall window of colored glass in an old-fashioned geometric design. Falling sunlight spattered the risers with red, green and yellow in a senseless pattern. It stained Novak’s shoes as he trod the steps to the hallway.

There was a grimy chandelier suspended by a tarnished gilt cable, and spaced along the hall were blackened gas pipes mounted with dusty glass mantels. An old, old house, relic of a far more gracious age.

The flooring was grimed oak, partly covered with cheap carpeting in a somber shade. Brass-plate house numbers had been nailed to room doors. As the old man had said, Number Four was the farthest down the hall.

Through one of the doors drifted a ragged, rubbing sound. Novak decided someone was scrubbing clothing on a basin washboard. He moved on and stopped in front of the door with 4 tacked onto a center panel. For a moment he listened, heard nothing, then knocked.

The lock must have failed to catch, because the rap of his knuckles moved the door inward. It opened far enough to show speckles of light slanting into the room through a tattered roll curtain. There was a brown bureau with peeling veneer, a washbasin with a small wooden mirror cabinet above it, two chairs and an iron bed.

The bed had chipped, yellow enamel with vertical rods at the end to hold the mattress in place. The bedspread had faded stripes, and it was rumpled from the body beneath.

She lay on her right side, arm under her head and projecting stiffly beyond the mattress. The fingers were curled slightly as though death had halted a reaching movement.

Novak felt for the wall switch and turned on the bulb.

Even without her glasses he could recognize her. She was the woman who had run from Bikel’s room, the woman he had followed to the chapel. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were parted. The skin of her face looked as if it had been washed with light blue dye.

Join the fellowship of prayer, he thought, and stepped closer to the bed. Bending over he touched the dead hand and drew back. Rigor mortis...hours dead. Turning he walked to the wash basin. The flat edge held an empty water glass. Beside it stood an open brown bottle labeled Keep Away from Children. Peering into it he could see that whatever it might have held, it was empty now.

His body was chilled. He moved stiffly toward the bureau and opened the top drawer. Nothing there except her glasses. Nothing in the other four drawers either. In the closet a cheap fiber suitcase lay open. It held a disarranged dress, a pair of shoes and some cheap stockings and underwear. Nothing more.

Novak went back to the bed, pulled down the covers and stared at the body’s left hand. The third finger held a plain gold wedding band, not new. He rearranged the covers and stared around the room. Yesterday the little woman had carried a handbag. Now there was no trace of it. The bag would have held cards, a driver’s license, perhaps, or a Social Security card. Without them there was no easy way of identifying her.

Turning off the wall light he felt death hovering close, like a smothering fog. He went out of the doorway leaving the door as he had found it, walked quietly along the hall and down the stairway.

The old man was sitting in a rocker, eyes closed, chin on his chest, sleeping the shallow sleep of the very old.

Novak went behind the counter and opened the thick registration ledger. The cover was bound in frayed blue buckram, corners worn down to the original cardboard. Novak thumbed the wide pages until he found a place where a page had been torn out. The registrations ended the month before. Closing the book he moved softly to the door, opened it carefully and went out to the porch. Bikel hadn’t missed a trick. He’d taken the handbag and the identifying registration as well.

Novak’s throat was tight, constricted. He moistened his lips and gulped a deep breath as the steps creaked under his weight. Then down the uneven walk, past patches of starving grass and out to the street. He walked south as far as a sagging grocery store and stepped into a phone booth. The tattered directory gave him Police Headquarters, and when the duty sergeant answered Novak said, “First Street, the Jensen Hotel. Room Four.”

“Yeah? What’s your name? And what’s in the room?”

“A corpse,” Novak rasped and hung up.

Near Armstrong Tech there was a cab stand. Novak got into one and rode back to the hotel.

From the house phone he called Bikel’s room, let the phone ring a long time and hung up. Then he went into his office. His secretary was at the file safe checking names. Novak slid behind his desk, turned on the lamp and opened the center drawer. He laid the telegram blank on the blotter and got out the bottle of graphite powder and a small camel’s hair brush. Working carefully he distributed the fine black powder over the surface of the blank, brushed gently and blew away the surplus. Where there had been nothing but blank impressions, block letters had formed. Most of the message was legible, including the address.

Mary was looking over his shoulder. “Reading other people’s mail?”

“I had to.” He slid the developed message into his desk drawer and locked it. Mary said, “Must be important.”

“Evidence.” He reached into a lower drawer, felt for the bottle and set it on the blotter. Unscrewing the cap he lifted the bottle and let a good two ounces wash down his gullet. Then he capped the pint and put it back in the drawer. Mary said, “I don’t see how you can drink it like that—without water or ice or anything.”

“You get used to it.”

She snorted disapprovingly and went back to the card files.

Novak loosened his collar, stared around the room. It was clean at least, and reasonably comfortable. Not like the flophouse where the little woman had gasped out her life. Closing his eyes he saw again the speckles of light across the rumpled bed, the hook of her hand, the spittle-covered blue lips and the empty brown bottle. He rubbed the edge of one hand over his eyelids and opened them. It was a scene to forget, not one to engrave in your memory. He shivered, reached for the box of goodwill cigars and bit the end from one. The door opened, and Connery came into the office. He walked rapidly to Novak’s desk and sat down opposite him. He pushed a banquet plan across the desk, and then his nostrils quivered. He sniffed, and his lips pursed. “You’ve got a whisky breath,” he said accusingly.

Novak lighted the cigar, drew in and blew smoke across the desk. Connery coughed and drew back. Novak smiled winningly. “What’ll we do about it, Ralph? Give me the balloon test?”

Connery jumped up, fanning cigar smoke aside. “A roughneck like you has no place in a refined hotel like this,” he shouted. “I’m going to take it up with the Manager.”

Novak smiled. “Okay. But the Manager knows damn well I’ve saved his job on at least two occasions. Now what about the banquet?”

Connery whirled and darted out of the office. As the door closed Mary turned and said, “I’d hate to lose you as a boss, Pete. Can’t you go easy on Connery? Or was it true what you said about the Manager?”

“Not entirely,” Novak said calmly. “Last year he had a floozy stashed away in a room on the sixth floor, and the hotel wasn’t collecting any rent. We had a quiet talk, and the lady agreed to move out of the low-rent district. So don’t worry about Connery busting my corset stays. When I quit it’ll be because I’m sick of the place.”

Jimmy Grant hustled in, glanced nervously at Mary and went to Novak’s desk. Leaning over he said in a low voice, “She checked out, Pete. The Norton dish.”

Novak said nothing. His eyes had narrowed, staring at a letter opener on his desk.

Jimmy said, “You wanted to know, didn’t you?” He sounded crestfallen.

Rousing himself Novak pulled over the phone.

“Yeah,” he said huskily. “I wanted to know.”

Then he dialed Police Headquarters.

14

Novak ate lunch in the coffee shop and spent a couple of hours going over the hotel with a fire inspector on a periodic inspection tour. When the inspector left, Novak turned back from the front entrance and started walking to his office. As he neared the reception counter he saw the clerk beckoning at him. “May I trouble you a moment, Mr. Novak?” he chirped.

Novak angled over and saw a man resting an elbow on the marble counter. He wore a houndstooth coat, flannel slacks, moccasin shoes and a stitched-brim tweed hat. His green challis tie was figured with trout flies, mostly concealed by a beige corduroy vest. A very sporty customer, Novak decided and looked at the face.

It was a face that would have been overly handsome but for a nose bridge that might have been broken and set repeatedly. As Novak neared him, the man’s elbow left the counter, and he straightened the lapels of his coat. The shoulders had the powerful roll of an athlete, and the eyes that surveyed Novak were cool and steady. To Novak he looked like a man who had seen the collegiate light-heavyweight ring within the last ten years.

Novak laid one hand on the counter and looked at the clerk. The clerk coughed nervously. “This gentleman was inquiring for someone, Mr. Novak. I thought you might be able to provide the information.”

Novak turned his glance to the other man.

The man reached a gloved hand into his coat, extracted an ostrich wallet and selected a card. He gave it to Novak and put away the wallet. The card was good quality stock, engraved with a name: Pike Hammond, St. Louis. There was a telephone number over the lower right-hand edge. Novak dropped the card in his pocket, said, “What was it you wanted, Mr. Hammond?”

The man’s smile was casual. He spread his gloved hands and said, “Looking for an old friend. Seems I may have missed her. The clerk thought you might have more information.”

“Who’s the friend?”

Almost indifferently the man said, “Name of Barada—but I understand she’s using her maiden name, Norton.”

“Miss Norton checked out before noon.”

Hammond nodded. “It occurred to me she might have left a forwarding address.”

Novak gave the clerk a long stare. The clerk swallowed hard and fluttered away. Then Novak said, “She left no forwarding address, but something was mentioned about Winnetka, Illinois. Too bad you missed her, Mr. Hammond.”

He shrugged. “That’s how the ball bounces.” His eyes moved over Novak. “She stayed here alone?”

“Single reservation.”

“Too bad,” he said musingly. “Thought I might be able to connect up with her husband. Actually he’s the one I needed to see.”

Novak drummed his nails on the counter. “What’s your line of business, Mr. Hammond?”

The man’s lips pursed slightly, then resumed their even smile. “We could call it the entertainment business,” he said smoothly. “How’s that sound?”

“Passable,” Novak said. “Which end, Mr. Hammond?”

Hammond’s smile showed white, sturdy teeth. “The collection end. But we weren’t talking about me.”

“Excuse the detour. Where’d you know Ben Barada? Northeast Illinois?”

“Chicago?”

“I was thinking of Joliet.”

The smile thinned. “A fellow like Big Ben does a lot of traveling. In the course of a year you could spot him in twenty or thirty places: Hialeah, Hot Springs, New Orleans, Vegas...”

“And St. Louis.”

“Wherever the fast money moves.” One hand made a fist and hit the gloved palm of his other hand. “Time’s a-wasting,” he remarked. “Thanks, fella. This has been a big disappointment.” He started to move past Novak. Novak’s elbow blocked him.

“Down, boy,” Hammond said icily. “Playtime’s over.”

“Relax,” Novak said. “You’ve come a long way to see Barada. No need to go away thirsty.”

Hammond’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m not a drinking man,” he said, “but I don’t object on principle.”

Novak took his arm and steered him into the bar. They sat on a curved corner seat and ordered Irish and a Coke. Hammond took off the tweed hat and smoothed dark brown hair. Just above the hairline there was a white scar that could have been a bullet crease. He pulled off his gloves slowly, and Novak saw the battered knuckles of a fighter. The gloves were Italian peccary at about thirty bucks a pair.

Hammond waited until Novak had lighted a cigarette and said, “You’ve got quite a line on old Ben. How come?”

“He got into trouble a couple of nights ago.”

Hammond eased forward. “What kind of trouble?”

“Slapping his wife around.”

Hammond picked a wooden match from the ashtray box and rubbed one end against an upper incisor. “You blew the whistle?”

Novak nodded.

Hammond smiled unevenly. Novak lifted his right elbow and eased it casually against Hammond’s coat. There was something hard and bulky under the well-tailored houndstooth. Hammond’s eyes flickered. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m rodded. So what?”

“I like to know what I’m talking to,” Novak said. “Sorry about the crude frisk.” He took his glass from the waiter and waited while Hammond’s Coke was poured. Hammond wet his lips and lowered the glass slowly. “I got a thing on about guys who beat up dames,” he said harshly. “Barada would be about right for that—on top of everything else.”

Novak sipped some of his drink and knocked ash from his cigarette. “Ben was padded outside town, on the road to Alexandria. A motel called the Vernon. You could maybe pick him up from there, but I doubt it.”

“Anyone try?”

“The police maybe.”

Hammond’s face paled slightly. “I don’t like that. Ben can’t afford to mix with the coppers. Not now. Not until we finish a little business matter. After that he’s up for grabs.” He swallowed some Coke and stared at Novak. “Any chance he headed for Winnetka with Paula?”

“It’s possible. She’s lately been remembered in a rich man’s will. She seems to think she owes something to Ben. He may have gone along to protect her interests—and his own.”

“What rich man?”

“Fellow name of Boyd. Died here the other night.”

Hammond nodded reminiscently. “Paula’s sugar-daddy. Yeah, I heard of Boyd before. From Ben. She was to put the bite on Boyd and Ben was to have his cut by yesterday. When he didn’t call the boss, I caught a plane east.” He stared at the end of Novak’s cigarette. “The boss is holding a fistful of worthless paper. If he lets Ben get away with it, other guys will try and I’ll be busier than I like.” He picked up his glass, finished the Coke. “Used to be Ben signed an IOU and made it good next morning when the banks opened. Maybe Joliet sours a guy. I imagine it could.”

“How much paper did Ben leave behind?”

“Sixty-five grand. Too much to write off with a grin. And the boss rarely grins.” He glanced down at a thin gold wristwatch. “Think I’ll hire a car and drive out to the motel. I might just get lucky.” Pulling a bill from his pocket he covered the check and stood up. “I never did business with a hotel peeper before. And not even a harsh word.”

Novak looked up at him. “What business?” he asked and saw Hammond move away toward the bar door.

No wonder Barada had been frantic to get his hands on a chunk of money. A guy like Hammond could pick him up and bang him against a wall until his toenails dropped off. Novak took Hammond’s card from his pocket and studied it. Discreet and tasteful. Telling nothing. A name and a telephone number. Like a high-price bordello.

Novak fitted the card into his wallet, finished his drink and left the bar. Crossing the corner of the lobby he went out to the sidewalk and waited while the doorman helped a woman from a cab. Then he went over to him and said, “Art, not long before noon a Miss Norton checked out. Gray fur, gray luggage and maybe a small dog on a gray leash.”

“No dog,” Art said, brushing lint from the sleeve of his coat. “I’d remember her anyway because she didn’t take a cab. There was a car waiting for her. Couple of guys in it. She got in, and they drove away.”

“What kind of a car?”

“It was new enough to be rental. I didn’t pay much attention to the plate numbers, but it was a District plate.” He squinted at Novak. “She skip?”

Novak shook his head. “A fellow was asking for her,” he said and walked slowly back into the hotel. Crossing to the reservation desk he went behind it and motioned the girl away from the teletype. Sitting down he selected the line to the chain’s St. Louis hotel, consulted Hammond’s card and tapped out a message. He tore off the yellow teletype sheet and carried the message toward his office. In an hour or so there ought to be an answer.

Over at the tobacco stand a newsie was unloading a pile of afternoon papers. Novak bought one and went back to his office.

The Jensen Hotel death rated a paragraph on page fourteen, just ahead of the classifieds. Only the bare facts. An unidentified middle-aged woman had been found dead in her room. Death was due to either heart failure or an overdose of sleeping pills. A brief description of the woman followed, plus a police request for any information that could assist identification.

Novak tore out the clipping and laid it in his desk drawer. Beside the dusted telegram blank. Then he skimmed the rest of the paper and tossed it into the wastebasket.

Mary said, “How’d the fire inspection go?”

“We’re certified for another month.” He wrote a name on a pad and carried the slip over to Mary. “Not a bad guy. Put him on the Santa Claus List. Two turkeys and a large basket of fruit. Gift-wrapped.”

She made a shorthand note under the man’s name. “Wouldn’t mind one myself.”

“He’s got four kids,” Novak said. “The chain can afford it and a lot more. I wouldn’t like to try to feed a family of six on what a fire inspector draws from the District.”

“No,” she said soberly. “You sound a little mellower today. Any special reason?”

“I just had a drink with a bill collector. I guess there’s tougher jobs than mine.”

“I should think so. Bill collectors work on a percentage, don’t they?”

“The house percentage. And the house always wins.” He laid the teletype message on her desk. When she had read it she glanced up. “That kind of a bill collector,” she said breathily.

“With the trouble boys there’s not a live case of failure to collect. This one’s so tough he doesn’t have to strut to prove it. Very cool and silky and muscled like a bull gorilla. College education, by his grammar, and probably knows what spoon to use. The rackets don’t pick their personnel off the cattle boats any longer. It’s big business now, and the accent’s on brains. Congress and TV have given old-fashioned hoodlums a negative public image, so the syndicates employ muscles that can pass in a crowd without old ladies shrieking and fainting away.” He walked back to his desk and sat down. “The law tries to compete, but the pay’s too low. Competent prosecutors are playing to the voting public, and their working assistants are kids just out of law school who couldn’t connect with an established firm. Not much competition against the talent the syndicates can afford to hire. Hell, there’s hardly a big law firm in the East without one or more syndicate clients.”

“You don’t see their names in the papers. The law firms, I mean.”

“They work those things out over brandy at the club with the guys who own the newspapers,” he said tiredly. “Besides, the prosecutors are so busy grabbing space that when a defense attorney isn’t highlighted, nobody notices. The best people,” he said sourly. “Ah, the hell with them.”

The office door opened, and Lieutenant Morely came in. He nodded at Mary, took off his hat and sat down near Novak. He was shaved, but his eyes were reddened, and his face looked haggard. He said, “Thanks for the tip on Paula Norton. Unfortunately she hasn’t been located yet.” He sat forward and smiled thinly. “You fooled me, boy. I thought you was maybe sweet on her, and here you turned her in like a little soldier.”

“All in the spirit of cooperation.”

Morely leered at him. “I’ll bet. The truth is she probably wouldn’t lay for you, and you got sore.”

Novak’s hand shot out and jerked Morely’s tie forward. “Little plump pal,” he snarled, “who lays for me and who doesn’t isn’t a matter for police speculation.” His fingers released the tie and Morely’s flushed face bobbed up. Novak’s fist tapped Morley’s chin lightly. “The lady checked out. I notified the police as requested. Leave it at that, Lieutenant.”

Morely’s right hand had gone for his belt gun, but it stopped short, the fingers opened and closed stiffly, a nerve fluttered in his mottled face. Slowly the back of his hand ran across his lips, fingers straightened his knotted tie. “Jesus, you take chances,” he said hoarsely. “Last guy who did that ain’t around to tell it.”

“I’m chilled to the bone.” Novak bit off the words. “You were just kidding, and I’m edgy today. Want to write it off?”

Morely was sitting deep in his chair, hands flat on his thighs, eyes staring at Novak. After a while he said, “Hell, I didn’t know you were so touchy.”

Novak got out the box of hotel cigars. Morely took two and stuck them in his coat pocket without looking at them. The color of his face was nearly normal. His voice was still unsteady when he spoke: “We got a call from Mrs. Boyd. All upset and bitter. She wanted someone to come right over and arrest Norton for murdering her husband. By then we’d got your message, and when they told her Norton had checked out she yelled and foamed at the muzzle.”

“What kind of evidence was she suggesting you arrest Norton on?”

“Said she had detective agency reports that they were lovers.” He made a sound of disgust. “If we arrested every dame who was kept by a married guy we’d have jails in every block.” He heaved a long sigh. “I stopped by Bikel’s room before coming here, wanted to get a detailed account of his movements the night Boyd was shot. But he wasn’t around.”

“Maybe Julia could find him.”

“Maybe. And I’d just as soon not be the one to ask her. She treats policemen like wetbacks, and I haven’t slapped a dame in a couple of years. Yeah, Bikel’s an interesting fellow. You said they were planning to kneel at the altar?”

“They’re already bundling.”

Morely’s eyebrows lifted. “How would you know that?”

“They were in pajamas when I went up to her suite this morning.”

Morely chuckled lecherously. “Some guys will do anything for dough. But of course Bikel couldn’t marry her so long as her husband was alive. Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, “I sure want a long interview with Doctor Edward Bikel.”

“Boyd wasn’t the only obstacle.” Novak opened his drawer and took out the newspaper clipping. He reached it over to Morely who read it and handed it back, shaking his head. “An old dame conks out in a fleabag hotel—so what’s that got to do with the business at hand?”

Novak pulled out the dusted telegram and laid it under the desk lamp. Morely got up and peered down at the block letters. Then his face lifted slowly. “What’s the connection?”

“Yesterday I saw a woman answering the newspaper description run from Bikel’s room. I was close enough so that I could hear they’d been having emotional words. When I got the chance I shook down Bikel’s room and pulled this off the top of the telegram pad.”

Morely scanned the message again. “There doesn’t have to be a connection,” he said slowly.

“Checking’s easy. He sent this to a Mrs. Edward Bikel in Chicago at the address given. The message tells her not to come to Washington and spoil everything. It promises he’ll work everything out and be back in a few days.” Novak lighted a cigarette and let smoke drift over the desk. “You could call Chicago and see if Bikel’s wife is at this address, or if not where she’s gone. It’s worth the try, anyway. And there ought to be somebody around the neighborhood who could give you a description of Mrs. Edward Bikel.” He lifted the clipping and let it flutter onto the desk. “If the dead woman and Mrs. Bikel turn out to be the same person, the Doc might have to postpone his wedding.”

“Yeah,” Morely growled, “while we sweat the truth out of the son of a bitch.”

15

Mary had gone home, and except for the light on Novak’s desk the office was dark. The blinds were partly open, showing moving forms hurrying along the sidewalk. Through spaces between people he could glimpse the slow crawl of traffic. The windows were closed and what sounds penetrated were muffled and detached. He had been smoking in the near darkness, isolated and alone, sipping Irish whisky and turning things over in his mind.

In the lobby it was the time after the check-out hour bustle and before the evening business began. The time when the help changed shifts, when the dining room opened and the muted sounds of the string trio drifted through the hotel. No raucous page boy bellowing the name of an out-of-town visitor. No slurred chatter of idle women leaving the cocktail lounge. No slapping of convention hands on convention backs or shouts of merry recognition. No drunks fighting the potted palms. All that came later. For now everything was hushed, suspended. Waiting for the night to come.

His head tilted back, and he stared at the shadowed ceiling. A hotel is like a prison, he thought. The rooms are cells hiding secrets and passions. Then something happens, the smallest thing, and doors fly open. The explosion goes off. Panic. And fragments of truth.

He shook himself, forced his eyes to the empty desk. He began to think about Paula, wondering where she was. He thought of the teletype from the St. Louis house security man and wondered if Pike Hammond had found the trail of Ben Barada. Hammond and the boss who seldom smiled.

He picked up the long steel letter opener, toyed with it. The end stabbed little nicks in the smooth green blotter. He wondered if Morely had found Bikel and what their talk had disclosed. He thought of a horrid old fat woman in a fifth-floor suite and wondered what was on her devious mind.

Stubbing out his cigarette he got up heavily and pulled on his coat. One hand buttoned his collar, slid the tie knot into place. The pint bottle was empty. He dropped it in the wastebasket and heard it bounce against the metal sides. Then he turned off his desk lamp and went out.

A few guests reading newspapers in the lobby. A couple in evening dress left an elevator and strode sedately to the revolving door. Another girl behind the tobacco counter. Sylvia would be home now, fixing dinner for her kid and thinking about things she had to do before eight o’clock. Tough being a divorcée with a kid to care for. Maybe it was tougher staying married to a man who cheated on you or drank too much or couldn’t hold a job. Or beat you up for laughs. Like Ben Barada. I don’t know which is tougher, he said to himself. I’ve got only the male angle, but it’s not always the woman who cops the raw deal.

He walked slowly toward the elevators and the bell captain came over to him. “Bikel hasn’t showed, Pete. Everybody’s got the word. If he comes in we’ll spot him.”

“Thanks, Andy.” He stepped into the open elevator and said, “Five.”

The doors hummed shut, the cage lifted smoothly on its purring cable.

As the doors opened the operator said, “Everything okay, Pete?”

“Everything’s okay.” He walked down the hall and turned into the corridor. There was a light in the service closet, a maid fussing inside. As he walked he could see the luggage dolly leaning where he had left it after transferring Boyd’s corpse. Only two nights ago? It seemed like half a year. His head was buzzing. He stopped, shook himself, walked on. Too much liquor, or not enough sleep. Or the combination. Not young anymore, Novak. Can’t drink like a horse and kick like a mule much longer.

He stopped in front of Bikel’s door, used the passkey and went in. Turning on the light he saw that Bikel’s bag was packed. The bed was smooth. Nothing in the closet. Or in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Seals on all the glasses. Turning off the light he let himself out and locked the door. He thought, I wonder how far you’ll get tonight, Eddie. Then he moved a few doors down the corridor and pressed the button.

It took a long while for her to come to the door and when she did she looked older than he had ever seen her. Even in the dimness of the room her face was pale. A depression on the sofa showed where she had been sitting, staring out of the window at the vanishing light, watching night seep into the room.

One hand touched the hollow of her throat. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I have my rounds to make,” he said, closing the door and walking further into the room. “Like the alley dog and the milkman.”

Her laugh was artificial. “I didn’t know the Tilden provided such personal service.”

Novak sat down and stared up at her. “Relax, Julia,” he said. “We’ve done business together. Before I went home I thought I’d make sure you were satisfied.”

She placed one palm on the table, eased part of her weight onto it. The arm looked as sturdy as a piano leg. “Why...of course I’m satisfied.”

“With the jewelry.”

“Of course,” she snapped. “Why shouldn’t I be?” Her eyes narrowed. “However, since this morning I’ve thought things over, and I’m not at all sure my signing that receipt was a good idea.”

Novak said nothing.

Julia Boyd cleared her throat. “I said I don’t think I was wise to sign that receipt of yours. I was half-asleep, or I’m sure I wouldn’t have.”

Novak placed his fingertips together and shrugged. “Seemed routine to me. If an insurance company had recovered the jewelry you’d have had to sign a receipt.” He squinted up at her. “It was a business transaction, Julia. Jewelry and money changed hands. A receipt was in order.”

Her tongue flicked out, moistened her lips quickly and disappeared.

Novak said, “What was it you had in mind?”

Nervously she said, “I’d like to have it back.”

Novak looked down at his hands. “I need it, Mrs. Boyd.”

“Why do you need it?”

“To protect myself.”

She laughed shortly. “From what? Not me, surely?”

His hands spread. “From anything. In case any question should ever arise regarding the disappearance of the jewels and the circumstances surrounding their return.” One of her hands was worrying a pleat in her skirt. He said, “Suppose someone got the idea I wasn’t entirely honest—that I’d stolen the jewelry myself and sold it back to you. It might be a hard thing to make a case against me, but on the other hand, without your receipt I’d have a hell of a time disproving it.” His head moved to one side. “See what I mean? Through you I had early knowledge that the jewels were in the hotel. It could be claimed that I decided to steal them and killed your husband in the process.” He shook his head slowly. “Sorry, Mrs. Boyd. What you ask isn’t possible.” He stood up and moved past her.

“I’ll pay you a thousand dollars for it,” she said quickly.

He halted and stared at her. “It’s worth that much to me.”

“How much?” she yelled.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing you could give me. You’ve got your jewelry, and I’ve got the receipt. That ends the transaction. Sorry I can’t oblige.”

“You son of a bitch,” she snarled.

A crooked grin twisted his mouth. “Yeah, I’m a son of a bitch. I was useful last night when I took that dark walk down the country lane, but I’m a son of a bitch now. Think I don’t know what made the difference?” He walked past her and put his hand on the doorknob. Glancing back he saw her rigid as a pillar of salt. He said, “Bikel ever tell you he was married, Julia? Well, that’s no problem anymore. He’s a widower now.”

A long sigh escaped her lips. One hand was working in the folds of flesh around her throat.

“A pitiful little woman,” he said leadenly. “Pathetic as a frozen sparrow, lying on a cheap bed in a cheap flophouse in a cheap part of town. Not everyone gets to die in the Tilden, Mrs. Boyd. Little people die where they can. When Eddie comes by, ask him what went through his mind when he walked in on her this morning. I’d like to hear it myself—whether he felt a twinge of remorse over what he’s done or whether the only feeling was relief.” His hand opened the door. Julia Boyd had not moved. Novak said, “Yesterday she went to a chapel because that was the only place she could go. By this morning she wasn’t human any longer. Just something for the refuse heap.” He went through the opening and pulled the door shut. Leaning against it he wiped his face slowly. His throat was tight, constricted. He swallowed hard and walked down the corridor.

Whatever Julia Boyd had been thinking before, she had other things to think about now. None of them very pleasant. He stabbed the elevator button and rode down to the lobby.

There was a stir of activity at the reception desk, guests checking in, bellhops scurrying off with baggage, snap of the bell captain’s fingers. The revolving door turning steadily, swallowing, disgorging people. A place to spend the night. A room at the inn.

The reception clerk caught sight of him and motioned him over. From under the counter he pulled a folded telephone message, slipped it to Novak and went back to explaining something to an irritated lady.

Novak moved away and unfolded the message. Four words only: No strain. Pike Hammond.

Novak balled the message and dropped it in an ash stand. Nice of him to remember me, he thought, and straightened his lapels. That meant Hammond had picked up Barada’s trail. But he still had to squeeze sixty-five grand out of him. Novak tried to think of the many ways a man like Pike Hammond could press juice out of a dry stone.

Andy the bell captain came up to him. “Nothing yet, Pete. You staying around a while?”

“Yeah. I’ll gobble the coffee shop special before I go home.”

He went over to the newsstand, bought an evening paper and carried it into the coffee shop. The cashier girl nodded to him as he mounted a stool at the counter. A waitress with an ivory smile took his order and asked if he wanted cream in his coffee.

Novak folded his paper, propped it against the sugar shaker and began reading baseball news. Not much action yet, too early in the season. Trades and deals and practice games in southern training camps. A game called for hail in Sarasota. Options, a sensational new southpaw from East Texas State. The waitress brought his dinner and Novak put the paper aside.

There was nothing wrong with the food. It was standard hotel coffee shop food with the usual decorative sprigs of defrosted parsley, but he hadn’t much appetite. He toyed with the pork tenderloin, the frozen peas and string potatoes and began drinking his coffee. Like Julia Boyd, he had too many things on his mind. Plus a date at eight. Sylvia Riordan. She would have a pelt like wet sable and skin like waxed marble. Oh, yes, a fifth of bonded bourbon. Something to get at the corner store on his way home.

He was stirring his coffee moodily when a bellhop came up to him. “Phone call, Mr. Novak. Operator Three.”

Novak nodded, glanced down at his hardly touched plate, signed the check, left a quarter for the waitress and went out to the ledge that held the house phones.

When the operator had switched his call he heard a voice crackle through the receiver. A voice as thin as a knife. “Novak?”

“Yeah.”

“No names, understand? We met the other night in a certain lady’s room.”

“Get specific. I’m forever running into guys in dames’ rooms. Part of the business.”

“Save it for a sister act,” the voice sneered. “The lady checked out today. Only she didn’t get very far. She’s here right now. She wants to see you, Novak. She can barely stand the pain. Get it?”

His flesh was clammy with sweat. Chilled fingers gripped the black rubber handle. “Let me talk to her,” he said unsteadily.

“Sure. I’m taking the phone to her.”

A moment of silence, then Paula’s voice, strained and breathy. “Pete...don’t—” then the hard crack of a slap and a scream, fading as the phone was jerked away.

The voice was cold and vicious. “She’s not herself tonight, Novak. A great little kidder. She meant to say she wants you to come and straighten a few things out. Any objections?”

“No,” Novak said in a cracked voice.

A snotty chuckle. “The sooner you get here the sooner she can relax. And stash the heater home. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“You got ten minutes to get to the corner of Vermont and Fourteenth. South side. Any cops and the lady gets hurt.” The line clicked off, and Novak lowered the receiver. Stiffly his fingers released it on the cradle. His eyes traveled to his wristwatch and marked the time. He could make it in five minutes if he hurried.

Novak spun around, jogged to his office. He flipped on the lights and spun the safe dial. He missed it the first time, swore and forced unsteady fingers to retrace the combination. This time the drawer opened, and he pulled out Paula’s chrome-plated automatic. He jacked a shell into the chamber, clicked off the safety and bent over. Pulling up his right trouser leg he lowered his garter, tightened it and slid the automatic down against the back of his leg below the bulge of the calf. The garter would hold it in place until he needed it.

Jerking off his coat he shed the shoulder holster and jammed the .38 in his inside pocket. Then he opened a desk drawer and took out a bone-handled folding knife. The knife he dropped in his right coat pocket. Then he snatched his hat from the rack and raced out of the office.

On K Street he dodged through ebbing sidewalk crowds, pulse throbbing in his temples, throat tight and raw. It was cool enough for gloves and a topcoat but there was sweat around his neck and his palms were damp, fingers stiff.

Past the Investment Building, then only a short block to Vermont. Traffic swarmed past, tires snicking like knives in green wood. A blur of neon signs, the lighted window of a drugstore jammed with cheap toys and plastic skeleton models. Straining he peered through the darkness and saw the lighted statue at Thomas Circle. Below it a steady whirl of cars rounding the circle, cutting off, converging within the close-packed maze. His lips were dry. He moistened them, glanced at his watch. Two minutes to go. They had planned it neatly.

Past the Burlington Hotel. Now he could see the point where Fourteenth cut across Vermont. The spot where he was supposed to wait. Inside his coat the revolver banged loosely against his ribs. His hip sockets ached. He sucked cold air into his lungs, coughed and kept going. Dimmed headlights of circling cars stared like unseeing eyes. Novak reached the point and rested against the lamppost. Breathing deeply, he saw that there was a minute to go.

Slowly the pounding in his temples eased and his pulse slowed. His hatband was clammy. He took it off, wiped it on his sleeve, fitted it on his head again.

His eyes searched each car that followed the outside lane. Beige, blue, dandelion yellow; new, old, dented fenders, paint spots on the doors. All anonymous. No way to tell which was the contact car. Glancing down he saw hands clenched into hard fists. He straightened the fingers, flexed the stiff joints and rubbed the palms against his legs. His left foot toed the back of his right leg. The pistol was still in place. Paula’s garter gun.

Squinting at the traveling wheel of cars he saw one cross to the outside lane and head for the lamppost. The driver stuck out his hand, slowed and stopped beside Novak. A dark blue Chevy sedan.

From the rear seat a voice barked, “We ain’t got a world of time.”

Blocked cars honked their horns. Novak stepped off the curb, yanked the door open and got in. The car jerked forward, slamming him against the seat. A voice rumbled, “You’re covered, Novak. Lift the arms.”

Novak raised his arms, felt a hand patting his pockets, his chest. It prodded the revolver, dipped into his coat and pulled it out.

“Naughty boy,” the voice chided. “You was told not to bring the iron.”

Novak grunted, lowered his arms, fitted himself into the seat corner.

The man who had taken his revolver stowed it in a coat pocket and leered at him. “That gives me two. And none for you. Like it?”

“Not much,” Novak croaked and saw the man’s head turn.

“Okay, Tags. We ain’t followed. Feed it some gas. Ben’s waiting.”

The car had made a half circle and come onto Vermont Avenue again. It headed north, picking up speed.

16

Novak’s hands gripped his knees. His face looked dejected, defeated. His eyes studied the other man. Hatless and hair too long. The eyes were narrow and his forehead was too thin. One of the guys who had played soccer with him in the alley.

Novak leaned forward, said softly. “How’s the nose coming along, Tags?”

The driver snarled. “You son of a bitch!”

Novak leaned back and grinned in the darkness. “Someone ought to invent a new word. That’s all I get called these days.”

Beside him the other man grunted nastily. “Be grateful you lasted so long, pal.”

Novak nodded soberly. “I ought to be at that. Only last night you had me in the headlights, an easy target. This pickup looks like afterthought.”

“Never mind, pal. You’ll find out soon enough. You ain’t getting this ride so’s you can jawbone us helpless. Keep the mouth shut. Get it?”

“Suits me. The bad grammar gets boring anyway.”

A hand cuffed the side of his face. Novak rubbed the spot tenderly. The guy spat, “That’s only the beginning. Keep the lip zipped.”

Novak gripped his knees harder, felt the car lurch to the right and saw a street sign flash past. Melrose St. They must not care that he saw the route they were taking. That could mean he wouldn’t be making the trip again. They could be right. Shivering, he wrapped his arms together for warmth.

A slewing turn to the left, half a block more and the car bumped over a curb driveway and slowed to a stop beside the back door of a dark house.

Tags turned off the engine, got out. He poked his face in the rear window. “Let’s move, Al.”

“Cover him,” Al said, opened the door and got out. He held the door opened and drawled, “Last mile.”

Novak’s teeth bared, he shifted along the seat and stepped down, hands lifted to protect his head against a whistling sap.

It was an old frame house with a screened back porch. He followed Tags up four wooden steps, through a creaking screen door and waited. Al jabbed a gun in his ribs. “Slow and easy,” he breathed. “Nothing fast, pal. Just follow the man.”

Through a crack in the door shade Novak could see a glimmer of light. Tags turned a key in the rusty lock and pushed ahead. A kitchen with a linoleum floor. No smell of recent cooking.

A dark narrow hallway. The heavy clump of their feet on the dusty floor.

Tags elbowed the door open and Novak followed him into the living room. The shades were down and the light came from two wooden floor lamps. A fringed imitation oriental carpet, worn smooth in patches. Rockers with stained petit-point seats, a low stuffed sofa, a round writing table and a couple of Windsor chairs in bad repair.

Ben Barada sat on the sofa staring up at Novak. He wore a yellow silk shirt, cuffs rolled back and no tie. His face looked hard and desperate. The girl was tied in one of the chairs, hands behind the chairback, cords around her ankles. Even in the amber light angry patches stood out on her face. Her hair was disarrayed and the torn linen blouse showed one bare shoulder, marked with deep finger bruises. Her lips were puffed and her cheeks showed traces of dried salt. Her eyes prayed to Novak.

Barada smiled thinly, blew smoke at Novak and said, “At last everyone’s together. Glad you came, Novak?”

Al said, “He tried to sneak a rod, Ben.”

“He would.” Eyes flickered back to Novak. “Everyone together,” he repeated. “You, my faithful ex-wife and me.” He got up slowly and walked to Novak. “Funny what a dame sees in a guy. Paula says you’re okay. To me you’re just another dumb sucker. Anything to say, cheapy?”

“Hello, jailbird.”

Barada’s face convulsed. His right hand stabbed out, slamming Novak’s belly. Novak doubled over. Nausea flared through his mouth. He retched, staggered to one side and straightened painfully. Barada was stroking the knuckles of his right hand. “Thought you were tough,” he sneered.

The words echoed through the silent room. Novak rolled his shoulders and glanced down at Paula. His face was thin and bitter. He licked his lips and felt his hands clench. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Don’t blame yourself,” she said huskily. “It’s my fault. All of it.”

“How true, baby,” Barada jeered. “Starting with you and Boyd. Got lonely at night, didn’t it? So lonely you had to share your bed.” His lips drew back over his teeth. “What about me in Joliet? Ever bother to give your husband a thought?”

“We’ve gone over that,” she said wearily. “Tell Novak what you want. The sight of you makes me want to vomit.”

A guffaw from Al in the corner. Barada whirled around. “Enough outa you,” he snarled. “Toss me the car keys.”

Tags spoke. “They’re in the car, Ben.”

“Move.”

Novak could hear Tags cross behind him, walk down the passageway into the kitchen. Barada turned to him. “Okay, sucker, Paula spilled what you did for her the other night—how you moved the body back to Boyd’s room. Just one of those helpful guys. Or was there maybe a payoff somewhere?” His eyes turned to Paula. “Did you get so grateful you slipped Novak the jewels?”

“Someone took them,” she said dully. “Novak was with me when I found they were gone.”

Barada laughed shortly. “They were gone all right because I took them. I was down in the lobby when I saw you go out. I skipped back to your room, found Boyd’s body on the bed and shook down the place.” He moved his head slowly. “I found jewelry and skipped out with it. What a surprise,” he said thinly. “Muzzlers. A phony set.”

“The stuff you sold back last night for a grand,” Novak said.

“Sure. I figured Paula still had the others, but she claims not. She’s not the bravest little roundheels in the world and the more fists she eats the more she claims she only had one set. That makes Boyd a cheapskate— which I doubt—or maybe someone else has them.” His eyes drilled into Novak. “Know what I think, peeper? I think you latched onto the real ones somewhere along the line and figured on giving the insurance company a little play—after we’d all left town.”

Novak blinked at Barada. “The phonies you took— where were they?”

Barada snorted. “Under her pillow begging to be found.”

Novak saw Paula’s eyebrows draw together. Her mouth opened, but he warned her with his eyes. To Barada he said, “I returned the phony set to Julia Boyd. Having done that how the hell could I try to make a deal with the insurance company for the real ones—if I had them?”

Barada shrugged. “Everyone makes mistakes,” he said coldly. “I make them, Paula’s made some, and so have you. But this is the time we straighten things out.”

The porch door slammed as Tags went out to the driveway.

Novak’s palms were sweaty. His throat felt like cold wax.

Barada said, “The jewels, Novak. You got them, I want them.”

“In exchange for what?”

Barada shrugged. “You walk out the door—the dame too, if you want her.”

“Doesn’t sound like much of a trade,” Novak husked. “Suppose I don’t go along with it?”

Barada’s face went murderous. “This is an old empty house, Novak. Nobody comes around much. Not even the milkman. Maybe in a month or so a cop might peep in the window. Know what he’d find?”

Novak’s mouth tasted like dry sand.

Barada’s voice rose. “He’d find two bodies here. You and the dame. A pistol between you—yours. A suicide pact.” One hand rolled down a yellow cuff, buttoned it. “That’s what he’d find.”

Paula’s throat made a gasp of horror.

Novak blinked at him. “I wouldn’t care for that,” he said hoarsely. “Not at all.” His shoulders slumped, hands opened and closed emptily. Then his eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’ll let us go?”

Barada’s eyes flickered. He buttoned the other cuff. “That’s the chance you take.”

Novak turned to Paula. “Long odds, gray-eyes,” he said huskily. “It’s up to you.”

“No one’s asking her,” Barada flared.

“I’m asking her,” Novak snarled.

Paula writhed in the chair, straining her wrists and ankles against the cords that bound them. Her lips parted and she moaned, “He’ll kill us. Don’t do it!”

Barada leaped toward the chair. His hand snaked back and the palm slashed across her face. Her head snapped to one side, and she screamed in pain.

Novak jerked around. Al was against the wall with a gun in his hand. “Easy,” he spat.

Barada’s eyes were wild. His arms shook. Novak went slowly to the writing table and sat down. From Paula’s chair came the sound of racking sobs. A soul in torment, utterly without hope.

A sheet of paper lay on the table. Novak reached for his pen. He wondered what was keeping Tags so long. Uncapping the pen he wrote the date at the top of the sheet and turned around. “They’re in my desk,” he said thickly. “I’ll write a note to the night clerk. He’ll get the envelope and turn it over.”

On Barada’s face was a deadly look. He must be mad, Novak thought. A hophead or stir-crazy. He said, “Paula didn’t kill Boyd. Someone else did. Someone who waited there for Boyd to show up with the ninety-grand payoff money. Your story’s a little thin, Barada. Maybe you were the guy. The cops would sort of like that idea.”

“You’re wasting time,” Barada snapped. “Start writing.”

Novak gave him a crooked grin. “Time’s running out, but not for me. The clock’s turning, minutes are fading but I’ve got plenty of time. You forced Paula into trying to get money from Boyd in return for the jewels. Why? Because you owed sixty-five grand to Pike Hammond. Well, Hammond’s in town. Making you the guy in the big hurry, not me.”

Barada’s face was frozen. “Pike?” he gasped. “You’re ^lying.”

Novak’s head moved slowly. “How would I know if I hadn’t talked to him?”

On the porch the screen door slammed. Tags with the car keys. Careful boys, worrying over car thieves. The thought made him smile grimly. He laid the pen on the table and looked up at Barada. “My mother was Irish,” he said quietly, “and Celts have the gift of second sight.” His head tilted back. “I look at you, Barada, and I see a skull. A bleached skull with hollow eye sockets and a hole in place of a nose. Even as far away as you are you stink of death. It’s perched on your shoulder licking its filthy lips and waiting.” He laughed roughly. “You can’t frighten me, Barada. You’re as good as dead.” His elbow struck the pen, rolling it under the table. As he bent down for it he heard footsteps along the hallway. His hand groped, slid up his trouser cuff, grabbed the pistol and snatched it free. Whirling he dropped to his knees and shot Al. Twice. The reports were sharp and clear. Al bellowed in agony and slid to the floor.

Novak got up, backed to the wall and saw Al’s body shudder and lie still. His gaze fastened on Barada. “Everyone’s been so damn clever the little things get overlooked. Like this.” He moved the snout of the chrome-plated automatic. “On your knees, Barada. Untie her. Fast.”

His eyes gazed at the dark doorway. By now Tags should be among them. What had stopped him? From the corner of his eye he saw Barada fumbling at Paula’s ankles, then a lightning movement of one hand.

Before he could move there was a gun in Barada’s hand. A small one with twin barrels. A gambler’s gun, he thought as he dropped sideways and heard it bark. Then another shot. Deafening and from the doorway.

Barada made no sound. A little derringer fell from one hand. The other was already covering a stain spreading across his chest. The face grimaced horribly, the eyes went glassy and vacant. Suddenly he pitched forward.

From the floor Novak scanned the man in the doorway. A man in a houndstooth jacket and a brittle smile on his handsome face. The cool eyes fixed on Novak.

Pike Hammond said, “You didn’t know about Ben’s derringer. I did.” He opened his coat, put away the Colt. Then he stepped into the room and stared down at Barada. “The most expensive shot I ever made,” he said thickly. “Sixty-five grand it cost me.”

“You can afford it.”

Hammond’s eyes darted quickly at him. “What would you know about that?”

“You don’t work for anyone, Pike. Most everyone works for you. That’s the word from St. Louis.”

Hammond shrugged, lifted his left foot and toed Barada’s body as if it were garbage. “So long, welsher,” he said tautly. “See you in the hot place.”

Paula had fainted. Novak untied the cords, carried her to the sofa, laid her gently down. When he looked around Hammond was bending over touching Al’s jugular vein. He shook his head slowly. “Fair shooting, Novak. Even if it took two.” He straightened up and went to the sofa. For a long time he studied Paula’s face and then he turned to Novak. Almost reverently he said, “I never saw her before, just heard about her. She’s as lovely as they said. Maybe she won’t like my killing Big Ben.”

“She could get over it,” Novak said in a strained voice. “Take her on a long trip, Pike.”

His lips pursed. “I could ask her,” he said in a distant voice. Then one eyebrow lifted. “Unless you staked out a claim?”

Novak swallowed. “I couldn’t keep her in perfume,” he said dully, turned and searched for the two ejected shells until he found them. By then Paula’s eyes were open. She was staring up at Pike Hammond who was seated beside her. Novak heard her say, “I don’t know you.”

Novak dropped the empty shells in his pocket, blew into the pistol barrel. “Meet Pike Hammond from St. Louis. Owner and proprietor of the Stallion Club. The guy who banks what the suckers lose.”

Hammond pulled off his tweed hat. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Norton,” he said gravely. “We ought not stay around here too long.”

Novak said, “What happened to the guy who was supposed to come through the doorway?”

Hammond turned slightly, and a smile played over his lips. “He faded early. How long he’ll sleep is anyone’s guess.”

Paula extended one arm, and Hammond helped her sit upright. She closed her eyes, swayed and opened her eyes again. “I had some bags,” she said quietly. “In the other room, I think.”

Hammond nodded. One hand went inside his coat pocket, pulled out the ostrich wallet and the gloved thumb riffled a deck of crisp bills. Nothing under a hundred. He said, “You’ve earned something. Name it.”

Novak’s mouth twisted. “You shot Barada, not me. I ought to be paying you.”

“I mean it,” Hammond said levelly.

“So do I. Anyway, it’s crook money.”

Hammond’s face darkened. The wallet disappeared inside his coat. His dark eyes held Novak’s. Hammond said, “We’ll let that one pass. Money’s money. It has no race, sex or politics. Money isn’t right or wrong. Not by itself. For a peeper you’ve got too damn much pride.”

“That’s why I stay a peeper.”

Hammond turned and spoke to Paula. “My car’s a couple of blocks away. Shall we get going?”

Her eyes were larger than he had ever seen them before. She walked to Novak and laid her arms on his shoulders. Her fingers laced behind his neck. “Just like that,” she said bitterly, “you’d let me walk away.”

His stomach was achingly hollow, his arms leaden as he drew her against him. “I’ve got a walk-up flat,” he said in a voice that wavered, “a TV set and an electric toaster. Sometimes there’s hot water and sometimes not. I keep long hours, and when I get back to the flat I’m usually too tired to do more than mix a drink and stagger off to bed. That’s no life for you, beautiful. It’s no life for anyone.” He bent his head and caressed the bruised lips gently. “Thanks for thinking of me, beautiful. Buy me a drink next time you breeze through town.”

“I’ll have money,” she whispered. “Half of Chalmers’ fortune.”

He shook his head slowly. “After you told me about the call I checked the switchboard operators. No longdistance calls had gone to your room. It was a fake. Tags or Al impersonated the lawyer. To get you out of the hotel. Sorry, beautiful.”

Her head drew back, her face was dazed. Her eyes stared at him unbelievingly.

Hammond cleared his throat. “Let’s shove off. No telling who heard the shooting.” He picked up Paula’s bags.

The gray eyes had misted. Novak drew her arms apart and kissed the side of one cheek. Shakily she turned and began pulling on her coat.

Hammond said, “Need my gun for a prop?”

“Registered?”

Hammond nodded.

“No good then. I’ll set enough of a scene to satisfy cops who don’t get feverish over hood killings.”

“Any time you get to St. Louis, look me up,” Hammond said as he moved past Novak. “The Stallion Club. Ask any cabbie.”

“Sure. You’ll stand me a drink. We’ll have a cigarette and chat for half an hour trying to remember what the hell it was all about.” He lifted his hat, ran one hand through his hair and saw Paula turn and breathe a kiss. Her cheeks were moist. The amber light plated them with burnished gold.

He heard their footsteps going along the passageway to the kitchen. The screen door opened, closed softly, and then there was silence.

Novak got out a cigarette with unsteady fingers, lighted it and heard a cracked voice saying, “Take good care of her, Pike.” He felt terribly alone. He drew one hand across the side of his face, shook himself and went over beside the writing table. He gathered his pen from the floor, crumpled the sheet of paper he had written on and shoved it in his pocket. His eyes searched the wall until he found the hole drilled by Barada’s derringer. A small hole, .22 maybe. And a close miss. The derringer was for under-the-table work, not a gunfight. Barada had learned the lesson too late.

Novak took the two empty shells from his pocket, wiped them and dropped them near Barada’s body. There was a big red hole staining the back of Barada’s yellow shirt. Colt .45. Nice shooting, Pike.

He wiped the chrome-plated pistol and laid it in Barada’s upturned palm. He pressed the slack fingers around it, remembering to touch the index to the trigger, and then he placed the pistol a foot from Barada’s hand and picked up the derringer. Carrying it over to Al’s body he wiped it and repeated the process, leaving the little gun a yard from Al’s arm. One of his shots had torn through Al’s jaw. The other had entered the throat. There was no exit hole.

His lips were as dry as brick. Moistening them he flicked ash from the cigarette and stared around the room. Nothing else to do. The setting wouldn’t fool a moron.

In the distance he heard a car engine start. The car backed, turned and ground away. As he listened his throat tightened again. He swallowed hard, turned and went through the passageway into the kitchen. Covering the doorknob with his handkerchief he pulled it open, closed it and walked down the steps.

He almost stumbled over Tags’ body beside the car. There was a steady heartbeat and muffled sounds came from the gauze-stuffed snout. Novak opened the car door, slid across the seat and found the ignition keys.

Without turning on the lights he started the engine and backed the car out of the driveway.

17

The moon was a tuft of dirty cotton, clouds rafted the starless sky, the air had the heavy taste of rain.

As he drove he tried not to think about the last half hour on Melrose Street but his nostrils still held the bitter scent of gunsmoke. The cigarette tasted like smoldering straw but it was better than the reek of cordite. In his mind he saw two dead bodies lying on the floor of a dusty room; but for a little luck they would have been his and Paula’s. He thought of Morely and wondered if Bikel had returned to the Tilden. He thought of a wasted little woman on a chipped iron bed. He thought of a fat woman in an expensive suite, staring at the ragged moon and waiting.

His body was spent, his mind numb. He found his head nodding, attention drifting from the road. For a while he fought fatigue, and then he stopped at a diner and gulped two cups of black coffee. When he crawled behind the wheel again he knew he could last another couple of hours.

Movie houses were disgorging people from the early show. Taverns were doing a normal Thursday night business. Shopping center lots were jammed with cars. He wondered whose car he was driving. Not a rental car, probably stolen. Time to start it on the way back to its owner.

At Q Street he turned and drove down Kingman Place to a dark curb under a low tree. He cut the motor, dropped the keys on the floor and got out. Wiping his prints from the door handle he jogged back to Vermont and waited until a cruising cab pulled over.

In front of the Tilden, the doorman opened the cab door and beckoned to a waiting couple. When he saw Novak paying the driver he said, “They’re looking for you inside, Pete. Andy says its important.”

Novak nodded, hurried into the lobby. The bell captain was standing near the reception counter, fingers drumming against his leg. When he saw Novak he hurried over. “Jeez, Pete, where you been?” he complained. “Lieutenant Morely wants you to call him right away.”

“Bikel ever get back?”

Andy shook his head. “If he did no one saw him— and I ain’t hardly took my eyes off the elevators.”

“Thanks, Andy.” Novak strode to the desk phone, asked the operator for Police Headquarters and got Morely on the phone in less than a minute. Morely said, “Well, pal, we bagged the medicine man.”

“Where?”

“Mortuary.”

“Dead?”

Morely chuckled dryly. “Naw, he’s feeling pretty sick but he’s still among the living. We picked him up trying to claim his wife’s body for burial.”

“The sentimental type. What are you holding him on?”

“Violating drug control laws, for one thing. Material witness in the death of his wife for another. And if that ain’t enough we can toss in Boyd’s death. I figure Dr. Edward Bikel will be with us quite a little while.”

“Mrs. Boyd know?”

“Not from me.”

“He gets to make a phone call, you know.”

“He ain’t asked yet. When he does, maybe he won’t have the necessary dime.”

“Mind if I tell Mrs. Boyd?”

Morely grunted. “Help yourself. She can’t run a shyster down here before morning and by then we’ll have wrung considerable sweat out of our doctor.” There was a thoughtful pause. “Bikel had quite a bit to gain from Boyd’s death. How do you like it he gunned Boyd so’s he could marry the widow?”

“And left the body in the widow’s room? Sounds sort of scatterbrained.”

“The doc’s on the feeble side. Maybe he used up all his strength pulling the trigger and couldn’t budge the corpse. Anyway, we’re asking him. By morning we may have something for the papers.”

“You may at that,” Novak said, “but I seem to remember your liking Barada as Boyd’s murderer. What happened to that?”

“Motive,” Morely said irritably. “A guy like Barada don’t kill just because some john’s shacked up with his wife. Blackmail, yes, because it’s profitable. How could he get a nickel out of murdering Boyd?”

“Maybe he got the jewels.”

“You fixed that one, pal,” Morely said bitterly. “I might believe it like I believe in the True Cross, but Mrs. Boyd has the jewels now.”

“He got a grand out of them,” Novak said evenly.

“Canary feed. Hell, he coulda realized half their insured value from the insurance company. If he killed Boyd for the jewels why didn’t he make them pay off?”

“There’s an answer to that,” Novak murmured. “You figure it out.” Then he cut the connection, massaged his closed eyes and crossed the lobby to an open elevator.

Riding to the fifth, Novak slumped wearily in the corner, opening and closing his hands. His belly ached where the muscles had bunched from Barada’s low punch. If he let himself concentrate on it he could probably get sick again. If he tried.

The doors slid apart, and Novak stepped into the fifth floor hall. Walking to Bikel’s room he keyed the door and went inside. He turned on the lights and stared around. Bikel’s bag was still there, packed and waiting for the absent owner. Might as well check him out and free the room. Novak hooked onto the bag, carried it out to the corridor and locked the door. Then he walked further down the hall. As far as Suite 515. Thirty-five skins a day, plus District Tax. Now single occupancy. The widow of the late Chalmers Boyd. Novak pressed the door button and waited.

Far down the corridor a door opened and shut. Low voices threaded through the heavy air. From inside 515 no sound.

Novak pressed the button again. Longer this time. It made a thin muffled sound. Like a dog whining in a cellar.

Pressing his ear to the door panel he listened, got out the master key and opened the door.

In the sitting room a single lamp cast a subdued glow against the naked wall. Enough to show a woman sitting on the sofa, face turned toward the dark window. As he closed the door the click of the lock seemed to rouse her. The eyes turned toward him, and he saw the pudgy doll-face, the heavy arms, the mountainous bosom. One hand covered something on the cushion beside her thigh. The light was too indistinct to show him what it was.

As Novak walked toward her, dull eyes regarded him unblinkingly.

He lowered the bag, chose a chair not far from the sofa and settled into it heavily. Pulling off his hat he tossed it onto the table. Moistening his cracked lips he said, “Full circle, Julia.”

Her mouth opened and closed. The lips formed no words.

“Back where it all started,” he said in a thick voice. “Barada’s dead—along with the hood who called about your jewelry. I thought you’d be interested to know.”

“You killed them?’

“Barada was shot by Pike Hammond—a gambler Barada owed sixty-five thousand dollars to. Hammond’s from St. Louis. Possibly you’ve heard of him.”

Her head moved. Yes.

“I killed the other. He took one gun from me, forgot to look for another. The mistake was fatal.”

She said, “You are an evil man. A wicked man. You disrupt peoples’ lives. You kill without compassion.”

Novak laughed dryly. “They would have killed me, Mrs. Boyd. Entirely without pity. And the girl as well.”

Her body moved forward slightly. “The slut—where is she?”

“Safe, Mrs. Boyd. And far from here.”

“She wronged me,” the voice said vacantly. “She wronged me grievously.”

“Your husband wronged you. And long before he met Paula Norton.”

Her head nodded pensively. The fingers of her left hand twitched. The lips said, “I was a young girl once. I had a normal body. There were many who thought of me as beautiful. Then I became unhappy. My body grew until it became this bloated thing.” Her tone filled with disgust. “Chalmers was to blame. It was his fault that I became the ugliness I am.”

“He’s paid for it,” Novak observed. “The account’s settled. And you have your jewelry. You must have wanted it badly.”

Her head moved negatively, her body shifted slightly. From the city beyond the window drifted the low purr of night traffic in the streets, the whistle of the night steamer to Old Point Comfort.

Julia Boyd said, “He gave it to me on our twenty-fifth anniversary. I wore it once and put it away. It made me look even more grotesque. I hated it. Then he gave it to the woman he admired. He thought I didn’t know, but I did. I found out, and I challenged him, insisted he get it back.”

“What else did you find out?”

Her shoulders moved disdainfully. “Chalmers was a coward. He was afraid to ask her for it. So he had copies made. He gave them to me. It was supposed to deceive me. But the detectives told me.”

Novak nodded. “By then Paula had broken with him, making the return of the real jewelry even more difficult. Because her husband was out of prison and in need of money. He had lost sixty-five thousand dollars to Pike Hammond, probably as much to others. His luck had gone bad. To Barada your jewelry meant a stake, last chance to pull himself out of a narrow hole. I think Paula would have returned the jewelry when she found out it was yours—only Barada wouldn’t let her. Maybe you learned that too.”

“He was a desperate man,” she said heavily. “His kind will do anything for money.”

“Even murder,” Novak said. “I learned that tonight.” He sucked in a deep breath. The bedroom doorway was dark. From somewhere outside came the whine of a vacuum cleaner. A late check-out. Readying the room for anonymous guests. A transient place. A hotel never sleeps.

Novak said, “You thought by reporting the jewelry as stolen you could put more pressure on Paula for its return. But out of some sense of loyalty to Paula, Chalmers refused to make the report. Or he could have felt that paying for it was the easier way. When he came back here after talking to me you must have been furious with him. He was ready to pay Paula the sum Barada was asking. I was with her when he telephoned to arrange a meeting.”

Her eyes narrowed. In the dim light they were without color, without depth. Holes in a white mask. She said, “It was my money. Everything that Chalmers owned belonged to me.”

“Not an ideal arrangement,” Novak said dryly. “No man would like that kind of arrangement for long.”

“He had no choice,” she said scornfully. “Without me he was nothing. A shirt-sleeved bookkeeper in my father’s bank. That was how Chalmers started. It was what he would have had to go back to if I threw him out.”

“Lovely people,” Novak muttered. “Pillars of suburban society.”

Julia Boyd touched one finger to the corner of her mouth, lowered her hand absently. Novak said, “I heard Paula refuse to meet Chalmers the night he was killed. Her ex-husband had given her a beating and shown her what he really was—a vicious hoodlum. She was shocked, confused; she wanted time to think. So she told your husband she would talk to him the next morning, then went out for a long walk. But by next morning your husband was dead, and Paula was under suspicion. Only she didn’t kill him.” He stared at the white face. “The body was found here, Mrs. Boyd, not in Paula’s room where it was supposed to be found. That was the second thing that went wrong.”

A frayed sigh came from her lips. Novak’s throat grated like emery paper. He swallowed, said, “We haven’t discussed Dr. Bikel yet. The ubiquitous medicine man and herb specialist. The guy who brews mescaline and vends it in his little shop. The guy who gave you the sympathy and understanding you never got from your husband.”

Her eyes moved. She looked slowly at her hands, then stared at a point on the wall over Novak’s shoulder.

“The police have Eddie. They wanted to talk to him, Mrs. Boyd. About the way his wife died. Did she kill herself, or did he recommend an overdose of something to calm her nerves? Bikel was a small-timer, Mrs. Boyd. An old chiseler settled down in an ostensibly respectable business. Married and leading a shabby life where pennies counted. Then somehow he hooked onto you. I see him studying your case and seeing in it a chance to be big-time and legitimate. His last chance. It wouldn’t take much intuition to guess the relationship between you and Chalmers. Or you may have told him about Paula and your husband. That could have encouraged his idea of marrying you eventually. But of course he was already married.

“His wife must have known his plans. I can see him talking over the future with her matter-of-factly, pleading for a quiet divorce and promising to provide for her afterward. Even handsomely. But when he planned this trip with you I can see her getting desperate, threatening to destroy his scheme by revealing to you that Bikel had a wife. In any case, the day he checked in here he sent a telegram. It told her not to come to Washington and promised he’d arrange things to her satisfaction. But she came anyway. Yesterday after noon in Bikel’s room they had a nasty scene, and she ran out crying. From there she scurried to the chapel. To pray, Mrs. Boyd. In your set prayer isn’t overly fashionable, I imagine. Prayer from the heart, anyway. And this morning she was dead. A shabby, wizened little creature. Bikel’s wife and helpmate. No one to trot around in moneyed circles. Just an embarrassment to the doctor.” His hands curved stiffly over his knees. “But she’s dead now, and Bikel’s free. Do I get an invitation to the wedding?”

Julia Boyd said nothing. Her mouth grimaced, her tongue licked her lips slowly.

Novak said, “I brought his bag here. The doctor won’t need it for a while. He’s spending the night at Police Headquarters, Mrs. Boyd. No need to wait for him any longer.”

Her head lowered. The heavy shoulders came forward, and her body shivered. “He deceived me,” she whimpered. “Pretending to love me when he was married. Men have always tricked me. Like Chalmers.” Her throat sucked breath stridently, and her eyes lifted. “When Chalmers married me I was an innocent girl. I believed he loved me, but he was false. He only wanted my money—like Bikel.” Her eyes dropped away, and her voice hollowed. “All I ever wanted was love and happiness. And this is what I became.”

For a brief moment he felt a surge of pity for her; then he remembered the house on Melrose Street and his voice steeled. “It must have been a brutal shock to find out your husband had tried to palm fake jewelry on you—another in a series of bitter disillusionments with your husband. But you kept them and the time came when they were useful.”

Her eyes had brightened. Her head slanted to one side as she listened. Novak said, “Somehow you managed to get Chalmers into Paula’s room while she was out. You shot him in the bedroom, recovered the payoff money from his pocket and the real jewels from her makeup bag and planted the fakes under her pillow. Only minutes later Barada found them there and took them away. Bad luck for you. But by then you were back here and in bed.”

“Someone moved Chalmers’ body,” she whined. “Was it you?”

He nodded. “How did you get into her room? Bribe the hall maid?”

A smile moved her lips. “I stood at the door and called the maid. She assumed it was my room and let me in. Then I called Chalmers by telephone, pretending I was the girl, and told him to come over. I left the door ajar and waited in the bedroom. You know the rest.” A tremor racked her body. As though she were sitting in an icy draft. But the window was closed, the warm air still and heavy.

Novak said, “You couldn’t tell the police that Paula had been given your jewels by Chalmers because your knowledge would have suggested to them that you might have taken violent means to get them back. So the fakes had to be found where you planted them. You didn’t know Barada had taken them; so you hired me to discover them. Only my heart wasn’t in the job. Yes, I sold out to her, if you want to put it that way, but not for financial considerations—because I didn’t think she killed your husband. More bad luck for you. But things picked up when Barada’s thug called and offered the jewels for sale. You knew they were phonies, but you couldn’t admit it. So I became useful again—the perfect witness to the manner of their recovery. Only before I brought them to you I stopped at a jeweler’s and had them examined. So knowing they were fakes I got you to sign a receipt acknowledging that I had returned legitimate jewelry to you. At the time I was surprised you let me get away with it, but later you must have seen the spot it put you in, and so you tried to buy back the receipt. I needed it to prove I had acted in good faith and at your request—in case you or anyone else got the idea I might have lifted the jewels myself and maneuvered their return.”

He felt his shoulders sag. Fatigue was chilling him. He swallowed, blinked and went on. “Barada was pretty mad when he found he had only a set of muzzlers for all his trouble. He figured Paula still had the real ones and tried to beat them out of her. She didn’t have them, of course, so Barada decided I might. He invited me to a deserted house and threatened me with death. A desperate man, Mrs. Boyd, to use your words, but not over-intelligent. He wasn’t smart enough to reason that if neither Paula or I had the real jewels you must have them, and that you were willing to pay a grand to get the fakes in order to protect yourself. To you it was a small price in terms of your security. In time Barada might have realized that whoever had the real jewels probably had shot Chalmers Boyd, and then you would have been in for blackmail. But that doesn’t matter now. How much did Bikel know?”

Listlessly she said, “He acted as though he knew I killed Chalmers, but he said nothing.”

“Why should he? It suited him that your husband was dead. And of course his pose was an eligible suitor attracted by what you were, not by your money. Quite a blow to your pride when you learned he had a wife, though I doubt the way she died troubled you. So Bikel became another man who lied and deceived you. And you were waiting for him to return.”

He got up slowly and went over to her. Emptily she said, “He should have told me in the beginning. I would have understood and helped.”

“But he neglected to. And he destroyed what was left of your illusions.” His arm reached down, but her hand lifted suddenly. It held a small blue steel automatic.

“Yes,” she said hoarsely, “I’ve been waiting for him. But you’ll do as well. Everything went wrong because of you. God, how I hate you Novak!”

“You’re mad,” he said thickly. “Put it away.”

Her eyes flickered uncertainly. “Why should I?”

“Because I came here to give you a chance.”

Her eyebrows furrowed and she blinked. “What kind of a chance?”

“Kill me and you’ll burn in the chair. An unpleasant death, Mrs. Boyd. Ever see that photo of Winnie Ruth Judd fighting twenty thousand volts? It snaps the spine like matchwood, roasts the flesh. Even the teeth turn black.” He stepped back slowly. “There are easier ways to die. There’s the way Mrs. Bikel died. And there’s the gun in your hand—the one you killed your husband with. That’s the break I’m giving you.”

The sound of the vacuum cleaner had stopped. The room was silent, the air stiflingly heavy.

As he watched, the hand lowered, the face turned away. He could feel sweat roll down his chest. When the pistol rested on the cushion once more he sucked a deep breath, turned and moved toward the door, legs heavy as timber.

When he had locked the door behind him he leaned back for a moment, resting against it, and then he began walking toward the elevator.

Wordlessly he rode down to the street level. His brain was numb, his throat chokingly tight as he crossed the lobby and went out the side door.

Clouds hid the moon. A thin mist drifted down dampening his face and hands. Long before morning it would thicken into a pelting rain. Along K Street the tires of moving cars made dull slapping sounds on the wet pavement. Turning up his collar Novak trudged along until he reached a lighted glass brick front. For a while he stared up at the sign over the doorway, and then he rang the night bell.

It took five minutes for Doc Robinson to open the door. His gray hair was rumpled, and he squinted at Novak through rimless glasses. “Come in,” he said gruffly. “Don’t stand there in the rain.”

Novak moved into the lighted reception room and the veterinarian closed the door behind him. As he walked toward Novak he said, “Ever find the lady, Pete?”

Novak sat down on a leather-covered bench and wiped moisture from the brim of his hat. “I found her,” he said. “Then I lost her again. Is the pup still here?”

Doc Robinson nodded. “They got you walking dogs now? I thought that was a bellhop chore.”

“I do a little bit of everything,” Novak said tiredly. “Thought I’d take the dog off your hands.”

“What about the owner? Won’t she be coming back?”

“If she does, let me know.”

Doc Robinson took off his glasses and polished them slowly between the thumb and index finger of one hand. Then he put them on, went behind the desk and pulled out a file drawer. He wrote out a receipted bill, gave it to Novak and went through the paneled door that led to the kennels.

Novak laid a ten-dollar bill on the desk and folded the receipt into his pocket. He lighted a cigarette, and after a while the vet came back with the Skye terrier on a gray leather leash. Handing the leash to Novak he said, “What do you want a dog for, Pete?”

“Company. Good night, Doc.”

Novak opened the door, and the little Skye bounded out to the wet sidewalk. When the leash checked it, it stopped and looked up at Novak. Novak reached down and stroked the dog’s shaggy ears. Straightening, he turned back toward Seventeenth Street. The Skye yipped and scurried along beside him. Novak looked down and murmured, “Two forgotten men.” Then he turned up Seventeenth Street toward the place where he lived.

A Shocking Detective Novel From Edgar Award Winner Charles Ardai (writing as “Richard Aleas”)

SONGS of INNOCENCE

by RICHARD ALEAS

Three years ago, detective John Blake solved a mystery that changed his life forever—and left a woman he loved dead. Now Blake is back, to investigate the apparent suicide of Dorothy Louise Burke, a beautiful college student with a double life. The secrets Blake uncovers could blow the lid off New York City’s sex trade...if they don’t kill him first.

Richard Aleas’ first novel, LITTLE GIRL LOST, was among the most celebrated crime novels of the year, nominated for both the Edgar and Shamus Awards. But nothing in John Blake’s first case could prepare you for the shocking conclusion of his second...

RAVES FOR SONGS OF INNOCENCE:

“An instant classic.”

— The Washington Post

“The best thing Hard Case is publishing right now.”

— The San Francisco Chronicle

“His powerful conclusion will drop jaws.”

— Publishers Weekly

“So sharp [it’ll] slice your finger as you flip the pages.”

— Playboy