More Good Old Stuff

Secret Stain (“Heritage of Hate,” Black Mask, July 1949)

The girl was young with a dancer’s body and a dress that clung expensively and just right. She was the hostess and knew everyone around her. He stood over near the draperies drawn across the windows against the dusk, watching her drink heavily, hearing the dissonant tautness of her voice — and he thought how incredible it was that she had given up all the things she could have become in order to marry Gus Lench, in order to have this Westchester home. And in this long room softly lighted, here in the mechanical babble of the cocktail party, she had become the assistant executioner.

He saw that murder did not become her. He saw that her mouth was too wide and too thicky-shiny. The many drinks did nothing to glaze the faintly feral alertness of her eyes.

Of course, the others did not know, and thus they did not feel the strain of it.

Most of the guests had come up from the city. Lawrence Hask stood near the draperies and took his eyes from Gail Lench for a moment to look around the room. Often he thought that these cocktail party guests had no reality, that they were rented for such affairs, wound up by a key inserted in the small of their backs. Men with gestures, and pouched eyes and deft conversation. Women who posed, holding one stance, moving slowly to another, with sleepy words of idle warmth.

At the far end of the room a sallow man played muted and professional show tunes at a baby grand. A girl, her face putty overlaid with glaze, stood raptly behind him and foolishly massaged the nape of his lean neck as he played. He seemed not to know she was there.

He replaced his empty glass on a tray, took a fresh drink. It seemed so obvious, the tension in the air, that he wondered that Carter didn’t feel it. Halfway down the room August Lench sat on a couch with a puffy little blonde. She giggled too much. August Lench, at sixty, carried two hundred pounds on his five-foot-four frame. His naked skull was marked with discolored spots. He appeared to be the incarnation of evil, and this in itself was his greatest business advantage, people saying, “Of course, no man who looks like that could be as wicked as he looks.”

And, of course, Lawrence Hask knew that Lench was exactly what he seemed to be.

Carter, carefully marked for death, stood in the group near Gail. She favored him with her most animated moments, with the huskiest of her strained laughter. Lawrence saw Lench glance over from time to time, his eyes flickering across Carter’s broad back, and Lawrence wondered that Carter, through the well-tailored suit, could not feel the icy cold of those casual glances from Lench’s colorless little eyes.

The room was smoke, and rustle-hum of conversation. The room held the pale flower-stink of gin. The room was suggestion and counter-suggestion. And, of course, the room was death.

Lawrence Hask stood, tall and lean and detached, a half smile on his lips, a casual, cocktail party smile, and he caught the gesture when Gail self-consciously touched her hand to her dark hair.

She took three steps out into the room and said, “Everybody! Your attention! With this party the House of Lench inaugurates the all-weather pool. As it’s a surprise and we knew you wouldn’t come prepared, we’ve laid in a stock of swim togs for guys and gals. Come along, now. The pool is in the new pavilion. Steam-heated, my dears. With bar. Men’s dressing room on the left, women on the right.”

Lawrence quickly drained his drink. This would very probably be it. He glanced over and saw Carter’s bodyguard, Lochard, pull himself together with an effort. The tall redhead clung to his arm. Lawrence knew that she would not be in on it, that, under pressure, she would merely say that she had been told to be nice to Lochard as he was a friend of Mr. Carter.

The pool was large, oval, the water in it placid and green. The pavilion had glass walls, steamed with the thick heat. The chill glasses on the tiny bar were beaded with moisture.

Hask knew that it was in a style that Lench would well afford, and only Carter could more easily afford. With Carter out of the way, it would be that much easier for Lench to afford it, because then Lench would not only receive his own cut, he would get Carter’s also. And that made a proper motive for murder. Lawrence guessed that Gail’s few improbable ad-lib courtesies to Carter would figure very small in Lench’s mind, if at all. Lench had arranged Carter’s murder with care, and, in the mind of Lench, it would have the same importance as the purchase of a new gross of stitching machines to be planted in Brooklyn lofts to enlarge the daily issue of treasury pool tickets, thus enlarging Lench’s personal cut.

As Lawrence Hask followed the other men into the dressing rooms, as he selected a garish pair of trunks, he wondered what Gus Lench would say if he knew that Lawrence Hask not only knew about the pending murder but planned to prevent it.

In a way, Lench’s weakest point was his inability to think of any motive beyond profit. Given another few days, Lawrence could have ferreted out, from Gail, the precise method. But there hadn’t been time.

If Lench had thought of there being any motive except profit, he might have been a bit more wary on the day that the three route men had brought Hask, bleeding, to Lench’s office.

The biggest one had said, “Gus, we found this cutey peddling on our route.”

Lench had frowned. “You look like somebody I knew once, friend. Who are you?”

“Larry Hask. West Coast. A big fix on a number broke my little combine out there, so I came here where it’s soft.”

“Soft, he thinks it is!” Lench had said in slow wonder.

“Soft is right,” Lawrence had said. “You’ve got no penetration in your area. Stinking little candy stores and horse rooms and newsboys. Hell, you’ve got half a hundred big plants in your area. One out of every three foremen and sweepers and setup men ought to be peddling for you.”

Lench had picked up Hask’s crude pool tickets and had looked them over. “Amateur work,” he had said. “Hand-stitched, mimeographed. How could you unload these?”

Lench had flinched when Larry reached for his inside pocket, but one of the route men had said, “He’s clean, Gus.” Larry had thrown a pack of stubs onto the desk.

“You sold all these?” Lench had said.

“Yes, and right in the middle of your area, friend.”

Lench had put his fat white fingertips together. After a long pause he had said, “I can use you.”

“So can a lot of other people. But I come high. Three hundred a week and expenses.”

“You think a lot of yourself, eh?”

“So much that I don’t like your pet poodles laying their fat little hands on me. That’s the offer. Take it or I go in business for myself. And I import some talent for protection.”

Lench had hedged for two days, and Lawrence knew that he was checking higher up. Approval had come through and Lawrence Hask went on the combine payroll at the figure he requested, under the very sedate title of promotion manager. And it had taken a full year. One full year of gently prodding Gus Lench, of telling him how smart he really was, of how unappreciated he was by the higher-ups.

Carter was the top and Lench was one of the three main underlings. Carter, at Lench’s party, looked as out of place as a banker at a crap game. Tall, heavy, he had a massive dignity.

Lench had asked plaintively, “Why are you all the time pushing me? Why should you want a bigger cut for me, Larry?”

“Bigger for you, bigger for me,” Larry said.

And so the germ, once planted, had grown.

Two nights before, he had arranged the meeting with Gail. She had left Lench snoring at the city apartment, had stood on a corner with the spring wind whipping her long coat, standing where the streetlight touched her face.

When he had parked on a quiet block in the Seventies, Gail had come into his arms, half moaning, half sobbing, “Why so long, Larry? Oh, why do you make us wait so long?”

“Gus is no dummy.”

With her face at his throat, she ground her forehead hard against the line of his jaw. “Oh, how I hate him, Larry!”

He had the bottle in the glove compartment. She tilted it often. Each time, as before, he only pretended to drink, letting a slur creep into his speech.

She giggled emptily then and said, “Gus is going to be really big. Really the tops. It’s all set for the cocktail party, Larry. Mr. High-n-mighty Carter is going out.”

And then, with a sort of primitive caution, she refused to say any more, and he didn’t dare pump her.

He dropped her near the apartment. After she had gone, quickly, swayingly, around the corner, he had mopped the caked lipstick from his mouth, had rolled down the window and spat out onto the dark asphalt.

During the next two days Lench had acted much as usual, moaning because there were three five-hundred-dollar hits to be balanced against a twelve-thousand take on the first day, and gloating because, on the second day, there were no hits at all. The route men left their take at the drop-off points as usual, picking up the tickets for the following week.

Only once did Lench give Larry a slight clue that Gail had been talking the truth. He said, “How would you like a nice fat district of your own, kid? A new district with a lot of promise.”

“Carter gives out the districts in this combine.”

Lench had pawed at his loose chin. He had grinned. “Maybe he’ll let me do that. You could make a G and a half a week instead of the peanuts you’re getting.”

“When you can give it to me, Gus, I’ll take it.”

“Having a cocktail party tonight, kid. Out at the Westchester house. You know where it is. Come around about five, hey?”

“Thanks.” That solved a problem. It saved having to angle for the invitation.

Lawrence dressed quickly, came out in the trunks onto the apron of the pool before Carter left the dressing room. The water was almost unpleasantly tepid. He came up from the long dive, shook the water out of his eyes, thrust strongly out for the far edge of the pool.

Gail sat on the edge in a brief white two-piece suit. Her feet were in the water. In spite of the heat her smooth shoulders were pimpled with an odd chill and she hugged herself.

He looked up at her from the water and said, “All set?”

“For what, Larry? For what?” she asked in a flat empty tone.

He pushed off and floated on his back, looking up at the night sky through the overhead glass. When he rolled on his side he saw Lench walk out of the dressing room. Lench looked as though he were made of white wax, as though he were a clumsy Buddha that had begun to melt and then had cooled again in the moment of melting.

Lochard did not swim. He stood, sweating in the steamy heat. The redhead had changed to a golden suit. She clung to his arm and giggled up into his perspiring face.

Lawrence saw the color of the man’s face and knew that the heat had gotten to the drinks and that he would soon be ill. Carter walked out with dignity and made a fairly respectable dive into the pool. The pool began to fill up, the green water dancing, smooth limbs flashing, soft music coming from the loudspeaker over the bar. No, it would not be long now. But how were they going to do it? It had to be almost foolproof. If murder were suspected, retaliation in the line of work of Lench and Carter was likely to be rather severe.

Lawrence kept his eyes moving. He saw Lench pad wetly toward the light switches. He looked quickly for Carter. Carter was coming down the far side of the pool. Lawrence launched himself toward Carter just as the lights went out.

The air was filled with shrill screams and giggles and hoarse laughter. Closer at hand Lawrence heard a gasp of surprise, then a grunt of alarm and the beginning of a yell for help, smothered by the water before it could attract attention.

He hadn’t counted on the lights being out. In sudden fear he made a surface dive, reaching out under the water. He could find nothing. He went up, gulped air, went down again. His fingers lightly brushed smooth flesh, but his wind was almost gone. The third time he went down, his hand tangled in long hair.

He pulled as hard as he could, struggled to the surface. When he broke into the dark air, a hand splatted against his face and teeth sunk into his arm. He smashed his fist out into the darkness, missed completely. And then she was gone; he had sensed that it was a woman.

He then did what he should have done before. He made the side of the pool, hauled himself out and ran for the light switches.

There was a chorus of disappointment as the lights went on, as people moved hastily away from each other.

He said loudly, “I thought I heard Carter call for help.”

“Where is he?” Lochard bellowed. “Where’s the boss?”

Lawrence did not miss Lench’s look of venomous fury. Water stung the tooth marks in his arm.

He walked to the side of the pool, poised, dived deep, keeping his eyes open. Near the tile bottom of the pool Carter floated, his gray hair drifting silkily in the water, his face composed, his eyes half open.

Larry grabbed the drowned man’s wrist, got his feet against the bottom, pushed up with all his strength. When he emerged with Carter there were people to help. They got Carter onto the concrete apron of the pool, on his stomach. Larry went into the rhythmic cadence of lifesaving technique.

Lochard stood by, dancing with anxiety. All the others were clustered about. Larry dipped and pressed hard; when he sat back on his heels giving Carter’s lax lungs a chance to fill, he saw Gail on one knee beside him, her face a white mask, her hands clenched. Her eyes were venomous.

The group stood, sober now, numbed by the disaster, waiting and hoping. When Carter coughed and then sighed, something like a faint cheer went up.

Water gouted from Carter’s lungs and finally, white and shaking, he was well enough to sit up.

Lench said, “What happened? I thought you could swim good. What happened?”

Carter looked steadily at him. “I must have gotten a bit tired.” He looked around. “Who got me out?”

Lawrence Hask was pointed out to him. Carter looked soberly at Hask. “You work for Lench?”

“One of my best,” Lench said eagerly.

“Help me up,” Carter said to Lochard. Carter staggered for a moment, then walked toward the dressing room, leaning heavily on Lochard. He beckoned to Larry. Larry shrugged and followed him.

Once inside the dressing room Carter pulled away from Lochard. He braced himself, doubled his fist and hit Lochard in the mouth with all his strength. Lochard stumbled back against the wall, slipped, caught his balance and stood up. He wiped the blood on his handkerchief.

“Dress,” he said to Larry. “You’re leaving with us.”

“I work for Lench.”

“You used to work for Lench. He is out of business. He’ll find out tomorrow.”

Larry shrugged. “Okay, so I come with you.”

Minutes later the three of them went out to the pool. Lench, sitting on the edge beside Gail, struggled up, smiled wanly and said, “We’re having steak pretty soon, boss.”

Carter said evenly, “I’m sure you can eat my share. Thank you for an instructive party. Thank you very much.”

“Accidents will happen,” Lench said.

“Yes, they sometimes will,” Carter said in a dry voice. “Good night.”

But Lench, his wet white body dripping water onto the heavy rug, caught them at the front door.

He said thickly, “Take your choice, Carter.”

“Is there a choice?”

“It can work both ways, you know, Carter.”

“You wouldn’t be warning me, Gus, would you?” Carter asked, almost gently.

“People get too big for their pants, Carter,” Lench said. “They lose touch. They don’t know how many people they have left in the orgaization.”

Carter leaned against the wall. “Since you force my hand, Mr. Lench, I’ll put it this way. You, my greedy friend, may live another twelve hours, or even as much as thirty-six hours if you stay and fight it out. If you run like a rabbit, it may take my people a year to find you. If you want another year — run.”

Something inside Lench seemed to collapse. He looked vaguely around the hall, as though weighing his possessions. He said in a smaller voice, “It isn’t smart, Carter. These wars. They hurt business. Compromise—”

“No war, Lench.” Carter stared meaningfully at Lench’s sagging abdomen. “Just a little more worm food.”

He opened the door. Before Lawrence left he had a fraction of a second in which to wink at Lench. He saw the little gesture light a fire of hope in Lench. Then Lawrence followed Carter out to the black sedan beside which the driver stood patiently waiting.

Lochard sat in front with the driver. Carter rode in silence for a few moments. Then he said, “That girl he married. Dancer, wasn’t she?”

“Swimmer first. But the work was too hard. She picked Lench.”

“She amused me at first, but she has no conversation. A bit humiliating to be drowned by a woman.”

Lawrence saw then how they had worked it. He said, “How did you know?”

“Perfume. She put her arms around my neck from behind and dragged me down. She drenches herself in perfume, or hadn’t you noticed? Has it in her hair.”

“I’ve noticed,” Lawrence said.

Carter maintained himself in two adjoining suites in a midtown apartment hotel. He ordered hot rum for himself, scotch and water for Lawrence Hask.

He set the rum on his desk blotter, screened the wall safe with his big body as he opened it. He took out bills, a sheaf of them, turned and counted them out on the corner of the desk.

“For you, Hask. Five thousand. Part of that is for using your head. The rest is for giving me all you know about Lench’s routine, his habits and his people. This may become very messy. It will hurt business. It will attract unfavorable attention to our business affairs.

“Our tame politicians and the police on our payroll will have to show signs of activity. Route men will be picked up and fined. Newspapers will sprout scare headlines. Police will smash the stitching machines. Then a master headline will say ‘Numbers Ring Smashed.’ After that we can go back to work. I know. I’ve seen it before.”

Lawrence picked up the money, folded it once and put it in his bill clip.

He said, “Lench is all set to go on his own. He’s been relocating the printers and stitchers and he’s been making new friends. He wangled gun permits for most of his route men and he has a big trouble fund to pay them heavy to stay with him. He has sleeping quarters at his office, and he won’t stick his head out into fresh air until you’re cooked. I’ll write you out every pertinent address.”

“Wait until I order dinner sent up. Tomorrow I’ll change the master ticket design. I’m always prepared to do that. I’ll send boys around to tell all the customers that the combine isn’t honoring any old tickets sold starting tomorrow. That’ll cut into his sales badly.”

“But how will you get Lench himself?”

Carter shrugged. “The same way as always. Buy somebody close to him and guarantee their way out of the country. A nice chance for someone to retire.”

“Not this time,” Hask said slowly.

“What do you mean by that?”

“He has his defenses laid out so that nobody will get close enough. He knows your methods. He has one of those jailhouse items where it will ring a bell if you try to go into his office with a gun. He’ll only have one man in his office at a time. He controls the door lock from his desk. And he keeps a gun in his hand until this trouble is over. He told me his plans once.”

“What would you suggest, young man?”

“I winked at him as we left. He thinks I have something under my hat. Money will bring him out. So I case your layout, get your safe combination. If I do it right, I can go back to him in secret, explain that I’m living here now, clear him and some of his harder boys through downstairs. You’ll have to be out. He’ll open the safe himself.”

“So what?”

“Set gun. Your safe sits fairly low. Rig a double-barrel in there and it ought to catch him at throat level. So a man gets killed robbing your apartment. You’re having dinner at a club when it happens.”

Carter said, “Hask, you have a quite extraordinary talent for this business.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Lawrence Hask sat slouched in the chair across the desk from Lench. His throat was tight and his lips were dry, but he tried to look amused. Lench sat behind the desk, the heavy revolver aimed directly at Larry’s face, Lench’s finger on the trigger. “Why should I believe anything you say? You crossed me!”

“You just think I crossed you, Gus. I’m working for myself, and my best bet is through you. I thought you were smarter than Carter, but that thing you tried to pull at your pool is tops for stupidity in my book.”

“Swimming accident? The cops would swallow it.”

“They might. But Carter kicking off at your place would be just a little too rich for the blood of some of his people. They knew he could swim. Besides, that dopey little wife you bought last year marked his throat with her fingernails. And he recognized her perfume. Sure, she can swim. But she had a little panic all her own. Carter dies in your pool and his people clean his safe. My way is better.”

Lench said uncertainly, “Your way?”

“I’m living there now, at Carter’s invitation. He sent me down here to cross you up. I’m supposed to pretend to play along with you and suck you into a trap. He has at least three hundred thousand in that wall safe of his. I got a peek at it. Nice dirty old hundreds and five hundreds. Nothing too big so it has to be discounted. I am supposed to tell you that next Friday night Carter will be going out for a big evening. I’ll say I’m going out, but I won’t go. I’ll stay in the hotel and sap the two he leaves there at all times. I can do that easily enough.

“Then I am supposed to tell you that eleven o’clock is a good time. Bring a few boys and call up from the desk and I’ll clear you with the desk. I give you a fake safe combination. When you arrive there’s a reception party and you all get gunned for trying to rob the apartment.”

Lench swallowed hard. He said, “Thanks, Larry. Thanks for telling me. But have you got a plan?”

“Carter is going out, but he’s coming back at ten-thirty with a few extra boys. So you come at ten. You can be waiting. And instead of giving you the fake combination, I’ll give you the McCoy. For twenty-five percent.”

“Ten,” Lench said.

“Isn’t this a good time not to argue, Gus?”

“Okay. Ten o’clock on Friday night. A quarter cut for you. And I leave fast and leave a hoppie to blast Carter.”

“Or do it yourself to make sure it’s done.”

Carter, standing near the bedroom windows, said, “I’ve moved the money to a box and the set gun is rigged, all but the trigger string. Did he believe you?”

“Of course. I told him you were fixing the frame for midnight, so he’s coming at eleven. That’ll give you plenty of time to clear out.”

“If the set gun kills Lench, Hask, what will his men do to you?”

“I’ll tell Lench that I’d better watch the hall. When I hear the set gun go off, I’ll run for it. I’ll have a good chance.”

“I often wonder about you, Hask. You have a — an educated way of speaking.”

“Is that important?”

“No. No, I guess it isn’t. Who do you think Lench will bring with him?”

“Hoagie Chance, Shenk, Ullister and probably Murphy. They all have legal permits and they’re the least likely to cross him.”

“And Lench will open the safe himself?”

“You should have seen his eyes when I mentioned the money. Like a kid with his nose flat against the toyland window.”

“Day after tomorrow is Friday. I’ll clear out by ten-thirty, leaving you here, with Lochard and Mains on the floor, apparently sapped, as window dressing.”

“That ought to do it,” Hask said, keeping his voice calm.

Lawrence Hask sat slouched in the armchair, a drink in his hand. He tried to keep from looking at the clock. It was five to ten. Carter was dressing. Lochard and Mains were playing an aimless gin game at the big table. Heckle and Donovan, the two men Carter was taking with him, were in the next room watching the video.

Every time Larry took a deep breath, his throat seemed to knot and it was hard to exhale. Small tremors ran up and down his spine. A year and a month.

The phone was at his elbow. Carter came out of his bedroom just as the phone rang. Larry took it.

He listened, said, “Just a moment, please.” He made his eyes wide, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece, said, “Lench and four men. He’s trying to cross me by coming early.”

Carter frowned. He jerked a thumb at Lochard, who went in and got the other two men away from the video program.

Carter said heavily, “Okay, we’ll play it his way. On your face over there, Lochard. Remember, you’re out. Mains, you drop in that doorway there. Make it good. Clear them to come up, Hask. Heckle and Donovan, you come into the bedroom with me.”

Hask spoke briefly into the phone and hung up. He went to the bedroom door and said, “He’s no dummy. Better shut the door completely.”

Lochard lay still. Larry went over to him, slipping the sap from his hip pocket. He said, “Turn your head just a little this way, Lochard.”

The lead ball, leather-wrapped, made very little sound as it thudded behind Lochard’s ear. He made a small sighing sound. Hask crossed the room quickly and struck Mains. Mains began to struggle weakly. He hit him again, with careful precision.

Moments later there was a knock at the door. Hask opened it. Hoagie Chance came in fast, ramming a revolver muzzle with such force against Hask’s middle that it knocked the wind out of him.

“Against the wall, friend,” Hoagie said. He moved to one side of the door. Murph came next, took his station on the other side of the door. Then Lench came in, his face pallid with strain, a cigar in one hand, flat automatic in the other. The automatic had a long, tubular silencer screwed to the barrel.

Lench bent and held the glowing end of his cigar near the back of Lochard’s hand. Lochard didn’t stir.

“Good boy,” Lench said to Hask. “Our friend is out?”

This was when it had to be. Hask jerked his thumb several times toward the bedroom door and said, “Left some time ago, Gus.”

Gus said loudly, “We’ll see about that safe.” He motioned to Murph and Chance. They moved, up on their toes, toward the bedroom door.

Chance put out a gloved hand, closed it gently over the bedroom doorknob, then gave a sudden twist, opening the door, slamming it back with his foot as he went in.

The double slam of the shot sounded as Chance went in. He didn’t falter in his rush, merely leaned further and further off balance, landing on his face, skidding on the bedroom throw rug. Shenk and Ullister had come in from the hall, closing the door behind them. Shenk carried a .45 Colt, army model. When Heckle appeared inside the room, standing near the body of Chance, Shenk fired once. The heavy slug doubled Heckle, dropped him back across Chance’s body.

Carter moved quickly into the doorway, aiming carefully at Lawrence Hask, his face calm, his hand steady and deliberate. Ullister, Shenk and Murph fired almost as one man. The slug from Carter’s gun entered the wall an inch from Hask’s left ear. The powdered plaster stung his cheek and neck. As Carter fell to his knees, driven back by the impact, he fired wildly. Murph had been standing sideways. The slug tore through him. He moved two weak steps to one side, lowered himself delicately to the rug and was still.

Donovan appeared beyond Carter’s body, his hands held high, saying hoarsely, “Okay, okay. Enough.”

Lench’s automatic made a small sound, no louder than a book dropped flat against a rug. Donovan’s hands sagged. The dark hole had appeared just beside the left nostril. He stood for a moment and fell heavily, full length, his head slamming the hardwood floor.

Lench, his fat lip lifted away from his teeth, stepped to Lochard, aimed and fired. Lochard’s head moved slightly with the impact. He walked lightly over to Mains, fired again.

“Don’t move!” Lench said to Hask.

He went to the safe, spun the dial, his thick, gloved hands trembling. He missed, tried again. Hask heard the tumblers click. He closed his eyes. The blast seemed almost to lift the ceiling of the room. Lench’s pudgy doll-body lay on its back in front of the safe.

Ullister stepped around the body, glanced into the safe. “Time to move,” he said to Shenk.

Shenk yanked the door open and they raced into the hall. Other doors had opened and people peered out fearfully.

Lawrence Hask counted slowly to five, ran into the hall and yelled, “Stop those men!”

The fire door was slowly closing behind the two. He heard their feet on the stairs. He raced to the fire door, hauled it open, pulled it shut, went quickly up two flights. The little wedge of wood still held the tenth-floor fire door open.

He pocketed the wedge, walked down to the bend in the corridor. The service elevator operator looked at him with frightened eyes. “Mister, I heard shots coming up the shaft. I don’t like this.”

Hask tried a calm smile. “Do I look like a killer?”

“Mister, you run around with those smart money boys on eight. I’m stopping with you at the main lobby.”

Hask held the bill where the man could see the denomination. “Suit yourself, friend,” Larry said casually.

“Mister, you go right to the basement.” The man grinned nervously.

Lawrence Hask walked four blocks, took a subway downtown, phoned her from a drugstore, met her twenty minutes later in a cheap restaurant.

In the harsh light she looked older.

Her voice masked by the noise in the restaurant, she said, “Why did you save him? Why did you? It was a deal. Gus was going to give me my freedom if it went through.”

“You have your freedom, baby. Gus is dead.”

He watched the slow waves of shock, and then the deadly satisfaction.

“And thanks for helping me make sure that he got it,” he said.

“Larry,” she said. “You and I, we...”

He stood up slowly, put coffee money on the table. He said, with an enormous weariness in his voice, “My name isn’t Larry and there never was any ‘you and I’ ”...

Ray Logan lay in the hot bright sun of the beach at Acapulco. Sally was beside him.

“Darn it, Ray!” she said. “What made you think I’d wait for a year?”

“You waited, didn’t you?” he asked teasingly.

“But not patiently. And I was so afraid, darling, that you were going to New York to do something foolish about that kid brother of yours.”

He shut his eyes against the sun and it shone red through his eyelids. He said sleepily, “Roger inherited all the craziness in the family. He wanted big thrills and so he started that stupid little numbers racket in New York. The trouble was, the opposition didn’t know he was doing it as a sort of game and that he was going to fold it up after six months and write a book about it.

“Yes, Sally, I did go to New York and I found out which organization had removed Roger. It’s a big organization. I haunted the police and the District Attorney’s office and finally they admitted that they not only didn’t have enough evidence to go on, but they had no chance of getting the evidence.

“The big guns of the group were a man named Lench and a man named Carter. I fooled around for a long time, wondering what to do, and then suddenly I didn’t have to do anything at all.”

“Why, darling?”

“Oh, Mr. Lench got annoyed at Mr. Carter, or the reverse, and they settled their argument by shooting each other and various other people who worked with them.”

Later they swam together in the warm and restless sea, and he wondered if the hot sun would bake away the memories, or if the blue sea would wash them away — and yet he knew that fragments of that year would be always with him, and that no man can take his own vengeance without staining some secret place in his heart.