More Good Old Stuff

Unmarried Widow (“A Corpse-Maker Goes Courting,” Dime Detective, July 1949)

He was sitting in a place called Stukey’s on Primrose Street, and he had been there most of the afternoon, alone at a table for two, a table with wire legs and the black scar tissue of cigarette burns. At the far end of the bar, a little clot of beer drinkers were making a two-dollar investment cover a whole afternoon of TV. Max dimly realized that they were so hard up for conversation they even watched the puppets on the late-afternoon kid shows.

He wasn’t drinking hard and heavy. But he was working on it. Somehow it had become important to achieve a state of remoteness. Whenever he felt himself sliding back into the uncomfortable reality of the present, he raised one finger and Stukey came out from behind the bar with another shot.

Three days before, the managing editor had climbed up onto a desk in the newsroom and addressed the whole working staff. His words had been as depressing as if he’d played a fire hose on the crowd. The sense of it was that the bankroll had faded, the promised backers had eeled out and thank you all so much for your loyal service and I hope you all find wonderful jobs within the next eleven minutes.

Max Raffidy sat and drank with a careful effort to maintain a detached state that was neither drunk nor sober. Because when he veered toward soberness he began to think that there were no jobs left in this town, in his town, and he’d have to hit the sticks. And when the shots came along a shade too fast he wanted to go out and punch noses. Being a large citizen with heavy bones and having a background of alley fights in this same city when he was a kid, he knew that if he went out nose hunting, he would land in a cage.

He could have taken his sorrows to one of the bars frequented by his fellow sufferers, but he did not wish to weep on shoulders, nor did he want tears on the lapels of his own tweeds, so he bundled up his misery and disgust and had taken it to Stukey’s — not to drown it, but just to make it swim a little.

He sat alone, and with his big blunt fingers, he peeled paper matches down so that they looked like little people. These he gave names to, the names of the people whose job it should have been to keep the Chronicle running. He laid them, one at a time, with a certain dedication, in the green glass ashtray with the chip out of the rim, and lit their little green heads with the butt of his cigarette, watching them flare up and writhe in unutterable torment.

He was vaguely considering taking his troubles to another bar when the raggedy screen door flapped and banged and the girl came in. She stood a few feet inside the door. The corners of her mouth were pulled down in such an odd way that Max told himself that here was a person with even more trouble than he had.

She saw him then, and her face lit up like a kid’s pumpkin. She ran the three steps to the table for two, collapsed into the chair opposite him. He had his arm outstretched on the table. She grabbed his forearm with both hands, her fingers digging strongly into him. She laid her forehead down against his arm, the breath shuddering out of her.

Two large and solid men in dark suits came in and stood a few feet behind her, looking down at her, looking inquisitively at Max.

“Oh, Jerry! Jerry, darling,” the girl said, her voice somehow thick and twisted.

Max had been around a sufficiently long time so that he was about to say, “Take her along, boys.” He recognized one of them as Billy Shaw, a district man.

But there was a sudden hotness on his thick wrist and he knew that a tear had fallen there. Somehow this made it all quite different. Tears were oddly in the mood of this day of unemployment, this sultry spring day.

He left his arm right where it was, with the warm pressure of her against it. He said mildly, “Something we can do for you boys?”

Shaw looked at him and said, “Seems she called you Jerry. Wouldn’t you be Max Raffidy that used to drop into precinct, reporting police?”

“It’s her special name for me,” Max said.

“Don’t go wise with us, Raff. What’s her name?”

“If you want her name, let’s do it right, Shaw. Let’s all go right down and book her.”

Shaw gave him a look of baffled disgust. “You people know too much. There’s no charge, Raffidy. She was reported acting funny on the street. Crying and carrying on.”

“She’s fine now. All my women cry and carry on when they can’t be with me.”

Stukey came over drying his hands on his apron. “I’d just as soon not have no trouble here, gentlemen.”

“Keep her off the street,” Shaw snapped. He nudged his running mate and together they walked heavily out.

“Bring the lady a brandy, Stuke,” Max said. Stukey shrugged and went back behind the bar.

Now I have a tramp on my hands, Max thought. Sir Lancelot Raffidy roars in on his white horse. She seemed content to make a permanent pillow of his arm. In fact, the arm threatened to go to sleep. The kitteny whine of the woman pretending to be a puppet had covered up the little conversation with Shaw. It still made a certain amount of privacy possible.

“Hey,” Max said softly. He burrowed with his other hand, got a crooked finger under her chin, gently eased her up.

Her hands slid down so that she held his big hand with both of hers, gave him the warmest smile he had seen in many a moon.

Stukey brought the brandy and plodded away. Max gave the girl the Raffidy evaluation. Silly spring hat, worn a bit awry. Hair worn too long for fashion, long and blond and curled under at the ends. Not harsh parched blond. Soft and natural. Short straight nose, unplucked brows, gray eyes, damp with tears, gray-purple smudges of weariness under the eyes. A young mouth, warm and somehow crumpled. As though from recent hurt. Pale, with a smudge on her cheek and the side of her nose.

The tiny bugles blew inside Max. This was no tramp. This might have a very legitimate news interest. Then he smiled wearily as he realized that even if there was a news interest, there was no place to phone it in.

Obviously the kid — she wasn’t over twenty-two — had been having a rough time. The side of her hand was scraped raw and her hair was tangled.

The gray eyes bothered him. She smiled right at him, but when he looked into her eyes there was an emptiness there: as though she were smiling, not at Max, but at somebody sitting right behind Max. A faintly creepy dish, this one.

“Drink your brandy,” he said.

“You know I don’t drink, Jerry.”

Max grunted as though somebody had shoved an elbow into the pit of his stomach. “Baby, look around. They’ve gone. And you need the brandy.”

She let go of his hand, picked up the shot glass. “Right down?”

“Down the hatch.”

She knocked it back, thumped the glass down, gasping, coughing, strangling, new tears in her eyes. “Fooo!” she said.

He watched color come back into her cheeks. “Sit right here,” he said. Stukey was watching too curiously. He went up to the bar, paid the tab, went back to the table and got her and walked her out into the late-afternoon sun. She clung to his arm. Usually Max did not care for the clingers, but this one made him feel very masterful. She was taller than he had thought, and she wasn’t too steady on her feet.

“Where are we going, Jerry?” she asked. Her voice had the small and faintly faraway tinge that her eyes had — as though she talked to someone a few feet behind Max.

He stopped twenty feet from the door of Stukey’s and said, “Let’s straighten this out, kid. I’m not Jerry.”

She moved away from him. Her eyes widened. Her mouth began to work. She began to make a hoarse moaning sound. Max had seen many ladies putting on an act. This was no act.

She looked as though she were about to run from him, screaming. He took three steps toward her, grabbed her shoulders and shook her gently. “Hey,” he said. “Sure I’m Jerry. I was kidding, baby.”

Right in the street, in the sunlight, she came into his arms, saying hoarsely, “Don’t do that to me again, Jerry. Please don’t.”

Some urchins witnessed the deal, and did considerable hooting and whistling.

Max walked down the street with her and he felt oddly like a man juggling a hand grenade after the pin had been pulled. He had begun to feel a certain responsibility. So, if he had to be Jerry, he had to be Jerry.

“When did you eat last, kid?” he said.

“I... I don’t know.”

Hiram’s was two blocks away. Not worth taxi fare. They took a booth in the back and she wanted her steak medium well. She ate without taking her eyes from Max’s face and he began to think that this Jerry was one lucky character.

Finally he had a play figured out. He grinned at her, his lips a bit stiff, and said, “Honey, we’ll pretend we just met, hey?”

“That would be nice.”

“Glad to meet you, miss. My name’s Jerry Glockenspiel.”

“Silly! Your name’s Jerry Norma. I’m Marylen Banner.” She gravely shook his hand.

Max frowned. He said absently, “Hi, Marylen.” The name Jerry Norma had rung a tiny bell way back in his mind. Jerry Norma had, at one time or another, been news. Not big news. Something about the size of a page three quarter column.

In a low voice that shook with emotion, she said, “Why did you do it, Jerry? Why did you run out on me like that?”

Max sighed inwardly. Boy ditches girl. Girl goes off the beam. Tired old story. Better get along with her, turn her over for observation.

“I shouldn’t have done it.”

“You were just pretending, weren’t you?”

“Sure. Just pretending.”

She said softly, her head tilted on one side, “The lights, the way they came on so quickly. And that concrete floor. The black drops. You walked away and the lights came on and then all that noise like thunder. You doubled over and fell so slowly, Jerry. And then — when I ran to you—”

She stopped and put the back of her hand to her forehead, her shadowed eyes closed. With the smudges washed off, she was delicately beautiful.

Max shut his jaw hard. He ground out his cigarette and, keeping his voice level and calm, he said, “You thought I was shot, eh?”

Her eyes snapped open. “Shot? I... I... can’t remember.”

“I walked away from you and the lights came on.”

“I think you left me sitting in the car, Jerry. Yes, in the car.”

“Then the car was inside. A garage, wasn’t it?”

“Now it’s fading away, Jerry. I can’t remember. I can’t.”

Suddenly she looked around, at the tabletop, at the floor under the bench. “My purse! I’ve lost my purse!”

“You didn’t have it when you found me in that bar, Marylen. Can you remember where you were before that?”

“I don’t know, Jerry. I was looking for you for a long time.”

He realized that she spoke well, that her clothes were smart, though not extremely expensive or shining new.

“I’ll take you home, Marylen. Where do you live?”

“Please stop teasing me, Jerry. Please. I’m too tired to take very much.”

Max stared at her. “Look, I just plain forgot where you were staying here.”

“Don’t you remember, Jerry? You met me at the train. We were going to find a hotel for me and then you said that when we were married I could move into your place. But my purse! All my money was in the purse. Everything.”

“Now I remember. You came on the train from Chicago.”

“Jerry, are you losing your mind? From New Orleans! When you wrote me I gave up my job and found another girl to take over my share of the apartment on Burgundy Street. And I came to you as fast as I could, darling.”

Max ran a finger around the inside edge of his collar. “Sure, kid. Sure.”

“What will we do?” she asked. “We checked all my things at the station and my baggage checks were in my purse.”

“Maybe we could get in touch with your folks.”

“You say such queer things, Jerry Norma. I told you what happened to my folks. It was so long ago that I hardly remember them. I told you about my guardian and how there was just enough money for school, and then nothing.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Max asked helplessly.

“You have plenty of money, Jerry, darling. Find me a room and tomorrow we’ll shop together for what I need — to be married in.”

Suddenly she winced, leaned low over the table and said, “Jerry, I’m sick. I’m so sick...”

When he had the cab waiting outside, he went back to the table and got her. She leaned heavily against him, walked with her head down, eyes half closed. People stared at them with wry amusement, thinking that she was drunk.

He said to the driver, “Memorial Hospital, and snap it up.”

But three blocks further on, he leaned forward and said, “Changed my mind. Take us to Bleecker Street.”

He paid off the cab, walked her up the three steps, held her in his left arm while he got the key in the door. She collapsed completely inside the door, and he picked her up in his arms, carrying her like a child. Gruber, the superintendent-janitor, came out into the hall, stared at him, then grinned.

Max snapped, “Pick up her hat and hand it to me. Then get hold of my friend Doc Morrison across the street.”

He stepped with her into the elevator as Gruber went out the front door. He had to put her on the floor while he got his door key and opened his front door. The tiny living room of his apartment was rancid with stale smoke, thick with dust. Through the open bedroom doorway he could see the unmade bed. He turned sideways to get her through the narrow door, her head hanging loosely, her arm swinging.

He grunted as he lowered her onto the bed. Then he went to the window, stood smoking a cigarette, his back to her, until he heard the knock on the door.

Morrison was young, dark, quick. He put his bag on the floor, went over to her, took her pulse. “What’s wrong with her?”

“You’re the doctor. She’s not loaded, if that’s what you mean.”

“Then get out and shut the door.”

Max sat in the armchair. He picked up a newspaper, found that he wasn’t getting any sense out of the words. He flipped it aside.

In fifteen minutes Morrison came out, leaving the bedroom door open. Max looked in, saw the girl was snoring softly.

Morrison looked angrily at Max and said, “Somebody gave that girl a hell of a beating.”

“Beating?”

“Come here.” Morrison led him into the bedroom, pulled her arm out from under the covers. There were two large purpled bruises between her elbow and shoulder. He said, “She’s got a round dozen bruises like that. And look here.” He rolled her head to one side, pulled the fine blond hair away from her ear. Behind her ear was a large, angry-looking lump. “That looks like she’s been sapped. But I wouldn’t know. She’s suffering from the beating, from shock, maybe from a minor concussion. I gave her a shot of sedative. She’ll sleep hard for twelve hours. There don’t seem to be any broken bones. I’d like to get my hands on whoever treated that girl that way.”

“That’s a pleasure I would enjoy too, Doc,” Max said gently.

“Twenty dollars, please. I’ll stop in tomorrow and see how she is and see if we should take her down for X rays.”

Morrison took the twenty and walked out, still angry, slamming the door behind him. Max walked back in and stood by the bed and looked down at her. In sleep her face was composed, childlike. Her blond hair was softly spread on the pillow.

He turned to the lightweight suit she had been wearing, went carefully through the two pockets. He found a balled-up handkerchief smelling faintly of perfume. Nothing else. Then he went over the labels. The shoes and suit had come from New Orleans, definitely. The other items could have.

He opened the window a bit further, looked down at her again, and said, “Honey, you’re gradually becoming a burden.”

Closing the door gently, he left the bedroom. He locked the apartment. The streetlights had just come on. The air was growing a bit more chill. At the corner, he swung onto a bus and took it down to within a half block of the Examiner office.

Townsend, on the desk, said, “Sorry, Raffidy, but we haven’t—”

“This is something else, Bobby. I want to see if you got a clip on a citizen of this fair city named Jerry Norma. Jerome, I’d guess.”

Townsend, relieved that Raffidy hadn’t come about a nonexistent job, gave him the use of an empty desk and, within a few minutes, a copy boy brought a brown manila envelope from the morgue.

Ten minutes later Raffidy had a fair picture in his mind of a young man named Jerry Norma. In 1966, an alert gas station attendant had smashed the eighteen-year-old Norma with a wrench, while Norma was working on the till. He drew a one-to-three. Fifteen months with good behavior. In 1968, he had been implicated in the case against a car-theft ring. Case dismissed for lack of evidence. In 1971, he was under suspicion of having tried to bribe a member of the State Liquor License Board. No case. No trouble with the cops since that time. In 1975, listed as one of the “partners” in an enterprise called Valley Farms, Incorporated. Max knew the place. Riding horses. Whiskey sours for breakfast and a lot of fat gambling. A semiprivate club with the rumored reputation of being “protected.”

In 1977, a paragraph about how Jerome Norma, acting as agent for the Concord Amusement Devices, had issued a statement to the effect that none of the equipment located near the public schools of the city was in any sense gambling equipment, but should be considered merely games of skill.

There was a cut with the paragraph. Max studied the picture. Yes, Norma would be about his size. A bit thinner. Same general coloring.

He knew the type. A rough kid who starts out like a chump then finds that you can work close to the letter of the law without actually stepping over. A rough kid who gets smarter and smarter, learning where the four-thousand-dollar convertibles and the plush apartments come from.

But where would the girl fit? He had heard that Concord Amusement Devices was a segment of a national organization. If Jerry Norma was high up in Concord, he could very well take business trips to New Orleans. Gambling was on the way back there. And, meeting Marylen, it was also probable that Jerry could fall for her. She wasn’t what he was used to. She had — might as well admit it — more than a little charm and breeding.

He found a phone book, found a J. B. Norma listed. He signaled for an outside line, dialed the number given. The phone at the other end was picked up in the middle of the second ring. A cautious low voice said, “Yes?”

“Mr. Norma?”

“Isn’t in. Who’s this?”

“I had an appointment with him for five o’clock. He didn’t keep it.”

“No. He went out of town for a while.”

“When will he be back?”

“I couldn’t say. If you’ll leave your name—”

“Are you a friend of his?”

“Yeah. He loaned me his apartment here until he gets back.”

“This is about some — some equipment to be installed for me.”

“Oh!” There was a pause. There was a distant sound of voices. Max listened intently, but with the newsroom noise around him, he couldn’t catch what was said. The man came back on and said, “If it is in connection with the Concord Amusement Devices, friend, you get hold of Bill Walch tomorrow morning at the Concord offices. Know where they are?”

“On Madison.”

“That’s right.”

Max hung up slowly. The girl had spoken of Jerry Norma falling over slowly in some place that could have been a garage. And now Jerry Norma was out of town. Way out, maybe. He knew of Bill Walch. Walch was also one of the partners in Valley Farms. A big jovial backslapping man of mysterious and varied interests.

He thanked Townsend, walked slowly out of the building. He grabbed a crosstown bus to Primrose, went on back to Stukey’s. The crowd was a lot heavier and the place was thick with smoke. He wedged himself into a foot of space at the bar. A variety show was on video.

Stukey came along the bar, poured the shot and said, barely moving his lips, “You had callers.”

“Same ones followed the girl?”

“Other side of the fence, lad. Very harsh types. They wanted the girl. All I knew was she left with a stranger.”

“Thanks, Stuke.”

“They went the same way you went when you left with her.”

Max downed his drink, dropped the money on the bar and was out of the door, moving fast before he had thoroughly swallowed the rye. He kept on moving fast until he rounded the corner where Hiram’s, bright with green neon, shone in the middle of the block. Two cabs were parked in the stand at the corner.

He went over to the first one. The driver snapped the door open. Max pushed it shut and said, “People have been bothering you with questions?”

“In a nasty way. Why?”

“They were tracking a couple who came out of Hiram’s a little after five. Is that right?”

“Am I talking for free?”

“For whatever it turns out to be worth.”

“Okay, so they wanted the couple. Vague on the guy but lots of detail on the woman. They let it be known they could be unhappy about it all. Joey saw ’em come out. The guy first to hail the hack, and then he went back and brought out this dish. Drunk, maybe. Or sick. Joey would have had the fare but his boiler didn’t catch the first time and so a floater got the fare. These other nosy guys asked Joey about it until they got tired. Unless they can use cops, they can’t trace it.”

Max’s sigh of relief came right up from his shoes, was expressed through his wallet. He went back to his apartment by bus. He had Gruber dig up a cot and install it in his small living room. In the meantime he went in, clicked on the bedside lamp and looked at the girl. She was breathing heavily and she hadn’t changed position.

Max tipped Gruber, turned out the light and lay down on the cot, an ashtray on his stomach. He watched the pattern of the car lights across the ceiling for a time. Then he butted the cigarette, rolled over and was immediately asleep. He dreamed of someone coming up the stairs and it woke him up. He went into the bedroom, dug under the shirts, found the Jap automatic. Back in the living room, he went near the window and, in the glow of the streetlights, he jacked a slug into the chamber, clicked the safety on. With it under his pillow, he slept better.

When the knock sounded on his door, he opened his eyes, squinting against the morning sun. His watch said eight-thirty. He shucked on his robe, transferred the gun to the pocket of his robe and opened the door.

Dr. Morrison said, “How did she sleep?”

“Fine, as far as I know. Come take a look.” He led the doctor into her room.

Marylen had changed position and her breathing was much softer. When Morrison lifted her wrist to take her pulse, she opened her eyes. She looked around the room, her puzzlement showing on her face. Bewilderment began to be mixed with fear. Behind Morrison, Max put his finger to his lips and made exaggerated gestures for her to be quiet. She saw him and her eyes widened.

“Don’t sit up, please,” Morrison said. He opened his bag, took out a little thing like a flashlight. He held her eyelid back, shone the thin beam into her eye. Then he did the same with the other eye. He gently touched her behind the ear.

“Hurt?” he asked.

“Yes, Doctor,” she said in a small voice.

Morrison straightened up. “Try to rest, today. You took a bad beating. I’ll leave these pills. One every three hours, please.”

Max went with him to the door. Morrison said, “She’s tougher than she looks. Sturdy girl. Keep her quiet today.”

Max paid him and hurried back to the bedroom. Marylen looked up at him.

“You told me to be still. Why? Who are you? Was it a train wreck?”

“Train wreck!”

She sat up, holding the covers up around her throat. “Yes. Last night I went to sleep in the berth. Who are you? Where are we?”

Max sat down heavily on the straight chair and said, “Concussion.”

“What?”

“Marylen, you have a concussion. Or had one. I am — or used to be — a reporter. I know how concussions work. They kick your memory back to a time before the accident.”

“Where’s Jerry?” she said, her voice rising in fear. “Is he hurt?”

Max held up his big hand. “Now shut up a minute. Let me start from the beginning. My name is Max Raffidy. I was sitting in a bar.”

Slowly he went through it, with her wide eyes fastened on him. He left out her description of Jerry doubling over and falling to the concrete floor. He left out his own guesses about Jerry. But he did report the phone call to Jerry’s apartment.

When he was quite through she said, “And I thought you were Jerry?”

“I was beginning to think that was my name.”

She looked at him speculatively. “You are a little like him. But not much. Mr. Raffidy, this must have been very difficult for you. I’m very grateful to you. I’ll—”

“What? Call Jerry? He’s out of town. You haven’t got a dime and you’ve got only the clothes I found you in. You haven’t even got a lipstick and you don’t know a soul in town. You came here, met Jerry, and somehow you two got separated and you were beaten up.”

“I can’t stay here, though!”

“Marylen, I’m no hero. I’m a reporter out of a job. Jobs are tight in this town right now. They won’t hire me cold, but if I can walk in with a fat yarn, an exclusive, then I stand a chance.”

Her lips were tight and she had a frightened look. “But — you sound as though something awful might have happened to Jerry!”

“I’m no alarmist, Marylen. But it could happen.”

“I could go right to his apartment and talk to the man you talked to over the phone.”

“I found out last night that some unsavory types are hunting for you, baby.”

She sank back against the pillow. She looked blindly at the ceiling and said, “But I don’t understand!”

“How did you meet this Jerry?”

“A year ago I went to a party with one of the girls who worked in the same office. I wouldn’t have gone, but I was bored. I don’t care for her. She’s too loud. It was a cocktail party at a hotel. I met Jerry there. He’s — very nice. He travels around, selling machinery and seeing that it’s installed properly. He acted very... well, worldly, but he was funny and sweet and shy with me.”

“He came down to see you?”

“Five times. The last time he proposed. He said he had certain details to clean up, business details. He said that we’d go out to the West Coast and that he’d have a little capital to start a business of his own with. He would come down and get me and we’d be married and go West together. Then he phoned me. He sounded nervous, said things weren’t working quite right. He wanted me to come up here. I agreed. He wanted to send me money for the trip, but I said I had enough. He always seems to have plenty of money.”

It was beginning to shape a bit more clearly. Max thought for a while and then said, “Trust me, Marylen. You stay right here. I’ll whip up some breakfast for you. Then I’m going to go to the place where Jerry worked. I’ll see what I can find out...” As she sipped her coffee, he said, “This is a gun, baby. To fire it, you shove this little gimmick down and then pull on the trigger. Every time you pull it will fire, up to eight times.”

“But I don’t—”

“Somebody beat you up, honey, and they might want to try again. If someone knocks on the door, keep quiet. If they try to force the door, let them know you are in here with a gun. If they keep it up, shoot at the door. Okay?”

“If you say so, Max.”

“That’s what I want to hear.”

She called, just as he reached the door, “Please get me an orangy shade of lipstick and a hairbrush and toothbrush and toothpaste.”

The waiting room was paneled in honey-blond wood, with the combination receptionist-switchboard operator behind a square glass window. Latest magazines were on the low tables. Framed pictures on the wall were color photographs of snow scenes.

The girl said, “Mr. Walch will see you now, Mr. Raffidy.”

He went to the door. She touched the release and he pushed it open. Walch had the first office on the left.

He met Max at the doorway. He said, “Max, I was damn sorry to hear about the Chronicle. Tough break, fella. Maybe I can give you a note to a friend of mine.”

“No, Bill. Thanks anyway. This is something else.”

Bill slapped him on the shoulder. “Sit down, boy. Sit down.” Walch went behind the desk, sat down, nibbled the end of a cigar and spat in the general direction of the wastebasket.

Max said, “This is pretty delicate, Bill. A couple of days ago I landed a job fronting for a group of citizens who want to open up a club well outside the city. I contacted a man named Norma. I was told he could get me the stuff my clients want for their club. I talked with Norma about an order of about a hundred thousand. He wanted a guarantee of good faith. I went back to my people and got fifteen hundred cash. Naturally I couldn’t expect a receipt. Norma said we had to have a conference about a percentage cut after he talked to his principals. I was to meet him last night at five. He didn’t show. I called his apartment.”

Walch broke in. “I wondered who made that call.”

“It was your boy Max. Now he’s out of town and I’m in a spot. My clients want to hold off from making any definite commitment for a month or two. Lease trouble on the property they want. They want the fifteen hundred back. I promised it today. I look pretty sick, Bill. I’ve been around enough to know that you people can’t use written records. So you have to go along on faith. What do I do next? I’d hate like hell to spread the word that your outfit had rattled me for a lousy fifteen hundred.”

Bill Walch inspected the end of his cigar. For a moment his face was absolutely blank. He said softly, “I’d hate to think you’d gotten yourself a job with another paper, Max. I’d hate to think this was something fancy.”

“How fancy can I get? That’s your chance, the same way I took a chance with your boy named Norma.”

Bill suddenly smiled, a warm and hearty smile. “We can straighten this out fast, Max, boy. I’m expecting a call from Jerry any minute. When it comes in, I’ll ask him and we’ll soon know. Okay?”

With sinking heart and with an attempt to match Bill’s smile, Max said heartily, “That’ll be fine. Fine!”

Within a few seconds the phone rang. Bill said, “Be good and go back out into the waiting room, will you? This is pretty confidential. Big out-of-town deal.”

On wooden legs Max went to the waiting room. He had the feeling that the gun had been left in the wrong hands. It would feel splendid in his pocket.

It was five minutes before Bill Walch appeared. He came into the waiting room with a wide smile and a long white envelope, saying, “It checked out, Max. Here’s your deposit. Come back and see us when your people get their lease attended to. Tell them that for strictly hands off by the county cops as well as the state boys, we’ll take ten percent of the gross, based on a monthly audit.”

Max went through the motions like a large smiling mechanical toy. He mumbled words of farewell, backed to the door, found the knob, went on down the corridor to the elevators. As he waited for the bronze arrow to swing up to the right floor, he peeked into the envelope. A flat sheaf of bills. All hundreds. Fifteen of them. He slipped the money out of the envelope, folded it once and slid it into his bill clip, behind a few tired fives and ones.

Down to the street he looked both ways, suddenly wary. It had seemed almost too easy. The tough part was to come — telling Marylen that the way Walch handed over the money was conclusive proof that her sweetie was no longer a matter of interest to the census taker.

He had worked on some fine fat stories, and in the process the Chronicle had chewed lightly on the frayed edge of the Concord organization, on the underlings, on the not-too-smart. But never had a lead opened so nicely. And there was no paper to back him. No organization. It was too early in the game to ring in the law. Yet he grinned with a certain satisfaction, and the grin, as always, erased the somewhat moody lines of his heavy face, made him look younger and even a shade reckless.

Yet the hair on the back of his neck seemed to prickle. He walked casually east, stopped to look in a window. A man who had no place to go. The third window of the department store was rigged out as a bedroom, with a plastic dolly sitting on the dressing-table bench. The dressing table had a mirror. It was in that mirror that he saw the one who sauntered on the far side of the street, pausing to cup his hands around a cigarette, tossing the match aside.

And behind the man who sauntered, a car slid to the curb. But nobody got out of it.

Max turned away from the window, walked more rapidly to the corner. As he walked, his mind was busy. Obviously Walch had ordered the tail. But why? Where had there been a slip? Or did Walch still want to cover in case it was a frame and Max was working, on the side, for another paper, or even for one of the perennial civic improvement groups? If Walch was worried enough to employ the tail technique, it would have been easier for him to play dumb about the fifteen hundred.

The obvious thing was to get back to the girl. He picked up a cab at the corner, glanced back in time to see the saunterer swing into the waiting car.

“Uptown,” he directed.

After five blocks he leaned forward, handed the driver a bill. He said, “I might leave you in a hurry, friend. Pay no attention.”

The driver gave a quick and startled look over his shoulder. Then he looked in the rear vision mirror. He said, “Friend, I’ll make a little time and then slow down by the Casualty Trust. Hop out there and go right through the building and with luck you can grab a downtown bus in the next block.”

“You are an intelligent and perspicacious citizen.”

“Thank you too much.”

Max went through the bank at a semi-lope, looking ahead with the expression of a man trying to catch up with someone.

There was no bus, but there was a cab. Max grabbed it, looked back. Three blocks away he thought he saw a tiny figure come hurrying out of the door. He wasn’t certain.

He took the chance of giving his own address. The elevator was in use, so he ran up the stairs, breathing hard. He had his key out and stopped absolutely still when he saw the door was ajar. He kicked it open, moved to one side and called, “Marylen!”

The rooms were empty and dusty, and the tired sun made too much of a point of the frayed rug. The keys that had slid from Gruber’s hand lay in the sunlight. Gruber’s hand was in shadow. The keys were on a chain neatly decorated with a white plastic death’s-head. Gruber lay on his face with his legs spread, his toes pointed in. Max cursed slowly and monotonously as he knelt by Gruber. He got his thumb on the right part of the stringy wrist, felt the strong pulse thud. He rolled Gruber over. There was a deep red spot on the point of Gruber’s chin.

The girl was gone, and her clothes were gone. On the dresser, there was a note in sprawling backhand finishing school writing which merely said: “Thanks for everything.” The note was weighed down with the Jap automatic. The safety was off. He noticed with clinical detachment that it was a silly way to leave a gun.

Gruber responded to the water treatment, dopey at first, and then violently and thoroughly angry, with all the heat and force that a stringy, sandy little man can develop.

Max finally got the sense of it. Mr. Raffidy had locked the girl in. This friend of hers had come and the friend had asked to have Gruber unlock the door. The girl had seemed eager to have the door unlocked. He remembered the friend, a small plump man with red cheeks, saying, “Miss Banner, Jerry is down in the car waiting for you.”

After he had unlocked the door and the girl was in the bedroom dressing, Gruber had stepped in for the expected tip. The man had reached for his hip pocket and then his hand had come up too fast from his hip pocket.

No, Gruber was going directly to the cops. No fat little so-and-so was going to put the slug on him right in his own place. Max blocked the doorway while Gruber danced up and down in a rage, getting even madder as he found a tooth splinter in his mouth.

Max got hold of one of the crisp hundreds. He crackled it, said, “This is to lick your wounds with, Gruber. This is oil for troubled waters. You can gripe all you want with the hundred in your pocket. Or you can yell cop and the hundred is in my pocket.”

Gruber’s dance of anger slowly settled down into a shuffling of feet and then he said, “A deal. But what are you mixed up in, Mr. Raffidy?”

“Never mind me. What did the guy look like?”

He didn’t get more than the original description. Gruber hadn’t seen the car. The girl seemed happy, but worried. At least, that’s the way her voice sounded. Gruber went down to the elevator, grumbling about a respectable apartment house, and how the hell was he to know what kind of friends Raffidy had.

Max sat on the edge of the cot. The door was shut and he was alone with his enormous guilt. He thought of all the things he should have done. A nice safe hospital for the girl. An immediate report to Lowery, District Homicide Squad Captain.

He clenched his fists and looked at his knuckles. Raffidy, the hero type. Raffidy, the job-hungry kid. So hungry for a job that he got the girl a date with her boyfriend. Her nice dead boyfriend.

He reviewed what he knew of the local organization, looking for a starting point. At the top locally was Myron Ledecker, big wheel in both Concord Devices and Valley Farms. Tall, thin, consumptive-looking man with hawk nose, bald head and British accent. Clubman. Semi-socialite. Accepted by those who didn’t know or care that his bankroll was made up partly by schoolkids’ dimes.

The next level was vague. Bill Walch was one. Brad Antonelli was another. Brad had started as collector of the payoff from the horse rooms. Jerry Norma had been on the third level, reporting probably to Walch.

He began to work on how they’d found the girl. The answer wasn’t long in coming. Once the two searchers had hit a dead end on the taxi, they’d gone back trying to identify the man she was with. Stukey wouldn’t have talked. But the waiter in Hiram’s knew him by name. He realized that he should have been smarter. But you can’t turn the clock back.

One more step in the thought process. They had the girl, the actual witness to the murder, even though she didn’t remember it as yet. Shock and the concussion had driven it out of her mind. They would assume that she had told Max the story. He would have only hearsay and yet they had a decision to make. He guessed that they wouldn’t get rough with him. Two killings would be ample. Instead, they would try to discredit him.

It would be best to get the jump on them. At least one mistake could be corrected. He phoned Captain Lowery. It took several minutes to get through to him.

He said, “Ed? This is Max Raffidy. I want to report—”

In a voice heavy with sarcasm and exasperation, Captain Lowery said, “You want to report! You want to report! By heaven, Raffidy, if you send this department on another goose chase like you did twenty minutes ago, I’ll have you picked up!”

“But—”

“I always thought you had good judgment, Raffidy. Maybe the Chronicle folding has softened your brain. I’m not interested in a damn thing you have to report. If somebody has heisted your wallet, report it to the cop on the corner.”

Max’s ear stung with the heavy click as Lowery hung up. They had moved just a shade too fast for him. And it could only have been done by someone who knew the city, knew of Max’s friendships. Walch could have done it. The net effect was to close the ears of the department to anything that Max could say, particularly as he had no proof.

He uncovered the portable, rolled paper into it, hammered out a terse report of everything that had happened. The last sentence he wrote was: “Lowery, if I wind up dead or missing, this should give you something to go on.” He folded it, sealed it, stamped it, mailed it from the corner. Far easier to hop a train. The fourteen hundred would last until the next job. But it wouldn’t be so easy to forget long blond hair, purple smudges of weariness under gray-blue eyes.

He sat over a cup of coffee and went back through every scrap of information he had. Jerry had met the girl at the train. The sleeper came in from New Orleans at noon. The girl had walked into his life at a quarter to five. Thus she had been with Jerry during daylight hours. She would have remembered staying overnight. All her clothes were still checked at the station. Yet the girl had talked of the lights going on suddenly. Concrete floor. Gunshots. What would that mean? A garage would be lighted. Probably windows. Some kind of light.

Suddenly he snapped his fingers. A warehouse! That would fit very nicely indeed. Concrete floor. Concord didn’t have local manufacturing facilities, he was certain, but they were a distribution point for everything from gimmicked roulette tables to sticky dice.

But where? Probably within the city limits, close to rail connections. He glanced at his watch. Plenty of time to hit the assessor’s office.

He was known in the assessor’s office and, with the rights of a citizen, he was given access to the records. Nothing looked promising under Concord, Ledecker or Walch. But under Valley Farms, Inc., he found a Market Street address. The clerk dug out the maps for him.

In the dull stubborn flame of anger, he had forgotten elementary caution. They picked him up as he came out of the assessor’s office. He recognized one of them as the man who, earlier in the day, had picked him up outside the Concord offices.

They were large, muscular and efficient. They moved in, and when he tried to twist away, one of them pivoted, chunked a hard fist deep into Max’s diaphragm. Max’s half-raised arms sagged. They supported him on either side. A few pedestrians looked curiously at the three men as they hurried by. The two men laughed enormously, slapping Max’s shoulders. They herded him quickly into a car, their faked laughter covering Max’s agonized attempts to draw breath.

Once in the car, one man drove. Max got his breath, said, “Picked up like a jerk kid by two slobs!”

The other searched Max’s person, removed the gun with an admonishing clucking sound.

“Where are we going?” Max asked.

“To see Mr. Ledecker.”

Ledecker was sitting in an easy chair by the window in his apartment at Valley Farms. When Raffidy was hustled through the doorway, Ledecker looked up amiably and said, “Ah, Mr. Raffidy.” He turned to the girl on the couch and said, “Do you mind, my dear?”

She got up indifferently and walked out. One of the two men who had picked him up took the place on the couch the girl had vacated. The other one left.

Ledecker said, “Please sit over there.”

Max sat.

Ledecker said, “You are an enterprising young man. Poor Bill Walch swallowed your story. He put a tail on you because he wanted to find out who you were acting for. We thought we might do better dealing direct. But a half hour later we found out that you were the gentleman who so kindly gave shelter to Miss Banner. Then we began to appreciate your cleverness, Mr. Raffidy.”

“You’re congratulating me?”

“Cleverness always appeals to me. It is at a premium in my type of business. And it is just that, Raffidy. A business. We take normal business risks. However, when a man chooses to defraud a more legitimate business enterprise, his employers can deal with a bonding company or with the police. That privilege is denied us. We have to take care of our own.”

“But this wasn’t taken care of in a very businesslike way, eh?”

“How do you mean that?”

“Too many loose ends. Like me, for example.”

“Quite.” Ledecker paused and looked out over the rolling fields, toward the distant line of woods. Saddle horses were winding down across the meadow. The heavy man sat on the couch, biting on his tongue as he pared his nails with a small pocketknife. Ledecker’s legs were crossed, the free foot swinging idly.

“Mr. Raffidy, we had a small blunder. We anticipated Mr. Norma’s plans. I have to keep large amounts of cash on hand. We do not know how Jerry got the combination, but our safe here was rifled a week ago. Everyone on my staff was under suspicion. Jerry made no change in his habits. But I did find that he had gone twice to the warehouse for no known reason.

“We searched the warehouse and found that Jerry had cleverly hidden the two hundred thousand dollars in a small packing case which had contained the wheel from a roulette table. However, we needed proof. One of my most trusted assistants was planted in the warehouse. When Jerry came after the money he was — dissuaded.”

“Permanently.”

“Oh, yes. And then we discovered the blunder. Jerry had a girl with him. She battled vigorously but was finally quieted. My assistant phoned me. I suggested that the young lady be taken to a certain apartment we maintain on Primrose Street. He put her on the floor in the back of the car. In heavy traffic she managed to get the door open and lose herself in the crowd. It was my idea to find out how damaging a witness she might be.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“You are clever, Mr. Raffidy, in a gaudy way. We picked up the young lady. She faked loss of memory. But when confronted with the man she saw eliminate Mr. Norma, she had a fine case of hysterics. You spent considerable time with the young lady. Doubtless she told you her story. My question is — what am I to do with you?”

“You spoiled my chance of going to the police.”

“That was elementary.”

“What harm can I do you, Ledecker?”

“I don’t know. How can you prove to me that you won’t make the attempt?”

“I can’t.”

“Then this is a type of stalemate, wouldn’t you say?”

“Stop horsing, Ledecker. Make your proposition.”

“Impatience and impertinence, Mr. Raffidy. Here it is. My people have a strange distaste when it comes to the question of dealing with the girl. They will have no such scruples about you. You can go free from here, Mr. Raffidy, as soon as you have accomplished that slightly messy job.”

Max sat very still. “There’s no need to ask you what happens if I say that this isn’t my line of work.”

“No need whatsoever. Please don’t think that I enjoy this sort of thing. If you help us take care of the girl, then your mouth will be closed. You need to have no fear of the law unless you try to cross me. We run an efficient place here.”

Now was the time to mention the report to Lowery. Max opened his mouth to speak of it, then closed his lips.

“What were you about to say?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” To mention the report would definitely seal the girl’s death warrant. Then he had another thought. “Why not throw this trusted assistant of yours to the wolves. That sounds easy.”

Ledecker’s smile was without humor. “The assistant is trusted because he had the good fortune to obtain documentary proof of an earlier indiscretion of mine. That was when I was younger, and not as wise. His position is far, far better than yours, Mr. Raffidy.”

Max slouched in the chair. “Just how am I supposed to kill the girl?”

Ledecker frowned. “Please, Mr. Raffidy. Discuss it in business terms.”

“Well, how?”

“There’s a choice of methods. We can have her taken over into the woods and you can shoot her. Or you can strangle her. Or you can hit her with a heavy object.”

“Business terms, eh? Why such rough ways?”

“For their effect on you, Mr. Raffidy. I would prefer that it be a rough way, as you express it.”

“Where is she?”

“Roughly sixty feet from you.”

“When is all this supposed to take place?”

“Right after dusk, I believe. That should be the best time.”

“Where does the body go?”

“We will take several pictures of the body and then it will be disposed of. There’s no need for you to know where or how.”

“And then?”

“And then, with my blessing, you go on about your business.”

“Why not just pick the two of us off? Why tie yourself in knots?”

Ledecker sighed. “There is too big a chance, my boy, that you might have tried to protect yourself with some silly report to the police.”

“Suppose I did. Then all I have to do is sit tight.”

“Hurt him a little, Joseph,” Ledecker said in a strained voice.

Max spun out of the chair and got his back near the wall as Joseph came in. With the expressionless boredom of a professional, Joseph ducked into Max’s swing, taking the knuckles against his forehead. He moved in close, grunting with the exertion of each blow.

When Joseph backed away, Max dropped to his hands and knees, then fell over on his side. He pulled his knees up toward his chest and rolled his head from side to side, pushing against the pain, trying to think and plan.

Ledecker stood above him, seeming to sway, to shift back and forth through the mists that the pain brought. His voice was very far away. “There’ll be no more lip and no nonsense, Raffidy, damn you!”

Joseph, torpidly satisfied with his work, had gone back to the couch. Max was spinning toward the edge of consciousness, but, as the idea formed, he fought his way back. He wheezed, “Where’d you lose your British accent?”

He saw Ledecker’s neat black shoe coming at him. He snapped his head back at the last moment and the foot went by, throwing the man off balance. Max grabbed him by the ankle and spilled him. He grabbed one wrist, twisted the arm up into a punishing hammerlock, got his thick right hand on Ledecker’s throat. Joseph came charging across the room.

Max yelled, “Hold it!” He had Ledecker in a sitting position. He said quickly, “Come any closer and I shut my hand on this throat. With one squeeze, I can crush the windpipe.”

When Ledecker reached up to claw at the hand, Max tightened the hammerlock. Ledecker painfully groaned, “Move back, Joseph.”

Joseph, no longer expressionless, moved slowly back on the balls of his feet.

“I want Joseph to give me the gun he took off me,” Max said softly.

“Don’t be absurd,” Ledecker said. His voice had more confidence.

Max gave a quick hard pressure with his fingers, released it. Ledecker’s body shook with the convulsive coughing.

Max said, “Did you feel that, friend? Just a little more than that. Here, I’ll try to give you a little more without killing you.”

“Wait,” Ledecker gasped. “Joseph, give him the gun.”

“Boss, I’m not going to get—”

“Do as you’re told!”

Max said, “Hold it by the barrel and slide it along the floor. Slide it right over here.”

Joseph hesitated for long seconds. The automatic slid along the rug. He released Ledecker’s throat, snatched up the gun, scrambled to his feet. It took an effort to straighten his bruised body.

Ledecker stood up slowly. His face was calm. “What now, Raffidy?”

“You and Joseph line up against that wall, face to the wall, feet about a yard from the baseboard. Then lean against the wall, your palms flat against it.”

Joseph looked at him with contempt. Max leveled the gun, saying, “So I have to smash your knee, Joe.”

Joseph lumbered over to the wall. Max went up behind them. Swinging the automatic in a horizontal arc, he chopped the barrel and trigger guard heavily against Joseph’s head, just above the right ear. Joseph’s face hit the hardwood floor with a damp, meaty smack. Then keeping the muzzle a few inches from the small of Ledecker’s back, he patted the man in all places where a small gun could be concealed.

Ledecker said, “Whatever you’re planning, Raffidy, it won’t work. I have fifteen employees in this place. Half of them are armed.”

Max said mildly, “If you were me, friend, wouldn’t you at least give it a whirl? Come on now. Turn around slow. The gun is in my pocket. I’m going to be a half step behind you. Anything I don’t care for — and one goes right through you.”

He could see the sheen of sweat on the man’s face. “Where to?” Ledecker asked.

“Right out the door and down the hall to the stairs. Slowly down the stairs and across the club room and out to the drive. Then into the car. And then to town.”

“Anything you suggest, Raffidy.”

“And all the time you’re walking, you’ll be talking to me. Not too loud and not too soft. You’ll be explaining some of your equipment. Understand?”

“Perfectly.”

“Start talking now.”

“One of... ah... the items we’ve had the most luck with this year has been a specialty item used in chuckaluck where the operator by merely putting his hand in a certain position to spin the cage, can make the dice...”

His voice droned on. The hallway was empty. They met a man on the stairs carrying a tray of drinks. The man backed into the corner of the landing to let them by. The door at the foot of the stairway opened near the bar. Two couples sat at the far end of the club room. Ledecker walked with his back rigid. Max kept what he hoped was an amiable smile on his face. Then out the side door to the parking lot.

Ledecker stopped and said, “The car will be brought over.”

The attendant brought the car over, jumped out, left the motor running. A small cement mixer chattered busily at the far end of the parking lot. Several workmen were moving about in a leisurely fashion.

The impact of the slug seemed to come before the brittle sound of the shot. To Max it was as though someone standing behind him had whammed him on the shoulder with a hand sledge. It spun him around so that he faced the door, and he went down the two steps to the gravel, stumbling and falling, rolling onto his back.

His left arm was dead. He couldn’t haul the gun out of his right pocket from that position. Ledecker came down the two steps toward him, frantic in his haste to get hold of the gun arm. At the second shot, Ledecker sprawled loosely across Max’s thighs. Max looked up, saw Joseph at the upstairs window, revolver aimed, a look of intense dismay on his wide face.

Max immediately realized that Ledecker had, in his eagerness, moved directly into the line of fire. He wiggled out from under Ledecker, scrambled around the car, driving his shoulder into the openmouthed attendant, staggering him off balance. He jumped in behind the wheel, dropped the big car into gear and spun the wheels on the gravel as he heard the faint sound of another shot, heard the thunk of lead against the metal side.

The attendant was racing beside the window, reaching in for the keys. Max swerved the heavy car toward the man, knocking him off his feet. Then he skidded out onto the driveway, turning toward town.

He was dizzy and faint with the shock of the wound. Pain was just beginning. He was grateful for the automatic shift on the car. He steered with his right hand at the top of the wheel, his left hand in his lap.

Captain Lowery said, “Lucky the bones in your shoulder are as thick as the ones in your head. What the hell are you doing? Leaving?”

“If it’s okay with the doc, why should you mind? Thanks, nurse. Just hang the coat over my shoulder.” The night lights were on in the corridor of the emergency ward.

“We went out there, as you know,” Lowery said.

“Thanks.”

“Skip the sarcasm. We went out and put the clamp on Joseph. There’s a charge against you for trying to kidnap Ledecker, and for stealing the car. They wanted to make it murder, but we found the slug and shot it down to the lab along with Joseph’s gun. It matched. But, genius, no girl. No girl at all. Was there ever a girl, or were you just wishing hard?”

“Check with Dr. Morrison, who has his office across the street from where I live. He saw her. Check with Gruber, my building superintendent.”

“So there was a girl. I yanked in Walch and Antonelli and told them some hunks of your story. They laughed until they held on to their sides. Jerry Norma is on a business trip, they think. Ledecker would know, and he’s dead. They told me I was getting soft in the head listening to newspaper people. So what do we do now, genius?”

“Can I go along for the ride?”

“To where?”

“We go to the warehouse and we take some lab boys along. Suppose it turns out that there was a girl and that something has happened to her? How about Walch and Antonelli and the rest of the organization?”

Lowery gave the impression of wanting to spit on his hands. “Brother, we get our chance to smack down on the whole outfit. But good.”

They parked the two police sedans outside the warehouse. The warrant was in order. The lights were clicked on. Bright lights.

Max said to the lab men, “This grease spot looks like the car was parked here. Norma drove it right in. He got out. He was probably headed that way. See if you can find out if he was shot down.”

In a few moments one man reported a well-scrubbed place on the floor. They unstrapped the chemical kit and went to work, testing reagents. Finally one of them said, “Captain, there was blood here. Not too long ago. Maybe human. Can’t tell yet.”

Lowery himself found a bullet scar on the concrete. By lining it up with the scrubbed place, estimating the degree of ricochet, searching for fifteen laborious minutes, they found the slug half buried in the edge of a two-by-four that supported one shelf of a supply bin.

Lowery said, with a shade less contempt, “Now, genius, you’re beginning to click. We’ll accept the assumption that Norma was gunned right here and the girl saw it happen. Where to now?”

“They got her out of Valley Farms fast. With the big mess over Ledecker, and with my getting away, they’d be stupid to kill her. They’d hold her for a while to see what happens.”

“And where would they do that?”

“Ledecker mentioned an apartment on Primrose.”

“Nice neighborhood,” Lowery said dryly. “Let’s roll. This one is legwork.”

It was ten o’clock before they had the right building, the right apartment. Lowery dispersed his men to cover all possible means of exit, including two in the courtyard manning the portable spotlight, armed with gas grenades.

At the end of the stairs, Lowery whispered, “Stay right here, Raffidy. This is business.”

Max shrugged. It was good to lean against the wall. His shoulder throbbed heavily and incessantly. But when Lowery and his two men went down the hallway to the door, he moved up into the corridor and inched his way down toward the door.

“Open up,” Lowery called.

“Who’s out there?”

“Police. Open wide and come out with your hands in the air,” Lowery ordered.

A different voice, a soft mild voice, said, “Thank you. No.”

Lowery let go with the whistle and Max saw the bright thread of light under the edge of the door as the men out in the court turned the spotlight on the window.

Lowery said, “You’re covered all the way around. Better come out the easy way or we get you the hard way.”

Again the soft voice. “There’s a girl in here, Officer.”

“That we know!”

“I’m coming out with the girl in front of me. What then?” Max saw Lowery wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. There was a long period of silence.

Lowery said, “You won’t make it.”

The voice said, “I’ll take my chance. Order your men to stand back.”

Lowery moved away from the door. He lifted the .38 special in his hands, looked hard at it as though he’d never seen it before. He whispered to the two men with him. They walked heavily down to the end of the hall. Lowery motioned to Max. Max went with them.

Lowery said, “Okay. You’re holding the cards. We’ll be out of your way. But the moment you get two feet away from that girl—”

“Stop talking,” the voice said.

Lowery went twenty feet from the doorway, flattened with his back against the wall, his right arm extended, the special aimed down at the doorway.

The hallway was still. Max heard the creak as the door opened inward. More silence. Then he saw her white face, the long, blond hair, the lightweight suit. She came out, one dragging step after another. He saw the fat pink hand that held her arm, the muzzle of the gun aimed at her head, the other fat hand holding the gun. Then the cheery, round, rosy-cheeked face of the fat little man. As the man’s small bright eyes swiveled toward Lowery, Lowery’s gun spoke with heavy authority.

The fat little man did not waver. He dropped as suddenly and completely and thoroughly as though he had fallen from a ten-foot height.

Marylen swayed. She turned, like a sleepwalker, and she saw Max. She came down toward him, walking slowly at first, and then running into Max’s open arms.

Lowery leaned against the wall. The other man, a replica of Joseph, came out with his hands in the air. Lowery said, half to himself, “It had to be just right. A head shot and the reflex makes him pull the trigger. I had to get him in one spot the size of a dime, where the slug would sever the spinal column.”

Max said angrily, “Why not let him go? Why take the chance?”

“Why, you poor damn fool, he’d have killed the girl as soon as he got clear.”

Marylen, her face against Max’s lapel, said, “I saw him kill Jerry. I remember.”

Lowery, his temporary reaction over, said, “And now, Mr. Raffidy, where do we find Jerry Norma’s body?”

“They’re doing a hell of a lot of cement work at Valley Farms, Captain...”

It was pale, gray dawn and the sounds of the city hadn’t yet begun. Lowery, his well-fed face showing the dragging lines of weariness, hung up the phone. He said, “They got him. They’d slapped him in the face with a spadeful of concrete.”

“How about Antonelli and Walch?”

“Walch is beginning to crack. When he does, we can use the stuff he gives us to crack Antonelli. The little fat man’s name was Stan Norton, Ledecker’s blackmailer.”

Max said slowly, “And now, Captain, may I phone in everything I know?”

“Hell, are you working?”

“With an exclusive like this? I’ve been working ever since I phoned in the eyewitness description of Ledecker’s death from the hospital.”

Lowery sighed. “Can I stop you? I’m going home and get some sleep.”

“So am I. I’m going to stop in at Memorial on the way and check on the girl. As soon as she’s well, I’ll ship her home.”

Lowery stood heavily at the doorway. “In some things, Raffidy,” he said, “you almost achieve brilliance. However, with women, you’re on the dull side.”

Max said angrily, “What should I do? Keep her as a good-luck charm?”

But he was talking to the closed door. He managed the difficult feat of lighting a cigarette. He laid the receiver down and started to dial the newspaper number. By now the waiting wolves from the other papers would be plaguing Lowery.

Halfway through the number he stopped dialing, said softly, “Good-luck charm. Hmmm.”

He hung up and started dialing again.