Mourn The Living

1

Nolan arrived in Chelsey, Illinois, a few minutes past noon. He let a Holiday Inn go by, and a Howard Johnson’s, then picked a non-chain motel called the Travel Nest. It was a pleasant-looking yellow building, an L-shaped two stories; its sign promised an indoor heated pool, color television and a vacancy. Nolan pulled into the car port outside the motel office and went in.

“Yes sir?” The manager, a middle-aged man with dark, slightly thinning hair, gave Nolan a professional smile.

Nolan said he’d need a room for a week, filled out the registration, using the name Earl Webb. He listed his occupation as journalist and his hometown as Philadelphia. The manager asked if he wished to pay the $65 room rate when he checked out or...

Nolan gave the man two fifties. “Make it a nice room.”

“Yes, sir!” The manager eyed the registration. “Are you a newspaperman, Mr. Webb?”

“No,” Nolan said. “I’m with a new magazine out of Philadelphia. Planning a big first issue. It’s going to be on the order of Look, except monthly.”

“Really?” The manager’s eyes went round with interest. Nolan smiled inwardly; he hoped everybody would bite his line as eagerly as this guy did.

“Come with me, Mr. Webb,” the manager said. He turned to a younger copy of himself, most likely his son or kid brother, and snapped, “Take over, Jerome.”

Jerome took over and the manager followed Nolan back outside to the Lincoln.

“We can park your car, if you like.”

“I’ll park it.”

The manager told Nolan where the room was and turned and walked briskly toward the far end of the yellow building. Nolan got into the Lincoln and drove it into the empty space near the door the manager was entering. He liked the looks of the motel, well kept-up, with separate balconies for each room on the upper story, private sun porches for the lower. He got out of the Lincoln, took his suitcase and clothes-bags from the trunk, then locked the car.

He met the manager at the head of the stairs and followed him to room 17. It was large, smelled fresh and was mostly a pastel green. The spread on the double bed was a darker green and the French doors leading out to the balcony were ivory-white. Nolan looked in at the bath and shower, found it clean and walked out on the balcony, which afforded him a view of the wooded area to the rear of the motel. There was a color TV. Nolan said it would do.

“If you need anything else, just call down to the office and ask for me — Mr. Barnes. Oh, and there’s a steak house across the street. And the pool is just down the hall.”

“If you’re fishing for a tip, I already slipped you an extra thirty-five.”

The little man looked hurt, but he didn’t say anything; he just forced a weak smile and started to leave. Nolan immediately regretted falling out of character. He had to make himself be decent to people, even insignificant ones.

“Hey,” Nolan called softly.

The manager, halfway down the hall by now, turned and said, “Yes, Mr. Webb?”

“Com’ere, Mr. Barnes.”

Nolan reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He offered one to Barnes, who accepted it. He lit one himself, smiled his tight smile at Barnes in a semblance of good will.

“Mr. Barnes, the assignment I’m on for my magazine is important to me. A big opportunity. I could use your help.”

Barnes grinned like a chimp. “I’ll be happy to assist you, Mr. Webb.”

“I wonder if maybe there’s somewhere in town reporters might hang out.”

“Well... several bars come to mind. There’s a fairly good restaurant where the Globe guys go to talk. Called the Big Seven.”

“Where is it?”

“It’s down the hill from the football stadium, by Front Street bridge.”

“Big Seven, huh?”

“Yes, it’s a sports type hangout. The Chelsey U football team is in the Big Seven conference, you know.”

“Any place else?”

“Some bars downtown. Dillon’s, maybe, or Eastgate Tavern. What you going to write on, the hippies?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, Hal Davis did a big write-up on the anti-draft demonstration last week. Hippies, yippies, the whole SDS crew. A bunch of ’em slaughtered a live calf on the steps of the student union, then tossed it at some Dow Chemical people who came down to C.U. to interview seniors for jobs.”

“Interesting. He didn’t happen to do a write-up on that girl who fell off the building a while back?”

“Don’t know, Mr. Webb. There was a write-up on that, but I can’t remember any details. Say, I’m saving my old Globes for a paper drive one of my kids is on. If you want to look at some of ’em, I could bring up a batch.”

“Fine. Bring them up for the past couple months and you got another ten bucks.”

Barnes smiled. “Don’t bother, Mr. Evans. Glad to help, you being a real writer and all.” Then he trotted off after the papers.

Good, thought Nolan. This way he wouldn’t have to go down to the newspaper and ask to see back files. It wouldn’t pay to show his face claiming to be a writer when he didn’t have enough knowledge or a solid enough cover to fake it around pros.

He eased out of the tan suitcoat, hung it over a chair and started to unpack, leaving most of his things, including a spare .38 Colt and several boxes of ammunition, in the suitcase. He hung his clothes-bags in the closet and thought about taking a shower, but then decided against it. He was too tired for that, so he flopped down on the bed and closed his eyes. He yawned, stretched his arms behind him, brushing against the phone book on the nightstand in back of him. He pulled the book down from the stand and looked up the Globe’s number.

When he got the newsroom Nolan asked to speak to Mr. Davis. Mr. Davis was not in, was there a message? No message, he could call Mr. Davis later.

There was a knock and it was Barnes with the papers. Nolan thanked him and took the stack from him and laid it on the bed.

He leafed through the papers till he came to one published the day after Irene’s death. The notes Tisor had given him were fairly complete, but any extra information might help. Besides, Tisor hadn’t even come to Chelsey to pick up the body; Irene Tisor’s body had journeyed home by train.

There were three articles on the death, one published the evening after she died, one the next evening and one the evening after that. The article printed the evening after her death wryly commented that “certain factions in Chelsey have made LSD, among other items, easily accessible to C.U. students.” The by-line read Hal Davis. The other two articles, under the same by-line, played down the incident, largely ignoring the LSD and its implications and labeling the death “apparent suicide.”

A white-wash job.

And Nolan could guess who was holding the brush.

The Chelsey arm of Franco-Goldstein enterprises was trying to slip the LSD part of the story under a rock to keep federal men out. This meant, one way or another, the Family branch in Chelsey had gotten to Hal Davis.

Nolan lit another cigarette and remembered George Franco.

Would it be stupid to reveal himself to a Franco?

Nolan had never met George and had only seen him once, at a cocktail party some years ago at Sam Franco’s. Nolan knew George by reputation, though, and from what he’d heard about the younger Franco, it should take only a few screws put to him to make him tell his life story. George had made a name for himself as a coward, and not a smart coward at that. Some meaningful threats might both pry information from George and keep his mouth shut about Nolan’s presence in Chelsey.

Nolan tried the Globe again, couldn’t get Davis, then got up from bed and, phone book under his arm, left the room, grabbing his tan suitcoat from the chair. He went out to the Lincoln, climbed in and roared toward Chelsey.

As he drove through the shaded residential streets, Nolan felt Chelsey was more a postcard than a city. He had heard there was a slum in Chelsey, but that he would have to see to believe.

In seven minutes he reached the downtown area. It was a typical small-town business district, built around a square, with all the businesses enclosing a quaint crumbling courthouse which stood in the center collecting dust. There were people bundled warmly against the cold Illinois wind, rushing up and down the sidewalks, visibly pained to move that quickly. Birds and bird-dung clung to the courthouse and Nolan wondered why the hell they didn’t fly south or something. At first Nolan didn’t see any old men in front of the courthouse, as he expected there to be, but after he parked his car and walked half-way around the square, he saw them at last. They were sitting in the shade of a large leafy tree, bench-bound, tobacco-mouthed, as motionless as the twin Civil War cannons in front of them.

He checked Dillon’s Tap, found it empty except for a blowsy redhead talking to the bartender. No Davis, no other reporters to ask about Davis.

He didn’t find Davis or colleagues in the Eastgate Tavern, where two on-duty policemen were drinking beer. He didn’t want to talk to them.

Nolan went back to his rented Lincoln and headed toward the Chelsey University campus, which lay beyond the downtown district. The downtown continued on three streets north of the square, made up primarily of collegiate shops and bookstores; then the campus lay just after that, on a bluff overlooking the Chelsey River.

The river was little more than a wide stream, with several footbridges and four traffic bridges crossing it. The rest of Chelsey and the C.U. campus, football stadium included, were on the other side of the river. Nolan drove over the Front Street bridge and saw a large unlit neon saying Big 7. He pulled into the parking lot and went in.

The place was dark and smoke hung over it like a gray cloud. Nolan couldn’t tell whether or not, as the motel manager had said, it was a fairly nice restaurant, simply because he couldn’t see it very well. All he could see clearly were football action shots trying in vain to break the monotony of the room’s pine-paneled walls. Then he spotted two men in wrinkled suits, one blue and one grey, standing at the bar arguing over a long dead play out of a long dead Rose Bowl game.

“Excuse me,” Nolan said.

The two guys stopped mid-play and gave Nolan twin what-the-hell-do-you-want sneers.

Nolan said, “Where can I find Hal Davis?”

The two guys looked at each other in acknowledgment of Nolan being a stranger to both of them. Then one of the guys, a chunky ex-high school tackle perhaps, said, “Maybe Hal Davis likes privacy. Maybe he don’t care to be found.”

“If you know where he is, I’d appreciate it you tell me.”

The guy looked at Nolan, looked at Nolan’s eyes.

“He’s over at the corner table. Facin’ the wall.”

Nolan nodded.

The two men returned to the play and Nolan headed for the corner table, where a sandy-haired man of around fifty sat nursing a glass of bourbon.

“Mr. Davis?”

He glanced up. His eyes were blood-shot and heavily bagged and the hands around the glass were shaky. He wasn’t drunk, but he wished he was. His lips barely moved as he said, “I don’t know you, mister.”

“My name’s Webb. Care if I sit?”

“I don’t care period.”

Nolan sat. He looked at Davis, caught the man’s eyes and held them. “You look like a man who got pushed and didn’t like it.”

Davis shook Nolan’s gaze and stared into his glass of bourbon. “I said I don’t know you, Webb. I think maybe I don’t want to know you.”

Nolan shrugged. “I’m telling people I’m a magazine writer, Mr. Davis. But that’s not who I am or why I came to Chelsey.”

“Why, then? You come to drop out and turn on?”

“I’m a private investigator,” Nolan told him. “From Philadelphia. I been hired by a client... who’ll remain nameless of course... to contact a Mr. George Franco.”

Davis said, “You know something, Webb? You don’t look like a private investigator to me. You look like a hood. You got something under your left armpit besides hair, your fancy suit isn’t cut so well that I can’t tell that. What’s it you’re after in Chelsey? You got a contract on Franco?”

“No. What if I did?”

“I wouldn’t give a damn.”

“You getting shoved around by the Boys, Mr. Davis?”

“The boys? What boys are those?”

So, Nolan thought, maybe Davis doesn’t know about the Chelsey hook-up with the Chicago outfit; maybe he’s just a small-town newsman getting pressured by “local hoods.”

Nolan said, “Let me put it this way... are George Franco and his associates telling you what to say in the Globe?”

“You mean what not to say, don’t you? Sure, they’re tellin’ me, and they got some pretty goddamn persuasive ways of telling, too.”

“I want Franco’s address.”

Davis downed the dregs of the bourbon. He smiled; one of his front teeth was chipped in half. “I’ll get it capped one of these days,” he said, gesturing to it with the emptied shot glass. “For a while I’m leavin’ it like this, so I can look in the mirror when I get up mornings and think about what a chicken-shit I am.”

Nolan said, “Franco’s address.”

Davis shook his head. “It’s not an address. It doesn’t exist, not officially, anyway. It’s a fancy penthouse deal, only it’s above a drug store. Berry Drug, right down on the square, across from the courthouse and cannons. There’s a fire escape in back that’ll lead you to a bedroom window.”

“Any bars on it?”

“Nope. Just a regular glass window. They don’t bother protecting fat George that much. Thinks his place is a real secret.”

“Is it?”

“It was.” He grinned his air-conditioned grin. “But it looks like the secret’s out, doesn’t it?”

Nolan dropped a twenty on the table and left.

He drove back across the bridge and parked his car several blocks away from Berry Drug. He went into a hardware store and bought a glass-cutter, then walked to the courthouse lawn. He sat on one of the benches by an old man who smelled like a urinal and watched the drug store for about an hour. A black-haired whore in a short black shift came out, then a thin man in a powder-blue suit went in and came back out in less than ten minutes.

After a while Nolan strolled around behind the drug store and climbed the fire escape and used the glass-cutter on the window. It was broad daylight, but the ’scape was at an angle and Nolan figured a daytime attack would be less expected.

He slipped into the plush red-carpeted flat, and crept over to the bed, where an extremely fat man in a silk dressing gown lay on his stomach, half-asleep and talking to himself.

Nolan got out his .38 and, after a brief exchange of conversation, introduced himself to George Franco. “My name’s Nolan.” It was four fifteen p.m.

Back in Peoria Sid Tisor was wondering if Nolan had reached Chelsey yet.

2

Nolan strolled over to the bar, laid his gun on the counter and helped himself to a shot of Jim Beam. He glanced over at George, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, his plump fists clenching the bedspread. George’s forehead was beaded with sweat; his mouth hung loosely above two double chins.

Nolan asked George if he wanted a drink.

George tried to answer yes but couldn’t spit it out.

Nolan, seeing an open bottle of Haig and Haig on the counter, poured a healthy glass of Scotch and dropped in an ice cube. He retrieved his .38 from the counter and took the glass of Scotch to George, who grabbed for it and began sloshing it down.

Nolan dragged a chair to the bed and sat.

“Let’s talk, George.”

“You must be out of your mind!”

“You’re not the first to suggest that.”

“What are you doing here? What do you want?”

Nolan shrugged. “I just want to ‘rap.’”

“When my brother Charlie finds out about you bein’ in Chelsey...”

Nolan lifted the .38 and let him look down the long barrel. “Your brother isn’t going to find out, George. And neither are any of your associates.”

George’s eyes golf-balled. “You... you think you can threaten me? Me? I’m a Franco!”

Nolan, his mouth a grim line, said, “So was Sam.”

George Franco looked into the flint grey eyes of the man who had murdered Sam Franco. He swallowed hard.

Nolan lowered the .38. “I won’t hurt you unless I have to. I got a hunch this deal doesn’t have a lot to do with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

Nolan finished the whiskey, went back and poured another. “I’m here to look into a matter. The matter may concern the Chelsey operation you’re involved in. And it may not.”

George was trembling, like a huge bowl of fleshy gelatin. “What... what do you want from me?”

“Information.”

“What kind?”

“Different kinds. Let’s start with a name. Irene Tisor. What does that name mean to you?”

“A girl, that’s all.”

“What about her?”

“She fell off a building.”

“Is that all you know about her?”

“She was on LSD.”

“Did she fall?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said she fell.”

“She could have.”

“Was she pushed?”

“I don’t know.”

“What connection does your operation have with her death?”

“She got the LSD from one of our sellers, I suppose. So we put on some pressure to cover it up. We didn’t want feds coming in and bothering us.”

“What kind of pressure, George?”

“I don’t know.”

“Had you ever heard the name Irene Tisor before?”

“No... I got a brother-in-law named Tisor. You probably knew him from Chicago. Sid Tisor?”

“I heard the name before,” Nolan said.

“You don’t suppose Irene Tisor was a relative? His kid or something?”

“You tell me.”

“Naw, I don’t think so. Back in the old days, Sid was nicer to me than a lot of people; we keep in touch. Just last week we talked on the phone and he didn’t say a word about any relative of his being killed in Chelsey.”

Nolan grunted noncommittally. Well, looked like George didn’t connect Irene to Sid. But then how much did George really know about the operation?

“What kind of money you getting for one hit of LSD?”

George said, “I don’t know.”

“You selling pot?”

“Sure.”

“How much is a lid going for?”

“I don’t know.”

“You selling heroin?”

“I don’t know.”

“What percent of your income’s from selling alcohol to underage buyers?”

“I don’t know.”

“How about barbiturates? Amphetamines?”

“I don’t know.”

Nolan rose, balled his fist and resisted the urge to splatter fat George all over the fancy apartment. He holstered the .38 and got out his cigarettes. Lighting one, he said, “You don’t have a goddamn thing to do with the operation, do you, George?”

George’s face flushed. “I do so! I... I...”

“You what?”

“I supervise! I do a lot of things... I...”

Nolan ignored him. “Who’s the boss?” George didn’t say anything. “Somebody’s got to run the show. Who is it?”

George remained silent.

Nolan took out the gun again, disgustedly. “Who, George?”

George’s face turned blue.

“I’m going to have to get nasty, now, George.”

“It’s Elliot!” he sputtered. “Elliot, Elliot.”

“Elliot. He’s your... secretary?” Nolan searched his mind for the expression Tisor had used in describing the position.

“Yes, my financial secretary.”

“What’s his full name?”

“Irwin Taylor Elliot.”

“Where’s he live?”

“In town, on Fairport Drive. It’s a fancy residential district. High rent.”

“What’s his address?”

“I don’t know... but it’s in the phone book.”

“He’s got a listed number?”

“He’s got a real estate agency that fronts him.”

“Is there anybody else with power in town?”

“Just Elliot’s cousin — the police chief.”

“That’s handy. What’s his name?”

“Saunders. Phil Saunders.”

Nolan drew on the cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke. “If you’re holding out any information, George, it’s best you tell me now.”

George shook his head no. “I don’t know nothing else.”

“You’re a good boy, George.” Nolan walked around the room for a few minutes, playing mental ping-pong. Then he said, “How do you get in this place... besides up the fire escape?”

“Through a door next to the can downstairs, in the drug store.”

“Fitting. Any of your men down there?”

“During store hours there’s always either a clerk or an assistant pharmacist on duty downstairs to watch out for me.” George’s face twisted bitterly for a moment. “Sure do a hell of a job protecting me, don’t they?”

“Swell,” Nolan agreed. “You got a phone here?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the number?”

“CH7-2037. Why?”

“Is it bugged?”

“I don’t think so. Why would they bother checking up on me?”

“You got a point.” Nolan repeated the number to himself silently. “You’ll be hearing from me now and then, George.”

George looked pleadingly at Nolan. “Look, I don’t know anything. You aren’t gonna get any good out of hurting me. You... you aren’t gonna... do anything to me... are you?”

Nolan hunted for an ash tray, found one, stabbed out his cigarette. “I won’t touch you, George, unless you cross me. But finger me and you’re dead.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t...”

“I should put a bullet in your head right now, when I think of it. You’re a bad risk.”

“Oh, no, you can’t...”

“I can, and I have. I killed six men in the past eight years. Not to mention the ones I left wounded.”

“I never did anything to you, Nolan...”

“Don’t sic anybody on me and we’ll get along fine. But you tell your brother about me, or that Elliot, or anyone else, and you’ll die wishing you hadn’t.”

“Nolan, I wouldn’t...”

“Shut up. You don’t think I’m working alone, do you?”

“What?”

“I got three men watching you,” Nolan lied. “They’ll kill you the moment anybody puts a hand on me. So getting rid of me would only assure you of dying.”

George lay back on the bed and moaned. He looked like a beached whale, only whales didn’t sweat.

Nolan finished his whiskey and headed for the window.

3

The national anthem woke Nolan and he sat up on the bed and checked his watch. Quarter after twelve. He had returned to the Travel Nest after eating at the steak house across the way and watched television until it put him to sleep. Now he felt wide awake; and his shoulders, his back, felt tense.

He got out of the now-wrinkled tan suit and put on his black swim trunks. He grabbed up a pack of cigarettes and matches, draped a towel over his shoulders and headed down the hall.

The door leading into the pool was closed but not locked. A sign hung on it reading “Life Guard on Duty 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. The management cannot be responsible for after-hour swimmers. Swim only at your own risk. T. C. Barnes, Manager.”

It was a small pool, filling most of a small room. From the door to the pool was an area where people could stretch out beach towels and dump their belongings while swimming. Other than that initial area beyond the entrance, there was a scant three feet around the pool’s edge bordering it. Paintings of sea horses rode the blue walls, and the air hung thick with heat and chlorine.

He dove in the deep end and swam several laps and turned over on his back for a while; then he climbed out and dove off the little diving board at the far end of the pool.

Swimming on his back again, Nolan relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of the pool, the all-encompassing feeling of the water around him. Even in a thimble like this, Nolan got a sensation of freedom when swimming. It gave him room to reach out.

Several minutes later Nolan heard the door open. Another late swimmer, a young lady perhaps? That’d be nice, Nolan thought, floating on his back. Then his fantasy was over before it began when his ears reported heavy, plodding footsteps splashing in the dampness of the room.

“Everybody out of the pool,” a harsh voice grated. Nolan swam to one side, set his hands in the gutters and pushed himself out. He stood and looked at the intruders.

Two men, obviously local color. A Mutt and Jeff combination.

The short one, a pale, bloodless-looking specimen, owned the low voice. He wore a pink shirt with red pin-stripes, with a thin black tie loosened around the collar, and a gold sportcoat. His brown slacks were uncuffed and ended a little high over his white socks and brown shoes.

His companion was a tall and beefy dope who wore a grey business suit a size too small. His eyes were expressionless brown marbles under a sloping forehead; his features were hard and battered, his cheeks acned. His mouth, though, was surprisingly delicate, almost feminine.

The short one said, “Mr. Webb? You are Mr. Webb, I assume?” He had dark plastered-down hair with motorcycle sideburns to contrast his chalky complexion. A hick trying to look hip.

“I’m Webb. What do you want?”

The big ox nudged his partner’s shoulder and smirked. The smaller man, who seemed to think himself intelligent, smiled sneeringly at Nolan.

“Care to let me in on the joke?”

“You are the joke, Mr. Webb,” the short one said, then he and ox shared a round of laughter.

Nolan remained calm. This was a situation he could handle, but he was pissed with himself for allowing it to happen. Amateurs, damn it, he’d let amateurs catch up with him. And the maddening thing was he too had acted like an amateur, by coming unarmed for his impromptu late-night swim.

“Allow me to make an introduction,” the side-burned spokesman said. “I’m Dinneck. And my partner here is Tulip.”

“A rose by any other name,” Nolan said.

“Is he making fun of me, Dinneck?”

“Tulip, keep quiet, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dinneck smiled again, the smile of a guy who sells watches on a corner. He said, “Mr. Webb, we don’t want any trouble from you. All we want is answers.”

Nolan said, “Who sent you? George Franco?”

Dinneck nodded to Tulip, who removed his coat. Tulip’s chest was massive and his short-sleeved white shirt was banded by a leather strap which supported a shoulder holster cradling a .45. Tulip folded his muscular arms like a guard protecting a Sultan’s harem. There was an innocent smile planted on his bud of a mouth.

Dinneck said, “From now on, Mr. Webb, I’ll ask the questions.”

“Well ask, then,” Nolan snapped, leaning against the wall, still a good fifteen feet away from them. Voices echoed in here. “I don’t like standing here dripping wet.”

“Yeah,” Dinneck grinned. “You might catch your death.”

Tulip said, “Might catch his death,” and laughed to himself for a moment.

“Why don’t you just walk over here, Mr. Webb... slowly... and stand next to Tulip and me.”

Nolan shrugged and joined them, picked up his towel and began to dry off.

“Now, Mr. Webb, would you call it common for a journalist from Philadelphia to travel in the company of a thirty-eight caliber revolver?”

“You missed one, Dinneck. I carry two.”

“You also carry ammunition, don’t you? Does a reporter commonly hide a box of ammunition in the false bottom of his shaving kit?”

“You’re a sharp kid, Dinneck. Why does a sharp kid like you dress in the dark?”

Tulip said, “I think he’s a smart-ass.”

Dinneck nodded. “I think you’re right.” Dinneck backhanded Nolan and Nolan instinctively leveled Dinneck with a right cross to the mouth.

Dinneck pushed himself up off the slippery tile floor and touched his bloodied lips. His face turned a glowing red. He motioned to Tulip, who drew the .45.

Nolan said, “That’s a noisy gun, friend.”

Dinneck said, “What the hell’s a little noise between friends? Our car is just down the steps. We can pump a slug into you and be gone so fast your body’ll still be warm by the time we’re snug in bed.”

Nolan’s mouth formed his tight smile. “Together?”

Tulip slapped the .45 against the side of Nolan’s head. Nolan moved fast enough to lessen the blow, but fell back against the wall just the same, his head spinning. He wiped blood from his ear and thought bad thoughts.

Dinneck said, “We heard you were a newspaper reporter, Mr. Webb, is that right?”

“It’s a magazine, and go fuck yourself.”

Tulip started back toward Nolan with the .45 in hand and Nolan sent a fist flying into Tulip’s gentle mouth. Tulip yiped and clubbed Nolan with the .45 again and kicked him in the back as he went down. From the floor Nolan could see Tulip spitting out a tooth. Just then Dinneck kicked Nolan in the kidney and pain won him.

He opened his eyes a few seconds later and saw Dinneck standing above him, contemplating kicking him again. Nolan grabbed Dinneck by the right heel and heaved him, hard enough, he hoped, to land Dinneck on his tail bone, snap it and kill him. But Tulip was there to brace Dinneck’s fall, and train the .45 on Nolan’s head.

Nolan reached for his towel and, sitting in a puddle of pool water and his own blood, cleaned off his face while Dinneck spat questions.

“What were you nosing around the Big Seven for? What did Hal Davis tell you?”

Nolan said, “Ask Davis.”

Dinneck said, “He cut out. Last he was seen was talking to you. We checked his apartment and all his things were gone. His car, too. Didn’t even leave a forwarding address at the Globe. Why did you visit George Franco?”

“You want the truth?”

“Yeah, try the truth for a change.”

“I’m doing a story on the Chelsey hippie scene. For my magazine. I heard rumors that Franco was a racket boss peddling LSD to the college crowd.”

Dinneck and Tulip glanced at each other as if they almost believed Nolan’s story.

Dinneck said, “I can just about buy you as a reporter, Webb... just about, but not quite. I picture you more as a man running. That’s the way you travel, anyway. Or hunting, maybe. Which are you, Webb? Hunter or hunted?”

“Maybe I’m neither,” Nolan said. Or maybe both.

“Two .38’s. Half a dozen boxes of cartridges. Unmarked clothing, not a laundry mark or a label or anything. Rented car. No address beyond Earl Webb, Philadelphia, on the motel register. Not any one thing to identify you as a living human being.”

“So what?”

“So... so I begin to think you’re a dangerous man, Mr. Webb. And I don’t think your presence in Chelsey benefits my employers.”

Nolan said, “What do I get? Sunrise to get out of town?”

“You’re a man with a sense of humor, Mr. Webb. Maybe you’ll like this, just for laughs...”

Nolan rose up, his muscles tensed, his back arched like a cat’s.

“Tulip, toss me the .45 and we’ll give Mr. Webb here a swimming lesson.”

As the ox was handing the gun to Dinneck, Nolan snapped his towel in Dinneck’s face like a whip. It made a loud crack as it bit flesh. Dinneck clutched his face and screamed, “My eyes! My God, my eyes!”

The .45 skittered across the tile floor. Nolan leaped for it, grabbed it. He whirled and saw Tulip coming like a truck. He waited till the ox was a foot away, then smacked the barrel of the .45 across Tulip’s left temple. Tulip cried out softly and pitched backward, stumbling into the pool; he hit the water hard but got lucky and didn’t crack his head on the cement. Water geysered upon the big man’s impact. He wound up in the shallow section, the top half of him hanging over the side of the pool, semi-conscious, his petal-like mouth sucking for air.

Dinneck was on the floor, screaming, fingers clawing his face.

Nolan slapped him. “Shut the fuck up, before the whole motel’s in here.”

Dinneck quieted, still a blind man, his eyes squeezed together and his face slick with tears.

“Who sent you, Dinneck?”

“I’ll... I’ll never tell you... you lousy cocksucker!”

Nolan seized Dinneck by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to the pool. Nolan knelt him down and said, “Now I’m going to ask you some questions.”

Dinneck kept swearing at Nolan and Nolan pushed Dinneck’s head under water for sixty seconds. Dinneck came up gasping for air.

“Who sent you, Dinneck? George?”

“You son-of-a-bitch, Webb, goddamn you...”

Nolan put him back under for another minute. When he brought Dinneck back up he had quit talking, but his breath was heavy and his unconsciousness only a ruse.

“Did George Franco send you?”

Dinneck kept his eyes closed, tried to act unconscious.

“The next time I put you under,” Nolan said, “you won’t be coming back up.”

No response.

Nolan shrugged and pushed Dinneck toward the water. Dinneck screamed, “No!” and Nolan hesitated before dunking him again, holding him an inch above the water.

“Who, Dinneck?”

“Not George, he doesn’t know anything about this... George claims he never saw you!”

“You still haven’t said who, Dinneck.”

“Elliot, his name is Elliot! He’s the one in charge... George doesn’t have any power.”

Nolan released Dinneck and the man fell in a heap at the pool’s edge.

Nolan grabbed up his towel, slung it around his shoulders and headed for the door. His cigarettes were in a small puddle in the corner so he let them lay.

“You... you gonna leave us? Just like that?”

Nolan turned toward the voice. Tulip, coming out of his stupor, was standing in the pool, looking puzzled and wet.

“I’m not going to kiss you good night.”

Tulip, dripping wet, looking ridiculous, pouted.

“And get out of those clothes, Tulip. You’ll catch your death.”

Tulip crawled out of the pool. He was hefting his friend Dinneck over his shoulder as Nolan left.

Back in the room, door locked, Nolan laid a loaded .38 on the nightstand by his bed, then washed up and treated his head wounds. Next time he wanted to relax, he thought bitterly, he’d take a hot shower. Hell with swimming.

He was asleep when his head hit the pillow.

4

She wore a black beret, had dark blonde hair and was smoking a cigar. She was looking into the sun, squinting, so it was hard to tell if her features were hard or soft. Her body was bony, though she had breasts, and she was leaning against a ’30’s vintage Ford, holding a revolver on her hip. The woman was staring at Nolan from a grainy, black-and-white poster that was a yard high and two feet wide.

The poster was tacked onto a crumbling plaster wall in a room in what had once been a fraternity house. No one Nolan spoke with in the house seemed to know what fraternity it had been — just that about four years before the frat had been thrown off campus for holding one wild party too many — and since had been claimed by assorted Chelsey U males on the hippie kick. The fraternity symbols over the door were Greek to Nolan.

The room in which Nolan stood staring back at the stern female face was inhabited by a Jesus Christ in sunglasses and blue jeans. Underneath a beard that looked like a Fuller Brush gotten out of hand, the thin young man sported love beads and no shirt. Outside of the beard and shoulder-length locks his body was hairless as a grape.

“Doesn’t she just blow your mind?”

Nolan said, “Not really.”

“Bonnie Parker,” the young man said with awe. He wiped his nose with his forearm. “Now there was a real before-her-time freak.”

“Freak?”

“Right, man. Before her time. She and that Clyde really blew out their minds, didn’t they?”

“They blew minds out, all right.”

“Don’t believe what the press says about them, man! They were alienated from the Establishment, persecuted by society, victims of police brutality.”

“Oh.” Nolan glanced at the poster next to Bonnie Parker’s which was a psychedelic rendering in blue and green; as nearly as he could make out, it said, “Love and Peace Are All.”

“Some of the other freaks got pictures of the movie Bonnie up on the walls. Not me. I insist on the genuine article.”

“Swell,” Nolan said. He lit a cigarette and said, “Got a name?”

“Me?”

“You.”

Jesus thought for a moment, scratched his beard. “I’m called Zig-Zag.”

“Good,” Nolan said. “You’re the one I was looking for.”

Nolan strolled around the room, glanced at other posters hanging on the deteriorating green plaster walls. Dr. Timothy Leary. Fu Manchu For Mayor. The Mothers of Invention. Kill a Commie For Christ.

There were some paperback books in one corner, several ashtrays scattered around, a few blankets by the window. Alongside one wall a radiator spat underneath Dr. Leary’s picture. The air was singed with incense.

“Irene Tisor,” Nolan said. He looked out the window and watched the Chelsey River reflect the sun.

“What?”

“Irene Tisor. Did you know her?”

The mass of hair nodded yes.

“What happened to her?”

“Bad trip.”

“Bad trip?”

“A down trip, straight down.”

“Fell?”

“I wasn’t there, man. Nobody was there but her... and she must’ve not been all there herself.”

“What’s the word?”

“Huh?”

“What do people say about it?”

“Nothin’... just that Irene thought she could fly. Guess she couldn’t. Bummer.”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“So-so.”

“How’d you know her?”

“She hung around the Third Eye. We talked.”

The Third Eye was a nightclub frequented by Chelsey’s would-be hippie element. The local underground newspaper was also called the Third Eye and the club was its editorial headquarters. Zig-Zag was the sixth person Nolan had spoken to that morning, and all had mentioned Irene as a regular at the Third Eye.

“What’d she like to talk about?”

“Life.”

“Life.”

“That’s right, man. Philosophy one-oh-one.”

“What’d she think of it?”

“Of what?”

“Life. What’d she think of it?”

Zig-Zag flashed a yellow grin. “Groovy.”

Right.

“Was Irene Tisor one of you?”

Zig-Zag flashed the grin again. “I give, man. What am I?”

“Whatever the hell you call it. Hippie.”

“I’m not a hippie, that’s a label hung on my generation by a biased press!”

“Flower child, love generation, freak, whatever. Was she one of you?”

“Well, in spirit, man... but in spirit only. There’s a lot of us, we live kind of foot to mouth, know what I mean? We don’t want for much, but hell, we don’t want much.”

“Irene lived pretty good?”

“Better than that. She had an apartment, I hear, with that straight Trask chick.”

“But she was thick with your crowd?”

“She sympathized. She heard the music, all right, she just couldn’t take her clothes off and dance.”

“She heard enough to dance off a building.” Nolan walked over to Dr. Leary’s picture. Down the hall somebody was playing a Joan Baez record, and though Nolan didn’t recognize the voice and was no judge of music, he knew what he didn’t like. Nolan ground out his cigarette in Leary’s bleary left eye.

“Hey, man, what the fuck you doin’, there!” Zig-Zag got up and started toward Nolan, flexing what muscle there was on his skeletal frame.

Nolan’s mouth became a humorless line. “You’re the love generation, remember?”

Zig-Zag brushed the ashes off Leary’s face and said, “What is it buggin’ you, man? You come in here all straight and polite, then you get nasty. What’s buggin’ you?”

“Irene Tisor is dead. I want to know why.”

Zig-Zag shrugged. “Anybody can pull a bad trip, man.”

“Wasn’t she a ‘straight,’ like me?”

“She wasn’t all that straight, man. But I admit I never heard of her taking a trip before this. She got a little high once in a while, blew some pot, all right, but that’s all I ever saw her take on, besides a guy or two.”

“Did she take you on, Zig-Zag?”

“Naw, we just shot the shit. But there’s a guy in the band at the Third Eye she saw pretty regular.”

“What’s his name?”

“Broome. Talks with an English accent, but it’s phony.”

“Broome. Thanks.”

Nolan turned to leave, then stopped and said, “Pot cost much around here? LSD and the rest, it sock you much?”

“Cost of living’s high, man. Somebody’s making the bread in this town.”

“How about you, Zig-Zag? Your old man, what kind of business is he in?”

“My old man? He’s a banker.”

“I see. Where?”

“Little town north of Chicago.”

“You get this month’s check okay?”

“Huh? Oh. All right, so he sends me a little bread to help out. Big deal.”

Nolan nodded to Bonnie Parker’s picture. “You’re lucky Bonnie and Clyde were before their time, Zig-Zag.”

“Huh?”

“They were in the banking business, too.” Nolan turned and left the room, went down the stairs and out the ex-frat.

5

It was almost noon now and Nolan, sitting behind the wheel of the Lincoln, looked back on a morning of interviews in Chelsey’s quote hippie colony unquote. It had gotten him nothing more than a few scraps of information and a bad taste in his mouth.

He glanced over Sid Tisor’s notebook of information on daughter Irene. He had gone through the six male names in the notes — Zig-Zag and five others like him, and now all that remained were the two female names, Lyn Parks and Vicki Trask. There were probably dozens of Irene’s friends her father hadn’t known about — all Tisor had was a handful of names culled from Irene’s occasional letters.

Lyn Parks lived at the Chelsey Arms Hotel. Nolan parked a block away and walked toward it, passing several clusters of long haired men and women wearing the latest thing in wilted flowers, plastic love beads and Goodwill Store fashions. The block was run-down but distinctly not tenement — secondhand stores, burger joints, head shops — though in Chelsey, Nolan had a hunch this would be as close to a slum as he would get.

The Chelsey Arms Hotel had seen a better day. Its theater-style marquee bore faded red lettering that didn’t spell anything, and there was a worn carpet leading to double doors which said CAH proudly but faintly. Once in the lobby Nolan saw that the Arms was somewhat ramshackle but hardly in danger of being condemned; he’d stayed in worse. A desk clerk, in a rumpled gray suit, seemed to be trying to decide whether Nolan was a cop, or a salesman looking for female companionship.

There were Chelsey-style flower children all over the lobby, and Nolan sat in a chair across from two of them who were curled as one on a couch. Then he noticed the man standing by the cigar counter, pretending to look over the paperback rack.

Tulip.

Nolan got up and strolled to one of the pay phones to make his first contact with Vicki Trask. He would have to lose Tulip before he met with the girl, Irene’s roommate, the most important name on Tisor’s list. Nolan didn’t imagine it would make too great a first impression to have Tulip barge in and turn his visit into a brawl.

He looked her number up in the book, dropped a dime in the slot and dialed.

A soft but somehow icy voice answered. “This is Vicki.”

“Miss Trask, my name is Earl Webb. I’m a friend of Sid Tisor, Irene’s father.”

“Yes, of course. How is Mr. Tisor?”

“He’s upset about his daughter.”

“Well, I can understand... please send him my deepest sympathy.”

“I’m afraid I’m asking for more than sympathy, Miss Trask.”

“Oh?”

“I’m an investigator and I’m looking into Irene’s death. As a favor to Sid.”

“I see... that’s generous of you, mister, uh... what was it?”

“Webb.”

“Well, Mr. Webb, are you trying to say you’d like to see me and talk about Irene?”

“Yes.”

“Right now I’m on my lunch break and I’ll be going back to work in a few minutes, so...”

“Where do you work?”

“I’m a clerk at the bank.”

“Would dinner be possible?”

“Mr. Webb, I don’t even know you...”

“I’m ugly as sin. How about dinner?”

The voice till now cold turned warm in a gentle rush of laughter. “I must admit your voice is very intriguing...”

“What do you say?”

“... all right.”

“Good.”

“Might I suggest the Third Eye? The food isn’t bad, the drinks are suitably damp. And you could do a little investigating on the side. That’s where Irene spent much of her spare time, you know.”

“That’d be fine. Stop by at seven?”

“Okay. See you at seven. Dress casual.”

She hung up.

Nolan nearly smiled. A touch of promise in that voice? He glanced over at Tulip, who stood at the cigar stand engrossed in Modern Man.

Nolan stepped in an elevator, said, “Fourth floor,” to the elderly attendant. He wondered what Lyn Parks would look like. He wasn’t worried about Tulip. If Tulip cared to join him, that would be Tulip’s problem.

He knocked on door 419 and immediately heard movement inside. A voice cried out, “Come on in, it’s open.” A feminine voice.

Nolan opened the door.

The walls, pink crumbling plaster, were covered with posters and flower power graffiti. Doc Leary put in another appearance, Bonnie and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty/Faye Dunaway version this time) again rode the plaster. Also W. C. Fields, Mae West, a Fillmore Ballroom poster in purple announcing Moby Grape and the Grateful Dead, and several home-made efforts, including “Legalize Pot” and “If It Feels Good, Do It.” There were two bubbling “lava” lamps — one red, one blue.

Nolan sat on the bed, a bare mattress with a single crumpled blanket on it. He smoked a cigarette. The girl was in the john, making john noises. He sat and smoked and waited for her. For two minutes he stared at a chest of drawers that had been stripped of varnish and assaulted with red, green and blue spray paint.

The girl came in and was naked.

She held two small jars of body make-up in one hand, one yellow, one green, and was dabbing a tiny paint brush in the jar of yellow. There was a towel over her shoulder and her body dripped beads of water.

She said, “Oh, hi.”

Nolan said, “Hello.”

She appeared to be painting a yellow daisy around her navel. When he noticed this Nolan also noticed a few other things about her. Her stomach was attractively plump and her legs were long and well-fleshed. Her breasts were firm and large, with copper-colored nipples. Her face was scrubbed and pretty, surrounded by white-blonde hair cut in lengths and hanging down to partially conceal her full breasts. Her pubic triangle was dark brown.

“Have we met?” She asked, frowning in thought but not displeasure.

“No.”

“Did you lock the door?”

“No.”

“Lock it.”

“I’m here to talk, Miss Parks.”

“We’ll see. Lock the door.”

Nolan got up and night-latched the door. He returned to the bed and sat back down. The girl sat beside him and crossed her legs and worked on the daisy that was now halfway encircling her navel. He offered her a cigarette and she bounced up after an ash tray and came back and accepted it. He watched her alternately puff on the cigarette and stroke her stomach with the tiny brush. Her skin was pearled with moisture from the shower, her flesh looked soft, pink...

“I don’t pay,” Nolan said.

“I don’t charge.”

Nolan drew on the cigarette and collected his thoughts. Lyn Parks stunned him a bit. He’d never met a girl who paraded around naked painting flowers on her stomach. He glanced at her again and saw the sun spilling in the window on her white-blonde hair. She smiled like a madonna.

“Lyn... okay I call you Lyn?”

“Call me anything you like.”

But shy.

“Lyn, did you know Irene Tisor?”

“Yes. You have nice grey eyes, do you know that?”

“Were you a friend of hers?”

“I knew her, that’s all. Your shoulders sure are broad.”

“Did you hear anything strange about her death?”

“She took a bad trip. Have you ever been eaten alive?” She licked a pink tongue over her lips.

“Ever see her at the Third Eye?”

“All the time. Do you believe in free love?”

“Who’s Broome?”

“Lead singer with the Gurus.”

“The Gurus?”

“The band at the Eye. Don’t you like girls, mister?”

“Did Broome and Irene Tisor see a lot of each other?”

“Broome sees a lot of a lot of girls. You seeing enough?”

“Enough. Was Irene a regular tripper? What’d she take, LSD or STP or speed, or what?”

“I don’t know, none of it regular, I guess. Aren’t you interested in me at all?”

“I’m busy right now. Irene Tisor is dead and I want the details.”

She stroked the back of Nolan’s neck. “Why?”

“I’m writing a story on her.”

“Why not write a story on me?”

“We’ll see.”

“How do you like my daisy?” She had completed the flower and had added a green stem extending from her navel to the edge of the thatch of triangular brown.

Nolan got up, dropped his cigarette to the floor and ground it out with his toe. “Thanks for your trouble.”

“No trouble. You’re not going, are you?” She followed him to the door.

“That’s right.”

“So you’re a writer, huh?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

“Webb.”

“I guess you must not find me attractive, Mr. Webb.”

“You’re attractive.”

“Well then, Mr. Webb, come on, what’s to be afraid. It’s free.”

Nolan undid the night latch. “What if I were a killer?”

She stayed surface-cool but her eyes reflected a touch of fear. But just a touch. “What if you were?”

He couldn’t figure her. Well, if she didn’t scare easy, maybe she could be offended. “Ever hear the term clap? And I don’t mean applause.”

But that didn’t faze her, either. She just stretched her arms above her head and gave him another look at her lush breasts. She said, “It’s your loss.”

Nolan said, “Maybe.”

“You’ll be back.”

He said, “Maybe” again and went out.

He stood staring at the closed door. Was she for real? Did she really have the guts to let a stranger in her room and stroll around naked for him, offering him a piece of tail like it was a piece of candy?

Nolan shook his head. She couldn’t be on the level, she couldn’t have that kind of nerve.

But he’d remember her room number. She was right that, one way or another, he probably would be back.

6

Dinneck, who was in the john hiding in the shower, heard the door close behind the man he knew as Webb. Lyn Parks, still naked, came in and said, “Okay, lover boy, you can come out now.”

Dinneck stepped out of the stall, pleased to be freed from the damp, claustrophobic cell. He shook some of the moisture from his wrinkled, uncomfortable gold sportcoat and leaned his pork-pie hat back and scratched his head. As he slipped his .45 back into its shoulder holster, he glanced at Lyn Parks as she stooped nakedly to pick up her underwear. “That’s a sweet ass you got there, honey.”

She sneered at Dinneck as she wiggled into her panties. “It’s sweet all right, but you’ll never taste it.”

Dinneck laughed harshly and spat in the can. “So... your love child trip ends when that creep Webb cuts out.”

“Don’t try to talk like a hippie, Dinneck,” she said, pulling on ski pants that left her bare to the waist. “The only thing remotely hippie about you is your fat ass.”

A low blow, but just the same Dinneck flashed her what he considered to be his most charming smile. “Look, honey, you just made an easy fifty bucks, didn’t you? I mean, you didn’t even have to come across for Webb, just flirted a little and painted your cute tummy a flower. Now, wouldn’t you like to make an extra twenty-five for something really worth your while?”

She snapped her bra across Dinneck’s face and one of the metal snaps bit his cheek. “You were sent here to protect me, you little bastard, not to make passes. Now get the fuck out of here.”

“What’s eating you!”

“Not you, dork.” She whirled out of the john, hastily fastening the hooks on the bra.

Conceited little bitch, Dinneck thought, rubbing his cheek. He followed her out into the shabby mass of posters and pop art that was her apartment. He strolled over to the window and saw Webb leaving the Arms and heading down the street toward the dark blue Lincoln. In ten seconds he saw Tulip pick up Webb’s tail.

Dinneck looked back at Lyn Parks who was lying on the bed in ski pants and bra, sticking her shapely ass out at him in defiance, or so it seemed to Dinneck. She was staring at the door in a wistful sort of way, apparently wishing the man called Webb — whom she’d been paid to seduce and pump for information when he came calling on her — had taken her up on her offer.

Bitch, Dinneck thought. What the hell was it to her? She could obviously use the extra twenty-five he’d offered her. What was the difference if she gave Dinneck a quick roll in the hay?

“I suppose,” Dinneck said bitterly, gnawing on a toothpick, “it’s something else again when Broome tells you to diddle than when you diddle on your own.”

“Oh,” she said, not bothering to look back at him, “are you still here?”

Dinneck wanted her and he wanted her bad and he wanted her bad right now. “All right, baby, fifty bucks, that’s tops, fifty bucks!”

“Take your fifty bucks and stick it.”

“You bitch, you little bitch, if Broome okays Webb, why the hell not me?”

“What gives you the idea Broome okayed it?”

“You’re Broome’s woman, aren’t you?”

“Part-time. I’m my own woman full-time.”

“Well, if Broome didn’t ask you to give Webb the treatment, who the hell did?”

“The same guy that sent you, dummy.”

“You mean Elliot?”

“That’s right. God, you’re brilliant.”

Elliot had sent Dinneck to the girl that morning, to watch over her in case Webb got rough when he came calling. Late the night before, after washing their wounds from the pool battle with Webb, Dinneck and Tulip had reported their findings from the ransacking of Webb’s motel room to Elliot. In a notebook in Webb’s suitcase had been a list of names, one of which had been Lyn Parks. Since Lyn Parks supposedly belonged to Broome, one of Elliot’s hippie-town peddlers, Dinneck had assumed Elliot had gotten Broome’s permission before unleashing the Parks girl on Webb. Of course, Broome was a pretty weird character and probably wouldn’t give a damn who did what to his woman.

Dinneck chewed on his toothpick, thought for a while longer, then said, “How do you happen to do direct business with Mr. Elliot?”

“We’re acquainted.”

“You sell your goodies to him, too, do you?”

“I don’t sell myself, scumbag. I might rent out now and then, but as far as you’re concerned there’s no vacancy.”

“Your business connection with Elliot wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain ‘One-Thumb’ Gordon, now, would it?”

“How did you know that, you little bastard?” The girl was surprised to hear the name, as she should be, because it was the name of her father, who was an associate of the Boys. It was a well-kept secret that she was the uncontrollable offspring of Victor “One-Thumb” Gordon. She had threatened to expose her daddy’s Family ties unless he left her alone but well provided for.

“How the hell did you know about that?” she asked again.

Dinneck said, “Shut up, shut your damn mouth,” and wiped his sweaty forehead.

What a goddamn fool mistake that was, he told himself, letting information slip like that! He had gotten mad at the bitch and let his temper flare up and expose a piece of his cover. He had to remember to play smalltimer, and he hadn’t had any trouble in playing it till now. But if any of them — especially Elliot or anyone close to Elliot — saw through him, then he was washed up. If Elliot didn’t get him, Dinneck had no doubt his other employers would.

And that Webb, that son of a bitch, had he seen through the hick routine? He remembered the swimming pool and how Webb had held him under water till his lungs had nearly burst. Where had he seen that face before? As soon as he took care of his job in Chelsey, Dinneck promised himself he would take care of that bastard Webb. Whoever he really was.

Dinneck walked over to the bed and looked at the girl and thought to himself that if it wasn’t for the lousy clothes and the stooge role he’d had to assume, he might have gotten into that sweet bitch. As it was, the beautiful piece was sitting on the bed wishing she had made it with Webb.

“When you turned me down, sugar,” Dinneck said easily, “you missed something real fine.”

She kept her eyes fixed on the door. “I heard about you, needle dick. Remember a certain blonde waitress at the Eye? She says you don’t fuck for shit, and I believe her.”

Dinneck snarled and swung at her. She ducked and shot a small, sharp fist into his adam’s apple. While he stood choking with his hands wrapped around his throat, he saw her go to the dresser, pull open a drawer and withdraw a mostly empty vodka bottle. She broke it over the edge of the dresser and turned it into a formidable weapon. She held it up in a very unladylike manner, the slivers of glass catching bits of light and reflecting it around the room.

She said, “You’re going to leave now, and you’re going to leave lucky that I don’t call Elliot and tell him about the crap you’ve been giving me. The next time you come inside kicking range of me, you’ll leave wearing your balls for earrings.”

Dinneck choked some more and shuffled out.

She was a bitch, all right, he thought, but she was a tough bitch.

Dinneck, in the lobby, tossed away the toothpick and fought the sour taste in his mouth with a cigarette. He rubbed his throat gently, thought about how much fun he would have within the next day or two, when he’d be free to hit Webb and leave Miss Parks begging for more. But first he had to take care of the job he’d been hired to do in Chelsey.

He stepped up to the phone, dropped in a dime and dialed Elliot’s number.

Elliot was in his den reading Fortune when the phone rang.

It was Dinneck.

“Mr. Elliot, Webb wouldn’t go for Broome’s woman.”

Elliot said, “He wouldn’t dip into the delectable Miss Parks? Strange... did he give any reason for his celibacy?”

“Just smartass shit — ‘ever hear the word clap and I don’t mean applause.’ And so on.”

“A man of genuine wit, apparently. Did she get any information?”

“No, Mr. Elliot. He still says he’s a writer, with a magazine. His cover is consistent, anyway. And he keeps asking questions about that Tisor twat that did that two-and-a-half gainer off the Twill building a few weeks back. The Parks girl dodged his questions and tried to get friendly, but no go. She started in pumping for a little information, then out the door he went.”

“Is Tulip still following him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fine, Dinneck. Call back in three hours for further instructions.”

Elliot hung up and rose from the desk. He stared blankly at one of the mahogany-paneled walls for a moment, then went to the doorway and called for his servant Edward, a black gentleman of around fifty.

“Yes, Mr. Elliot?”

“Ginger ale, please, Edward. With ice.”

He went back to the desk and waited for the ginger ale. He drummed his fingers and glanced continually over his fireplace where, instead of a landscape, his license for real- estate brokerage hung. Behind the over-sized framed document was a wall-safe, where rested all the cash benefits netted by Elliot in the course of the Chelsey operation. Included was the last six weeks’ haul, as yet uncollected by the Boys’ periodic visitor.

Edward came in with the ginger ale; Elliot thanked him and spent a quarter hour sipping it. Then he rose, stripped off his herringbone suit and his pale blue shirt and his blue striped tie, and began to exercise. He exercised for twenty minutes, push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, jumping jacks, touching toes, knee bends, a few isometrics.

Then, exhausted, his bony frame slick with perspiration, he lay down on the black leather couch and tried to nap. And couldn’t. His heart was beating quickly from the exercise and he took deep breaths to slow it but his nerves kept it going fast and hard.

He walked to his desk, opened the drawer and removed a glossy photo.

Elliot looked at the photo, at the hard, lined face and the cold eyes and the emotionless mouth.

The man in the photo was named Nolan.

And Elliot, in a cold, shaky sweat, darted his eyes from the wall-safe to the phone, wondering if he dare call Charlie Franco and tell him about the man who called himself Webb.