Mourn The Living

1

At two till seven Nolan reached the address of Vicki Trask’s apartment and found himself facing a door sandwiched between the chrome-trimmed showroom windows of Chelsey Ford Sales. Just down the street was Berry Drug, the upper story of which was occupied by George Franco. As Nolan glanced in one of the windows at a red Mustang he caught the reflection of a dark green Impala creeping along the street behind him, a familiar Neanderthal figure at its wheel. Nolan lifted his hand easily toward the .38 tucked beneath the left armpit of his sportscoat and looked in the reflecting glass to see what Tulip was going to do.

Tulip drove on.

Nolan straightened the collar of his pale yellow shirt, wondered absently if he should have worn a tie. He pressed the bell and placed his hand over the knob, waiting for the lock to let go. A buzz signaled its release and he pushed the door open.

She stood a full steep flight of stairs above him, displaying long, sleek legs below a blue mini skirt and she called out, “Come on up, Mr. Webb, come on up.”

Nolan nodded and climbed the stairs. At the top he took the hand she held out to him and stepped into the loft apartment.

“Hello, Mr. Webb,” she said warmly, “come in, please.”

Her face was lovely, framed by long to-the-shoulder brown hair. She smiled invitingly and motioned him to a seat.

“Thanks,” he said, refusing her gesture to take his sportscoat; she wouldn’t be prepared to meet his .38.

“Drink?” she asked.

“Thanks no.”

“Abstainer?”

“Just early.”

“How about a beer?”

He nodded and she swept toward the bar, which was part of the kitchenette at the rear of the room. Nolan was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking comfortable modular chair; he glanced around the apartment. It was a single room, very spacious, the walls sporting impressionistic paintings, possibly originals. Overlooking the large room was a balcony divided in half between bedroom and artist’s studio.

“How do you like it?”

“It’s fine. You paint?”

“How’d you ever guess?” she laughed. “Yes, that’s my work defiling the walls.”

“Looks okay to me.”

She came back with two chilled cans of malt liquor and stood in front of him, openly watching him. He took advantage of her sizing him up and did the same to her. She was a beautiful girl, the shoulder-length brown hair complemented by large, child-like brown eyes. Her body, well displayed in the blue mini and a short-sleeved clinging white knit sweater, was lean but shapely, with high, ample breasts that didn’t quite go with her otherwise Twiggy-slender body. Her features were of an artistic, sensitive cast with a delicate, finely shaped nose and a soft-red blossom of a mouth.

Suddenly Nolan realized she was waiting for him to say something and the moment became slightly awkward.

He cleared his throat. “This really is a nice apartment.”

“Thank you,” she said, seating herself. “It’s rather large for one person, and kind of spooky now that Irene is gone.”

“I wonder if we could talk about Irene, if it doesn’t bother you.”

“No, that’s all right... directly to business, I see, Mr. Webb?” She laughed gently. “Not much for small talk, are you?”

“No. Call me Earl, will you?”

“Of course, Earl.” She looked at her hands, thinking to herself for a moment, then said, “I don’t suppose small talk would fit your personality, would it? I mean, since I already feel as though I know you.”

“How’s that?”

“Irene spoke of you often.”

Nolan’s hand tightened around the glass. How could Irene Tisor have known the non-existent Earl Webb? “I never met Irene.”

“Of course you have.” She laughed again. “I’m afraid I’m teasing, aren’t I?”

“I’m not much on humor, either.”

“I don’t know about that... Mr. Nolan.”

Nolan didn’t answer.

He reached over and gripped her hand and looked into her eyes and locked them with his. Fear took her face.

“I... I suppose... suppose you want me to explain.”

“Yes.”

She tried to smile, stay friendly, but his hard icy grip and the grey stone of his eyes froze her.

Her voice timid, forced, she said, “Irene and I, you see, were... extremely close... like sisters...”

She stopped to see if that explained anything, but all she got from Nolan was, “So?”

“Well, Mr. Nolan, she... she carried your picture in her billfold, all the time.”

Nolan hadn’t seen Irene Tisor for years, had hardly known her even then. There was no reason for her to carry him around with her. “Keep going, Vicki.”

“She idolized you, Mr. Nolan.”

“It’s Webb and why should she idolize me?”

“She said she knew you when she was growing up. That you were a... gangster... but that you had gotten out. By defying your bosses.”

“Suppose that’s true. Suppose I did know her when she was a kid. Who was Irene Tisor that a ‘gangster’ would know her?”

“Her father... her father was one himself.”

Nolan released her hand. “Okay, Vicki. Let’s suppose some more. Let’s suppose I did know Irene Tisor when she was growing up and her father was what you say he was. But let’s also suppose I hadn’t seen her for years and this part about me quitting the outfit didn’t happen till eight months ago.”

“She knew about it because her father helped you. Her father wasn’t a very brave man, she told me, but he had helped you. She remembered it. It made an impression.”

“How did she know?”

“Her father told her.”

That was like Sid. Nolan nodded and said, “All right.”

“All right what?”

“All right I believe you.”

There was another awkward moment, then she managed, “Well?”

“Well what?”

“What are you going to do?”

He picked up the can of malt liquor and finished it. “Decide whether or not to kill you.”

She sat back and let the air out of her as if someone had struck her in the stomach. She said, “Oh,” and shut up and sat, worry crawling over her face.

“Don’t sweat it,” Nolan said, with a faint trace of a smile. “I’m deciding against it.”

She sighed. Then, reprieve in hand, she attacked. “That’s very big of you, you bastard!”

Nolan grinned at her flatly. “See? I do have a sense of humor.”

She shook her head, not understanding him at all. Her eyes followed him as he rose and went to the door, opening it. She got up and joined him. She looked up at him with luminous brown eyes.

“Just my natural curiosity,” she said, tilting her head, “but why?”

“Why what?”

“Why in hell did you decide thumbs up for this skinny broad? I thought hard guys like you always threw the likes of me to the lions.”

Nolan hung onto the flat grin and shrugged. “I need you, for one thing.”

“How about another?”

“Well, you’re not the ‘type’ of person who ought to end up a casualty in the kind of war games I play. Anyway, I hate like hell to kill women.”

“That’s pretty goddamn chivalrous of you.” She smiled, a mild in-shock smile. “Does that mean you plan to keep me out of your life?”

“Hardly. Later on I’m going to ask you if I can move in with you for a day to two.”

That stopped her for a moment, then she got out a small, “Why?”

“I need a new place. There are some people who want to kill me and the motel I’m staying at now is getting to be a local landmark.”

She touched his shoulder. “You’re welcome to share this mausoleum with me for a while, Mr. Nolan.”

“Webb, remember?”

“All right. Earl? Earl it is. Is that all you want? A place to stay, I mean?”

“There’s more. I need information on Irene, of course.”

“Of course. Is that all?”

“We’ll see,” he said. “You need a coat?”

“Yes, just a second.” She came back with a bright pink trenchcoat and he helped her into it. She plopped a Bonnie Parker beret on her head and said, “You know the way to the Third Eye?”

He gave her half a grin. “You eat a mushroom or something, don’t you?”

“Maybe I should lead the way,” she said.

She led.

2

The third eye was a red two-story brick building along the Chelsey River, surrounded by a cement parking lot and assorted packs of young people, early teens to mid-twenties, milling about in cigarette-smoke clouds.

Nolan drove around front, in search of a parking place. He took a look at the brick building and said to Vicki Trask, who sat close by, “That looks about as psychedelic as an American Legion Hall.”

She nodded and said, “Or a little red school-house.”

At a remote corner of the parking lot, Nolan eased the Lincoln into a place it shouldn’t have fit and said, “What the hell’s the occasion?”

“You mean the crowd?”

“Yeah. It always like this?” He turned off the ignition, leaned back and fired a cigarette. As an afterthought he offered one to Vicki and she took it, speaking as she lit it from the match Nolan extended to her.

“It’s always crowded on nights when they have dances. The Eye runs four a week, and this is the biggest night of the four.”

“Why?”

“Tonight’s the night they let in the teeny-boppers. You’ll see as many high school age here as you will college, and one out of four of the hard-looking little broads you spot will be junior high.”

“Why’re the young ones restricted to one dance a week?”

“Because they run a bar — Beer Garden, they call it — on the other three nights. Serve beer and mixed drinks. And they serve anybody with enough money to buy.”

“Drinking age in Illinois is twenty-one.”

“Sure, but nobody cares. However, they don’t serve booze on the night they open the dance to high school and junior high age. Chelsey’s city fathers, pitiful guardians of virtue though they may be, even they would bitch about the Eye serving booze to that crowd.”

Nolan nodded and drew on the cigarette. He looked out the car window and stared blankly at the river. He watched the water reflect the street lights that ringed the entire area. The suggestion of a smile traced his lips.

“What are you thinking, Earl?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on... don’t tell me you couldn’t use a friend. You’re not that different from everybody else. Spill some emotion.”

Nolan shifted his eyes from the river to the glowing tip of his cigarette. “Emotion is usually a messy thing to spill.”

She edged closer, putting a warm hand against his cheek. “I’m lonely, too, Nolan.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s Webb.”

She shook her head, turned away. “Okay, okay. Be an asshole.”

He opened the car door and she slid out his side. He paused for a moment and looked out at the river again. It had reminded him of a private place of his, a cabin he maintained along a lake in Wisconsin, near a resort town. It was one of several places he kept up under the Earl Webb name, for the times between, the times of retreat from the game he played with the Boys. Even Nolan had need for moments of solitude, peace. He hadn’t meant to hurt Vicki Trask, but he didn’t know her well enough yet to share any secrets.

They walked along the riverfront, casually making their way toward the building a block away. They walked where the river water brushed up easily against the cement, lapping whitely at their feet. In spite of himself, Nolan found his hand squeezing hers and he smiled; she was lighting up warmly in response when Tulip stepped out from between two parked cars.

A scream caught in Vicki’s throat as she watched the apeish figure rise up and raise his arm to strike Nolan with the butt of a revolver.

Nolan dropped to the cement, the gun butt swishing by, cutting the air, and shot a foot into Tulip’s stomach. Tulip bounced backward and smashed against a red Chrysler, then slid to the pavement and lay still. Nolan picked the gun from Tulip’s fingers and hefted it — a .38 Smith & Wesson. Tulip made a move to get up and Nolan kicked him in the head. Tulip leaned back against the Chrysler and closed his eyes.

Nolan shook his head, said, “When they’re that stupid, they just don’t learn,” and tossed the gun out into the river.

They walked on toward the Eye, Nolan behaving as if nothing had happened. When they were half a block away from the entrance, she managed to breathlessly say, “Did... did you kill him?”

“Tulip?”

“Is that his name? Tulip?”

“Yes, that’s his name, and no, I didn’t kill him. I don’t think.”

She looked at him in fear and confusion and perhaps admiration and followed him toward the Eye.

There was a medium-sized neon sign over the door. It bore no lettering, just an abstract neon face with an extra eye in the center of its forehead. From the look of the brick, Nolan judged the building wasn’t over a year old. The kids milling about the entrance were ill-kempt, long-haired and smoked with an enthusiasm that would have curdled the blood of the American Cancer Society. Nolan saw no open use of marijuana, but he couldn’t rule it out — most all the kids were acting somewhat out of touch with reality.

Inside the door they pushed through a narrow hallway that was crowded with young girls, most of them thirteen-year-olds with thirty-year-old faces. One, who could have been twelve, extended her non-existent breasts to Nolan in offering, giving him a smirky pouty come-on look. Nolan gave her a gentle nudge and moved past with Vicki through the corridor.

At the end of the hall they came to a card table where a guy sat taking money. He looked like an ex-pug, was around thirty-five and had needed a shave two days before. Nolan looked at him carefully and paid the two-fifty per couple admission. Nolan smiled at the ex-pug, a phony smile Vicki hadn’t seen him use before, and moved on. Nolan followed Vicki as she went by a set of closed, windowless double doors, then trailed her down a flight of steps.

“Where the doors lead?”

“To the dance floor and Beer Garden.”

“Oh.”

She led him through two swinging doors into a shoddy room, cluttered with a dozen wooden tables.

“This it?” Nolan asked.

“Don’t let it fool you,” she told him, leading him to a small table by the wall, “the food’s not bad at all.”

Nolan looked around. The room was poorly lit and the walls concrete, painted black. The naked black concrete was partially dressed by pop-art paintings, Warhol and Lichtenstein prints and a few framed glossies, autographed, of big-time rock groups like the Jefferson Airplane and Vanilla Fudge. The tables were plain wood, black-painted and without cloths, and each was lit with a thick white candle stuck down into a central hole. The far end of the room, the bar, was better lighted, and the doors into the kitchen on either side of it let out some light once in a while. Other than that the room was a black sea of glowing red cigarette tips.

Nolan lit a fresh cigarette for both of them and they joined the sea of floating red spots.

“You notice the guy taking money as we came in upstairs?”

She nodded. “The one who looked like a prize-fighter?”

“That’s the one.”

“What about him?”

“I used to know him.”

“What? When did you know him?”

“A few years back. In Chicago.” He looked at her meaningfully.

“You mean you knew him when you worked for... ah...”

“Yeah.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“Hell no,” Nolan said. “He doesn’t recognize himself in a mirror. Punchy. Surprises the hell out of me he makes change.”

“What’s he doing here?”

Nolan stared out into the darkness and said, “You tell me.”

“How?”

“Start with the man who runs this place.”

“The manager, you mean?”

“Not the manager. The owner.”

“As a matter of fact... I have heard the owner’s name. I’ve heard Broome mention it. It’s Francis, or something like that.”

“Franco?”

“Yes, I think that’s it.”

Nolan withheld a smile. “Fat George.”

“I believe his first name is George, at that.”

A waitress came to the table, put down paper placemats and gave them water and silverware. She handed them menus and rolled back the paper on her order blank.

Vicki asked for a steak sandwich, dinner salad and coffee, and Nolan followed suit. They ordered drinks for their wait, Vicki a Tom Collins, Nolan bourbon and water.

Nolan sat, deep in thought, not noticing the silence maintained between them until the drinks arrived five minutes later.

Vicki cupped her drink, looking down into it, and said, “Do you want me to talk about Irene now?”

“That’d be fine.”

“Well... she was wild, Earl, not real bad or anything, but a little wild... I guess you could blame that on her father.”

“He isn’t what I’d call wild.”

“But... isn’t he... a gangster?”

“The deadliest weapon Sid Tisor ever held was a pencil.”

“Oh. Well, anyway, Irene and I used to be quite close. You have to be, to live together, share an apartment and all. Both of us were artistic, using that same balcony studio in the apartment. Some of those paintings on the apartment walls are hers. Once in a while she wouldn’t show up at night, she’d sleep over with some guy or other — no special one, there were several — but that was no big deal, I’m no virgin either. It was just this year that it started getting kind of bad. Not with guys or anything. It was when she started getting in tight with some of these would-be hippies. I went along with a lot of it, because some of these people are witty and pretty articulate. Fun to be with. For example, they meet upstairs here during the day, and put articles and cartoons and stuff together and put out a weekly underground-style newspaper, called the Third Eye.”

“What you’re trying to say is they’re not idiots.”

“Right. I’m friendly with some of them. If you leaf through some back copies of the Eye you’ll see some of my artwork. But not all of these Chelsey hippies are well, benign. Some of them are hangers-on, bums, drop-outs, acid-heads. Like this Broome creep who runs the band here. Irene fell in with characters like Broome this last month or so, and I saw less and less of her... she was experimenting that final week or so, with pills mostly. And she kept saying, threatening kind of, that she was going to try an LSD trip.”

“And?”

“She did, I guess.”

“You think it was suicide?”

“Her death? I think it was an accident.”

“Oh.”

“You sound almost disappointed, Earl.”

“To tell you the truth, Vicki, I don’t give a damn one way or another. I’m just doing Sid Tisor a favor.”

She looked at him, shocked for a moment. “But you knew her, didn’t you? Don’t you care what happened to her?”

He shrugged. “She’s dead. It begins and ends there. Nothing brings her back, it’s all a waste of time.”

She squinted at him, obviously straining to figure him out. “You came to this stinking little town to risk your life when you think it’s a waste of time?”

Nolan drew on the cigarette. “You don’t understand. It’s a debt I’m paying. Also, there’s a chance for me to make some money off the local hoods. But I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for Sid Tisor. He cares, and that’s what counts.”

“Because you owe him.”

“Because I owe him.”

Their meals were brought to them and they ate casually, speaking very little. She watched him, beginning to understand him better.

He paid the check and they went upstairs.

3

The large gymnasium-sized room was filled with cigarette smoke, unpleasant odors and grubbily dressed kids. Nolan stood with Vicki at the entrance and looked around, over the bobbing heads.

The black concrete walls were covered with psychedelic designs, vari-colored, abstract, formless but somehow sensual, done in fluorescent paints. The lighting consisted of rows of tubular black-light hanging from the ceiling; a strobe the size of a garbage can lid was suspended from the ceiling’s center, but it was turned off at the moment. At one end of the room, to the left of the double doors, was a shabby-looking bar with an over-head sign that read “Beer Garden.” It was open for business but serving soft drinks only. The other end of the room was engulfed by a huge, high-ceilinged stage piled with rock group equipment.

“Let’s take a look,” Nolan said.

Vicki nodded agreement and pushed through the crowd with Nolan till they reached the foot of the stage.

On stage were three massive amplifiers that looked to Nolan like black refrigerators. A double set of drums was perched on a tall platform, and various guitars were lying about as if discarded. An organ, red and black with chrome legs, faced out to the audience showing its reverse color black and white keyboard. Boom stands extended microphones over the organ and drums, and upright stands held three other mikes for the guitarists and lead singer. The voice amplification was evidently hooked up to two large horns the size of those found in football stadiums.

Vicki said, “You look at that stuff as though you know something about it.”

“I do,” Nolan told her. “Been everything from bouncer to manager in all kinds of clubs. You get to know musicians and their equipment.”

“What does that equipment tell you?”

“They have money,” he said, “and they’re going to be too goddamn loud.”

She laughed and a voice from behind them said, “That, my friend, is a matter of opinion.”

They turned and faced a six-foot figure resembling a coat-rack hung with garish clothes. The coat-rack spoke again, in a thick, unconvincing British accent. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to the gent, Miss Trask?”

She began to answer, but Nolan shushed her. “I can guess,” he said, looking the coat-rack up and down.

The boy was emaciated, the sunken-cheeked Rolling Stone type that shouted drug use. His hair was kinky-curly and ratted, making him look like a freaked-out Little Orphan Annie. His face was a collection of acne past and present, and the sunkenness of his cheeks was accented by a pointed nose and deep-socketed eyes that were a glazed sky-blue. He wore a grimy scarlet turtleneck with an orange fluorescent vest and a tarnished gold peace sign hung around his neck on a sweat-stained leather thong. His pants were black-and-white checked and hung loose, bell-bottomed, coming in skin-tight at the crotch.

“You’re Broome.”

A yellow smile flashed amiably. “Right you are, man.”

“Who picks out your threads,” Nolan asked, gesturing at Broome’s outfit, “Stevie Wonder?”

Broome’s laugh was as phony as his English accent. “You can’t bum me out, dad. I groove out at everything, everybody, everywhere. Bum me out? No way — I’m too happy, man.”

Nolan looked into Broome’s filmy, dilated eyes and silently agreed. “When you play your next set?”

Broome pulled a sleeve back, searched his wrist frantically for his watch, which turned out to be vintage Mickey Mouse on a loose strap. “In five, man, in five.”

Vicki pointed Nolan to the stage where the rest of Broome’s band was onstage already, four boys just as freakishly attired as Broome but apparently less wigged-out — they were tuning up, generally preparing to begin their next set. Teeny-boppers crowded in around the stage, shoving to get as close to the band as possible, and consequently pushing Nolan, Vicki and Broome into a corner to the left of the stage.

Broome was small-talking with Vicki and getting a cold- shoulder in return, Nolan having turned his back on both of them to watch the band set up. From the corner of his eye Nolan saw Broome light up a joint.

Nolan said, “That one of the things that makes you so happy?”

Broome lifted his shoulders and set them back down. “It helps a little, dad, you know?”

“I know.”

Broome spoke to Vicki. “I didn’t catch your friend’s name, love. What is it?”

“His name is Webb,” she told him. “Earl Webb.”

Broome looked at Nolan and something flickered behind the gone eyes. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, “I hear you get around, Mr. Webb, is that right? Do you get around?”

“I get around. How about you, Broome? Ever hear of Irene Tisor?”

Broome’s face tightened like a fist. “Maybe I have, Mr. Webb, maybe I have. So what?”

“What do you know about her?”

“She’s dead, haven’t you heard?”

“I heard.” Nolan smiled, the phony smile this time. “You just smoke that stuff, or do you sell it, too?”

“Hey, dad, I’m a musician.”

“Yeah, right. Who sold Irene Tisor that hit of acid? Whose music was she dancing to when she did her swan dive into the concrete?”

Broome dropped his joint to the floor and stomped it out, his face a scowl and in one motion thrust his middle finger in Nolan’s face defiantly.

“Make love not war,” Nolan reminded him.

Broome farted with his mouth and hopped up onto the stage, joining his band, keeping an aloof air when speaking to the other members, and mumbled “One, two, test” into his mike. He gave the band four beats with his booted heel and they roared into a long, loud freaky version of a rhythm and blues number called “In the Midnight Hour.” The amps screamed as if in pain, emitting feedback and distortion, while Broome tried to sound black, crouching over the microphone, as if making a kind of obscene love to it. The Gurus, his four man back-up band, seemed vaguely embarrassed by him, with the exception of the bass player, a blond youngster who wore a page-boy.

Toward the middle of the first number, somebody turned on the ceiling strobe, which flickered, flashed, making everything look like an acid-head’s version of a silent movie.

Nolan said, close to her ear, “I’ve had enough. I won’t get anything out of Broome. Not in public.”

Vicki followed Nolan as he burrowed through the crowd toward the doors. Above the deafening music she shouted, “Didn’t you get anything out of this evening?”

Nolan waited till they were in the hallway with the double-doors closed behind them before he answered. “I got a few things out of it. Saw some pot being smoked, and not just Broome. Did you smell it? Bittersweet, kind of. And I’d put a thousand bucks down that Broome is an addict.”

“An addict? Can you get addicted to LSD?”

“LSD, my ass. He’s riding the big horse. Heroin.”

“Heroin? Are you kidding?”

“I don’t kid much, Vicki. He may have Mickey Mouse on his wrist, but he’s got needle tracks on his arm.”

They moved back through the hallway, past the ex-pug who still didn’t recognize Nolan, and out into the open air. Just as they started to walk away from the Eye, Nolan spotted a familiar face — Lyn Parks, whom he’d last seen in her apartment, as she sat naked, painting a flower ’round her navel. As she went through the door she caught Nolan’s eye; she said nothing but her smile said everything.

Touch of jealousy in her voice, Vicki said, “They all give you the eye don’t they, teeny-boppers on up?”

“Sure,” Nolan said. “Even Broome.”

They walked back to the Lincoln and drove to Nolan’s motel.

4

Nolan pulled the Lincoln up to the Travel Nest’s office, where through the glass he could see Barnes, the manager, at the desk inside.

“I’m going to pick up some of my things,” he told Vicki, “and see to it the manager keeps my room vacant and my name on the register for the next few days.”

“But you’ll really be staying with me?” she asked.

“Right.”

She leaned forward and caught his arm as he began to get out of the car. He glanced back and she moved forward and they kissed. A brief kiss, with a touch of warmth, of promise. He squeezed her thigh and climbed out of the Lincoln.

He had barely gone through the door and into the motel office when an ashen-faced Barnes started babbling.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Webb, they made me let them in, believe me, I couldn’t help it...”

Nolan grabbed him by the lapel. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Those policemen... they made me let them in...”

“What policemen?”

“The officers who searched your room last night!”

Nolan said, “Plainclothes? One tall and fat, the other short and dressed for shit?”

“That’s right, that’s them.”

Tulip and Dinneck. That was how they had gotten into his room last night, before the pool skirmish. He hadn’t bothered to check with Barnes; he’d assumed Dinneck and Tulip had gotten in on their own.

“Why the hell did you let ’em in?”

“They had a search warrant... I... I couldn’t refuse them.”

Nolan let him go. Of course. Of course they’d have a warrant. That financial secretary of George’s, that Elliot, had a cousin for a police chief. A guy named Saunders. No trouble getting Dinneck and Tulip a police cover and a search warrant.

“Okay,” Nolan said. “It wasn’t your fault. But you should’ve told me about it later.”

Barnes was dripping sweat; his bald blushing head looked like a shiny, water-pearled apple. “I was afraid, Mr. Webb, I’ll... I’ll tell you the truth. They told me you were a killer, a dangerous psychopath.”

Knowing that Barnes was high-strung, scared easily and would bite almost any line fed him, Nolan leaned over the desk and looked the manager in the eye.

“What I’m about to tell you is confidential, Mr. Barnes,” he said. “I need your sacred oath that you won’t repeat the following to anyone.”

Barnes was confused, but he nodded.

Nolan continued. “I’m an FBI special agent, investigating the illegal sale of hallucinatory drugs here in Chelsey.”

Nolan could see in Barnes’ face that he bought it. It rang true to Barnes; there was a lot of funny business about drugs in Chelsey. He believed Nolan.

Just as Nolan was ready to hand more FBI bullshit to him, Barnes’ eyes lit up like flares and he began to shake.

“What’s wrong?”

“Have... have you been up to your room yet? You have, haven’t you, Mr. Webb?” Barnes shook like a bridegroom at a shotgun wedding.

“No, I haven’t. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Then you better get up there quick! I told you they made me do it!”

“What are you talking about?”

“They came in again tonight, didn’t you know? I thought that was why you barged in here!”

He grabbed Barnes by the lapel again. “When?”

“Ten minutes before you came in, Mr. Webb... I thought you knew...”

“Damn!”

Nolan turned and ran to the door, spoke over his shoulder to Barnes. “Keep everybody away from that room as long as you can. No cops — they’re crooked!”

“Should I call your superiors...”

“Don’t phone anybody, don’t do anything. Just keep your mouth shut.”

Nolan flew out of the office, sprinted to the Lincoln and pulled open the door. “I got visitors in my room, Vicki. Sit tight till I get back. Be alert and make a fast exit if things start looking grim.”

He left her with her mouth open, left before she could stop him to ask questions. He ran lightly across the motel lot and stood in an empty parking space beneath the balcony of his room. He looked up. The lights were on inside, shadows moved behind the curtained windows of the French doors leading from balcony to room. Nolan put his hands in the iron grating and his grip crumbled the crisp brown remains of the vined flowers that had climbed the trellis before the air had chilled. He tested the grating and it felt firm. He inched up slowly, the metal X’s cutting into his hands; only the very ends of his shoe toes would fit into the X’s, and they provided unsure footing. He edged his way up the iron trellis and in a minute and a half that seemed much longer, he found himself parallel to the balcony.

Clamping one hand tightly in one of the grating openings, Nolan withdrew his .38 from the under-arm holster and slipped one leg up and over the side of the balcony. He fought for balance, shifted his weight and landed on the balcony cat-silent.

Nolan faced the four-windowed French doors and watched the shifting shadows on the curtains. He peered through the crack between the doors and saw Dinneck sitting in a chair with his back to Nolan, tossing things from a suitcase over his shoulders, angry because he wasn’t finding anything. Tulip had stripped the bed and was in the process of gutting the mattress with a stiletto.

Dumb bastards, Nolan thought. The room hadn’t told them anything the night before and tonight wouldn’t be any different. Well, a little different maybe.

Nolan slammed his shoulder into the French doors and they snapped open. He kicked Dinneck’s chair in the seat, turning it over on him. Nolan leapt on the chair, heard bones and wood crack simultaneously, and sat on it, pinning Dinneck beneath. He leveled the .38 at Tulip, who stopped frozen, knife over mattress, with the bug-eyed expression of a punk caught stealing hub-caps.

“Raise them, Tulip,” Nolan ordered. “Slow and easy and no games with the knife.”

If Nolan hadn’t mentioned the stiletto, Tulip probably wouldn’t have remembered it, but Nolan had and Tulip did. Like a reflex Tulip whipped the knife behind his ear and let it fly. Nolan ducked, losing control of the overturned chair, and hit the floor. Behind him the stiletto quivered in the wood paneling. Nolan fired the .38 at a fleeing Tulip, caught him in the arm with the shot, which spun him around and sat him down.

That put Dinneck out of Nolan’s mind just long enough for the man to crawl out from under the smashed chair and step up behind Nolan.

And when Nolan remembered Dinneck, it was too late to matter. He turned and saw the toe coming at his face and when he tried to turn away it caught him in the temple and things went black.

He woke thirty-some seconds later and stared into the barrel of his .38, which was now in Dinneck’s hand. Tulip was sitting a few feet away on the partially gutted bed, whimpering, mumbling. “Need it, Dinneck, I tell ya I need it bad... let’s just finish him and get out, huh? What d’ya say?”

Nolan looked past the gun barrel and into Dinneck’s cold, uncompromising eyes.

Nolan said, “What’s Tulip need, Dinneck?”

“Shut up.”

Tulip was rubbing his mutilated arm. The bullet had caught him in the lower shoulder and he was stroking below the wound. The blood from his shoulder was all over his hands and partially on his tear-streaked face, where he’d tried to wipe the moisture from his eyes. He was moaning, “I need some, gotta shoot up, need it bad, real bad...”

“He need a fix, Dinneck?” Nolan asked.

“Shut your goddamn mouth, Webb.”

“Little shot of heroin?”

“I said shut up, you son of a bitch!”

“Where’s Tulip getting his heroin, Dinneck? Is it...”

Dinneck interrupted Nolan by slamming the barrel of the .38 into Nolan’s temple again, then smashing him across the mouth with it.

Nolan’s body went limp, but he wasn’t out. His mouth, his lips felt like a bloody wad of pulp, but he wasn’t out. His temple ached, his head pounded, but he sat back and waited to make his move. He sat back and waited and watched Dinneck’s eyes.

Tulip seemed excited, the pain momentarily forgotten. “Let me shoot ’im, Dinneck — let ol’ Tulip put him to sleep forever—”

Dinneck smiled and shook his head. “Sorry, pal. I got a special grudge against Mr. Webb here.”

Tulip stood up, clutching his bloodied arm. “You got a grudge! Last night that bastard set me on my ass every time I turned around, he knocked out one of my teeth, and a coupla hours ago he kicked me in the fuckin’ head! Now he half shoots off my fuckin’ arm and you gotta grudge.”

“Sit down,” Dinneck said, “and shut up.”

Tulip sat, frowning, caressing the wounded arm again, and Dinneck consoled him with, “Take it easy, man, I’ll see you get your shot, don’t worry, stay cool. Let me handle it.”

Nolan had been looking past Dinneck’s tacky clothes and into the authority of his face, the competence of his actions, the hardness of eyes that spoke professionalism. Nolan told himself he’d misjudged Dinneck, whose dress and even manner to a degree had been calculated to elicit such misjudgment. Beyond that, Nolan saw a coldness in Dinneck, and a need to inflict pain.

“I read you wrong, Dinneck,” Nolan said.

Intrigued by the comment in spite of himself, Dinneck said, “What?” Then remembering his previous commands to Nolan he said, “Just keep your mouth shut while I figure what to do with you.”

“Who are you, Dinneck?” Nolan asked.

“I told you to shut your mouth.”

“Tulip, how long’s Dinneck been working with you? He been in town very long? How long’s he been with Elliot and Franco?”

“You’re only making it tougher on yourself, Webb,” Dinneck told him evenly.

Tulip’s face showed the strain of thought, then he said, “He’s only been with us about two, maybe three months. He’s somebody the Boys sent in from upstate somewhere.”

Nolan looked at Dinneck again. “Who are you?”

“Just keep trying my patience, Webb, keep going at it...”

“You some kind of Family inside man, checking up? Just who the hell are...”

Dinneck’s face exploded into a red mask, veins standing out on his forehead like a relief map. He raised the gun up over Nolan’s head and brought it down fast.

But not fast enough. Nolan sent a splintering left that caught Dinneck below the left eye and followed with a full right swing into his throat. Dinneck rolled on his back, wrapping his hands around his throat, and he tried to scream in pain but that only made it worse. Nolan tromped down on Dinneck’s wrist and the man released his grip on Nolan’s .38 — he’d forgotten it anyway.

Nolan stood over the sprawling figure, leveling the retrieved .38 at Tulip, who had sat back down on the bed.

“You didn’t have to hit him in the throat, did you?” Tulip’s voice was like a child’s; he wasn’t holding onto his arm anymore and the blood on it was beginning to turn a dry brown. “You didn’t have to hit his throat. It still hurts him from this morning when some broad hit him there. What a hell of a place to hit him. You sure are a mean son of a bitch, Webb.” Tulip shook his head.

“You and Dinneck came to the wrong man for sympathy,” Nolan told him. “He should’ve got his tonsils out some other day.”

“What are you gonna do now?”

Nolan didn’t answer Tulip. He lifted a barely conscious Dinneck by the collar and dragged him to the can, keeping one eye (and the .38) on Tulip all the while. Nolan dumped Dinneck in the tub, turned on the shower full blast, on cold, and pulled the shower curtain down over his head.

“You sure are a mean s.o.b.,” Tulip repeated.

“It’ll relax him,” Nolan said.

Nolan left Dinneck in the tub, shower curtains around him and shower going on full, ice-cold. Dinneck was a mass of whining, hysterical pain, fighting the shower curtain and the cold with what was left of his will. Nolan shut the bathroom door.

“I bet you could use a shot, couldn’t you, Tulip?”

“Mean s.o.b., sure are a mean s.o.b...”

“How long you been riding that horse, Tulip?”

“... mean s.o.b., you sure a...”

Nolan gave up on getting any information out of Tulip; at the moment the big man was practically catatonic and talking to him was a waste of time. Besides, pretty soon Barnes would get worried enough to call the cops, despite Nolan’s advice to the contrary, what with the gunshot and all the violent noises that had been coming from the room. He wondered if Vicki had taken off. She should have.

He collected his things, picked his suitcase up off the floor and hastily re-packed it, got his clothes-bags too. He rubbed his temple; his head was still pounding like hell, but his balance was okay. A few aspirin would help the head as long as there wasn’t concussion. His mouth was bleeding and hurt like a bastard, but he ran a hand over it and didn’t think he would need stitches.

Out in the hall, he could hear a muffled Tulip in there saying “Mean s.o.b.” over and over. Nolan lugged his suitcase and clothes-bags thinking he could have been a lot meaner than he’d been. He wouldn’t have lost much sleep over killing that pair.

The Lincoln was indeed waiting and he walked easily over to it. Vicki was at the wheel, the engine running. He got in the rider’s side, tossed his things in back.

When she saw him her eyes rolled wide and she gasped. “What happened! Your face, your mouth...”

“Hard day at the office,” he said. “Beat it the hell out of here.”

5

Sometimes, when insomnia hit him and he spent half the night fighting for sleep, Phil Saunders almost wished his wife were alive.

This was a night like that. He’d gone to bed at twelve, as soon as the late night talk show had signed off. Now it was two-thirty and he was still awake.

Yes, too bad, in a way, his wife wasn’t alive any more.

At least if she were there she could have bitched him to sleep.

Now there was no one. No one to talk to, have sex with, live with. A little old fashioned nagging never killed anybody. At least you weren’t alone.

Not that it was bad, living alone here. He had a nice apartment, six rooms, luxury plus. And very nicely furnished, too, in a conservative sort of way. But then, Phil was a conservative sort of person, outwardly upright, honest. But on the inside? Life had grown a sour taste lately.

A year and a half ago life had been sweet. A year and a half ago when he had been Police Commissioner of Havens, New Jersey, a legit above-board job he’d worked his ass off over the years to get. A year and a half ago his wife had been a drying-up prune he put up with out of habit and for appearance sake. A year and a half ago his affair with Suzie Van Plett, that succulent soft little seventeen-year-old, had been in full bloom.

Too bad his wife had walked in on him and Suzie that time. There’s nothing like the sight of a naked seventeen- year-old blonde sitting on the lap of a naked forty-nine- year-old balding police commissioner to give a really first rate instantaneous and fatal heart attack to a fully-clothed fifty-two-year-old grey-haired police commissioner’s wife. Then the reporters, the disgrace, the friends deserting him, the question of statutory rape in the air and finally the humiliating midnight escape.

His name had been different then, but it died with his wife and his reputation in Havens. He turned to his cousin, a longtime con artist going by the name Irwin Elliot. Elliot had a sweet set-up going in Chelsey, Illinois, through the Chicago crime syndicate. Cousin Elliot was good at documents and he forged the defrocked Havens police commissioner a good set of references, pulled the proper strings, opened and closed the right mouths, and the newly named Phil Saunders sprang to life, full-grown at birth. He filled the puppet role of Chelsey Police Chief and watched his cousin Elliot control the town as the brains behind another puppet, that fat fool George Franco, who was a brother of some Chicago mob guy.

It was a rich life, and an easy one.

But there were no succulent seventeen-year-olds in his Chelsey life, nor would there be, on Cousin Elliot’s orders.

Just a conservatively furnished six-room apartment that even his dead wife could have brightened with her presence. At least if his wife were around there would be someone not to listen to, not to talk with.

The door buzzer sounded, startling Saunders. Then, knowing who it would be, he went to the door and opened it.

He smiled and said, “Hi, buddy,” and then he noticed the .38 in his visitor’s hand.

The gun went to his temple, the visitor fired and Saunders joined his wife.

Lyn Parks had been with Broome long enough. He was a lousy bed partner, he smelled bad and his manners were nonexistent.

They were in the backstage dressing room at the Third Eye, and it was three o’clock in the morning. Broome had been trying desperately to get her to come across since after the band’s last set and his failure was getting him angry, despite the fact that he’d shot up with horse a few minutes before and should have been feeling quite good by now.

“Get your goddamn hands off me!” She shook her head in disgust with him, with herself. “You’re really a sickening bastard, Broome, and it’s pretty damn revolting to me to think I ever let you touch me.”

“Come on, babe, you ain’t no cherry...” He groped for her and she was sick of it. After seeing him shoot up with H — he’d never had the poor taste before to shoot up right in front of her — she was almost physically ill with the thought of her few months of close association with the man. She was ready to move on — life with Broome and these sick creeps was worse than life with her father, “One Thumb” Gordon, a gangster who pretended respectability. She hated phonies, like her father, and she hated Broome as well, for his brand of phoniness.

“You aren’t anything but a pusher, Broome,” she told him bitterly. “Flower power? Some of the kids in this town are on the level with their peace and love, but you... you’re a bum, a peddler, a cheap gangster worse than my father ever was.”

“Your father? Who’s your father?” Broome wasn’t having much luck with trying to speak, everything was coming out slurred.

It was disgusting to Lyn, this rolling around with a doped-up lowlife on a threadbare sofa in a back-stage people closet with dirty wooden floors and graffitied walls. Broome was no threat, he was already on the verge of incoherence, sliding into dreaminess. She started for the door.

Then heard the footsteps.

Somebody banged on the door.

Fear caught her by the throat and she instinctively ducked in the bathroom, where Broome had so often shot up, his works still on the sink.

She heard Broome mumble something out there, maybe a greeting. A few more words.

Then a gun-shot.

Kneeling tremblingly, she peered through the keyhole and saw a person she recognized pocket a revolver and turn and go. She waited three long minutes before opening the closet wide enough to see Broome, lying on his back like a broken doll, his freaky blond Orphan Annie curls splattered with blood and brains, skull split by a bullet.

She puked in the sink.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, found control of her retching stomach, wondered what to do...

Webb.

That was it, she had to find Webb.

He could do something about this.

At least he could take her away from it...

She ran.

George Franco was pissed, in several senses of the word.

He sat by the window and stared down the block at the extended sign of Chelsey Ford Sales, the building he’d seen Nolan enter several times during the day — the last time around midnight with a pretty girl, a girl George thought he recognized.

It was too late to be drinking, but George was. He sat in his red and white striped nightshirt like a colorful human beach ball and nursed a bottle of Haig and Haig.

That fucker Nolan. Who did he think he was, pushing George around? And why hadn’t Nolan called? One whole day gone since he and Nolan had made their pact, with Nolan saying he’d check in every now and then. Well, why the hell didn’t he?

George had decided he wanted a favor from Nolan — in return for keeping quiet about the thief’s presence in Chelsey. It was only fair... and it would be a favor that Nolan would get something out of in return...

George swigged the Scotch, looking out at the blank street, the naked benches by the courthouse cannons. He didn’t see anybody watching him; Nolan said he had three men taking turns watching George, only now George wasn’t so sure. The tower clock read three-fifteen, but George wasn’t tired. He was all worked up. And he was thirsty.

It had come to him tonight, how he could use Nolan to better his position. To make his brother Charlie reconsider his opinion of George; to have some responsibility again. To get rid of that smug bastard Elliot and have the last laugh...

If he could only remember that girl’s name! That girl who’d been with Nolan, it was her apartment they’d gone into!

He’d met her once in the drugstore below. She was a friendly little thing, she said she’d seen him and she guessed they were neighbors and how was he? But that was a long time ago, a year or so, and he couldn’t remember...

Vicki something.

More Scotch. It would help him remember, more Scotch...

Trask.

Vicki Trask.

He waddled to the phone book, a pregnant hippo in a nightshirt, and thumbed through the pages.

Sure it was late, and Nolan would be pissed, but that was just too bad. He couldn’t push a Franco! Why, George could have his brother and an army down from Chicago in a few hours, with just a snap of his fingers! He could erase Nolan, have him wiped out like a chalk drawing on a blackboard! It was that easy.

He dialed. Nolan would talk to him, he knew he would.

It rang a long while and a female voice answered. He asked to speak to Mr. Webb and she said just a minute.

He waited for Nolan to come to the phone. The female voice had been pleasant. Like his whore’s, Francie, only more sincere. He’d been mean to Francie today, edgy over the thing with Nolan, and she’d walked out mad. He’d called her twice and asked her to come back and let him try and make it up to her. She’d hung up both times, but he still hoped she’d show. Maybe could patch things up with dollars and Scotch.

Then Nolan was on the phone.

“Yes, I know it’s late, Mr. Nolan... sorry, Mr. Webb... but I have to talk with you... I can help you take Elliot down...”

There was a soft rap at the door.

George said, “Just a second, Nolan, I mean Webb... the door, I think my girl friend might be back, jus’ a second.”

George stumbled to the door, thinking to himself about how fine it would be to see his Francie at the moment, have a nice drink with her.

He opened the door and an orange-red blossom exploded in somebody’s hand and burst George’s head and he went down, a sinking barge.