Mourn The Living

1

Nolan reached out in the darkness and stroked the sleeping girl’s breast. She stirred in her sleep, a smile playing on her lips. He ran his hand under the sheet and over her smooth body, over her thighs to the flat stomach, across the soft rises of breast, nipples now relaxed, the tightness of passion a memory.

Vicki Trask’s eyes opened slowly; then blinking, yawning, she said, “Are you still awake? It must be after two in the morning—”

Nolan flipped back the sheet. He took a gentle bite out of her stomach, nuzzling her. His lower lip cradled the dip of her navel, his upper lip tickled by the tiny hairs on her flesh.

“Salty,” he said.

“Hmm?”

“You taste salty.”

“I ought to,” she replied. “You worked me hard enough.”

“It’s good for you.” He moved up to her breasts and nibbled. The tips, remembering, grew taut again.

“Ouch! Take it easy!” Then she laughed and looped her arm around his neck.

He looked into her little girl face and said, “You were good, Vicki.”

The faint light from a street lamp poured through a circular window into the balcony and gave her skin a glow, an almost mystical look, like a textured photograph. She sat up in bed and propped her knees up and rested her chin on them, locking her hands around her legs. She stared at him, her smile slight.

“You were wonderful,” she told him. “I... I never felt so much a woman before.” She leaned over and brushed her lips across his cheek.

“You’re a woman all right,” he said. Not entirely true, but she had been a lot less girl than Nolan had expected.

Boredom from the so far sleepless night mixed with the infrequency of sexual activity in his life of late tempted Nolan to go another round with the girl. She’d admitted she wasn’t a virgin, but she’d been close to one, and he didn’t want to press her unduly.

But then her lips were on his chest and her fingers had found their way to his back, where they were digging in. She looked at him, resting her head against his chest, her expression one of sweet shame, asking him if...? He reached his arms around her and covered her mouth with his.

Twenty minutes later Nolan was sitting in the dark smoking, his back against the headboard, his mind adrift. His left arm was around her shoulder, his hand cupping a breast. The other arm rested on the nightstand by the bed, where he’d laid his un-holstered .38. Vicki had floated into sleep a few minutes before, but he remained awake beside her, thinking and smoking, smoking and thinking...

Around three a.m. Vicki awoke suddenly and found Nolan still sitting back against the headboard with the fourth, maybe fifth cigarette tight in his lips. His grey eyes were open, two dead coals in the darkness.

“What’s the matter? What is it? Why are you still up?”

He didn’t look at her. “Have to be leaving soon.”

“Is it getting to be dangerous for you to stay around Chelsey, or what?”

“No, that’s not it... it’s always like that for me. It’s just that I got a feeling there’s nothing here that needs to be found out about Irene Tisor.”

Her hands played with the blanket. “When do you have to leave?”

“Soon, I said.” He had to figure a way to hit the Chelsey operation first — he had to get his hands on this Elliot guy and make his hit for the cash on hand and the hell with Chelsey and Sid Tisor’s dead kid.

“Will I see you again? After you leave Chelsey?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not telling the truth.”

There was no answer to that.

She buried her head in his chest and he felt her tears on his flesh.

He smoothed her hair. It was soft and fragrant. “Don’t pretend to yourself that you want me to stay.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m one or two nights in your life and that’s all I am. Accept me that way.”

She studied him, her eyes moist. “You know something, Nolan? No, don’t object to me calling you Nolan, you’re not Earl Webb you’re Nolan and in my bed I’ll call you Nolan if I damn well please. I have you pretty well figured out. You walk around like a mobile brick wall. So cold, the ice forms on your shoulders. And you know what you are under all that ice, Nolan?”

“You tell me.”

“You’re all the emotions you despise to show. You’re like that gun over there. You’re a hunk of metal until you get in a demanding situation, then you explode. I’ve been with you only a few hours, but I’ve seen you kick a man in the head and later come out of your motel room looking like you just wrestled a grizzly and won. And I’ve shared my bed with you, and you were tender enough, I guess, but that damn gun of yours remained on the nightstand beside you all the while. Anybody as violent as you, and as passionate, is a fire-bomb of emotion. Now... what do you think about that?”

He was silent for a moment. Then said, “I think you talk too much.”

She laughed her warm laugh and nodded that she guessed he was right and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“You going to stay in Chelsey, Vicki?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I have... have a problem or two that may keep me here.”

“It’s your business,” Nolan shrugged.

She smiled. “I guess you think I was out of line a minute ago with my dimestore psychology. Now here I am keeping secrets from you. But... everybody needs a few secrets.”

“Sure.”

The phone rang.

“Who the hell would call you at this hour?”

“Nobody.”

“You better get it.”

“Are you here, Nolan?”

“Earl Webb is.”

“Okay...”

“Careful,” he told her. “Too goddamn late for a phone call. It’s going to mean something, whatever it is.”

“Even a wrong number?” She laughed.

“Answer it before they give up.”

She climbed out of bed and threw a filmy negligee over her creamy-white skin. She flew down the spiral staircase that connected the balcony to the living room and grabbed up the phone, which was on the bar in the kitchenette. Upstairs, Nolan leaned back and took a cigarette from the half-empty pack and popped it into his mouth.

From below, her voice came, “It’s for you, Earl.”

He got out of bed, slipped into his pants and shoes and went down the spiral staircase, taking his .38 with him.

“This is Webb.”

“This is George, George Franco...”

“What do you want, George? A little late for you to be up, isn’t it?”

“Yes, I know it’s late, Mr. Nolan...”

“Webb.”

“Sorry, Mr. Webb... but I have to talk to you!”

“About what?”

“I can help you take Elliot down.”

There was a hesitation at Franco’s end.

“What’s wrong, George?”

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

There was silence and Nolan looked at Vicki and said, “Think he’s been into the cooking sherry again.”

She smiled in confusion and Nolan half-grinned and the receiver coughed the sound of a gun-shot.

Nolan dropped the receiver as if it were molten and ran out the door and down the steps to street level. He wasn’t wearing a jacket — just a T-shirt — and the cold air hit him like a pail of water.

From the doorway above Vicki called down, “Nolan... what are you doing...?”

“Wait here,” he said. “Somebody just got shot. Stay put, don’t let anybody in but me.”

“But...”

“Shut the door and wait, Vicki,” he told her, wheeling around to face the deserted courthouse square, marked only by a few scattered parked cars whose owners lived in apartments over stores. Down the street a light was on in George’s penthouse above the Berry Drug.

Nolan ran to the corner, turned and slowed into the alley. He kept the .38 in front of him and made sure the alley was empty. Then he jumped up and pulled down the fire escape and climbed to where he had used his glass cutter to get in the day before. He elbowed the cardboard patch and it gave way easily. He slipped in his hand, unlocked the window and crawled into the apartment.

There was no one inside except George, and he was over by the door, dead, his head cracked like a bloody egg.

The killer had used a .45, Nolan thought, or possibly a .38 at close range. Plugged George right square in the forehead with it. Effective. Not particularly original, but effective.

The killer hadn’t bothered to hang up the phone, which was making the loud noises the Bell people use to persuade you to hang the damn thing up. Nolan slipped it onto the hook and heard sounds coming from the drug store below.

He climbed back out the window and down the ’scape and dropped silently to the ground. Cautiously he made his way around to the front of the store, wondering if the killer had made his way out yet.

Then Nolan heard tires squealing away from a curb down the street from behind him.

In the alley he found a back door, still open, where the killer had hot-footed it from the drug store to a car parked along the side street. Nolan could see it in the distance, blocks down. It was a dark blue Cadillac having no trouble at all disappearing.

He stood there for a while thinking, cold as hell and just as he was wishing he’d brought his cigarettes along, a blue-and-white squad car sidled up next to him. “Chelsey Police” was written on the door in small print, as if they were ashamed of it.

A man in a nicely-pressed light brown business suit stepped out of the squad car, flanked by two uniformed officers. The plainclothes cop had a tanned, weathered face, a shrewd, tough cop’s face, and that was one of the worst kinds. The cop being a plainclothes meant he was probably one of the smartest, most experienced officers of the Chelsey force. Which didn’t necessarily mean much. Nolan figured being a top cop on Chelsey’s force was an honor akin to being the harem’s head eunuch.

The cop motioned the uniformed pair up the ’scape and into George’s apartment, everyone obviously knowing just what to expect. A few minutes after they went in, one of them, a scrubbed-faced type, looked down at the cop who was standing below with Nolan and said, “Yup.”

The cop smiled. “What’s that you got in your hand?”

“It’s a gun.”

“You got that filed with the city?”

“I got,” Nolan said, stuffing the .38 in his waist band, “a closed mouth till I see a lawyer.”

“I’d tell you to keep your shirt on, pal, if you were wearing one.” The cop’s tough face broke into a wide grin. “I sure hope you haven’t fired that thing lately.”

Nolan didn’t say anything. Why didn’t the cop take the gun from him?

The cop kicked at the loose gravel in the alley, like a kid kicking pebbles into a stream. “You might be interested to know that within the past hour, hour and a half or so, the fair city of Chelsey has been seriously blemished. Blemished by three, count them, three... murders. Murders committed, strangely enough, with a .38.”

“Who’s dead?”

“So you decided to open your mouth? I don’t see any lawyers around.”

“Who?”

“You’re a regular owl, aren’t you? Okay mister, I’ll tell you. The Police Chief, one Philip Saunders, found dead on the floor of his apartment, a bullet in the head. An alleged musician at the Third Eye, one Broome, no other name known, found dead on the floor of his dressing room, a bullet in the head. And I assume we have a similar problem with George Franco, up there. You might say fat George has a weight problem — a dead weight problem.”

“You might say that,” Nolan said, “if you were a fucking comedian.”

“You’re getting nasty, mister, you aren’t in any position to get...”

“I got an alibi.”

“Swell,” he said.

“An on-the-level alibi. She’s got a name and everything.”

The cop’s mouth twisted. “You really do have an alibi, don’t you?”

“That’s right.”

He scratched his head, shrugged. “Well, then... you’re free to go. Nice talking to you... mister, uh, Nolan, isn’t it?”

Nolan froze.

“It’s Webb,” he said. “Name’s Earl Webb. From Philadelphia.”

“Tell me all about it.”

“You going to charge me with something?”

The cop scratched his head again. He did that a lot. “I would, but I can’t make up my mind between breaking-and-entering, carrying a handgun without a permit, and, well, murder. You got a three-sided coin on you?”

“Take me in or don’t take me in.”

“What if I said I got a deal to make with you, mister... ah... Webb. And that if you keep your side of the bargain, I’ll let you walk. Without so much as a citation for loitering. Interested?”

“Maybe.”

“You got somewhere private we could go?”

“Maybe.”

The cop was through talking. Now he was waiting.

“Okay,” Nolan said. “Let’s go.”

2

The cop’s name was Mitchell. Nolan introduced him to the now fully awake, fully clothed Vicki Trask, who looked much fresher than four-o’clock in the morning. She was wearing a blue and red candy-striped top and a white mini skirt.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you so late, Miss Trask.” Mitchell tried to look embarrassed and was fairly successful.

“That’s all right, Mr. Mitchell. Would you two like anything to drink?”

“Something soft would be fine,” Mitchell told her, “if it wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Cokes, Vicki,” Nolan said.

The girl walked to the bar and iced two glasses. Mitchell and Nolan sat, the cop wondering with his eyes if they should begin speaking and Nolan shaking his head no. When Vicki brought them the Cokes, Nolan told her quietly to wait for him in the bedroom and she followed his command, scaling the spiral staircase wordlessly and disappearing into the balcony above.

Mitchell said, “I’ll put it to you straight, Nolan. You are wanted for questioning in half a dozen states... Illinois one of them. Matter of fact, it’s kind of a coincidence, because just this afternoon I was glancing at a bulletin on you...”

“Can it.”

“What did you say?”

“I said can it. I’m not wanted for a goddamn thing.”

The cop bristled. “Who the hell do you think you...”

“Okay, Mitchell. You want to haul me in?”

“I...”

“You don’t have a thing on me.”

“I have half a dozen circulars...”

“Bullshit.”

“Now wait just a damn...”

“Bullshit! How’d you know who I was?”

Mitchell swallowed thickly. “Anonymous tip late this afternoon. We were told you were in town. Of course we recognized the name...”

“Oh? What’s my real name?”

“Your real name?”

“My real name. You don’t know it. How about military service? Got anything on my distinguished service medal?”

“Of course I know about your medal, what do you take me for?”

“I take you for a piss-poor bluffer,” Nolan said. “When I was in the service, I got a little mad and beat the hell out of a military cop. Got a bad conduct discharge. That was under my real name, which nobody I can think of knows outside of me. And even I forget it sometimes.”

“You’re a real smart fella, Nolan.”

“You aren’t. What do you want?”

Mitchell’s jaw was tight, his teeth clenched. “I could run your ass out of this town so quick, your head’d spin...”

“Then do it.”

“What?”

“Do it. Run my ass out. Make my head spin. Put any more pressure on and I’ll leave on my own.” Nolan leaned forward and gave the cop a flat grin. “But I don’t think you want me to leave.”

Mitchell’s face split into a wide smile and he helped himself to one of Nolan’s cigarettes in the pack lying on the table. “Okay, Nolan. I guess I’m too used to dealing with punk kids who scare easy. You see through me like a window. You’re right. I don’t want you to leave.”

“What do you want from me, Mitchell?”

“Your help, in a way. Look, I got no bulletins on you, but I sure as hell know about you. A lot of cops across the country’ve heard the scuttlebutt about you and your one- man vendetta against the Chicago outfit.”

“It’s no vendetta.”

“I heard...”

“You heard wrong. I steal from them. That’s it. I get a kick out of upsetting their applecarts. For money. And I’m staying alive when they send people to kill me.”

“You admit you’ve killed?”

“I’m not going to lie to you. There’s no court stenographer sitting here. I’ve killed in self-defense and skipped hanging around for an inquest, sure. I stick in one place that long I get dead quick.”

“You don’t look like the type who’s afraid of much of anything.”

“Only idiots fear nothing. If I can fight something, then no sweat. But you can’t hold ground and fight a bomb in your room. Stay in one spot long enough and they find a way to get you.”

Mitchell leaned back and smoked slowly and thought.

Nolan reached for a cigarette and said, “Make your pitch, Mitchell. Let’s have it.”

Mitchell smiled. “You know how long I’ve lived in Chelsey, Nolan?”

“No, and do you think I give a damn?”

“I was born here. It was a nice little place for a long time, friendly, homey, very Midwest, you know? Called it the intel-lectual corner of Illinois, too, because of the university...”

“Get to the point,” Nolan said. “If there is one.”

“All right.” Mitchell’s face hardened; it was deeply lined, more deeply lined than that of the average man of thirty-five or so years. “I could make things rough for you, Nolan, if I wanted to. I could hold you long enough to find out who you are, especially since you kindly informed me of your trouble during your stay in the army. The army keeps records. Fingerprints and such. A bad conduct discharge shouldn’t be hard to trace.”

“If I was telling the truth,” Nolan shrugged.

“I don’t know what you’re after, Nolan, but I know enough about you to have a general idea. You came to Chelsey to hit the Family’s local set-up, right?”

Nolan just looked at him.

“Now, off the record, as they say... what I want is the man in charge. Give him to me. Then maybe I can start cleaning this town up a little bit.”

“And you’ll give me a free ride home, I suppose?”

“As long as I get the goods on the head man, you’ll be free to go. With anything you might relieve him of in the way of cash.”

Nolan said, “You don’t have any idea who your ‘head man’ is?”

“I’ve been trying to find that out for over a year, since I first started to realize just what kind of corruption was going on here. You don’t mean you already know who he is?”

“Found out the day I got here.”

“How?”

“Never mind that. You said your police chief, Saunders, was killed tonight?”

“One of three dead... so far.”

“Well, Saunders wasn’t in charge, but he was in up to his ass.”

“I knew it!” Mitchell slammed fist into palm. “That son- of-a-bitch has been crippling the force since the day he took office.”

“What about the next man killed?”

“Broome? We think he was involved in some kind of narcotics ring. There was heroin in his blood stream at time of death, and we found a hypo in the room and some H. Couple hits worth.”

“Broome was a junkie and a pusher and a creep. But my money says he’s outside help linking Chelsey to a drug supplier.”

“Broome?”

“That’s right. The Boys in Chicago, the mob in New York, they wouldn’t send a punk like Broome in, because he was a user. But maybe he used to work for the Chicago or New York mob before he got hooked, and still had connections to a supplier.”

Mitchell was confused. “This is beginning to go over my head.”

Nolan didn’t like explaining things, but to handle Mitchell properly, the cop had to be told what was going on. Narcotics, Nolan told Mitchell, were hard to organize; by nature they were a sprawling thing, a pusher here, a pusher there, nothing that could be controlled easily. For years the Commission hadn’t bothered even trying to control it. But the last seven, eight years, Nolan explained, had changed things: the eastern families had put on a big push to organize narcotics once and for all, and with large success.

“But it’s tough to hold rein on narcotics traffic,” Nolan said. “The difference is that now, if you’re a non-Commission sanctioned narcotics dealer and they find you out, you get leaned on.”

“Leaned on hard?”

Nolan’s look was that of a father dealing with a backward child. “The Commission of Families doesn’t know how to lean soft.”

“So this Commission has to authorize narcotics trafficking, or it’s no go. And the Chelsey operation is an extension of the Chicago Outfit, which is a Commission member. Are you suggesting the Commission doesn’t know about the narcotics trade in Chelsey?”

Nolan nodded. “And the Chicago Boys don’t know it, either.”

“Now I am lost.”

“That’s because you don’t understand what the Chelsey operation was for. George Franco, brother of one of the Boys or not, was a big nothing. The Chelsey set-up was supposed to be a minor deal, just to give worthless George something to do, make him look good, save a little face for the Francos. But this operation is obviously making money. A lot of it. Money the Commission in New York doesn’t know about. Money the Boys in Chicago don’t know about. And when they find out, both the Boys and the Commission are going to be pissed. But good.”

“Who’s behind it? Who’s getting the money?”

“Not George Franco, that’s for sure.”

“Then who?”

“Who brought your late police chief to town?”

Mitchell thought for a moment. “That real estate big shot. Supposed to be Saunder’s cousin or something. Elliot.”

Nolan nodded. “Him.”

“You can’t mean it,” Mitchell said. “Elliot’s as legit as can be...”

“No. He’s the one. Elliot. He’s your boy.”

Mitchell rose. “I’ll be damned if I don’t believe you.” His face twisted with a big grin. He shrugged and said, “Well, Nolan, since you told me all this, I guess there isn’t much left for you to do. I’ll go out and arrest Elliot...”

“Go out to Elliot’s place without hard proof, Mitchell, and you’re fucked. Wait around while you collect evidence, and you won’t see Elliot again. Except maybe in a travelogue of Brazil.”

“I can’t let you go out and...”

“You were willing to five minutes ago. How about those murders tonight? Elliot pulled ’em, you know. Any idea what those murders were for?”

Mitchell shook his head.

Nolan grinned, his first full-out grin for a long time. “He was house-cleaning,” he said. “Taking care of anyone who could spill anything that could lead Boys, Commission, cops or feds to him. And five will get you five hundred he’ll be out of the country by tomorrow morning.”

Nolan got up and called for Vicki. He asked her to get the rest of his clothes and she did. He sat on the sofa and checked his .38, which he stuffed into the shoulder holster under his arm. Then he slipped into the blue plaid parka and walked to the door. Mitchell stood there and didn’t say a word.

“Do I have to tie you up, Mitchell?”

“No.”

“Stay away from Elliot tonight.”

“You going to take him?”

“Yes.”

“Alive?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m going with you.”

“Forget it.”

Mitchell fought himself, finally accepted it, saying, “If it has to be that way, all right. I guess I suggested it myself, didn’t I?”

“That’s right. Stay here and watch Miss Trask. She’s been seen with me and could be in danger. If I need you, I’ll call.”

Mitchell nodded reluctant agreement and Nolan said goodbye to Vicki and went out the apartment, down the steps and to street level. He walked to the Lincoln and got in.

He heard the heavy breathing in the back seat instantly and his hand was over the butt of his .38 when he heard a voice say, “Take me with you, Webb! Let’s get the hell out of this hick town.”

3

“What the hell do you want?”

Lyn Parks crawled up off the floor in back and sat on the seat. She leaned forward, shook her head of blond hair and stroked Nolan’s temple. She said, “I think you know what I want, Mr. Webb, but I don’t want it in Chelsey.”

Nolan said, “Get in front,” his jaw firm.

She crawled over the seat and sat beside him. She was wearing a man’s white shirt and tight tan jeans. She wore no shoes and her blond hair was tousled. Coppery nipples were visible beneath the white shirt and Nolan had an urge to take her up on it, to drive straight out of town with her and forget the whole goddamn fucking thing. But it passed.

He said, “Why do you want out of Chelsey?”

Her eyes were wild saucers. “Elliot!” she scream-whispered. “I’m scared of that bastard!”

“Why?”

“I... I saw him shoot Broome tonight.”

“And he let you go?”

“He didn’t see me. I was in the john, hiding.”

“What were you doing with Broome? How do you know Elliot?”

Her eyes lowered. “This morning... this morning I didn’t level with you. This morning... I guess that’s yesterday by now, isn’t it?”

“Skip it. Tell me where you fit into this.”

“Well, when you came up to my apartment asking questions about Irene Tisor, I knew you’d be coming. Or might come, at least. Elliot paid me fifty bucks to find out who you were, what you wanted. See I used to be Broome’s girl, in a way. And Elliot was Broome’s boss. Elliot, the son-of-a-bitch, he even had me over to his place a few times, but he never even touched me. Is he a faggot or something?”

“I don’t know. Get back to it.”

“Okay. Anyway, Elliot thought you might be around because this guy named Dinneck, know him?”

“We met.”

“Well, this Dinneck found my name in a notebook in your motel room or something. And he told Elliot about it and so Elliot told me to find out who you were when you came around...”

“All right,” Nolan said, making the proper connections.

She swallowed. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but... but Dinneck was in the can, listening, all that time you were in my apartment at the Arms.”

Nolan smiled flatly. “You didn’t by any chance hit him in the throat after I left?”

“Why, yes... yes I did. Hit him right smack in the adam’s apple. The bastard made a pass at me. Why?”

“Never mind,” Nolan said, turning the key in the ignition. “I got to find Elliot’s house. I know it’s on Fairport Drive. You want to tell me where it is exactly, or do I go looking?”

“You won’t find it looking.”

“Tell me where it is, then.”

“You gonna take me along?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you might need some friendly companionship when this is all over.”

“Maybe I got that already.”

“Not this friendly, you don’t. Besides, I know where Elliot lives.”

“All right,” Nolan said, “we’ll see. Now let’s find Elliot’s house before he finds us.”

“Fairport Drive’s in the ritzy section across the river. By Chelsey Park.”

Nolan nodded and she directed him there, over the bridge and into the upper class residential district ringing the park.

“That one,” she told him, pointing out an imitation Southern Plantation, pillars and all. The whole Gone With the Wind route.

Nolan drove past it, parking half a block away.

“Which bedroom is Elliot’s?”

“Second story, farthest window to the left.”

“He got a den, anything like that?”

“Right under the bedroom on the first floor.”

“Good girl.” He patted her thigh and lifted her chin until her eyes were level with his. “Sit here and keep your mouth shut. Take this, it’s cold.” He gave her his parka. “I’m going to leave the car here. If things look bad, call Vicki Trask’s apartment and ask for Mitchell.”

“Mitchell? Hey, are you a cop?”

“Hell no.”

“I didn’t think you were. I had an idea you were a gangster or something. Like my daddy.”

“Your daddy?”

“Yeah, didn’t I mention that? My daddy’s name is Gordon, Mr. Webb. One-Thumb Gordon, as his business associates would call him.”

“Christ.” That was all he needed. Gordon was Charlie’s left hand, missing thumb or not.

“Something wrong?”

“You and your father close?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, “just like this.” She crossed her first and middle finger. “This is me,” first finger, “and this is him,” middle finger. She laughed. “Daddy’s a bastard, too, just like Elliot.”

Nolan patted her thigh again. “We’re going to get along fine, Lyn.”

She smiled and bobbed her head. Her eyes went wide as he withdrew the .38 from under his arm. “Ditch the car here if you have to go for help,” he said. “I saw a phone booth on the other side of the park.”

She nodded again and he left her there.

He walked along the sidewalk at a normal rate, passing two other homes, a red brick two-story and a grey stucco, before he reached the would-be Tara, which sat way back in a huge lawn, back at least fifty yards from the street and bordered on both sides by eight-foot hedges. Elliot’s place was isolated, a virtual island. The Navy Band could play in the living room and the neighbors wouldn’t hear a thing.

Nolan crept along the edge of the high shrubbery. He reached the house and eased along the white walls, looking into each darkened window and finding no signs of life in the house. Past two pillars, past the porch, past two more pillars and on to another row of blackened windows. Finally, when he reached the last window he found that it had been covered with black drapes so that the room would appear dark from the street.

Elliot’s den.

The grass rustled behind him; Nolan whirled and swung his .38 like a battle-axe and clipped the guy on the side of the head. He went down like wet cement. He was dressed in a chauffeur’s cap and get-up but he looked like a gone-to-seed hood, which upon closer examination was what he proved to be. A major league gunman Nolan had known long ago in Chicago, a gun grown soft and sent out to the minors. Nolan found a house key in the jacket of the chauffeur’s uniform.

He walked to the big brass-knockered door, slipped the key in the lock and turned it. He pushed gently and the door yawned open.

He was in a vestibule, a fancy one, for though it was dark, when he leaned against the wall he felt the rich texture of brocade wallpaper. Ahead a few steps he could see light pouring out from under a door. Silently Nolan went to it and ran a hand over the surface. Plywood with a nice veneer, but plywood. Something a man could put his foot through.

He slammed his heel into it and it sprang open like a berserk jack-in-the-box and Nolan dove in, clutching the .38. Immediately he saw a black leather chair and went for cover. But there was no gunfire to greet him, or even an exclamation of surprise.

When Nolan looked out from behind the chair he saw a thin, very pale man in horn-rimmed glasses. The man was standing over a suitcase on a table by the wall, transferring stacks of money from a safe into the suitcase. There was a .38 Smith & Wesson, a twin to Nolan’s, on the floor next to the man. The man eyed the gun, his trembling hand extended in mid-air wondering whether or not to try for it.

“No,” said Nolan. “Don’t even think about it.”

The man heaved a defiant sigh and straightened out his blue double-breasted sportscoat from under which peeked an apple-red turtleneck, brushed off his lighter blue slacks. He appeared to be a usually cool-headed type who’d recently lost his cool head. And he was trying to get it back, without much luck.

“Elliot,” Nolan said.

“Mr. Webb,” he replied. The voice was nervous, even cracking into higher pitch once, but it was the voice of a man determined to regain his dignity.

“I’m not much for talking,” Nolan said. “Suppose you just keep packing that suitcase with your money and then hand it over to me.”

“And after that you’ll kill me?”

Nolan shrugged.

“You don’t have a chance, Webb. Webb! That’s a laugh. You’re Nolan, I know you’re Nolan, you think the Boys haven’t circulated your picture?”

“Pack the fucking suitcase and maybe later we’ll have time for an autograph.”

Elliot managed a smile, a smile that seemed surprisingly confident. The pieces of his composure were gradually falling back into place. “Your chances of survival, Mr. Nolan, are somewhat limited. You see, it dawned on me this afternoon just who you really were. I wasn’t positive, of course, not having seen you, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I called Charlie Franco personally. At this very moment—”

Nolan’s harsh laugh cut him off like an unpaid light bill. “Who did you call after Charlie? J. Edgar Hoover?”

Elliot’s face twitched.

“I got you figured down the line, Elliot. The double-cross you been working on the Boys is going to put you on their shit list, too — right next to me.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, Elliot, cut the talk. Back to the money.” Nolan gestured with the .38.

Elliot returned to the safe and kept on piling stack after stack of bills into the suitcase. Nolan lit a smoke and sat in the black leather chair.

A few minutes had passed when Elliot looked up from his money stacking and said, “Want to tell me how you got it figured?”

Nolan lifted his shoulders. “The way I see it, you took on this piddling operation for the Boys because at the time you had nothing better to do. If you were already working for the Boys, you might not’ve had a choice. The job was meant to make George Franco look and feel like a part of the organization. To help save face for the Franco name. And as time went on, you got bored with it, figured a way to make some easy money and retire to a life of luxury.”

Nolan leaned forward in the chair, casually keeping the .38 leveled at Elliot. “The Chelsey operation was pulling in pretty good money, for what it was. Money made mostly off college kid pleasures, booze and pep pills and some LSD for the supposed hippies. Bagmen from Chicago came in every six weeks and picked up the profits. Around thirty G, I suppose, for each six week period.”

“More like twenty G,” Elliot corrected.

“Okay.” Nolan’s information on that point had come from the initial talk with Sid Tisor, so it figured the take was only twenty G per six weeks. That damn Sid always did exaggerate.

“The thing is,” Nolan continued, “you had a prime connection. A musical junkie named Broome who could get the stuff for you. So you decided to break in an extra source of personal revenue — hard narcotics — without telling the Boys about it.”

Elliot had the suitcase full now and he closed the lid. “All right, Nolan. I’ve been directing a little traffic in drugs. You blame me? I was getting table scraps off this set-up. They paid my bills, sure set me up good with this house and everything. But my cut of the ‘piddling’ action was puny.”

“No wonder you got greedy. You make good money from the Chelsey narcotics trade?”

“What do you think? I’ve been supplying dealers from cities in three states. There’s enough profit to go around, Nolan. You could have a nice cut, too.”

Nolan nodded. “One hundred percent is a nice cut.”

“Don’t be a glutton about it. This isn’t the Boys’ money, it’s mine! Your grievance is with the Boys, not with Irwin Elliot! I’m like you, Nolan, out to take the Boys for a ride.”

Nolan shook his head no. “Forget it. You’re part of the Boys. Maybe you’re worse.”

“We could be partners...”

“Hey, I put nothing past you, not after you wasted your three partners tonight.”

“No. Dinneck and Tulip did that—”

“Dinneck and Tulip got banged up earlier tonight. They didn’t kill Saunders, Broome and George. You did. Three murders in one night, a gentleman like you. And just to clean house. What’s the world coming to?”

Elliot’s laugh was almost a cackle. “You’re amusing, Nolan, you really are. Yes, I murdered those morons tonight. When the Boys find out three of their Chelsey men were murdered with a .38 and that Nolan was in town, they’ll blame you, not Irwin Elliot. And when they find out I’ve vacated the premises, they’ll assume I was just frightened of what you’d do to me. By the time they figure out what was really going on in Chelsey, I’ll be in South America.”

“I don’t think so,” Nolan said. “Hand me the suitcase. And no fun and games.”

Elliot scowled, tossed the suitcase at Nolan’s feet.

“How much is there, Elliot?”

“Near a quarter million dollars.”

“Not bad. How long you been planning this?”

“Long enough. I knew all along I’d have to get out sooner or later, because once the Commission got wind of narcotics action they hadn’t sanctioned, I’d be a marked man. I wanted to wait near the end of a six week period so I’d have the Boys’ twenty thousand take, too. And it took me a while to liquidate my stocks and bonds... I don’t keep this much in cash on hand all the time, you know.”

“You’re not stupid, Elliot,” Nolan said, “just not smart. You got the Boys who’ll be after you. New York’ll want your hide. And the feds will want a piece, too. You’re going to be a popular boy. I’m considering not killing you. It might be fun to tie you up and leave you here and let everybody fight over you.”

A voice from behind them boomed, “Drop the gun, Webb, will ya drop it now?”

Nolan turned and saw a very battered Tulip standing in the doorway of the den, holding a .45 with an incredibly steady hand.

“Now, Webb.”

Nolan let the gun plop to the soft carpet.

“All right, you fucker... I got a score to settle with you.”

Tulip’s six foot frame lumbered over to him, the arm Nolan had wounded earlier hanging limp as a dead tree limb, brown with dried blood. Nolan couldn’t tell if Tulip had ever gotten that shot of H he’d needed so badly hours before; all Nolan knew was that Tulip seemed in full control as he raised his good arm and aimed the .45 at Nolan’s head.

There was a blur of movement in the doorway and a familiar voice cried, “Tulip! Stop, Tulip, it’s me!”

Tulip smiled, turned away from Nolan and faced the door.

The slug caught Tulip in the stomach, hard, and Tulip lay down like a hibernating bear. He looked up at the smoking nine millimeter in the hand of Dinneck and said, “What the hell did you do that for?” Then Tulip closed his eyes and stopped breathing.

“Thanks,” Nolan said.

“Saving your life wasn’t the point,” Dinneck said. “But Tulip was Elliot’s man, and I needed him out of the way.” This he said even as he stepped over the big dead man.

“Allow me to introduce myself, gents. My name is Dinneck, but you also have the right, I think, to know who I represent.”

Dinneck sat down on a black leather couch and let the nine millimeter take turns staring at Nolan and Elliot.

“I’m a native New Yorker,” he said, and coughed, his throat raspy. “My employers heard some rumors about dope traffic in this part of the country. Around Chelsey to be exact.”

Dinneck rose, stepping over the corpse of his ex-partner.

“I work for the Commission.”

4

“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Webb?” Dinneck asked, his hoarse voice dripping sarcasm. “I have some business to take care of with Mr. Elliot here, before you and I settle our personal differences.”

Nolan said, “Your ball game,” and sat back down in the black leather chair. The gun Elliot had dropped at Nolan’s command a few minutes before lay unseen behind the closed suitcase of money. Elliot seemed to have forgotten it, and Dinneck didn’t know about it. Nolan would make his move for the .38, but not yet. Dinneck was in the mood to talk, so Nolan would listen and watch while he waited for the right moment to move.

Dinneck stroked his throat, which was visibly bruised from both Lyn Parks’ assault and Nolan’s blows of earlier that evening. He looked weak, he looked pale — almost as pale as Elliot.

“Mr. Elliot,” Dinneck was saying, “I was assigned to you by my employers to work undercover until I had enough on you to be convinced positively of your guilt. Which I am. I placed a long-distance call this afternoon to a gentleman in New York who gave me instructions as to what to do about you. You see, my employers don’t take it kindly when somebody opens up a business without a franchise.”

“You never saw a thing,” Elliot snapped. “You weren’t involved with the narcotics operation at all. None of the men the Boys sent me were.”

“That’s right. You used me for strong-arm work. Beat people up, pressure them. Like I did with that reporter, Davis, who skipped town. Watched over people, like Mr. Franco... the late Mr. Franco, now, I hear. And Broome and Saunders, too. My, my, but you were a busy little fella tonight. Yes, I ran your errands, and you were careful to keep me away from your narcotics set-up. Instinct maybe.” Dinneck coughed, caressing his throat; talking was obviously painful to him, but he couldn’t resist. He coughed again and glanced pointedly at Nolan, who sat motionless, silent, like an obedient school-boy. Then he returned his gaze to Elliot.

“You got to remember Chelsey’s a small town, Mr. Elliot,” Dinneck said. “Junkies and pushers aren’t hard to pick out in a town this size. And the college punks have big mouths, like to brag about getting their kicks. Your bosom pal Broome was a pusher and a junkie both, he could’ve worn a sign it was so obvious. And my own late partner, here, was paying half his salary back to put in his arm.”

Sweat was streaming down Elliot’s face; his confident tones turned back into the high-pitched squeaking he’d used when Nolan first came into the den. “There’s a quarter million in that suitcase, Dinneck! Take it and let me go. I’ll never say a word.”

Dinneck smiled. “You don’t cross the Commission and live, Elliot. If I did that, even if I killed you and kept the money, my life’d be as worthless as... as yours.”

Elliot was shaking his head no as Dinneck brought up the nine-millimeter; then Elliot remembered something. “Nolan,” he said, “you don’t know he’s Nolan!”

Dinneck hesitated. He lowered the nine-millimeter, puzzled. “Nolan? What the hell are you talking about? What is he talking about, Webb?”

“Search me,” Nolan said.

“He isn’t Webb, he’s Nolan,” Elliot spewed. “There’s a quarter million on his head.”

“We got quarter millions up the ass tonight,” Nolan said.

Dinneck coughed, covering his mouth with his hand. “Shut up, Webb...” He coughed, coughed again. “Okay, Elliot, okay. This guy here, this Webb, he’s Nolan? The guy that resigned the outfit by shooting one of the Francos?”

Elliot nodded and didn’t stop nodding. “That’s him, he’s the one, a quarter million dollars.”

Dinneck gave them both a broad, toothy smile. “That’s nice to know, children — that’s real comforting to know.”

“Look, I told you and I didn’t have to,” Elliot said, his eyes filled with desperation. “Give me a break. Don’t kill me, don’t shoot me.”

“I’m not going to shoot you, friend,” Dinneck told him. “Not with a gun anyway.” He motioned Elliot up against the wall.

Nolan leaned back in the chair. He had a good idea of what would be coming next; he’d heard rumors of this practice among mob enforcers when he’d been working for the Boys. He eyed the .38 and knew it wasn’t time to move. Not yet.

Dinneck reached into his pocket and withdrew a brown carrying case about the size of a small picture frame. He snapped it open and the light of the room caught the reflection from the tip of the hypodermic needle within the case and tossed it around.

“You a user, Elliot? You take the stuff yourself, or do you just sell it?”

“I’m no user, you know that. And I don’t smoke or drink or womanize, either.”

“Well good for you. You’re just all virtue and no vice, aren’t you?”

Nolan said, “Get it over with.”

Dinneck said, “Don’t be so anxious, dead man. Your turn’ll come soon enough.” He walked over to Elliot, shoved him hard against the wall, then held the hypo up and said, “You ever hear of a mainliner?”

Elliot didn’t answer.

“Of course you have. You’re in the business, aren’t you? A mainliner is a shot of H, right in the old blood-stream. Into a nice fat juicy vein. My employers are of the opinion that a person dealing in drugs ought to get first hand view of what he’s selling. Now that’s only good business, isn’t it?”

Elliot plastered himself against the wall. “You... you’re going to give me an overdose! You’re going to kill me with that thing!”

Dinneck nodded. “And the cops will find a poor slob who just misjudged and popped too big a cap for his own good.”

Elliot began to scream and Dinneck slammed his fist into the man’s temple. Elliot slid to the floor and lay there, a puddle of flesh.

Dinneck took a rubber strap from one of his coat pockets, kneeled over, bared Elliot’s right arm and tied the strap around it. The hypo was already loaded and it was no trouble for Dinneck to jam the needle into a throbbing, bulging vein and press his thumb down on the plunger.

Nolan leaned over, ready to go for the .38 that waited for him of the floor a few feet away. Dinneck caught the motion from the corner of his eye and sank his heel into Nolan’s hand just before it had reached the gun. Then he kicked the .38 across the room, at the same time backhanding Nolan, who flopped back in the chair and waited for a second chance that would probably never come.

Elliot was semi-conscious, crying softly and spasmodically. Dinneck kicked Elliot’s head once and put him out.

“He won’t be waking up,” Nolan said.

Dinneck tossed the hypo to the soft carpet. “Not in this world.”

“How much did you have in the hypo?”

“Enough. Enough horse to kill a horse. Hah, horse, hell, a herd.” Dinneck laughed some more, but the laughter turned into a racking cough.

Nolan thought, keep coughing, pal, come on, got to make another try for you.

“My eastern employers didn’t pay me to kill you, Nolan, but somehow I don’t think they’ll mind. You’re a thorn in the Boys’ side, and the Boys are part of the Commission, after all.” Dinneck slipped his free hand into his coat pocket and popped a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. “Besides, I can use the money. Quarter million’s gonna go a long way. It’ll hurt, you know, handing in Elliot’s suitcase of bills.”

“I didn’t figure you killed for free.”

Dinneck hefted the .38. “You got a point. I’m strictly a contract man, and all my contract work’s done for the Commission. A loyal soldier. But in your case, I’d make an exception, even if there wasn’t a quarter million on your head.”

“You talk too much, Dinneck,” Nolan said, “for a man with a sore throat.”

Dinneck grinned. “Two-hundred fifty G’s is gonna soothe that fine.”

The nine-millimeter came up and faced Nolan, and Nolan knew his move had to be fast and good and now...

The shot came from the doorway, a thunderclap that couldn’t happen, slamming into the wall between them.

Mitchell stood in the doorway, a Police Special smoking in his fist. “Hold it right there!”

But Dinneck didn’t do anything of the kind.

He whirled and dropped to one knee, bringing up the .38 to try to blast Mitchell out of the door. Nolan heaved the suitcase of money at Dinneck’s hand, knocked the automatic flying, and the mouth of the suitcase jumped open and vomited bills. Nolan sliced through the drifting green bills and drew his foot back to kick in Dinneck’s head. Dinneck, scrambling after the nine-millimeter, saw Nolan’s foot coming and grabbed it and spun Nolan around and threw him over on his back. Mitchell was still in the door, forced to hold fire because of all the movement.

Nolan landed hard, on his own .38, where it had been kicked away by Dinneck minutes earlier. Nolan rolled over, scooped it up and looked up into Dinneck’s face and Dinneck’s gun.

Nolan squeezed off a single shot, then rolled away, ready to squeeze off another. But it wasn’t necessary.

The slug had caught Dinneck in the throat, and the small blue hole that marked its entry appeared just under the man’s adam’s apple. The nine-millimeter tumbled from his hand, and Dinneck did a half-turn and crashed to the floor. He used his last few seconds foolishly; he tried to speak, dredging up nothing except blood, and he tried to grasp the gun, coming up with a wad of money that wouldn’t be buying him anything. His mouth went slack, the toothpick fell away from his lips, and he didn’t have time to close his eyes before he died.

Nolan looked at Mitchell, standing there in the doorway with the Police Special in his hand; cordite-smell was in the air.

Nolan said, “Talk about cavalry,” but Mitchell didn’t react. Nolan shrugged and started picking up the scattered cash that lay over, under and around the lifeless bodies.

It took ten minutes to repack the suitcase.

5

Mitchell had come alone. At Vicki Trask’s he’d gotten a call from Lyn Parks saying she’d seen several of Elliot’s men go into the house, and Nolan would probably need help.

Now Nolan and Mitchell stood in the hall outside the den where the remains of Elliot, Tulip and Dinneck were inside waiting for Chelsey’s harried medical examiner. The chauffeur Nolan had clubbed over the head less than an hour before sat handcuffed and dazed in the den with the dead men. Since Mitchell was the only cop who’d reached the scene so far, Nolan was anxious to be on his way.

“I’m keeping the suitcase of money,” Nolan said flatly.

Mitchell didn’t say anything. He looked beat. He’d been up most of the night and in eleven years of police work had never run across an evening that remotely compared to this one. He was shaking his head and gazing in at the three bodies in the den.

Nolan watched the cop, who seemed practically in shock. Nolan said, “Mitchell, we made a deal. I want your word you’ll keep me out of this. Just cover up the incident as best you can.”

Mitchell nodded, his eyes a pair of burnt-out holes. “Okay,” he conceded. “But you got to get out as soon as possible. I don’t want anybody finding out I opened the door for this massacre.”

“I’ll need an hour,” Nolan said.

Mitchell said, “Okay, okay,” not giving a damn, and stood looking into the den.

Neither man said a word as Nolan left, suitcase in hand.

When he reached the car he was met by a bubbling Lyn Parks. He let her talk, reaching an arm in the open window and grabbing the keys from the ignition. He ignored her eager interrogation and opened the trunk and stowed away the suitcase of bills, where it lay innocently with the rest of his luggage, just another piece of baggage. He got back in the car, started it and headed for Vicki Trask’s apartment, paying no attention to his talkative passenger.

He pulled up in front of the apartment and got out of the Lincoln. Looking in at Lyn Parks he said, “We’ll have plenty of time for talk later. You got a car?”

“Yeah, but...”

“What is it?”

“An ancient Plymouth, why?”

“Walking distance?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact it’s in a parking lot over by the Arms. Couple, maybe three blocks.”

“Ever been to Wisconsin?”

“No, but...”

He tossed a ten dollar bill in her lap. “If you want to go to Wisconsin with me, go get your car and fill it with gas. Drive it back here and wait for me. If you don’t want to go with me, don’t be here when I get back.”

Nolan left her before she could say anything else and opened the door in the middle of Chelsey Ford Sales. He went up the flight of stairs that led to Vicki’s apartment and knocked once. She came to the door, smiling in relief at the sight of him and throwing her arms around him.

He broke her warm clasp and led her to the couch. He told her to sit and she did.

Nolan went back and closed the door. He looked at her. She seemed tired but was still very nice to look at. He remembered how she’d been in bed.

“Like I said before, I got nothing personal in this,” Nolan said. “We slept together once and I like you, but it ends there.”

There was horror in her face. “What are you talking about, Earl?”

“Go ahead and call me Nolan. I haven’t figured out yet what I’ll be calling you.”

“You’ll keep calling me Vicki, of course! What are you talking about, what’s wrong?”

Nolan stood over her and looked down. “I owed Sid Tisor a debt. So to pay it back to him I came to Chelsey to look into his daughter’s death. If it was murder, he would as soon I kill the murderer. If suicide, or an accident, I was supposed to confirm it with him and let it go at that.”

“Why are you going over all this past history?”

“Be quiet.” Nolan let a cigarette, the last of the pack. He crumpled it and tossed it on the table and went on. “My first thought was to look into Chelsey’s branch of the Outfit. As it turned out, the Boys didn’t have anything to do with Irene Tisor. Other than indirectly, sell the initial cube of LSD she took that night.”

“Isn’t that where you were? Having it out with the criminals and all? Isn’t your debt paid?”

“I had it out with the ‘criminals,’ all right. Three more died, died before I could ask them what they knew about Irene Tisor. But I didn’t have to ask, because they didn’t know anything. No, Vicki, the debt isn’t paid.”

“What are you talking about? Why are you telling me all this, Nolan — I really want to know!”

“Maybe you should be doing the telling,” he said. “Maybe you’ll tell me what’s going on here.”

“Nothing’s going on here!”

Nolan said, “You could start by telling me how the real Vicki Trask died, Irene.”

She looked up, slowly, and saw in his face, in the ice-grey of his eyes, that he knew the truth, at least partially. Her mouth jerked spasmodically and she brought up her hands, cupping them over her face to catch the tears.

Nolan spoke softly. “It took a long time to recognize you, Irene.”

She glared at him wildly, her eyes red, her face streaked with tears. “How... how did you know?”

“It was hard,” he told her. “Your hair is different now. And you had your nose fixed. Your father told me about that, I should have remembered. And when I saw you last you were a child. Not a woman.”

“When... when did you know?”

“Tonight in bed I figured it. But I must’ve suspected all along. You couldn’t resist calling me Nolan, could you? You had to play a game with me.”

“It wasn’t really a game,” she said, beginning to regain control. “I did idolize you, Nolan, as a child and a teenager and even now. But since I was playing Vicki Trask, I couldn’t recognize you first-hand.”

“Why, Irene? Why did you play Vicki Trask? Why does everyone who knows you in Chelsey know you as Vicki Trask? Why did everyone in Chelsey think the real Vicki Trask was Irene Tisor? And why is the false-Irene/real-Vicki dead?”

The tears began again, and Nolan waited for them to stop. Then he said, “Tell it, Irene.”

She nodded, swallowing the hard lump in her throat and rubbing her red eyes with balled fists.

She said, “Before I left home for college, my father had one of his infrequent heart-to-heart talks with me. He told me... told me that before he’d retired, he’d been involved with organized crime. Our whole family was, on my mother’s side. That he had been involved for more than twenty years.”

She stopped and Nolan said, “So?”

“I was... was ashamed. Oh, I know, I should have guessed what kind of business he was in. If from nothing else, from the kind of people who showed up now and then at the house. People like you, Nolan. But... but he was such a mild man, a gentle person... it really threw me to find out he’d been a... a criminal. I’d always thought of him as so upright... it suddenly disgusted, revolted me... with him, myself, my whole life!”

She hesitated again, but Nolan prodded her and she resumed.

“I wanted to be respectable. It made me feel... feel dirty, somehow. A dirt I had to wash off. He was my parent, my only parent, since my mother died when I was born. And now, I... I just wanted to start over. So I decided to go to Chelsey and on the bus I struck up an acquaintance with a girl, a girl who was headed for Chelsey herself. Vicki Trask.”

“Go on.”

“Vicki looked something like me, and we had similar interests. She wanted to go to college and study art, but her parents were both dead and left her without a penny. And her grades weren’t strong enough to get her a scholarship. I... I didn’t care about college any more... I just wanted an anonymous life, away from my father. But I still wanted my father’s monthly allowance — I felt he owed me that much. It was Vicki who got the idea... the idea to switch names and everything. She could go to college, and I could keep getting checks from daddy to underwrite my college-girl existence. It sounded like it might work, and if it didn’t, the worst that could happen was she could be kicked out of a school and I could be fired from a job. Well, it did work. We made a pact. We set it up together, got this apartment and all and traded identities. It took some doing, but we managed to shuffle some papers around and fix some documents and... and just swap places.”

Nolan stabbed out the cigarette. “Why didn’t you just get married if you wanted to change your goddamn name?”

“It... it was a mental thing with me... and I wasn’t ready for a man in my life. Nolan, you were the first man I’d been with since I came to Chelsey.”

Nolan shook his head, said, “Okay. Go ahead and tell the rest.”

“Well, everything worked out pretty well. It wasn’t hard for me to get a job in a small town like this without anybody checking the references too close. Though I was kind of scared, since it was a bank I’d applied to, and I figured they might be careful about who they hired. But they didn’t spot anything false in my references and I’ve been working there ever since.”

Nolan said, “Yeah, I can believe it.” He knew a lot of banks picked girls on a basis of looks and personality; he just hoped they were more cautious in the banks his money was stored in. He said, “Keep talking.”

She stared at the floor, avoiding Nolan’s eyes. “And... and my father... I loved him so much, once... respected him... but the love was transformed into hate, when I found out what he really was.”

“Cover some new ground,” he told her, seeing the first light of the sun coming in through the loft windows above them.

“What... what’s left to tell?”

“Quit stalling. How did your roommate die?”

She tried to speak but her throat caught. The tears began again, in a violent rush. Nolan grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. “How? How did it happen? Did you kill her?”

She bit the ends of her fingers. “I... I don’t know... I don’t suppose I’ll ever know.”

Nolan released her. “Calm down and tell me about it.”

She leaned forward. “Remember what I told you about Irene Tisor? The false one, I mean, before you knew? How she was getting wild the last few months? That was true, even though I was talking about the other Irene. She started to abuse our agreement, feeling a strange sort of freedom, I guess, from living under another person’s name. I began to feel... to feel I had to end the farce... take the name back and forget my pride and leave Chelsey, go somewhere, anywhere else! Anywhere but Chelsey! As long as these pseudo-hippie friends of Irene’s weren’t around.” She laughed. “I get confused, even now. Who’s Vicki? Who’s Irene? Which am I?”

“What happened?”

“She wanted to try LSD. Grass wasn’t enough for her, yet she was afraid of anything stronger. Except LSD. She read a lot of books, magazine articles on it... some of her weird friends were urging her to give it a try. When she finally got the nerve, she got this little sugar cube, from that Broome character, she said. It was wrapped in cellophane, like a piece of candy. She brought it to the apartment and told me about how she was going to try it and said she needed my help. Either I gave her a hand with it, or she’d call my father on the phone and expose me. What she needed was a guide, a person to be with her when she was on the stuff who would make sure nothing... nothing bad happened... while she was on the trip, you know? I said I’d do it.”

Nolan sat down next to her, steadied her with a hand on her shoulder.

Her voice trembled; it was soft, distant, as she recalled an evening she’d tried to forget.

“We started out in the apartment,” she said. “She ran around the room looking at things, feeling, eating, tasting, touching. She was an animal, writhing on the floor, a serpent, utterly stripped of any inhibitions she’d ever felt. She told me it was wonderful, she could feel and taste and hear and see all at once, never as before. She... she seemed almost insane, and it got worse... worse as she went along. Then she sat in a chair... that chair, the chair right across from us now... and had a conversation with someone only she could see. Claimed it... it was her soul. Then she sprang out of the chair and ran down the steps. I followed her... I didn’t try to stop her, there was no reasoning with her... it was late and no one was around to bother us.”

She hesitated, buried her eyes in her hands and said, “She came to... to that building. Twill Building. She pulled down a fire escape and she climbed it... climbed up, up to the top... and I followed her. She said... said she wanted to taste the stars, feel the sky. She got on the roof-top and... and she ran... ran around like a crazy woman... and chattered about God, how she was meeting God... and I snapped. I couldn’t stand it any more. I grabbed her, tried to shake her, shake her out of it... but no use. No use. She was strong... she fought me... we scuffled around... tumbled... rolled... and suddenly the edge of the building was there and we kept struggling and... and she just... she just went over. She went over, that’s all.”

There was silence in the room for a moment, then she said, “I got away without a single person seeing me. I came back here and went to bed, but I didn’t sleep. The next day, Irene Tisor was dead. When I saw the word would get back to my father that his daughter was dead... I let it ride. I let it ride.”

Nolan stood up. “I see.”

She reached out for him, her eyes dry but still bloodshot. “I don’t think I... I pushed her, Nolan, but... I don’t know.”

“Sure.”

“What... what will you tell my father?”

He shrugged. “The truth, maybe. Or perhaps that his daughter is dead and to forget it. I don’t know yet.”

“Do you think I... I killed her? On purpose, I mean?”

“I don’t know,” Nolan said. “Maybe I don’t even give a damn. But any way you spell it, I can’t scrape up much pity for you.”

“Nolan...”

“You condemned your father for being a criminal, then turned around and made a lie of your own life. You slept with me, a thief, a killer ten times over. And maybe you even killed somebody yourself.”

The tears were back again. Funny how Nolan had told Sid Tisor when the thing began that it was the living to feel sorry for, and not the dead. Sid had mourned the living all along.

“Your father worked for the Outfit, all right,” he said. “But he was a pencil jockey, a book man. Maybe just being a part of the Outfit makes you a criminal, but Sid sure didn’t share any love for his bosses. Helping me like he did proves that.”

She kept crying but Nolan didn’t pay any attention.

“You took the good life on a platter from him,” Nolan said, “kept it, and threw him away.”

“What can I do, Nolan?”

“That’s your problem.”

“But Nolan...”

“My debt’s paid. Kiss Chelsey goodbye for me.”

“Don’t leave! Tell me what to do! What should I do, Nolan, tell me!”

“You should probably go to hell,” he said. “But you want my advice so bad, I’ll give it. Become Irene Tisor again. Drop the Vicki Trask tag and start over. But quietly, or they’ll trace you back to the death of your roommate.”

“But they’ll find out, won’t they?”

“I don’t think so. The death of Irene Tisor is a closed case. It’s marked probable suicide in a file. But stick around Chelsey and your chances aren’t so good. The easy days in this town are over what with the Boys not having an operation here anymore and the on-the-take police chief dead.”

“How? How can I do it?”

Nolan reached in his pocket and dangled the keys of the Lincoln in front of her. “These keys fit the car I been driving around Chelsey. It’s rented in your father’s name. The car, with the keys in it, will be waiting at the bottom of the steps for you. When you’re ready, drive it back to Peoria.”

Her eyes were red, wet circles. “What do you mean?”

“I mean go back to your father. Go back where they know you and you can explain your ‘death’ by saying it was a mix- up and they’ll believe you. Your father’s a lonely old guy. Just be careful you don’t give him a heart attack when you show up. He’ll be so happy to find you alive he won’t give a damn about what an ungrateful little bitch you’ve been.”

“Go back to him?”

“If he’ll have you.”

“But...”

Nolan turned and walked to the door. “Give Sid my regards. And tell him we’re even.”

She swallowed and said, “Maybe I’ll... I’ll do that.”

He opened the door. “So long, Vicki... or Irene.” His lips formed the humorless line she’d come to know as his smile. “Maybe I’ll stop by Peoria in a year or so,” he said. “And see who you are.”

He closed the door and left her.

6

It was a red Plymouth that was dirty as hell and hadn’t been new for twelve years. Lyn Parks was sitting behind the wheel, her long blonde hair hanging down over the shoulders of Nolan’s parka, which she still wore. The Plymouth’s engine was running, the muffler sounding as if it had seconds to live.

“Well?” she called, as Nolan came from the doorway of the apartment.

“Well?” he returned, heading for the Lincoln. He opened up the trunk of the big car, got out his clothes-bags, luggage and the money-stuffed suitcase. He slammed the lid back down, tossed the keys in the open window of the Lincoln and joined Lyn Parks in the dirty red Plymouth, piling the back seat with his baggage.

“You need all that crap?” she asked.

He patted the suitcase of cash fondly. “This one’s all I really need.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Drive.”

“Where?”

“Think you can find Milwaukee?”

“Eventually,” she shrugged.

“I got a stop to make.” Nolan’s Milwaukee contact, a broker named Richmond, would see that the quarter million was properly banked/invested.

“You’re the boss,” she said. “I just hope this crate’ll make it as far as Wisconsin.”

“I’ll buy you a new one on the way.”

She grinned. “Sounds good.” She started the car, her blonde hair bouncing, and four minutes later Chelsey was a memory.

Nolan leaned back, his hand on Lyn Parks’ thigh. There would be no sweat from the Boys for a while; they’d be busy trying to figure out what had been going on in Chelsey. And that was good, he hadn’t relaxed for months. He squeezed Lyn’s thigh, leaned his head back and shut his eyes. Wisconsin would be cold this time of year. It would be nice to have a bed warmer.