One Lonely Night

Mickey Spillane

ONE LONELY NIGHT

First published in 1951

To Marty

Chapter One

Nobody ever walked across the bridge, not on a night like this. The rain was misty enough to be almost fog-like, a cold gray curtain that separated me from the pale ovals of white that were faces locked behind the steamed-up windows of the cars that hissed by. Even the brilliance that was Manhattan by night was reduced to a few sleepy, yellow lights off in the distance.

Some place over there I had left my car and started walking, burying my head in the collar of my raincoat, with the night pulled in around me like a blanket. I walked and I smoked and I flipped the spent butts ahead of me and watched them arch to the pavement and fizzle out with one last wink. If there was life behind the windows of the buildings on either side of me, I didn't notice it. The street was mine, all mine. They gave it to me gladly and wondered why I wanted it so nice and all alone.

There were others like me, sharing the dark and the solitude, but they huddled in the recessions of the doorways not wanting to share the wet and the cold. I could feel their eyes follow me briefly before they turned inward to their thoughts again.

So I followed the hard concrete footpaths of the city through the towering canyons of the buildings and never noticed when the sheer cliffs of brick and masonry diminished and disappeared altogether, and the footpath led into a ramp then on to the spidery steel skeleton that was the bridge linking two states.

I climbed to the hump in the middle and stood there leaning on the handrail with a butt in my fingers, watching the red and green lights of the boats in the river below. They winked at me and called in low, throaty notes before disappearing into the night.

Like eyes and faces. And voices.

I buried my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again, wondering what the judge would say if he could see me now. Maybe he'd laugh because I was supposed to be so damn tough, and here I was with hands that wouldn't stand still and an empty feeling inside my chest.

He was only a little judge. He was little and he was old with eyes like two berries on a bush. His hair was pure white and wavy and his skin was loose and wrinkled. But he had a voice like the avenging angel. The dignity and knowledge behind his face gave him the stature of a giant, the poise of Gabriel reading your sins aloud from the Great Book and condemning you to your fate.

He had looked at me with a loathing louder than words, lashing me with his eyes in front of a courtroom filled with people, every empty second another stroke of the steel-tipped whip. His voice, when it did come, was edged with a gentle bitterness that was given only to the righteous.

But it didn't stay righteous long. It changed into disgusted hatred because I was a licensed investigator who knocked off somebody who needed knocking off bad and he couldn't get to me. So I was a murderer by definition and all the law could do was shake its finger at definitions.

Hell, the state would have liquidated the gun anyway . . . maybe he would have pronounced sentence himself. Maybe he thought I should have stayed there and called for the cops when the bastard had a rod in his hand and it was pointing right at my gut.

Yeah, great.

If he had let it stay there it would have been all right. I'd been called a lot of things before. But no, he had to go and strip me naked in front of myself and throw the past in my face when it should have stayed dead and buried forever. He had to go back five years to a time he knew of only secondhand and tell me how it took a war to show me the power of the gun and the obscene pleasure that was brutality and force, the spicy sweetness of murder sanctified by law.

That was me. I could have made it sound better if I'd said it. There in the muck and slime of the jungle, there in the stink that hung over the beaches rising from the bodies of the dead, there in the half-light of too many dusks and dawns laced together with the crisscrossed patterns of bullets, I had gotten a taste of death and found it palatable to the extent that I could never again eat the fruits of a normal civilization.

Goddamn, he wouldn't let me alone! He went on and on cutting me down until I was nothing but scum in the gutter, his fists slamming against the bench as he prophesied a rain of purity that was going to wash me into the sewer with the other scum leaving only the good and the meek to walk in the cleanliness of law and justice.

One day I would die and the world would be benefited by my death. And to the good there was only the perplexing question: Why did I live and breathe now . . . what could possibly be the reason for existence when there was no good in me? None at all.

So he gave me back my soul of toughness, hate and bitterness and let me dress in the armor of cynicism and dismissed me before I could sneer and make the answer I had ready.

He had called the next case up even before I reached the side of the room. It had all the earmarks of a good case, but nobody seemed to be interested. All they watched was me and their eyes were bright with that peculiar kind of horrified disgust that you see in people watching some nasty, fascinating creature in a circus cage.

Only a few of them reflected a little sympathy. Pat was there. He gave me a short wave and a nod that meant everything was okay because I was his friend. But there were things the judge had said that Pat had wanted to say plenty of times too.

Then there was Pete, a reporter too old for the fast beats and just right for the job of picking up human interest items from the lower courts. He waved too, with a grimace that was a combination grin for me and a sneer for the judge. Pete was a cynic too, but he liked my kind of guy. I made bonus stories for him every once in a while.

Velda. Lovely, lovely Velda. She waited for me by the door and when I walked up to her I watched her lips purse into a ripe, momentary kiss. The rows and rows of eyes that had been following me jumped ahead to this vision in a low-cut dress who threw a challenge with every motion of her body. The eyes swept from her black pumps to legs and body and shoulders that were almost too good to be real and staggered when they met a face that was beauty capable of the extremes of every emotion. Her head moved just enough to swirl her black page-boy hair and the look she sent back to all those good people and their white-haired guardian of the law was something to be remembered. For one long second she had the judge's eye and outraged justice flinched before outraged love.

That's right, Velda was mine. It took a long time for me to find out just how much mine she was, much too long. But now I knew and I'd never forget it. She was the only decent thing about me and I was lucky.

She said, "Let's get out of here, Mike. I hate people with little minds."

We went outside the building to the sidewalk and climbed in my car. She knew I didn't want to talk about it and kept still. When I let her out at her apartment it was dark and starting to rain. Her hand went to mine and squeezed it. "A good drunk and you can forget about it, Mike. Sometimes people are too stupid to be grateful. Call me when you're loaded and I'll come get you."

That was all. She knew me enough to read my mind and didn't care what I thought. If the whole damn world climbed on my back there would still be Velda ready to yank them off and stamp on their faces. I didn't even tell her good-by. I just shut the door and started driving.

No, I didn't get drunk. Twice I looked in the mirror and saw me. I didn't look like me at all. I used to be able to look at myself and grin without giving a damn how ugly it made me look. Now I was looking at myself the same way those people did back there. I was looking at a big guy with an ugly reputation, a guy who had no earthly reason for existing in a decent, normal society. That's what the judge had said.

I was sweating and cold at the same time. Maybe it did happen to me over there. Maybe I did have a taste for death. Maybe I liked it too much to taste anything else. Maybe I was twisted and rotted inside. Maybe I would be washed down the sewer with the rest of all the rottenness sometime. What was stopping it from happening now? Why was I me with some kind of lucky charm around my neck that kept me going when I was better off dead?

That's why I parked the car and started walking in the rain. I didn't want to look in that damn mirror any more. So I walked and smoked and climbed to the hump in the bridge where the boats in the river made faces and spoke to me until I had to bury my face in my hands until everything straightened itself out again.

I was a killer. I was a murderer, legalized. I had no reason for living. Yeah, he said that!

The crazy music that had been in my head ever since I came back from those dusks and dawns started again, a low steady beat overshadowed by the screaming of brassier, shriller instruments that hadn't been invented yet. They shouted and pounded a symphony of madness and destruction while I held my hands over my ears and cursed until they stopped. Only the bells were left, a hundred bells that called for me to come closer to the music, and when I wouldn't come they stopped, one by one, all except one deep, persistent bell with a low, resonant voice. It wouldn't give up. It called me to it, and when I opened my eyes I knew the bell was from a channel marker in the river, calling whenever it swayed with the tide.

It was all right once I knew where it came from. At least it was real. That judge, that damn white-headed son-of-a-bitch got me like this. I wasn't so tough after all. It wouldn't have been so bad . . . but maybe he was right. Maybe he was dead right and I'd never be satisfied until I knew the answer myself. If there was an answer.

I don't know how long I stood there. Time was just the ticking of a watch and a blend of sound from the ramp behind me. At some point after the sixth cigarette the cold mist had turned into a fine snow that licked at my face and clung to my coat. At first it melted into damp patches on the steel and concrete, then took hold and extended itself into a coverlet of white.

Now the last shred of reality was gone completely. The girders became giant trees and the bridge an eerie forest populated by whitecapped rubber-tired monsters streaking for the end of the causeway that took them into more friendly surroundings. I leaned back into the shadow of a girder and watched them to get my mind off other things, happy to be part of the peace and quiet of the night.

It came at last, the lessening of tension. The stiffness went out of my fingers and I pulled on a smoke until it caught in my lungs the way I liked it to do. Yeah, I could grin now and watch the faces fade away until they were onto the port and starboard lights of the ships again, and the bell that called me in was only a buoy some place off in the dark.

I ought to get out of it. I ought to take Velda and my office and start up in real estate in some small community where murder and guns and dames didn't happen. Maybe I would, at that. It was wonderful to be able to think straight again. No more crazy mad hatred that tied my insides into knots. No more hunting the scum that stood behind a trigger and shot at the world. That was official police business. The duty of organized law and order. And too slow justice. No more sticks with dirty ends on them either.

That's what the snow and the quiet did for me. It had been a long time since I had felt this good. Maybe the rottenness wasn't there at all and I was a killer only by coincidence. Maybe I didn't like to kill at all.

I stuck another Lucky in my mouth and searched my pockets for matches. Something jerked my head up before I found them and I stood there listening.

The wind blew. The snow hissed to the street. A foghorn sounded. That was all.

I shrugged and tore a match out of the book when I heard it again. A little, annoying sound that didn't belong on the bridge in the peace and quiet. They were soft, irregular sounds that faded when the wind shifted, then came back stronger. Footsteps, muted by the inch or so of snow on the walk.

I would have gotten the butt lit if the feet weren't trying to run with the desperate haste that comes with fatigue. The sound came closer and closer until it was a shadow fifty feet away that turned into a girl wrapped in a coat with a big woolly collar, her hands reaching for the support of a girder and missing.

She fell face down and tried to pull herself up to run again, but she couldn't make it. Her breathing was a long, racking series of sobs that shook her body in a convulsion of despair.

I'd seen fear before, but never like this.

She was only a few steps away and I ran to her, my hands hooking under her arms to lift her to her feet.

Her eyes were like saucers, rimmed with red, overflowing with tears that blurred her pupils. She took one look at me and choked, "Lord . . . no, please!"

"Easy, honey, take it easy," I said. I propped her against the girder and her eyes searched my face through the tears unable to see me clearly. She tried to talk and I stopped her. "No words, kid. There's plenty of time for that later. Just take it easy a minute, nobody's going to hurt you."

As if that stirred something in her mind, her eyes went wide again and she turned her head to stare back down the ramp. I heard it too. Footsteps, only these weren't hurried. They came evenly and softly, as if knowing full well they'd reach their objective in a few seconds.

I felt a snarl ripple across my mouth and my eyes went half shut. Maybe you can smack a dame around all you want and make her life as miserable as hell, but nobody has the right to scare the daylights out of any woman. Not like this.

She trembled so hard I had to put my arm around her shoulder to steady her. I watched her lips trying to speak, the unholy fear spreading into her face as no sound came.

I pulled her away from the girder. "Come on, we'll get this straightened out in a hurry." She was too weak to resist. I held my arm around her and started walking toward the footsteps.

He came out of the wall of white, a short, pudgy guy in a heavy belted ulster. His homburg was set on the side of his head rakishly, and even at this distance I could see the smile on his lips. Both his hands were stuck in his pockets and he walked with a swagger. He wasn't a bit surprised when he saw the two of us. One eyebrow went up a little, but that was all. Oh yes, he had a gun in one pocket.

It was pointing at me.

Nobody had to tell me he was the one. I wouldn't even have to know he had a rod in his hand. The way the kid's body stiffened with the shock of seeing him was enough. My face couldn't have been nice to look at right then, but it didn't bother the guy.

The gun moved in the pocket so I'd know it was a gun.

His voice fitted his body, short and thick. He said, "It is not smart to be a hero. Not smart at all." His thick lips twisted into a smile of mingled satisfaction and conceit. It was so plain in his mind that I could almost hear him speak it. The girl running along, stumbling blindly into the arms of a stranger. Her pleas for help, the guy's ready agreement to protect her, only to look down the barrel of a rod.

It didn't happen like that at all, but that's what he thought. His smile widened and he said harshly, "So now they will find the two of you here tomorrow." His eyes were as cold and as deadly as those of a manta ray.

He was too cocky. All he could see was his own complete mastery of the situation. He should have looked at me a little harder and maybe he would have seen the kind of eyes I had. Maybe he would have known that I was a killer in my own way too, and he would have realized that I knew he was just the type who would go to the trouble of taking the gun out of his pocket instead of ruining a good coat.

I never really gave him a chance. All I moved was my arm and before he had his gun out I had my .45 in my fist with the safety off and the trigger back. I only gave him a second to realize what it was like to die then I blew the expression clean off his face.

He never figured the hero would have a gun, too.

Before I could get it back in the holster the girl gave a lunge and backed up against the railing. Her eyes were clear now. They darted to the mess on the ground, the gun in my hand and the tight lines that made a mask of kill-lust of my face.

She screamed. Good God, how she screamed. She screamed as if I were a monster that had come up out of the pit! She screamed and made words that sounded like, "You . . . one of them . . . no more!"

I saw what she was going to do and tried to grab her, but the brief respite she had was enough to give her the strength she needed. She twisted and slithered over the top of the rail and I felt part of her coat come away in my hand as she tumbled headlong into the white void below the bridge.

Lord, Lord, what happened? My fingers closed over the handrail and I stared down after her. Three hundred feet to the river. The little fool didn't have to do that! She was safe! Nothing could have hurt her, didn't she realize that? I was shouting it at the top of my lungs with nobody but a dead man to hear me. When I pulled away from the rail I was shaking like a leaf.

All because of that fat little bastard stretched out in the snow. I pulled back my foot and kicked what was left of him until he rolled over on his face.

I did it again, I killed somebody else! Now I could stand in the courtroom in front of the man with the white hair and the voice of the Avenging Angel and let him drag my soul out where everybody could see it and slap it with another coat of black paint.

Peace and quiet, it was great! I ought to have my head examined. Or the guy should maybe; his had a hell of a hole in it. The dirty son-of-a-bitch for trying to get away with that. The fat little slob walks right up to me with a rod in his hand figuring to get away with it. The way he strutted you'd think he didn't have a care in the world, yet just like that he was going to kill two people without batting an eye. He got part of what he wanted anyway. The girl was dead. He was the kind of a rat who would have gotten a big laugh out of the papers tomorrow. Maybe he was supposed to be the rain of purity that was going to wash me down the gutter into the sewer with the rest of the scum. Brother, would that have been a laugh.

Okay, if he wanted a laugh, he'd get it. If his ghost could laugh I'd make it real funny for him. It would be so funny that his ghost would be the laughingstock of hell and when mine got there it'd have something to laugh at too. I'm nothing but a stinking no-good killer but I get there first, Judge. I get there first and live to do it again because I have eyes that see and a hand that works without being told and I don't give a damn what you do to my soul because it's so far gone nothing can be done for it! Go to hell yourself, Judge! Get a real belly laugh!

I tore his pockets inside out and stuffed his keys and wallet in my coat. I ripped out every label on his clothes right down to the laundry marks then I kicked the snow off the pavement and rubbed his fingertips against the cold concrete until there weren't any fingertips left. When I was finished he looked like the remains of a scarecrow that had been up too many seasons. I grabbed an arm and a leg and heaved him over the rail, and when I heard a faint splash many seconds later my mouth split into a grin. I kicked the pieces of the cloth and his gun under the rail and let them get lost in the obscurity of the night and the river. I didn't even have to worry about the bullet. It was lying right there in the snow, all flattened out and glistening wetly.

I kicked that over the side too.

Now let them find him. Let them learn who it was and how it happened. Let everybody have a laugh while you're at it!

It was done and I lit a cigarette. The snow still coming down put a new layer over the tracks and the dark stain. It almost covered up the patch of cloth that had come from the girl's coat, but I picked that up and stuck it in with the rest of the stuff.

Now my footsteps were the only sound along the ramp. I walked back to the city telling myself that it was all right, it had to happen that way. I was me and I couldn't have been anything else even if there had been no war. I was all right, the world was wrong. A police car moaned through the pay station and passed me as its siren was dying down to a low whine. I didn't even give it a second thought. They weren't going anywhere, certainly not to the top of the hump because not one car had passed during those few minutes it had happened. Nobody saw me, nobody cared. If they did the hell with 'em.

I reached the streets of the city and turned back for another look at the steel forest that climbed into the sky. No, nobody ever walked across the bridge on a night like this.

Hardly nobody.

Chapter Two

I didn't go home that night. I went to my office and sat in the big leather-covered chair behind the desk and drank without getting drunk. I held the .45 in my lap, cleaned and reloaded, watching it, feeling in it an extension of myself. How many people had it sent on the long road? My mind blocked off the thought of the past and I put the gun back in the sling under my arm and slept. I dreamt that the judge with the white hair and eyes like two berries on a bush was pointing at me, ordering me to take the long road myself, and I had the .45 in my hand and my finger worked the trigger. It clicked and wouldn't go off, and with every sharp click a host of devilish voices would take up a dirge of laughter and I threw the gun at him, but it wouldn't leave my hand. It was part of me and it stuck fast.

The key turning in the lock awakened me. Throughout that dream of violent action I hadn't moved an inch, so that when I brought my head up I was looking straight at Velda. She didn't know I was there until she tossed the day's mail on the desk. For a second she froze with startled surprise, then relaxed into a grin.

"You scared the whosis out of me, Mike." She paused and bit her lip. "Aren't you here early?"

"I didn't go home, kid."

"Oh. I thought you might call me. I stayed up pretty late."

"I didn't get drunk, either."

"No?"

"No."

Velda frowned again. She wanted to say something, but during office hours she respected my position. I was the boss and she was my secretary. Very beautiful, of course. I loved her like hell, but she didn't know how much and she was still part of the pay roll. She decided to brighten the office with a smile instead, sorted the things on my desk, and started back to the reception room.

"Velda . . ."

She stopped, her hand on the knob and looked over her shoulder. "Yes, Mike?"

"Come here." I stood up and sat on the edge of the desk tapping a Lucky against my thumbnail. "What kind of a guy am I, kitten?"

Her eyes probed into my brain and touched the discontent. For a moment her smile turned into an animal look I had seen only once before. "Mike . . . that judge was a bastard. You're an all-right guy."

"How do you know?" I stuck the butt between my lips and lit it.

She stood there spraddle-legged with her hands low on her hips like a man, her breasts rising and falling faster than they should, fighting the wispy thinness of the dress. "I could love you a little or I could love you a lot, Mike. Sometimes it's both ways but mostly it's a lot. If you weren't all right I couldn't love you at all. Is that what you wanted me to say?"

"No." I blew out a stream of smoke and looked at the ceiling. "Tell me about myself. Tell me what other people say."

"Why? You know it as well as I do. You read the papers. When you're right you're a hero. When you're wrong you're kill-happy. Why don't you ask the people who count, the ones who really know you? Ask Pat. He thinks you're a good cop. Ask all the worms in the holes, the ones who have reason to stay out of your way. They'll tell you too . . . if you can catch them."

I chucked the butt into the metal basket. "Sure, the worms'll tell me. You know why I can't catch them, Velda? Do you know why they're scared to death to tangle with me? I'll tell you why. They know damn well I'm as bad as they are . . . worse, and I operate legally."

She reached out a hand and ran it over my hair. "Mike, you're too damn big and tough to give a hang what people say. They're only little people with little minds, so forget it."

"There's an awful lot of it."

"Forget it."

"Make me," I said.

She came into my arms with a rush and I held her to me to get warm and let the moist softness of her lips make me forget. I had to push to get her away and I stood there holding her arms, breathing in a picture of what a man's woman should look like. It was a long time before I could manage a grin, but she brought it out of me. There's something a woman does without words that makes a man feel like a man and forget about the things he's been told.

"Did you bring in the paper?"

"It's on my desk."

She followed me when I went out to get it. A tabloid and a full-sized job were there. The tab was opened to a news account of the trial that was one column wide and two inches long. They had my picture, too. The other rag gave me a good spread and a good going over and they didn't have my picture. I could start picking my friends out of the pack now.

Instead of digesting the absorbing piece of news, I scanned the pages for something else. Velda scowled at my concentration and hung over my shoulder. What I was looking for wasn't there. Not a single thing about two bodies in the river.

"Something, Mike?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Just looking for customers."

She didn't believe me. "There are some excellent prospects in the letter file if you're interested. They're waiting for your answer."

"How are we fixed, Velda?" I didn't look at her.

I put the paper down and reached in my pocket for a smoke.

"We're solvent. Two accounts paid up yesterday. The money has been banked and there's no bills. Why?"

"Maybe I'll take a vacation."

"From what?"

"From paid jobs. I'm tired of being an employee."

"Think of me."

"I am," I said. "You can take a vacation too if you want to."

She grabbed my elbow and turned me around until I was fencing with her eyes again. "Whatever you're thinking isn't of fun on some beach, Mike."

"It isn't?" I tried to act surprised.

"No." She took the cigarette from my mouth, dragged on it and stuck it back. She never moved her eyes. "Mike, don't play with me, please. Either tell me or don't, but quit making up excuses. What's on your mind?"

My mouth felt tight. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"Yes I would." There was nothing hidden in her answer. No laughter, no scorn. Just absolute belief in me.

"I want to find out about myself, Velda."

She must have known what was coming. I said it quietly, almost softly, and she believed me. "All right, Mike," she said. "If you need me for anything you know where to find me."

I gave her the cigarette and went back to the office. How deep can a woman go to search a man's mind? How can they know without being told when some trivial thing can suddenly become so important? What is it that gives them that look as if they know the problem and the answer too, yet hold it back because it's something you have to discover for yourself?

I sat down in the swivel chair again and pulled all the junk out of my pockets; the keys, the wallet and the change. Two of the keys were for a car. One was an ordinary house key, another for a trunk or suitcase, and another for either a tumbler padlock or another house.

If I expected to find anything in the wallet I was mistaken. There were six fives and two singles in the bill compartment, a package of three-cent stamps and a card-calendar in one pocket, and a plain green card with the edges cut off at odd angles in the other pocket. That was all.

That was enough.

The little fat boy didn't have his name in print anywhere. It wasn't a new wallet either. Fat boy didn't want identification. I didn't blame him. What killer would?

Yeah, that was enough to make me sit back and look at the scuffed folder of calfskin and make me think. It would make you think too. Take a look at your own wallet and see what's in it.

I had the stuff spread out on the desk when I remembered the other pocket of my raincoat and pulled out the huge tweed triangle that had come from the girl's coat. I laid it out on my lap with the night before shoved into some corner of my brain and looked at it as though it were just another puzzle, not a souvenir of death.

The cloth had come apart easily. I must have grabbed her at the waist because the section of the coat included the right-hand and pocket and part of the lining. I rubbed the fabric through my fingers feeling the soft texture of fine wool, taking in the details of the pattern. More out of curiosity than anything else, I stuck my hand inside the pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

She didn't even have time for a last smoke, I thought. Even a condemned man gets that. She didn't. She took one look at me and saw my eyes and my face and whatever she saw there yanked a scream from her lungs and the strength to pull her over the rail.

What have I got locked up inside me that comes out at times like that? What good am I alive? Why do I have to be the one to pull the trigger and have my soul torn apart afterwards?

The cigarettes were a mashed ball of paper in my hand, a little wad of paper, cellophane and tinfoil that smelt of tobacco and death. My teeth were locked together and when I looked down at my hand my nail ripped through the paper and I saw the green underneath.

Between the cigarettes and the wrapper was another of those damnable green cards with the edges cut off at odd angles.

Two murders. Two green cards.

It was the same way backwards. Two green cards and two murders.

Which came first, the murders or the cards?

Green for death.

Murder at odd angles. Two murders. Eight odd angles. Yes, two murders. The fat boy got what he was after. Because of him the girl was murdered no matter how. So I got him. I was a murderer like they said, only to me it was different. I was just a killer. I wondered what the law would say and if they'd make that fine difference now. Yeah. I could have been smart about it; I could have done what I did, called the police and let them take over then take the dirty medicine the papers and the judge and the public would have handed me. No, I had to be smart. I had to go and mix it up so much that if those bodies were found and the finger pointed at me all I could expect was a trip on that long road to nowhere.

Was that why I did it . . . because I felt smart? No, that wasn't the reason. I didn't feel smart. I was mad. I was kill crazy mad at the bastards the boy with the scythe pointed out to me and goddamn mad at all the screwy little minds and the screwy big minds that had the power of telling me off later. They could go to hell, the judge and the jury and all the rest of them! I was getting too sick and disgusted of fighting their battles for them anyway! The boy with the scythe could go to hell with the rest and if he didn't like it he could come after me, personally. I'd love that. I wish there was a special agency called Death that could hear what I was thinking and make a try for me. I'd like to take that stinking black shadow and shove his own scythe down his bony throat and disjoint him with a couple of .45's! Come on, bony boy, let's see you do what you can! Get your white-haired judge and your good people tried and true and let's see just how good you are! I think I'm better, see? I think I can handle any one of you, and if you get the idea I'm kidding, then come and get me.

And if you're afraid to come after me, then I'm going after you. Maybe I'll know what I'm like then. Maybe I'll find out what's going on in my mind and why I keep on living when fat cold-blooded killers and nice warm-blooded killers are down there shaking hands with the devil!

I pulled the green card out of the cigarettes and matched it to the one from the wallet. They fitted--Twins. I put them in my shirt pocket, grabbed my coat and hat and slammed the door after me when I left the office.

At a little after ten I pulled up outside the brick building that was the house of the law. Here was where the invisible processes went on that made cops out of men and murderers out of clues. The car in front of mine was an official sedan that carried the D.A.'s sticker and I smoked a butt right down to the bottom before I decided to try to reach Pat even if the fair-haired boy of the courts was around.

I should have waited a minute longer. I had my hand on the door when he pushed through and it looked like a cold wind hit him in the face. He screwed his mouth up into a snarl, thought better of it and squeezed a smile out.

Strictly an official smile.

He said, "Morning."

I said, "Nice day."

He got in his car and slammed the door so hard it almost fell off. I waved when he drove by. He didn't wave back. The old guy on the elevator took me upstairs and when I walked into Pat's office I was grinning.

Pat started, "Did you . . ."

I answered with a nod. "I did. We met at the gate. What got into the lad; is he sore at me?"

"Sit down, Mike." Pat waved his thumb at the straight-back wooden chair reserved for official offenders about to get a reprimand. "Look, pal, the District Attorney is only an elected official, but that's a mighty big 'only.' You put him over a barrel not so long ago and he isn't going to forget it. He isn't going to forget who your friends are, either."

"Meaning you."

"Meaning me exactly. I'm a Civil Service servant, a Captain of Homicide. I have certain powers of jurisdiction, arrest and influence. He supersedes them. If the D.A. gets his hooks into you just once, you'll have a ring through your nose and I'll be handed the deal of whipping you around the arena just to give him a little satisfaction. Please quit antagonizing the guy for my sake if not for your own. Now what's on your mind?"

Pat leaned back and grinned at me. We were still buddies.

"What's new on the dockets, chum?"

Nothing," he shrugged. "Life has been nice and dull. I come in at eight and go home at six. I like it."

"Not even a suicide?"

"Not even. Don't tell me you're soliciting work."

"Hardly. I'm on a vacation."

Pat got that look. It started behind the pupils where no look was supposed to be. A look that called me a liar and waited to hear the rest of the lie. I had to lie a little myself. "Since you have it so easy, how about taking your own vacation with me? We could have some fun."

The look retreated and disappeared altogether. "Hell, I'd love to, Mike, but we're still scratching trying to catch up on all the details around here. I don't think it's possible." He screwed up his forehead. "Don't you feel so hot?"

"Sure, I feel fine, that's why I want a vacation while I can enjoy it." I slapped my hat back on my head and stood up. "Well, since you won't come I'll hit the road alone. Too bad. Ought to be lots doing."

He rocked his chair forward and took my hand "Have fun, Mike."

"I will." I gave it a pause, then: "Oh, by the way. I wanted to show you something before I left." I reached in my shirt pocket and took out the two green cards and tossed them on the desk. "Funny, aren't they?"

Pat dropped my hand like it had been hot. Sometimes he gets the damnedest expression on his face you ever saw. He held those cards in his fingers and walked around the desk to close and lock the door. What he said when he sat down makes dirty reading.

"Where'd you get these?" His voice had an edge to it that meant we were close to not being buddies any more.

"I found 'em."

"Nuts. Sit down, damn it." I sat down easy again and lit a smoke. It was hard to keep a grin off my mouth. "Once more, Mike, where'd they come from?"

"I told you I found them."

"Okay, I'll get very simple in my questioning. Where did you find them?"

I was getting tired of wearing the grin. I let it do what it wanted to do and I felt the air dry my teeth. "Look, Pat, remember me? I'm your friend. I'm a citizen and I'm a stubborn jerk who doesn't like to answer questions when he doesn't know why. Quit the cop act and ask right. So tell me I handed you a line about a vacation when all I wanted to get was some information. So tell me something you haven't told me before."

"All right, Mike, all right. All I want to know is where you got them."

"I killed a guy and took it off his body."

"Stop being sarcastic."

I must have grinned the dirtiest kind of grin there was. Pat watched me strangely, shook his head impatiently and tossed the cards back on the desk. "Are they so important I can't hear about it, Pat?"

He ran his tongue across his lips. "No, they're not so important in one way. I guess they could be lost easily enough. They're plenty of them in circulation."

"Yeah?"

He nodded briefly and fingered the edge of one. "They're Communist identification cards. One of the new fronts. The Nazi bund that used to operate in this country had cards just like 'em. They were red though. Every so often they change the cuts of the edges to try to trip up any spies. When you get in the meeting hall your card has to match up with a master card."

"Oh, just like a lodge." I picked one up and tucked it in my coat pocket.

He said, "Yeah," sourly.

"Then why all the to-do with the door. We're not in a meeting hall."

Pat smacked the desk with the flat of his hand. "I don't know, Mike. Damn it, if anybody but you came in with a couple of those cards I would have said what they were and that's all. But when it's you I go cold all over and wait for something to happen. I know it won't happen, then it does. Come on, spill it. What's behind them?" He looked tired as hell.

"Nothing, I told you that. They're curious and I found two of them. I'd never seen anything like it before and thought maybe you'd know what they were."

"And I did."

"That's right. Thanks."

I put my hat back on and stood up. He let me get as far as the door. "Mike . . ." He was looking at his hand.

"I'm on vacation now, pal."

He picked up a card and looked at the blank sides of it. "Three days ago a man was murdered. He had one of these things clutched in his hand."

I turned the knob. "I'm still on vacation."

"I just thought I'd tell you. Give you something to think about."

Swell. I'll turn it over in my mind when I'm stretched out on a beach in Florida."

"We know who killed him."

I let the knob slip through my fingers and tried to sound casual. "Anybody I know?"

"Yes, you and eight million others. His name is Lee Deamer. He's running for State Senator next term."

My breath whistled through my teeth. Lee Deamer, the people's choice. The guy who was scheduled to sweep the state clean. The guy who was kicking the politicians all over the joint. "He's pretty big," I said.

"Very."

"Too big to touch?"

His eyes jumped to mine. "Nobody is that big, Mike. Not even Deamer."

"Then why don't you grab him?"

"Because he didn't do it."

"What a pretty circle that is. I had you figured for a brain, Pat. He killed a guy and he didn't do it. That's great logic, especially when it comes from you."

A slow grin started at the corner of his eyes. "When you're on vacation you can think it over, Mike. I'll wrap it up for you, just once. A dead man is found. He has one of these cards in his hand. Three people positively identified the killer. Each one saw him under favorable conditions and was able to give a complete description and identification. They came to the police with the story and we were lucky enough to hush it up.

"Lee Deamer was identified as the killer. He was described right to the scar on his nose, his picture was snapped up the second it was shown and he was identified in person. It's the most open-and-shut case you ever saw, yet we can't touch him because when he was supposed to be pulling a murder he was a mile away talking to a group of prominent citizens. I happened to be among those present."

I kicked the door closed with my foot and stood there. "Hot damn."

"Too hot to handle. Now you know why the D.A. was in such a foul mood."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But it shouldn't be too tough for you, Pat. There's only four things that could have happened."

"Tell me. See if it's what I'm thinking."

"Sure, kid. One: twins. Two: a killer disguised as Deamer. Three: a deliberate frame-up with witnesses paid to make the wrong identification. Four: it was Deamer after all."

"Which do you like, Mike?"

I laughed at his solemn tone. "Beats me, I'm on vacation." I found the knob and pulled it open. "See you when I get back."

"Sure thing, Mike." His eyes narrowed to slits. "If you run across any more cards, tell me about them, will you?"

"Yeah, anything else?"

"Just that one question. Where did you get them?"

"I killed a guy and took it off his dead body."

Pat was swearing softly to himself when I left. Just as the elevator door closed he must have begun to believe me because I heard his door open and he shouted, "Mike . . . damn it, Mike!"

I called the Globe office from a hash house down the street. When I asked the switchboard operator if Marty Kooperman had called in yet she plugged into a couple of circuits, asked around and told me he was just about to go to lunch. I passed the word for him to meet me in the lobby if he wanted a free chow and hung up. I wasn't in a hurry. I never knew a reporter yet who would pass up a meal he wasn't paying for.

Marty was there straddling a chair backwards, trying to keep his eyes on two blondes and a luscious redhead who was apparently waiting for someone else. When I tapped him on the shoulder he scowled and whispered, "Hell, I almost had that redhead nailed. Go away."

"Come on, I'll buy you another one," I said.

"I like this one."

The city editor came out of the elevator, said hello to the redhead and they went out together. Marty shrugged. "Okay, let's eat. A lousy political reporter doesn't stand a chance against that."

One of the blondes looked at me and smiled. I winked at her and she winked back. Marty was so disgusted he spit on the polished floor. Some day he'll learn that all you have to do is ask. They'll tell you.

He tried to steer me into a hangout around the corner, but I nixed the idea and kept going up the street to a little bar that put out a good meal without any background noise. When we had a table between us and the orders on the fire, Marty flipped me a cigarette and the angle of his eyebrows told me he was waiting.

"How much about politics do you know, Marty?"

He shook the match out. "More than I can write about."

"Know anything about Lee Deamer?"

His eyebrows came down and he leaned on his elbows. You're an investigator, Mike. You're the lad with a gun under his coat. Who wants to know about Deamer?"

"Me."

"What for?" His hand was itching to go for the pad and pencil in his pocket.

"Because of something that's no good for a story," I said. "What do you know about him?"

"Hell, there's nothing wrong with him. The guy is going to be the next senator from this state. He packs a big punch and everybody likes him including the opposition. He's strictly a maximum of statesman and a minimum of politician. Deamer has the cleanest record of anybody, probably because he has never been mixed up in politics too much. He is independently wealthy and out of reach as far as bribery goes. He has no use for chiselers or the spoils system, so most of the sharp boys are against him."

"Are you against him, Marty?"

"Not me, feller. I'm a Deamer man through and through. He's what we need these days. Where do you stand?"

"I haven't voted since they dissolved the Whig party."

"Fine citizen you are."

"Yeah."

"Then why the sudden curiosity?"

"Suppose I sort of hinted to you . . . strictly off the record . . . that somebody was after Deamer. Would you give me a hand? It may be another of those things you'll never get to write about."

Marty balled his hands into fists and rubbed his knuckles together. His face wasn't nice to look at. "You're damn right I'll help. I'm just another little guy who's sick of being booted around the block by the bastards that get themselves elected to public office and use that office to push their own wild ideas and line their own pockets. When a good thing comes along those stinking pigs go all out to smear it. Well, not if I can help it, and not if about nine tenths of the people in this burg can help it either. What do you need, kid?"

"Not much. Just a history on Deamer. All his background from as far back as you can go. Bring it right up to date. Pictures too, if you have any."

"I have folders of the stuff."

"Good," I said. Our lunch came up then and we dug into it. Throughout the meal Marty would alternately frown at his plate then glance up at me. I ate and kept my mouth shut. He could come to his own decision. He reached it over the apple pie he had for dessert. I saw his face relax and he let out a satisfied grunt.

"Do you want the stuff now?"

"Any time will do. Stick it in an envelope and send it to my office. I'm not in a hurry."

"Okay." He eyed me carefully. "Can you let me in on the secret?"

I shook my head. "I would if I could, pal. I don't know what the score is yet myself."

"Suppose I keep my ears to the ground. Anything likely to crop up that you could use?"

"I doubt it. Let's say that Deamer is a secondary consideration to what I actually want. Knowing something about him might help both of us."

"I see." He struck a match under the table and held it to a cigarette. "Mike, if there is a news angle, will you let me in on it?"

"I'd be glad to."

"I'm not talking about publishable news."

"No?"

Marty looked through the smoke at me, his eyes bright. "In every man's past there's some dirt. It can be dirt that belongs to the past and not to the present. But it can be dirty enough to use to smear a person, smear him so good that he'll have to retreat from the public gaze. You aren't tied up in politics like I am so you haven't got any idea how really rotten it is. Everybody is out for himself and to hell with the public. Oh, sure, the public has its big heroes, but they do things just to make the people think of them as heroes. Just look what happens whenever Congress or some other organization uncovers some of the filthy tactics behind government . . . the next day or two the boys upstairs release some big news item they've been keeping in reserve and it sweeps the dirt right off the front page and out of your mind.

"Deamer's straight. Because he's straight he's a target. Everybody is after his hide except the people. Don't think it hasn't been tried. I've come across it and so have the others, but we went to the trouble of going down a little deeper than we were expected to and we came across the source of the so-called 'facts.' Because it was stuff that was supposed to come to light during any normal compilation of a man's background the only way it could reach the public without being suspected of smear tactics by the opposition was through the newspapers.

"Well, by tacit agreement we suppressed the stuff. In one way we're targets too because the big boys with the strings know how we feel. Lee Deamer's going to be in there, Mike. He's going to raise all kinds of hell with the corruption we have in our government. He'll smoke out the rats that live on the public and give this country back some of the strength that it had before we were undermined by a lot of pretty talk and pretty faces.

"That's why I want to get the story from you . . . if there is one. I want to hold a conference with the others who feel like I do and come to an honest conclusion. Hell, I don't know why I've become so damn public-spirited. Maybe it's just that I'm tired of taking all the crap that's handed out."

I put a light to my butt and said, "Has there been anything lately on the guy?"

"No. Not for a month, anyway. They're waiting until he gets done stumping the state before they pick him apart."

Pat was right then. The police had kept it quiet, not because they were part of the movement of righteousness, but because they must have suspected a smear job. Deamer couldn't have been in two places at once by any means.

"Okay, Marty. I'll get in touch with you if anything lousy comes up. Do me a favor and keep my name out of any conversation, though, will you?"

"Of course. By the way, that judge handed you a dirty one the other day."

"What the hell, he could be right, you know."

"Sure he could, it's a matter of opinion. He's just a stickler for the letter of the law, the exact science of words. He's the guy that let a jerk off on a smoking-in-the-subway charge. The sign said NO SMOKING ALLOWED, so he claimed it allowed you not to smoke, but didn't say anything about not smoking. Don't give him another thought."

I took a bill from my wallet and handed it to the waiter with a wave that meant to forget the change. Marty looked at his watch and said he had to get back, so we shook hands and left.

The afternoon papers were out and the headlines had to do with the Garden fight the night before. One of the kids was still out like a light. His manager was being indicted for letting him go into the ring with a brain injury.

There wasn't a word about any bodies being found in the river. I threw the paper in a waste barrel and got in my car.

I didn't feel so good. I wasn't sick, but I didn't feel so good. I drove to a parking lot, shoved the car into a corner and took a cab to Times Square and went to a horror movie. The lead feature had an actor with a split personality. One was a man, the other was an ape. When he was an ape he killed people and when he was a man he regretted it. I could imagine how he felt. When I stood it as long as I could I got up and went to a bar.

At five o'clock the evening editions had come out. This time the headlines were a little different. They had found one of the bodies.

Fat boy had been spotted by a ferryboat full of people and the police launch had dragged him out of the drink. He had no identification and no fingerprints. There was a sketch of what be might have looked like before the bullet got him smack in the kisser.

The police attributed it to a gang killing.

Now I was a one-man gang. Great. Just fine. Mike Hammer, Inc. A gang.

Chapter Three

The damned never-ending rain. It turned Manhattan into a city of deflections, a city you saw twice no matter where you looked. It was a slow, easy rain that took awhile to collect on your hat brim before it cascaded down in front of your face. The streets had an oily shine that brought the rain-walkers out, people who went native whenever the sky cried and tore off their hats to let the tears drip through their hair.

I buttoned my coat under my neck and turned the collar up around my ears. It was good walking, but not when you were soaking wet. I took it easy and let the crowd sift past me, everybody in a hurry to get nowhere and wait. I was going south on Broadway, stopping to look in the windows of the closed stores, not too conscious of where my feet were leading me. I passed Thirty-fourth still going south, walked into the Twenties with a stop for a sandwich and coffee, then kept my course until I reached the Square.

That was where my feet led me. Union Square. Green cards and pinched-faced guys arguing desperately in the middle of little groups. Green cards and people listening to the guys. What the hell could they say that was important enough to keep anybody standing in the rain? I grinned down at my feet because they had the sense that should have been in my head. They wanted to know about the kind of people who carried green cards, the kind of people who would listen to guys who carried green cards.

Or girls.

I ambled across the walk into the yellow glare of the lights. There were no soapboxes here, just those little knots of people trying to talk at once and being shouted down by the one in the middle.

A cop went by swinging his night stick. Whenever he passed a group he automatically got a grip on the thing and looked over hopefully.

I heard some of the remarks when he passed. They weren't nice.

Coming toward me a guy who looked like a girl and a girl who looked like a guy altered their course to join one group. The girl got right into things and the guy squealed with pleasure whenever she said something clever.

Maybe there were ten groups, maybe fifteen. If it hadn't been raining there might have been more. Nobody talked about the same thing. Occasionally someone would drop out of one crowd and drift over to another.

But they all had something in common. The same thing you find in a slaughterhouse. The lump of vomit in the center of each crowd was a Judas sheep trying to lead the rest to the ax. Then they'd go back and get more. The sheep were asking for it too. They were a seedy bunch in shapeless clothes, heavy with the smell of the rot they had asked for and gotten. They had a jackal look of discontent and cowardice, a hungry look that said you kill while we loot, then all will be well with the world.

Yeah.

Not all of them were like that, though. Here and there in the crowd was a pin-striped business suit and homburg. An expensive mink was flanked by a girl in a shabby gray cloth job and a guy in a hand-me-down suit with his hands stuck in the pockets.

Just for the hell of it I hung on the edge of the circle and listened. A few latecomers closed in behind me and I had to stand there and hear just why anybody that fought the war was a simple-minded fool, why anybody who tolerated the foreign policy of this country was a Fascist, why anybody who didn't devote his soul and money to the enlightenment of the masses was a traitor to the people.

The goddamn fools who listened agreed with him, too. I was ready to reach out and pluck his head off his shoulders when one of the guys behind me stood on his toes and said, "Why don't you get the hell out of this country if you don't like it?" The guy was a soldier.

I said, "Attaboy, buddy," but it got lost in the rumble from the crowd and the screech the guy let out. The soldier swore back at him and tried to push through the crowd to get at the guy, only two guys in trench coats blocked him.

Lovely, lovely, it was just what I wanted! The soldier went to shove the two guys apart and one gave him an elbow. I was just going to plant a beauty behind his ear when the cop stepped in. He was a good cop, that one. He didn't lift the night stick above his waist. He held it like a lance and when it hit it went in deep right where it took all the sound out of your body. I saw two punks fold up in the middle and one of the boys in the raincoats let out a gasp. The other one stepped back and swore.

The cop said, "Better move on, soldier?"

"Ah, I'd like to take that pansy apart. Did you hear what he said?"

"I hear 'em every night, feller," the cop told him. "They got bats in their heads. Come on, it's better to let 'em talk."

"Not when they say those things!"

The cop grinned patiently. "They gotta right to say 'em. You don't have to listen, you know."

"I don't give a hoot. They haven't got a right to say those things. Hell, the big mouth probably was too yeller to fight a war and too lazy to take a job. I oughta slam 'im one."

"Uh-huh." The cop steered him out of the crowd. I heard him say, "That's just what they want. It makes heroes of 'em when the papers get it. We still got ways of taking care of 'em, don't worry. Every night this happens and I get in a few licks."

I started grinning and went back to listening. One boy in a trench coat was swearing under his breath. The other was holding on to him. I shifted a little to the side so I could see what I thought I had seen the first time. When the one turned around again I knew I was right the first time.

Both of them were wearing guns under their arms.

Green cards, loud-mouthed bastards, sheep, now guns.

It came together like a dealer sweeping in the cards for shuffling. The game was getting rough. But guns, why guns? This wasn't a fighting game. Who the devil was worth killing in this motley crowd? Why guns here when there was a chance of getting picked up with them?

I pulled back out of the crowd and crossed the walk into the shadows to a bench A guy sat on the other end of it with a paper over his face, snoring. Fifteen minutes later the rain quit playing around and one by one the crowd pulled away until only a handful was left around the nucleus. For guys who were trying to intimidate the world they certainly were afraid of a little water. All of a sudden the skies opened up and let loose with everything in sight. The guy on the end of the bench jumped up, fighting the paper that wrapped itself around his face. He made a few drunken animal noises, swallowed hard when he saw me watching him and scurried away into the night.

I had to sit through another five minutes of it before I got up. The two men in the trench coats waited until the loose-jointed guy in the black overcoat had a fifty-foot start, then they turned around and followed him. That gave them a good reason for the rods under their arms.

Bodyguards.

Maybe it was the rain that made my guts churn. Maybe it was those words beating against my head, telling me that I was only scum. Maybe it was just me, but suddenly I wanted to grab that guy in the overcoat and slam his teeth down his throat and wait to see what his two boys would do. I'd like to catch them reaching for a gun! I'd like them to move their hands just one inch, then I'd show them what practice could do when it came to snagging a big, fat gun out of a shoulder sling! So I was a sucker for fighting a war. I was a sap for liking my country. I was a jerk for not thinking them a superior breed of lice!

That cop with the round Irish face should have used a knife in their bellies instead of the butt end of a night stick.

I waited until they were blurs in the rain then tagged along in the rear. They were a fine pair, those two, a brace of dillies. I tailed them into the subway and out again in Brooklyn. I was with them when they walked down Coney Island Avenue and beside them when they turned into a store off the avenue and they never knew I was there.

Down at the corner I crossed the street and came back up the other side. One of the boys was still in the doorway playing watchdog. I wanted to know how smart the people were who wanted to run the world. I found out. I cut across the street and walked right up to the guy without making any fuss about it. He gave me a queer look and drew his eyebrows together in a frown, trying to remember where he had seen me before. He was fumbling for words when I pulled out the green card.

He didn't try to match them up. One look was enough and he waved his head at the door. I turned the knob and went in. I'd have to remember to tell Pat about that. They weren't being so careful at all.

When I closed the door I changed my mind. The light went on, just like a refrigerator, and I saw the blackout shades on the windows and door, the felt padding beneath the sill so no light could escape under the door. And the switch. A home-made affair on the side of the door that cut the light when the door opened and threw it back on again when it closed.

The girl at the desk glanced up impatiently and held out her hand for the card. She matched them. She matched them damn carefully, too, and when she handed them back she had sucked hollows into her cheeks trying to think of the right thing to say.

"You're from . . . ?"

"Philly," I supplied. I hoped it was a good answer. It was. She nodded and turned her head toward a door in the back of the anteroom. I had to wait for her to push a button before it opened under my hand.

There were twenty-seven people in the other room. I counted them. They were all very busy. Some of them were at desks clipping things from newspapers and magazines. One guy in a corner was taking pictures of the things they clipped and it came out on microfilm. There was a little group around a map of the city over against one wall, talking too earnestly and too low for me to catch what they were saying.

I saw the other boy in the trench coat. He still had it on and he was sticking close with the guy in the overcoat. Evidently the fellow was some kind of a wheel, checking on activities here and there, offering sharp criticism or curt words of approval.

When I had been there a full five minutes people began to notice me. At first it was just a casual glance from odd spots, then long searching looks that disappeared whenever I looked back. The man in the overcoat licked his lips nervously and smiled in my direction.

I sat down at a table and crossed my legs, a smoke dangling from my mouth. I smoked and I watched, trying to make some sense out of it. Some of them even looked like Commies, the cartoon kind. There were sharp eyes that darted from side to side, too-wise women dazzled by some meager sense of responsibility, smirking students who wore their hair long, tucked behind their heads. A few more came in while I sat and devoted themselves to some unfinished task. But sooner or later their eyes came to mine and shifted away hurriedly when I looked at them.

It became a game, that watching business. I found that if I stared at some punk who was taking his time about doing things he became overly ambitious all of a sudden. I went from one to the other and came at last to the guy in the overcoat.

He was the head man here, no doubt about it. His word was law. At twenty minutes past eleven he started his rounds of the room, pausing here and there to lay a mimeographed sheet on a desk, stopping to emphasize some obscure point.

Finally he had to pass me and for a split second he hesitated, simpered and went on. I got it and played the game to the hilt. I walked to a desk and picked up one of the sheets and read it as I sat on the edge of the desk. The scraggly blonde at the desk couldn't keep her hands from shaking.

I got the picture then. I was reading the orders for the week; I was in on the pipeline from Moscow. It was that easy. I read them all the way through, tossed the sheet down and went back to my chair.

I smiled.

Everybody smiled.

The boy in the trench coat with the gun under his arm came over and said, "You will like some coffee now?" He had an accent I couldn't place.

I smiled again and followed him to the back of the room. I didn't see the door of the place because it was hidden behind the photography equipment.

It led into a tiny conference room that held a table, six chairs and a coffee urn. When the door closed there were seven of us in the room including two dames. Trench Coat got a tray of cups from the closet and set them on the table. For me it was a fight between grinning and stamping somebody's face in. For an after-office-hours coffee deal it certainly was a high-tension deal.

To keep from grinning I shoved another Lucky in my mouth and stuck a light to it. There they were, everyone with a coffee cup, lined up at the urn. Because I took my time with the smoke I had to join the end of the line, and it was a good thing I did. It gave me time enough to get the pitch.

Everybody had been watching me covertly anyway, saying little and satisfied with me keeping my mouth shut. When they took their coffee black and wandered off to the table the two women made a face at the bitter taste. They didn't like black coffee. They weren't used to black coffee. Yet they took black coffee and kept shooting me those sidewise glances.

How simple can people get? Did they take everybody for dummies like themselves? When I drew my cup from the urn Trench Coat stood right behind me and waited. He was the only one that bothered to breathe and he breathed down my neck.

I took my sugar and milk. I took plenty of it. I turned around and lifted my cup in a mock toast and all the jerks started breathing again and the room came to life. The two women went back and got sugar and milk.

The whole play had been a signal setup a kid could have seen through.

Trench Coat smiled happily. "It is very good you are here, comrade. We cannot be too careful, of course."

"Of course." It was the first time I had said anything, but you might have thought I gave the Gettysburg Address. Overcoat came over immediately, his hand reaching out for mine.

"I am Henry Gladow, you know. Certainly you know." His chuckle was nervous and high-pitched. "We had been expecting you, but not so quickly. Of course we realize the party works quickly, but this is almost faith-inspiring! You came with incredible speed. Why, only tonight I picked up the telegram from our messenger uptown announcing your arrival. Incredible."

That was the reason for the bodyguards and the guns. My new chum was receiving party instructions from somebody else. That was why the Trench Coats closed in around the soldier, in case it had been a trap to intercept the message. Real cute, but dumb as hell.

". . . happy to have you inspect our small base of operation, comrade." I turned my attention back to him again and listened politely. "Rarely do we have such an honor. In fact, this is the first time." He turned to Trench Coat, still smiling. "This is my, er, traveling companion, Martin Romberg. Very capable man, you know. And my secretary," he indicated a girl in thick-lensed glasses who was just out of her teens, "Martha Camisole."

He went around the room introducing each one and with every nod I handed out I got back a smile that tried hard to be nice but was too scared to do a good job of it.

We finished the coffee, had another and a smoke before Gladow looked at his watch. I could see damn well he had another question coming up and I let him take his time about asking it. He said, "Er, you are quite satisfied with the operation at this point, comrade? Would you care to inspect our records and documents?"

My scowl was of surprise, but he didn't know that. His eyebrows went up and he smiled craftily. "No, comrade, not written documents. Here, in the base, we have experts who commit the documents . . ." he tapped the side of his head, "here."

"Smart," I grunted. "What happens if they talk?"

He tried to seem overcome with the preposterous. "Very funny, comrade. Quite, er . . . yes. Who is there to make them talk? That is where we have the advantage. In this country force is never used. The so-called third degree has been swept out. Even a truthful statement loses its truth if coercion is even hinted at. The fools, the despicable fools haven't the intelligence to govern a country properly! When the party is in power things will be different, eh, comrade?"

"Much, much different," I said.

Gladow nodded, pleased. "You, er, care to see anything of special importance, comrade?" His voice had a gay tone.

"No, nothing special. Just checking around." I dragged on the butt and blew a cloud of smoke in his face. He didn't seem to mind it."

"Then in your report you will state that everything is satisfactory here?"

"Sure, don't give it another thought."

There was more sighing. Some of the fear went out of their eyes. The Camisole kid giggled nervously. "Then may I say again that we have been deeply honored by your visit, comrade," Gladow said. "Since the sudden, untimely death of our former, er, compatriot, we have been more or less uneasy. You understand these things of course. It was gratifying to see that he was not identified with the party in any way. Even the newspapers are stupid in this country."

I had to let my eyes sink to the floor or he would have seen the hate in them. I was an inch away from killing the bastard and he didn't know it. I turned my hand over to look at the time and saw that it was close to midnight. I'd been in the pigsty long enough. I set the empty cup down on the table and walked to the door. The crumbs couldn't even make good coffee.

All but two of the lesser satellites had left, their desks clear of all papers. The guy on the photography rig was stuffing the microfilm in a small file case while a girl burned papers in a metal wastebasket. I didn't stop to see who got the film. There was enough of it that was so plain that I didn't need any pictures drawn for me.

Gladow was hoping I'd shake hands, but he got fooled. I kept them both in my pockets because I didn't like to handle snakes, not of their variety.

The outside door slammed shut and I heard some hurried conversation and the girl at the desk say, "Go right in." I was standing by the inside door when she opened it.

I had to make sure I was in the right place by taking a quick look around me. This was supposed to be a Commie setup, a joint for the masses only, not a club for babes in mink coats with hats to match. She was one of those tall, willowy blondes who reached thirty with each year an improvement.

She was almost beautiful, with a body that could take your mind off beauty and put it on other things. She smiled at Gladow as soon as she saw him and gave him her hand.

His voice took on a purr when he kissed it. "Miss Brighton, it is always a pleasure to see you." He straightened up, still smiling "I didn't expect you to come at this hour."

"I didn't expect you to be here either, Henry. I decided to take the chance anyway. I brought the donations." Her voice was like rubbing your hand on satin. She pulled an envelope out of her pocketbook and handed it to Gladow unconcernedly. Then, for the first time, she saw me.

She squinted her eyes, trying to place me.

I grinned at her. I like to grin at a million bucks.

Ethel Brighton grinned back.

Henry Gladow coughed politely and turned to me. "Miss Brighton is one of our most earnest comrades. She is chiefly responsible for some of our most substantial contributions."

He made no attempt to introduce me. Apparently nobody seemed to care. Especially Ethel Brighton. A quick look flashed between them that brought the scowl back to her face for a brief moment. A shadow on the wall that came from one of the Trench Coats behind me was making furious gestures.

I started to get the willies. It was the damnedest thing I had ever seen. Everybody was acting like at a fraternity initiation and for some reason I was the man of the moment. I took it as long as I could. I said, "I'm going uptown. If you're going back you can come along."

For a dame who had her picture in most of the Sunday supplements every few weeks, she lost her air of sophistication in a hurry. Her cheeks seemed to sink in and she looked to Gladow for approval. Evidently he gave it, for she nodded and said, "My car . . . it's right outside."

I didn't bother to leave any good nights behind me. I went through the receptionist's cubicle and yanked the door open. When Ethel Brighton was out I slammed it shut. Behind me the place was as dark as the vacant hole it was supposed to be.

Without waiting to be asked I slid behind the wheel and held out my hand for the keys. She dropped them in my palm and fidgeted against the cushions. That car . . . it was a beauty. In the daylight it would have been a maroon convertible, but under the street lights it was a mass of mirrors with the chrome reflecting every bulb in the sky. Ethel said, "Are you from . . . New York?"

"Nope. Philly," I lied.

For some reason I was making her mighty nervous. It wasn't my driving because I was holding it to a steady thirty to keep inside the green lights. I tried another grin. This time she smiled back and worried the fingers of her gloves.

I couldn't get over it, Ethel Brighton a Commie! Her old man would tan her hide no matter how old she was if he ever heard about it. But what the hell, she wasn't the only one with plenty of rocks who got hung up on the red flag. I said, "It hasn't been too easy for you to keep all this under your hat, has it?"

Her hands stopped working the glove. "N-no. I've managed, though."

"Yeah. You've done a good job."

"Thank you."

"Oh, no thanks at all, kid. For people with intelligence it's easy. When you're, er, getting these donations, don't people sorta wonder where it's going?"

She scowled again, puzzled. "I don't think so. I thought that was explained quite fully in my report."

"It was, it was. Don't get me wrong. We have to keep track of things, you know. Situations change." It was a lot of crap to me, but it must have made sense to her way of thinking.

"Usually they're much too busy to listen to my explanations, and anyway, they can deduct the amounts from their income tax."

"They ought to be pretty easy to touch, then."

This time she smiled a little. "They are. They think it's for charity."

"Uh-huh. Suppose your father finds out what you've been doing?"

The way she recoiled you'd think I smacked her. "Oh . . . please, you wouldn't!"

"Take it easy, kid. I'm only supposing."

Even in the dull light of the dash I could see how pale she was. "Daddy would . . . never forgive me. I think he'd send me some place. He'd disinherit me completely." She shuddered, her hands going back to the glove again. "He'll never know. When he does it will be too late!"

"Your emotions are showing through, kid."

"So would yours if . . . oh . . . oh . . . I didn't mean . . ." Her expression made a sudden switch from rage to that of fear. It wasn't a nice fear, it was more like that of the girl on the bridge.

I looked over slowly, an angle creeping into the corner of my mind. "I'm not going to bite. Maybe you can't say things back there in front of the others, but sometimes I'm not like them. I can understand problems. I have plenty of my own."

"But you . . . you're . . ."

"I'm what?"

"You know." She bit into her lip, looking at me obliquely. I nodded as if I did.

"Will you be here long?"

"Maybe," I shrugged. "Why?"

The fear came back. "Really, I wasn't asking pointed questions. Honest I wasn't. I just meant . . . I meant with the . . . other being killed and all, well . . ."

Damn it, she let her sentence trail off as if I was supposed to know everything that went on. What the hell did they take me for anyway? It was the same thing all night!

"I'll be here," I said.

We went over the bridge and picked a path through the late traffic in Manhattan. I went north to Times Square and pulled into the curb. "This is as far as I go, sugar. Thanks for the ride. I'll probably be seeing you again."

Her eyes went wide again. Brother, she could sure do things with those eyes. She gasped, "Seeing me?"

"Sure, why not?"

"But . . . you aren't . . . I never supposed . . ."

"That I might have a personal interest in a woman?" I finished.

"Well, yes."

"I like women, sugar. I always have and always will."

For the first time she smiled a smile she meant. She said, "You aren't a bit like I thought you'd be. Really. I like you. The other . . . agent . . . he was so cold that he scared me."

"I don't scare you?"

"You could . . . but you don't."

I opened the door. "Good night, Ethel."

"Good night." She slid over under the wheel and gunned the motor. I got one last quick smile before she pulled away.

What the hell. That's all I could think of. What the hell. All right, just what the hell was going on? I walked right into a nest of Commies because I flashed a green card and they didn't say a word, not one word. They played damn fool kids' games with me that any jerk could have caught, and bowed and scraped like I was king.

Not once did anyone ask my name.

Read the papers today. See what it says about the Red Menace. See how they play up their sneaking, conniving ways. They're supposed to be clever, bright as hell. They were dumb as horse manure as far as I was concerned. They were a pack of bugs thinking they could outsmart a world. Great. That coffee-urn trick was just great.

I walked down the street to a restaurant that was still open and ordered a plate of ham and eggs.

It was almost two o'clock when I got home. The rain had stopped long ago, but it was still up there, hanging low around the buildings, reluctant to let the city alone. I walked up to my apartment and shoved the key in the lock. My mind kept going back to Gladow, trying to make sense of his words, trying to fit them into a puzzle that had no other parts.

I could remember his speaking about somebody's untimely death. Evidently I was the substitute sent on in his place. But whose death? That sketch in the paper was a lousy one. Fat boy didn't look a bit like that sketch. All right then, who? There was only one other guy with a green card who was dead, the guy Lee Deamer was supposed to have killed.

Him. He's the one, I thought. I was his replacement. But what was I supposed to be?

There was just too much to think about; I was too tired to put my mind to it. You don't kill a fat man and see a girl die because of the look on your face and get involved with a Commie organization all in two days without feeling your mind sink into a soggy ooze that drew it down deeper and deeper until it relaxed of its own accord and you were asleep.

I sat slumped in the chair, the cigarette that had dropped from my fingers had burned a path through the rug at right angles with another. The bell shrilled and shrilled until I thought it would never stop. My arm going out to the phone was an involuntary movement, my voice just happened to be there.

I said hello.

It was Pat and he had to yell at me a half-dozen times before I snapped out of it. I grunted an answer and he said, "Too late for you, Mike?"

"It's four o'clock in the morning. Are you just getting up or just going to bed?"

"Neither. I've been working."

"At this hour?"

"Since six this evening. How's the vacation?"

"I called it off."

"Really now. Just couldn't bear to leave the city, could you? By the way, did you find any more green cards with the ends snipped off?"

The palms of my hands got wet all of a sudden. "No."

"Are you interested in them at all?"

"Cut the comedy, Pat. What're you driving at? It's too damn late for riddles."

"Get over here, Mike," his voice was terse. "My apartment, and make it as fast as you can."

I came awake all at once, shaking the fatigue from my brain. "Okay, Pat," I said, "give me fifteen minutes." I hung up and slipped into my coat.

It was easier to grab a cab than wheel my car out of the garage. I shook the cabbie's shoulder and gave him Pat's address, then settled back against the cushions while we tore across town. We made it with about ten seconds to spare and I gave the cabbie a fin for his trouble.

I looked up at the sky before I went in. The clouds had broken up and let the stars come through. Maybe tomorrow will be nice, I thought. Maybe it will be a nice normal day without all the filth being raked to the top. Maybe. I pushed Pat's bell and the door buzzed almost immediately.

He was waiting outside his apartment when I got off the elevator. "You made it fast, Mike."

"You said to, didn't you?"

"Come on in."

Pat had drinks in a shaker and three glasses on the coffee table. Only one had been used so far. "Expecting company?" I asked him.

"Big company, Mike. Sit down and pour yourself a drink."

I shucked my coat and hat and stuck a Lucky in my mouth. Pat wasn't acting right. You don't go around entertaining anybody at this hour, not even your best friends. Something had etched lines into his face and put a smudge of darkness under each eye. He looked tight as a drumhead. I sat there with a drink in my hand watching Pat trying to figure out what to say.

It came halfway through my drink. "You were right the first time," he said.

I put the glass down and stared at him. "Do it over. I don't get it."

"Twins."

"What?"

"Twins," Pat repeated. "Lee Deamer had a twin brother." He stood there swirling the mixture around in his glass.

"Why tell me? I'm not in the picture."

Pat had his back to me, staring at nothing. I could barely hear his voice. "Don't ask me that, Mike. I don't know why I'm telling you when it's official business, but I am. In one way we're both alike. We're cops. Sometimes I find myself waiting to know what you'd do in a situation before I do it myself. Screwy, isn't it?"

"Pretty screwy."

"I told you once before that you have a feeling for things that I haven't got. You don't have a hundred bosses and a lot of sidelines to mess you up once you get started on a case. You're a ruthless bastard and sometimes it helps."

"So?"

"So now I find myself in one of those situations. I'm a practical cop with a lot of training and experience, but I'm in something that has a personal meaning to me too and I'm afraid of tackling it alone."

"You don't want advice from me, chum. I'm mud, and whatever I touch gets smeared with it. I don't mind dirtying myself, but I don't want any of it to rub off onto you."

"It won't, don't worry. That's why you're here now. You think I was taken in by that vacation line? Hell. You have another bug up your behind. It has to do with those green cards and don't try to talk your way out of it."

He spun around, his face taut. "Where'd you get them, Mike?"

I ignored the question. "Tell me, Pat. Tell me the story."

He threw the drink down and filled the glass again. "Lee Deamer . . . how much do you know about him?"

"Only that he's the up-and-coming champ. I don't know him personally."

"I do, Mike. I know the guy and I like him. Goddamn it, Mike, if he gets squeezed out this state, this country will lose one of its greatest assets! We can't afford to have Deamer go under!"

"I've heard that story before, Pat," I said, "a political reporter gave it to me in detail."

Pat reached for a cigarette and laid it in his lips. The tip of the flame from the lighter wavered when he held it up. "I hope it made an impression. This country is too fine to be kicked around. Deamer is the man to stop it if he can get that far.

"Politics never interested you much, Mike. You know how it starts in the wards and works itself right up to the nation. I get a chance to see just how dirty and corrupt politics can be. You should put yourself in my shoes for a while and you'd know how I feel. I get word to lay off one thing or another . . . or else. I get word that if I do or don't do a certain thing I'll be handed a fat little present. You'd think people would respect the police, but they don't. They try to use the department to push their own lousy schemes and it happens more often than you'd imagine."

"And you, Pat, what did you do?" I leaned forward in my chair, waiting.

"I told them to go to hell. They can't touch an honest man until he makes a mistake. Then they hang him for it."

"Any mistakes yet?"

Two streams of smoke spiraled from his nostrils. "Not yet, kid. They're waiting though. I'm fed up with the tension. You can feel it in the air, like being inside a storage battery. Call me a reformer if you want to, but I'd love to see a little decency for a change. That's why I'm afraid for Deamer."

"Yeah, you were telling me about him."

"Twins. You were right, Mike. Lee Deamer was at that meeting the night he was allegedly seen killing this Charlie Moffit. He was talking to groups around the room. I was there."

I stamped the butt out in a tray and lit another. "You mean it was as simple as that . . . Lee Deamer had a twin brother?"

Pat nodded. "As simple as that."

"Then why the secrecy? Lee isn't exactly responsible for what his brother does. Even a blast in the papers couldn't smear him for that, could it?"

"No . . . not if that was all there was to it."

"Then . . ."

Pat slammed the glass down impatiently. "The brother's name was Oscar Deamer. He was an escaped inmate of a sanitarium where he was undergoing psychiatric treatment. Let that come out and Lee is finished."

I let out a slow whistle. "Who else knows about this, Pat?"

"Just you. It was too big. I couldn't keep it to myself. Lee called me tonight and said he wanted to see me. We met in a bar and he told me the story. Oscar arrived in town and told Lee that he was going to settle things for him. He demanded money to keep quiet. Lee thinks that Oscar deliberately killed this Charlie Moffit hoping to be identified as Lee, knowing that Lee wouldn't dare reveal that he had a lunatic for a brother."

"So Lee wouldn't pay off and he got the treatment."

"It looks that way."

"Hell, this Oscar could have figured Lee would have an alibi and couldn't be touched. It was just a sample, something to get him entangled. That doesn't make him much of a loony if he can think like that."

"Anybody who can kill like that is crazy, Mike."

"Yeah, I guess so."

Before he could answer me, the bell rang, two short burps and Pat got up to push the buzzer. "Lee?" I asked.

Pat nodded. "He wanted more time to think about it. I told him I'd be at home. It has him nearly crazy himself." He went to the door and stood there holding it open as he had done for me. It was so still that I heard the elevator humming in its well, the sound of the doors opening and the slow, heavy feet of a person carrying a too-heavy weight.

I stood up myself and shook hands with Lee Deamer. He wasn't big like I had expected. There was nothing outstanding about his appearance except that he looked like a schoolteacher, a very tired, middle-aged Mr. Chips.

Pat said, "This is Mike Hammer, Lee. He's a very special, capable friend of mine."

His handshake was firm, but his eyes were too tired to take me in all at once. He said to Pat very softly, "He knows?"

"He knows, Lee. He can be trusted."

I had a good look at warm gray eyes then. His hand tightened just a little around mine. "It's nice to find people that can be trusted."

I grinned my thanks and Pat pulled up a chair. Lee Deamer took the drink Pat offered him and settled back against the cushions, rubbing his hand across his face. He took a sip of the highball, then pulled a cigar from his pocket and pared the end off with a tiny knife on his watch chain.

"Oscar hasn't called back," he said dully. "I don't know what to do." He looked first at Pat, then to me. "Are you a policeman, Mr. Hammer?"

"Just call me Mike. No, I'm not a city cop. I have a Private Operator's ticket and that's all."

"Mike's been in on a lot of big stuff, Lee," Pat cut in. "He knows his way around."

"I see." He was talking to me again. "I suppose Pat told you that so far this whole affair has been kept quiet?" I nodded and he went on. "I hope it can stay that way, though if it must come out, it must. I'm leaving it all to the discretion of Pat here. I--well, I'm really stumped. So much has happened in so short a time I hardly know where I'm at."

"Can I hear it from the beginning?" I asked.

Lee Deamer bobbed his head slowly. "Oscar and I were born in Townley, Nebraska. Although we were twins, we were worlds apart. In my younger days I thought it was because we were just separate personalities, but the truth was . . . Oscar was demented. He was a sadistic sort of person, very sly and cunning. He hated me. Yes, he hated me, his own brother. In fact, Oscar seemed to hate everyone. He was in trouble from the moment he ran off from home until he came back, then he found more trouble in our own state. He was finally committed to an institution.

Shortly after Oscar was committed I left Nebraska and settled in New York. I did rather well in business and became active in politics. Oscar was more or less forgotten. Then I learned that he had escaped from the institution. I never heard from him again until he called me last week."

"That's all?"

"What else can there be, Mike? Oscar probably read about me in the papers and trailed me here. He knew what it would mean if I was known to have a brother who wasn't quite . . . well, normal. He made a demand for money and told me he'd have it one way or another."

Pat reached for the shaker and filled the glasses again. I held mine out and our eyes met. He answered my question before I could ask it. "Lee was afraid to mention Oscar, even when he was identified as the killer of Moffit. You can understand why, can't you?"

"Now I can," I said.

"Even the fact that Lee was identified, although wrongly, would have made good copy. However, the cop on the beat brought the witnesses in before they could speak to the papers and the whole thing was such an obvious mistake that nobody dared take the chance of making it public."

"Where are the witnesses now?"

"We have them under surveillance. They've been instructed to keep quiet about it. We checked into their backgrounds and found that all of them were upright citizens, plain, ordinary people who were as befuddled as we were about the whole thing. Fortunately, we were able to secure their promise of silence by proving to them where Lee was that night. They don't understand it, but they were willing to go along with us in the cause of justice."

I grunted and pulled on the cigarette. "I don't like it." Both of them looked at me quickly. "Hell, Pat, you ought to smell the angle as well as I do."

"You tell me, Mike."

"Oscar served his warning," I said. "He'll make another stab at it. You can trap him easily enough and you know it."

"That's right. It leaves one thing wide open, too."

"Sure it does. You'll have another Lee Deamer in print and pictures, this one up for a murder rap which he will skip because he's nuts." Lee winced at the word but kept still.

"That's why I wanted you here," Pat told me.

"Fine. What good am I?"

The ice rattled against the side of his glass. Pat tried to keep his voice calm. "You aren't official, Mike. My mind works with the book. I know what I should do and I can't think of anything else."

"You mean you want me to tell you that Oscar should be run down and quietly spirited away?"

"That's right."

"And I'm the boy who could do it?"

"Right again." He took a long swallow from the glass and set it on the table.

"What happens if it doesn't work out? To you, I mean."

"I'll be looking for a job for not playing it properly."

"Gentlemen, gentlemen." Lee Deamer ran his hand through his hair nervously. "I--I can't let you do it. I can't let you jeopardize your positions. It isn't fair. The best thing is to let it come to light and let the public decide."

"Don't be jerky!" I spat out. Lee looked at me, but I wasn't seeing him. I was seeing Marty and Pat, hearing them say the same thing . . . and I was hearing that judge again.

There were two hot spaces where my eyes should have been. "I'll take care of it," I said. "I'll need all the help I can get." I looked at Pat. He nodded. "Just one thing, Pat. I'm not doing this because I'm a patriot, see? I'm doing it because I'm curious and because of it I'll be on my toes. I'm curious as hell about something else and not about right and wrong and what the public thinks."

My teeth were showing through my words and Pat had that look again. "Why, Mike?"

"Three green cards with the edges put off kid. I'm curious as hell about three green cards. There's more to them than you think."

I said good night and left them sitting there. I could hear the judge laughing at me. It wasn't a nice laugh. It had a nasty sound. Thirteen steps and thirteen loops that made the knot in the rope. Were there thirteen thousand volts in the chair too? Maybe I'd find out the hard way.

Chapter Four

I slept for two hours before Velda called me. I told her I wouldn't be in for a good long while, and if anything important came up she could call, but unless it was a matter of life or death, either hers or mine, to leave me be.

Nothing came up and I slept once around the clock. It was five minutes to six when my eyes opened by themselves and didn't feel hot any more. While I showered and shaved I stuck a frozen steak under the broiler and ate in my shorts, still damp.

It was a good steak; I was hungry. I wanted to finish it but I never got the time. The phone rang and kept on ringing until I kicked the door shut so I wouldn't hear it. That didn't stop the phone. It went on like that for a full five minutes, demanding that I answer it. I threw down my knife with a curse and walked inside.

"What is it?" I yelled.

"It took you long enough to wake up, damn it!"

"Oh, Pat. I wasn't asleep. What's up this time?"

"It happened like we figured. Oscar made the contact. He called Lee and wants to see him tonight. Lee made an appointment to be at his apartment at eight."

"Yeah?"

"Lee called me immediately. Look, Mike, we'll have to go this alone, just the three of us. I don't want to trust anybody else."

The damp on my body seemed to turn to ice. I was cold all over, cold enough to shake just a little. "Where'll I meet you, Pat?"

"Better make it at my place. Oscar lives over on the East Side." He rattled off the address and I jotted it down. "I told Lee to go ahead and keep his appointment. We'll be right behind him Lee is taking the subway up and we'll pick him up at the kiosk. Got that?"

"I got it. Be over in a little while."

We both stood waiting for the other to hang up. Finally, "Mike . . ."

"What?"

"You sure about this?"

"I'm sure." I set the receiver back in its cradle and stared at it. I was sure, all right, sure to come up with the dirty end of the stick. The dam would open and let the clean water through and they could pick me out of the sewer.

I pulled on my clothes halfheartedly. I thought of the steak in the kitchen and decided I didn't want any more of it. For a while I stood in front of the mirror looking at myself, trying to decide whether or not I should wear the artillery. Habit won and I buckled on the sling after checking the load in the clip. When I buttoned up the coat I took the box from the closet shelf that held the two spare barrels and the extra shells, scooped up a handful of loose .45s and dropped them in my pocket. If I was going to do it I might as well do it right.

Velda had just gotten in when I called her. I said, "Did you eat yet, kitten?"

"I grabbed a light bite downtown. Why, are you taking me out?"

"Yeah, but not to supper. It's business. I'll be right over. Tell you about it then."

She said all right, kissed me over the phone and hung up. I stuck my hat on, picked up another deck of Luckies and went downstairs where I whistled for a cab.

I don't know how I looked when she opened the door. She started to smile then dropped it like a hot rivet to catch her lower lip between her teeth. Velda's so tall I didn't have to bend down far to kiss her on the cheek. It was nice standing there real close to her. She was perfume and beauty and all the good things of life.

She said, "Come into the bedroom, Mike. You can tell me while I'm getting dressed."

"I can talk from out here."

Velda turned around, a grin in her eyes. "You have been in a woman's bedroom before, haven't you?"

"Not yours."

"I'm inviting you in to talk. Just talk."

I faked a punch at her jaw. "I'm just afraid of myself, kid. You and a bedroom could be too much. I'm saving you for something special."

"Will it cost three dollars and can you frame it?"

I laughed for an answer and went in after her. She pointed to a satin-covered boudoir chair and went behind a screen. She came out in a black wool skirt and a white blouse. God, but she was lovely.

When she sat down in front of the vanity table and started to brush her hair I caught her eyes in the mirror. They reflected the trouble that was in mine. "Now tell me, Mike."

I told her. I gave her everything Pat gave me and watched her face.

She finished with the brush and put it down. Her hand was shaking. "They want a lot of you, don't they?"

"Maybe they want too much." I pulled out a cigarette and lit one. "Velda, what does this Lee Deamer mean to you?"

This time she wouldn't meet my eyes. She spaced her words carefully. "He means a lot, Mike. Would you be mad if I said that perhaps they weren't asking too much?"

"No . . . not if you think not. Okay, kid. I'll play the hand out and see what I can do with a kill-crazy maniac. Get your coat on."

"Mike . . . you haven't told me all of it yet."

She was at it again, looking through me into my mind. "I know it."

"Are you going to?"

"Not now. Maybe later."

She stood up, a statuesque creature that had no equal, her hair a black frame for her face. "Mike, you're a bastard. You're in trouble up to your ears and you won't let anybody help you. Why do you always have to play it alone?"

"Because I'm me."

"And I'm me too, Mike. I want to help. Can you understand that?"

"Yes, I understand, but this isn't another case. It's more than that and I don't want to talk about it."

She came to me then, resting her hands on my shoulders. "Mike, if you do need me . . . ever, will you ask me to help?"

"I'll ask you."

Her mouth was full and ripe, warm with life and sparkling with a delicious wetness. I pulled her in close and tasted the fire that smoldered inside her, felt her body mold itself to mine, eager and excited.

My fingers ran into her hair and pulled her mouth away. "No more of it, Velda. Not now."

"Some day, Mike."

"Some day. Get your coat on." I shoved her away roughly, reluctant to let her go. She opened the closet and took the jacket that matched the skirt from a hanger and slipped into it. Over her shoulder she slung a shoulderstrap bag, and when it nudged the side of the dresser the gun in it made a dull clunk.

"I'm ready, Mike."

I pushed the slip of paper with Oscar's address on it into her hand. "Here's the place where he's holed up. The subway is a half-block away from the place. You go directly there and look the joint over. I don't know why, but there's something about it I don't like. We're going to tag after Lee when he goes in, but I want somebody covering the place while we're there.

"Remember, it's a rough neighborhood, so be on your toes. We don't want any extra trouble. If you spot anything that doesn't seem to be on the square, walk over to the subway kiosk and meet us. You'll have about a half-hour to look around. Be careful."

"Don't worry about me." She pulled on her gloves, a smile playing with her mouth. Hell, I wasn't going to worry about her. That rod in her bag wasn't there for ballast.

I dropped her at the subway and waited on the curb until a cab cruised by.

Pat was standing under the canopy of his apartment building when I got there. He had a cigarette cupped in the palm of his hand and dragged on it nervously. I yelled at him from the taxi and he crossed the street and got in.

It was seven-fifteen.

At ten minutes to eight we paid off the cab and walked the half-block to the kiosk. We were still fifty feet away when Lee Deamer came up. He looked neither to the right nor left, walking straight ahead as if he lived there. Pat nudged me with his elbow and I grunted an acknowledgement.

I waited to see if Velda would show, but there wasn't a sign of her.

Twice Lee stopped to look at house numbers. The third time he paused in front of an old brick building, his head going to the dim light behind the shades in the downstairs room. Briefly, he cast a quick glance behind him, then went up the three steps and disappeared into the shadowy well of the doorway.

Thirty seconds, that's all he got. Both of us were counting under our breaths, hugging the shadows of the building. The street boasted a lone light a hundred yards away, a wan, yellow eye that seemed to search for us with eerie tendrils, determined to pull us into its glare. Somewhere a voice cursed. A baby squealed and stopped abruptly. The street was too damn deserted. It should have been running with kids or something. Maybe the one light scared them off. Maybe they had a better place to hang out than a side street in nowhere.

We hit the thirty count at the same time, but too late. A door slammed above our heads and we could hear feet pounding on boards, diminishing with every step. A voice half sobbed something unintelligible and we flew up those stairs and tugged at a door that wouldn't give. Pat hit it with his shoulder, ramming it open.

Lee was standing in the doorway, hanging on to the sill, his mouth agape. He was pointing down the hall. "He ran . . . he ran. He looked out the window . . . and he ran!"

Pat muttered, "Damn . . . we can't let him get away!" I was ahead of him, my hands probing the darkness. I felt the wall give way to the inky blackness that was the night behind an open door and stumbled down the steps.

That was when I heard Velda's voice rise in a tense, "Mike . . . MIKE!"

"Over here, Pat. There's a gate in the wall. Get a light on!"

Pat swore again, yelling that he had lost it. I didn't wait. I made the gate and picked my way through the litter in the alley that ran behind the buildings. My .45 was in my hand, ready to be used. Velda yelled again and I followed her voice to the end of the alley.

When I came to the street through the two-foot space that separated the buildings I couldn't have found anybody, because the street was a funnel of people running to the subway kiosk. They ran and yelled back over their shoulders and I knew that whatever it was happened down there and I was afraid to look. If anything happened to Velda I'd tear the guts out of some son-of-a-bitch! I'd nail him to a wall and take his skin off him in inch-wide strips!

A colored fellow in a porter's outfit came up bucking the crowd yelling for someone to get a doctor. That was all I needed. I made a path through that mob pouring through the exit gates onto the station and battled my way up to the front.

Velda was all right. She was perfectly all right and I could quit shaking and let the sweat turn warm again. I shoved the gun back under my arm and walked over to her with a sad attempt of trying to look normal.

The train was almost all the way in the station. Not quite. It had to jam on the brakes too fast to make the marker farther down the platform. The driver and two trainmen were standing in front of the lead car poking at a bloody mess that was sticking out under the wheels. The driver said, "He's dead as hell. He won't need an ambulance."

Velda saw me out of the corner of her eye. I eased up to her, my breath still coming hard. "Deamer?"

She nodded.

I heard Pat busting through the crowd and saw Lee at his heels. "Beat it, kid. I'll call you later." She stepped back and the curious crowd surged around her to fill the spot. She was gone before Pat reached me.

His pants were torn and he had a dirty black smear across his cheek. He took about two minutes to get the crowd back from the edge and when a cop from the beat upstairs came through the gang was herded back to the exits like cattle, all bawling to be in on the blood.

Pat wiped his hand across his face. "What the hell happened?"

"I don't know, but I think that's our boy down there. Bring Lee over."

The trainmen were tugging the remains out. One said, "He ain't got much face left," then he puked all over the third rail.

Lee Deamer looked over the side and turned white. "My God!"

Pat steadied him with an arm around his waist. They had most of the corpse out from under the train now. "That him?" Pat asked.

Lee nodded dumbly. I could see his throat working hard.

Two more cops from the local precinct sauntered over. Pat shoved his badge out and told them to take over, then motioned me to bring Lee back to one of the benches. He folded up in one like a limp sack and buried his face in his hands. What the hell could I say? So the guy was a loony, but he was still his brother. While Pat went back to talk to the trainmen I stood there and listened to him sob.

We put Lee in a cab outside before I had a chance to say anything. The street was mobbed now, the people crowding around the ambulance waiting to see what was going in on the stretcher. They were disappointed when a wicker basket came up and was shoved into a morgue wagon instead. A kid pointed to the blood dripping from one corner and a woman fainted. Nice.

I watched the wagon pull away and reached for a butt. I needed one bad. "It was an easy way out," I said. "What did the driver say?"

Pat took a cigarette from my pack. "He didn't see him. He thinks the guy must have been hiding behind a pillar then jumped out in front of the car. He sure was messed up."

"I don't know whether to be relieved or not."

"It's a relief to me, Mike. He's dead and his name will get published but who will connect him with Lee? The trouble's over."

"He have anything on him?"

Pat stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out some stuff. Under the light it looked as if it had been stained with ink. Sticky ink. "Here's a train ticket from Chicago. It's in a bus envelope so he must have taken a bus as far as Chi then switched to rail." It was dated the 15th, a Friday.

I turned the envelope over and saw "Deamer" printed across the back with a couple of schedule notations in pencil. There was another envelope with the stuff. It had been torn in half and used for a memo sheet, but the name Deamer, part of an address in Nebraska and a Nebraska postage mark were still visible. It was dated over a month ago. The rest of the stuff was some small change, two crumpled bills and a skeleton key for a door lock.

It was as nice an answer as we could have hoped for and I didn't like it. "What's the matter now?" Pat queried.

"I don't know. It stinks."

"You're teed off because you were done out of a kill."

"Aw, shaddup, will you?"

"Then what's so lousy about it?"

"How the hell do I know? Can't I not like something without having to explain about it?"

"Not with me you can't, pal. I stuck my neck out when I invited you in."

I sucked in on the cigarette. It was cold standing there and I turned my collar up. "Get a complete identification on that corpse, Pat. Then maybe I can tell you why I think it stinks."

"Don't worry, I intend to. I'm not taking any chances of having him laughing at us from somewhere. It would be like the crazy bastard to push someone else under that train to sidetrack us."

"Would he have time to jam that stuff in his pockets too?" I flipped my thumb at the papers Pat was holding.

"He could have. Just the same, we'll be sure. Lee has both their birth certificates and a medical certificate on Oscar that has his full description. It won't take long to find out if that's him or not."

"Let me know what you find."

"I'll call you tomorrow. I wish I knew how the devil he spotted us. I nearly killed myself in that damn alley. I thought I heard somebody yelling for you, too."

"Couldn't have been."

"Guess not. Well, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Uh-huh." I took a last pull on the butt and tossed it at the curb. Pat went back into the station and I could hear his heels clicking on the steps.

The street was more deserted now than ever. All that was left was the one yellow light. It seemed to wink at me. I walked toward it and went up the three steps into the building. The door was still standing open, enough light from the front room seeping into the hall so I could find my way.

It wasn't much of a place, just a room. There was a chair, a closet, a single bed and a washstand. The suitcase on the bed was half filled with well-worn clothes, but I couldn't tell whether it was being packed or unpacked. I poked through the stuff and found another dollar bill stuffed in the cloth lining. Twenty pages of a mail-order catalog were under everything. Part of them showed sporting goods including all sorts of guns. The others pictured automobile accessories. Which part was used? Did he buy a gun or a tire? Why? Where?

I pulled out the shirts and shook them open, looking for any identifying marks. One had "DEA" for a laundry tag next to the label, the others had nothing so he must have done his own wash.

That was all there was to it.

Nothing.

I could breathe a little easier and tell Marty Kooperman that his boy was okay and nothing could hurt him now. Pat would be satisfied, the cops would be satisfied and everything was hunky-dory. I was the only one who still had a bug up my tail. It was a great big bug and it was kicking up a fuss. I was a hell of a way from being satisfied.

This wasn't what I was after, that's why. This didn't have to do with three green cards except that the dead man had killed a guy who carried one. What was his name . . . Moffit, Charlie Moffit. Was he dead because of a fluke or was there more to it?

I kicked at the edge of the bed in disgust and took one last look around. Pat would be here next. He'd find prints and check them against the corpse in his usual methodical way. If there was anything to be found, he'd find it and I could get it from him.

It had only been a few hours since I climbed out of the sack, but for some reason I was more tired than ever. Too much of a letdown, I guessed. You can't prime yourself for something to happen and feel right when it doesn't come off. The skin of my face felt tight and drawn, pulling away from my eyes. My back still crawled when I thought of the alley and that thing under the train.

I went into a shabby drugstore and called Velda's home. She wasn't there. I tried the office and she was. I told her to meet me in the bar downstairs and walked outside again, looking for a cab. The one that came along had a driver who had all the information about the accident in the subway secondhand and insisted on giving me a detailed account of all the gruesome details. I was glad to pay him off and get out of there.

Velda was sitting in a back booth with a Manhattan in front of her. Two guys at the bar had swung halfway around on their stools and were trying out their best leers. One said something dirty and the other laughed. Tony walked down behind the bar, but he saw me come in and stopped. The guy with the dirty mouth said something else, slid off his stool and walked over to Velda.

He set his drink down and leaned on her table, mouthing a few obscenities. Velda moved too fast for him. I saw her arm fly out, knock away the support of his hand and his face went into the table. She gave him the drink right in the eyes, glass and all.

The guy screamed, "You dirty little . . ." then she laid the heavy glass ash tray across his temple and he had it. He went down on his knees, his head almost on the floor. The other guy almost choked. He slammed his drink down and came off his stool with a rush. I let him go about two feet before I snagged the back of his coat collar with a jerk that put him right on his skinny behind.

Tony laughed and leaned on the bar.

I wasn't laughing. The one on the floor turned his head and I saw a pinched weasel face with eyes that had quick death in them. Those eyes crawled over me from top to bottom, over to Velda and back again. "A big tough guy," he said. "A big wise guy."

As if a spring exploded inside him, he came up off the floor with a knife in his hand, blade up.

A .45 can make an awful nasty sound in a quiet room when you pull the hammer back. It's just a little tiny click, but it can stop a dozen guys when they hear it. Weasel Face couldn't take his eyes off it. I let him have a good look and smashed it across his nose.

The knife hit the floor and broke when I stepped on it. Tony laughed again. I grabbed the guy by the neck and hauled him to his feet so I could drag the cold sharp metal of the rod across his face until he was a bright red mask mumbling for me to stop.

Tony helped me throw them in the street outside. He said, "They never learn, do they, Mike? Because there's two of 'em and they got a shiv they're the toughest mugs in the world. It ain't nice to get took, by a woman, neither. They never learn."

"They learn, Tony. For about ten seconds they're the smartest people in the world. But then it's always too late. After ten seconds they're dead. They only learn when they finally catch a slug where it hurts."

I walked back to the booth and sat down opposite Velda. Tony brought her another Manhattan and me a beer. "Very good," I said.

"Thanks. I knew you were watching."

She lit a cigarette and her hands were steadier than mine. "You were too rough on him."

"Nuts, he had a knife. I have an allergy against getting cut." I drained off half of the beer and laid it down on the table where I made patterns with the wet bottom. "Tell me about tonight."

Velda started to tear matches out of the book without lighting them. "I got there about seven-thirty. A light was on in the front window. Twice I saw somebody pull aside the corner of the shade and look out. A car went around the block twice, and both times it slowed down a little in front of the house. When it left I tried the door, but it was locked so I went next door and tried that one. It was locked too, but there was a cellar way under the stairs and I went down there. Just as I was going down the steps I saw a man coming up the block and I thought it might be Deamer.

"I had to take the chance that it was and that you were behind him. The cellar door was open and led through to the back yard. I was trying to crawl over a mound of boxes when I heard somebody in the back yard. I don't know how long it took me to get out there, possibly two minutes. Anyway, I heard a yell and somebody came out the door of the next house. I got through into the back alley and heard him running. He went too fast for me and I started yelling for you."

"That was Oscar Deamer, all right. He saw us coming and beat it."

"Maybe."

"What do you mean . . . 'maybe'?"

"I think there were two people in that alley ahead of me."

"Two people?" My voice had an edge to it. "Did you see them?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"I don't. I just think so."

I finished the beer and waved to Tony. He brought another. Velda hadn't touched her drink yet. "Something made you think that. What was it?"

She shrugged, frowning at her glass, trying to force her mind back to that brief interval. "When I was in that cellar I thought I heard somebody in the other yard. There was a flock of cats around and I thought at the time that I was hearing them."

"Go on."

"Then when I was running after him I fell and while I lay there it didn't sound like just one person going down that alley."

"One person could sound like ten if they hit any of the junk we hit. It makes a hell of a racket."

"Maybe I'm wrong, Mike. I thought there could have been someone else and I wanted you to know about it."

"What the hell, it doesn't matter too much now anyway. The guy is dead and that should end it. Lee Deamer can go ahead and reform all he wants to now. He hasn't got a thing to worry about. As far as two people in that alley . . . well, you saw what the place was like. Nobody lives there unless he has to. They're the kind of people who scare easily, and if Lee started running somebody else could have too. Did you see him go down the subway?"

"No, he was gone when I got there, but two kids were staring down the steps and waving to another kid to come over. I took the chance that he went down and followed. The train was skidding to a stop when I reached the platform and I didn't have to be told why. When you scooted me away I looked for those kids in the crowd upstairs but they weren't around."

I hoisted my glass, turned it around in my hand and finished it. Velda downed her Manhattan and slipped her arms into her coat. "What now, Mike?"

"You go home, kid," I told her. "I'm going to take me a nice long walk."

We said good night to Tony and left. The two guys we had thrown in the street were gone. Velda grinned. "Am I safe?"

"Hell yes!"

I waved a taxi over, kissed her good night and walked off. My heels rapped the sidewalk, a steady tap-tap that kept time with my thoughts. They reminded me of another walk I took, one that led to a bridge, and still another one that led into a deserted store that came equipped with blackout curtains, light switches on the door and coffee urns.

There lay the story behind the green cards. There was where I could find out why I had to kill a guy who had one, and see a girl die because she couldn't stand the look on my face. That was what I wanted to know . . . why it was me who was picked to pull the trigger.

I turned into a candy store and pulled the telephone directories from the rack. I found the Park Avenue Brightons and dialed the number.

Three rings later a somber voice said, "Mr. Brighton's residence."

I got right to the point. "Is Ethel there?"

"Who shall I say is calling, sir?"

"You don't. Just put her on."

"I'm sorry, sir, but . . ."

"Oh, shut up and put her on."

There was a shocked silence and a clatter as the phone was laid on a table. Off in the distance I heard the mutter of voices, then feet coming across the room. The phone clattered again, and, "Yes?"

"Hello, Ethel," I said. "I drove your car into Times Square last night. Remember?"

"Oh! Oh, but . . ." Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. "Please, I can't talk to you here. What is . . ."

"You can talk to me outside, kid. I'll be standing on your street corner in about fifteen minutes. The northeast corner. Pick me up there."

"I--I can't. Honestly . . . oh, please . . ." There was panic in her voice, a tone that held more than fear.

I said, "You'd better, baby." That was enough. I hung up and started walking toward Park Avenue. If I could read a voice right she'd be there.

She was. I saw her while I was still a half block away, crossing nervously back and forth, trying to seem busy. I came up behind her and said hello. For a moment she went rigid, held by the panic that I had sensed in her voice.

"Scared?"

"No--of course not." The hell she wasn't! Her chin was wobbling and she couldn't hold her hands still. This time I was barely smiling and dames don't usually go to pieces when I do that.

I hooked my arm through hers and steered her west where there were lights and people. Sometimes the combination is good for the soul. It makes you want to talk and laugh and be part of the grand parade.

It didn't have that effect on her.

The smile might have been pasted on her face. When she wasn't looking straight ahead her eyes darted to me and back again. We went off Broadway and into a bar that had one empty end and one full end because the television wasn't centered. The lights were down low and nobody paid any attention to us on the empty end except the bartender, and he was more interested in watching the wrestling than hustling up drinks for us.

Ethel ordered an Old Fashioned and I had a beer. She held the fingers of her one hand tightly around the glass and worked a cigarette with the other. There was nothing behind the bar to see, but she stared there anyway. I had to give up carrying the conversation. When I did and sat there as quietly as she did the knuckles of her fingers went white.

She couldn't keep this up long. I took a lungful of smoke and let it come out with my words. "Ethel . . ." She jerked, startled. "What's there about me that has you up a tree?"

She wet her lips. "Really, there's . . . there's nothing."

"You never even asked me my name."

That brought her head up. Her eyes got wide and stared at the wall. "I . . . I'm not concerned with names."

"I am."

"But you . . . I'm . . . please, what have I done? Haven't I been faithful? Must you go on . . ." She had kept it up too long. The panic couldn't stay. It left with a rush and a pleading tone took its place. There were tears in her eyes now, tears she tried hard to hold back and being a woman, couldn't. They flooded her eyelids and ran down her cheeks.

"Ethel . . . quit being scared of me. Look in a mirror and you'll know why I called you tonight. You aren't the kind of woman a guy can see and forget. You're too damned serious."

Dames, they can louse me up every time. The tears stopped as abruptly as they came and her mouth froze in indignation. This time she was able to look at my eyes clearly. "We have to be serious. You, of all people, should know that!"

This was better. The words were her own, what was inside her and not words that I put there. "Not all the time," I grinned.

"All the time!" she said. I grinned at her and she returned it with a frown.

"You'll do, kid."

"I can't understand you." She hesitated, then a smile blossomed and grew. She was lovely when she smiled. "You were testing me," she demanded.

"Something like that."

"But . . . why?"

"I need some help. I can't take just anybody, you know." It was true. I did need help, plenty of it too.

"You mean . . . you want me to help you . . . find out who . . . who did it?"

Cripes, how I wanted her to open up. I wasn't in the mood for more of those damn silly games and yet I had to play them. "That's right."

It must have pleased her. I saw the fingers loosen up around the glass and she tasted the drink for the first time. "Could I ask a question?"

"Sure, go ahead."

"Why did you choose me?"

"I'm attracted to beauty."

"But my record . . ."

"I was attracted to that too. Being beautiful helped."

"I'm not beautiful." She was asking for more. I gave it to her.

"All I can see are your face and hands. They're beautiful, but I bet the rest of you is just as beautiful, the part I can't see."

It was too dark to tell if she had the grace to blush or not. She wet her lips again, parting them in a small smile. "Would you?"

"What?"

"Like to see the rest of me." No, she couldn't have blushed.

I laughed at her, a slow laugh that brought her head around and showed me the glitter in her eyes. "Yeah, Ethel, I want to. And I will when I want to just a little more."

Her breath came so sharply that her coat fell open and I could see the pulse in her throat. "It's warm here. Can we . . . leave?"

Neither of us bothered to finish our drinks.

She was laughing now, with her mouth and her eyes. I held her hand and felt the warm pressure of her fingers, the stilted reserve draining out of her at every step. Ethel led the way, not me. We walked toward her place almost as if we were in a hurry, out to enjoy the evening.

"Supposing your father . . . or somebody you know should come along," I suggested.

She shrugged defiantly. "Let them. You know how I feel." She held her head high, the smile crooked across her lips. "There's not one of them I care for. Any feeling I've had for my family disappeared several years ago."

"Then you haven't any feeling left for anyone?"

"I have! Oh, yes I have." Her eyes swung up to mine, half closed, revealing a sensuous glitter. "For the moment it's you."

"And other times?"

"I don't have to tell you that. There's no need to test me any longer."

A few doors from her building she stopped me. Her convertible was squatting there at the curb. The cars in front and behind had parking tickets on the windshield wiper. Hers bore only a club insignia.

"I'll drive this time," she said.

We got in and drove. It rained a little and it snowed a little, then, abruptly, it was clear and the stars came in full and bright, framed in the hole in the sky. The radio was a chant of pleasure, snatching the wild symphonic music from the air and offering us orchestra seats though we were far beyond the city, hugging the curves of the Hudson.

When we stopped it was to turn off the highway to a winding macadam road that led beneath the overhanging branches of evergreens. The cottage nestled on top of a bluff smiling down at the world. Ethel took my hand, led me inside to the plush little playhouse that was her own special retreat and lit the heavy wax candles that hung in brass holders from the ceiling.

I had to admire the exquisite simplicity of the place. It proclaimed wealth, but in the most humble fashion. Somebody had done a good job of decorating. Ethel pointed to the little bar that was set in the corner of the log cabin. "Drinks are there. Would you care to make us one . . . Then start the fire? The fireplace has been laid up."

I nodded, watched her leave the room, then opened the doors of the liquor cabinet. Only the best, the very best. I picked out the best of the best and poured two straight, not wanting to spoil it with any mixer, sipped mine then drank it down. I had a refill and stared at it.

A Commie. She was a jerky Red. She owned all the trimmings and she was still a Red. What the hell was she hoping for, a government order to share it all with the masses? Yeah. A joint like this would suddenly assume a new owner under a new regime. A fat little general, a ranking secret policeman, somebody. Sure, it's great to be a Commie . . . as long as you're top dog. Who the hell was supposed to be fooled by all the crap?

Yet Ethel fell for it. I shook my head at the stupid asses that are left in this world and threw a match into the fireplace. It blazed up and licked at the logs on the andirons.

Ethel came out of the other room wearing her fur coat. Her hair looked different. It seemed softer. "Cold?"

"In there it is. I'll be warm in a moment."

I handed her the glass and we touched the rims. Her eyes were bright, hot.

We had three or four more and the bottom was showing in the bottle. Maybe it was more than three or four. I wanted to ask her some questions. I wanted the right answers and I didn't want her to think about them beforehand. I wanted her just a little bit drunk.

I had to fumble with the catch to get the liquor cabinet open. There was more of the best of the best in the back and I dragged it out. Ethel found the switch on a built-in phonograph and stacked on a handful of records.

The fireplace was a leaping, dancing thing that threw shadows across the room and touched everything with a weird, demoniac light. Ethel came to me, holding her arms open to dance. I wanted to dance, but there were parts of me trying to do other things.

Ethel laughed. "You're drunk."

"I am like hell." It wasn't exactly the truth.

"Well I'm drunk. I'm very, very drunk and I love it!" She threw her arms up and spun around. I had to catch her. "Oo, I want to sit down. Let's sit down and enjoy the fire."

She pulled away and danced to the sofa, her hands reaching out for the black bearskin rug that was draped over the back of it. She threw it on the floor in front of the fire and turned around. "Come on over. Sit down."

"You'll roast in that coat," I said.

"I won't." She smiled slyly and flipped open the buttons that held it together. She shrugged the shoulders off first letting it fall to her waist, then swept it off and threw it aside.

Ethel didn't have anything on. Only her shoes. She kicked them off too and sunk to the softness of the bearskin, a beautiful naked creature of soft round flesh and lustrous hair that changed color with each leap of the vivid red flame behind her.

It was much too warm then for a jacket. I heard mine hit a chair and slide off. My wallet fell out of the pocket and I didn't care. The sling on my gun rack wouldn't come loose and I broke it.

She shouldn't have done it. Damn it, she shouldn't have done it! I wanted to ask her some questions.

Now I forgot what I wanted to ask her.

My fingers hurt and she didn't care. Her lips were bright red, wet. They parted slowly and her tongue flicked out over her teeth inviting me to come closer. Her mouth was a hungry thing demanding to be tasted. The warmth that seemed to come from the flames was a radiation that flowed from the sleek length of her legs and nestled in the hollow of her stomach a moment before rising over the convex beauty of her breasts. She held her arms out invitingly and took me in them.

Chapter Five

I came awake with the dawn, my throat dry and my mind groping to make sense out of what had happened. Ethel was still there, lying curled on her side up against me. Sometime during the night the fire had gone down and she had, gotten up to get a blanket and throw it over us.

Somehow I got to my feet without waking her up. I pulled on my clothes, found my gun sling and my jacket on the floor. I remembered my wallet and felt around for it, getting mad when I didn't find it. I sat on the arm of the sofa and shook my head to clear out the spiders. Bending over didn't do me much good. The next time I used my foot and scooped it out from under the end table where I must have kicked it in getting dressed.

Ethel Brighton was asleep and smiling when I left. It was a good night, but not at all what I had come for. She giggled and wrapped her arms around the blankets. Maybe Ethel would quit being mad at the world now.

I climbed into my raincoat and walked out, looking up once at the sky overhead. The clouds had closed in again, but they were thinner and it was warmer than it had been.

It took twenty minutes to reach the highway and I had to wait another twenty before a truck came along and gave me a lift into town. I treated him to breakfast and we talked about the war. He agreed that it hadn't been a bad war. He had gotten nicked too, and it gave him a good excuse to cop a day off now and then.

I called Pat about ten o'clock. He gave me a fast hello, then: "Can you come up, Mike? I have something interesting."

"About last night?"

"That's right."

"I'll be up in five minutes. Stick around."

Headquarters was right up the street and I stepped it up. The D.A. was coming out of the building again. This time he didn't see me. When I rapped on Pat's door he yelled to come in and I pushed the knob.

Pat said, "Where the hell have you been?" He was grinning.

"No place." I grinned back.

"If what I suspect goes on between you and Velda, then you better get that lipstick off your face and shave."

"That bad?"

"I can smell whisky from here too."

"Velda won't like that," I said.

"No dame in love with a dope does," Pat laughed. "Park it, Mike. I have news for you." He opened his desk drawer and hauled out a large manila envelope that had CONFIDENTIAL printed across the back.

When he was draped across the arm of the chair he handed a fingerprint photostat to me. "I took these off the corpse last night."

"You don't waste time, pal."

"Couldn't afford to." He dug in the envelope and brought out a three-page document that was clipped together. It had a hospital masthead I didn't catch because Pat turned it over and showed me the fingerprints on the back. "These are Oscar Deamer's too. This is his medical case history that Lee was holding."

I didn't need to be an expert to see that they matched. "Same guy all right," I remarked.

"No doubt about it. Want to look at the report?"

"Ah, I couldn't wade through all that medical baloney. What's it say?"

"In brief, that Oscar Deamer was a dangerous neurotic, paranoiac and a few other psychiatric big words."

"Congenital?"

Pat saw what I was thinking. "No, as a matter of fact. So rest easy that no family insanity could be passed on to Lee. It seems that Oscar had an accident when he was a child. A serious skull fracture that somehow led to his condition."

"Any repercussions? Papers get any of it?" I handed the sheets back to Pat and he tucked them away.

"None at all, luckily. We were on tenterhooks for a while, but none of the newsboys connected the names. There was one fortunate aspect to the death of Oscar . . . his face wasn't recognizable. If the reporters had seen him there wouldn't have been a chance of covering up, and would some politicians like to have gotten that!"

I pulled a Lucky from my pack and tapped it on the arm of the chair. "What was the medical examiner's opinion?"

"Hell, suicide without a doubt. Oscar got scared, that's all. He tried to run knowing he was trapped. I guess he knew he'd go back to the sanitarium if he was caught . . . if he didn't stand a murder trial for Moffit's murder, and he couldn't take it."

Pat snapped his lighter open and fired my butt. "I guess that washes it up then," I said.

"For us . . . yes. For you, no."

I raised my eyebrows and looked at him quizzically.

"I saw Lee before I came to work. He called," Pat explained. "When he spoke to Oscar over the phone Oscar hinted at something. He seems to think that Oscar might have done other things than try to have him identified for a murder he didn't do. Anyway, I told him you had some unusual interest in the whole affair that you didn't want to speak about, even to me. He quizzed me about you, I told all and now he wants to see you."

"I'm to run down anything left behind?"

"I imagine so. At any rate, you'll get a fat fee out of it instead of kicking around for free."

"I don't mind. I'm on vacation anyway."

"Nuts. Stop handing me the same old thing. Think of something different. I'd give a lot to know what you have on your mind."

"You sure would, Pat." Perhaps it was the way I said it. Pat went into a piece of police steel. The cords in his neck stuck out like little fingers and his lips were just a straight, thin line.

"I've never known you to hang your hat on anything but murder, Mike."

"True, ain't it." My voice was flat as his.

"Mike, after the way I've been pitching with you, if you get in another smear you'll be taking me with you."

"I won't get smeared."

"Mike, you bastard, you have a murder tucked away somewhere."

"Sure, two of 'em. Try again."

He let his eyes relax and forced a grin. "If there were any recent kills on the pad I'd go over them one by one and scour your hide until you told me which one it was."

"You mean," I said sarcastically, "that the Finest haven't got one single unsolved murder on their hands?"

Pat got red and squirmed. "Not recently."

"What about that laddie you hauled out of the drink?"

He scowled as he remembered. "Oh, that gang job. Body still unidentified and we're tracking down his dental work. No prints on file."

"Think you'll tag him?"

"It ought to be easy. That bridgework was unusual. One false tooth was made of stainless steel. Never heard of that before."

The bells started in my head again. Bells, drums, the whole damn works. The cigarette dropped out of my fingers and I bent to pick it up, hoping the blood pounding in my veins would pound out the crazy music.

It did. That maddening blast of silent sound went away. Slowly.

Maybe Pat never heard of stainless-steel teeth before, but I had.

I said, "Is Lee expecting me?"

"I told him you'd be over some time this morning."

"Okay." I stood up and shoved my hat on. "One other thing, what about the guy Oscar bumped?"

"Charlie Moffit?"

"Yeah."

"Age thirty-four, light skin, dark hair. He had a scar over one eye. During the war he was 4-F. No criminal record and not much known about him. He lived in a room on Ninety-first Street, the same one he's had for a year. He worked in a pie factory."

"Where?"

"A pie factory," Pat repeated, "where they make pies. Mother Switcher's Pie Shoppe. You can find it in the directory."

"Was that card all the identification he had on him?"

"No, he had a driver's license and a few other things. During the scuffle one pocket of his coat was torn out, but I doubt if he would have carried anything there anyway. Now, Mike . . . why?"

"The green cards, remember?"

"Hell, quit worrying about the reds. We have agencies who can handle them."

I looked past Pat outside into the morning. "How many Commies are there floating around, Pat?"

"Couple hundred thousand, I think," he said.

"How many men have we got in those agencies you mentioned?"

"Oh . . . maybe a few hundred. What's that got to do with it?"

"Nothing . . . just that that's the reason I'm worried."

"Forget it. Let me know how you make out with Lee."

"Sure."

"And Mike . . . be discreet as hell about this, will you? Everybody with a press card knows your reputation and if you're spotted tagging around Lee there might be some questions asked that will be hard to answer."

"I'll wear a disguise," I said.

Lee Deamer's office was on the third floor of a modest building just off Fifth Avenue. There was nothing pretentious about the place aside from the switchboard operator. She was special. She had one of those faces that belonged in a chorus and a body she was making more effort to show than to conceal. I heard her voice and it was beautiful. But she was chewing gum like a cow and that took away any sign of pretentiousness she might have had.

There was a small anteroom that led to another office where two stenos were busy over typewriters. One wall of that room was all glass with a speaking partition built in at waist level. I had to lean down to my belt buckle to talk and gave it up as a bad job. The girl behind it laughed pleasantly and came out the door to see me.

She was a well-tailored woman in her early thirties, nice to look at and speak to. She wore an emerald ring that looked a generation older than she was. She smiled and said, "Good morning, can I do something for you?"

I remembered to be polite. "I'd like to see Mr. Deamer, please."

"Is he expecting you?"

"He sent word for me to come up."

"I see." She tapped her teeth with a pencil and frowned. "Are you in a hurry?"

"Not particularly, but I think Mr. Deamer is."

"Oh, well . . . the doctor is inside with him. He may be there awhile, so . . ."

"Doctor?" I interrupted.

The girl nodded, a worried little look tugging at her eyes. "He seemed to be quite upset this morning and I called in the doctor. Mr. Deamer hasn't been too well since he had that attack awhile back."

"What kind of attack?"

"Heart. He had a telephone call one day that agitated him terribly. I was about to suggest that he go home and at that moment, he collapsed. I . . . I . . . I was awfully frightened. You see, it had never happened before, and . . ."

"What did the doctor say?"

"Apparently it wasn't a severe attack. Mr. Deamer was instructed to take it easy, but for a man of his energy it's hard to do."

"You say he had a phone call? That did it?"

I'm sure it did. At first I thought it was the excitement of watching the Legion parade down the avenue, but Ann told me it happened right after the call came in."

Oscar's call must have hit him harder than either Pat or I thought. Lee wasn't a young man any more, a thing like that could raise a lot of hell with a guy's ticker. I was about to say something when the doctor came out of the office. He was a little guy with a white goatee out of another era.

He nodded to us both, but turned his smile on the girl. "I'm sure he'll be fine. I left a prescription. See that it's filled at once, please?"

"Thank you, I will. Is it all right for him to have visitors?"

"Certainly. Apparently he has been thinking of something that disturbed him and had a slight relapse. Nothing to worry about as long as he takes it easy. Good day."

We said so-long and she turned to me with another smile, bigger this time. "I guess you can go ahead in then. But please . . . don't excite him."

I grinned and said I wouldn't. Her smile made her prettier. I pushed through the door, passed the steno and knocked on the door with Deamer's name on it.

He rose to greet me but I waved him down. His face was a little flushed and his breathing fast. "Feeling better now? I saw the doctor when he came out."

"Much better, Mike. I had to fabricate a story to tell him . . . I couldn't tell the truth."

I sat in the chair next to his and he pushed a box of cigars toward me. I said no and took out a Lucky instead. "Best to keep things to yourself. One word and the papers'll have it on page one. Pat said you wanted to see me."

Lee sat back and wiped his face with a damp handkerchief. "Yes, Mike. He told me you were interested somehow."

"I am."

"Are you one of my . . . political advocates?"

"Frankly, I don't know a hoot about politics except that it's a dirty game from any angle."

"I hope to do something about that. I hope I can, Mike, I sincerely hope I can. Now I'm afraid."

"The heart?"

He nodded. "It happened after Oscar called. I never suspected that I have a . . . condition. I'm afraid now the voters must be told. It wouldn't be fair to elect a man not physically capable of carrying out the duties of his office." He smiled wistfully, sadly. I felt sorry for the old boy.

"Anyway, I'm not concerned with the politics of the affair."

"Really? But what . . ."

"Just a loose end, Lee. They bother me."

"I see. I don't understand, but I see . . . if you can make sense of that."

I waved the smoke away from in front of him "I know what you mean. Now about why you wanted to see me. Pat gave me part of it already, enough so I can see the rest."

"Yes. You see, Oscar intimated that no matter what happened, he was going to see to it that I was broken, completely broken. He mentioned some documents he had prepared."

I crushed the butt out and looked at him. "What kind of documents?"

Lee shook his head slowly. "The only possible thing he could compound would be our relationship as brothers. How, I don't know, because I have all the family papers. But if he could establish that I was the brother of a man committed to a mental institution, it would be a powerful weapon in the hands of the opposition."

"There's nothing else," I asked, "that could stick you?"

He spread his hands apart in appeal. "If there was it would have been brought to light long ago. No, I've never been in jail or in trouble of any sort. I'm afraid that my attention to business precluded any trouble."

"Uh-huh. How come this awful hatred?"

"I don't know, actually. As I told Pat and you previously, it may have been a matter of ideals, or because though we were twins, we weren't at all alike. Oscar was almost, well . . . sadistic in his ways. We had little to do with each other. As younger men I became established in business while Oscar got into all sorts of scrapes. I've tried to help him, but he wouldn't accept help from me at all. He hated me fiercely. I'm inclined to believe that this time Oscar had intended to bleed me for all the money he could, then make trouble for me anyway."

"You were lucky you took the attitude you did. You can't pay off, it only makes matters worse."

"I don't know, Mike; as much as he hated me I certainly didn't want that to happen to him."

"He's better off."

"Perhaps."

I reached for another cigarette. "You want me to find out what he left then, that's it."

"If there is anything to be found, yes."

When I filled my lungs with smoke I let it go slowly, watching it swirl up toward the ceiling. "Lee," I said, "you don't know me so I'll tell you something. I hate phonies. Suppose I do find something that ties you up into a nice little ball. Something real juicy. What do you think I should do with it?"

It wasn't the reaction I expected. He leaned forward across the desk with his fingers interlocked. His face was a study in emotions. "Mike," he said in a voice that had the crisp clarity of static electricity, "if you do, I charge you to make it public at once. Is that clear?"

I grinned and stood up. "Okay, Lee. I'm glad you said that." I reached out my hand and he took it warmly. I've seen evangelists with faces like that, unswerving, devoted to their duty. We looked at each other then he opened his desk drawer and brought out a lovely sheaf of green paper. They had big, beautiful numbers in the corners.

"Here is a thousand dollars, Mike. Shall we call it a retainer?"

I took the bills and folded them tenderly away. "Let's call it payment in full. You'll get your money's worth."

"I'm sure of it. If you need any additional information, call on me."

"Right. Want a receipt?"

"No need of it. I'm sure your word is good enough."

"Thanks. I'll send you a report if anything turns up." I flipped a card out of my pocket and laid it on his desk. "In case you want to call me. The bottom one is my home phone. It's unlisted."

We shook hands again and he walked me to the door. On the way out the cud-chewing switchboard sugar smiled between chomps then went back to her magazine. The receptionist said so-long and I waved back.

Before I went to the office I grabbed a quick shave, a trim around the ears and took a shower that scraped the hide off me along with the traces of Ethel's perfume. I changed my shirt and suit but kept old Betsy in place under my arm.

Velda was working at the filing cabinet when I breezed in with a snappy hello and a grin that said I had money in my pocket. I got a quick once-over for lipstick stains, whisky aromas and what not, passed and threw the stack of bills on the desk.

"Bank it, kid."

"Mike! What did you do?"

"Lee Deamer. We're employed." I gave it to her in short order and she listened blankly.

When I finished she said, "You'll never find a thing, Mike. I know you won't. You shouldn't have taken it."

"You're wrong, chick. It wasn't stealing. If Oscar left anything that will tie Lee up, wouldn't you want me to get it?"

"Oh, Mike, you must! How long do we have to put up with the slime they call politics? Lee Deamer is the only one . . . the only one we can look to. Please, Mike, you can't let anything happen to him!"

I couldn't take the fear in her voice. I opened my arms out and she stepped into them. "Nobody will hurt the little guy, Velda. If there's anything I'll get it. Stop sniffling."

"I can't. It's all so nasty. You never stop to think what goes on in this country, but I do."

"Seems to me that I helped fight a war, didn't I?"

"You shouldn't have let it stop there. That's the matter with things. People forget, even the ones who shouldn't forget! They let others come walking in and run things any way they please, and what are they after--the welfare of the people they represent? Not a bit. All they want is to line their own pockets. Lee isn't like that, Mike. He isn't strong like the others, and he isn't smart politically. All he has to offer is his honesty and that isn't much."

"The hell it isn't. He's made a pretty big splash in this state."

"I know, and it has to stick, Mike. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"Promise me you'll help him, Mike, promise me your word."

Her face turned up to mine, drawn yet eager to hear. "I promise," I said softly. "I'll never go back on a promise to you, nor to myself."

It made her feel better in a hurry. The tears stopped and the sniffling died away. We had a laugh over it, but behind the laughter there was a dead seriousness. The gun under my arm felt heavy.

I said, "I have a job for you. Get me a background on Charlie Moffit. He's the one Oscar Deamer bumped."

Velda stopped her filing. "Yes, I know."

"Go to his home and his job. See what kind of a guy he was. Pat didn't mention a family so he probably didn't have any. Take what cash you need to cover expenses."

She shoved the drawer in and fingered the bills on the desk. "How soon?"

"I want it by tonight if you can. If not, tomorrow will do."

I could see her curiosity coming out, but there are times when I want to keep things to myself and this was one of them. She knew it and stayed curious without asking questions.

Before she slipped the bills inside the bank book I took out two hundred in fifties. She didn't say anything then, either, but she smelt a toot coming up and I had to kiss the tip of her nose to get the scowl off her puss.

As soon as Velda left I picked up the phone and dialed Ethel Brighton's number. The flunky recognized my voice from last night and was a little more polite. He told me Ethel hadn't come in yet and hung up almost as hard as he could but not quite.

I tapped out a brief history of the case for the records, stuck it in the file and called again. Ethel had just gotten in. She grabbed the phone and made music in it, not giving a damn who heard her. "You beast. You walked right out of the cave and left me to the wolves."

"That bearskin would scare them away. You looked nice wrapped up in it."

"You liked . . . all of me, then. The parts you could see?"

"All of you, Ethel. Soft and sweet."

"We'll have to go back."

"Maybe," I said.

"Please," softly whispered.

I changed the subject. "Busy today?"

"Very busy. I have a few people to see. They promised me sizable . . . donations. Tonight I have to deliver them to Com. Henry Gladow."

"Yeah. Suppose I go with you?"

"If you think it's all right I'm sure no one will object."

"Why me?" That was one of the questions I wanted an answer to.

She didn't tell me. "Come now," she said. "Supposing I meet you in the Oboe Club at seven. Will that do?"

"Fine, Ethel. I'll save a table so we can eat."

She said so-long with a pleasant laugh and waited for me to hang up. I did, then sat there with a cigarette in my fingers trying to think. The light hitting the wall broke around something on the desk making two little bright spots against the pale green.

Like two berries on a bush. The judge's eyes. They looked at me.

Something happened to the light and the eyes disappeared. I picked the phone up again and called the Globe. Marty was just going out on a story but had time to talk to me. I asked him, "Remember the Brighton family? Park Avenue stuff."

"Sure, Mike. That's social, but I know a little about them. Why?"

"Ethel Brighton's on the outs with her father. Did it ever make the papers?"

I heard him chuckle a second. "Getting toney, aren't you, kid? Well, part of the story was in the papers some time ago. It seems that Ethel Brighton publicly announced her engagement to a certain young man. Shortly afterwards the engagement was broken."

"Is that all?"

"Nope," he grunted, "the best is yet to come. A little prying by our diligent Miss Carpenter who writes the social chatter uncovered an interesting phase that was handled just as interestingly. The young man in question was a down-and-out artist who made speeches for the Communist Party and was quite willing to become a capitalist by marriage. He was a conscientious objector during the war though he probably could have made 4-F without trouble. The old man raised the roof but there was nothing he could do. When he threatened to cut Ethel off without a cent she said she'd marry him anyway.

"So the old man connived. He worked it so that he'd give his blessing so long as the guy enlisted in the army. They needed men bad so they took him and as soon as he was out of training camp he was shipped overseas. He was killed in action, though the truth was that he went AWOL during a battle and deserved what he got. Later Ethel found out that her father was responsible for everything but the guy's getting knocked off and he had hoped for that too. She had a couple of rows with him in public, then it died down to where they just never spoke."

"Nice girl," I mused.

"Lovely to look at anyway."

"You'll never know. Well, thanks, pal."

He stopped me before I could hang up. "Is this part of what you were driving at the other day . . . something to do with Lee Deamer?" His voice had a rasp.

"Not this," I said. "It's personal."

"Oh, well call me any time, Mike." He sounded relieved.

And so the saga of one Ethel Brighton. Nice girl turned dimwit because her old man did her out of a marriage. She was lucky and didn't know it.

I looked at my watch, remembered that I had meant to buy Velda lunch and forgot, then went downstairs and ate by myself. When I finished the dessert I sat back with a cigarette and tried to think of what it was that fought like the hammers of hell to come through my mind. Something was eating its way out and I couldn't help it. I gave up finally and paid my check. There was a movie poster behind the register advertising the latest show at the house a block over, so I ambled over and plunked in a seat before the show started. It wasn't good enough to keep me awake. I was on the second time around when I glanced at the time and hustled into the street.

The Oboe Club had been just another second-rate saloon on a side street until a wandering reporter happened in an mentioned it in his column as a good place to relax if you liked solitude and quiet. The next day it became a first-rate nightclub where you could find anything but solitude and quiet. Advertising helped plenty.

I knew the headwaiter to nod to and it was still early enough to get a table without any green passing between handshakes. The bar was lined with the usual after-office crowd having one for the road. There wasn't anyone to speak to, so I sat at the table and ordered a highball. I was on my fourth when Ethel Brighton came in, preceded by the headwaiter and a few lesser luminaries.

He bowed her into her seat, then bowed himself out. The other one helped her adjust her coat over the back of the chair. "Eat?" I asked.

"I'll have a highball first. Like yours." I signaled the waiter and called for a couple more.

"How'd the donations come?"

"Fine," she said, "even better than I expected. The best part is, there's more where that came from."

"The party will be proud of you." She looked up from her drink with a nervous little smile. "I . . . hope so."

"They should. You've brought in a lot of mazuma."

"One must do all one can." Her voice was a flat drone, almost machine-like. She picked up her glass and took a long pull. The waiter came and took our orders, leaving another highball with us.

I caught her attention and got back on the subject. "Do you ever wonder where it all goes to?"

"You mean . . . the money?" I nodded between bites. "Why . . . no. It isn't for me to think about those things. I only do as I'm told." She licked her lips nervously and went back to her plate.

I prodded her again. "I'd be curious if I were in your shoes. Give a guess, anyway."

This time there was nothing but fear in her face. It tugged at her eyes and mouth, and made her fork rattle against the china. "Please . . ."

"You don't have to be afraid of me, Ethel. I'm not entirely like the others. You should know that."

The fear was still there, but something else overshadowed it. "I can't understand you . . . you're different. It's well . . ."

"About the money, give a guess. Nobody should be entirely ignorant of party affairs. After all, isn't that the principle of the thing . . . everybody for everybody? Then you'd have to know everything about everybody to be able to really do the party justice."

"That's true." She squinted and a smile parted her lips. "I see what you mean. Well, I'd guess that most of the money goes to foster the schools we operate . . . and for propaganda, of course. Then there are a lot of small things that come up like office expenses here and there."

"Pretty good so far. Anything else?"

"I'm not too well informed on the business side of it so that's about as far as I can go."

"What does Gladow do for a living?"

"Isn't he a clerk in a department store?"

I nodded as if I had known all along. "Ever see his car?"

Ethel frowned again. "Yes. He has a new Packard, why?"

"Ever see his house?"

"I've been there twice," she said. "It's a big place up in Yonkers."

"And all that on a department store clerk's salary."

Her face went positively white. She had to swallow hard to get her drink down and refused to meet my eyes until I told her to look at me. She did, but hesitantly. Ethel Brighton was scared silly . . . of me. I grinned but it was lost. I talked and it went over her head. She gave all the right answers and even a laugh at one of my jokes, but Ethel was scared and she wasn't coming out of it too quickly.

She took the cigarette I offered her. The tip shook when she bent into the flame of my lighter. "What time do you have to be there?" I asked.

"Nine o'clock. There's . . . a meeting."

"We'd better go then. It'll take time getting over to Brooklyn."

"All right."

The waiter came over and took away a ten spot for his trouble while the headboy saw us to the door. Half the bar turned around to look at Ethel as she brushed by. I got a couple of glances that said I was a lucky guy to have all that mink on my arm. Real lucky.

We had to call the parking lot to get her car brought over then drove the guy back again. It was a quarter after eight before we pointed the car toward the borough across the stream. Ethel was behind the wheel, driving with a fixed intensity. She wouldn't talk unless I said something that required an answer. After a while it got tiresome so I turned on the radio and slumped back against the seat with my hat down over my eyes.

Only then did she seem to ease up. Twice I caught her head turning my way, but I couldn't see her eyes nor read the expression on her face. Fear. It was always there. Communism and Fear. Green Cards and Fear. Terror on the face of the girl on the bridge; stark, unreasoning fear when she looked at my face. Fear so bad it threw her over the rail to her death.

I'd have to remember to ask Pat about that, I thought. The body had to come up sometime.

The street was the same as before, dark, smelly, unaware of the tumor it was breeding in its belly. Trench Coat was standing outside the door seemingly enjoying the night. Past appearance didn't count. You showed your card and went in the door and showed it again. There was the same girl behind the desk and she made more of me than the card I held. Her voice was a nervous squeak and she couldn't sit still. Deliberately, I shot her the meanest grin I could dig up, letting her see my face when I pulled my lip back over my teeth. She didn't like it. Whatever it was scared her, too.

Henry Gladow was a jittery little man. He frittered around the room, stopped when he saw us and came over with a rush. "Good evening, good evening, comrades." He spoke directly to me. "I am happy to see you again, comrade. It is an honor."

It had been an honor before, too.

"There is news?" I screwed my eyebrows together and he pulled back, searching for words until he found them. "Of course. I am merely being inquisitive. Ha, ha. We are all so very concerned, you know."

"I know," I said.

Ethel handed him another of those envelopes and excused herself. I watched her walk to a table and take a seat next to two students where she began to correct some mimeographed sheets. "Wonderful worker, Miss Brighton," Gladow smiled. "You would scarcely think that she represents all that we hate."

I made an unintelligible answer.

"You are staying for the meeting?" he asked me.

"Yeah, I want to poke around a little."

This time he edged close to me, looking around to see if there was anyone close enough to hear. "Comrade, if I am not getting too inquisitive again, is there a possibility that . . . the person could be here?"

There it was again. Just what I wanted to know and I didn't dare ask the question. It was going to take some pretty careful handling. "It's possible," I said tentatively.

He was aghast. "Comrade! It is unthinkable!" He reflected a moment then: "Yet it had to come from somewhere. I simply can't understand it. Everything is so carefully screened, every member so carefully selected that it seems impossible for there to be a leak anywhere. And those filthy warmongers, doing a thing like that . . . so cold-blooded! It is simply incredible. How I wish the party was in power at this moment. Why, the one who did that would be uncovered before the sun could set!"

Gladow cursed through his teeth and pounded a puny, carefully tended fist into his palm. "Don't worry," I said slowly.

It took ten seconds for my words to sink in. Gladow's little eyes narrowed in pleasure like a hog seeing a trough full of slops. The underside of his top lip showed when he smiled. "No, comrade. I won't worry. The party is too clever to let a direct representative's death go unpunished. No, I won't worry because I realize that the punishment that comes will more than equal the crime." He beamed at me fatuously. "I am happy to realize that the higher echelon has sent a man of your capacity, comrade."

I didn't even thank him. I was thinking and this time the words made sense. They made more than sense . . . they made murder! Only death is cold-blooded, and who was dead? Three people. One hadn't been found. One was found and not identified, even by a lousy sketch. The other was dead and identified. He was cold-bloodedly murdered and he was a direct representative of the party and I was the guy looking for his killer.

Good Lord, the insane bastards thought I was an MVD man!

My hands started to shake and I kept them in my pockets. And who was the dead man but Charlie Moffit! My predecessor. A goddamned Commie gestapo man. A hatchetman, a torpedo, a lot of things you want to call him. Lee ought to be proud of his brother, damn proud. All by himself he went out and he knocked off a skunk.

But I was the prize, I was the MVD guy that came to take his place and run the killer down. Oh, brother! No wonder the jerks were afraid of me! No wonder they didn't ask my name! No wonder I was supposed to know it all.

I felt a grin trying to pull my mouth out of shape because so much of it was funny. They thought they were clever as hell and here I was right in the middle of things with an in that couldn't be better. Any good red would give his shirt to be where I was right this minute.

Everything started to come out right then, even the screwy test they put me through. A small-time setup like this was hardly worth the direct attention of a Moscow man unless something was wrong, so I had to prove myself.

Smart? Sure, just like road apples that happen behind horses.

Now I knew and now I could play the game. I could be one of the boys and show them some fun. There were going to be a lot of broken backs around town before I got done.

There was only one catch I could think of. Someplace was another MVD laddie, a real one. I'd have to be careful of him. At least careful that he didn't see me first, because when I met up with that stinkpot I was going to split him right down the middle with a .45!

I had been down too deep in my thoughts to catch the arrival of the party that came in behind me. I heard Gladow extending a welcome that wasn't handed out to just everybody. When I turned around to look I saw one little fat man, one big fat man and a guy who was in the newspapers every so often. His name was General Osilov and he was attached to the Russian Embassy in Washington. The big and little fat men were his aides and they did all the smiling. If anything went on in the head of the bald-headed general it didn't show in his flat, wide face.

Whatever it was Henry Gladow said swung the three heads in my direction. Two swung back again fast leaving only the general staring at me. It was a stare-down that I won. The general coughed without covering his mouth and stuck his hands in the pockets of his suitcoat. None of them seemed anxious to make my acquaintance.

From then on there was a steady flow of traffic in through the door. They came singly and in pairs, spaced about five minutes apart. Before the hour was out the place was packed. It was filled with the kind of people you'd expect to find there and it would hit you that when the cartoonists did a caricature of a pack of shabby reds lurking in the shadow of democracy they did a good job.

A few of them dragged out seats and the meeting was on. I saw Ethel Brighton slide into the last chair in the last row and waited until she was settled before I sat down beside her. She smiled, let that brief look of fear mask her face, then turned her head to the front. When I put my hand over hers I felt it tremble.

Gladow spoke. The aides spoke. Then the general spoke. He pulled his tux jacket down when he rose and glared at the audience. I had to sit there and listen to it. It was propaganda right off the latest Moscow cable and it turned me inside out. I wanted to feel the butt of an M-1 against my shoulder pointing at those bastards up there on the rostrum and feel the pleasant impact as it spit slugs into their guts.

Sure, you can sit down at night and read about the hogwash they hand out. Maybe you're fairly intelligent and can laugh at it. Believe me, it isn't funny. They use the very thing we build up, our own government and our own laws, to undermine the things we want.

It wasn't a very complicated speech the general made. It was plain, bitter poison and they cheered him noiselessly. He was making plain one thing. There were still too many people who didn't go for Communism and not enough who did and he gave a plan of organization that had worked in a dozen countries already. One armed Communist was worth twenty capitalists without guns. It was Hitler all over again. A powerful Communist government already formed would be there to take over when the big upset came, and according to him it was coming soon. Here, and he swept the room with his arm, was one phase of that government ready to go into action.

I didn't hear the rest of it. I sat there fiddling with my fingernails because I was getting ready to bust loose and spoil their plans. If I let any more words go in my ears there was going to be blood on the floor and it wasn't time for that yet. I caught snatches of things that went on, repeated intimations of how the top men were already in the core of the present government eating its vitals out so the upset would be an easy one.

For a long time I sat there working up more hatred than I had ever had at any time and I wasn't conscious of how tightly Ethel Brighton was squeezing my hand. When I looked at her tears were running down her face. That's the kind of thing the general and his party could do to decent people.

I took a long look at him, making sure that I wouldn't forget his face, because some day he'd be passing a dark alley or forget to lock his door when he went to bed. That's when he'd catch it. And I didn't want to get tagged for it either. That would be like getting the chair for squashing a spider.

The meeting ended with handshakes all around. The audience lined up along the walls taking handfuls of booklets and printed sheets to distribute later, then grouped in bunches around the room talking things over in excited murmurs. Henry Gladow and Martin Romberg were up on the rostrum having their own conference. The general said something to Henry and he must have ordered his bodyguard down into the crowd to look for his trench coat or something. Martin Romberg looked hurt. Tough.

While the seats were folded and stacked I lost track of Ethel. I saw her a few minutes later coming from the washroom and she looked a little better. She had a smile for me this time, a big one. I would have made something of it if a pimply-faced kid about twenty didn't come crawling over and tell me that the general wanted to know if I had time to speak to him.

Rather than answer I picked a hole in the crowd that had started to head for the door and walked up to the rostrum. The general stood alone, his hands behind his back. He nodded briefly and said something in a guttural tongue.

I let my eyes slide to the few who remained near by. There wasn't any respect in my tone when I said, "English. You know better than that."

The general paled a little and his mouth worked. "Yes . . . yes. I didn't expect to find anyone here. Do you have a report for me?"

I shook a cigarette out of the pack and stuck it in my mouth. "When I have you'll know about it."

His head bobbed anxiously and I knew I had the bull on him. Even a general had to be leery of the MVD. That made it nice for me. "Of course. But there should be some word to bring back to the committee."

"Then tell 'em things are looking up. It won't be long."

The general's hands came out in front where he squeezed them happily. "Then you do have word! The courier . . . he did have the documents? You know where they are?"

I didn't say a word. All I did was look at him and he got that same look on his face as the others had. He was thinking what I thought he was thinking, that he had taken me for granted and it was his mistake and one word to the right sources and he'd feel the ax.

He tried his first smile "It is very all right, you know. Comrade Gladow told me."

I dragged on the cigarette and blew it in his face wishing it was some mustard gas. "You'll know soon enough," I said. I left him standing there and walked back to Ethel. She was slipping into her mink and nobody seemed to care a hoot what she wore.

"Going home?"

"Yes . . . are you?"

"I don't mind."

One of the men paused to have a word with her before she left. She excused herself to talk to him and I used the time to look around and be sure there weren't any faces there that I'd ever forget. When the time came I wanted to be able to put the finger on them and put it on good.

Maybe it was the way I stared at the babe from the desk at the door or maybe it was because I looked at her too long. Her lashes made like bird's wings for a second and everything in the room seemed to get interesting all of a sudden. Her eyes jerked around but kept coming back to mine and each time there was a little more of a blush crowding her hairline.

I kept my grin hidden because she thought I was on the make. It could have been pathetic if it wasn't so damn funny. She wasn't the kind of woman a guy would bother with if there was anything else around. Strictly the last resort type. From the way she wore her clothes you couldn't tell what was underneath and suspected probably nothing. Her face looked like nature had been tired when it made it and whatever she did to her hair certainly didn't improve things any.

Plain was the word. Stuffy was the type. And here she thought a man saw something interesting in her.

I guessed that all women were born with some conceit in them so I put on a sort of smile and walked over to her casually. A little flattery could make a woman useful sometimes.

I held out my deck of butts. "Smoke?"

It must have been her first cigarette. She choked on it, but came up smiling. "Thank you."

I said, "You've, er . . . belonged some time, Miss . . ."

"Linda Holbright." She got real fluttery then. "Oh, yes, for years, you know. And I . . . try to do anything I can for the party."

"Good, good," I said. "You seem to be . . . very capable. Pretty, too."

Her first blush had been nothing. This one went right down to her shoes. Her eyes got big and blue and round and gave me the damnedest look you ever saw. Just for the hell of it I gave one back with a punch in it. What she made of it stopped her from breathing for a second.

I heard Ethel finish her little conversation behind me and I said, "Good night, Linda. I'll see you soon." I gave her that look again. "Real soon."

Her voice sounded a little bit strained. "I . . . meant to ask you. If there is anything . . . important you should know . . . where can I reach you?"

I ripped the back off a book of matches and wrote down my address. "Here it is. Apartment 5B."

Ethel was waiting for me, so I said good night again and started for the door behind the mink coat. It made nice wiggles when she walked. I liked that.

I let her go out first then followed her. The street was empty enough so you wouldn't think anything unusual about the few couples who were making their way to the subways. Trench Coat was still at the door holding a cigarette in his mouth. His belt was too tight and the gun showed underneath. One day a cop would spot that and there'd be more trouble.

Yeah, they sure were smart.

Going back was better than going down. This time Ethel turned into a vivid conversationalist, commenting on everything she saw. I tried to get in a remark about the meeting and she brushed it off with some fast talk. I let her get it out of her system, sitting there with my mouth shut, grinning at the right places and chiming in with a grunt whenever she laughed.

About a block from my apartment I pointed to the corner and said, "I'll get off under the light, kid."

She edged into the curb and stopped. "Good night, then," she smiled "I hope you enjoyed the meeting."

"As a matter of fact, I thought they stunk." Ethel's mouth dropped open. I kissed it and she closed it, fast. "Do you know what I'd do if I were you, Ethel?"

She shook her head, watching me strangely.

"I'd go back to being a woman and less of a dabbler in politics."

This time her eyes and mouth came open together. I kissed her again before she could get it shut. She looked at me as if I were a puzzle that couldn't be solved and let out a short, sharp laugh that had real pleasure in it.

"Aren't you a bit curious about my name, Ethel?"

Her face went soft. "Only for my own sake."

"It's Mike. Mike Hammer and it's a good name to remember."

"Mike . . ." very softly. "After last night . . . how could I forget?"

I grinned at her and opened the door. "Will I be seeing you again?"

"Do you want to?"

"Very much."

"Then you'll be seeing me again. You know where I live."

I couldn't forget her, either. On that bearskin rug with the fire behind her she was something a man never forgets. I stuck my hands in my pockets and started to whistle my way down the street.

I got as far as the door next to mine when the sedan across the street came to life. If the guy at the wheel hadn't let the clutch out so fast I wouldn't have looked up and seen the snout of the rifle that hung out the back window. What happened then came in a blur of motion and a mad blasting of sound. The long streak of flame from the rifle, the screaming of the ricocheted slug, the howl of the car engine. I dove flat out. Rolling before I hit the concrete, my hand pulling the gun out, my thumb grabbing for the hammer. The rifle barked again and gouged a hunk out of the sidewalk in front of my face, but by that time the .45 in my hand was bucking out the bullets as fast as my finger could pull the trigger, and in the light of the street lamp overhead I saw the dimples pop into the back of the car and the rear window spiderweb suddenly and smash to the ground. Somebody in the car screamed like a banshee gone mad and there were no more shots. Around me the windows were slamming up before the car had made the turn at the corner.

I kept saying it over and over to myself. "Those goddamned bastards. They got wise! Those goddamn bastards!"

A woman shrieked from a window that somebody was dead and when I looked up I saw she was pointing to me. When I climbed back on my feet she shrieked again and fell away from the window.

It hadn't been a full twenty seconds since that car had started up, and a police car was wheeling around the corner. The driver slammed on the brakes and the two of them came out with Police Specials in their hands, both of them pointed at me. I was trying to shove a fresh load into the clip when the cop snarled, "Drop that gun, damn it!"

I wasn't doing any arguing with them. I tossed the gun so it landed on my foot then shoved it away gently. The other cop picked it up. Before they told me to, I put my hands on my head and stood there while they flashed the beam of light in my face.

"There's a ticket for that rod in my wallet along with a Private Operator's license."

The cop didn't lose any time frisking me for another rod before yanking my wallet out. He had a skeptical look on his face until he saw the ticket. "Okay, put 'em down," he said. I dropped my hands and reached for my .45. "I didn't say to pick that up yet," he added. I let it stay there. The cop who drove the buggy looked the ticket over then looked at me. He said something to his partner and motioned for me to get the gun.

"All clear?" I blew the dust off old Betsy and stowed it away. A crowd was beginning to collect and one of the cops started to herd them away.

"What happened?" He wasn't a man of many words.

"There you got me, feller. I was on my way home when the shooting started. Either it's the old yarn of mistaken identity which isn't too probable or somebody whom I thought was a friend, isn't."

"Maybe you better come with us."

"Sure, but in the meantime a black Buick sedan with no back window and a few bullets in its behind is making tracks to the nearest garage. I think I got one of the guys in the car and you can start checking the doctors."

The cop peered at me under his visor and took my word for it. The call went out on the police wires without any more talk. They were all for dragging me with them until I had a call put in to Pat and his answer relayed back to the squad car. Pat told them I was available at any time and they gave me the green light through the crowd.

I got a lot of unfriendly looks that night.

When I stood in front of my door with the key in my hand it hit me just like that. My little love scene with Ethel Brighton had had repercussions. My wallet on the floor. It wasn't in the same place in the morning. When she had gotten up for that blanket she had seen it, and my P.I. card in the holder. Tonight she passed the word.

I was lucky to get out of there with a whole skin.

Ethel, I thought, you're a cute little devil. You looked nice in your bare skin with the fire behind you. Maybe I'll see you stripped again. Soon. When I do I'm going to take my belt off and lash your butt like it should have been lashed when you first broke into this game.

In fact, I looked forward to doing it.

Chapter Six

I finished a quart bottle of beer before calling Velda. I got her at home and asked her what she'd found. She said, "There wasn't much to find, Mike. His landlady said he was on the quiet side because he was too stupid to talk. He never complained about a thing and in all the time he was living there he never once had company."

No, he wouldn't talk too much if he was an MVD agent. And he wouldn't have company for that matter, either. His kind of company was met at night and in the dark recesses of a building somewhere.

"Did you try the pie factory where he worked?"

"I did but I didn't get anywhere. The last few months he had been on deliveries and most of the guys who knew him were out selling pies. The manager told me he was a stupid egg who had to write everything down in order to remember it, but he did his job fairly well. The only driver I did see said something nasty when I mentioned Moffit and tried to date me."

The boy put on a good act. People aren't likely to get too friendly with somebody who's pretty stupid. I said. "When do the drivers leave the plant?"

"Eight A.M., Mike. Are you going back?"

"I think I'd better. Supposing you come along with me. I'll meet you on the street in front of the office about seven and that'll give us time to get over there and see some of them."

"Mike . . . what's so important about Charlie Moffit?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

Velda grunted her displeasure and said good night. I had hardly hung up when I heard the feet in the hall and my doorbell started to yammer. Just in case, I yanked the .45 out and dropped it in my pocket where I could keep my hand around it.

The gun wasn't necessary at all. It was the boys from the Papers, four of them. Three were on the police beat and the fourth was Marty Kooperman. He wore a faint, sardonic smile that was ready to disbelieve any lie I told.

"Well, the Fourth Estate. Come on in and don't stay too long." I threw the door open.

Bill Cowan of the News grinned and pointed to my pocket. "Nice way to greet old friends, Mike."

"Isn't it. Come on in."

They made a straight line for the refrigerator, found it empty, but uncovered a fresh bottle of whisky that I had been saving and helped themselves. All but Marty. He closed the door himself and stood behind me.

"We hear you got shot at, Mike."

"You heard right, friend. They missed."

"I'm thinking that I could say 'too bad' and mean it."

"What's your bitch, Marty! I've been shot at before. How come you're on the police run?"

"I'm not. I came along for the ride when I heard what happened." He paused. "Mike . . . for once come clean. Has this got to do with Lee Deamer?"

The boys in the kitchen were banging their first drinks down. I had that much time at least. I said, "Marty, don't worry about your idol. Let's say that this happened as a result of my poking into something that I thought was connected with Deamer. He doesn't figure into it in any way."

Marty took in a breath and let it out slowly. He twisted his hat in his hands then flipped it on the coat rack. "Okay, Mike, I'll take your word for it."

"Suppose it had to do with Lee, what then, chum?"

His lips tightened over a soft foice. "We'd have to know. They're out to get Lee any way they can and there aren't many of us who can stop them."

I scowled at him. "Who's us?"

"Your Fourth Estate, Mike. Your neighbors. Maybe even you if you knew what we knew."

That was all we had time for. The boys came charging back with fresh drinks and pencils ready. I led them inside to the living room and sat down. "Shoot, laddies. What's on your mind?"

"The shooting, Mike. Good news item, ya know."

"Yeah, great news. Tomorrow the public gets my picture and another lurid account of how that Hammer character conducts a private war on a public thoroughfare and I'll get an eviction notice from my landlord and a sudden lack of clients."

Bill laughed and polished his drink off. "Just the same, it's news. We got some of it from headquarters but we want the story straight from you. Hell, man, look how lucky you are. You get to tell your side of it while the others can't say a word. Come on, give."

"Sure, I'll give." I lit up a Lucky and took a deep drag on it. "I was walking home and . . ."

"Where were you?"

"Movies. So just as I . . ."

"What movie?"

I showed him my teeth in a lopsided grin. That was an easy one. "Laurance Theatre. Bum show."

Marty showed me his teeth back. "What was playing, Mike? He was the only one not ready to take notes.

I started in on as much of the picture as I had seen and he stopped me with his hand. "That's enough. I saw it myself. Incidentally, have you still got your stub?"

Marty should have been a cop. He knows damn well that most men have an unconscious habit of dropping the things in their pockets. I pulled out an assortment and handed him one. He took it while the other boys watched, wondering what the hell it was all about. He picked up the phone, called the theatre and gave them the number on the ticket, asking if it had been sold that day. They said it had been and Marty hung up sheepishly. I let go my breath, glad that he hadn't asked what time. He wasn't such a good detective after all.

"Go on," he said.

"That's all. I was coming home when the punks in the car started to blast. I didn't get a look at any of 'em."

Bill said, "You on a case now?"

"If I was I wouldn't say so anyhow. What else?"

One of the boys from a tabloid wrinkled his nose at my story. "Come on, Mike, break down. Nobody took a shot at you without a reason."

"Look, pal, I have more enemies than I have friends. The kind of enemies I make go around loaded. Take a check on most known criminals and you'll find people who don't like me."

"In other words, we don't get a story," Bill said.

"In other words," I told him, ". . . yes. Want another drink?"

At least that was satisfactory. When they had the bottom of the bottle showing I whistled to stop their jabbering and got them together so I could get in a last word. "Don't any of you guys try tagging me around hoping for a lead about this. I'm not taking anything without paying it back. If a story crops up I'll let you in on it, meantime stick to chasing ambulances."

"Aw, Mike."

"No, 'Aw,' pally. I'm not kidding around about it, so stay out of my way."

As long as the bottle was empty and I wouldn't give with a yarn, they decided that there wasn't much sense in sticking around. They went out the door in a bunch with Marty trailing along in the rear. He said so-long ruefully, his eyes warning me to be careful.

I spread the slats of the blinds apart and watched them all climb into a beat-up coupé and when I was sure they were gone for the night I took off my clothes and climbed into the shower.

I took a hot and a cold, brushed my teeth, started to put away my tools and the bell rang again. I damned a few things in general and the Fourth Estate in particular for not making sure all the boys were there when they started their inquisition. Probably a lone reporter who got the flash late and wanted to know all about it. I wrapped a towel around my lower half and made wet tracks from the bathroom to the front door.

She stood there in the dim light of the hall not knowing whether to be startled, surprised or shocked. I said, "Goddamn!"

She smiled hesitantly until I told her to come in and made a quick trip back for a bathrobe. Something had happened to Linda Holbright since the last time I had seen her and I didn't want to stand there in a towel while I found out what it was.

When I got back to the living room she was sitting in the big chair with her coat thrown over the back. This time she didn't have on a sack suit and you knew what was underneath it. It wasn't "probably nothing" either. It was a whole lot of something that showed and she wasn't making any bones about it. The angles seemed to be gone from her face and her hair was different. Before it was hair. Now it was a smooth wavy mass that trailed across her shoulders. She still wasn't pretty, but a guy didn't give a damn about that when there was a body like hers under her face.

Because of a smile she had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble. She must have taken her one asset to a perfectionist and let him build a dress around it. I think it was a dress. Paint would have done the same thing. There wasn't anything on underneath to spoil the effect and that showed. She was excited as hell and that showed too.

I was thinking that it could be very nice if she had only come a little sooner before I knew that Ethel had told what she had found in my wallet. Linda smiled at me tentatively as I sat down opposite her and lit up a smoke. I smiled back and started thinking again. This time there was a different answer. Maybe they were playing real cute and sent her in for the kicker. Maybe they had figured that their little shooting deal might get messed up and sent her around to get the score on me.

It made nice thinking because that was the way they worked and I didn't feel sorry for her any more. I got up and moved to the couch and told her to come over. I made her a drink and it must have been her first drink because she choked on it.

I kissed her and it must have been her first kiss, but she didn't choke on it. She grabbed me like the devil was inside her, bit me twice on the neck then pushed back to look at me to be sure this was happening to her.

There was no softness to her body. It was tense with the pain that was pleasure, oddly resilient under my hands. She closed her eyes, smothering the leaping fire to glowing coals. She fought to open them halfway and when she saw that I had been burnt by their flame she smiled a twisted smile as if she was laughing at herself.

If she was going to, she should have asked me then. Any woman should know when a man is nothing but a man and when he'll promise or tell anything. I knew all those things too and it didn't do me any good because I was still a man.

She asked nothing. She said, "This . . . is the first time . . . I ever . . ." and stopped there with the words choking to a hoarse whisper in her throat. She made me feel like a goddam heel. She hadn't known about Ethel's little stunt because she had been too busy getting prettied up for me.

I was going to make her put her coat on and tell her to get the hell out of there and learn more about being a woman before she tried to act like one. I would have done just that until I thought a little further and remembered that she was new to the game and didn't know when to ask the questions but figured on trying anyway. So I didn't say a damn thing.

Her hand did something at her back and the dress that looked like paint peeled off like paint with a deliberate slowness that made me go warm all over.

And she still asked nothing except to be shown how to be a woman.

She wouldn't let me go to the door with her later. She wanted to be part of the darkness and alone. Her feet were a soft whisper against the carpet and the closing of the door an almost inaudible click.

I made myself a drink, had half of it and threw the rest away. I had been right the first time and went back to feeling like a heel. Then it occurred to me that now that she had a little taste of life maybe she'd go out and seek some different company for a change.

I stopped feeling like a heel, made another drink, finished it and went to bed.

The alarm woke me up at six, giving me time to shower and shave before getting dressed. I grabbed a plate of bacon and eggs in a diner around the corner then hopped in my car and drove downtown to pick up Velda. She was standing in front of the building tucked inside a dark gray business suit, holding her coat open with her hand on her hip.

A newsboy was having trouble trying to watch her and hawk his editions too. I pulled in at the curb and tooted the horn. "Let's go, sugar."

When she climbed in next to me the newsboy sighed. "Early, isn't it?" she grinned.