Texas by the Tail

Jim Thompson

Texas By The Tail

1

Lint-like threads of cigarette smoke cloyed around the four men, mingling with the faint fumes of very good whiskey, occasionally swirling away from them with the soft explosions of some very bad words. It was the night of the last day of Fort Worth's internationally known Rodeo and Fat Stock Show. The room was one of the hotel's best, a bargain-by its tenant's standards-at thirty dollars a day.

As the man next to him crapped out, Mitch Corley took out his wallet and peered into it deliberately through old-fashioned, steel-rimmed spectacles. He was playing the rube here in Fort Worth, the big frog from a little puddle, the small-town rich man. He wore a ranch-style hat, an ill-fitting suit, and a pongee shirt with a string tie (and mannerisms to match). Glancing cautiously from his wallet to the three other men, he looked fifteen years older than his thirty-five.

"All right with you fellas," he said, "if I shoot two hundred?"

"Two hundred?" The red-faced drilling contractor groaned. "Jesus Christ, shoot two thousand if you want to!"

"Yeah, what the hell?" frowned the cattle buyer. "I thought you were a crapshooter, Pops. God knows you talk a big game!"

Mitch hesitated, letting their irritation mount, then slowly counted five twenties onto the bed. "Reckon I just better stick to a hundred," he said. "Don't feel so lucky tonight."

There was a chorus of groans and curses. With dogged patience, the lease dealer suggested that Mitch might do well to pull out. "I reckon the game's a little too fast for you, Corley. Maybe you better go back to Pancake Junction or wherever you came from, and match pennies with the mayor."

"Now, don't you go a-pokin' fun at me," Mitch grumbled. "I done lost three hundred dollars tonight, an' I aim to get it back."

"Then, shoot for Christ's sake! Crap or get off the hole!"

Mitch said that he was going to shoot, and he was going to make it two hundred after all. He again opened his wallet, glancing at his watch as he counted out another hundred. Almost eight minutes yet: eight minutes before the payoff and the take-out. He would have to stall a little.

Clumsily picking up the two dice, he let one fall to the floor. That took care of a minute, in all, which left him approximately seven more to kill. Again-for the third time, now-he took out his wallet.

"Holy God!" The drilling contractor slapped his forehead. "What now?"

"I'm goin' to shoot another hundred, that's what! You think I'm a piker, I'll show you."

"Shoot it! Shoot five hundred, if you want to!"

"I reckon you think I won't." Mitch glared at him crankily. "I reckon you think I ain't got five hundred."

"Pops," the cattle buyer said wearily. "For God's sake, Pops."

"All right!" Mitch slammed more bills onto the bed. "I'm shootin' five hundred!"

He picked up the dice, setting them with an invisible movement of his fingers; fixing them to the necessary position. He rattled them- or appeared to. Actually, the dice remained set: he was only clicking one against the other. He threw them with feigned awkwardness.

The red cubes spun down on the bed's tightly stretched blanket. Came up on a six and an ace.

"The man sevened," intoned the lease dealer. "Want to shoot it all, Corley?"

"You mean a whole thousand? A whole thousand dollars?"

"Goddammit!" The contractor hurled his hat across the room. "Shoot something! Shoot or pass the dice!"

Mitch went for the grand. He came out with a six-five. He was taunted and jeered and cursed into going for the two thousand.

"Why not? You're shooting with our money!"

"All right, by gosh! I'll do it!"

He spun the dice out again. A four-trey faced up on the blanket. As the others groaned, he reached for the money.

"I reckon I just better shoot a hundred this time," he said. "Or maybe just fifty. If that's all right with you fellas."

It was damned well not all right with the fellas, and they made him know it. The hell he'd drop the bet to peanuts while he held a bale of their money!

"But four thousand dollars," Mitch protested. "Four thousand dollars!"

"You're covered," the cattle buyer said coldly. "Shoot!"

"Well, all right," Mitch said nervously. "All right, dang it!"

He rubbed his hand against his pant leg, wiping the sweat from it before picking up the dice. His nervousness was not entirely feigned. Once, even with the best of surgeons, the scalpel may slip. Once the most skilled of knife-throwers may throw a little too close. Once-only once-the high-wire walker may misstep to eternity. So with the dice handler.

No amount of skill or practice is completely impregnable to luck. There is no statute of limitations on the law of averages.

Two minutes to go. Eight thousand dollars on the bed. Just about all they were carrying, Mitch guessed. Certainly all that it was safe to take away from a group like this. And the taking would have to look very good. No sevens or elevens this time. Nothing that a square might do legitimately. An Honest John might make seven or eight straight passes in a row, but a hustler had to play it cute.

He clicked the dice. He threw them awkwardly. Then stood chagrined as the others snorted with laughter.

"Up jumped the devil! You got a big four, Pops."

"Now, god-dang," Mitch whimpered. "God-dang it, anyways!"

"Want to bet a little more, Corley? Give you six to five."

"Danged if you won't," Mitch grumbled; and they laughed again.

Joe, of course, is the lowest point on the dice. Above it are Phoebe Five (a hard gal to know), Easy Six (three combinations), Craps (three), Eighter-Decatur (three), Quinine (a bitter two), Big Dick (two) and the fielders, Heaven-eleven and Boxcars, which have no bearing after the initial roll. The theoretical odds against five and nine are approximately three to two, as opposed to six to five for six and eight. The odds are two to one against ten and four, but any crapshooter will swear that ten is an easier point to make.

Obviously, Little Four has little going for him. As if recognizing the fact, he normally stays out of sight after showing his luckless little face.

"Roll 'em, Pops! Let's see some craps!"

"Don't rush me," Mitch whined. "I'm rollin' these here dice!"

He threw them. A big ten (four on the bottom). He threw again-nine. Then, eight and five and six. Where the hell was Red? What the hell was she waiting on? With so much riding, these guys could be hard to handle. He was getting tense, and tension was hell on control, and-

There it was! The signal. The muted, familiar cough, coming from just outside the door. It went unheard by the others, lost in their own noise.

"Seven dice! Let's see a six-ace!"

"Come on, Pops! What the hell you waitin' for?"

"Give me time, dang it! Stop rushin' me!"

He wiped his hand against his pant leg again. He picked up the dice, set them, clicked them. And threw.

Nerves whispered that it was a bad throw. Screamed silently that he'd goofed off a week's careful finagling and a wad of expense money in one bad moment.

He watched hopelessly as the cubes spun across the blanket, seeming to spin forever and ever. An eternity-a split second. They turned over twice in unison. Stopped with an imperceptible backspin.

Two deuces peeked up from the blanket.

Before the three men could react, there was a sudden furious banging on the door. They turned toward it automatically, and Mitch swept up the money and stuffed it into his pockets.

It was the contractor's room. With a curse, he strode to the door and yanked it open. "Now, what the goddam hell-?"

"Wh-at? What! Don't you curse me, you-you thing!"

Red stormed into the room, giving the contractor a shove that sent him stumbling backward. Her angry gaze scorched the other two men, then settled witheringly on Mitch, who seemed to wilt beneath it.

"Uh-hah! There you are!" She allowed herself to see the dice. "And up to your old tricks again! You just wait until I tell papa! You just wait!"

"Aw, now, sis-" Mitch squirmed childishly. "These here fellas are just-"

"Bums, that's what they are! Just bums like you! Now, you march right out of here! March!"

With her red hair, her white high-cheekboned face, she was every inch the termagant; obviously a dame to steer clear of. But there was a fidget of protest from the three losers. Mitch had almost all their money, and they were entitled to a chance to win it back. And the lady could see that for herself, couldn't she? And she could see that they weren't bums, either.

"I've got offices in Amarillo and Big Spring, and-Ouch!" The contractor fell back, rubbing the side of his face.

Red ran at the other two, hands wickedly clawed. Voice rising, she threatened to scream. "I'll do it!" Her eyes blazed insanely. "I'll call the police!"

She threw back her head, mouth opened to its widest. Mitch grabbed her in the seeming nick of time.

"I'll go! I'm comin' right now, sis! Just you calm down, an'…" He urged her toward the door, grimacing over-the-shoulder apologies. "Sorry, fellas, but…"

But they could see how it was, couldn't they? What could you do with a crazy woman like this?

He closed the door on the dazed silence behind him. He and Red went swiftly down the hall to the elevator.

She had already checked them out of their rooms, of course, and a black-shirted porter stood waiting with their baggage at the side entrance of the hotel. As a cab sped them toward the railroad station, she moved close on the seat to whisper to him.

"I got us a stateroom together. Okay?"

"What?" He scowled in the darkness. "We're registered as brother and sister, and you-"

"Now, honey…" She was a little hurt. "I didn't get it through the hotel."

"You were late tonight."

"Me? Why, I don't see how I could have been."

"What difference does it make whether you see it?"

She moved away from him. It would take very little more to get her truly angry. Which would not be something to enjoy. But he was pretty burned up himself. She'd been late on the take-out, dammit, a whole two minutes late. He'd had to sweat, in danger of losing the dough and getting a schlamming, just because she couldn't be bothered to check the time. What the hell had she been doing, anyway? What was she- a woman with a kid's head?

Red said very quietly, "You'd better shut up, Mitch."

"But, goddammit, you were late! I don't mean to talk rough to you, honey, but-"

"And don't honey me!"

As they followed the' redcap to their train, he looked up at the station clock, then took a startled glance at his watch. Fast-by almost two minutes. So the mix-up was his fault. Red hadn't taken him out late, as he should have known. As he had known. But hustling the heavy scores kind of drained a man dry, and until he filled up again he didn't have anything but crap for anyone. Probably, Mitch supposed, it was that way with any big-time frammis, even the legitimate ones. At least, most of the big-timers he knew had screwed up personal lives. If you were willing to settle for some gig like working for the park department and saving tinfoil as a hobby, you could stay loose. But on the hard- hustle, uh-uh. No matter how much you had on the ball, there was still a limit to it. And if you blasted it off, you couldn't spread it out.

In their stateroom, with the roadbed whispering swiftly beneath them, his hunger for Red suddenly became a raging thing. And knowing that it was no use, he began a roundabout apology, mentioning acquaintances, real and imaginary, whom stress also made unreasonably unreasonable.

"There was my dad, God rest him…" He forced a reminiscent chuckle. "He was a special-editions promoter, you know; traveled around the country putting out special editions of newspapers. He'd run a boiler room all day, bossing a bunch of phone men and closing the tough babies himself, and by the time night came you could hardly say hello to him without getting socked. Why, I remember…"

Mitch sighed, letting his voice trail away, silently cursing her for being as she was. He'd hardly said a thing to her- nothing at all compared to the guff he had to take from people. Yet apologies, coaxing, were obviously a waste of time.

She intended to stay sore; the well-stocked commissary of her flesh was closed until further notice. He was sure that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. That was apparent from the single stateroom she had booked. But it was also apparent, from her manner of undressing, that she was prepared to make him suffer, and to hell with her own sufferings.

Normally, she was almost prudishly modest. Forced to undress in close quarters, she would do so under her nightgown, primly urging him not to peek as she worked out of her clothes. But when she didn't intend to let him have anything, then she put it all on display, everything that she wasn't going to let him have.

No pro could do a more tantalizing strip tease than an offended Red (right name Harriet, for God's sake!). She would pull her panties halfway down around her hips, casually turning this way and that to give him a glimpse of what could be glimpsed, fore and aft, with her panties pulled halfway down. Then, the brassiere was loosened, and the breasts carelessly allowed to come into view. Pink-tipped, traced through with fine blue veins-their abundance seeming to bow her frail-looking shoulders. (She damned well wasn't frail!) Then, if she was feeling particularly mean, she would lift them up and examine them, critically and lengthily, until his tongue felt as big as a ball bat.

She was very down on him tonight, so he got the breast bit in full. Then, disdainfully, she discarded the last wispy fragment of her underthings, and stood naked with her feet slightly apart, her head thrown back to let the red mass of hair spill down around her shoulders. She raised her hands and began to fluff it, her breasts moving delicately with the movements of her arms. Finally, she ducked her head forward, bringing her hair over her shoulders, letting it spread silkily over her breasts. It parted perfectly on either side of her beautifully shaped head, and at last she looked at him; the look of a wicked angel. And spoke to him huskily.

"How'd you like to have a little?"

Mitch knew it was strictly zilch. He said two words, one a personal pronoun and the other a very naughty verb.

"Oh? Not even a teensy bit?" She measured an amount on her finger. "Not even a teensy-eensy-weensy bit?"

Mitch groaned and reached for her, surrendering.

Red said the same two words that he had said.

Then she hoisted herself into the upper berth and pulled the covers over her.

Eventually, Mitch fell asleep in the lower berth, dreaming not of Red, strangely, but of his father. Dreaming that the old man was sore at the statement that he was a hard guy to get along with. He wasn't at all unreasonable, his father said. Not a goddamned bit.

And he certainly wasn't. All things considered…

2

There was almost no time of complete relaxation in the life of Mr. Corley, Sr. If he was not driving a crew of high-powered telephone salesmen-and doing twice the work of any two of them-then he was "working advance," attempting to line up a publisher for the special- edition routine. And here was a job to make the saintliest of men curse with frustration.

They were invariably hard-heads, those publishers: chronic cynics with a talent for poking holes in the smoothest promotional pitch. Mitch knew, because he and his mother- peppery, nervous, fast-talking-usually accompanied his father on the initial visit to the publisher. Mr. Corley wanted them along (or so he explained to the publisher) to show him the kind of folks who were coming into his community. No fly-by-nights, sir. Just a plain old-fashioned American family. This last was Mitch's signal to grab the guy's hand, winsomely inquiring whether he had any little boys. Then stepping aside quickly, he allowed his mother to move in. And she practically straddled the guy, pushing herself right up against him as she gushed out a torrent of flattery. And then, before the chump could run and hide (yes, some of them actually tried to do that), Mr. Corley drove in for the sell.

He was a hard man to say no to, although it was said to him three times out of five. The points he made were not only virtually irrefutable, but put forth with mannerisms which were almost mesmeric.

He would not let a prospect look away from him. If one tried to, alarmed by the purring, pounding, perfectly enunciating voice, Corley would shift in his chair, assuming whatever position was necessary-bending practically to the floor if he had to-until he again had the man's eye. Then, his own gaze unblinking, he would begin an imperceptible wagging of his head, moving it with the rhythm of his words; back and forth, talking steadily all the time, wag-word, wag-word, to and fro, to and fro. And Mitch, until he learned to look away-to cut off the sight and sound of his father-would feel his eyes glazing and a strange numbness creeping over him.

For that matter, he did not need to look or listen to follow the pitch. It was pretty well standardized, the gradually put-together product of years of attack and counter-attack on the same general issues.

"Why, certainly, sir," Mr. Corley would say. "Certainly, you could put Out a special edition yourself. You could make yourself a suit of clothes, too, I suppose, or build your own house. But you don't do those things; you don't do them, because you're not an expert at them. And you know and I know and we all know that when you want something done right, you go to an expert…"

Or knocking down another sore point:

"I'm glad you mentioned that, sir. Glad. Very glad. It's quite true that some advertising departments can't sell an inch of space behind a special edition. They've had it for a year afterward. Their explanation is that there's just so much ad money in a town, and if you take it out on a special, you can't get it day-to-day. Oh, yes, I've seen advertising departments like that-alibi departments, I call them. And I've seen publishers who let them get away with it. Soft-headed types, you know: men who ought to be running a soup kitchen instead of a newspaper. But if you were that type, as of course you're not, and if you did have that kind of advertising department, you'd still be ahead with a special. You've got it made in a wad, instead of having it spread over a year and…"

And still another:

"Why, that's wonderful, sir. Just about makes you unique. All the business you can handle, all you need. So much that you're not even interested in a time-tried and proved proposition which has earned the whole-hearted endorsement of almost two hundred daily newspapers. My congratulations, sir. I can only hope that some of my less fortunate publisher friends don't move in on your bonanza. Now, I was talking to a man just last week who was looking for another location…"

And so on and so on.

Some towns did not have to be promoted after the first time. They were sold solid and would go for a special every year or, more often, every two years. But this seemed only to increase the pace. There was lost time to make up for, hard times to be anticipated. And there were arrangements to make, the chiefest of which was the rounding up of personnel, the professional high-pressure salesmen who made up the special-edition breed.

When working, some of them made several thousand a month. When not working, which was about two-thirds of the time, they made for the nearest big city, there to live it up with booze and broads until they were broke and Corley or someone like him made contact. Often, Corley would send them money, never to see either it or them again. Often, they would arrive more fit for a hospital than work. Eventually, however, a crew would be put together, and things would start to jump.

On an average, there were from six to a dozen salesmen, depending on the size of the town. Headquarters was any empty storeroom which could be rented cheaply: the furniture-boxes, packing crates and telephones. You had only to stick your head in the door to know why it was called a boiler room. You had only to listen to the constant clamor of the phones, the muted incessant roar of fast-talking voices, to understand the cursing, the chain-smoking, the opened bottles of whiskey convenient to every man's hand. Yet they seemed to enjoy what they were doing. They were all savagely good-natured.

In mid-conversation, a man would swiftly thrust his phone at Mitch. Want to piss in this guy's ear, kid? Or covering the mouthpiece of his phone a moment, Well, crap on you, Cicero! Sometimes there would be a screw-up, and top-of-the-bead apologies were necessary. Oh, no, madam, that isn't at all what I said! You see, we have a very elderly gentleman here in the office who is taking a trip around the world-we fellows are sending him, as a matter of fact-and he was wondering which was the cheapest way to go. So I said, Oh, ship-s-h-i- p…"

There was laughter, excitement. The sense of great things afoot, of vast sums pouring in. Of magic doors to be swung open by the quick and the glib. But being so close to his parents' affairs, Mitch knew that what he saw here was only the shadow and not the substance; the perilous periphery of the big time. Minds and bodies were being bet in a fixed race. You might beat it, sure, and you might also become rich by saving a dollar a day for a million days.

Mr. Corley strode in and out of the boiler room a dozen times a day, but mostly worked outside. His wife, Helen- Dutch (for Duchess) as she was usually called-worked the inside; keeping track of sales, occasionally taking over a phone, frequently circulating the room to see that nothing or no one got too far out of hand.

Although she was a small woman, her clothes never seemed quite large enough for her. Her round little rear-end was always molded against her skirt, her full little bosom strained constantly against her blouse. She moved around the room pepperily, her voice snappish, her quick movements making her jounce all over. Now and then, she leaned down, her hand resting impersonally (impersonally?) on a guy's shoulder as she lit her cigarette from his or listened in on a call. Occasionally, needing to get off her feet for a moment (or so she said), she sat down next to a guy, butting him over on his packing-box chair with a waspish little fling of her hips.

All day, day after day, the men were her life. All day, day after day, there was the salty talk of men, the rousing sight of men, the harsh-sweet smell of men, the roughly tender feel of men. And then at night, in the in-itself-suggestive hotel room, where even the towels and toilet, the thick tubes of the bedstead, the dangling knob of the chandelier, the table legs- where everything achieved a phallic symbolism- there were no longer any men. There was no man.

Corley and his wife played different roles, but essentially they shared the same life. Yet draining him dry, it simultaneously replenished her. Everything that had been taken from him seemed to have been given to her. And late at night, with Mitch supposedly asleep in the connecting room, they quarreled furiously and fruitlessly.

"Dutch, for Christ's sake…"

"Answer me, damn you! Do you know what this thing's for? Do you know what you're supposed to do with it?"

"Aah, honey…"

"No! No, by God! Don't you love me up unless you're going to go all the way!"

"Dutch, it's this goddamned life! The first good spot I see we'll settle down."

"Balls! What's wrong with this life, anyway?"

"I mean it! I'm taking a regular job!"

"Oh, lay off, for shit's sake! Selling sand on the Sahara- that's a regular job I see you in!"

It was probably true. In the rarefied atmosphere of the fast buck, Corley was slowly strangling, his lungs gradually robbed of elasticity. Yet he knew himself completely incompatible to the valleys, the world below his slippery mountain top. Even as a young man he could not adapt to it, and he was now very far from young.

Mitch changed schools every two months on an average. Being bright and personable, as well as transient, he escaped the authoritative attention which the regular and less-favored students received. After all, he would be moving on in a few weeks. After all, he was well-mannered and smart-far ahead of his grade in some respects. Why bother then, why make things harder for him than they doubtless already were, if he made only token obeisance to curriculum and routine?

That was the way things went until he was in his second year of high school. Then, at last there was a crackdown-a truant officer caught him in an all-day burlesque house-and his derelictions were laid before his parents. They responded typically.

His mother made a dash at him, and jerked him vigorously by the shoulders. She said he needed his little backside blistered and she was just the gal to do it.

His father said a kid's brains weren't in his butt, and the thing to do was reason.

"Now, I want to ask you something, boy," he said, pulling Mitch around in front of him. "I want to ask you something- look at me, boy! I want to ask you just one goddamned question. What do you want to do with your life, boy?"- wag, wag-"what do you want to do with your life? Do you want to get yourself a good education?"-wag, wag-"a good education, boy, or do you want to be a jerk? It's up to you, boy, strictly up to you. You can have an easy chair or a broom, boy. You can loll back in that easy chair in a fine, big office, with a pretty little gal like your mama for a secretary; you can do that, boy,"-wag, wag-"or you can take the broom, and go along the gutter sweeping up horse turds. Now, what's it going to be?"

Mitch made the indicated response. Over his mother's furious protest, his father handed him a fifty-dollar bill. "That represents education, boy. Education is money, money is security. You've learned something here today, boy, and it's already put money in your pocket."

Mitch promptly lost the fifty in a crap game in the bellboys' locker room. Dutch's reaction was typical. Ditto, her husband's."

"Now, goddammit, boy, maybe your brains are in your butt, after all! Goddammit, that old broomhandle's reaching for you already! Boy, boy,"-wag, wag-"don't you know there are people who can handle dice? Don't you know there are people who've educated themselves to make the dice behave?"

"Well… there wasn't anyone like that in the locker room."

"You don't know that, boy, you don't know it. Because you don't know a goddamned thing about dice, and you've just proved it. I say you proved it!"-wag, wag. "You can't see to hit the pot, and you've peed all over your own feet. So you'd better squat on it, boy, squat on that pot! Play it safe or hold your pee until you can find the light switch of education. Otherwise, I fear for you, boy,"-wag, wag. "I say I fear for you. The shadow of the broom is hanging over you, and I can smell those horse turds already."

Mr. Corley died during Mitch's last year of high school. Mrs. Corley shook her son furiously, hugged him frantically, wept wildly and calmly had the body cremated. Back at the hotel, she studied her mirrored reflection for a long time, at last anxiously asking Mitch if he thought she looked to be forty-two.

Mitch thought a little lightness was in order. He said she didn't look forty-two-not a day over forty-one and nine-tenths.

Dutch burst into tears again, looked around for something to throw at him. "What a lousy thing to say! And your poor father lying cold in his grave!"

"You mean hot in his jar, don't you? All right, all right,"- dodging hastily. "Sure, you don't look forty-one, nothing like it. You could pass for thirty-four or -five any day."

"Honest? You're not just saying that?" Her face cleared, then clouded again. "But what am I going to do, for God's sake? I can't work alone. I'll have to hook up with another guy, and how the hell can I do that with you on my hands?"

"Gee," said Mitch, "maybe I'd better jump out a window."

"Now, honey. But you do have your school to finish, and God only knows where I'll be lighting next. It's going to take some time to make the right kind of tie-up-I don't mean marriage, of course-"

"Of course."

"Will you shut up? You're so smart, you think of something instead of bugging me all the time!"

Mitch shrugged. He suggested that he stay right here where he was, and she could do as she pleased. They were old customers of the hotel, on friendly terms with the management. And hotels had many jobs for presentable youths. Surely, they could give him some kind of part-time work, something that would allow him to finish his school term.

"Wonderful! Oh, that's marvelous, darling!" She clapped her hands together. "Why don't you see about it right away?"

It was almost five years from that day before he saw her again. Five years-and she had remarried, and he had married. He was still married, Red's belief to the contrary. Still married, still married…

In his sleep, Mitch stirred uneasily. The words, the ever-present threat of his mind, whispered voicelessly with the clicking of the rails. If Red found out, if she ever found out that their supposedly loaded safe-deposit box was virtually empty…

She'll kill you, she'll kill you. Red's the gal to kill you…

3

Houston.

The Blackest Land, The Whitest People…

Where You Never Meet A Stranger.

They say that as Texas sloped to the south, the cream of its population was drained off into Houston. They say that Houston does what other cities talk about doing-and never, never talks about it. One does not flaunt his wealth here. One makes his multi-million-dollar gifts to universities and philanthropic foundations-if he has it, he is expected to-and shuns the publicity ordinarily accruing from such largesse.

Houston is south, you see, and it cherishes all that is best of the south. Gallantry, generosity, hospitality. Forth Worth is west and Dallas is east and Houston is south. And don't you ever forget that it is south!

The whitest people (it says here). Where you never meet a stranger (it says here). But don't ever forget that word white- particularly if the adjective doesn't fit you…

Red still had the frost on the next morning as they stepped down from the train at Houston, a striking-looking pair who left a wake of envious and admiring glances behind them. The trim, handsomely tailored man, jauntily distinguished with the touch of gray at his temples. The impeccably dressed woman, regal with her high-held red head, her square little shoulders trailing an improbable length of silvery sable.

Her gloved hand rested on Mitch's arm as a matter of course-she detested public breaches of etiquette. But it was purely a formality. Her occasional smile went no further than her lips; there was bare politeness in her reponses to his remarks.

Mitch knew it was time for drastic measures. Otherwise, her anger allowed to deepen, Red might easily turn drastic herself.

Reaching the interior of the station, he excused himself and signaled the redcap to wait. Then, he entered a phone booth, and opened the directory. He was in the booth for quite a while. Red was obviously puzzled and irritated by the delay, but of course she said nothing.

Not until they had been in the cab for several minutes and she suddenly became aware of its direction, did she turn to him.

"What's this? I thought we had reservations downtown."

"I canceled them. We're checking in at a hotel-apartment for a month." Mitch dropped his voice, glancing meaningfully at the driver. "We need to be together for a while, Red. Some place where being together won't seem out of line."

"We were together last night, remember?"

"I know, and I'm sorry, dear. Terribly, terribly sorry. Please forgive me, won't you?"

"I'll think about it. Keep asking me for a few years."

Mitch took her hand. She pulled it away, but not until he had held it for a moment or two. So she was melting a little. He went on talking to her, pressing his advantage.

"I know a month's a long time in one place. But we can both use a rest. The Fat Stock show in Fort Worth coming right after that convention in Mineral Wells…"

"I can take it. I'm not the one who's blowing my top all the time."

"I know. But, anyway, I thought we might rent us a car while we're here. It's only about a hundred and fifty miles to the school, and we could drive over and see the boy."

"Big deal! I should care about seeing your kid."

Mitch repressed a smile. She was nuts about his son. There was a moment of silence, while Red somehow moved a little closer to him. Then, with vast indifference, she asked how soon they could see the boy.

"I mean," she amended hastily, "when do we have to?"

Mitch laughed fondly. He told her that they could and would do anything she wanted to any time she wanted to, and they would never do anything she did not want to do.

Red said they would go tomorrow, in that case. Then, barely whispering, a lovely blush suffusing her paleness, "I suspect we'll be pretty busy today."

Her hand gripped his convulsively.

Hand in hand, they arrived at their destination.

Mitch registered for them in the usual manner, Mr. and Miss Corley: Once you started a thing like that you were stuck with it to the end. Since they were taking the place by the month, the rent was payable in advance. Mitch paid it, adding on another thousand as a credit-an amount certain to be used up in charges long before the month was out. Ever so faintly worried, he turned away from the desk and joined Red at the elevator.

Of course, there were still a few bills in the safe-deposit box; a little better than three grand, probably. But even so, he was very low on money, almost dangerously low by the standards of the big-time hustler. Even without splurges like the present one, the overhead for Red and himself-travel, payoffs, everything-was conservatively fifty thousand a year. And he had other expenses, his son's among them, besides Red's and his own.

With that kind of money pouring out, with the necessity to be able to bet big and to absorb the rare but inevitable losses, wisdom demanded a bankroll of at least twenty thousand dollars. Now, including the dough in the deposit, he had barely half that.

Something would have to break fast, he told himself. Something would break fast. Houston was a hell of a town. All the money in the world was here… well, most of it, anyway… and the people were wonderful.

Confidently, with Red's incredible body brushing against him, he stepped out of the elevator and into their apartment.

Red suppressed a gasp when she saw it. The bellboys had hardly departed before she had her arms around him, hugging him with fierce, half-fearful delight.

"Oh, my God, honey! What have you done?"

"Like it?"

"Like it! B-But-I'm afraid to ask what it cost."

"Don't. Not unless you want to be called One-cheek Red."

"Mmm?"

"I mean I'll bite a big juicy chunk out of your tail."

Red laughed, blushed, and gave him a feverish kiss. Grabbing his hand, she began dragging him through the place. It was a penthouse with a three-sided view of the city. In the immense living room, with its ceiling-high fireplace, was a full-size grand piano, ivory finished to blend with the snowy white carpeting.

There were two bedrooms and a maid's room, three baths and a powder room. In the master bedroom, Red wheeled and put her arms around his waist, breasts shivering with excitement.

"Don't tell me," she begged. "I don't want to know how much. But-just a little hint?"

"Not half what it's worth to see you pleased."

"You darling! I'm going to make it up to you today… for last night, I mean."

"You couldn't be a little more specific?"

"Anything! You k-know?" Her body seemed to be on fire. "Anything!"

"Big category," Mitch pointed out. "Little girl."

"You'll see. Now, about that hint…"

"We-ell, a very well-known public figure is reputed to have stayed here."

"How well-known?"

"The well-knownest. The biggest."

His meaning suddenly sank in on her. "You mean the Pres-!" She put her hands against his chest and firmly pushed him away. "Out! Out right this minute! I want to get into something comfortable before I faint."

Mitch sat down in the living room and picked up a telephone. A parade of servants began to arrive: A maid (she went with the apartment and he was to ring whenever she was wanted); bellboys with morning papers, blooms for the flower vases, and an assortment of liquors for the bar; a waiter with breakfast.

Signing the various checks, with suitable tips penciled in, Mitch estimated that their total at about one hundred and fifty dollars. He sighed, unconsciously. He summoned Red, now dressed in a form-fitting housecoat, and they went out on the terrace to breakfast.

Her hair blazed in the morning sun. Her skin seemed as delicately transparent as the porcelain cup that she lifted to her lips. She ate delicately, but enthusiastically, the food reacting like a tonic to her. Food did to her what drink did to other people. The brown eyes sparkled joyously; the high-cheekboned face seemed to glow with contentment.

Mitch smiled, watching her. She smiled back at him, a little defensively.

"So I'm a pig. There wasn't too much food around when I was a kid."

"Do you remember our first meal together?"

Red pointed to her mouth: speech was impractical at the moment. She chewed, swallowed, and shuddered ecstatically. Then, she said of course she remembered, how could she ever forget a thing like that-adding casually that it was about five years ago, wasn't it?

Mitch laughed. "Stop trying to trap me. You know damned well it's over six years."

"Six years, three months, twelve days," she nodded, and smiled dreamily. "Wasn't it funny the way we met, dear? Strange, I mean."

"What was funny about it?" Mitch said. "I was looking for you."

"You mean you were looking for someone to work with."

"I mean I was looking for you," Mitch said.

And that was true.

But he hadn't known it until he'd seen her.

Red stood up abruptly, and silently held out her hands. Mitch took them and kissed them, then picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

4

One of the world's worst trains-the absolute worst in the belief of many people-runs from Oklahoma City to Memphis. It has no diner. Its cars are of pre-World War I vintage, without air conditioning or other common comforts. Its schedule is presumably the product of a comic-book writer. The many and prolonged delays are variously attributed to such causes as holdups by Jesse James, impromptu hunting and fishing parties by the crew, and funerals for passengers who have advanced into and died en route of old age.

Most of those who ride it do so because they must. The occasional exceptions are usually sufferers from semantic insanity, interpreting discomfort as quaint and the insufferable as interesting. Mitch had boarded the train because it was the quickest connection out of Oklahoma City, and he needed to get away from the city fast.

He was feeling very despondent at the time, having just fired his assistant. He was afraid that if he lingered around her he might weaken and hire her back. Which would have been very bad for both of them.

She was a very good kid, in his book. A former model and bit-actress, she had enough class and looks for two women. She had, in fact, almost everything going for her but one thing-she was a sucker for the sauce. The weakness hadn't showed up for quite a while; probably it was the strain that brought it out. But there it was, and it kept getting worse.

Mitch talked to her like a father. He scolded her. Unhappily, he spanked her, pointing out that she should be ashamed to need such punishment at her age. Nothing did any good. She continued to louse him up, invariably getting drunk just when he needed her worst.

The realization came to him finally that she just couldn't help it, that if she was ever to get better it would not be around him.

So she wept heart-brokenly, and he got a little blurry-eyed himself. But there was only one thing to do, and he did it, and jumped town on the first thing he could grab.

He may have been very tired-he had been up with his ex-assistant for two nights running. Or he may have simply fled into sleep to escape the nightmare of the train. At any rate, it was around sunset when he returned to wakefulness and found this red-haired babe sitting next to him. Her duds were obviously discards from a rummage sale, and she was eating some horrible guck out of a paper sack.

She turned abruptly, looking at him out of the coolest, steadiest eyes he had ever seen. And suddenly he pieced those eyes and the hair and that complexion together with the rest of her, and he saw her as she could be. At the same time, he realized how he must look to her; unshaven, red-eyed, his suit rumpled, his shirt sweaty and soot-stained.

She added him up, item by item, and sympathy came into her face. "Eat something," she said, proffering the sack of guck. "You'll feel better."

Mitch said no, no, he was just fine; but Red knew he wasn't. Papa had been like that a lot, and he always felt better after mama gave him a cold sweet potato and some pone.

Mitch did a little nibbling. The conductor came through, taking orders for box lunches to be telegraphed ahead to the next stop. But the girl grabbed Mitch's hand as he started to reach for his wallet.

"They charge a dollar a piece for those things! You just save your money to get straightened out with!"

"But, really-"

"The idea! Throwing money away, and you with barely a stitch to your back!"

She was unaware, obviously, that baggage could be checked on one's ticket. Born and raised in a jerkwater community, a village dying with the cropped-out land around it, there was much that she did not know. But she did know, oh, how well she knew, a jobless propertyless drunk when she saw one.

"You'll feel better in the morning." She patted his hand. "Papa always does."

She went on talking, apparently trying to cheer him up with papa's unceasing miseries and the concomitant troubles of his family. Things had been pretty nice for a while, what with her two older brothers joining the army and sending home allotments. But they kind of had papa's talent for messing themselves up, and had soon messed themselves into death as a result of their own misconduct. So there was not only no more allotment money, but also none of the emoluments usually associated with service deaths.

Of course, everyone at home worked when they could, chopping and picking for others as well as cropping their own. But when land wouldn't even make a quarter-bale an acre, well, where were you? Particularly where were you when you had a force (family) the size of papa's?

"I worked in the library until they closed it down, and then the general store until it closed, and then the telephone exchange until it closed. There just wasn't any reason for them anymore, you know. Everyone was leaving who could. But papa was ailing again, and mama was pregnant again,"-a note of bitterness, disgust?-"and at least they have a house where they are, and…"

She, Red, had been elected to go to Memphis. To get a job immediately and promptly send some money home. "And don't think I won't!" she declared, her chin jutting out. "Uh, what kind of work do you do-uh-"

"Mitch. Mitch for Mitchell. Do you mind being called Red?"

"Why should I? Uh, what kind of work did you say you did, Mitch?"

He decided to level with her; she seemed to be the kind you could do it with. "I'm a gambler."

"Oh? I guess you're not very good at it, are you?"

"What if I told you I was very good? That I had ways of winning almost all the time."

"I'd say you should," she said firmly. "If you can't win, you shouldn't play. But if you're so good, why-?"

He told her why briefly, giving her a glimpse of his bankroll by way of documentation. The reaction was not the one he had expected.

"So you were lying to me!" Her eyes flashed fire. "You sat right there and told me you'd got drunk and lost your job, and didn't even have enough to-"

"Why, no, I didn't. I didn't say anything."

"You did too! Just the same as! I tried to be nice, and you made a fool out of me!"

Mitch asked her if she wanted him to find another seat, and she tossed her head with a "Humph!" That was the way with liars, she said. First they lied to you, and then they ran.

"I could give you a job, Red," he persisted. "You'd make a great deal of money, and-"

"You hush up! I know the kind of job you'd give me!"

"No, really…"

"Hush!"

Mitch hushed. The train grew very cold with the coming of night, and he lowered the windows around them. Then, shrugging down in the seat, he tried to pull his coat across his chest.

Red primly opened her suitcase. Making a production out of it, she took out a bulky something and began tucking it around her. At last, settled back cozily, she shot a haughty glance at Mitch.

"You see?" she said. "You could be warm too if you hadn't lied to me."

"That's all right," Mitch said. "You need your blanket for yourself."

"Blanket? This is my coat, darn you!"

She flounced around in the seat, turning her back to him. There was a long moment of offended silence, and then she faced around to him, laughing.

"I guess it does look like a blanket, doesn't it? Here, come on and get under it."

Of necessity, they had to move close together, almost face to face. The lights dimmed and went out, and there was only the Ozark moonlight drifting through the windows, and Red said it was almost like being in bed, wasn't it?

"Well, yes and no," Mitch said. And Red gave him a reproving pinch.

"Mitch… did you mean it about the job?"

"Yes."

"It's, uh, kind of dishonest, isn't it?"

He shrugged. "It depends on your viewpoint, I guess."

"And-and you really think I could do it?"

"I think so." He hesitated carefully. "I could be wrong, but sizing people up is a big part of my business, and you seem to fit the bill. In any event you'd have to work very hard with me, get a lot of training before you were ready."

"Naturally," she nodded. "You have to work hard if you want to get any place in this world. Uh-about how much would I make, Mitch?"

"Twenty-five per cent of the take, after expenses. That could be a thousand or more a week, but there are a lot of weeks when you don't work."

She had one more question to ask, but she fumbled around it. She was afraid, she said, that he might get the wrong idea about her.

"I think I know what you have in mind," Mitch said. "The answer is no, not as far as I'm concerned. Those relationships can and do develop, but-"

"Hush!" she said, strangely cross. "I'm nineteen years old, for goodness sake! You don't have to spell everything out like I was some little kid."

"Sorry. What was it you wanted to ask?"

She told him, adding that he probably thought it was none of her business. Mitch said that he didn't think anything of the kind. She had every right to know if they were going to be working together, and he was more than glad to tell her.

Behind the deliberate words, his mind raced. He wanted to tell her the truth-but what was the truth? He hadn't heard from Teddy in years. Probably she had divorced him, or perhaps some public-spirited citizen had killed her. It hadn't mattered until now. Now it mattered a great deal.

If he wanted this redhead, and, his disclaimer to the contrary, he did want her, all the way, work and play, he could give her only one answer. He knew it-sensed it-just as he knew-sensed the potential treasure of her body and face and mind.

"No," he said, "I'm not married. I was married, and I have a small son in boarding school, but my wife is dead."

"Well, all right, then," Red said. "Now, you put your arms around me-no, this way, silly!-and we'll be real nice and warm."

"Just like we were in bed?"

"Hush," she said. "I'll let you know when I want you to get fresh with me."

In their penthouse bedroom, Red raised her arms to permit the removal of the housecoat, then, head bowed submissively, eyes half- closed, she went to the bed and spread herself upon it.

Mitch began flinging off his clothes. He had disposed of two shoes, one sock and a necktie when the door chimes sounded.

5

The youth entering hotel work may follow one of several courses. Since he is surrounded by many temptations in the form of women, drink and opportunities to steal, he is very often fired. But if he is able to behave himself (or to cover up his misbehavior), he normally has little trouble in (1) advancing to a responsible position, (2) not advancing- remaining a uniformed menial, or (3) using his hotel contacts to get good non-hotel employment.

Strangely-strangely on the surface, that is-most youths do the second thing.

The hotel boy, you see, is ageless. As long as he is reasonably able-bodied, he is a "boy" at sixty-five just as he was at sixteen when he began his career as a page, valet or bellhop. Throughout the years his earnings remain about the same; he is making no more at the end than he was at the beginning. Contrariwise, however, he is making as much at the beginning. And to exchange his handsome tip-earned income for one of the low-pay jobs through which he must climb to the top is very hard for a youth to do.

Still, quite a few do make the exchange. They are repelled by the specter of themselves as uniformed grandpas. Or some interested executive takes them in hand, ordering them to get with it or get out. Or they are afflicted with late growth, suddenly finding themselves too large for the role of flunky. In any event, and for one reason or another, many of the young men Mitch had worked with as a bellboy had risen to highly responsible positions.

Foresightedly, and simply out of liking, he had helped them along the privation path to the top. Now, with rare exceptions, they were ready to help him: out of liking and gratitude; out of practical considerations-who is ever beyond the need of a safe buck? (and with a smooth character like Mitch it was always safe); out of the hotel man's contempt for the genus chump. And any non-professional gambler who gambles is considered a chump.

Inevitably, he will be taken. So why shouldn't a friend do the taking?

Mitch flung open the door. On the threshold stood a plump, rosy-cheeked man in striped trousers and morning coat. Grinning almost to his thinly-haired scalp, he held out his arms.

"Mitch, you sweet bastard! I just discovered that you'd checked in!"

Mitch let out a groan of feigned dismay. "Turk! God save us all, it's Turk!" He dragged the plump one into the apartment, calling word of his arrival to Red. "All is lost, honey. Turkelson's here."

Turkelson chuckled delightedly as Red came running in. She hugged him enthusiastically, kissed him on top of the head and accepted a kiss on the cheek. "Is there no way," she asked, turning to Mitch, "to escape this character?"

"That," said Mitch, "is the question on everyone's lips."

"Well, he'd better behave himself," Red said severely. "He's thirty stories up."

Mitch urged him to sit down, before his weight pushed him through the carpet. Then he asked what Turkelson's position was at the place-did he wash dishes or clean out the johns? Turkelson chuckled that he had applied for both jobs, been rejected as untrustworthy and forced to accept the post of resident manager. Actually, he added with the faintest trace of gloom, the job was not as good as it looked. Practically everything was a concession-food, drink, laundry and valet, newsstand, florist shop and so on-leaving him only the management of the hotel proper.

"But I do all right." He brightened. "And I see you kids are certainly making out. When you can pop forty-five hundred for a month's rent-"

Red let out a yipe, and appeared to faint. Mitch shook his head disgustedly.

"Oh, God, Mitch!" Turkelson slapped his forehead. "I should have know you wouldn't tell her."

"Why should I have to with you in the same country?"

"But that's what I came up for, one of the things. To do something about it, I mean. Red, you dream creature, if you'll pass me the phone please…"

She passed it to him. Abruptly, he became a different man: imposing, humorless, voice cracking with authority as he spoke to the room clerk.

"… now you know better than this, Davis! You should know at least. Other things being equal, the rate in a case of this kind is governed by the availability of space and the desirability of the guests. We want people to come back, you know. Or did you have some other idea?… Well, all right, then. All right. But consult me, hereafter. Oh, yes, and make this, uh, thirty-seven-fifty."

He hung up the receiver, and beamed at them. Mitch pulled Red onto his lap, signaling her with a sharp little pat. Red responded promptly.

"This is a nice man, Mitch. Maybe we should give him a little present."

"But he already has everything," Mitch said. "Dandruff, fallen arches, a sixty-four-inch bust-"

"Well, let's see," said Red, as Turkelson chortled helplessly. "Why don't we give him a bucket of bread-and-butter sandwiches? He's obviously on the point of starvation."

"One bucketful wouldn't put a dent in that yawing void. Do you suppose we could trust him with money?"

"It's now or never," Red said. "After all, he's a pretty big boy-horizontally."

"We'll give him this one chance," Mitch declared. "Turk, you are to spend five bills of that rebate on bread-and-butter sandwiches."

Turkelson flatly refused to accept the five hundred. After all, friends were friends.

He refused to accept so much, friends being friends. He absolutely would only accept it, because they were friends and friends should help each other. And since they were helping him, he must now help them.

"There's some big action at Zearsdale Country Club. I can get you a guest card."

"Can you put me in a game?"

"With that crowd? I couldn't put Jesus Christ in it!" Red and Mitch groaned in unison. They razzed him mercilessly, Turkelson chuckling and shaking and growing red with delight. He had been pretty embarrassed about the money (although God knew he could use it), and the razzing helped to dispel it.

"Catch this character"-Mitch jerked a thumb at him. "He'd actually get us a guest card to a country club!"

"It pays to have influence," Red said. "I bet he could even get our names in the telephone book."

"He's all heart," Mitch said. "P-o-t, heart." Laughing, the manager held up his hands. "All right, all right! But I do have something; I've just thought of something. Winfield Lord, Jr., is checking in here next week, and I know I can put you in with him. I can come right out and tell him that you're a gambler, and he'll be up here pounding on your door."

He beamed from Red to Mitch, very pleased with himself. Then, slowly, his smile faded and he looked almost comically plaintive.

"Please," he pleaded, "can't I do anything to suit you two?"

"You can stop using dirty words in my presence," Red said.

"Huh? But-"

"Like Winfield Lord, Jr.," Mitch explained.

"So all right, he's a real stinker," the manager conceded. "So hold your nose, and grab for that sweet-smelling Lord money. My God, the Lords own half the state of Texas, and-"

"How fast money goes in Texas," Mitch said. "Winfield Lord's part of it, anyway. Ten years, twenty million. All he has left now is a rubber checkbook, and the world's nastiest disposition."

"We take his checks," Turkelson said. "We've never had a minute's trouble with them either."

"That's different. His mother would make good on a legitimate expense."

"I happen to know that Frank Downing has taken his paper, too. More than fifty thousand dollars worth, and he got every nickel of it."

Mitch said that that also was different. No one was allowed to cool-out on Frank Downing. Winfield Lord's mother had had the choice of paying off, or keeping her son on the Lord ranch for the rest of his life.

"Downing, Frank Downing," Red mused. "Now, don't I know that name?"

"Of course, you do," Mitch told her. "He runs that store outside of Dallas. Kind of a Texas Monte Carlo except that Frank's place is probably bigger."

Turkelson coughed, running a finger between his tight wing collar and the folds of his neck. He said hopefully that perhaps the situation had changed with Winfield Lord, Jr. Maybe Mama Lord was loosening the strings of the bottomless Lord purse.

"I hardly think so," Mitch said. "News like that gets around."

"But you can't be sure!" Turkelson turned to Red. "It's worth a try, don't you think so, Red?"

"I think whatever Mitch thinks."

"Mitch is the boss, huh?" Turkelson twinkled.

"Of course he's the boss! What's so damned funny about that?"

Mitch kissed her, cuddled her protectively in his arms. "Red's my lamb," he smiled firmly. "Don't you tease my lamb, Turk."

"Certainly, she's a lamb. Haven't I always said so?" The manager gestured plaintively. "But, Mitch, I do wish you could see this Lord thing. After all, you're already here and he's going to be here. What can you lose but a little time?"

Mitch hesitated thoughtfully, examining the project in his mind; deciding that Turkelson was probably right. There was nothing to lose, and this was certainly no time to overlook a bet. But still… still, something seemed to hold him back. From some deep recess in his mind, a voice whispered darkly, pointing out that Lord was a bastard and that no good was to be had of him.

But-but maybe personal feelings were getting in the way of his reason. Lord had once tried to paw Red. He was too drunk to know what he was doing, of course-even to recognize who she was-but a thing like that…

Mitch sighed, pulled in two ways, almost irresistibly tugged by the need to be practical, yet still stubbornly resisting.

"Let me brood about it a little," he said, at last. "I'm kind of getting an idea for beating the bad-check angle, but I want to kick it around for a day or two. If it comes up yes, you're down for ten per cent."

"Oh, now," Turkelson protested feebly. "That's not necessary."

"Ten per cent-which you'll earn," Mitch said. "Meanwhile, we'll take that Zearsdale guest card. I can't get in the action, naturally, but at least I can show Red off."

Red kissed him, and stuck her tongue out at Turkelson. Chuckling, the manager stood up, promising to bring the guest card right away.

"You'd better not," Red declared. "You put that card in our room box!"

"But I'll be glad to-"

"Would you be glad to get killed?" Mitch demanded. "Red, you must tell this man about the birds and the bees."

Turkelson departed, chortling.

Mitch and Red returned to the bedroom.

They had a late and light lunch in mid-afternoon. Then, as Red summoned a beautician from the downstairs salon, Mitch went to see about renting a car. He had some trouble deciding between a sedan, a Lincoln Continental, and a black Jaguar convertible-coupй. Finally, feeling that the sedan might be a little showy, he settled on the Jag.

It was not a good choice. He was aware of that around eight o'clock that night, as he turned into the long curving driveway which led up to the club. Ahead of them, in a boxcar-length Rolls with both chauffeur and footman, rode an elderly man in full evening dress. He kept staring back through the rear window, then leaned forward to consult with the two livened servants, who also looked back briefly. Debouching finally at the entrance, the elderly one gave the Jaguar and its occupants the ultimate in quizzical stares, turning away with a look of such wry wonderment-an I'll-be-damned, what-have-we-here look?-that Mitch almost winced.

So the car was all wrong. It was wrong by the mere fact of Red and Mitch being in it. There was prompt proof of that, if any further proof were needed.

A cutdown jalopy came roaring up the drive, throwing gravel over the Jaguar as it skidded to a stop. A half-dozen teenage boys and girls swarmed out of it, dressed in odds and ends of clothing; ran shouting and laughing into the clubhouse. The doorman, dressed like a coachman even to his whip, looked after them fondly. Then, turning back to Mitch, he critically examined the guest card.

"You were meeting someone, sir?" He poked the card back at Mitch. "Perhaps I could notify them for you."

"We're not meeting anyone."

"I see. Hmm. The term guest is used rather literally here, sir. These cards are only honored, ordinarily, that is, at the request of a member."

"I've used a great many guest cards," Mitch said coldly, "and I've never heard of such a practice."

"Obviously. So under the circumstances…" He signaled with his whip, and a uniformed attendant came running to remove the Jag. "We'll have the car readily available for you, sir."

Mitch could feel Red's hand tremble on his arm. Taking her up the three long steps of the club building, he smiled down at her reassuringly. But he felt none of the calm which he was trying to convey. His principal emotion was one of fury; a raging anger with himself for bringing her here.

Turkelson should have known what he was sending them into. Turk probably had known, as much as one could know by hearsay. But he would justifiably expect Mitch to be at least as well-informed. Information was half of Mitch's job. In the Pavlovian maze of the heavy hustle, he must always spot the proper tunnel, correctly associate action and reaction, sound with deed, word with word. Oil was a three-letter word if you were content to get your kicks from birdwatching. But if you liked the big time, you had better spell it Zearsdale. Jake Zearsdale. The unquestioned head of the fabulous "Houston Hundred."

Zearsdale was the founder of the club. Its membership was limited allegedly to the families and connections of the Hundred. Presumably, one of them owned the hotel-apartment where Mitch and Red were staying-what more likely owner for such an establishment? So business being business, a few guest cards were made available. Which did not necessarily mean that they would be honored. That would be looked into after the guest arrived. Nor would anyone be a bit interested in whether he was affronted.

He was an outsider, wasn't he? He could neither hurt nor help the Clan. Well, then!

But that, that attitude, wasn't Texas, of course. It was only the wealthiest-people-in-the-world Texas. Mitch had always found Houston an exceptionally friendly city. He had simply been asking for it in coming to a place like this.

Immediately inside the doorway of the club building stood a squat, broad-shouldered man in a dark dinner jacket. He was frowning as he watched the door, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. His sharp, cold eyes stopped them like a wall, and for a moment it seemed that he would not unclasp his hands from behind his back and take the card which Mitch extended.

At last he did so, however, and he returned it with a wisp of a smile upon his thick, broad mouth. The cold eyes warmed as he looked from Mitch to Red, and he spoke with a voice which was faintly musical.

"The bar? Allow me to show you, please."

He guided them down the vaulted corridor to a vast room which whispered with music and the hum of acoustically stilled voices. Then, having led the way through the dimness, he saw them seated at the bar, snapped his fingers at an attendant and departed with a low bow.

Icy martinis were set in front of them. The barman hovered obsequiously, lighting their cigarettes, moving the ashtrays a fraction of an inch closer. Assured that they needed nothing else, he at last left, them alone. Mitch lifted his glass to Red, murmuring that the atmosphere had warmed considerably.

Red agreed that it had, but she still didn't like the place. "Let's leave as soon as we can, honey. We don't belong here, and this gang knows it."

"Oh? I'd say we'd made the grade with flying colors."

"And footprints on the seat of our pants. Please, Mitch…"

"I thought we'd have dinner. Maybe a dance or two."

"We can have it somewhere else." She studied his face, frowning. "You surely aren't going to try for anything here, are you?"

Mitch hesitated, taking a sip of his drink. As she prompted him anxiously, he started to reply, then abruptly broke off. A man was on the point of passing them. A tall man, whose dinner attire was perhaps an unmeasurable fraction too elegant, whose face was completely expressionless.

As he went by, his knuckles rapped Mitch's spine. Lips barely moving, he spoke two words.

"Get out."

6

In the rationalizing part of his mind, Mitch was inclined to blame his mother for his marriage to Teddy. He was subconsciously seeking a mother, he believed, when he allowed Teddy to trap him. In his leniency with Teddy, he was making amends to his mother for his actions at their last meeting. Their one and only meeting since the death of his father.

Admittedly, his thoughts on the subject were very confused. It was impossible to think of Teddy without being confused. Almost as hard as it was to think of Teddy as a mother-type. What Mitch thought about the first time he saw her was certainly not motherhood, but rather that joyous biological preliminary to woman's noblest estate.

He was night belihopping at the time. Teddy, so he had learned, was the highly-paid night auditor for an oil company. Finishing her duties, she would eat in the hotel's coffee shop just as dawn was breaking, then have a cab called to take her home. It fell to Mitch, his second night on the job, to call the cab.

She was a very wholesome-looking young woman, with corn-colored hair and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. Severely dressed, she still had a lot of stuff to show. And Mitch found himself looking at it as they waited together at the taxi entrance. He also found, after a moment, that she was studying him out of long-lashed green eyes. Embarrassed, he was about to shift his gaze when the eyes squinched shut in a double wink-an enticing nose-crinkling wink-and she growled at him. Yes, growled!

"Grrr," she said. "Rrrruff!"

"W-Wh-at?" he said.

"Grrr, woof!" she said. "Bow-wow!"

Well, Mitch didn't have to be hit in the face with a pie to know when dessert was being passed. In a little more time than it took to get her telephone number, he was at her apartment, figurative fork in hand. He warmly declared himself ready to share the bed which she was obviously preparing to retire to. Teddy demurely demurred.

"I'm saving my candy for my daddy," she explained. "I figure that if a man buys the box he ought to get all the pieces.

Mitch suggested that they lie down and talk it over. Teddy primly shook her corn-colored head.

"Now, you wouldn't want to rob my future husband, would you? You wouldn't want to take something that was rightfully his?"

"Well, look,"-Mitch frowned. "If that's the way you feel, why did you, uh-"

"I thought you might like to examine the merchandise," Teddy said. "I mean, how could you make a commitment unless you knew what you were getting?"

"Uh, w-what-huh!" Mitch gasped.

"But please handle with care," Teddy murmured, as she shyly shed her negligee. "None of these items can be replaced."

Crazy? Sure, it was! 'Who said different? Mitch was pretty crazy himself by the time she shoved him out the door, politely wishing him a good day's sleep. A good day's sleep, for God's sake, after all that seeing and not a single sampling!

He had never felt so frustrated. So furious. So-yes- flattered. Here was obviously a very high-class girl, a woman rather, who not only had everything it took downstairs, but a brain to go with it. A woman like that could have any man she wanted; she probably had to fight them off with a club. Yet she had chosen him, Boy Nobody, and she was prepared to go to any lengths (well, practically any) to get him.

And how could you knock a thing like that?

He was back in her apartment the next morning, and the next, and the next. Weakening, he tried to get at the reason behind her behavior, the why of her desire for marriage with him. But the answer, no answer, was always the same. "Because you're my sugar, my own sweet daddy."

"But you don't even know me! You never saw me until a few days ago."

"Oh, yes I do," she smiled serenely. "Oh, yes, I did."

"But how could you? I mean, when?"

"I know my daddy," she said. "I'd know my sugar anywhere."

At the end of the week, he married her. There were one hundred and ten delicious pounds of reasons for doing so, and no apparent reason not to.

On their wedding night they both got sozzled on champagne. So sozzled that he was a little hazy about his share in consummating the marriage. But awakening to the sound of Teddy's sobs, he charged himself with brutality. She shook her head, hugging him fiercely.

"I'm j-just so happy, darling. S-So glad you're not d-dead!"

"Hmm, what?" Mitch mumbled foggily. "Who's dead?"

"I know you couldn't be, darling! Everyone said you were, even the general wrote me a letter. But I knew, I knew, I knew…"

"'S'nice," Mitch yawned, and was suddenly asleep again.

He was not sure, the next morning, that it hadn't been a dream. In fact, he hardly thought about it at all, Teddy being a woman to give a man much more interesting and delightful things to think about. When eventually he became alarmed and consulted a psychiatrist-a permanent resident at the hotel where he was working-and was advised that Teddy quite probably had cast him in the leading role in her own private sex fantasy, something with roots trailing back into puberty, he was incredulous and angry.

It just couldn't be, dammit! It couldn't! Yet doubtless it was; he never had a better explanation for her. And the dream which he had become a part of-which Teddy had hooked him into being a part of-ultimately turned into a nightmare.

Meanwhile, there was the meeting with his mother. A meeting which, in a negative way, had at least one plus quality. It almost made Teddy seem like a dull-normal person.

It was about five years after his father's death had separated them, before he saw his mother. She wrote occasionally and vaguely, and he replied. But his letters were often returned for want of a forwarding address. Once he got an urgent wire from Dallas, asking for a hundred dollars. One year she remembered his birthday three times, each with a ten-dollar bill. Finally, after a silence of almost a year, she wrote him that she was married and very happy.

The letter had been a long time in catching up with him. It was addressed from the same city in which he was then working. He read it, feeling a nostalgic tug at his heart. Having an afternoon off from his job, he went out to see her.

The house was in a scrofulous neighborhood of similar dwellings. Flanking it on one side was a weed-grown railroad siding. On the other was an abandoned commercial building, its crumbling faзade clustered with grinning, frowning, earnest-looking posters of innumerable political aspirants- cardboard vultures on the bones of a dead dream.

Stepping up on the porch and starting to knock, Mitch glanced through the opened screen door. It was a so-called shotgun house, its three-and-a-half rooms in a row. It was just about impossible not to see into the bedroom, the second room back, and to hear the epigamic surgings of the bedsprings.

Mitch lowered his hand without knocking. He went quietly down the walk, and sauntered up to the corner and back. Then, he moved toward the porch again, whistling noisily. He knocked. He knocked a second time, and the throaty flushing of a toilet answered him. In the fragmented silence that followed, a silence punctuated by a man's surly monosyllables and simpering whinny which could not be, but was, his mother's, Mitch called out to her.

"Mother? It's me, Mitch."

In the interim before she finally came to the door, Mitch almost called it off and left. He did not see how he could face the whinnier, the owner of that cowering voice, and he was sure that he had better not face her husband. He could see the man moving about the bedroom, a swarthy, sleek-haired character with very broad shoulders and an invisible waist. And he detested every inch of what he saw.

Still, knowing that he should beat it, Mitch was somehow held where he was. So after almost ten minutes, he was at last greeting his mother through the rusted screen. Through it, since she did not unlatch it, although her hand hesitated fearfully in the neighborhood of the latch.

"Francis,"-she spoke weakly over her shoulder. "It's my son, dear."

"Big deal."

"Uh, would it be all right-could I have him come in, dear?"

"He ain't my kid."

"Oh, thank you, dear, thank you," his wife breathed gratefully. And Mitch was allowed to enter.

She gave Mitch a hasty peck, obviously fearfully aware of the man in the other room. Mitch sat down on one of the three straight chairs, a little puzzled by the appearance of the divan until he recognized it as the front seat of an automobile. His mother asked him what he was doing now, and he said he was night bell-captain at the city's leading hotel. She said that was nice, oh, that was awfully nice; wasn't that nice, Francis? ("Big deal ") And Mitch thought, Holy God, what's happened to her?

He knew the answer to that one, of course, and in a way it seemed to have been good for her. The peppery waspishness had given way to a cow-like contentment. She was washed out looking, haggard as a witch. But, hell, she was pushing fifty now, and Francis the Gallant couldn't be over thirty-five.

"… a dancer, you know," his mother was saying. "Francis is a very talented dancer. Everyone says so."

"That's nice. Oh, that's awfully nice," Mitch said.

"Yes, uh, yes, he dances."

"Oh," said Mitch. "You mean he dances."

"Y-Yes… A dancer."

"Well, that's nice. That's awfully nice," Mitch said. And then, his mother's eyes begging, he made himself behave. "I'm sure he's very good," he said. "I'd like to see him sometime."

Francis did not come into the living room until he was fully dressed in a very "sharp" black suit with broad chalk stripes, toothpick- toed shoes, a black shirt and a yellow tie. He waited until Mitch had arisen and extended his hand. Then he sat down, ignoring the hand, taking a swig from the can of beer he was carrying.

He stared at Mitch silently, eyes unblinking. Mitch stared back at him smiling.

"So you're a bellboy," he finally grunted. "What do you do when a guy asks you to get him a woman?"

"What do you do?" Mitch said.

"I heard that all you birds was pimps."

"Did you indeed?" Mitch smiled. "And what's your personal opinion?"

His mother was fidgeting nervously; she whimpered the statement-question that Mitch might like a can of beer. "So let him have one," Francis said, and he suddenly pitched the can at Mitch.

Mitch caught it, but awkwardly; beer splashed onto the trousers of his one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar suit. Very carefully, he set the can down on the bare pine floor. He again turned his smile on Francis, who was shaking with laughter.

"You ain't much of a catcher, bellboy!"

"No, I'm not," Mitch smiled. "But you should see me pitch."

"What'd you pay for that suit you're wearin'?"

"I made it myself," Mitch said. "I make all my own clothes."

"Don't get smart, bellboy!"

"You should try it," Mitch said. "After all, what have you got to lose?"

He could feel his smile widening, freezing on his face. His mother knew its meaning, and twittered an attempted diversion. But her husband silenced her with a look.

"How much loot you make a week, bellboy?"

"I'll trade information with you," said Mitch. "Where do you keep your little red hat?"

"Huh? I ain't got no little red hat."

"But what do you use to collect the pennies in?"

"Collect pen-huh?"

"That people give you for dancing," Mitch explained. "Or doesn't the organ-grinder trust you with money?"

His mother whinnied fearfully.

Francis cursed, swarming up out of his chair. But he just wasn't fast enough. Before he knew what was happening to him (if he ever knew), Mitch had given him a kick in the groin, an elbow across the windpipe and a knee in the face. Then, as Mitch's mother screamed and clawed at him, he methodically stomped in her husband's ribs.

He was sorry, terribly, terribly sorry, even as he fled the house. The fact that Francis was the king of the boobs was no reason to half- kill him. In attacking Francis, he realized, the real victim had been his mother. He would never dare see her again now. And he would have to get himself out of town very quickly.

He went home and gave Teddy the news, promising to send for her as soon as he found another job. Teddy declared that she was going right along with him. Her daddy wasn't going to go any place without his mama.

"We'll go to Forth Worth," she announced. "I know of a very good job I can get there. The same kind of work I'm doing now."

"But what about me? I don't know that I can get a job there."

"You don't need a job; I make more than enough for both of us. Anyway, you'll be busy taking care of the baby."

"Baby! What the hell are you talking about?" Teddy raised her skirt, and pulled down her panties, baring the creamy environs of her belly button. She pulled his head against the area, and suddenly he felt something-a small but unmistakable kick.

"See?" she beamed at him as he jerked away. "Eight months, and it hardly shows at all. Some women are like that, the doctor says. He says I'll probably be able to work almost up to the time of its birth."

"B-But-But-" Mitch waved his hands desperately. "So everything's going to be just fine and dandy. Mama will work and daddy will take care of the baby-a baby should be taken care of by its daddy-and he'll have plenty of time to play with his little dicey-wicey."

Mitch suddenly exploded. He asked her what the hell she took him for? He, by God, would provide the money for the family-he'd find some kind of a job-and she, by God, would take care of the baby!

"I will not," said Teddy, iron coming into her dulcet voice. "I already have a baby to take care of. My daddy's my baby."

"You heard me!" Mitch said. "And knock off that daddymama alfalfa! Shake it out of your pretty little skull! It's beginning to give me the meeyams!"

"Don't you sass your mama!" Teddy said.

"Goddammit!" Mitch yelled. "I said to knock it off!"

He flung himself down on the bed. Face clouded ominously, Teddy marched into the bathroom.

He heard water running. He bit his lip, remorse flooding over him. My God-first his mother, then his wife! Pushing around two women in one day, the only two who meant anything to him. And Teddy was pregnant! Almost on the point of becoming a mother! It was up to him to humor her at such a time, not shout and curse at her.

He was on the point of calling an apology to her, when Teddy suddenly loomed over him. She shoved a wash rag into his mouth. She scrubbed vigorously.

For a moment he was too startled to move. Then, gasping and gagging and retching, he struggled free of her. Staggered about the room, literally frothing at the mouth.

He spat, cursing sickishly, and a flood of soap bubbles sprayed from his lips. Teddy watched him with an air of self-righteous sympathy.

"Now, mama didn't want to do that," she said. "It hurt mama much more than it hurt daddy."

"For God's sake," Mitch sputtered weakly. "Why the hell-what kind of a damned fool-"

"You better be careful," Teddy said. "You better be a nice daddy, or mama will wash your mouth out again."

7

There was a soft upward swelling of the music in the bar. Mitch arose from his stool with a little nod to Red.

"Sit tight, honey. I'll be right back."

"Mitch"-her eyes were following the tall, overly-elegant man who had told them to leave. "Who is he, Mitch?"

"Frank Downing."

He left quickly before Red could protest. At a door some distance away, Downing turned and glanced over his shoulder, then passed on through it.

The room was a kind of annex to the bar. A place to lounge and confer informally. The lights here were even dimmer than they had been outside, and there was not even the muted rustle of a voice to whisper of another presence. Mitch blinked, peering around, trying to penetrate the shrouding shadows. Then, there was a click-the flame of a cigarette lighter, and Frank Downing's phlegmatic poker face hung limned against the darkness.

He was sitting over at the far side of the room at a small writing desk. Guided by the spasmodic glow of Downing's cigarette, Mitch made his way across the deep pile carpet, and sat down opposite the Dallas gambler.

He said nothing, waiting. Downing said nothing. Minutes passed. Mitch lighted a cigarette, and went on waiting. At last Downing broke the silence: A reluctant grunt of admiration. Then he sighed softly, tapping out his cigarette.

"That redhead," he said, "is positively the most woman I have ever seen."

"Yes," Mitch said innocently. "My sister is a very attractive girl."

Downing let out a snort. "Nobody," he said, "but nobody ever had a sister like that."

"So?"

"So buy her another drink, if you like. Buy her some dinner. Dance with her a few times. And then get the hell out of here like I told you to. Or maybe you didn't hear me?"

"I heard you."

"I don't think you did," Downing said. "No one ever hangs around a place after I tell them to beat it."

"Maybe I'm an exception."

"That redhead is certainly a lot of woman," Downing said absently. "A woman like that deserves to be happy."

He started to get up. Mitch hastily put out a restraining hand.

He had to operate in Texas. Except perhaps for Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Texas was the only remaining pasture for the big time gambler's grazing. Here alone was there always another metropolis to move on to, lush with the long-green and stubbornly resistant to the blight of credit cards and charge-a-plates. Here they liked the feel of money. Here they were shocked by the piker notion of "never carrying more than fifty dollars." Here were people who'd gambled their very existence for what they'd got, and who stood ready to gamble again. Here and almost here alone did restlessness, impatience and self-confidence-the conviction that there was always more to be had where the first had come from- combine to make dice an accepted social pastime, much as bridge and rummy were accepted in areas where the money was older and its owners more effete.

So there it was. He had to operate in Texas. He could not operate there-in fact he was very apt not to operate period- if he antagonized Downing.

"All right," he said, at last. "All right, Frank. But I don't like it."

"I knew you'd see it my way," Downing murmured.

"I'm no punk. We've always got along together. Now you holler frog, and I've got to jump. Why? What's the answer? Why do you want me out of here?"

"Give the girl another drink," Downing said. "Give her some dinner. Dance her around a few times."

"Come off of it!" Mitch frowned determinedly. "I've got a right to know." He hesitated, studying the gambler. "If you're afraid I might try to crumb-in on your action-"

"Don't be stupid. I wouldn't pop for a penny outside my own store."

"Then, why? Red and I are good people. Why treat us like dirt?"

Downing didn't seem to hear him. Slowly, he lighted another cigarette, absently contemplating the exhaled stream of smoke as Mitch silently waited. He ground the cigarette out again, hesitated, and spoke. There was a peculiar note in his normally toneless voice.

"Ever in the Dallas river bottoms in the old days, Mitch?"

"No." Mitch shook his head puzzled.

Downing said that he'd been born there, and it was quite a place. Crap Creek, the bottoms, squatters had called it; shit creek. Because that was just about what the river was. So thick you could walk on it in some places. Yet people bathed in it-what else? They drank from it. They drowned their bastard infants in it, and there were many of them to drown. For whoring was one of the largest industries, and unwanted babies a principal crop. Bastards and rats and disease. But Frank Downing had been lucky, a happy victim of a process which snatched him from the bottoms to the relative heaven of the state's toughest reform school. He had eaten regularly there. He had had a bed to sleep in, and clothes to wear. He had gotten Texas' standard eleven years of schooling. He had received invaluable training in the arts of bribery, graft, strong-arm and gambling. And when he left, the head guard himself had given him the warmest of recommendations to the chief of the Dallas vice-squad…

"That's what I came from, Mitch. From there to here. From there to Zearsdale Country Club."

"Yes," Mitch nodded, still puzzled. "That's quite a story, Frank, and I appreciate your telling it to me. But-"

"I'm up for membership in the club."

"Membership! But-uh-why, that's fine, Frank. I-"

"It's a joke," Downing said flatly. "You know, like taking a whore to church. Tee-hee, ho-ho, ha-ha, just look who we've got in our club! It's a joke-but who's the joke on? I want in. I can't let you or anyone else get in the way."

Mitch wanted to know how he could do that. The gambler spelled it out for him.

"We're both pros. You kratz yourself up, and it could rub off on me. Like, say, we were working a frammis together."

Mitch argued with him, declaring that Downing was really reaching for it. Downing said that he'd been really reaching for a long time, all the way from the Dallas river bottoms. It was true that Mitch wasn't known as a pro. But he could get known. It was also true that Mitch wasn't the kind to kratz up. But that could change, too.

"The point is, Mitch, there's always a chance when you take chances, and on you I don't have to take any. So I wish you hadn't rushed off so fast. I was going to tell you goodbye, but I see you've already gone."

He nodded, grinned satirically and started to rise. Again, Mitch detained him.

"I'm holding light, Frank. Red doesn't know it, but I need to hit."

"Yeah?" Downing obviously didn't believe him. "If you hadn't already left, you could see my collar was on frontwards."

"I mean it, Frank. I've just about got to hit."

"Oops!" Downing pointed. "There he goes!"

"What?"

"The chaplain. He just ran out the front door," Downing said. "Probably couldn't stand to see a man crying. For that matter, neither can I."

Mitch knew he had blundered. He reversed himself immediately. "All right," he laughed. "I'm here, and I want to get my feet wet. Now, suppose I never touch the dice myself. Just fade, and try to make out with the odds. That couldn't possibly do any harm, could it?"

Downing hesitated. Aside from liking Mitch, he believed in doing favors where no cost to himself was involved.

"You're asking me to put you in the game," he said.

"No, I'm not. Of course, I figured that you'd probably want to watch me…"

Downing said that it worked out to the same thing. Mitch denied it. "We'll all go in together, sure; you and Red and I. You can make talk with her while I'm at the table. But that doesn't add up to putting me in the game. You know everyone, and we're just a couple of more people that you know."

"Well…" The gambler half-nodded. "You don't push yourself, now. You can't do it here."

"I wouldn't do it anywhere."

"And you only fade. No shooting."

Mitch agreed. They arose, Mitch grinning to himself. Tonight he would simply break the ice, get himself known to the high-rollers. Then, another night, after making sure that Downing was no longer in town, he would come back for another visit..

They reached the door of the room. Downing suddenly turned on him, with a curse. "Why, you sneaky-! It went right past me, and I didn't see it!"

"Yes?" Mitch said innocently. "Something wrong, Frank?"

"You didn't have any intention of playing! You didn't even know where the action was!"

"We made a deal, Frank."

"I know. But watch yourself, Mitch. Make that the last fast one of the evening."

Red saw the by-play from the bar. She coupled it and colored it with their earlier encounter with the gambler, and the result was not flattering to Downing.

She bared her teeth, rather than smiled, as Mitch introduced them. He started to help her down from the bar stool, and her elbow pulled firmly from his grasp. His brows raised slightly. Ironic humor twinkled at the back of his eyes. He had been around for a very long time, and was a very long way from his place of origin. The situation appealed to him, and he knew how to make the most of it.

The action was on the third floor. Downing guided them to a private elevator, and its operator gave them one unobtrusively searching glance, photographing them in his mind. Debouching from the car, they were met by another man, a suave but huskier version of the elevator operator. And again there was that swift photographing glance.

He opened a door on the opposite side of the hall, stood back, with a little bow, and pulled it shut after them.

The room was approximately octagonal in shape; sunken, a few feet from the entrance, by three broad steps. There were no windows. A bar-buffet, with a Negro attendant, half-circled a corner of the room. Flanked by four long, low lounges, set back at a comfortable distance, was an oblong dice table.

A half-dozen people stood around it, one of them a stout middle-aged woman. With a nod to his companions, Mitch wandered over to it. Downing and Red sat down on a lounge.

Laughing inwardly, the gambler gave her a confidential wink. "How about a good stiff drink, honey? You look like a gal that could slug it down."

Red shook her head. "No, thank you!"

"It don't cost nothin'," Downing said craftily. "Get yourself pie-eyed, and it won't cost you a penny."

"No!"

She tried to ignore the gambler, keeping her eyes on Mitch, watching the easy way he made himself one with the group around the table. But Downing would not be ignored. He kept up the dumb act, even nudging her with his elbow, until be again had her exasperated attention.

"… and you know somethin'?" he was saying. "I think you're a heck of a pretty gal."

"Gee, Dad!"-she gave him an icy grin. "You're a daisy!"

"It's sure been a hot day, ain't it?" Downing went on. "Sweated so bad I had to wash my feet."

"Why you poor thing, you!" Red said. "Didn't it make you awfully sick?"

"Well, yeah it did kind of. You know what I always say? I always say it ain't the heat but the humidity."

"Do you?" Red said. "Do you always say it ain't the heat but the humidity?"

"Yep. Yessir, that's what I always say."

"Well, you'd better write it down somewhere," Red said. "You might forget it, and then where would you be?"

Downing pulled a look of heavy suspicion. He asked her if she was trying to razz him or somethin'. "I'll bet you are," he said. "I'll bet you're tryin' to razz me or somethin'."

"An intelligent gentleman like you? Perish the thought!"

"You can't fool me," Downing said darkly. "I reckon you don't like me very much, do you?"

Red turned on him, giving him the full effect of her scornful eyes. "No, I don't like you, Mr. Frank Downing," she said. "To be honestly frank, I don't like you a darned bit!"

"Well, there's nothing like being honestly frank," Downing murmured. "Unless it's redundant."

Red started. She blushed, tried to look indignant and suddenly giggled. "Why, you-you-!"

"Something wrong, lady?" Downing said innocently. "There certainly is!" Red declared. "Just where have you been hiding?"

"Me? I been here all the time, ma'am. Sittin' right next to the humidity."

"Then that's quite long enough," Red said firmly. "You get right up from there and bring me a drink!"

Downing laughed and got up. He brought drinks for both of them, along with a plate of hors d'oeuvres. A brisk conversation sprang up between them, and a feeling of liking as well. One of those peculiarly strong likings, which so often evolve from meetings that have started off badly.

Meanwhile, the man nearest Mitch had picked up the dice. He was apparently the big winner of the evening, the pockets of his dinner jacket bulging with currency. An oldish young man, with prematurely gray hair, he dug out a fistful of bills and dropped them on the table.

"Let's see. Four, five, six…" He sorted it with one finger. "Seven, seven-five. Shoot it all."

Money showered down on the green felt. Rattling the dice, he announced that he was shooting seventy-five hundred, with a thousand still open.

"Only a thousand, people. Don't make me fall back before I fire." His eyes swept the group, hesitated at Mitch, then tendered an invitation. "A thousand open. All or any part."

"It's only money," Mitch smiled, and he took Out his wallet.

The dice rolled. Came out with a hard eight. The man followed with a four, a six, another four-another hard four-and bounced back with his hard eight. Another hard eight.

He let it ride. Fifteen thousand dollars. There was two thousand open that time, and Mitch took it.

The dice rolled and stopped with two deuces up. Another hard four! Three of them in less than as many minutes! To Mitch it was like a red flag.

It could be on the level, of course. It couldn't be anything else in a place like this. But still…

He watched the progression of numbers, the dice combinations as they rolled out. Six-four-two. Six again-and again four-two. And here came another hard eight! Then, two deuces-a hard four! That made four of them now, four hard fours! And it made the man winner.

Mitch stood stunned, certain of the truth but unable to associate it with the circumstance. The man wasn't a hustler. These people knew him; he was obviously a friend of long standing. At any rate, no hustler would be so crude. He wouldn't have to. It was too dangerous. The dice handler depended on skill, not some device which he might be caught with.

Laughing, the prematurely gray man gestured, indicating that he would shoot the whole thirty grand. Then he saw Mitch's expression, and his smile drew in, and he acted. Swiftly he swept the money up with his dice hand, jamming it into his already-bulging coat pocket. With the same movement, his hand came out of the pocket and spun two dice out on the table.

"Pass the dice," he smiled pleasantly at Mitch. "I hope you'll have my luck, sir."

"It isn't luck," Mitch said. "You're using crooked dice."

"What?" A perplexed smile-frown. "That's not a very good joke, my friend."

Mitch nodded, agreeing that it wasn't. He asked to see the dice the man had been using. "The ones in your pocket, I mean. You switched them when you were handling your money."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Downing rise, march Red firmly toward the door while she looked anxiously back over her shoulder. That was the right thing to do, of course, but it added nothing to his assurance. There was a hint in it that he, Mitch Corley, had pulled a giant economy-sized goof.

"I mean it," he said doggedly. "You won that money with crooked dice."

"Did I? Does anyone else feel the same way?"

No one did, and they made it clear. They seemed to move a little closer to the gray-haired man, staring coldly at Mitch; a kindred group, facing a common enemy.

"You're free to search me, if you do." The man looked around at them, beaming. "I'm always willing to oblige a friend."

"Don't be silly, Johnny,"-an embarrassed murmur. "What the hell, Johnny? We're all pals here."

The gray head turned to Mitch, focused amused eyes on him. "It looks like you made a mistake, my friend. Possibly you've had a little too much to drink."

"There's no mistake. Now, I'll take a look at those dice!"

"Help yourself. The dice are on the table."

"I mean the ones in your pocket. I'll take a look at them, or I'll take three thousand dollars!"

"No," the man smiled firmly. "That isn't what you'll do, at all."

Mitch took a step toward the man. The man fell back into a fighting crouch. At the same instant, a steely grip closed over Mitch's arm and whirled him around.

It was the stocky, broad-shouldered man who had met him and Red at the entrance to the clubhouse. The maоtre d', perhaps, or a captain of waiters.

"Yes?" he said, in his faintly musical voice. "What seems to be the trouble?"

Mitch told him curtly. The stocky man shook his head. "That's impossible. Just who are you to make such a charge?"

"You know who I am," Mitch snapped. "You saw, my guest card tonight."

"May I see it again, please?"

Mitch handed it to him. The man scanned it, ripped it in two, and dropped the pieces on the floor.

"You're not welcome here, Mr. Corley. I advise you to leave immediately."

"Now, wait a minute!" Mitch raged. "What kind of a place is this, anyway? I get cheated out of three thousand dollars, and you-Just who the hell are you to push me around?"

"No one has pushed you around, Mr. Corley. Any disturbance has been caused by you."

"We'll see what the manager has to say! Now, I want your name!"

"Of course," the man nodded. "The name is Jake Zearsdale."

8

Red had fallen asleep, at last.

Mitch moved quietly from her side, tucked the covers back around her and went into the front room. He fixed himself a drink. Taking it over to a window, he stood looking out over the city. Troubledly, staring unseeing at the sleeping metropolis, he sorted through the night's happenings.

There had been nothing to do but leave the club quietly, of course. Cheated of three thousand dollars, a serious loss at this particular time, he could only leave, hoping that this would be the end of the matter. Which, according to Frank Downing, it might not be. The gray- haired man, Downing told him, was a long-time friend and business associate of Zearsdale. And Zearsdale was a man who cherished a friend and cracked down hard on an enemy.

Red and Downing were waiting at the club entrance when he came out that night. The gambler was cynically amused by what had happened.

"Maybe we could go into partnership, Mitch. There ought to be big money in renting you Out as a chump."

"Now, you just stop that, Frank," Red scolded. "Mitch did exactly the right thing!"

"Did he? Then how come he's got that egg all over his face? So much that it even rubbed off on me."

"I'm sorry," Mitch said. "I hope I haven't spoiled anything for you, Frank."

Downing said that only time would tell about that. If the club had members who used six-four-eight dice, he wasn't sure that he wanted membership anyway.

Mitch declared that the man had been using them, all right. Downing shrugged, nodded.

"If you say so. He probably saw that big chump sign you're wearing."

Red punched the gambler on the arm. Mitch said, "All right, Frank, just what should I have done? What would you have done?"

"I'd have watched the dice awhile before I did any fading, if I'd been sap enough to buck a game like that in the first place."

"You mean I should have been looking for a cheat among those people?"

"Well, maybe not," Downing admitted. "But you should have kept your mouth shut after you got clipped. What did you expect this Johnny Birdwell to do?-confess that he was a mechanic? Did you think his friends were going to toss him over and side with you?"

Mitch couldn't argue the point. Obviously, in view of the way things had turned out, he had been wrong to holler. Along with the loss of his three grand, he had also lost the potentially lucrative opportunity to return to the club and had possibly gotten himself a powerful enemy.

"So okay, I'm a chump," he sighed. "What do I do about it?"

"Shoot yourself. What else?" Downing laughed and held out his hand. "Take it easy, you two. And come and see me whenever you're in Dallas."

He meant it. The gambler did not pretend friendliness when be felt unfriendly. So that at least, Mitch thought, was a break. To have had Downing sore at him on top of everything else- the shortage of money, the lack of immediate prospects-

Well, there was one prospect. Winfield Lord, Jr. And there was a way, seemingly, to collect on Lord's nominally worthless checks.

Mitch returned to bed, slightly cheered. But very slightly. A vague feeling of unease gnawed at him, a premonition that tonight's misadventure portended still further trouble. Zearsdale?-Well, just what could Zearsdale do, anyway? The oilman would find Mitch Corley's nose very, very clean. Much cleaner, doubtless, than that of the workaday citizen. The Mitch Corleys of the world could not afford the petty nastiness, the shady little deeds, which were generally shrugged off as the everybody-does-it-norm. They, the world's Corleys, shuddered at the notion of stealing towels from a hotel or betraying a confidence or making time with a friend's wife.

"There was always a risk in such shenanigans, and the professional gambler had enough risks as it was. Zearsdale, then, if he was inclined to make trouble, would have a hard time finding a vulnerable spot.

Of course, Mitch was vulnerable by the fact of being what he was. Of living as he and Red lived. So…

She rolled over in the bed, and put her arms around him. "Don't worry any more, darling," she whispered. "Everything will be all right."

"Of course it will." He patted the satiny plumpness of her bottom. "I'm sorry if I waked you up, honey."

"That's okay. Want me to give you something to make you Sleep?"

He did and she did, and it did. But the sleep seemed almost as brief as the treatment which brought it about. One minute he was dozing off, the next-or so it seemed-Red was shaking him, telling him that he would have to hurry because breakfast was already on the way up.

He arose promptly, and headed for the bathroom. Grumpily wondering why he had been called so early, but recognizing that Red would have had her reasons. Husband-like, he had learned long ago that if Red thought he should know something or remember something, it was best to pretend that he did; otherwise, he would find himself guilty of possibly the worst crime on the wifely calendar-ignorance of something of great importance to her, which should therefore be of equal importance to him.

He had shaved and was in the shower when Red poked her head in the door. Was he about ready? Breakfast had just arrived. He called that he'd be there in a shake, hoping she would jog his memory with a clue. When she didn't-hearing her reclose the bathroom door-he called to her again.

"Uh, about how much time have we got, honey?"

"Well… were we going to try to get there by noon?"

Get there? Get where?

"Whatever you think." He turned off the shower and began toweling himself. "Uh, where shall we eat lunch?"

"Well-Oh, I know! We'll take it with us. I'll have the dining room pack us a big hamper."

"Fine, oh, fine," Mitch said, desperately searching his memory.

"Maybe I should call ahead, too, huh? So we'll be expected."

"Uh, yes, you do that," Mitch said.

The door closed. He got out of the shower, and reached for his robe. And suddenly he remembered. Why, of course! They were driving up to his son's school today. This was the day they were seeing Sam, his son-and he had forgotten! Hurrying out of the bathroom to breakfast, Mitch felt a wrench of conscience. How bad off could a guy be, anyway, to forget a visit to his own son?

They had breakfast, and dressed. Mitch in tweeds and a dark sport shirt, Red in a fawn-colored travel suit with a head scarf of off- ivory silk. As they took the elevator downstairs, Mitch asked her to remind him that the quarterly payment on his income tax was about due. Red said she would do it, and that he was not to talk about anything unpleasant for the rest of the day.

Turkelson himself was at their car, supervising the tuckingin of a Thermos-type hamper. Mitch addressed him as boy, and handed him a dime tip. The manager accepted it with as much bowing as his portliness would permit, then exploded into laughter as they drove away.

It took them perhaps an hour to get out of Houston and the city's heavy traffic. Then, having reached the highway, he settled the Jag down to a more-or-less steady seventy miles an hour. It was a warm day, but a little cool in the swiftly moving car. Red moved close to Mitch, her small shoulder pressing against his. Glancing up into the car's mirror, he surprised her in a look of such love and devotion that a quick lump came into his throat.

"Mitch," she said softly. "You're the dearest, darlingest, nicest man that ever lived."

"What took you so long to catch on?" Mitch grinned.

"I've known it right from the beginning. Sometimes I forget, I guess, and then something happens like this morning- You'd forgotten about coming to see Sam, hadn't you?"

Mitch nodded guiltily. "I should have had my ass kicked."

"You were a darling," Red insisted. "You pretended to remember because I expected you to. To keep me from being hurt or disappointed in you."

Mitch said that that was the way he was-perfect. The thought, not highly original, flicked through his mind that the more different women were, the more they were the same. How many times, for example, had Teddy and his mother and Red done just about the exact opposite of what he had expected them to do? Teddy would smile at him when he expected a slap. His mother would slap him when logic prophesied a smile. Red-well, Red had just rewarded forgetfulness with tenderness. As proof of her love for him. All this was not to say, of course, that a woman would always do the thing contrary to a man's expectations. No, a woman was not going to be as easily understood as that! The subtle kinship which united her with her sex had a sweetly mythic as well as a contradictory quality. About her was the kind of wide-eyed, innocent, infuriating, deliciously irrelevant relevance that associated Easter bunnies with painted hen's eggs.

He was brought out of these abstract reveries when, a few miles short of his son's school, they stopped at a service station. The emblem Z (for Zearsdale) on the station's gas pumps was responsible. He had seen these signs before, naturally, but they had had no meaning for him. Now, after last night, they had a great deal. For a man needs something very, very special in the oil business to become an important refiner and distributor.

Attempting to become one, he invariably is confronted by the giant-with-many-names who proceeds nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a million to stomp the holy God out of him. The giant has posted Keep Out signs around the field of refining and distributing. Littering that field are the bleached and broken bones of intruders who had everything to go the distance- yet not quite enough.

There was Gidsen, for example, a man with great wit and charm, and the backing of some of the east's wealthiest families. No more. There was Harlund, who had as much going for him as Gidsen, plus plenty of political power. No more. And so on, endlessly.

To fight the many-named giant, you had to fight his way. And that was not something you could learn. It had to be second-nature with you. An instinct for the jugular. A conviction that the destruction of an enemy was as necessary as defecation. A social outlook that was as intestinal as it was amoral; seeing one's neighbors as something to be gobbled up, and a knife in the back as the best way to a man's heart.

Not all the giant's successful rivals were like that, of course. There are always exceptions. But Mitch doubted that Zearsdale was one of them.

What the hell? he asked himself. I'm not that important. I didn't really do anything to get him down on me.

His son, Sam, was waiting for them at the gate of the school. Mitch's heart quickened as the boy came toward them-black-haired, gray-eyed, wirily trim in his cadet's uniform. The long-ago image of one Mitchell Corley, dice handler de luxe.

Sam shook hands with him, kissed Red and complimented her on her suit. Then, he cast a lingering and longing eye at the car's controls, and cocked a brow at his father.

"Okay," Mitch laughed. "If it's all right with your Aunt Red."

"Of course, it's all right," Red smiled. "I'll sit on your lap, Mitch."

Mitch slid over on the seat, and Sam got behind the wheel. How old was he now, thirteen, fourteen? He experimented with the stick shift for a moment, then drove them smoothly through the gate to a nearby picnic area. Mitch complimented him on his driving as they unloaded the picnic hamper. It wouldn't be long now, he said, before Sam was driving his own car.

The boy shrugged casually. "I wouldn't have much use for one in a place like this, Dad."

"Well, of course, you won't be here by the time you're old enough to vote."

"Of course."

To Mitch, the words seemed an echo of his own voice; something that he had once said pretty much as Sam had said them now. He glanced at Red, and found her looking at him meaningfully.

"I think you'll be through with boarding schools before long, Sam," he heard himself saying. "Red-your Aunt Red and I hope we'll be able to run our business without traveling in another year or two, and then we'll all settle down together."

"Well," Sam said. "I don't care particularly about settling down. I'd just as soon travel as not."

Mitch passed a paper plate of roast beef, murmuring that he needed to get an education before he started traveling. Sam said that Mitch seemed to have managed to combine the two.

"No, I didn't really get an education," Mitch said seriously. "My folks couldn't afford to put me in boarding school, or you can bet they would have."

"What about Aunt Red?"

"What? Oh, well, Aunt Red was just a tot while we were on the road. By the time she was of school age, the family was settled down in one place."

The boy looked gravely from his father to Red. He nodded, as though to himself, and began buttering a roll.

"Good chow," he said. "Did you cook it, Red-Aunt Red, I mean?"

"Why, no, I didn't. They don't allow cooking in the apartment where we are."

"I'll bet you could cook though, couldn't you? I'll bet you can do anything better than a wife could do."

"W-What?" Red stammered. "I, uh, why do you say that?"

"Because Dad has never got married. Again, I mean. You take care of him so good that he doesn't want a wife."

A deep blush had spread over Red's face. She bit her lip, band trembling as she reached for a piece of fruit. In the heavy silence, Sam looked innocently (too innocently?) at his father.

"I've got the afternoon off, Dad. Want me to show you around or anything?"

"Why don't you show your Aunt Red around, and let me join you later?" Mitch said. "Right now I imagine I'd better make my courtesy visit to the Colonel."

"He's been in the infirmary all week," Sam told him. "But I guess you should drop in on the adjutant. He's sitting in for the Colonel."

"Good. I'll take care of it right now," Mitch said.

He left the car with them, and headed on foot for the ivy-covered administration building. Crossing the sun-baked parade ground, he skirted a small group of drilling cadets, in the custody of a red-faced man in sergeant's uniform. They were a punishment squad, apparently. Or, perhaps, an awkward squad. Sweat streaked their straining faces, dripping down to darken the gray of their uniforms. To Mitch they seemed like automatons, moving like a single machine. Yet they did not satisfy the sergeant. With a harsh and unintelligible yell he brought them to a halt, molded them into a dozen-odd sweating statues. Then, pacing up and down in front of them, occasionally thrusting his nose within an inch of some supposed miscreant, he spewed out such a threatening and insulting tirade that even Mitch was a little shocked.

But this was a good school. One of the very best, he thought, as he went up the steps of the administration building. The sons of the southwest's elite were enrolled here, and he had only been able to enter Sam with the help of some of his highly-placed hotel friends. It was good-so how could you knock it? How could you object, after a nonage in bellboys' locker rooms, to the discipline in one of the very best schools?

Certainly, Sam never kicked about it. Sam never kicked about anything, for that matter.

Major Dillingham, the colonel's adjutant, might have been created by a drunken Cruikshank or Hogarth, using the parade-ground sergeant as model. Face bloated and beet-colored, he wobbled up from behind his desk as though floated by the balloon of his belly. He proffered a puffy hand which seemed to compress interminably within Mitch's grasp. Then, he teetered to the door and closed it, his pipestem legs, seeming on the point of snapping at any moment, so thin that their puttees appeared to be wrapped about less than nothing, a kind of embryonic invisibility.

He sat down again. He treated Mitch to what had all the aspects of a sternly penetrating stare, except for the absence of eyes, which were presumably lurking within the puffy foxholes of their lids.

"Mr. Corley," he wheezed heavily. "Mr. Corley. Mr. Mitchell Corley."

Mitch waited, looking at him silently. He could smell something here, something besides the faint aroma of talcum and the osmotic emanations of faulty kidneys.

"Something has come up, Mr. Corley. Something that, uh, must be explained, but which I see no satisfactory explanation for. I was going to take it up with the Colonel, and of course I will have to. There is no alternative, I'm afraid. But hearing that you were visiting Samuel today-a very fine young man, Mr. Corley. One of our best young men-"

"I know that," Mitch said. "What I don't know, Major, is what you're leading up to, and when or if you're going to get to it.

The statement seemed to stun the adjutant. It was meant to. Mitch had always believed that attack was the best defense. He leaned back negligently, as the major puffily collected himself.

"It, uh, came on today's mail, Mr. Corley. Addressed to the Colonel, naturally, but since I am temporarily in charge, I-I find it difficult to understand. Impossible to understand…"

"Go on," Mitch said coldly. But he knew what the trouble was now. "I'm a busy man. Aren't you?"

The major underwent another moment of shock. Then, a faint gleam of malice in his enbunkered eyes, he took an envelope from a locked drawer and pitched it across the desk. Mitch opened it.

There was a picture inside, a blown-up copy of one. A rogue's gallery front-and-profile photograph of a woman; it listed her police record on the reverse side. Sixteen arrests, sixteen convictions, all for the same crime.

There were no aliases. The woman had always used her legal name.

Mrs. Mitchell Corley.

9

Fort Worth…

Cowtown. Where the West Begins.

Take it easy here, and people will do you the same kind of favor. Dress as you like. You won't be judged by your dress. That kind of crummy looking fella in Levi's and boots is worth forty million dollars. Do as you like. Do anything you're big enough to do. But be danged sure that you are big enough.

Neighboring Dallas started an evil rumor about its rival. Forth Worth was so rustic, the libel ran, that panthers prowled the streets at high noon. Fort Worth promptly dubbed itself the Panther City, and declared the lie was gospel truth.

Certainly, there were panthers in the streets. Kiddies had to have somethin' to play with, didn't they? Aside from that, the cats performed a highly necessary service. Every morning they were herded down to the east-flowing Trinity River, there to drain their bladders into the stream which provided Dallas' water supply.

That was probably why them people over in Dallas had so many nutty ideas. They'd take a few swigs of that panther piss, and pretty soon they were thinking that they were just as good as other people… Mitch and his wife Teddy arrived in Forth Worth approximately a month before their son was born. And Mitch- as Teddy declared he must-became the housekeeper for the family. He felt that he just about had to, for the time being and under the circumstances. Teddy's earning power was far greater than his, and

much would be needed for a family of three. Also, he could not dispute with his wife at what he considered a very trying period for her, nor could he ask her to cut down on expenses merely to indulge his vanity.

As a bachelor, living in a furnished room, he had entered marriage with only the vaguest idea of the cost of maintaining a wife and household. A wife like Teddy, that is, and a household governed by her whims. In fact, he never knew, since Teddy did the buying and bill- paying, accepting whatever portion of his earnings he gave her as being "plenty." But it did gradually dawn on him that Teddy was pooping off enormous amounts of money.

Teddy had to have the very best of everything-furniture, food and drink, apparel, living quarters. But that was only the beginning. She would buy a hundred-dollar dress, and discard it after one wearing. She would buy new furnishings, decide that they were "all wrong" and dispose of them for whatever was offered. She would do senselessly extravagant things for Mitch-the purchase, for example, of a dozen pairs of watered-silk pajamas-then pout when he was not properly appreciative.

Mitch had the weird notion at times that Teddy hated money, that she felt guilty about having it and was impelled to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Well, things were going to change, he told himself determinedly. After the baby was born and she had recovered from her pregnancy- inspired goofiness (as he thought of it), little Teddy was going to get squared away fast.

That's what the man thought. That wasn't what happened. For one thing, he was immediately enchanted by little Sam-named after his father. For another, Teddy was not enchanted by the baby. It annoyed her. She regarded it as an intruder on a situation which had been just about perfect as it was.

"You're my baby," she told Mitch. "You're all I need."

"But you're his mother," Mitch insisted. "A mother should want to take care of her baby."

"I do. I love taking care of you."

"But goddammit-! I mean, look, honey, why did you have a baby if you felt like this?"

"Because you wanted one. You wanted a baby, so I gave you a baby."

"But-but, Teddy-"

"So now it's your job to take care of him," Teddy continued Sweetly. "You take care of your baby, and I'll take care of my baby."

The conversation took place about ten days after Sam's birth, and Teddy had already returned to work. He had awakened in the middle of the night to find her gone from his side and a note pinned to her pillow. He had been so angry that he almost called her employers, and he refrained from doing so only out of fear of embarrassing her.

They didn't know she was married. Her pregnancy, almost undetectable even to Mitch, had gone unnoticed; and she had gotten her needed time off on the pretext of traveling to the deathbed of a close relative. It was the company's policy not to employ married women. Teddy had strictly enjoined him against ever calling or coming to the place.

Well, anyway. Mitch decided to let things rock along as they were for a while. He loved being with the baby. Someone had to earn the living, and he had no job to go to.

So he became the housekeeper for their apartment, and the full-time nurse for his son. He read a lot. He worked with the dice. On nice days, he loaded Sam into his perambulator and took him out for an airing. As time went on, these walks often wound up in hotel locker- rooms and the back rooms of pool halls and cigar stores, or wherever else a crap game could be found.

Mitch was getting better and better with the dice. He was not nearly as good then as he eventually got to be, but he was good. He banked part of his winnings, contributing the rest to household expenses. That gave him some feeling of independence; at least, he was paying for his own keep. But he was far from satisfied.

Sure, he loved being with the baby, but he couldn't make a career of it. Sure, he was doing fairly good with the dice- but how was he doing it? By hanging out in the kind of places that had always been faintly repugnant to him. Cheap, shoddy places; the habitat, as a rule, of cheap shoddy people. Walk into one of those joints ten years from now, and you'd find pretty much the same people there.

They were pikers, bums, the small fry of the nowhere world. Stick around them long enough, and you became a permanent member of the family. If you ever wanted to be in the big time, you had to be where the big-timers were.

Still… what to do about Teddy? He loved Teddy; he wanted her to be happy. He wasn't afraid of her-not exactly, that is-but he shrank from the prospect of annoying her.

As it turned out, he didn't have to do anything about Teddy, because she had also become dissatisfied with the way they were living. She announced abruptly one morning that they were renting a house, and in that house there was going to be a housekeeper or a nurse- housekeeper or whatever the heck was necessary to allow Mitch to take a job.

"I mean it, Mitch!" she said crossly. "I don't care what kind of job it is, but by golly you get one and get it fast!"

"But-but that's what I've been wanting to do, all along!" Mitch exploded. "You're the one that insisted that I stay at home, and-"

"I did not! Anyway, what good is it having you stay at home if I never get to be with you? When I'm working, you're asleep, and when I'm ready for bed you're cleaning house or out walking with the baby or some other crazy thing!"

"I know, but-"

"You'd better stop arguing with me, Mitch Corley! Get yourself a night job like I've got. Then maybe we'll get to see each other from one week end to the next!"

Mitch did as he was told. The job he took-hotel doorman-was not something he would have bothered with ordinarily; it didn't pay enough money. But money wasn't the most important factor at the moment, and there were compensations for the lack of cash.

He wore the hotel's livery, but he was actually employed by the garage-taxi company which serviced the hotel. Thus, since the latter company could hardly hire a supervisor for one man, he was pretty much his own boss. Then (and this was more important to him than he had previously realized) he was no longer addressed as "boy." Lifted out of the category of faceless flunkies, he became a person-a man with a name, who was to be consulted with at least a measure of respect on the vital matters of transportation and the maintenance of ultra-expensive cars.

There was little if anything to do between two and six in the morning, and he could sit in his starter's cubicle and read or chat with the inevitable guests who were afflicted with insomnia. One of his most frequent visitors was an ageless little man, with eyes which bugged enormously behind his thick-lensed glasses and a great mop of wiry iron-gray hair. Early in Mitch's employment, he had introduced himself with a question:

"If you are a doorman," he said, in subtly accented English, "why are you called a starter?"

"I'll look it up," Mitch grinned. "Ask me tomorrow night."

"So." The man nodded, gravely approving, then leaned far over into the starter's cubicle. "Why do you read a book on modern art? Someone has asked you a question about it?"

Mitch said no, he was simply doing it on his own account. He'd heard some ostensibly important people talking about modern art, and he figured it was something he should know about.

"Then, you are not doing it on your own account. It is only a sop to others."

"We-ell, maybe. But not entirely. I mean, how am I going to know whether something interests me unless I'm informed on it?"

The man studied him intently; bobbed the bushy mass of his hair. "We," he said firmly, "shall talk again."

That was Mitch's first meeting with Fritz Steinhopf, M.D., ph.D. (psychiatry), ER.A.S.; Heidelberg, the Sorbonne, University College. It was fairly typical of the psychiatrist's introduction to other members of the hotel's staff. Indiscriminately and without apologetic preliminary he had quizzed the resident manager, the haughty head-housekeeper-very much an executive in the hotel world-the superintendent of service, the head chef (another important executive), and various bellboys and clean-up men.

His attitude was one which, in ordinary cases, would have elicited the chilly suggestion that he would be "happier" at some other hotel. But Fritz Steinhopf was very far from being an ordinary case. In addition to his living quarters, he maintained an elaborate professional suite on the mezzanine floor. His patients were among the southwest's most prominent and wealthy, including two of the hotel company's major stockholders.

Mitch wondered why a man of Steinhopf's importance didn't concentrate on his practice, instead of prying into the affairs of people like himself. When the answer finally dawned on him, it did much in the shaping of his own character. One could not, he came to realize, approach every person and situation with a view to immediate gain. To be effective subjectively, a broad objectivity was necessary. Interest and curiosity were not traits to be turned off and on at will. Nothing was ever lost. Knowledge gained at one time could be used at another.

With much idle time on his hands, Mitch was more and more the target of the apparently non-sleeping Steinhopf's insatiable curiosity. And the more that curiosity was exercised, the greater it became. The psychiatrist was completely uninhibited; he could not be brushed off. A little irritated with him one night, Mitch declared that he had to go to lunch. Steinhopf said that he would go also, and he trotted along at Mitch's side to the all-night lunch room.

They ate together almost nightly after that, the psychiatrist stuffing himself with whatever was put in front of him, blandly asking the most intimate questions, occasionally making some comment which by turns enlightened, frightened and infuriated Mitch.

"It is a substitute, this gambling," he said. "A compensatory drive. You are haunted by your father's impotence. He had no such compensating satisfaction. So you provide yourself with one."

"Oh, come off it, Doc," Mitch laughed. "If I was any better in bed, I'd need a harem."

"So. Perhaps. But the fear is still present. A man confident of his prowess, that he is a man, is not dominated by his wife. As you are by yours, my dear Mitch."

"It's not like that at all! I try to be reasonable, of course. She brings most of the money into the family, and she should have something to say about how it's run. But-"

"But she has always earned the major share of the income, has she not? There has been relatively no change. And money is obviously of no importance to her, something to be thrown away. How then does it justify her drive to make you less than a man?"

"Dammit, I told you it wasn't like that! I'm in love with my wife. I want to do everything I can to please her and make her happy."

"That is as it should be," Steinhopf purred. "Assuming, of course, that she does everything she can to please you and make you happy."

"But-!"

"I understand. Believe me I do," the doctor said softly. "I am asking you to accept the unacceptable. You know your wife as no one else can know her. Between you there is something which is singularly your own, a history of troubles shared, of secret words and intimacies; the warm and delightful and always unique treasure which is peculiar to every marriage, no matter how bad that marriage may be. The husband is always the last to know, they say. Of course, he is. How else could it be, since he is closer to his wife than anyone else? But consider, Mitch. It is this very closeness which blinds him to the truth. It is almost impossible for him to be objective. A Negro patient once assured me with great bitterness that I did not know what it was like to be a Negro. I could only point out that he also didn't know what it was like to be a white man."

Mitch frowned. It seemed to him that the doctor had almost said something decidedly ugly.

Steinhopf smoothly continued. "Aside from your intensely subjective viewpoint, there is the matter of your childhood; the marriage of your parents. You grew up in circumstances which were anything but normal, so your present home life does not seem as shocking as it essentially is. Nor is your wife too blatant a contrast with your mother. Your mother seems to have been lacking in most of the instincts normal to a mother, while simultaneously possessing an over-supply of certain other womanly instincts. So Teddy, by comparison-"

Mitch got up and stomped out of the place. The doctor caught up with him, trotted along at his side. They would talk again, he said imperturbably. They would talk again, many times, for there was much indeed to be discussed.

At the moment, Mitch had other ideas on the subject. He'd just about had it with Steinhopf. But they did talk again, many times and at length, and at Mitch's own wish. Because he was getting very worried about Teddy himself.

He still loved her, or believed that he did, but their relationship was becoming increasingly unsatisfactory. The more he saw of her the more dismayed he became.

And he was seeing a great deal of her. Literally, constantly. She took him to bed the minute he came home. The normally delightful demands she made upon him had, through excess, become a source of despair and disgust. She couldn't carry on a conversation-not a real honest-to-Hannah conversation. Why hadn't he noticed that before? What he had taken for wit was really the product of ignorance (she didn't realize she was being funny) and the parroted statements of others.

Actually, she was almost completely humorless. Joking with her, laughing in her presence, could induce her to insane fury.

He'd better not laugh at her! Very bad things happened to daddies who laughed at their mamas.

She paid no attention to little Sam, and she was angrily jealous when he did. She wanted one thing of Mitch-over and over and over. And when he could not deliver it, she was peevish, pouting… yet with a kind of smugness, an air of self-satisfaction.

So Mitch's talks with Dr. Steinhopf resumed. In detail, he poured out the story of himself and Teddy from the very beginning.

"I guess I was supposed to be another guy," he explained, with attempted humor. "Someone she was engaged to before I came along. I remember she was crying in her sleep the night we were married, mumbling about getting a letter from the general and everyone telling her this other fellow was dead."

Steinhopf said that he doubted very much that there had been any other fellow, in the context of Mitch's meaning, or any general. The other fellow was a sexual fantasy. The general represented authority trying to destroy the fantasy.

"You mean," Mitch frowned, "she's insane?"

"My dear Mitch, please do not use that word in my presence! Let us say she is not normal-in the accepted sense of that misused term."

"The poor kid," Mitch said bewilderedly. "I just can't understand it…"

Steinhopf shrugged. "She is a classic case, I would say, of a not uncommon disorder among American women. You could find less exaggerated and complex examples all around you. Where are its roots? In a dominant mother, of course, and a defeated but beloved father. Mingle with these the factor of penis-envy-a younger neighbor's boy, perhaps, and the childhood pastime of playing house. Add in large sums of money-the nominal proof, sad to say, of superiority-and the urges normal to woman. This, broadly speaking, would give you your Teddy… I believe. To be conclusive or helpful, I would have to see her over an extended period of time, an obvious impossibility." "Well," Mitch hesitated. "If it was just a matter of money…" "Always," the psychiatrist said gravely, "a fee of some kind is necessary. What is given for nothing, I find, is usually valued at that.

But it would be no problem, I assure you. Five dollars, say, for what I would ordinarily charge a hundred. The problem is that your wife would not see me. She would become very angry at the suggestion that there was a problem. Or do you say otherwise?" Steinhopf waited a moment, then continued. "Sexual degeneracy is a way of life with her. The right way. She has no desire to change it. The tendency,"-another delicate pause-"has always been to expand it."

Mitch felt himself reddening, as the doctor's words slowly sank in on him. Steinhopf spread his hands apologetically.

"Is not the evidence all around you, Mitch? A woman of Patently limited mentality, who allegedly earns an extravagant salary? The peculiar working conditions? The voracious demands upon you? The constant-"

"Thank you, Doctor," Mitch said coldly. "Thank you, very much."

"Please, Mitch. For your own sake…"

Mitch turned his back on him. He kept it turned.

But he could not forget what the doctor had said. He could not allay the suspicions which, as Steinhopf had guessed, were already in his mind. He was very wrong to have them, he knew. It was hateful and ungrateful to think such terrible things about the mother of his son. Finally, he persuaded himself that he owed it to Teddy to find out the truth.

Mitch took his days off from work in the ordinary way, during the week in which they occurred. Teddy allowed hers to accumulate, taking them during the five days of the month which menstruation made difficult for her. Thus, he had the opportunity to follow her, and since she was not looking to be followed it was shamefully easy.

He knew the place she went to, not from personal experience but from informed hearsay. Still, however, he would not believe what was obviously a fact. There had to be some innocent explanation. Teddy would have gone there on some entirely honest errand, and she would not go back again.

He waited outside; waited for hours. She did not come out. So he followed her again the next night-still stubbornly resisting the truth-and that time he went in.

It was a well-run place. A partitioned tunnel extended a few feet inside the door, and an ape-like figure, with a sawed-off ball bat under his arm, stood at its end.

"No booze, no rough stuff," he recited, giving Mitch a quick frisk. "Okay, you're welcome."

He stood aside to let Mitch enter. In the hallway, seated at a desk which guarded without blocking the stairs to the second floor-for this was a well-run place, you know-was a polite, pudgy little man in a neat serge suit.

"No booze, no rough stuff," he smiled. "What can I do for you, sir?"

Mitch told him. The man hesitated. "I think you must mean Neddy, don't you, sir? Yes, I'm sure you must. Oh, no, please!" He gestured distastefully as Mitch reached for his wallet. "The gratuity must be left with the young lady."

Mitch sat down in a row of chairs with three other clients. They kept looking at one another and looking away again. As they were permitted to ascend the stairs, other men were coming through the entrance tunnel, each greeted with a frisk and a singsonged, "No booze, no rough stuff…"

At last the man at the desk smiled and nodded at Mitch. Mitch started up the stairs, and the man said that Neddy could be found at the first door on his right.

"A preferred room, sir. And a very special young lady."

"Thank you," Mitch mumbled.

He was getting the Class-A treatment, he guessed. He was a more likely-looking customer than they usually got, and they wanted him back.

At the head of the stairs, he paused and drew a long shuddery breath. Then, he opened the muslin-covered screen door on his right and went in.

He was hardly breathing; unable to breathe. Nervously, he caught the door, letting it close without a sound. He dragged his eyes to the bed, made himself look and almost shouted with relief.

The girl was lying on her stomach, head pillowed on her arms. In the subdued light, her naked body was a shadow carved of ivory. A beautiful but vaguely limned shadow. It was only a little more clear to him than her face.

But he could see her hair, hair that by no stretch of the imagination could be Teddy's. A long page-boy bob trailing to her shoulders-and black! Coal black.

Fine beads of sweat broke out on Mitch's forehead. He was relieved, oh, God, was he relieved, but what the hell did he do now?

Obviously, he couldn't do what a patron was expected to do. But what was the alternative? What would this girl think or do, and what about that guy downstairs with the baseball bat?

He didn't know what would be an acceptable course of conduct. Almost as far back as he could remember, he had been hearing about places like this in the frankest detail. But he had never been in one. He didn't know what a customer who wasn't a customer was supposed to do.

Looking for a way out, some clue to getting off the hook, he let his eyes rove the room.

On the mirrorless dresser stood a white crockery water pitcher and a washbowl of the same color and material. Conveniently nearby was a small cardboard box of purplish disinfectant; the so-called snakebite remedy, soluble crystals of potassium permanganate. The washbowl was tinged with traces of purple. There were also smudges of purple on the towels which half-filled the basket at the side of the dresser.

In addition to a chair, and of course the bed, there was one other item of furniture. A large white chamber-pot. It was about half full like the towel basket-what could be more logical?-and its yellowish contents were also veined with the purple of potassium permanganate.

A well-run place. A house with a social conscience.

Mitch's lips quirked in a nervous smile. The smile began to spread. Then, the girl turned over on the bed. She sat up and stared at him.

She was a very wholesome-looking girl, with a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. The change in her appearance wrought by the black page-boy wig was incredible.

Mitch gulped. His emotions locked on the delicate gear between comedy and tragedy, the hideous and the hilarious. Then, there was a kind of inward back-thrust, the "kick" of a mechanism that had built up more compression than it was meant to handle. And he began to laugh.

He laughed as though his life depended upon laughing well, as, in a sense, it did. He was still laughing, laughing and weeping, when Teddy got up and slugged him with the piss pot.

10

The major was waiting, studying Mitch with a mixture of malice and-and what? Envy? Hunger? Mitch's mind raced, trying to probe the other man's soul and brain. Meanwhile, the major felt forced to speak.

"A very fine young man, Samuel. I am truly sorry that he will not be able to continue here."

"Why won't he?" Mitch said.

"Oh, now really, Mr. Corley. This is a very select school, as you know. To have a student whose mother is a, uh-uh- well, you must see that it's impossible."

"Why? The semester will be ended in less than three months. Just why can't he remain here for that length of time?"

The major's mouth worked wordlessly, a man trying to explain the axiomatic. At last, with a helpless gesture, he placed the matter in purely practical terms. Yet his visitor remained unimpressed.

"But no one knows you received this, Major. That's right, isn't it? If the question should ever arise-and it won't- there's no way to prove that you received it."

"But-but I know, Mr. Corley. I, uh, know and my duty is painfully clear."

Mitch said that he didn't see it that way at all, and he was sure that the major wouldn't if he thought things through. The major's first duty was toward his students. And how could duty be interpreted as the punishment of a student for the wrong-doing of a parent?

"You're a man of the world, Major; I can see that. I'll bet you've had a fling or two yourself, haven't you?" Mitch smiled engagingly. "A man right in his prime as you are can still enjoy a juicy taste of life. He knows what life's about. There are certain rules to observe, of course, but he certainly isn't going to embarrass someone like myself, another man of the world, because of a youthful mistake."

The major coughed. His swollen flesh shifted inside the tan uniform, straightening and readjusting its mass, trying to remold itself into some semblance of the trim figure that sat across the desk.

"As you say, Mr. Corley-huh-huh. These things do happen to the very best of us fellers. Oh, yes, huh-huh. There was a girl in the Philippines-" He broke off in sudden alarm. "Now, Mr. Corley! I really can't see-"

"No one knows about this." Mitch said steadily. "No one but you and I. There's not a reason in the world why anyone else has to know it."

"But-but what are you suggesting?"

"I can't enter Sam in another school at this late date. If he's forced to leave here, he'll lose an entire semester's work. Now, I was reading an article the other day on the cash value of an education to a boy. I don't remember what the overall figure was, but I think that if you broke it down a semester would be worth about… two thousand dollars?"

The major stared at him dazedly. He looked down at the band that was being held out to him, heard Mitch murmur that he'd have to be running along. The major shook the hand and withdrew his own palm. Felt the flat-folded crispness that was like no other feeling.

It was done, then, so easily and smoothly; a gracious thing that could only be undone ungraciously. He wobbled upright on his wretched legs, hardly at all discomfited, the benefactor rather than the benefacted, seeking the words appropriate to one man of the world when addressing another.

"We must get together again, Mr. Corley. Two fellers like us, heh? And, uh, let me repeat that we are most happy to number Samuel among our students. We shall, uh, hope that he shall be back with us again next year."

"That's very nice of you," Mitch smiled.

But he was thinking, The hell Sam will be back here another year! Not in the same place with a character like you! And then, leaving the office, going down the steps of the administration building, he was fairer about it.

He was used to giving bribes; the major clearly wasn't used to accepting them. The poor ineffectual bastard had been flattered and persuaded by an expert, honestly convinced no doubt that he had only cooperated in an act of good will. And… who knew? Who knew? Perhaps he also had a nemesis who would make him do things he would never ordinarily do? A dogged and vicious creditor, a disease which impelled the life it was destroying to a last desperate tasting of life, a woman who had had him hunted down just when he thought he had it made…

He knew now that he should have leveled with Red when Teddy first reappeared in his life. But he was afraid of losing her-he and Red hadn't been together very long at the time. And even with Red knowing and accepting the truth, there would still have been Sam to protect. How could you tell a kid, or let him be told, that his mother was a whore, that she hated him? How would he take it? How could you risk the terrible damage that it might do to him?

He could divorce Teddy, naturally, but that would accomplish nothing. Divorced, she could do just as much as she was doing now. Divorce would crack the whole nasty mess wide open, destroying everything that he had been trying to preserve.

Sighing, he pushed the problem to the back of his mind, putting on a bright face as he came up to Red and Sam. They strolled across to the campus lake together, remained there talking and skipping stones across the water until late afternoon. Then, they returned to the car, and with Sam waving good-bye, Red and Mitch started back to Houston.

Red was looking a little glum, depressed as she always was after leaving Sam. Mitch suggested stopping someplace for a drink and dinner, but Red wasn't hungry. He gave her a brief one-armed hug, knowing what was coming but knowing of no way to head it off. She led into it by a new route, telling him that she thought Sam knew the true nature of the relationship between them.

Mitch shook his head firmly. "You mean you think he suspects that you're not really his aunt, don't you?"

"Well, yes. But-"

"But that doesn't mean he suspects anything else. No," he went on. "I think it's more a matter of wishful-thinking on his part than anything else. He likes you. He'd like to have you for a mother. Therefore, he wishes you weren't his aunt."

Red was silent for a moment. Then she said quietly but flatly that she wanted to be Sam's mother.

"Now, Mitch. Let's get married right away. We've got more than a hundred thousand dollars, haven't we? That certainly should be enough to-to-"

"To what?" Mitch said. "Just what do we know about anything except what we are doing?"

"Well-well, we can learn, can't we? My gosh, other people do, and they don't have a hundred thousand dollars either!"

"We're not other people. We've been living high off the hog for a long, long time, and I think we'd have one hell of a time doing a complete right about-face. As I see it, and you've been seeing it the same way, we'd just about have to have enough to retire on. To retire comfortably. Or at least enough to look around on and find something solid before we jump into it."

"But a quarter of a million dollars, honey! Do we really need that much?"

"We agreed on it. We decided that we'd need every penny of it."

Red said crossly that they could undecide then. There wasn't a real reason in the world why they couldn't get married right now… unless, that is, Mitch no longer wanted to marry her.

"You know better than that!" Mitch said sharply. "My God, what a nasty thing to say!"

"Well… I'm sorry, Mitch. I didn't really mean it, of Course."

"I should think so!" –

"But-but couldn't we do it, honey? Please?"

"Of course we can," Mitch said. "But-wait now, Red! Wait a minute! We get married, and then what? Yank Sam out of school?"

"Why, no. Why would we want to do that?"

"But we'd at least have to have some kind of home where he could visit us. And an income to support that home; something legit. Or did you think we could go on with the dice hustle?"

"Oh, of course not, silly! But…"

"Well, then? Were you just planning to go up to the school and tell Sam we were married, period? I don't quite see what it'll accomplish, but if that's what you want…"

Red told him snappishly to just shut up, for God's sake. He was so darned smart, he ought to hang a medal on himself. Then, after a moment or two, she laughed and patted his cheek.

"Sorry, darling. You're right, of course. It's just that when a person wants something so much-"

"We both want it, and we're going to have it, too," Mitch said warmly. "Who knows? Houston is a good town. Maybe we'll make it right here."

"I'd be satisfied to just make a good chunk of it."

"I think perhaps we should be kind of preparing Sam for the good news," Mitch went on, giving things a good push while they were going his way. "Maybe we should drop a hint or two that you're not really his aunt, that you were a distant relative, say, who was adopted by my family."

Red said that she guessed they probably should do that. It might be kind of a shock to Sam to tell him abruptly that they were married.

"I know, Mitch!" She turned to him, eyes shining. "We'll have him come to the wedding! He can be the best man!"

"Wonderful," Mitch said, basking in her happiness, hating himself for his deceit. "I can hardly wait, honey."

They reached their apartment early in the evening. Despite his near exhaustion, he again slept badly. The following forenoon, on the grounds of having to see his tax accountant, he drove into the downtown business district.

At the bank, he found he had guessed right about the amount in his safe-deposit box. It contained only three thousand dollars. Three thousand out of the approximate one hundred and twenty-five thousand that it should have held. He took the six five-hundred-dollar bills, bought an equivalent amount of cashier's checks and mailed them to Teddy.

It had been more than a month since he last sent her money. But he had pointed out at the time that he was sending a considerably larger amount than her regular exorbitant stipend, and that it would have to do her for at least six weeks. He had hoped in this way to get her off his mental back for a while, to free himself of the constant fear and danger of being late with a payment, and what invariably happened if be was late. Now, he knew he had made a colossal blunder.

Teddy had cracked down on Sam, anyway. Without warning, she had thus notified her husband that the payments had gone up. He had proved that he could pay a larger amount, so henceforth he would have to go on doing it.

Driving back to the apartment, Mitch was suddenly struck by the terrifying knowledge that he would have to make another payoff to Teddy in approximately two weeks. By her reckoning, he would "owe" it to her then, and he would have to get it up or else. And barring a miracle, he simply couldn't do it.

He saw a drive-in restaurant just ahead of him. Turning into it, he ordered coffee; sipped it slowly while he did some rapid mental arithmetic.

Five thousand dollars. That was roughly the amount he had laid on the line at the hotel-apartment. Then, there was the three thousand he had been cheated of at Zearsdale Country Club. Plus a two-grand bribe to the major at Sam's school. And another three thousand this morning to Teddy.

It added up to an incredible thirteen thousand dollars. Thirteen thousand in less than three days!

He had been close-run to begin with, with really less than he needed to enter a big game. But he could have made out all right, despite the five grand at the apartment. It had been that extra eight thousand that had put him under the gun- the club loss, and the bribe, and the money to Teddy. He hadn't counted on that. Which was stupid of him. In this racket, a man always had to anticipate the disasters which he had no logical reason to fear.

Now… well, just how much cash on hand did he have?

He started to take out his wallet, then firmly thrust it back into his pocket. There was no point in knowing the exact amount. Whatever it was, it would have to be enough. It would be enough.

It always had been, and it would be now.

Driving on to the apartment house, he felt unreasonably cheerful. The fatalistic cheerfulness of a man who has survived the worst that can be handed to him. In the lobby of the building, he ran into Turkelson, who greeted him with the news that Winfield Lord was checking in early. Lord would be there the following night, axiomatically ready for a game. Mitch said that he would go for it-with certain cooperation from Turkelson. The manager happily agreed to give it to him.

So the mood of cheerfulness grew. Stepping onto the elevator, Mitch assured himself that the pendulum was now swinging the other way. He would make a killing here in Houston. He could look forward to nothing but good from now on.

Bad beginning, good ending. Everything bad that could possibly happen had already happened.

It was an excellent hotel-apartment, needless to say. Perfectly insulated to accommodate its air conditioning. Soundproofed. A monument to luxury which neither admitted nor emitted noise.

Thus, Mitch had no warning. Not the slightest. He simply stepped into the penthouse and found Jake Zearsdale waiting for him.

11

He was aware that Red was in the room, but he couldn't look at her. He was aware that she was saying something, but he couldn't hear it. It wouldn't register on him. All his senses were concentrated on Zearsdale.

For an endless moment, he stood stock still, barely across the threshold. He was frozen there, unable to speak or move. Then, the inner man took over, and the voice of experience spoke to him-always take the initiative, always face up to the danger. And frowning politely, he advanced on the oil man and held out his hand.

"I hardly expected to see you again, Mr. Zearsdale," he said coolly. "Red, why don't you give our guest a drink?"

"She already has, Mr. Corley." Zearsdale gestured toward a side table. "Your sister has been very good to me. I only hope"-his broad mouth parted in a smile-"that you'll be equally pleasant. Not that I'd blame you much if you weren't."

"My sister and I are always polite to guests," Mitch said. "We were taught to be as children. Apparently, that isn't a teaching that penetrated your country club, is it?"

Zearsdale's heavy face darkened. His sharp eyes glittered coldly, seeming to whet themselves on Mitch's eyes. Then, he laughed with the sound of ice tinkling on fine crystal.

"Mr. Corley," he said. "I came here instead of calling because I was afraid you might refuse to accept my call, and What I have to say is important. Now, do I get to sit back down, or are you going to make me speak my piece standing up?"

"Of course, you're going to sit down," Mitch smiled, dropping the offended bit. "Let's freshen your drink a little, too." He carried the glass over to the bar where Red took charge. She brought him a drink also when she delivered Zearsdale's.

Mitch studied the oil man as the latter took an incongruously delicate sip. Zearsdale wasn't covering up, obviously. As he had proved at the club, he behaved pretty much as he felt, not at all moved by the constraints which governed ordinary mortals. Unfriendly, he had shown it. Now, since he was showing friendliness…

"I came here to apologize," Zearsdale said. "John Birdwell-he's the man who won that three thousand from you- was cheating."

"I see," Mitch nodded.

"Would you mind telling me how you caught on to it, Mr. Corley?"

"It was pretty plain." Mitch shrugged lightly. "He kept rolling fours and sixes and eights. Never anything but those three numbers. There had to be something wrong."

"And you accused him of cheating just on that basis? That sounds pretty risky."

"I thought it was pretty clear-cut. Particularly when he used his dice hand to reach into his pocket." Mitch paused to light a cigarette. "What tipped you off?"

"We-ell…" Zearsdale hesitated. "Maybe it would be easier to explain if I told you something about Birdwell. He worked for me, you know. Assistant vice-president."

"I believe I'd heard something to that effect."

"I don't pay my people big salaries, Mr. Corley. Not what you and I think of as big. There's just not much point to it, you know, the way taxes are, and it doesn't give them the feeling of being part of what they're working for. It's much better all around, as I see it, to give them stock options to be taken up at staggered intervals. In other words… but I'm sure I don't have to explain all this to you."

Mitch said easily that perhaps he'd better, if it was necessary for Red and him to understand it. "Sis and I are much better at spending than earning."

"Put it this way, then," Zearsdale went on. "Johnny-Mr. Birdwell, that is-had been with me for seventeen years. During that time, he received increasingly large stock options. They were better than money, you understand. Every dollar put into them was worth more than two. So Johnny should have been a wealthy man, comfortably fixed at least. But you started me to thinking about him, and I ran a fast check, and I discovered that what he had was hardly dime one. Let it all slip away from him in one way or another…"

The oil man frowned heavily, seemingly as much offended as bewildered by Birdwell's bad management. He continued:

"Yes, Johnny was broke. But he had another one hundred thousand dollar stock option due him in a few days, and he'd already notified me that he was picking it up. Well…" Zearsdale spread his hands. "There it was. Last night I took him into a private room at the club, and searched him. He was using crooked dice, just as you said."

Mitch shot a quick glance at Red. He frowned unconsciously. "I'm sorry if I caused any trouble," he said.

"Any trouble he has is his own fault," Zearsdale said. "You're the injured party, not him, and I'm going to make it up to you…"

He explained how he was going to do it. Mitch choked on an incredulous laugh, and a faint frown puckered the oil man's brow.

"I say something funny?" he said. "Your sister seemed very pleased by it."

"I'm sorry," Mitch said. "We appreciate your offer, of course, but naturally we couldn't accept it."

"Oh? Why not?"

"Because we couldn't! I mean, it's impossible. It's the same as making us a gift of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars!"

Zearsdale murmured that it wasn't the same at all. He owed them something for the embarrassment he had caused them and for exposing Birdwell as a cheat. By allowing them to pick up Birdwell's stock option, at less than half its market value, he was only repaying a debt.

"You're not depriving anyone of anything, Mr. Corley. The option's there. If you don't pick it up, it will simply lapse."

"I'm sorry." Mitch shook his head. "I'm sorry, but we just couldn't."

He lighted a cigarette, taking his time about it. Very carefully, he shook out the match. A little weakly, he again repeated that he was sorry. Avoiding Red's eyes; the pained and furious question that was in them.

"You were saying," Zearsdale persisted, "that you and your sister didn't know much about business. Now, if you'd like to consult your banker…"

"No, no," Mitch smiled quickly. "It isn't that at all."

"But you won't accept the offer? I guess I don't understand that kind of pride, Mr. Corley. But if that's the way you feel…"

He put down his glass, and suddenly stood up. With a cold nod, he started toward the door. And then Red was abruptly across the room, apologetically touching his arm.

"Please, Mr. Zearsdale. My brother doesn't mean to be stuffy, but, well, our funds are pretty well tied up. Invested. We-well, it might be rather difficult to-to-"

Mitch silently cursed her, even as Zearsdale's face cleared and became friendly.

"Oh," he said. "Well, I can understand that. How long do you think it would take you to shake loose, Mr. Corley?"

"I'm not sure," Mitch said. "I'm not sure it would pay me to shake loose at all."

"For a hundred and fifty thousand dollars? Nonsense!" The oil man laughed firmly. "You just put your banker in touch with me. He'll go for it, regardless of what your set-up is."

Mitch said that he would see about it. What the hell else was there to say, after Red had booby-trapped him?

"Then it's all settled," Zearsdale said. "You call me in a couple of days, okay?"

"Okay, Mitch said, "and thanks very much."

They walked to the door together. As they shook hands, a curious expression flickered briefly across Zearsdale's face. The look of a man who has been struck by a sudden and implausible notion. Then, it was gone and he was gone, and Mitch slowly closed the door.

Red was fixing herself a drink. She tasted it, and turned around to face him.

"Well?" she said, "Well, Mitch?"

"Too bad," Mitch said easily. "I wish it had been as good as it sounded, honey."

"You mean it wasn't? Zearsdale was making all that talk just to stay in practice?"

Mitch chuckled fondly. "Now, baby. Even you ought to know that a guy isn't going to make us a present of one hundred and fifty grand."

"What do you mean, even me?" Her eyes flashed. "Just how stupid am I supposed to be, anyway?"

"Let's drop it," Mitch said. "Let's just for God's sake drop it!"

Red shook her head angrily. "I asked you a question, Mitch, and I want an answer. Why did you turn Zearsdale down? Because it would have forced your hand-given us all the money you say we have to have to get married?"

"What?" Mitch snorted. "Now, what kind of sense does that make?"

"You heard me. Yesterday we needed a quarter of a million dollars to pull out of this racket and settle down. A hundred grand plus what we have on hand. So today it falls right into our lap, and you give it the brush. No reason. You don't ask me what I think. You just-"

"I didn't think I had to ask you. You've always said that I was the boss."

"Well…" She slowed down a little. "Well, you always have been, Mitch. But…"

"But now I'm not?" He felt her weakening and pressed the point. "It has to be one way or the other, Red."

She looked at him hesitantly, then put down her glass and came swiftly to him. Standing on tiptoe, she brushed her lips against his, then stepped back, frowning slightly at the calculated coolness of his kiss.

"It shouldn't have to be that way, Mitch. Not if you really love me."

"Are you saying that I don't?"

"It's not what I'm saying that matters. Mitch. It's what you're not saying. Just because I don't demand explanations doesn't mean that you shouldn't offer them."

Her reasonableness was infuriating. Mitch said for God's sake, how many times did he have to tell her? "I don't think Zearsdale was leveling. I don't know what he's trying to pull or why, but I'm certainly not going to take practically our last dollar and hand it over to him!"

"But he told you to consult your banker," Red pointed out. "He surely wouldn't have done that if he was pulling a fast one."

"How do you know he wouldn't? What do you know about business?"

He pushed past her and went to the bar. Dumping whiskey into a glass, he brooded savagely that this was really too damned much. He was so near broke that his backbone was snapping at his belly button, and he was being crowded for dough from all sides. And now Red was throwing her weight around. Demanding an explanation for the inexplicable. Adding to the agony of losing the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity which Zearsdale had offered.

He turned back around from the bar, again found himself facing Red. "Well?" he said. "Any more nutty questions?"

"Don't you get sarcastic with me, Mitch!"

"Well, don't act like a damned fool, then! I-Ouch!" he said, for Red had suddenly slapped him. "Why the hell did you do that?"

"I'll do it again if you call me a damned fool! My mother took that guff all her life but I'm not going to!"

"What? What the hell has your mother got to do with it?"

"And you just stop cursing me, too!"

"But goddammit, I-"

Red slapped him again. Mitch grabbed her, hauled her kicking and squirming to the lounge, and turned her over his knee. Jerking up her housecoat, he gave her bare bottom a resounding whack!

"Now, let's knock it off," he said, jerking her upright again. "We forget Zearsdale, get me? It's all over, kaput!"

"Oh, no it isn't," Red said. "Don't you kid yourself it is, Mr. Mitch Corley!"

Her red hair was tumbled around her face. She tossed it back, her breasts swelling and trembling as she fought to control herself.

"I'll tell you when it'll be over, Mitch. When you answer just one question for me. Do we or don't we have more than a hundred thousand dollars put away?"

"Wh-aat?" he laughed shakily. "What kind of a crazy question is that?"

"Answer me, Mitch!"

"But it doesn't make sense! You've been with me all these years. How could I have blown more than a hundred grand on myself?"

The question threw her for a moment. "Well," she said, "I didn't say that you had spent it on yourself. But-"

"Well, I should hope not! I've always given you better than I've taken for myself. Everything I've done has been for you. Why, my God, honey-"

"Wait!" She cut him off with a gesture. "Just tell me the truth, Mitch. That's all I ask-just the truth. Do we have the money?"

"Yes!" he snapped. "Yes, yes, yes!" He snatched the key to the safe-deposit box from his pocket. "It's right here in town! Do you want me to take you down and show it to you?"

Red looked down at the key. She brought her eyes up to look into his. "Yes," she said.

"But-You do?"

Red nodded evenly. "I don't think you're telling the truth, Mitch. So, yes, I do want you to take me to the bank and show me the money."

Mitch shook his head. "I don't think you know what you're saying, Red. We have to trust each other. If we don't, we can't operate together."

"I know that. I was wondering if you did."

Mitch shrugged. He said all right, if that was the way she wanted it.

"That's the way I want it," Red said.

"Very well." He consulted his watch. "We can have lunch somewhere along the way. Or would you rather have a bite here?"

"We'll eat later," Red said. "After I've seen that dough. And before you can con me out of seeing it."

12

There was a certain banker in Houston. There is a certain banker in almost every large city. His position will be one of importance, an assistant-cashier, or better. Technically, he does nothing illegal-although discovery can cost him his job-yet he reaps heavily from the operators.

Perhaps they invented him-the con men, the blue-sky operators, the hustlers and high-flying gamblers. Perhaps they merely discovered him. The question is akin to the chickenor-the-egg riddle. At any rate, in the coming together of him and his clients, almost never the bank's clients, there is a profitable conjunction of their necessity and his opportunity.

His charges are extremely high, not only because of the risk to his job but because his clients have to have him, in certain kinds of hustles, whereas he does not have to have them. So they can pay what he asks or go to hell. But assuming that they are willing to pay…

Want to move a sight draft in an hour? The banker can do it for you.

Want to impress a chump? The banker will treat you like a long-lost brother.

Want to show a bundle of flash? The banker will benevolently count it out for you. (But don't try to walk away with it.)

In Fort Worth, not so many years ago, a rag mob played a rancher against the wall for seventy-five big ones. It was a bald swindle, and the lads wound up where all bad hustlers go. But not the banker, the key man in the frammis. There was no provable crime to pin on him… Mitch got the car out, and was waiting for Red when she came down. As they drove into the city, he sensed her occasional sidewise looks. The doubt that his calmness was producing in her. But he said nothing, and she remained stubbornly silent. He put the car on the bank's parking lot. Helping her out politely, he escorted her into the bank. And here at last she began to

weaken. Red didn't know anything about banks. Her only contact with them had been indirect and unpleasant-their more or less constant harassment of her father's family.

"Mitch…" She shivered slightly in the vaulted vastness. "Let it go, honey."

Mitch said it was too late to let it go-and it was. Taking her by the arm, he steered her firmly toward the railed-off enclosure occupied by upper-echelon executives, and stopped at the desk of an assistant vice-president.

The man's name was Agate, a middling middle-aged man with colorless lips, rimless glasses and a thinly-haired scalp that was as pink as a baby's bottom.

"Why, yes," he said, accepting the key to the safe-deposit box. "I'll be glad to handle this for you. If you'll just sit down, please…"

They sat down, and he departed. Mitch took out a package of cigarettes, proffered one to Red. She refused with a nervous little jerk of her head, and he lit one for himself.

Agate returned. He placed an oblong box on the desk, then withdrew a few feet so that they could have a kind of privacy. Mitch picked up the box, and turned it upside down.

The flash tumbled out off the desk, a cascade of large-denomination bills. Leaning back, he told Red to start counting.

"Aah, no, Mitch…" She gave her head another little jerk. "Let's just get out of here."

"Count it!" he insisted.

She gave him a pleading look, an angrily pleading look. She picked up a packet of bills, and laid it down again. Blindly, she picked up another pack, gave it a clumsy push toward the first. Then, with an almost desperate motion, she stood up.

"Mitch…" A begging whisper. "Please, honey."

"Yes?" he said. "You mean you're satisfied?"

"Yes! Yes, I am, darn you!"

"Well…"

"Please! Please come on."

Mitch said he would have to wait for the money to be put away, and the key returned to him. Red said that she would meet him at the car. And she left hastily, not looking back.

He followed her after a few minutes. She obviously felt miserable, ashamed of herself, but he could take no comfort in his triumph. It had cost too much. He loved her too much.

As they neared the apartment house, he told her that he was going to let her go up by herself; and she looked at him frightened. But he smiled reassuringly.

"We both need to get pulled together a little. So let's do it, and then we'll forget it ever happened."

Red bit her lip, blinking back the tears. She told him not to be so d-damned nice. "It's your own fault, d-doggone you! Y-You-you sh-shouldn't have-"

"I shouldn't have asked you to take me on trust," Mitch agreed smoothly. "I'll never do it again, baby."

"Wha-at?" She turned on him, blazing. "Don't you dare say that!"

"But you-"

"Hush! You just hush!"

She almost ran into the apartment house, legs flashing in their seamless hose.

Mitch drove back to town.

In a secluded booth of a swank restaurant, he met and lunched with Agate, explaining the potential deal with Zearsdale and asking for help in swinging it. Agate considered it, munching a bite of cherry torte. When he had swallowed it and taken a sip of coffee, he shook his head.

"No can do, Mitch. The deal would have to go through the bank, which would mean references, et cetera, or heavy collateral."

"But the stock's collateral in itself."

"Oh, come on, now. You don't have the stock until the money's been transferred."

"But you can keep it all in escrow. When you pay the money, you take the stock. Where's the risk in that?"

Agate conceded that there wasn't any. But it was still no soap. "It's one of those things you can do if you already have money, Mitch. If you were the substantial citizen, that is, that Zearsdale thinks you are. As it is, well, they'd try to check it out with him, which would start him to checking on you. And you'd probably wind up with something you wouldn't like."

Mitch grinned wryly. "A hell of a note, isn't it, Lee? If I want to throw a curve, you're my boy. But I bring you something strictly legit, and you're not at home."

"Mmm-mmm." Agate had filled his mouth again. "Good lunch, Mitch."

"Lee… I could move the whole thing in one day. Get the money from you in the morning, cash in the stock, and have it back to you by closing time."

"Whuh!" The banker sprayed crumbs from his mouth, eyes bulging with horror. "Don't say things like that, Mitch!"

"I'd cut the juice right through the center, Lee. Seventy-five G's for each of us."

"Don't! Not another word!" Agate shuddered visibly. "My God, man! How could you even ask me to take a hundred thousand dollars of the bank's money, and turn it over to a- uh-"

Mitch knew it was no use, yet something beyond the knowledge pushed him on. "You know me, Lee. You know I wouldn't pull a fast one on you…"

"No, Mitch. No, no, no!"

"Why, hell, you could go along with me for that matter. What could be more logical? Seventy-five grand just for taking a little walk with me!"

"No, sir! I don't walk anywhere with the bank's money!"

"Well, use your own, then. You could raise it, couldn't you? Well? It's the chance of a lifetime, Lee! Seventy-five thousand dollars for doing absolutely nothing!"

"Nothing?" Agate laughed a little angrily. "Putting up a hundred thousand is nothing?"

"Not for a man like you. Not in view of your profit."

"Well…"

Mitch saw that he was weakening. Glory to God, he was weakening. And taking very careful aim, he threw in the hook.

"Well, forget it, Lee. There's a couple of other prospects I can probably get it from."

"No, now wait!" Agate said. "I-I think I can do it. It's eighty-five thousand net, right? Actually eighty-five instead of a hundred."

"Eighty-five? What do you-" Mitch broke off. "Oh, yes. I promised you fifteen for this morning, didn't I?"

Agate said that fifteen was right. "You know, I only swing about once a year now. If something doesn't look extra good, I don't touch it."

"This wasn't a caper, Lee. The fifteen is a flat loss to me."

"If you say so," Agate shrugged. "Either way, you had me stretched too far for comfort. If anyone else had phoned me to snatch up a hundred and twenty-five thousand on less than a hour's notice, I'd have told 'em to go jump."

"It was an emergency, Lee."

"I know. So," Agate smiled with a trace of nervousness. "With the eighty-five I get together, and the fifteen you give me now…"

"Mmm, yes," Mitch nodded, "that will make it, won't it? How soon can you get your end together?"

"That isn't the question, Mitch. Not right at the moment, it isn't."

"Oh?"

"No." Agate's eyes gleamed coldly behind the rimless glasses. "And if you were about to ask me if I'm worried about getting the fifteen thousand, I'll say no again. I don't have to worry. I know too much about you."

The change that had come over him was amazing. A change so pronounced that the cozy quiet of the restaurant seemed suddenly ominous. He drummed on the table, waiting, watching, his lips tightening into a thin, colorless line. He watched and waited, no longer the amiable, almost priggish acquaintance, but now revealed as the calculating whore he essentially was.

Mitch smiled at him winsomely. "Give me a few days, will you, Lee? I'm a little short this trip."

"That wasn't the agreement, Mitch."

"I honestly can't help it, Lee. My God, you know I'm good for it!"

"A man like you," said Agate, "is good only as long as he keeps his promises."

Mitch would have said the same thing himself, generally speaking. But he hadn't thought that Agate would play it so tough. "All right, Lee," he said, "I should have told you it would be a few days. Only a couple, actually. But you don't mind, do you, as long as you know you're going to get it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

The banker wadded his napkin, laid it on the table and stood up. Mitch also arose, picking up the check, but Agate plucked it from his fingers.

"Sometime when you're not so hard up, Mitch. Say two days from now."

"Aah, Lee…" Mitch winced. "I wish you wouldn't take it like this."

"Fifteen thousand. You'd better have it, Mitch."

He turned and walked away, fitting a Homburg over his pinkish scalp. Mitch looked after him, glumly, knowing that he would have to have the fifteen on the line. Knowing that he had lost his one chance to pick up the Zearsdale option.

13

Many Texas fortunes are old to the point of antiquity, their origins dating back to the copquistadores and huge Spanish land-grants. The founders were cattle-raisers-beef cattle; so also were their descendants, even to the present day. The discovery of oil was looked upon as a by no means lucky accident. It was "stinky stuff," something that spoiled water for the cattle and "messed up" the grazing. Since it was there, it had to be accepted, along with the millions it represented. But their attitude toward it was one of polite disdain. It was "upstart," you know. An infringement upon the civilization of a highly select group, whose forefathers had been living in elegance for centuries.

One has never been properly snubbed until he has come up against these "quality" Texans. Or perhaps snubbed is the wrong word, since one cannot very well be snubbed by a person who does not recognize his existence. Nor can one hardly take offense when that same person may be honestly puzzled at the mention of the Cabots and Lodges.

Who are they, anyway? Easterners?

Oh.

That is one kind of big-money Texan, the "old" money rooted inexorably in cattle. And generally speaking, he tries to live up to the superiority with which he has cloaked himself. His conduct is impeccable. He is a loyal friend, a generous enemy. He shuns ostentation. He is gallant with ladies, a gentleman with men. As good a man in private as he is in public.

All of which is by way of saying that Winfield Lord, Jr., was not that kind of Texan. Nor did he belong to the oilmoney group. In fact, the Lords fitted into none of the established categories, although they were a qualified amalgamation of several.

They were an old family. (The first had been white-trash scum from English prisons.)

They were pioneers. (They had been sneak-thieving camp followers when the Five Civilized Tribes were herded up the Trail of Tears.)

Their wealth had originated in cattle. (Acquired through murder.)

Arriving in what is now Oklahoma, the Lords were successively banished or chased from each of the Tribes' five autonomous Nations. Until, in about 1845, they arrived in the land of the Osages. The Osages were not a Nation, since they were not considered civilized. The government of the United States saw to it that they stayed within their own boundaries, but otherwise they were pretty much free to do as they pleased.

It shortly pleased them to spread-eagle four of the Lords on their backs, prop open their mouths with sticks and pour water down them until they were drowned.

The experience apparently had a wholesome effect on the remaining members of the clan. Fleeing into West Texas, they seem to have committed no outrages for almost a generation. Then, the Civil War broke out, and the Lords reverted to type.

While every able-bodied neighbor galloped away to support the cause of the Stars and Bars, the Lords moved in on their virtually defenseless holdings, inevitably finding other renegades to help them, then killing them off as soon as their work was done. At the war's end, they controlled whole counties. There was no law to appeal to. They were the law.

Gradually, success and its whilom companion, excess, had done what nothing else could do. One by one, the Lords had indulged themselves into early deaths, the exceptions being those who had rubbed the right people the wrong way.

Now, Winfield Lord, tall, dark, handsome, and a first-class son-of-a-bitch, was the last of the male line.

It was, Mitch believed, the one good thing that could be said about him.

He and Lord were in the smaller of the penthouse's two bedrooms. The spread had been pulled back, and the blankets drawn tight on the bed. On the back of it, out of the way of the dice which Lord was about to roll, was a total of two thousand dollars.

He hurled the dice. They bounced against the wall, and came down on the blanket with a craps three. Immediately, he snatched them up, glaring defiantly at Mitch.

"No dice! They slipped out of my hand!"

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Winnie!" It was so ridiculous that Mitch laughed. "Are you really that bad off?"

"I told you they slipped, goddammit! It was no dice!"

"Go ahead," Mitch said wearily. "Have yourself a free roll."

Lord shook the dice vigorously. He breathed on them and kissed them and threw them. Again the dice showed one-two for craps. Mitch picked up the money, and nodded to the cattle heir.

This was it, he knew. Lord was broke again, and Turkelson would cash no more checks for him. All that remained now was to bust him out of the apartment-Red's end, of course- but pretenses had to be kept up.

"Still your dice, Winnie. You haven't had a point yet."

Lord recovered the dice, declaring that he was shooting five thousand dollars. Mitch told him to go right ahead, as soon as he showed the money.

"And don't pull that check routine on me again. I'm not having any."

"Whassa matter?" Lord belched, spewing the sour aroma of whiskey from his finely chiseled mouth. "You saying my check's no good or somethin'?"

"Skip it. I told you we play for cash or not at all. So if you don't have any more..

Lord cursed and snatched up the phone. He got Turkelson on the line, and told him to drag his fat ass up there with five thousand dollars. Met with refusal, he unleashed an obscene tirade upon the manager, ending it with a threat to come down and kick his balls off.

"A fine frigging joint!" He slammed up the phone. "Might as well stay in a goddamned shithouse!"

"Well, there's always another night," Mitch said carelessly. "Let me fix you a drink, Win."

He turned toward the living room. Lord pushed past him, declaring that he'd fix his own drinks and he didn't need any half-assed help to do it.

"'M'n expert, know what I mean?" He grabbed a bottle of Scotch from the bar and began pouring into a beer mug. "Been fixin' drinks since I was tit-high to a tumblebug. First you gotta-"

The sound of the door-chimes interrupted him. Mitch crossed the room and opened the door, and Red walked in. She was wearing a black strapless evening gown, so form-fitting that it seemed to be painted on her. Lord's glass dropped to the floor with a gurgling crash, and Red gave him a dazzling smile, then looked accusingly at Mitch.