The Best American Mystery Stories 2010

Part One

Ed Luby worked as a bodyguard for Al Capone once. And then he went into bootlegging on his own, made a lot of money at it. When the prohibition era ended, Ed Luby went back to his hometown, the old mill town of Ilium. He bought several businesses. One was a restaurant, which he called Ed Luby’s Steak House. It was a very good restaurant. It had a brass knocker on its red front door.

At seven o’clock the other night, Harve and Claire Elliot banged on the door with the brass knocker — because the red door was locked. They had come from a city thirty miles away. It was their fourteenth wedding anniversary. They would be celebrating their anniversary at Luby’s for the fourteenth time.

Harve and Claire Elliot had a lot of kids and a lot of love, and not much money. But once a year they really splurged. They got all dolled up, took twenty dollars out of the sugar bowl, drove over to Ed Luby’s Steak House, and carried on like King Farouk and his latest girlfriend.

There were lights on in Luby’s, and there was music inside. And there were plenty of cars in the parking lot — all a good deal newer than what Harve and Claire arrived in. Their car was an old station wagon whose wood was beginning to rot.

The restaurant was obviously in business, but the red front door wouldn’t budge. Harve banged away some more with the knocker, and the door suddenly swung open. Ed Luby himself opened it. He was a vicious old man, absolutely bald, short and heavy, built like a.45-caliber slug.

He was furious. “What in hell you trying to do — drive the members nuts?” he said in a grackle voice.

“What?” said Harve.

Luby swore. He looked at the knocker. “That thing comes down right now,” he said. “All the dumb things — a knocker on the door.” He turned to the big thug who lurked behind him. “Take the knocker down right now,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said the thug. He went to look for a screwdriver.

“Mr. Luby?” said Harve, puzzled, polite. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” said Luby. “I’m the one who oughta be asking what’s going on.” He still looked at the knocker rather than at Harve and Claire. “What’s the big idea?” he said. “Halloween or something? Tonight’s the night people put on funny costumes and go knock on private doors till the people inside go nuts?”

The crack about funny costumes was obviously meant to hit Claire Elliot squarely — and it did. Claire was vulnerable — not because she looked funny, but because she had made the dress she wore, because her fur coat was borrowed. Claire looked marvelous, as a matter of fact, looked marvelous to anyone with an eye for beauty, beauty that had been touched by life. Claire was still slender, affectionate, tremendously optimistic. What time and work and worry had done to her was to make her look, permanently, the least bit tired.

Harve Elliot didn’t react very fast to Luby’s crack. The anniversary mood was still upon Harve. All anxieties, all expectations of meanness were still suspended. Harve wasn’t going to pay any attention to anything but pleasure. He simply wanted to get inside, where the music and the food and the good drinks were.

“The door was stuck,” said Harve. “I’m sorry, Mr. Luby. The door was stuck.”

“Wasn’t stuck,” said Luby. “Door was locked

“You — you’re closed?” said Harve gropingly.

“It’s a private club now,” said Luby. “Members all got a key. You got a key?”

“No,” said Harve. “How — how do we get one?”

“Fill out a application, pay a hundred dollars, wait and see what the membership committee says,” said Luby. “Takes two weeks — sometimes a month.”

“A hundred dollars!” said Harve.

“I don’t think this is the kind of place you folks would be happy at,” said Luby.

“We’ve been coming here for our anniversary for fourteen years,” said Harve, and he felt himself turning red.

“Yeah — I know,” said Luby. “I remember you real well.”

“You do?” said Harve hopefully.

Luby turned really nasty now. “Yeah, big shot,” he said to Harve, “you tipped me a quarter once. Me — Luby — I own the joint, and one time you slip me a big, fat quarter. Pal, I’ll never forget you for that.”

Luby made an impatient sweeping motion with his stubby hand. “You two mind stepping out of the way?” he said to Harve and Claire. “You’re blocking the door. A couple of members are trying to get in.”

Harve and Claire stepped back humbly.

The two members whose way they had been blocking now advanced on the door grandly. They were man and wife, middle-aged — porky, complacent, their faces as undistinguished as two cheap pies. The man wore new dinner clothes. The woman was a caterpillar in a pea green evening gown and dark, oily mink.

“Evening, Judge,” said Luby. “Evening, Mrs. Wampler.”

Judge Wampler held a golden key in his hand. “I don’t get to use this?” he said.

“Happen to have the door open for some minor repairs,” said Luby.

“I see,” said the judge.

“Taking the knocker down,” said Luby. “Folks come up here, won’t believe it’s a private club, drive the members nuts banging on the door.”

The judge and his lady glanced at Harve and Claire with queasy scorn. “We aren’t the first to arrive, are we?” said the judge.

“Police chief’s been here an hour,” said Luby. “Doc Waldron, Kate, Charley, the mayor — the whole gang’s in there.”

“Good,” said the judge, and he and his lady went in.

The thug, Ed Luby’s bodyguard, came back with a screwdriver. “These people still giving you a hard time, Ed?” he said. He didn’t wait for an answer. He bellied up to Harve. “Go on — beat it, Junior,” he said.

“Come on, Harve — let’s get out of here,” said Claire. She was close to tears.

“That’s right — beat it,” said Luby. “What you want is something like the Sunrise Diner. Get a good hamburger steak dinner there for a dollar and a half. All the coffee you can drink on the house. Leave a quarter under your plate. They’ll think you’re Diamond Jim Brady.”

Harve and Claire Elliot got back into their old station wagon. Harve was so bitter and humiliated that he didn’t dare to drive for a minute or two. He made claws of his shaking hands, wanted to choke Ed Luby and his bodyguard to death.

One of the subjects Harve covered in profane, broken sentences was the twenty-five-cent tip he had once given Luby. “Fourteen years ago — our first anniversary,” said Harve. “That’s when I handed that miserable b-a quarter! And he never forgot!”

“He’s got a right to make it a club, if he wants to,” said Claire emptily.

Luby’s bodyguard now had the knocker down. He and Luby went inside, slammed the big red door.

“Sure he does!” said Harve. “Certainly he’s got a right! But the stinking little rat doesn’t have a right to insult people the way he insulted us.”

“He’s sick,” said Claire.

“All right!” said Harve, and he hammered on the dashboard with his folded hands. “All right — he’s sick. Let’s kill all the people who are sick the way Luby is.”

“Look,” said Claire.

“At what?” said Harve. “What could I see that would make me feel any better or any worse?”

“Just look at the wonderful kind of people who get to be members,” said Claire.

Two very drunk people, a man and a woman, were getting out of a taxicab.

The man, in trying to pay the cab driver, dropped a lot of change and his gold key to the Key Club. He got down on his hands and knees to look for it.

The sluttish woman with him leaned against the cab, apparently couldn’t stand unsupported.

The man stood up with the key. He was very proud of himself for having found it. “Key to the most exclusive club in Ilium,” he told the cab driver.

Then he took out his billfold, meaning to pay his fare. And he discovered that the smallest bill he had was a twenty, which the driver couldn’t change.

“You wait right here,” said the drunk. “We’ll go in and get some change.”

He and the woman reeled up the walk to the door. He tried again and again to slip the key into the lock, but all he could hit was wood. “Open Sesame!” he’d say, and he’d laugh, and he’d miss again.

“Nice people they’ve got in this club,” Claire said to Harve. “Aren’t you sorry we’re not members too?”

The drunk finally hit the keyhole, turned the lock. He and his girl literally fell into the Key Club.

Seconds later they came stumbling out again, bouncing off the bellies of Ed Luby and his thug.

“Out! Out!” Luby squawked in the night. “Where’d you get that key?” When the drunk didn’t answer, Luby gathered the drunk’s lapels and backed him up to the building. “Where’d you get that key?”

“Harry Varnum lent it to me,” said the drunk.

“You tell Harry he ain’t a member here anymore,” said Luby. “Anybody lends his key to a punk lush like you — he ain’t a member anymore.”

He turned his attention to the drunk’s companion. “Don’t you ever come out here again,” he said to her. “I wouldn’t let you in if you was accompanied by the President of the United States. That’s one reason I turned this place into a club — so I could keep pigs like you out, so I wouldn’t have to serve good food to a —-” And he called her what she obviously was.

“There’s worse things than that,” she said.

“Name one,” said Luby.

“I never killed anybody,” she said. “That’s more than you can say.”

The accusation didn’t bother Luby at all. “You want to talk to the chief of police about that?” he said. “You want to talk to the mayor? You want to talk to Judge Wampler about that? Murder’s a very serious crime in this town.” He moved very close to her, looked her up and down. “So’s being a loudmouth, and so’s being a—” He called her what she was again.

“You make me sick,” he said.

And then he slapped her with all his might. He hit her so hard that she spun and crumpled without making a sound.

The drunk backed away from her, from Luby, from Luby’s thug. He did nothing to help her, only wanted to get away.

But Harve Elliot was out of his car and running at Luby before his wife could stop him.

Harve hit Luby once in the belly, a belly that was as hard as a cast-iron boiler.

That satisfaction was the last thing Harve remembered — until he came to in his car. The car was going fast. Claire was driving.

Harve’s clinging, aching head was lolling on the shoulder of his wife of fourteen years.

Claire’s cheeks were wet with recent tears. But she wasn’t crying now. She was grim. She was purposeful.

She was driving fast through the stunted, mean, and filthy business district of Ilium. Streetlights were faint and far apart.

Tracks of a long-abandoned streetcar system caught at the wheels of the old station wagon again and again.

A clock in front of a jeweler’s store had stopped. Neon signs, all small, all red, said BAR and BEER and EAT and TAXI.

“Where we going?” said Harve.

“Darling! How do you feel?” she said.

“Don’t know,” said Harve.

“You should see yourself,” she said.

“What would I see?” he said.

“Blood all over your shirt. Your good suit ruined,” she said. “I’m looking for the hospital.”

Harve sat up, worked his shoulders and his neck gingerly. He explored the back of his head with his hand. “I’m that bad?” he said. “Hospital?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I–I don’t feel too had,” he said.

“Maybe you don’t need to go to the hospital,” said Claire, “but she does.”

“Who?” said Harve.

“The girl — the woman,” said Claire. “In the back.”

Paying a considerable price in pain, Harve turned to look into the back of the station wagon.

The back seat had been folded down, forming a truck bed. On that hard, jouncing bed, on a sandy blanket, lay the woman Ed Luby had hit. Her head was pillowed on a child’s snowsuit. She was covered by a man’s overcoat.

The drunk who had brought her to the Key Club was in back too. He was sitting tailor-fashion. The overcoat was his. He was a big clown turned gray and morbid. His slack gaze told Harve that he did not want to be spoken to.

“How did we get these two?” said Harve.

“Ed Luby and his friends made us a present of them,” said Claire.

Her bravery was starting to fail her. It was almost time to cry again. “They threw you and the woman into the car,” she said. “They said they’d beat me up too if I didn’t drive away.”

Claire was too upset to drive now. She pulled over to the curb and wept.

Harve, trying to comfort Claire, heard the back door of the station wagon open and shut. The big clown had gotten out.

He had taken his overcoat from the woman, was standing on the sidewalk, putting the coat on.

“Where you think you’re going?” Harve said to him. “Stay back there and take care of that woman!”

“She doesn’t need me, buddy,” said the man. “She needs an undertaker. She’s dead.”

In the distance, its siren wailing, its roof lights flashing, a patrol car was coming.

“Here come your friends, the policemen,” said the man. He turned up an alley, was gone.

The patrol car nosed in front of the old station wagon. Its revolving flasher made a hellish blue merry-go-round of the buildings and street.

Two policemen got out. Each had a pistol in one hand, a bright flashlight in the other.

“Hands up,” said one. “Don’t try anything.”

Harve and Claire raised their hands.

“You the people who made all the trouble out at Luby’s Key Club?” The man who asked was a sergeant.

“Trouble?” said Harve.

“You must be the guy who hit the girl,” said the sergeant.

“Me?” said Harve.

“They got her in the back,” said the other policeman. He opened the back door of the station wagon, looked at the woman, lifted her white hand, let it fall. “Dead,” he said.

“We were taking her to the hospital,” said Harve.

“That makes everything all right?” said the sergeant. “Slug her, then take her to the hospital, and that makes everything all right?”

“I didn’t hit her,” said Harve. “Why would I hit her?”

“She said something to your wife you didn’t like,” said the sergeant.

“Luby hit her,” said Harve. “It was Luby.”

“That’s a good story, except for a couple of little details,” said the sergeant.

‘“What details?” said Harve.

“Witnesses,” said the sergeant. “Talk about witnesses, brother,” he said, “the mayor, the chief of police, Judge Wampler and his wife — they all saw you do it.”

Harve and Claire Elliot were taken to the squalid Ilium Police Headquarters.

They were fingerprinted, were given nothing with which to wipe the ink off their hands. This particular humiliation happened so fast, and was conducted with such firmness, that Harve and Claire reacted with amazement rather than indignation.

Everything was happening so fast, and in such unbelievable surroundings, that Harve and Claire had only one thing to cling to — a childlike faith that innocent persons never had anything to fear.

Claire was taken into an office for questioning. “What should I say?” she said to Harve as she was being led away.

“Tell them the truth!” said Harve. He turned to the sergeant who had brought him in, who was guarding him now. “Could I use the phone, please?” he said.

“To call a lawyer?” said the sergeant.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” said Harve. “I want to call the baby-sitter. I want to tell her we’ll be home a little late.”

The sergeant laughed. “A little late?” he said. He had a long scar that ran down one cheek, over his fat lips, and down his blocky chin. “A little late?” he said again. “Brother, you’re gonna be about twenty years late getting home — twenty years if you’re lucky.”

“I didn’t have a thing to do with the death of that woman,” said Harve.

“Let’s hear what the witnesses say, huh?” said the sergeant. “They’ll be along in a little bit.”

“If they saw what happened,” said Harve, “I’ll be out of here five minutes after they get here. If they’ve made a mistake, if they really think they saw me do it, you can still let my wife go.”

“Let me give you a little lesson in law, buddy,” said the sergeant. “Your wife’s an accessory to the murder. She drove the getaway car. She’s in this as deep as you are.”

Harve was told that he could do all the telephoning he wanted — could do it after he had been questioned by the captain.

His turn to see the captain came an hour later. He asked the captain where Claire was. He was told that Claire had been locked up.

“That was necessary?” said Harve.

“Funny custom we got around here,” said the captain. “We lock up anybody we think had something to do with a murder.” He was a short, thickset, balding man. Harve found something vaguely familiar in his features.

“Your name’s Harvey K. Elliot?” said the captain.

“That’s right,” said Harve.

“You claim no previous criminal record?” said the captain.

“Not even a parking ticket,” said Harve.

“We can check on that,” said the captain.

“Wish you would,” said Harve.

“As I told your wife,” said the captain, “you really pulled a bone-head mistake, trying to pin this thing on Ed Luby. You happened to pick about the most respected man in town.”

“All due respect to Mr. Luby—” Harve began.

The captain interrupted him angrily, banged on his desk. “I heard enough of that from your wife!” he said. “I don’t have to listen to any more of it from you!”

“What if I’m telling the truth?” said Harve.

“You think we haven’t checked your story?” said the captain.

“What about the man who was with her out there?” said Harve. “He’ll tell you what really happened. Have you tried to find him?”

The captain looked at Harve with malicious pity. “There wasn’t any man,” he said. “She went out there alone, went out in a taxicab.”

“That’s wrong!” said Harve. “Ask the cab driver. There was a man with her!”

The captain banged on his desk again. “Don’t tell me I’m wrong,” he said. “We talked to the cab driver. He swears she was alone. Not that we need any more witnesses,” he said. “The driver swears he saw you hit her too.”

The telephone on the captain’s desk rang. The captain answered, his eyes still on Harve. “Captain Luby speaking,” he said.

And then he said to the sergeant standing behind Harve, “Get this jerk out of here. He’s making me sick. Lock him up downstairs.”

The sergeant hustled Harve out of the office and down an iron staircase to the basement. There were cells down there.

Two naked lightbulbs in the corridor gave all the light there was. There were duckboards in the corridor, because the floor was wet.

“The captain’s Ed Luby’s brother?” Harve asked the sergeant.

“Any law against a policeman having a brother?” said the sergeant.

“Claire!” Harve yelled, wanting to know what cell in Hell his wife was in.

“They got her upstairs, buddy,” said the sergeant.

“I want to see her!” said Harve. “I want to talk to her! I want to make sure she’s all right!”

“Want a lot of things, don’t you?” said the sergeant. He shoved Harve into a narrow cell, shut the door with a clang.

“I want my rights!” said Harve.

The sergeant laughed. “You got ’em, friend. You can do anything you want in there,” he said, “just as long as you don’t damage any government property.”

The sergeant went back upstairs.

‘There didn’t seem to be another soul in the basement. The only sounds that Harve could hear were footfalls overhead.

Harve gripped his barred door, tried to find some meaning in the footfalls.

There were the sounds of many big men walking together — one shift coming on, another going off, Harve supposed.

There was the clacking of a woman’s sharp heels. The clacking was so quick and free and businesslike that the heels could hardly belong to Claire.

Somebody moved a heavy piece of furniture. Something fell. Somebody laughed. Several people suddenly arose and moved their chairs back at the same time.

And Harve knew what it was to be buried alive.

He yelled. “Hey, up there! Help!” he yelled.

A reply came from close by. Someone groaned drowsily in another cell.

“Who’s that?” said Harve.

“Go to sleep,” said the voice. It was rusty, sleepy, irritable.

“What kind of a town is this?” said Harve.

“What kind of a town is any town?” said the voice. “You got any big-shot friends?”

“No,” said Harve.

“Then it’s a bad town,” said the voice. “Get some sleep.”

“They’ve got my wife upstairs,” said Harve. “I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got to do something.”

“Go ahead,” said the voice. It chuckled ruefully.

“Do you know Ed Luby?” said Harve.

“You mean do I know who he is?” said the voice. “Who doesn’t? You mean is he a friend of mine? If he was, you think I’d be locked up down here? I’d be out at Ed’s club, eating a two-inch steak on the house, and the cop who brought me in would have had his brains beat out.”

“Ed Luby’s that important?” said Harve.

“Important?” said the voice. “Ed Luby? You never heard the story about the psychiatrist who went to Heaven?”

“What?” said Harve.

The voice told an old, old story — with a local variation. “This psychiatrist died and went to Heaven, see? And Saint Peter was tickled to death to see him. Seems God was having mental troubles, needed treatment bad. The psychiatrist asked Saint Peter what God’s symptoms were. And Saint Peter whispered in his ear, ‘God thinks He’s Ed Luby.’”

The heels of the businesslike woman clacked across the floor above again. A telephone rang.

“Why should one man be so important?” said Harve.

“Ed Luby’s all there is in Ilium,” said the voice. “That answer your question? Ed came back here during the Depression. He had all the dough he’d made in bootlegging in Chicago. Everything in Ilium was closed down, for sale. Ed Luby bought.”

“I see,” said Harve, beginning to understand how scared he’d better be.

“Funny thing,” said the voice, “people who get along with Ed, do what Ed says, say what Ed likes to hear — they have a pretty nice time in old Ilium. You take the chief of police now — salary’s eight thousand a year. Been chief for five years now. He’s managed his salary so well he’s got a seventy-thousand-dollar house all paid for, three cars, a summer place on Cape Cod, and a thirty-foot cabin cruiser. Of course, he isn’t doing near as good as Luby’s brother.”

“The captain?” said Harve.

“Of course, the captain earns everything he gets,” said the voice. “He’s the one who really runs the Police Department. He owns the Ilium Hotel now — and the cab company. Also Radio Station WKLL, the friendly voice of Ilium.

“Some other people doing pretty well in Ilium too,” said the voice. “Old Judge Wampler and the mayor—”

“I got the idea,” said Harve tautly.

“Doesn’t take long,” said the voice.

“Isn’t there anybody against Luby?” said Harve.

“Dead,” said the voice. “Let’s get some sleep, eh?”

Ten minutes later, Harve was taken upstairs again. He wasn’t hustled along this time, though he was in the care of the same sergeant who had locked him up. The sergeant was gentle now — even a little apologetic.

At the head of the iron stairs, they were met by Captain Luby, whose manners were changed for the better too. The captain encouraged Harve to think of him as a prankish boy with a heart of gold.

Captain Luby put his hand on Harve’s arm, and he smiled, and he said, “We’ve been rough on you, Mr. Elliot, and we know it. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to understand that police have to get rough sometimes — especially in a murder investigation.”

“That’s fine,” said Harve, “except you’re getting rough with the wrong people.”

Captain Luby shrugged philosophically. “Maybe — maybe not,” he said. “That’s for a court to decide.”

“If it has to come to that,” said Harve.

“I think you’d better talk to a lawyer as soon as possible,” said the captain.

“I think so too,” said Harve.

“There’s one in the station house now, if you want to ask him,” said the captain.

“Another one of Ed Luby’s brothers?” said Harve.

Captain Luby looked surprised, and then he decided to laugh. He laughed very hard. “I don’t blame you for saying that,” he said. “I can imagine how things look to you.”

“You can?” said Harve.

“You get in a jam in a strange town,” said the captain, “and all of a sudden it looks to you like everybody’s named Luby.” He laughed again. “There’s just me and my brother — just the two Lubys — that’s all. This lawyer out front — not only isn’t he any relative, he hates my guts and Ed’s too. That make you feel any better?”

“Maybe,” said Harve carefully.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said the captain. “You want him or not?”

“I’ll let you know after I’ve talked to him,” said Harve.

“Go tell Lemming we maybe got a client for him,” said the captain to the sergeant.

“I want my wife here too,” said Harve.

“Naturally,” said the captain. “No argument there. She’ll be right down.”

The lawyer, whose name was Frank Lemming, was brought in to Harve long before Claire was. Lemming carried a battered black briefcase that seemed to have very little in it. He was a small, pear-shaped man.

Lemming’s name was stamped on the side of his briefcase in big letters. He was shabby, puffy, short-winded. The only outward sign that he might have a little style, a little courage, was an outsize mustache.

When he opened his mouth, he let out a voice that was deep, majestic, unafraid. He demanded to know if Harve had been threatened or hurt in any way. He talked to Captain Luby and the sergeant as though they were the ones in trouble.

Harve began to feel a good deal better.

“Would you gentlemen kindly leave,” said Lemming, calling the police gentlemen with grand irony. “I want to talk to my client alone.”

The police left meekly.

“You’re certainly a breath of fresh air,” said Harve.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been called that,” said Lemming.

“I was beginning to think I was in the middle of Nazi Germany,” said Harve.

“You sound like a man who’s never been arrested before,” said Lemming.

“I never have been,” said Harve.

“There’s always got to be a first time,” said Lemming pleasantly. “What’s the charge?”

“They didn’t tell you?” said Harve.

“They just told me they had somebody back here who wanted a lawyer,” said Lemming. “I was here on another case.” He sat down, put his limp briefcase against the leg of his chair. “So what’s the charge?”

“They — they’ve been talking about murder,” said Harve.

This news fazed Lemming only briefly. “These morons they call the Ilium Police Force,” he said, “everything’s murder to them. What did you do it with?”

“I didn’t,” said Harve.

“What did they say you did it with?” said Lemming.

“My fist,” said Harve.

“You hit a man in a fight — and he died?” said Lemming.

“I didn’t hit anybody!” said Harve.

“All right, all right, all right,” said Lemming calmingly.

“Are you in with these guys too?” said Harve. “Are you part of the nightmare too?”

Lemming cocked his head. “Maybe you better explain that?” he said.

“Everybody in Ilium works for Ed Luby, I hear,” said Harve. “I guess you do too.”

“Me?” said Lemming. “Are you kidding? You heard how I talk to Luby’s brother. I’d talk to Ed Luby the same way. They don’t scare me.”

“Maybe—” said Harve, watching Lemming closely, wanting with all his heart to trust him.

“I’m hired?” said Lemming.

“How much will it cost?” said Harve.

“Fifty dollars to start,” said Lemming.

“You mean right now?” said Harve.

“The class of people I do business with,” said Lemming, “I get paid right away, or I never get paid.”

“All I’ve got with me is twenty,” said Harve.

“That’ll do nicely for the moment,” said Lemming. He held out his hand.

As Lemming was putting the money into his billfold, a policewoman with clacking heels brought Claire Elliot in.

Claire was snow-white. She wouldn’t speak until the policewoman was gone. When she did speak, her voice was ragged, barely under control.

Harve embraced her, encouraged her. “We’ve got a lawyer now,” he said. “We’ll be all right now. He knows what to do.”

“I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anybody around here!” said Claire. She was wild-eyed. “Harve! I’ve got to talk to you alone!”

“I’ll be right outside,” said Lemming. “Call me when you want me.” He left his briefcase where it was.

“Has anybody threatened you?” Claire said to Harve, when Lemming was gone.

“There’s been some pretty rough talk,” said Harve.

“Has anybody threatened to kill you?” she said.

“No,” said Harve.

Claire whispered now. “Somebody’s threatened to kill me, and you—” Here she broke down. “And the children,” she whispered brokenly.

Harve exploded. “Who?” he said at the top of his lungs. “Who threatened that?” he replied.

Claire put her hand over his mouth, begged him to be quiet.

Harve took her hand away. “Who?” he said.

Claire didn’t even whisper her answer. She just moved her lips. “The captain,” her lips said. She clung to him. “Please,” she whispered, “keep your voice down. We’ve got to be calm. We’ve got to think. We’ve got to make up a new story.”

“About what?” said Harve.

“About what happened,” she said. She shook her head. “We mustn’t ever tell what really happened again.”

“My God,” said Harve, “is this America?”

“I don’t know what it is,” said Claire. “I just know we’ve got to make up a new story — or — or something terrible will happen.”

“Something terrible already has happened,” said Harve.

“Worse things can still happen,” said Claire.

Harve thought hard, the heels of his hands in his eye sockets. “If they’re trying that hard to scare us,” he said, “then they must be plenty scared too. There must be plenty of harm we could do them.”

“How?” said Claire.

“By sticking to the truth,” said Harve. “That’s pretty plain, isn’t it? That’s what they want to make us stop doing.”

“I don’t want to do anybody any harm,” said Claire. “I just want to get out of here. I just want to go home.”

“All right,” said Harve. “We’ve got a lawyer now. That’s a start.”

Harve called to Lemming, who came in rubbing his hands. “Secret conference over?” he said cheerfully.

“Yes,” said Harve.

“Well, secrets are all very fine in their place,” said Lemming, “but I recommend strongly that you don’t keep any from your lawyer.”

“Harve—” said Claire warningly.

“He’s right,” said Harve. “Don’t you understand — he’s right.”

“She’s in favor of holding a little something back?” said Lemming.

“She’s been threatened. That’s the reason,” said Harve.

“By whom?” said Lemming.

“Don’t tell him,” said Claire beseechingly.

“We’ll save that for a little while,” said Harve. “The thing is, Mr. Lemming, I didn’t commit this murder they say I did. But my wife and I saw who really did it, and we’ve been threatened with all kinds of things, if we tell what we saw.”

“Don’t tell,” said Claire. “Harve — don’t.”

“I give you my word of honor, Mrs. Elliot,” said Lemming, “nothing you or your husband tells me will go any farther.” He was proud of his word of honor, was a very appealing person when he gave it. “Now tell me who really did this killing.”

“Ed Luby,” said Harve.

“I beg your pardon?” said Lemming blankly.

“Ed Luby,” said Harve.

Lemming sat back, suddenly drained and old. “I see,” he said. His voice wasn’t deep now. It was like wind in the treetops.

“He’s a powerful man around here,” said Harve, “I hear.”

Lemming nodded. “You heard that right,” he said.

Harve started to tell about how Luby had killed the girl. Lemming stopped him.

“What’s — what’s the matter?” said Harve.

Lemming gave him a wan smile. “That’s a very good question,” he said. “That’s — that’s a very complicated question.”

“You work for him, after all?” said Harve.

“Maybe I do — after all,” said Lemming.

“You see?” Claire said to Harve.

Lemming took out his billfold, handed the twenty dollars back to Harve.

“You quit?” said Harve.

“Let’s say,” said Lemming sadly, “that any advice you get from me from now on is free. I’m not the lawyer for this case — and any advice I have to give doesn’t have much to do with the law.” He spread his hands. “I’m a legal hack, friends. That must be obvious. If what you say is true—”

“It is true!” said Harve.

“Then you need a lawyer who can fight a whole town,” said Lemming, “because Ed Luby is this town. I’ve won a lot of cases in Ilium, but they were all cases Ed Luby didn’t care about.” He stood. “If what you say is true, this isn’t a case — it’s a war.”

“What am I going to do?” said Harve.

“My advice to you,” said Lemming, “is to be as scared as your wife is, Mr. Elliot.”

Lemming nodded, and then he scuttled away.

Seconds later, the sergeant came in for Harve and Claire, marched them through a door and into a room where a floodlight blinded them. Whispers came from the darkness beyond.

“What’s this?” said Harve, his arm around Claire.

“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” said the voice of Captain Luby.

“I want a lawyer,” said Harve.

“You had one,” said the captain. “What happened to Lemming?”

“He quit,” said Harve.

Somebody snickered.

“That’s funny?” said Harve bitterly.

“Shut up,” said Captain Luby.

“This is funny?” Harve said to the whispering blackness. “A man and a woman up here who never broke a law in their whole lives — accused of killing a woman they tried to save—”

Captain Luby emerged from the blackness. He showed Harve what he had in his right hand. It was a slab of rubber about four inches wide, eight inches long, and half an inch thick.

“This is what I call Captain Luby’s wise-guy-wiser-upper,” he said. He put the piece of rubber against Harve’s cheek caressingly. “You can’t imagine how much pain one slap from this thing causes,” he said. “I’m surprised all over again, every time I use it. Now stand apart, stand straight, keep your mouths shut, and face the witnesses.”

Harve’s determination to break jail was born when the clammy rubber touched his cheek.

By the time the captain had returned to the whispering darkness, Harve’s determination had become an obsession. No other plan would do.

Out in the darkness, a man now said in a clear, proud voice that he had seen Harve hit the girl. He identified himself as the mayor of Ilium.

The mayor’s wife was honored to back him up.

Harve did not protest. He was too busy sensing all he could of what lay beyond the light. Someone now came in from another room, showing Harve where a door was, showing him what lay beyond the door.

Beyond the door he glimpsed a foyer. Beyond the foyer he glimpsed the great outdoors.

Now Captain Luby was asking Judge Wampler if he had seen Harve hit the girl.

“Yes,” that fat man said gravely. “And I saw his wife help him to make a getaway too.”

Mrs. Wampler spoke up. “They’re the ones, all right,” she said. “It was one of the most terrible things I ever saw in my life. I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

Harve tried to make out the first row of people, the first people he had to pass. He could make out only one person with any certainty. He could make out the policewoman with the clacking heels. She was taking notes now on all that was being said.

Harve decided to charge past her in thirty seconds.

He began to count the seconds away.

Part Two

Harve Elliot stood in front of a blinding light with his wife, Claire. He had never committed a crime in his life. He was now counting off the seconds before he would break jail, before he would run away from the charge of murder.

He was listening to a supposed witness to his crime, to the man who had actually committed the murder. Ed Luby, somewhere behind the light, told his tale. Luby’s brother, a captain on the Ilium Police Force, asked helpful questions from time to time.

“Three months ago,” said Ed Luby, “I turned my restaurant into a private club — to keep undesirable elements out.” Luby, the expert on undesirable elements, had once been a gunman for Al Capone.

“I guess those two up there,” he said, meaning Harve and Claire, “didn’t hear about it — or maybe they figured it didn’t apply to them. Anyway, they showed up tonight, and they got sore when they couldn’t get in, and they hung around the front door, insulting the members.”

“You ever see them before?” Captain Luby asked him.

“Back before the place was a private club,” said Luby, “these two used to come in about once a year. The reason I remembered ’em from one year to the next was the man was always loaded. And he’d get drunker in my place — and he’d turn mean.”

“Mean?” said the captain.

“He’d pick fights,” said Luby, “not just with men either.”

“So what happened tonight?” said the captain.

“These two were hanging around the door, making trouble for the members,” said Luby, “and a dame came out in a taxi, all by herself. I don’t know what she figured on doing. Figured on picking up somebody on the way in, I guess. Anyway, she got stopped too, so I had three people hanging around outside my door. And they got in some kind of argument with each other.”

All that interested Harve Elliot was the effect Luby’s tale was having on the mood in the room. Harve couldn’t see Luby, but he sensed that everyone was watching the man, was fascinated by him.

Now, Harve decided, was the time to run.

“I don’t want you to take my word for what happened next,” said Luby, “on account of I understand some people claim it was me who hit the girl.”

“We’ve got the statements of other witnesses,” said the captain sympathetically. “So you go ahead and give us your version, and we can double-check it.”

“Well,” said Luby, “the dame who came out in the taxi called the other dame — the dame up there—”

“Mrs. Elliot,” said the captain.

“Yeah,” said Luby. “She calls Mrs. Elliot something Mr. Elliot don’t like, and the next thing I knew, Mr. Elliot had hauled off and—”

Harve Elliot plunged past the light and into the darkness. He charged at the door and the freedom beyond.

Harve lay under an old sedan in a used-car lot. He was a block from the Ilium Police Station. His ears roared and his chest quaked. Centuries before he had broken jail. He had knocked people and doors and furniture out of his way effortlessly, had scattered them like leaves.

Guns had gone off, seemingly right by his head.

Now men were shouting in the night, and Harve lay under the car.

One clear image came to Harve from his fantastic flight — and only one. He remembered the face of the policewoman, the first person between him and freedom. Harve had flung her into the glare of the floodlight, had seen her livid, shocked face.

And that was the only face he’d seen.

The hunt for Harve — what Harve heard of it — sounded foolish, slovenly, demoralized. When Harve got his wind and his wits back, he felt marvelous. He wanted to laugh out loud and yell. He had won so far, and he would go on winning. He would get to the State Police. He would bring them back to Ilium to free Claire.

After that, Harve would hire the best lawyer he could find, clear himself, put Luby in prison, and sue the rotten city of Ilium for a blue million.

Harve peered out from under the car. His hunters were not coming toward him. They were moving away, blaming each other with childish querulousness for having let him escape.

Harve crawled out from under the car, crouched, listened. And then he began to walk carefully, always in shadows. He moved with the cunning of an infantry scout. The filth and feeble lights of the city, so recently his enemies, were his friends now.

And, moving with his back to sooty walls, ducking into doorways of decaying buildings, Harve realized that pure evil was his friend too. Eluding it, outwitting it, planning its destruction all gave his life inconceivably exciting meanings.

A newspaper scuttled by, tumbled in a night breeze, seemed on its raffish way out of Ilium too.

Far, far away a gun went off. Harve wondered what had been shot at — or shot.

Few cars moved in Ilium. And even rarer were people on foot. Two silent, shabby lovers passed within a few feet of Harve without seeing him.

A lurching drunk did see Harve, murmured some quizzical insult, lurched on.

Now a siren wailed — and then another, and yet another. Patrol cars were fanning out from the Ilium Police Station, idiotically advertising themselves with noise and lights.

One car set up a noisy, flashy roadblock not far from Harve. It blocked an underpass through the high, black rampart of a railroad bed. That much of what the police were doing was intelligent, because the car made a dead end of the route that Harve had been taking.

The railroad bed loomed like the Great Wall of China to Harve. Beyond it lay what he thought of as freedom. He had to think of freedom as being something close, as being just one short rush away. Actually, on the other side of the black rampart lay more of Ilium — more faint lights and broken streets. Hope, real hope, lay far, far beyond — lay miles beyond, lay on a superhighway, the fast, clean realm of the State Police.

But Harve now had to pretend that passing over or through the rampart was all that remained for him to do.

He crept to the railroad bed, moved along its cindery face, moved away from the underpass that the police had blocked.

He found himself approaching yet another underpass that was blocked by a car. He could hear talk. He recognized the voice of the talker. It was the voice of Captain Luby.

“Don’t bother taking this guy alive,” the captain said. “He’s no good to himself or anybody else alive. Do the taxpayers a favor, and shoot to kill.”

Somewhere a train whistle blew.

And then Harve saw a culvert that cut through the bed of the railroad. It seemed at first to be too close to Captain Luby. But then the captain swept the approaches with a powerful flashlight, showed Harve the trench that fed the culvert. It crossed a field littered with oil drums and trash.

When Captain Luby’s light went off, Harve crawled out onto the field, reached the ditch, slithered in. In its shallow, slimy shelter, he moved toward the culvert.

The train that had whistled was approaching now. Its progress was grindingly, clankingly slow.

When the train was overhead, its noise at a maximum, Harve ducked into the culvert. Without thought of an ambush on the other side, he emerged, scrambled up the cinder slope.

He swung onboard the rusty rungs of an empty gondola in the moving train.

Eternities later, the slow-moving train had carried Harve Elliot out of Ilium. It was making its complaining way now through a seemingly endless wasteland — through woods and neglected fields.

Harve’s eyes, stinging in the night wind, searched for light and motion ahead, for some outpost of the world that would help him rescue his wife.

The train rounded a curve. And Harve saw lights that, in the midst of the rural desolation, looked as lively as a carnival.

What made all that seeming life was a red flasher at a grade crossing, and the headlights of one car stopped by the flasher.

As the gondola rallied over the crossing, Harve dropped off and rolled.

He stood, went unsteadily to the stopped automobile. When he got past the headlights, he could see that the driver was a young woman.

He could see too how terrified she was.

“Listen! Wait! Please!” said Harve.

The woman jammed her car in gear, sent the car bucking past Harve and over the crossing as the end of the caboose went by.

Her rear wheels threw cinders in Harve’s eyes.

When he had cleared his eyes, her taillights were twinkling off into the night, were gone.

The train was gone too.

And the noisy red flasher was dead.

Harve stood alone in a countryside as still and bleak as the arctic. Nowhere was there a light to mark a house.

The train blew its sad horn — far away now.

Harve put his hands to his cheeks. They were wet. They were grimed. And he looked around at the lifeless night, remembered the nightmare in Ilium. He kept his hands on his cheeks. Only his hands and his cheeks seemed real.

He began to walk.

No more cars came.

On he trudged, with no way of knowing where he was, where he was heading. Sometimes he imagined that he heard or saw signs of a busy highway in the distance — the faint singing of tires, the billowing of lights.

He was mistaken.

He came at last to a dark farmhouse. A radio murmured inside.

He knocked on the door.

Somebody stirred. The radio went off.

Harve knocked again. The glass pane in the door was loose, rattled when Harve knocked. Harve put his face to the pane. He saw the sullen red of a cigarette. It cast only enough light to illuminate the rim of the ashtray in which it rested.

Harve knocked again.

“Come in,” said a man’s voice. “Ain’t locked.”

Harve went in. “Hello?” he said.

No one turned on a light for him. Whoever had invited him in didn’t show himself either. Harve turned this way and that. “I’d like to use your phone,” he said to the dark.

“You stay faced right the way you are,” said the voice, coming from behind Harve. “I got a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun aimed right at your middle, Mr. Elliot. You do anything out of the way at all, and I’ll blow you right in two.”

Harve raised his hands. “You know my name?” he said.

“That is your name?” said the voice.

“Yes,” said Harve.

“Well, well,” said the voice. It cackled. “Here I am, an old, old man. Wife gone, friends gone, children gone. Been thinking the past few days about using this here gun on myself. Just looky here what I would have missed! Just goes to prove—”

“Prove what?” said Harve.

“Nobody ever knows when he’s gonna have a lucky day.”

The ceiling fixture in the room went on. It was over Harve’s head. Harve looked up at it. He didn’t look behind himself, for fear of being blown in two. The ceiling fixture was meant to have three bulbs, had only one. Harve could tell that by the gray ghosts of the missing two.

The frosted shade was dotted with the shadows of the bodies of bugs.

“You can look behind, if you want,” said the voice. “See for yourself whether I got a gun or not, Mr. Elliot.”

Harve turned slowly to look at a very old man — a scrawny old man with obscenely white and even false teeth. The old man really did have a shotgun — a cavernous, rusty antique. The ornate, arched hammers of the gun were cocked.

The old man was scared. But he was pleased and excited too.

“Don’t make any trouble, Mr. Elliot,” he said, “and we’ll get along just fine. You’re looking at a man who went over the top eight times in the Great War, so you ain’t looking at anybody who’d be too chickenhearted to shoot. Shooting a man ain’t something I never done before.”

“All right — no trouble,” said Harve.

“Wouldn’t be the first man I shot,” said the old man. “Wouldn’t be the tenth, far as that goes.”

“I believe you,” said Harve. “Can I ask you how you happen to know my name?”

“Radio,” said the old man. He motioned to an armchair, a chair with burst upholstering, with sagging springs. “You better set there, Mr. Elliot.”

Harve did as he was told. “There’s news of me on the radio?” he said.

“I guess there is,” said the old man. “I expect you’re on television too. Don’t have no television. No sense getting television at my age. Radio does me fine.”

“What does the radio say about me?” said Harve.

“Killed a woman — broke jail,” said the old man. “Worth a thousand dollars, dead or alive.” He moved toward a telephone, keeping the gun aimed at Harve. “You’re a lucky man, Mr. Elliot.”

“Lucky?” said Harve.

“That’s what I said,” said the old man. “Whole county knows there’s a crazy man loose. Radio’s been telling ’em, ‘Lock your doors and windows, turn out your lights, stay inside, don’t let no strangers in.’ Practically any house you would have walked up to, they would have shot first and asked questions afterwards. Just lucky you walked up to a house where there was somebody who don’t scare easy.” He took the telephone from its cradle.

“I never hurt anybody in my life,” said Harve.

“That’s what the radio said,” said the old man. “Said you just went crazy tonight.” He dialed for an operator, said to her, “Get me the Ilium Police Department.”

“Wait!” said Harve.

“You want more time to figure how to kill me?” said the old man.

“The State Police — call the State Police!” said Harve.

The old man smiled foxily, shook his head. “They ain’t the ones offering the big reward,” he said.

The call went through. The Ilium Police were told where they could find Harve. The old man explained again and again where he lived. The Ilium Police would be coming out into unfamiliar territory. They had no jurisdiction there.

“He’s all quiet now,” said the old man. “I got him all calmed down.”

And that was a fact.

Harve was feeling the relaxation of a very hard game’s being over. The relaxation was a close relative of death.

“Funny thing to happen to an old man — right at the end of his days,” said the old man. “Now I get a thousand dollars, picture in the paper — God knows what all—”

“You want to hear my story?” said Harve.

“Pass the time?” said the old man amiably. “All right with me. Just don’t you budge from that chair.”

So Harve Elliot told his tale. He told it pretty well, listened to the story himself. He astonished himself with the tale — and, with that astonishment, anger and terror began to seep into his being again.

“You’ve got to believe me!” said Harve. “You’ve got to let me call the State Police!”

The old man smiled indulgently. “Got to, you say?” he said.

“Don’t you know what kind of a town Ilium is?” said Harve.

“Expect I do,” said the old man. “I grew up there — and my father and grandfather too.”

“Do you know what Ed Luby’s done to the town?” said Harve.

“Oh, I hear a few things now and then,” said the old man. “He gave a new wing for the hospital, I know. I know, on account of I was in that wing one time. Generous man, I’d say.”

“You can say that, even after what I’ve told you?” said Harve.

“Mr. Elliot,” said the old man, with very real sympathy, “I don’t think you’re in any condition to talk about who’s good and who’s bad. I know what I’m talking about when I say that, on account of I was crazy once myself.”

“I’m not crazy,” said Harve.

“That’s what I said too,” said the old man. “But they took me off to the crazy house just the same. I had a big story too — all about the things folks had done to me, all about things folks was ganging up to do to me.” He shook his head. “I believed that story too. I mean, Mr. Elliot, I believed it.”

“I tell you, I’m not crazy,” said Harve.

“That’s for a doctor to say, now, ain’t it?” said the old man. “You know when they let me out of the crazy house, Mr. Elliot? You know when they let me out, said I could go home to my wife and family?”

“When?” said Harve. is muscles were tightening up. He knew he was going to have to rush past death again — to rush past death and into the night.

“They let me go home,” said the old man, “when I could finally see for myself that nobody was really trying to do me in, when I could see for myself it was all in my head.” He turned on the radio. “Let’s have some music while we wait,” he said. “Music always helps.”

Asinine music about teenage love came from the radio. And then there was this news bulletin:

“Units of the Ilium Police are now believed to be closing in on Harvey Elliot, escaped maniac, who killed a woman outside of the fashionable Key Club in Ilium tonight. Householders are warned, however, to continue to be on the lookout for this man, to keep all doors and windows locked, and to report at once any prowlers. Elliot is extremely dangerous and resourceful. The chief of police has characterized Elliot as a ‘mad dog,’ and he warns persons not to attempt to reason with him. The management of this station has offered a thousand-dollar reward for Elliot, dead or alive.

“This is WKLL,” said the announcer, “eight sixty on your dial, the friendly voice of Ilium, with news and music for your listening pleasure around the clock.”

It was then that Harve rushed the old man.

Harve knocked the gun aside. Both barrels roared.

The tremendous blast ripped a hole in the side of the house.

The old man held the gun limply, stupid with shock. He made no protest when Harve relieved him of the gun, went out the back door with it.

Sirens sobbed, far down the road.

Harve ran into the woods in back of the house. But then he understood that in the woods he could only provide a short and entertaining hunt for Captain Luby and his boys. Something more surprising was called for.

So Harve circled back to the road, lay down in a ditch.

Three Ilium police cars came to showy stops before the old man’s house. The front tire of one skidded to within a yard of Harve’s hand.

Captain Luby led his brave men up to the house. The blue flashers of the cars again created revolving islands of nightmare.

One policeman stayed outside. He sat at the wheel of the car nearest to Harve. He was intent on the raiders and the house.

Harve got out of the ditch quietly. He leveled the empty shotgun at the back of the policeman’s neck, said softly, politely, “Officer?”

The policeman turned his head, found himself staring down two rusty barrels the size of siege howitzers.

Harve recognized him. He was the sergeant who had arrested Harve and Claire, the one with the long scar that seamed his cheek and lips.

Harve got into the back of the car. “Let’s go,” he said evenly. “Pull away slowly, with your lights out. I’m insane — don’t forget that. If we get caught, I’ll kill you first. Let’s see how quietly you can pull away — and then let’s see how fast you can go after that.”

The Ilium police car streaked down a superhighway now. No one was in pursuit. Cars pulled over to let it by.

It was on its way to the nearest barracks of the State Police.

The sergeant at the wheel was a tough, realistic man. He did exactly what Harve told him to do. At the same time, he let Harve know that he wasn’t scared. He said what he pleased.

“What you think this is gonna get you, Elliot?” he said.

Harve had made himself comfortable in the back seat. “It’s going to get a lot of people a lot of things,” he said grimly.

“You figure the State Police will be softer on a murderer than we were?” said the sergeant.

“You know I’m not a murderer,” said Harve.

“Not a jailbreaker or a kidnapper either, eh?” said the sergeant.

“We’ll see,” said Harve. “We’ll see what I am, and what I’m not. We’ll see what everybody is.”

“You want my advice, Elliot?” said the sergeant.

“No,” said Harve.

“If I were you, I’d get clear the hell out of the country,” said the sergeant. “After all you’ve done, friend, you haven’t got a chance.”

Harve’s head was beginning to bother him again. It ached in a pulsing way. The wound on the back of his head stung, as though it were open again, and waves of wooziness came and went.

Speaking out of that wooziness, Harve said to the sergeant, “How many months out of the year do you spend in Florida? Your wife got a nice fur coat and a sixty-thousand-dollar house?”

“You really are nuts,” said the sergeant.

“You aren’t getting your share?” said Harve.

“Share of what?” said the sergeant. “I do my job. I get my pay.”

“In the rottenest city in the country,” said Harve.

The sergeant laughed. “And you’re gonna change all that — right?”

The cruiser slowed down, swung into a turnout, came to a stop before a brand-new State Police barracks of garish, yellow brick.

The car was surrounded instantly by troopers with drawn guns.

The sergeant turned and grinned at Harve. “Here’s your idea of Heaven, buddy,” he said. “Go on — get out. Have a talk with the angels.”

Harve was hauled out of the car. Shackles were slammed on his wrists and ankles.

He was hoisted off his feet, was swept into the barracks, was set down hard on a cot in a cell.

The cell smelled of fresh paint.

Many people crowded around the cell door for a look at the desperado.

And then Harve passed out cold.

“No — he isn’t faking,” he heard someone say in a swirling mist. “He’s had a pretty bad blow on the back of his head.”

Harve opened his eyes. A very young man was standing over him.

“Hello,” said the young man, when he saw that Harve’s eyes were open.

“Who are you?” said Harve.

“Dr. Mitchell,” said the young man. He was a narrow-shouldered, grave, bespectacled young man. He looked very insignificant in comparison with the two big men standing behind him. The two big men were Captain Luby and a uniformed sergeant of the State Police.

“How do you feel?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“Lousy,” said Harve.

“I’m not surprised,” said the doctor. He turned to Captain Luby.

“You can’t take this man back to jail,” he said. “He’s got to go to Ilium Hospital. He’s got to have X-rays, got to be under observation for at least twenty-four hours.”

Captain Luby gave a wry laugh. “Now the taxpayers of Ilium gotta give him a nice rest, after the night he put in.”

Harve sat up. Nausea came and went. “My wife — how is my wife?”

“Half off her nut, after all the stuff you pulled,” said Captain Luby. “How the hell you expect her to be?”

“You’ve still got her locked up?” said Harve.

“Nah,” said Captain Luby. “Anybody who isn’t happy in our jail, we let ’em go right away — let ’em walk right out. You know that. You’re a big expert on that.”

“I want my wife brought out here,” said Harve. “That’s why I came here—” Grogginess came over him. “To get my wife out of Ilium,” he murmured.

“Why do you want to get your wife out of Ilium?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“Doc—” said the captain jocularly, “you go around asking jailbirds how come they want what they want, and you won’t have no time left over for medicine.”

Dr. Mitchell looked vaguely annoyed with the captain, put his question to Harve again.

“Doc,” said Captain Luby, “what’s that disease called — where somebody thinks everybody’s against ’em?”

“Paranoia,” said Dr. Mitchell tautly.

“We saw Ed Luby murder a woman,” said Harve. “They blamed it on me. They said they’d kill us if we told.” He lay back. Consciousness was fading fast. “For the love of God,” he said thickly, “somebody help.”

Consciousness was gone.

Harve Elliot was taken to Ilium Hospital in an ambulance. The sun was coming up. He was aware of the trip — aware of the sun too. He heard someone mention the sun’s coming up.

He opened his eyes. Two men rode on a bench that paralleled his cot in the ambulance. The two swayed as the ambulance swayed.

Harve made no great effort to identify the two. When hope died, so too had curiosity. Harve, moreover, had been somehow drugged. He remembered the young doctor’s having given him a shot — to ease his pain, the doctor said. It killed Harve’s worries along with his pain, gave him what comfort there was in the illusion that nothing mattered.

His two fellow passengers now identified themselves by speaking to each other.

“You new in town, Doc?” said one. “Don’t believe I’ve ever seen you around before.” That was Captain Luby.

“I started practice three months ago,” the doctor said. That was Dr. Mitchell.

“You ought to get to know my brother,” said the captain. “He could help you get started. He gets a lot of people started.”

“So I’ve heard,” said the doctor.

“A little boost from Ed never hurt anybody,” said the captain.

“I wouldn’t think so,” said the doctor.

“This guy sure pulled a boner when he tried to pin the murder on Ed,” said the captain.

“I can see that,” said the doctor.

“Practically everybody who’s anybody in town is a witness for Ed and against this jerk,” said the captain.

“Uh-huh,” said the doctor.

“I’ll fix you up with an introduction to Ed sometime,” said the captain. “I think you two would hit it off just fine.”

“I’m very flattered,” said the doctor.

At the emergency door of Ilium Hospital, Harve Elliot was transferred from the ambulance to a rubber-wheeled cart.

There was a brief delay in the receiving room, for another case had arrived just ahead of Harve. The delay wasn’t long, because the other case was dead on arrival. The other case, on a cart exactly like Harve’s, was a man.

Harve knew him.

The dead man was the man who had brought his girl out to Ed Luby’s Key Club so long ago, who had seen his girl killed by Ed Luby.

He was Harve’s prize witness — dead.

“What happened to him?” Captain Luby asked a nurse.

“Nobody knows,” she said. “They found him shot in the back of the neck — in the alley behind the bus station.” She covered the dead man’s face.

“Too bad,” said Captain Luby. He turned to Harve. “You’re luckier than him, anyway, Elliot,” he said. “At least you’re not dead.”

Harve Elliot was wheeled all over Ilium Hospital — had his skull X-rayed, had an electroencephalogram taken, let doctors peer gravely into his eyes, his nose, his ears, his throat.

Captain Luby and Dr. Mitchell went with him wherever he was rolled. And Harve was bound to agree with Captain Luby when the captain said, “It’s crazy, you know? We’re up all night, looking for a clean shot at this guy. Now here we are, all day long, getting the same guy the best treatment money can buy. Crazy.”

Harve’s time sense was addled by the shot Dr. Mitchell had given him, but he did realize that the examinations and tests were going awfully slowly — and that more and more doctors were being called in.

Dr. Mitchell seemed to grow a lot tenser about his patient too.

Two more doctors arrived, looked briefly at Harve, then stepped aside with Dr. Mitchell for a whispered conference.

A janitor, mopping the corridor, paused in his wet and hopeless work to take a good look at Harve. “This him?” he said.

“That’s him,” said Captain Luby.

“Don’t look very desperate, do he?” said the janitor.

“Kind of ran out of desperation,” said the captain.

“Like a car run out of gas,” said the janitor. He nodded. “He crazy?” he asked.

“He better be,” said the captain.

“What you mean by that?” said the janitor.

“If he isn’t,” said the captain, “he’s going to the electric chair.”

“My, my,” said the janitor. He shook his head. “Sure glad I ain’t him.” He resumed his mopping, sent a little tidal wave of gray water down the corridor.

There was loud talk at the far end of the corridor now. Harve turned his incurious eyes to see Ed Luby himself approaching. Luby was accompanied by his big bodyguard, and by his good friend, his fat friend, Judge Wampler.

Ed Luby, an elegant man, was first of all concerned about the spotlessness of his black and pointed shoes. “Watch where you mop,” he told the janitor in a grackle voice. “These are fifty-dollar shoes.”

He looked down at Harve. “My God,” he said, “it’s the one-man army himself.” Luby asked his brother if Harve could talk and hear.

“They tell me he hears all right,” said the captain. “He don’t seem to talk at all.”

Ed Luby smiled at Judge Wampler. “I’d say that was a pretty good way for a man to be, wouldn’t you, Judge?” he said.

The conference of doctors ended on a note of grim agreement. They returned to Harve’s side.

Captain Luby introduced young Dr. Mitchell to his brother, Ed. “The doc here’s new to town, Ed,” said the captain. “He’s kind of taken Elliot here under his wing.”

“I guess that’s part of his oath. Right?” said Ed Luby.

“Beg your pardon?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“No matter what somebody is,” said Ed, “no matter what terrible things they’ve done — a doctor’s still got to do everything he can for him. Right?”

“Right,” said Dr. Mitchell.

Luby knew the other two doctors, and they knew him. Luby and the doctors didn’t like each other much. “You two guys are working on this Elliot too?” said Ed.

“That’s right,” said one.

“Would somebody please tell me what’s the matter with this guy, that so many doctors have to come from far and wide to look at him?” said Captain Luby.

“It’s a very complicated case,” said Dr. Mitchell. “It’s a very tricky, delicate case.”

“What’s that mean?” said Ed Luby.

“Well,” said Dr. Mitchell, “we’re all pretty well agreed now that we’ve got to operate on this man at once, or there’s a good chance he’ll die.”

Harve was bathed, and his head was shaved.

And he was rolled through the double doors and put under the blinding light of the operating room.

The Luby brothers were kept outside. There were only doctors and nurses around Harve now — pairs of eyes, and masks and gowns.

Harve prayed. He thought of his wife and children. He awaited the mask of the anesthetist.

“Mr. Elliot?” said Dr. Mitchell. “You can hear me?”

“Yes,” said Harve.

“How do you feel?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“In the Hands of God,” said Harve.

“You’re not a very sick man, Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We’re not going to operate. We brought you up here to protect you.”The eyes around the table shifted uneasily. Dr. Mitchell explained the uneasiness. “We’ve taken quite a chance here, Mr. Elliot,” he said. “We have no way of knowing whether you deserve protection or not. We’d like to hear your story again.”

Harve looked into each of the pairs of circling eyes. He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No story,” he said.

“No story?” said Dr. Mitchell. “After all this trouble we’ve gone to?”

“Whatever Ed Luby and his brother say the story is — that’s the story,” said Harve. “You can tell Ed I finally got the message. Whatever he says goes. No more trouble from me.”

“Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell, “there isn’t a man or a woman here who wouldn’t like to see Ed Luby and his gang in prison.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Harve. “I don’t believe anybody anymore.” He shook his head again. “As far as that goes,” he said, “I can’t prove any of my story anyway. Ed Luby’s got all the witnesses. The one witness I thought I might get — he’s dead downstairs.”

This news was a surprise to those around the table.

“You knew that man?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“Forget it,” said Harve. “I’m not saying any more. I’ve said too much already.”

“There is a way you could prove your story — to our satisfaction, anyway,” said Dr. Mitchell. “With your permission, we’d like to give you a shot of sodium pentothal. Do you know what it is?”

“No,” said Harve.

“It’s a so-called truth serum, Mr. Elliot,” said Dr. Mitchell. “It will temporarily paralyze the control you have over your conscious mind. You’ll go to sleep for a few minutes, and then we’ll wake you up, and you won’t be able to lie.”

“Even if I told you the truth, and you believed it, and you wanted to get rid of Ed Luby,” said Harve, “what could a bunch of doctors do?”

“Not much, I admit,” said Dr. Mitchell.

“But only four of us here are doctors,” said Dr. Mitchell. “As I told Ed Luby, yours was a very complicated case — so we’ve called together a pretty complicated meeting to look into it.” He pointed out masked and gowned men around the table. “This gentleman here is head of the County Bar Association. These two gentlemen here are detectives from the State Police. These two gentlemen are FBI agents. That is, of course,” he said, “if your story’s true — if you’re willing to let us prove it’s true.”

Harve looked into the circling eyes again.

He held out his bare arm to receive the shot. “Let’s go,” he said.

Harve told his story and answered questions in the unpleasant, echoing trance induced by sodium pentothal.

The questions came to an end at last. The trance persisted.

“Let’s start with Judge Wampler,” he heard someone say.

He heard someone else telephoning, giving orders that the cab driver who had driven the murdered woman out to the Key Club was to be identified, picked up, and brought to the operating room of Ilium Hospital for questioning. “You heard me — the operating room,” said the man on the telephone.

Harve didn’t feel any particular elation about that. But then he heard some really good news. Another man took over the telephone, and he told somebody to get Harve’s wife out of jail at once on a writ of habeas corpus. “And somebody else find out who’s taking care of the kids,” said the telephoner, “and, for God’s sake, make sure the papers and the radio stations find out this guy isn’t a maniac after all.”

And then Harve heard another man come back to the operating room with the bullet from the dead man downstairs, the dead witness. “Here’s one piece of evidence that isn’t going to disappear,” said the man. “Good specimen.” He held the bullet up to the light. “Shouldn’t have any trouble proving what gun it came from — if we had the gun.”

“Ed Luby’s too smart to do the shooting himself,” said Dr. Mitchell, who was obviously starting to have a very fine time.

“His bodyguard isn’t too smart,” said somebody else. “In fact, he’s just dumb enough. He’s even dumb enough to have the gun still on him.”

“We’re looking for a thirty-eight,” said the man with the bullet. “Are they all still downstairs?”

“Keeping a death watch,” said Dr. Mitchell pleasantly.

And then word came that Judge Wampler was being brought up. Everyone tied on his surgical mask again, in order that the judge, when he entered, mystified and afraid, could see only eyes.

“What — what is this?” said Judge Wampler. “Why do you want me here?”

“We want your help in a very delicate operation,” said Dr. Mitchell.

Wampler gave a smile that was queer and slack. “Sir?” he said.

“We understand that you and your wife were witnesses to a murder last night,” said Dr. Mitchell.

“Yes,” said Wampler. His translucent chins trembled.

“We think you and your wife aren’t quite telling the truth,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We think we can prove that.”

“How dare you talk to me like that!” said Wampler indignantly.

“I dare,” said Dr. Mitchell, “because Ed Luby and his brother are all through in this town. I dare,” he said, “because police from outside have moved in. They’re going to cut the rotten heart right out of this town. You’re talking to federal agents and State Police at this very minute.” Dr. Mitchell spoke over his shoulder. “Suppose you unmask, gentlemen, so the judge can see what sort of people he’s talking to.”

The faces of the law were unmasked. They were majestic in their contempt for the judge.

Wampler looked as though he were about to cry.

“Now tell us what you saw last night,” said Dr. Mitchell.

Judge Wampler hesitated. Then he hung his head, and he whispered, “Nothing. I was inside. I didn’t see anything.”

“And your wife didn’t see anything either?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“No,” whispered Wampler.

“You didn’t see Elliot hit the woman?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“No,” said the judge.

“Why did you lie?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“I–I believed Ed Luby,” said Wampler. “He — he told me what happened — and I–I believed him.”

“You believe him now?” said Dr. Mitchell.

“I–I don’t know,” said Wampler wretchedly.

“You’re through as a judge,” said Dr. Mitchell. “You must know that.”

Wampler nodded.

“You were through as a man a long time ago,” said Dr. Mitchell. “All right,” he said, “dress him up. Let him watch what happens next.”

And Judge Wampler was forced to put on a mask and gown.

The puppet chief of police and the puppet mayor of Ilium were telephoned from the operating room, were told to come to the hospital at once, that there was something very important going on there. Judge Wampler, closely supervised, did the telephoning.

But, before they arrived, two state troopers brought in the cab driver who had driven the murdered woman out to the Key Club.

He was appalled when he was brought before the weird tribunal of seeming surgeons. He looked in horror at Harve, who was still stretched out on the table in his sodium pentothal trance.

Judge Wampler again had the honor of doing the talking. He was far more convincing than anyone else could have been in advising the driver that Ed Luby and his brother were through.

“Tell the truth,” said Judge Wampler quaveringly.

So the driver told it. He had seen Ed Luby kill the girl.

“Issue this man his uniform,” said Dr. Mitchell.

And the driver was given a mask and gown.

Next came the mayor and the chief of police.

After them came Ed Luby, Captain Luby, and Ed Luby’s big bodyguard.

The three came through the double doors of the operating room shoulder to shoulder.

They were handcuffed and disarmed before they could say a word.

“What the hell’s the idea?” Ed Luby roared.

“It’s all over. That’s all,” said Dr. Mitchell. “We thought you ought to know.”

“Elliot’s dead?” said Luby.

“You’re dead, Mr. Luby,” said Dr. Mitchell.

Luby started to inflate himself, was instantly deflated by a tremendous bang. A man had just fired the bodyguard’s thirty-eight into a bucket packed with cotton.

Luby watched stupidly as the man dug the bullet out of the cotton, took it over to a counter where two microscopes had been set up.

Luby’s comment was somewhat substandard. “Now, just a minute—” he said.

“We’ve got nothing but time,” said Dr. Mitchell. “Nobody’s in a hurry to go anywhere — unless you or your brother or your bodyguard have appointments elsewhere.”

“Who are you guys?” said Luby malevolently.

“We’ll show you in a minute,” said Dr. Mitchell. “First, though, I think you ought to know that we’re all agreed — you’re through.”

“Yeah?” said Luby. “Let me tell you, I’ve got plenty of friends in this town.”

“Time to unmask, gentlemen,” said Dr. Mitchell.

All unmasked.

Ed Luby stared at his utter ruin.

The man at the microscopes broke the silence. “They match,” he said. “The bullets match. They came from the same gun.”

Harve broke through the glass walls of his trance momentarily. The tiles of the operating room echoed. Harve Elliot had laughed out loud.

Harve Elliot dozed off, was taken to a private room to sleep off the drug.

His wife, Claire, was waiting for him there.

Young Dr. Mitchell was with Harve when he was wheeled in. “He’s perfectly all right, Mrs. Elliot,” Harve heard Dr. Mitchell say. “He just needs rest — and so, I’d think, would you.”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a week,” said Claire.

“I’ll give you something, if you like,” said Dr. Mitchell.

“Later, maybe,” said Claire. “Not now.”

“I’m sorry we shaved off all his hair,” said Dr. Mitchell. “It seemed necessary at the time.”

“Such a crazy night — such a crazy day,” she said. “What did it all mean?”

“It meant a lot,” said Dr. Mitchell, “thanks to some brave and honest men.”

“Thanks to you,” she said.

“I was thinking of your husband,” he said. “As for myself, I never enjoyed anything more in my life. It taught me how men get to be free, and how they can stay free.”

“How?” said Claire.

“By fighting for justice for strangers,” said Dr. Mitchell.

Harve Elliot managed to get his eyes open. “Claire—” he said.

“Darling—” she said.

“I love you,” said Harve.

“That’s the absolute truth,” said Dr. Mitchell, “in case you’ ever wondered.”