The Body Lovers

Chapter 11

I stopped by the hotel, showered and changed into fresh clothes. No calls had come in and when I phoned Velda's number there was no answer and no messages. I left word for her to call me as soon as she arrived and dialed Pat. The desk sergeant told me he had left an hour ago and hadn't reported in yet, but had asked if I had tried to contact him. I thanked him and hung up softly though I felt like slamming the receiver back on the cradle.

I called Hy's office and that didn't answer.

Dulcie's phone didn't answer either, then I remembered it was Saturday. Modern technology had given us two days of rest. I got so damn disgusted I went downstairs to the lobby and picked up a copy of the paper and flipped through it without really seeing anything until I came to the center fold.

Somebody had snapped a shot of Belar Ris, Dulcie and me talking, but my back was to the camera and all you could see was Dulcie and Belar Ris and it looked for all the world as if we were enjoying ourselves.

I threw the paper on a chair and was about to go out when the desk clerk stopped me. I wasn't signed in under my right name, but he knew the room I was in and pointed to a row of phones against the wall. I picked it up and said, "Yeah?"

"Mike?"

"Speaking."

"Pat. What's got hold of you?"

"Listen..."

"You listen. Meet me at the Blue Ribbon about six-thirty. Have you called Hy?"

"He wasn't in. Why?"

"Because they found Gates," he said. "Some tramp tripped over the body under a culvert that goes over the Belt Parkway. Gates shoved a .22 pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger, or at least that's the way it looked. He's been dead since the day he left according to the M.E.'s estimate on the spot."

"Where does Hy fit in?"

"Tell him to squash the story until we can move on it."

"The last time I tried that Mitch got killed."

"Mike..."

"Okay. I'll leave word. Just one thing...did he have any money on him?"

"Damn right, almost nine hundred bucks in cash."

"He didn't get very far," I said.

"What?"

"Nothing. I'll see you at six-thirty."

Now Gates, I thought. That opens the web again, but just a little bit. The spider was still inside.

Pat was late. I sweated him out for an hour, playing with the coffee George had sent up to the table. Outside, the rain blasted down with the furious derision nature can have for humans, laughing at the futile attempts people put up to avoid her.

Pat finally came in whipping the rain from his hat, one of the young lawyers from the District Attorney's staff behind him. He introduced him quickly as Ed Walker and they sat down opposite me. Walker was looking at me as if I were a specimen in a zoo and I felt like slamming him one.

Pat said, "Reach Hy?"

"I told you I'd leave word. It was the best we can do."

"Good enough."

"Why?"

"The county police accepted Gates' death as suicide. We're not sure. How'd you tap the money angle?"

I told him what Dulcie had mentioned to me.

"That might figure in."

"Pat," I said, "don't get lost in this. A guy with a grand in his pocket doesn't knock himself off without a big run first."

"That's what I mean," he told me. "Any coroner's jury would direct a verdict of suicide the way it was set up. He used his own gun, even the cartridges and the clip had his fingerprints on it and there was a possible motive behind his own death."

I pushed my coffee away and flipped a butt between my lips.

"Get to it."

"Tell him, Ed."

Walker opened his briefcase, took out several sheets of payer and referred to them. He looked at Pat, then me, shrugged once and laid them fiat on the table. "You guys have the screwiest deal I ever saw."

"He's been in this from the beginning."

"But I haven't. Damn, my curiosity is worse than a cat's and someday it's going to get me the same thing."

Pat said annoyed, "Come on, Ed."

Walker nodded and adjusted his notes. "I pushed a few people overseas and got the details of the litigation the Pericon Chemical Company hit the steamship line with concerning the theft of that C-130. During the hassle the Pericon people uncovered the true owners of the shipping line. The majority control belonged to Belar Ris."

I said, "Oh?" and wondered why it came out so casually.

Pat's eyes were all over me, picking me apart. "That isn't the end of it. I have the report from Interpol. Ali Duval has been associated with Belar Ris since the late forties. He started off as an Algerian terrorist fighting the French, was picked up by Ris somewhere along the line and used by him as an enforcer in several of his enterprises. Duval is suspected of having committed nine different murders and an assault on a political personage from Aden. We might be able to get him held on the last charge. Once they get him in their hands they'll make him talk. It's a lousy way of doing things, but a threat to turn him over to them might work wonders."

"You're sure you can nail him then?"

"He'll leave on the Pinella."

"Where is he now?"

"Nobody seems to know," Pat said.

"And Ris?"

"He's had a tap on his phone for the last twelve hours. We know where he is." Pat gave me a laconic grin and said, "He called your erstwhile friend Dulcie McInnes at three-fifteen this afternoon and confirmed his appointment to pick her up for some affair they're having out at the estate in Bradbury this evening. We're going to cover that place like the lid on a pan tonight and if Duval shows we'll nail him."

"What about Ris?"

"Those damn dipples can get away with murder and we can't do a thing about it."

"Those what?"

"Dipples," Pat repeated. "DPL plates. Diplomatic immunity. He'll get away clear until he's declared persona non grata and tries to re-enter the country."

And there it was. The guy Mitch Temple chased who could get away with speeding on the Belt Parkway while he got stopped in the cab. The guy who made the contact with Orslo Bucher. The guy in the black official limousine who dropped Ali Duval off. Damn, it was there all the time. The dipple car. Old Greenie had even called it that!

I got up without saying anything and went to the wall phone and dropped in a dime. I gave the operator Velda's number. The manager of the motel said she hadn't returned to her room, but if I was to call to tell me that the answer was in Bradbury and she was going inside to get her fifteen dollars back. She'd be at G-14. The guy sounded puzzled.

The phone almost fell from my fingers. I wanted to yell, "No, don't try it alone,"--but nobody would have heard me.

I didn't bother to pick up my coat. George didn't question me, but just gave me the keys to his car when I asked for them and I went out the front way leaving Pat and Walker still sitting there waiting for me, got the car out of the garage and headed out of the city.

Saturday was just another night in Bradbury. Two hours from New York put it another world away in another dimension. I stopped at a gas station on the edge of town, filled the tank and had the attendant point out the direction of the former Gerald Ute estate. In twenty minutes I reached the edge of the area he described to me, a rise in the road that gave a panoramic view of the landscape below.

Here and there in the distance lights winked between the trees, and when I had them located, drove past them. Every so often another car would pass going in the opposite direction, and once one drew abreast of me while the occupant scrutinized my face, then sped ahead and cut off at a side road.

Our people, I was thinking. The whole place was under constant surveillance. They'd keep up a running conversation on their car radios to keep me spotted until they were sure I had left their section. George's car didn't have DPL plates. There would be other security if I could get inside their compounds that would be even tighter. How did Velda think she could make it?

I circled the whole region until I came back to the outskirts of the city. There wasn't one way of telling just where the hell she was! Those buildings were scattered in haphazard fashion behind their towering walls and if I tried them one at a time I could be too late.

But what was it the guy had said on the phone? Velda would be at G-14. She'd expect me to know what that was. She had more sense than to try and hit a target like that by herself. The message wouldn't be too cryptic. It would be something I should recognize.

It was. It took me long enough to get it. I found a service station that I generally used, went in and got one of their standard road maps of the local area and looked at the grid markings on the side. The point where the vertical G and horizontal 14 intersected was two miles from my present position. I thanked the guy, got behind the wheel and turned around.

There were no lights showing in the building at all, but there was the barest reflection from the chrome trim of the cars that were parked in front of it to tell me it was far from deserted. I had run George's car into the brush beside the wall, nosing it in far enough so as to be practically invisible from the side road I had turned onto. From the roof I was able to reach the top of the wall and pull myself up. I flattened out, getting my eyes adjusted to the darkness, then swung over and dropped to the ground. Now I was thankful for the rain we had had. The bush I hit crumpled wetly, rather than crackling under the impact. I stood there fighting the urge to run, the .45 in my hand, the hammer back.

It was almost too quiet and that eerie stillness saved my neck. I heard the whispering thud of feet, the breath and the guttural snarl the same second I ducked to one side and felt something brush my arm and heard the wicked snap of teeth closing on air. The dog's leap took him into the same bush I had landed on, but to him it was more of an obstacle. I could see him then, clawing to break loose from the entangling branches, a sleek muscular killer, attack-trained to kill silently and quickly in the dark.

I whipped the .45 down across his head, saw him sag, recover, then go down again the second time when the muzzle of the gun smashed his skull. There would be more than one dog on the premises. They'd be like sentinels making their rounds. The others hadn't gotten the smell of me yet, and when they did, would come in almost silently and unseen like the other one.

I stayed close to the tree line, ran across the open lawn to the parking area and lost myself in the dozen or so cars parked beside the house for a few minutes, trying to figure a way in. As near as I was I could see the vague outlines of the windows and the lights that filtered past drawn curtains.

The main entrance was to my left, but I didn't want to hit the doors. Those would be well guarded. The larger windows that opened on the main rooms wouldn't be any good either. I didn't know what I was going into and had to feel my way there.

I could see the place now. It was built in a Victorian style of native brick and looked like a great stone fortress. But all fortresses had chinks and this one was in its style of architecture. The gingerbread ornaments that littered its face made perfect handholds. I shoved the .45 back in the sling, edged to the side of the building and began climbing.

Twenty feet up I had almost reached the second level. Down below I heard a snarl of impatience, then a door opened and a shaft of light illuminated the front of the building. Another dog, a huge Doberman, padded by, stood in the light a moment sniffing the air, then a voice said, "What is it?"

Another one answered with, "Nothing. They are always like that."

The door closed and the night took back its own. The dog snarled again, but from another point this time.

I didn't take any chances with the windows. The odds were that they had alarms rigged to them. I kept climbing until I felt the cornice of the roof under my hands and wiggled myself over the top. I lay there and looked at the ground a long way below, and when I was satisfied no one had seen me, picked my way to the cupola that sat like a silly little hat right in the middle of the building.

They hadn't bothered to wire these windows. I leaned my elbow against one until it gave, shattered gently and fell inside with a noisy tinkle, then picked out the larger pieces, opened the catch and swung it in on its rusted hinges.

No practical purpose was served by the cupola. It was dirty and empty, just the remnant of an era long past. I found the stairwell leading down, cupped a lit match in my hand and went down to the door. It had a large, old-fashioned latch that moved easily when I lifted it, and when I pushed against the door it swung out without a sound.

I was on the third level of the building in a corridor dimly lit from the light that rose from an open staircase at the far end. A series of rooms led off the hall, four on each side. I tried a couple of the doors, smelled the mustiness and dust that oozed out of the rooms and knew they weren't used. At one time they were probably designed for servants' quarters and had been vacant a long time.

From below I could hear the sound of voices and I followed the hall to the staircase and looked around it. There was a landing below, a ninety degree bend in the stairs and nothing was visible. I started down the first step, saw the small movement of a shadow on the wall beneath me and drew my foot back. They had that area covered by a guard.

Several times when I was a kid I had been in old houses like these and I remembered that they generally had a service exit to the other floors for the servants. I went back down the hall, around the bend and found what I was looking for. The steps were old and dry and creaked under my feet, so I stayed as close to the wall as I could get. I made it to the second level and pushed the door open.

This time I almost wasn't lucky at all. The man sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall tried to come to his feet and reach for the gun in his belt at the same time. The movement was too sudden and the chair slid out from under him. Even then he almost had time. He rolled, pulled the gun and was bringing it up when my toe caught him under the chin and almost took his head off. His jaw was tilted at a wild angle, his bottom teeth cutting into his cheek. His eyes were wide open, but he wasn't seeing anything. I took the gun from his hand, spun the cylinder to make sure it was loaded, then dragged him back into the shadows under the stairs and put the chair back where he had it. If anyone came checking on him they might think he only left his post for a minute and wouldn't be too worried.

Once past the guard I was able to get a better impression of the layout of the house. It rambled in all directions, doors opening into well stocked pantries, linen closets and storage rooms. I had spotted two more men at critical points, but there was no way to move in on them without being seen. One gunshot would bring others running and I couldn't afford that.

Somewhere inside the house there was a burst of sound, voices laughing, muffled by the thickness of the walls. I stood in the niche of a doorway watching the man at the end of the corridor, saw him stretch, bored, then turn and walk in my direction. He got fifteen feet away, stopped, seemed to sense something, then shrugged and turned his back and returned to his original position.

Behind me the door I was leaning against opened with the faintest squeak. The guard stopped again, looked back over his shoulder, then decided to investigate and walked back. I had no choice except to step back through the door and close it, hoping he wouldn't notice the movement. His feet passed, then came by again as he satisfied himself that there was nobody there.

Now he'd be alert. I swore at myself for not jumping him when I could have, but it was too late now. I lit my last match, found myself in a kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes piled high on the sink, and an ancient gas range littered with used pots. Four rolling serving trays were lined against the wall next to a corridor that led somewhere into the bowels of the house.

The match flickered and went out, but I had my direction fixed and followed it in my mind.

And I found what I came for. Or at least some of it.

The two great sliding doors that opened onto the room were shut, but age had shrunk them so that a quarter-inch crack showed in their vertical alignment. I pressed my eye to the aperture to get a wider angle of vision and saw them, a small crowd, some in chairs, some standing smoking, enjoying the spectacle on the stage in the middle of the room.

A cage had been erected there about eight feet square, finger-thick bars covered with a thin wire mesh. She stood in the middle, absolutely motionless, uncomfortably poised on a small block of wood, her ink-black hair a startling contrast against the white negligee that had parted down the front and was thrown back over her shoulders. A false smile of frozen horror looked like it had been painted on her face, a look of total disbelief, yet somehow tinged with grim determination. Not a muscle in her body moved, and in the weird blue light that enveloped her. I could see a reflection in her eyes as they followed the insidious motion of the two diamondback rattlesnakes that writhed restlessly just inches from her legs, their tongues nervous little feelers sensing danger in this strange atmosphere, their tails buzzing with anger.

I had found Greta Service again.

How long she had been there I couldn't tell, but the terrible agony of the position she was forced to hold was evident in the muscular tension of her legs. Any movement, no matter how slight, would bring those snakes striking to an attack.

A figure moved from behind a chair and I saw Belar Ris. For a second the light caught him and I could see his smile of enjoyment. He sat on the arm of the chair and draped his hand across the shoulder of the one sitting there.

From one side a voice said, "How long has it been, Belar?"

He looked at his watch. "Forty minutes."

Then the one in the chair said, "You're going to lose your bet, Belar. She's going to win your fifty thousand dollars."

My skin crawled all over because the answer was all right there in that room. The voice was Dulcie McInnes'.

And Belar Ris said, "No, I won't lose. You'll have your pleasure."

How long had you been doing it, Dulcie...finding the kind of woman who would submit to this kind of pleasure-seeking? You were in the right position for it. How many more were dead that we didn't know about? And how many ever did win the bet that they could outlast a distorted thirst for pleasure? And what was your gain, Dulcie...a greater social acceptance because of your associations? Who else did you entice into this tight circle who could be blackjacked politically because he had become a blood brother to depravity?

It must have shaken her when I came into the picture because until then it all would have been so carefully planned and executed. They had the money and the means to operate with and always the knowledge that the shield of diplomatic immunity was there for them.

What was your shield, Dulcie? Or was money and power satisfaction enough?

I could see more of the faces now. They were the faces of those from countries of sudden wealth and emergence into power, but who still reveled in the savageries of the near-primitive. But not all. Several I had seen at the Flamingo Room the other night enjoying their respectability.

Dulcie's choice of subjects had been excellent. They were women alone with no one to care about them. They would do anything for a chance at a small fortune.

The exception had been Greta who did have somebody who cared about her. She was willing to take the big gamble because she cared about somebody too. Harry Service might not have been worth it, but he was all she had and she was going to keep her promise to him.

Her face was tighter now than before, fighting the unbearable strain of her position and the proximity of the snakes.

Too bad Mitch Temple couldn't see what he had stumbled upon. He started chasing down a murderer because a single thread seemed to tie in the deaths of two girls, two inexpensive, sexy nylon negligees. He did the legwork in countless shops and was lucky enough to spot Belar Ris buying another one. Even when he published Belar Rig's activities in his column, he might not have made any personal contact with the man, so he verified his identification by going through the morgue files until he located Ris's picture.

Even his call to Norm Harrison fitted in. You couldn't openly accuse a man in his position unless you had positive proof. But Norm had been out of town. Mitch did have another source of information going for him. Ronald Miller probably had told him about his company's litigation with Belar Ris in the theft of the C-130. That fitted in too. Ali Duval could have seen the shipment, recognized its potential to Ris and gotten it ashore.

Mitch's trouble was, Ronald Miller had left too and Mitch had no place to go to except the source itself. It would be like him to call Ris, ostensibly to arrange for an interview on some matter or other, then try to draw him out. But Ris had something going for him too. Mitch's picture was at the top of his column. Ris could have recognized Mitch and seen through the whole skein and stopped it right there with a single knife thrust through Mitch's heart.

Yet it didn't stop there. I was looking for Greta and Greta could have led me to them if I pushed hard enough. She had already been recruited and was ready for them regardless of what happened to the other girls who went ahead of her. She had probably been held right here for this very night and she was doing it of her own volition.

They didn't know what I had though. The papers had made a big thing of my reputation and they couldn't take a chance. Orslo Bucher was one of their own nationals and could be called upon for the small jobs. He searched my place, then tried for me and died doing it. That threw it back at them again.

I still kept looking for Greta.

So they let Greta come to me.

Ali Duval arranged to use Virginia Howell's room through Lorenzo Jones, a far-out contact that could have no possible connection with anyone. It was a simple thing for Dulcie to drop a card into Teddy Gates' rotary file and lead me to it, and just as simple to remove it again and send Gates off on an appointment that would lead to his death. The red herrings and the wild geese were all over the place to foul up the trail.

The thing they didn't plan for was Lorenzo Jones' curiosity about Ali. Jones could smell a buck and would chase it, but he could smell trouble too and was scared to death of it. They didn't plan on me pushing it any further after I had seen Greta. She was there because she wanted to be there. She had to be there if she wanted the chance at the big stakes she coveted so desperately.

Dulcie, you damn fool. It couldn't last. You couldn't keep it covered forever.

There was a hum of voices, then a cold hush. I looked through the crack again. Greta had tottered on the block and both the snakes were poised, tongues flicking to find the source of movement, their buttons a steady, sharp buzz in the quiet...

It had to be now.

I jammed the two guns in my belt, felt for the handles that were indented into the frames of the doors and got my feet braced. I was ready to tear them apart when I heard the shouting and saw a tall guy run in from an alcove and point behind him.

"The dog. It has been killed. Someone is inside."

The one in front of the door was too intent on what the other had said and didn't hear me until I was almost through the opening. He whirled, struck out at me and caught the side of the .45 across his face and went down with a scream.

Confusion was immediate. They tried to run and had no place to go. There were more of them than I expected, but they had no way of knowing how many were coming behind me and their first thought was to get out. They were there for pleasure and stayed for panic and when the guy at the door blasted two quick shots in my direction it added to the turmoil. The crowd parted in front of me, faces and bodies just a blur in the dim light.

Not Greta though. She never moved. She couldn't.

I let go two quick blasts through the cage and took the heads off the snakes just as she let herself go and crumpled up on top of their thrashing bodies.

They came in fast from all sides, gun muzzles winking death, the roar lost in the screams and hoarse shouts of the ones trying to get away. I caught one in the chest and shot the leg out from under another, but they weren't the ones I wanted.

Belar Ris was my target and he was someplace in the dark.

I almost had it made. I took down one who blocked the exit and I almost made the door. I could have brought those agents patrolling the area swarming onto the place with a couple of fast gunshots into the night and they could have taken over and finished the job.

That almost was the big one. My luck ran out. I felt the searing finger crease my skull and I went down on my face, hoping the blackness would come before the pain.

The lolling motion of my head woke me up. Dizzy waves of pain swept over me and my stomach heaved in the spasms of nausea. I felt twisted out of shape and tried to pull myself together but couldn't move. My feet were tied and my hands bound together behind my back. I forced my eyes open, saw the two who carried me, and beside the ones who held me under the arms, Dulcie and Belar Ris.

Dog met dog again. He saw me looking at him and said, "You are a fool."

But I didn't answer him. I looked at the other dog and said to Dulcie, "Hello, bitch."

She didn't answer me. The one carrying my feet stopped and said, "In here, Belar?"

"Yes, with the others, Ali."

He let my feet go and turned, taking a set of keys from his pocket. This time I got a good look at his face. I had seen it twice before. "Once in a news photo standing near Belar Ris. But the first time was when I was leaving Dulcie's office and he stepped out of the elevator.

The picture was complete. Only no one was going to see it. Like the one Cleo painted of me, I thought. That was all that was left. My eyes closed and I felt my head fall again, but I could still hear them.

Dulcie said, "You think it's safe?"

Belar's voice was a deep rumble. "The windows are barred and the door is triple locked. They'll keep until we can dispose of them."

"But..."

He cut her short. "You get upstairs and quiet the others. Someone could have heard the shooting. If there's an inquiry we can arrange to have the guards say there was a prowler on the grounds. If not, we'll simply sit down, let everyone return to normal and discuss how we can get rid of the bodies this one provided us with."

I heard the door swing open, then I was tossed inside and the door closed with a metallic clang behind me and the bolts shot home. I lay there waiting, retching at the pain that was like a hot iron against my head, the cold concrete of the floor grinding against my face.

Then there was the rasp of a match and a light blossomed in the comer of the room and a familiar voice said, "Mike?"

Surprise shook me back to normal. I saw her face in the light, grimy with dirt, but smiling. "Hi, Velda." You'd think we were meeting for lunch.

She laughed, reached up and pulled a cord. A single bulb suspended from the ceiling came on, the light barely reaching the corners of the room. She came over, untied my hands and feet, watched while I rubbed the circulation back into them and looked at the cut on my scalp. It was superficial, but painful. At least I wouldn't die from it.

When I could stand up she pointed behind me. Greta Service was lying there, hands and feet tied, a large, blue bruise on her forehead. "They brought her here first," Velda said. "Are there any others?"

"No."

She bent down and untied Greta, then massaged her into gradual consciousness. I let her get done, made sure Greta was all right, then pulled Velda up to me. "Let's have it, kitten. How the hell did you get here?"

"Julie Pelham. That man found her. He must have been looking for her and forced her into the car, then didn't know what to do with her. I saw them go by, grabbed the plate number and had it checked out. It was registered to one of the ones in the legation that occupies this building. I tried to come in through a back way, got cornered by one of those dogs and a guard grabbed me. They were having a conference on what to do with me when some of the others began arriving, so they tied me up and dumped me in here. It took me about an hour to break loose, but at least I wasn't shut up in the dark."

"What happened to the girl?"

Velda pointed toward the far corner with her thumb. "Look."

Two bodies were curled together in a heap. "They both made mistakes," I said. "He couldn't explain the girl, but she explained him." I glanced around me peering into the shadows. "Have you checked this place out?"

"It's part of an old laundry. Those are washtubs down there and there's an old gas stove that leaks. That one window leads out to the ground level. I think we're in the back of the house somewhere, but I'm not sure. The window bars go right into the cement."

She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, but I could feel the rising fear in her inflection. "Take it easy, kid. Let me look around."

There was no chance of going through the door. It was too heavy and too securely bolted. The only other way out was the window. The glass was on the other side of the bars, coated with black paint. I felt the bars themselves, inch-thick pieces of metal with only a surface coating of rust. At a first glance they seemed to be an impregnable barrier, but the iron had feet of clay.

The old cement they were imbedded in had been eroded by dampness and leakage and I could scratch a groove in it with my fingernail. I went over to the old stove, pulled off one of the grates and began chipping away. It powdered at first, then the cracks appeared and I pulled it loose by chunks. In ten minutes I had the bars wrenched out of place. I didn't have a gun any more, but those bars would make a good weapon if we needed one.

Greta moaned and sat up, one hand going to her head. She was still only half conscious and unaware of what was going on. I got my arms around her to pull her to her feet when I heard a short muffled buzz and held up my hand for Velda to be quiet. After a few seconds it came again, then once more and was cut off in the middle. I let Greta go and went over to the cabinet beside the stove. I pulled the door open.

Inside on the shelf was an old phone buried under a heap of moldy towels. I picked the receiver up gently, but whoever was on the other end was just hanging up. I held the hook down, let it go and listened but there was no dial tone.

The expectant look on Velda's face disappeared when I shook my head. "It rings on an incoming call, but you can't call out. It's an old model they forgot to disengage when they installed the new ones. It only works because there's a crossed wire somewhere."

"But if someone calls in...we could tell them..." She stopped, realizing the improbability of it.

Yet...something could be done with that phone. We might not make it out of the grounds, but we could leave our fist behind us. I pulled it out as far as I could, pried the guts out of it so that only the ringing mechanism was left. I unscrewed the bells and tied a nail to the clapper with a shoelace for greater leverage. Then I fastened the crazy rig to the light bulb so that when the phone rang that bulb was going to be smashed to bits.

Velda watched me, but I didn't take the time to explain it to her. When I was through I went to the window, swung it outward on its hinges and helped Velda climb through. She and I both managed to get Greta out and when they were ready I went back, pulled the burners off the stove so the gas would come through at full pressure and climbed out the window. When I pushed it back in place I picked up the iron bars, handed one to Velda and said, "Let's go."

And the lady with the luck smiled on us. This time she was giving us a free roll of the dice. The night was our friend and the shadows our love. The guards were still there, but their anxiety made them too alert and they exposed themselves so we were able to skirt around their positions. The cool wind was at our backs so no scent reached the dogs and we made the wall and found a way over it.

The car wasn't too far away, still concealed where I had hidden it and we got in and I started up and pulled out on the dirt road. A quarter mile down other cars paraded in their vigil, protecting those behind the walls from those outside.

It was the wrong way around, I thought.

We passed through Bradbury, found an open gas station and went in and cleaned up. I looked at the clock. In a little while the sun would be coming up.

I used one of George's credit cards he kept in the glove compartment to wangle some cash out of the station attendant. He figured us for Saturday-night drunks and had that happen to him before and the tip was worth his handing me the change.

I made one call to Hy from the pay station outside and told him to get me the number of the phone in the building Belar Ris' group occupied. Hy called back in five minutes, but I wouldn't give him any information. I said I'd tell him later and I would. It was a shame he'd never be able to print it.

Velda and Greta Service came out and got in the car. I was dropping a dime in the slot when a city patrol car drove up and a uniformed cop got out, fishing in his pocket for some change. He saw me in the booth and stood outside waiting patiently while I dialed.

By now that single room would be gas-packed, a monstrous potential of destruction waiting to be triggered into instant hell.

In my ear I heard the stutter of the ringing phone.

Six miles away a brilliant glow of orange blossomed like a night flower into the sky, lasted seconds at its apex and died with the speed of its blooming. There were more seconds of night-quiet, then the thunderous roar came in with its wave of shock that rattled the windows in the buildings behind us.

The cop's mouth dropped open, his face still taut with surprise. "What the hell was that!"

"Wrong number," I said and walked to the car.