The Long Wait

Chapter Seven

All I could say was, “Where’d you get it?”

“Our little hick paper has a big city morgue. Read the rest of it.”

I did that, too. They were accounts of the crimes I was suspected of committing. They were all dated and the date of the last one was about three weeks before I forgot who I was. I stuffed them back in the envelope and handed them to Logan. I felt like something that should be crawling instead of walking. “What’re you going to do about it?”

He started out the window. “I don’t know,” he said, “I honestly don’t know. You’re wanted, you know.”

“I could get away with it.”

“Yeah, your fingerprints. You might get away with it if they can’t bring them out. You might get away with it if you throw everything on the real Johnny McBride. He’s dead. He wouldn’t mind.”

“Go to hell.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Say something else.”

“Okay, I will. I went further than just digging this stuff out of the files. I checked back on your story. Everything you told me was corroborated by the outfit you worked for. Maybe you were a lot of things before the accident, but those things aren’t what you are now. It’s quite possible that you are a completely different personality from what you were and there’s no need making you stand trial for something another self did.”

I turned my head and grinned at him. It felt like it was plastered on: “Thanks, pal. What happens if I get my memory back?”

“Let’s wait until it happens.”

“You think I’ll tell you about it?”

“No.”

“You’re not kidding. If I have a conscience it won’t bother me so much that I’ll go and make a public confession of murder and do a jig at the end of a rope. Not me, pal.”

“Nuts, you’re taking that chance right now.” Logan snorted derisively. “Although it would be funny if you hung for Minnow’s murder and not the right one.”

“Oh, that would be great all right.” I tapped the bulge in his pocket. “Does Lindsey know about all this?”

Logan shook his head. “He’s much too interested in you as Johnny McBride. You’ll be safer if you let him keep thinking you are.”

“Someplace you come in, Logan. You’re still a reporter and if you’re the right kind nothing’s going to make you squelch a good story.”

He nodded abruptly. “Nothing except the possibility that a better one might come out of waiting,” he said. He turned slowly and stared at me. “I’m destroying this stuff. It can be duplicated, but it wouldn’t do to have it on file where it might get picked up accidentally. I’m going to wait, Johnny. I’m enough of a reporter to know when a story is brewing and I think one is coming up. Don’t pull anything fast on me, understand?”

“Perfectly. Now how about Vera West?”

“Not a trace. She disappeared completely. I even checked through Washington with a friend of mine in the Social Security office. If she’s employed nothing is being paid into her account.”

“And my friends who tried to knock me off?”

“They’re tagged, but that’s as far as it goes. If they were working for somebody here in Lyncastle they didn’t leave any evidence of it.”

“Something else’ll happen soon,” I said. “There were three of them and the other got away to carry the story home. It’ll happen again. If it does I’ll call you.”

“If you’re still alive. If that happens you can usually reach me at the Circus Bar.”

My lips jerked back and left my teeth bare. “I stay alive through a lot of things, Logan. I’m not easy to take at all.”

He grinned back at me and got out of the car. I stayed there until he had walked away then kicked the engine over. A half hour later I was down in the red light district looking for a parking place.

Some people might have called it a slum section, or if they saw it when it wasn’t too light, an old residential spot gone to seed. There was a swamp on one side and a road that led to the smelter plant on the other, with four or five blocks nestling in the V of the two. Along the road were a dozen gin mills, a gas station and a few stores. Most of the section was given over to providing homes for the poorer element of Lyncastle, but the one block along the outer edge of the section made no bones about being what it was. Elm Street. There wasn’t a tree in sight.

The houses were the same style and age, but they looked alive. Some were sprawled out with extra wings added on in ranch-type style and others had fairly new second stories added.

Hell, all you had to do was look in the garbage cans. They were loaded with booze bottles. I spotted some of the babes sunning themselves in the backyards and on the front porch of one place a drinking bout was just getting started.

No. 107 was the last place on the road. Originally it had been a two-story job with a garage. Now the garage was part of a wing that crossed the back of the house like a T, extending on the other side into three small cabin affairs. It was a white house with red shutters, a red door and red Venetian blinds on all the windows.

Very appropriate.

I went up and rang the bell. Inside a radio was playing softly. The Moonlight Sonata. It didn’t go with the business at all. I rang the bell again and lit a cigarette.

Then the door opened and the bag Jack told me to see was standing there smiling gently at the creature that was man, glancing quickly and humorously at the watch on her wrist because it was only four o’clock and not the time for that sort of thing at all.

But she wasn’t a bag at all either. Somebody had taken a statue of Venus, patted it until it was soft, colored it with jet-black hair and rich magenta lips and poured it into a dress that had an elastic quality of being stretched too tight, needing only one touch to burst.

I said, “Jack sent me,” then felt like a damn fool. I must have looked it, because her smile got wider. “If I knew you’d be here I would have come anyway and kicked the door down to get in,” I added.

She had a nice laugh. She looked even prettier with her head thrown back. “Please come in. I really wouldn’t want you to kick my door down.”

So I went in. I sat down and gaped at a room that had all the trimmings of a mansion and let her serve me a drink from a small bar built into the wall. On either side it was flanked with books and they weren’t just dummy copies. There was a record library built in around a console player that held a selection of classics and only a handful of popular pieces.

“Like it?” She swayed over with a bottle and ice and put them on an end table.

“It fooled me. I’ve never been in one of these places before.”

“Really?” She took a sip of her drink. “I’m alone until six o’clock. The girls won’t be in until then.”

It was a nice way of putting it. Just so I didn’t get ideas, you know. Venus was the owner and operator, not a hired hand. I finished my drink and the cigarette at the same time and waved off seconds. “I’m not too early because I’m not after merchandise, kid. I’m after information. Jack thought you might be able to supply it.”

“Nice boy, Jack. Who are you?”

“A friend of his and names don’t matter. Ever hear of Vera West?”

“Certainly. Why?”

She said it so coolly that I got caught short for a second. “Where is she?”

“That I couldn’t tell you. For a while she was Lenny Servo’s girl, but then that isn’t unusual. A lot of women were Lenny’s... for a while.”

“You too?”

“A long time ago. For a week.” She took a deep pull on the butt and exhaled it slowly, watching the smoke curl around the glass in her hand. “You really meant to ask me... if Vera was... one of us now, didn’t you?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, fella, as far as I know, she never had anything for sale. She certainly never got this far. She wasn’t the type.”

“You don’t look like the type either.”

I got that laugh again. She reached over and ran her fingers through my hair. “That’s a long story and a rather interesting one. Now tell me about your Vera West.”

“Hell, I don’t have anything to tell about her. I want to find her.”

“How long has she been gone?”

“Quite a while. It’s a cold trail.”

“Have you tried the police?”

I let out a short snort and she knew what I meant.

“You can try the bus station and the trains. If anybody knew her there they might have seen her leave. It’s possible that she might have gone to some large city and taken up her former occupation. She was something in the bank, wasn’t she?”

“Secretary,” I said.

“Then she’d be a secretary or steno somewhere else.”

“You know a lot about things, don’t you?”

“A little,” she said, “I used to be married to a cop.”

I squashed out my butt and stood up. “I’ll try everything I can. This was an angle and it didn’t pan out so at least I know where not to look now.”

“Have you tried Servo? He might know where she is.”

My fist kept pounding against my palm slowly. “I haven’t seen him... yet. Maybe I will pretty soon now.”

Her eyes went a little bit cold. “Say hello for me when you do,” she said.

“In the teeth?”

Her head moved up and down once, and slowly. “Snap them off. Right across the front.”

We stood there looking at each other for quite a while. Everything she was thinking came out in her eyes and I knew the kind of a deal she had gotten from Lenny Servo too. I was working up a nice feeling for that guy. “I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

“I’d like that. Maybe if you called me back later I’ll have news for you. The... girls usually know pretty much of what goes on in town. The number’s unlisted — 1346.”

She walked me to the door and twisted the knob on the lock. She was close and smelled faintly of jasmine, the way Venus should smell. Every bit of her was outlined in detail against the clinging fabric of the dress. She caught me studying her and smiled again.

“How do you get into that thing?” I asked her.

“It’s a trick.” She handed me a silken tassel that was suspended from a gimmick on her shoulder. I held it in my fingers a second, she kept on smiling, so I gave it a pull. Something happened to the dress. It wasn’t there any more. It all came apart and fell on the floor with me still holding the tassel and Venus looked like she was supposed to look. She was tall and lovelier than when she had clothes on.

“Now you know,” she laughed. “What do you think?”

“Baby,” I said, “on some people skin is skin...”

“And on me?”

“A beautiful invitation in black and white.”

I opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind me. Venus had made it too plain that I didn’t have to wait until six o’clock if I didn’t want to, but I just couldn’t afford the time. Later maybe.

I drove back downtown and picked out a joint that didn’t look too flashy and went in for a beer. The bartender set one up, took my change and stood by until I finished, then got me another. The slots were making music all around the walls and over the noise there would be an occasional yell from the back room when a number came up on a wheel. The two guys next to me were spending some of their winnings from the craps table and getting ready to go back and give it another whirl.

One of them tried to talk me into making it a threesome and I turned it down and had a beer instead. I had just started on it when somebody moved into the space they left at the bar and said, “Hello, tough boy.”

I said, “Hello, flatfoot,” and Tucker’s beefy face got real nasty.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

“I’m not hard to find.”

“Shut up and pick up your change. You’re going for a ride.”

That was nice. I wanted to tell him I already had one and didn’t feel like another, but I didn’t. I said, “You arresting me?”

“If you want it that way.”

“What for?”

“A little double murder out at the quarry. Suspicion, you know. Captain Lindsey wants to talk to you.”

I picked up my change and went for a little ride.

It was silent all the way. Nobody said anything until I was back in that same office where it all happened before Lindsey was behind the desk and two other guys in suitcoats were sitting beside him. Tucker leaned back against the door and let me stand in the middle of the room.

When I pulled out a cigarette Lindsey barked, “No smoking in here.” I put the butt back and walked over to a chair. “McBride,” Lindsey said, “you stand there until I tell you to sit down, understand?”

I picked the chair up by the legs and looked at him and the rest of them. “I don’t understand a thing, you goddamn pig, you! I’m making it nice and plain so there won’t be any mistake about it. There’s four of you here and some more outside, but just get wise and I’ll smash your lousy head in. I’d like to see who’s got the guts to try and take me.”

Tucker would have tried it. He had his gun out and was moving in when Lindsey stopped him. “Cut it, Tuck. When it comes this guy is mine. He’s talking big and I’ll let him talk big, but by God he’ll be talking mighty small soon and I’m going to show him the kind of gadgets we got in the cellar and let him see how they work.” He nodded to me curtly. “Sit down, sit down. I have some questions to ask you.”

I put the chair down and sat on it. Tucker got behind me and stayed there playing with his gun. “What is it now?”

“I suppose you have an alibi for last night?”

“I got a beauty,” I lied.

It turned out better than I expected. I was doing some fast thinking when Lindsey gave me credit for really having one. I could tell it by his expression. He took in the men beside him with a glance. “We recovered two guns that had several prints on them. Over one was a peculiar sort of smudge. That make any sense to you, McBride?”

“Sure. The killer was wearing gloves.”

“No, the killer had no prints.”

“Good for him.”

“Not so good for him. These men are from Washington. They specialize in that sort of thing. They’re going to take you downstairs and check your fingerprints.”

Then I saw why he wasn’t too concerned about my alibi. Hell, he didn’t care about the two at the quarry. He wanted to get me for Minnow’s murder. There he had a set of prints to go on, not a smudge.

I shrugged like I didn’t give a damn and that much was the truth.

I didn’t give a damn.

For two years I had had experts work those same finger over just to find out who I was, and now I was damn glad nothing came of it. The two guys got up, led the way, I got in the middle and Lindsey and Tucker followed along behind me.

The whole thing took better than an hour. I let them play with their gadgets, do things to my fingers that left them raw and bleeding, take sample impressions one after the other and never squawked when I got blisters from holding my hands too near the ultraviolet lights.

I was the most co-operative subject the boys had ever had and when it was over all they had was a bunch of smudges and a brand-new case history for rookie cops to study because I was the first one who ever had his fingerprints removed completely. The boys were shaking their heads when I left, Lindsey was cursing to himself trying to hold his temper in check and Tucker was watching me like he was glad because he might be able to even things up with me his way.

I went in the barbershop off the lobby and picked out a chair along the wall. Looth Tooth had a customer in the chair and was fidgeting over him like an old woman. A bellboy came in and handed the guy two telegrams and a telephone message slip and when he got a fat tip said, “Thanks, Mayor.”

Two men came in after me, gave the mayor a fat hello, then parked and talked shop. One was a councilman. I was in the Waldorf of Lyncastle. Where the elite meet for a shave and a haircut and some choice cuts of local gossip. Logan should hire Looth Tooth, I thought. It would be better than taking a poll.

When the mayor climbed down I took his place in the chair. Looth Tooth had the apron around my neck and was about to pin it shut when he met my eyes in the mirror and turned white. His hands started to shake when he put the towel 90 around me and I was beginning to think that it wasn’t such a good idea after all.

When he had about five minutes of it I said, “Look, quit being so nervous. You gave me a treatment with the cops and I got back at you in that bar. It’s over. Finished. I’m not mad any more.”

The sigh he let out whistled through his teeth. “I... I’m awfully sorry about that, sir. You see... I thought... well, I do have quite a memory, and I thought the police... well, it was sort of a public duty and...”

“Sure, I would have done the same thing myself. Forget about it.”

“Oh, gladly, sir, gladly!” He laid a hot towel across my face and began to massage in the heat. It felt good. I lay there stretched out in the chair while he went through all his tricks. My eyes closed and the sounds from the street got dimmer and dimmer and the brush was a gentle thing floating across my cheeks.

It was nice for thinking. Johnny and I used to make a habit of being barber-shaved on Saturday afternoons. We’d sit next to each other and crack jokes under the towels and make plans for the day. We sure had a hell of a good time together. It wasn’t so nice without him any more. Wherever he was, I hoped he’d keep an eye on me. Maybe he’d like what I was doing... or maybe he wouldn’t. It wasn’t too nice to bring things back that were better off forgotten, but as long as he was dead now he was going to have died honorably. Somebody else didn’t want that past brought up again... they were scared silly when I came around, enough to try to have me bumped. And somebody else was looking for Vera West too, according to Jack.

I wondered about that.

Looth Tooth rattled something I didn’t hear, something about getting slicked up for tonight. I said, “Make me pretty, mister. Tonight’s a big date night.”

The stuff he patted on my cheeks bit in. “You mean, Miss West? Yes, I remember. You and she... oh, I... I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”

“Hell, man that’s okay. All over the hill now.”

He was smiling when he dusted me off and I handed him a buck tip. He did everything except kiss me good-by when I left and he was glad to see me go. The poor slob probably figured he had talked his way out of a smearing and would have something else to gas about to the rest of his customers.

A light drizzle had put a slick on the streets. Off in the west, sheet lightning turned the sky a dull orange momentarily and seconds later there was a faint rumble of thunder. I stepped up my pace until I got back to the car, then sat there deciding where to go. A kid in a green sweater came along with a batch of papers under his arm, turned into the gin mill and made the rounds. When he came out I called him over and asked him where the Circus Bar was. He told me it was straight down the avenue and I couldn’t miss it because there were pink elephants painted across the windows. I bought a paper, flipped him a quarter and rolled away from the curb.

The Circus Bar was back-to-back with the Lyncastle News building and for all its fancy name, it was strictly a place for reporters and linotype men. There must have been twenty phones on the bar with half of them in use. It was between shifts and eyerybody but the reporters were either having one for the road or a pre-work quickie.

It didn’t take me long to find Logan. He was all the way down at the back of the bar with a phone pressed against his mouth, shifting around every second or so to keep from being overheard. He saw me the same time I saw him, slammed the phone back and grabbed me on the run.

“Come on, if you want to see me you can do it while we ride.” He yelled so long to a couple of people and hustled me outside. I climbed in the Chevvy with him and waited until we had backed out to the street and turned around.

“Where we going?”

“Item for my column. Some jane got bumped.”

I let out a whistle. “Who?”

“Don’t know. A guy that tips me to these things just called in about it. There’s a dead woman in a hotel over by the river. The way Lindsey and the coroner operate, they won’t give out any details to the press for a week unless we’re right on the spot when they arrive. What have you been up to all day?”

“I’ve been visiting with friend Lindsey,” I said. Logan’s eyes drifted to mine for a second, then went back to the road. The wipers buzzed steadily, keeping time to the hum of the wheels.

“What’d he want?”

“He had a couple of experts with him. They wanted to bring my prints out.”

“So?”

I hunched my shoulders in a shrug. “So they couldn’t do it.”

“George Wilson’s as dead as Johnny McBride then, isn’t he?”

“Looks that way.”

Logan wrenched the wheel over and sent the car skittering around a curve onto a gravel drive. Up ahead was a ramshackle wood frame building with a veranda that ran completely around the place. He stopped, backed into a parking area and nodded for me to get out.

Over the door a sign read “Pine Tree Gardens.” There was an old pickup truck around the side, but nobody seemed to be around. Logan started up the steps and pushed the bell. “This used to be a fairly decent boarding house. It’s next door to a flophouse now.”

The dirty curtain that stretched the length of the door inched to one side and a pair of eyes took us in. Something like relief showed in the face and the door creaked open. The guy standing there biting his lips said, “Geez, Mr. Logan, this sure is trouble. I don’t know whatta do.”

“Did you call the police yet?”

“No, no, no! I didn’t do nothing ’cept tell Howie and he said he’d call you. Geez, Mr. Logan...”

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Second room on the front. You want to look, you go ahead. I ain’t going in no dead room.”

We went inside through a foyer, up the stairs and the guy waved toward the only door on the floor. Logan said, “There?”

“Yeah.”

I went in behind him. It was a shabby room with an old-fashioned brass bed, a couple of ratty chairs and a dresser. The closet doors were open, the windows were open and the dead woman lay stretched out in the middle of the bed with her head still cradled on her arm. Somebody had planted a knife in her back right through the bedclothes and she died so fast she didn’t even bother to bleed.

Logan let out a coarse shudder. “Right through the heart it looks like. Neat job. Missed the ribs so there was no trouble working the knife out.”

“All that in one glance,” I said sarcastically.

“I’ve seen as many of these as Lindsey has. Where’s that guy?”

“Waiting in the hall.”

Logan swung around and went back to the door. He yelled, “Who is she, Mac?”

“Name’s Inez Casey. She and some other broad have that room together. They’re waitresses someplace. Work shifts in the same joint.”

“You stay here?”

“Downstairs. Yesterday they told me they wanted a window fixed so I came up to fix it. I found... her... there like that.”

Logan grunted something and came back in the room. I was on my knees looking at the babe’s face and he knelt down beside me. “She wasn’t a bad-looking tomato,” I said. “What do you make of it?”

He got up with a shrug and felt her arm. “Hell, who knows? Things like this keep happening in this town now. Probably a love angle in it. The dames they get for waitresses in the joints around here are never too careful who they fool around with. Good knife job, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “it has a regular professional touch. Whoever did it knew where to place that shiv. Didn’t even have to feel around for the spot.”

Logan shuddered again. “I’m going to call Lindsey.”

“I’ll wait outside,” I said. “He won’t be too happy to see me around.”

So I sat in the car and Lindsey didn’t see me. Neither did Tucker nor the two plain-clothes men nor the fat little coroner. The D. A. came in last and left first. He didn’t see me either. Almost an hour later Logan came back and got in under the wheel. I asked, “What’s the decision?”

“Stabbed. Unknown assailant. Lindsey was on the phone most of the time and picked up a few details. She worked in the ABC Diner out along the highway. Her roommate is there now. There’s a couple of guys involved but nobody knows their names.”

“Not even the roommate?”

“Nope. It’s a fairly recent thing and they don’t seem to get much time together to talk over love affairs. Evidently she met them both in the diner and has been playing them along. The past week she’s been going strong for this one joe and broke off with the other one after some sort of a fuss. Lindsey’ll track ’em down. Won’t take long.”

“Not much of a story, is there?”

Logan wrinkled his mouth. “Not for my column.”

“I was doing a lot of thinking while I waited for you,” I said.

He looked at me without speaking.

I said, “She didn’t move when she was killed.”

“Hell, she got it right through the heart. She died instantly.”

I made like I hadn’t heard him at all. “She was on her belly with her face buried in her arm.”

“What about it?” he demanded impatiently.

I grinned at him, then let out a short laugh. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Logan. Wild ideas, I guess. I wish I knew where the hell I get them.”

He turned the key and started the engine. Tucker was pulling away in a police car and we stayed behind him to the highway. On the concrete the police heap turned on the siren and picked up speed. Logan didn’t bother to keep up with him.

Right on the edge of town Logan said, “Hey... almost forgot. You see the paper tonight?”

“I bought one, but I didn’t read it. Why?”

“Take a look in the personal column.”

I scowled at him then pulled the paper out from behind my back. When I found the personal section I held it under the dash light and fingered my way down the column. Next to last from the bottom were two lines that read: J. Mc call 5492 at 11 P. M. Urgent.

I tore the spot out and tucked it in my pocket. “Could be me, couldn’t it?”

“Could be,” Logan nodded. “It came in just before the paper went to bed. I happened to catch it in the proofs accidentally. A boy brought it in and paid for it.”

“What time is it?”

He looked at his watch. “Ten-thirty. Want to stop for a beer?”

“Sure,” I said.

There wasn’t any trouble finding a roadhouse. The trick was in finding one that had room to spare in the parking lot. We had to cut back away from town to a dump that was supposed to look like a log cabin and the only reason there was a half empty parking place was because of the lack of gambling facilities inside. There wasn’t any blue sign in the window, either.

It was almost eleven by then so I told Logan to order for me while I put in a call. I could see the clock on the wall and held my nickel back until the time was right, then spun my number. It rang once and a voice said, “Yes?”

It was a woman’s voice, a nice deep, controlled voice that painted pictures of what was on the other end of the line.

“I’m calling about a certain piece in tonight’s paper.”

She didn’t offer any information except, “Go on.”

“I’m a ‘J. Mc’.. if it helps.”

“That helps some.”

“Johnny McBride is all of it.”

“Yes, Johnny, you’re the one I meant.” There was just the slightest pause between her words. “See Harlan, Johnny. You must see Harlan.”

Then she hung up. It happened so fast I turned the receiver around and stared at it before I put it back. On second thought I took out another nickel, dropped it in and dialed the operator. When she answered I said brusquely, “This is Tucker, city police. I want a numbed traced. 5492. Want me to wait?”

“Just a minute please.” I waited, then: “That number is a pay station on the corner of Grand and the boulevard.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I didn’t get it at all. I went back to the bar and had my beer. Logan was curious without asking questions so I told him that it wasn’t for me and he seemed satisfied.

We had another beer and halfway through it the door to the men’s room on the other side of the bar opened and a little guy with a funny walk came out. He kept his head down and edged in to where he left his drink and started working it over.

Logan wanted another round, but I shook my head. The little guy over the way was collecting his change and I did the same thing. Across my back the muscles were lumping up into hard knots and my fingers wouldn’t hold still. Not ten feet off was the son of a bitch who tailed me last night, the same boy who had gotten away from me up at the quarry.

I made it look casual as possible because I didn’t want Logan in on it. I gave the guy about thirty seconds, got outside in time to see him stepping into a car and hustled over to Logan’s Chevvy. I managed to mumble something about never having driven a late model like his and he told me to go ahead and try it.

That was nice because I was able to tail the guy all the way back to town without getting wise. And for a change I even got a break. There was a red light showing when we came to the Circus Bar and the guy had to stop for it. I had a chance to say good night to Logan, hop out and make my own heap before the light changed and picked the guy up as he drove past.

He swung down the main drag with me right behind him and he never got wise to the tail job for a minute. When he slowed up and started to crowd the curb I knew he was looking for a parking place, so I pulled ahead of him, found an empty slot before he did, and backed into it. About a half a block down he got a place too, parked the car and walked back toward me.

I let him pass. I gave him a hundred feet of space between us then took up the tail again. This was even easier than driving. The drizzle was steady now, blowing in from the west, but neither that nor the flashes of lightning in the sky were doing anything to hamper business.

Place after place was a madhouse of noise that overflowed to the sidewalk. People were changing spots constantly hoping for a change of luck. Most of them had a slight edge on and were in a hurry to get back to the bars and the tables. I had to weave through them to keep up with the guy and finally stayed on the outside near the curb where there was a narrow open lane.

He turned into the gaudiest spot on the street. It had a canopy extending from the doorway to the curb with an admiral in full dress uniform helping the patrons from the cabs. It had a fancy French name with tiny gilt letters on the windows that proclaimed, “Edward Packman, owner.”

And Eddie Packman was the guy Vera West had seen at the station just before she ran. Or so Jack said anyway.

The bar was fifty feet long with the crowd four deep behind the rail. A dozen bartenders tried to keep up with the orders, moving with short, jerky motions like comedians in old-fashioned movies. The rest of the room was just one big gambling casino jammed to the rafters with more people than the fire laws allowed trying their luck on anything that came along.

They even had mouse games. The women screamed, the men cheered and the live mice ran into holes that paid off at six to one. But there were about two hundred holes in the board and only three mice to each game so the house could not lose at all.

My little guy was half the bar away finishing a beer. When he set the empty back on the bar he backed through the mob and walked down the back. A flight of stairs went up and disappeared into a dimly lit alcove. I watched him until he was out of sight and took it easy with my drink.

A half hour later he was back. This time he didn’t stop for a drink. His face had a peculiar set to it; pleased, but still showing the signs of recent anger. He went past me, out the door and started back to his car.

I was right there again when he pulled away. He turned right at the corner, right again on a street that was without much traffic and kept going until he intersected the highway. You could see that there wasn’t a car in sight going either way and I didn’t expect him to make a stop just because the sign said to. He jammed on the brakes and I had to yank the wheel to cut around him and for the first time he saw my face. His mouth dropped and he let the clutch out so fast the car hopped ahead like a jackrabbit.

I gave the Ford all it would take and screamed out on the highway. His taillight was a tiny red eye going like hell, but the Ford was up to it and closed the distance down fast. We were both up past the eighty mark, taking the turns with the tires whining and I was getting edgy enough to curse myself for not having taken him sooner. On the straightaways I could pick up on him, but the Ford was too light to make the turns and he was holding his own.

Then there was a nice long straightaway and I pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor and crouched there trying to keep the Ford on the road. I would have had him if I hadn’t seen the lights of a truck sweeping around a curve about a mile ahead. I knew damn well I wouldn’t make it and eased on the brakes, but the guy in front of me tried to take it wide open.

He went into the turn skidding, started to recover, lost control for a second then all he was was a blur tumbling end over end through the fields in a horrible screeching noise of tearing metal and breaking glass. I overshot him by a half mile, turned around and pulled off the road where he went into the weeds.

Fifty yards away I found the wreck upside down with one crazily bent wheel still spinning foolishly. He was half out of the car because that was all that was left of him. The top half.

It was still alive, too.

It kept saying, “Doctor... doctor.”

I bent down and said, “Who sent you after me? Listen to me... who sent you?” I lit a match and held it up so I could see his face, cupping my fingers over it to keep off the rain. “Tell me, feller. It’s too late for a doctor. Who sent you after me?”

The eyes got some recognition in them briefly. He mumbled, “... Doctor... need... doctor,” then the rain put the match out anyway, but it didn’t matter because the guy was dead.

Tough. Ha.

I flipped open his jacket and lifted out his gun. I took the shoulder harness off too and tossed it as far as I could. The gun I dropped in my pocket. Then I found his wallet. There was one thousand bucks in hundred-dollar bills tucked behind two fives and a one. The grand went in with the gun and I put the rest back in his wallet and stuck it in his coat.

Now the cops and the papers could blame the accident on a guy who had too much of what was for sale in Lyncastle.

Now I could go back and ask Eddie Packman what the guy did to earn a grand and maybe squeeze him a little to make him talk.

So I went back to the joint with the fancy French name and made some discreet inquires concerning Mr. Packman’s whereabouts. Only that man wasn’t around. He had left twenty minutes before with a party and was someplace in town having himself a time. Nobody knew where.

I said to hell with it and had a drink. The lousy beer sat there in my stomach and growled at me because I had too much to drink and not enough to eat. That, at least, I could take care of. I got back in the car, drove out past the bus station to the highway and kept on going until I came to Louis Dinero’s place. The gun made a bulge in my pocket so I slid it behind the cushions and went in.

Wendy was just coming on with her number and the patrons were letting out a long “Ahaaa” of satisfaction. I let out one myself and watched her step up to the mike. There was a baby spot behind her that shone right through the white dress she had on and the only thing you couldn’t see was what was on the other side. She was real pretty to look at, especially with all that skin showing. I slid into a table, told a waiter to bring me a steak, rare, then had a butt while Wendy made with some gentle spasms here and there until the dress seemed to crawl right off her.

I looked around at all those jerks, watching the frozen expression of their faces, the too-plain lust in their eyes and all of a sudden I got mad — at Wendy. I didn’t like for a babe to show off to a pack of stiffs what she showed me in private.

Then I felt like one of the jerks myself and dropped it. She was just another sugar cutie, a little better than most, but her hair came out of a bottle and up close her eyes were hard around the edges. So she liked to play games and who the hell was I to complain about it? The waiter brought my steak, I ate my way through it, paid my bill then caught Louie’s eye and he waved me over.

The guy had a memory like an elephant and gave me a regular glad hand. When I asked him if it’d be okay for me to see Wendy backstage he told me sure and showed me where the entrance was to the dressing rooms. So I went back, found the door with W. M. lettered on it, turned the knob and shoved the door open.

I should have knocked first.