The Mourner

1

Parker left the truck a block from the bungalow, and said to Handy, “Can you keep him tight?”

“No trouble.” Handy was sitting up now, and looked in better shape. He held the .380 loosely in his lap, his eye on Pliers. “He won’t go anywhere.”

“You guys are wasting your time,” Pliers said. He looked surly and belligerent, but not very tough.

Parker got out of the truck and walked to the bungalow. It was still dark. All the houses around here were dark, and even the street lights seemed dimmed, because of the trees along the sidewalks, which cut off some of the light. Parker was the only thing moving on either sidewalk and there were no cars in sight.

There was a driveway next to the bungalow, but no garage. The driveway was just a double dirt track. Parker used it to go around to the rear. The kitchen door was locked, but it jimmied quickly and quietly. Parker stepped inside.

The house had four rooms. Living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. Without turning on any lights, Parker moved through them and found them all empty. He went out the front door and walked back to the truck. He started it and drove to the bungalow, up the driveway, and around to the back yard. “Hold him a minute more,” he said to Handy, and got out of the truck again. He went into the house and turned on the kitchen light. Enough light spilled out the rear window so he could switch off the truck lights.

Handy could walk now, but stiffly. The three of them went into the bungalow, and while Handy covered Pliers with the .380, Parker frisked him. Back at the garage he’d only gone over him for hardware; now he was emptying everything out of the man’s pockets. Under the white coverall Pliers was wearing brown slacks and a green flannel shirt.

His goods gradually stacked up on the kitchen table. A wallet, a pack of Marlboros in the box, a Zippo lighter with some sort of Army insignia on one side, a pair of pliers with electrician’s tape on the handles, a screwdriver, a switchblade knife, a small flat black address book, an inhaler, and a tin packet of aspirin. The wallet contained thirty-three dollars, two pictures of a girl in a bathing suit, a picture of Pliers himself in a bathing suit, and a lot of cards — Army discharge, driver’s license, chauffeur’s license, membership card in a Teamsters local, membership card in a gym — all made out to Walter Ambridge of Baltimore.

Finished with the wallet, Parker dropped it on the table. “All right, Wally, sit down.”

“I’m called Walter.” Pliers said it truculently, and he didn’t sit down.

Parker hit him just above the belt. The wind whooshed out of him and he sagged. Parker pushed his shoulder slightly, to guide him, and he sat down. Handy was leaning against the refrigerator, still casually holding the .380.

Parker sat down in the other kitchen chair and rested his hands on the table. “All right, Wally,” he said. “Who’s Menlo?”

“Up yours.”

Parker shook his head and picked up the pliers. He extended them toward Handy. “Take off his left thumbnail.”

Ambridge came out of the chair roaring. They had to hit him hard enough to stun him before they could get him to sit down again. Parker waited until comprehension came back into Ambridge’s eyes, and then he said, “Do we have to tie you up in the chair, Wally? Do we have to hurt you? I’ve been doing nothing but ask questions all night long. I don’t like that. You answer in a hurry, Wally.”

Ambridge glared harder than ever, to cover the fact he was frightened. He said, “You birds are in trouble, you know that? You didn’t get cleared or nothing.”

“Cleared? What the hell are you talking about?”

“With the Outfit, Goddamn it. You don’t make any play around here without you clear it with the Outfit first. What the hell are you, amateurs?”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Parker. He knew what Ambridge was talking about, but he was surprised. He knew the Outfit — it was what the syndicate was calling itself that year — didn’t like action in its territories without its approval, and he knew there were people in his line of work who never took on a job without letting the Outfit know about it first. But Parker himself would never work on a job that had been tipped to the Outfit, and he didn’t know why anybody else did. The Outfit always wanted a piece, 5 or 10 per cent, for giving its permission, and permission was all it ever gave. Whatever local fix the Outfit had was no good for the transients if their deal went sour.

“So Menlo cleared this job with the Outfit. Which are you with, Menlo or the syndicate?”

“Outfit. I’m with the Outfit, on loan. Menlo didn’t have no sidemen of his own.”

Handy said, “He still doesn’t have any worth a damn. These guys had me for three hours and didn’t get me to say one word.”

“Nobody knew you had a partner.” Ambridge sounded resentful, as though Handy hadn’t played fair.

“Now we get to the question again,” Parker said. He picked up the pliers and held them loosely in both hands. “Who is Menlo, and what’s he after?”

“It don’t make no difference,” Ambridge said. “I can tell you and it don’t make no difference at all. You guys have had it anyway. You ought to know better. You can’t buck the Outfit.”

Handy laughed then, because Parker had bucked the Outfit twice in the last year and hadn’t done too badly either time. And when it came to operating without Outfit permission, Parker and Handy and most of the people they knew had been doing it for years.

Ambridge looked at Handy the way a patriot looks at somebody who forgets to take off his hat when the flag goes by. “You’ll get yours,” he said.

“Quit stalling,” Parker replied.

Ambridge shrugged. “I’ll tell you. It don’t make no difference. This guy Menlo came around—” He looked suddenly startled, and stared at their faces. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you guys Commies?”

Handy laughed again. “Not us, bo. We’re capitalists from way back.”

“Who is Menlo?” Parker was getting tired asking the same question and he was holding the pliers tighter now.

“Menlo’s a defector.” Ambridge said it the way a man says a good word he just recently learned. “He’s from one of the Commie countries. They sent him over here to do a job for them, but he’s copping out. He says this Kapor’s heavy, and it’s all got to be in the house, so we’re taking it away from him.”

“How heavy?”

“Maybe a hundred G.”

Handy whistled low, but Parker said, “Crap. In cash? Where’d he get all that?”

“Don’t ask me. This Menlo made a contract and talked to Mc — talked to the boss here, and the boss figured it’s worth the chance for a fifty-fifty split. Menlo’s got the goods, the Outfit’s got the manpower. It don’t make no difference, what I tell you; you can’t buck the Outfit.”

Maybe if he said it often enough, about his talking not making a difference, he’d start to believe it himself. Better than believing he’d been scared into it with nothing but threats.

Which meant he was probably telling the truth. The fat man, Menlo, had convinced the Outfit that Kapor’s house was full of money. But where was an embassy aide from a small and unfriendly country likely to pick up a hundred thousand dollars? Either Menlo was pulling a fast one, giving the Outfit a tale in return for some muscle, or there was more to this Kapor than Harrow knew about.

The next one to see was Menlo. Parker asked, “Where’s Menlo now?”

Ambridge shook his head. “I don’t know. He’s got the wind up, on account of you guys. He was going to stick at Clara’s place, but he won’t be there now.”

“Don’t get cute, Wally. You were supposed to get in touch with him after Handy talked. Where?”

“He didn’t say. That’s the straight goods, I swear to God. He just called us here and said take that guy to the garage, that he’d get in touch with us later.”

Handy shifted his position against the refrigerator. “He’ll be going deep now. We left the other two breathing back there.”

“That’s all right. Wally knows where he’d go.”

“How the hell would I know?”

“He’ll go where the rest of you can find him. He wants his muscle close to him. Where is it, Wally?”

“I don’t know. That’s the straight—”

Parker lifted the pliers again. “First we tie you,” he said. “Then we take your fingernails off. Then we take your teeth out.”

“What you want from me? I don’t know where he is.” Ambridge was sweating now, his forehead slick under the fluorescent light. “I been telling you what you want, what the hell do you think?”

“I think you’re afraid of somebody finding out you let us know where to find Menlo. I think you’re afraid of these pliers too. Which you afraid of most, Wally?”

“I don’t know where he is!”

Parker turned his head to Handy. “Take a look in the drawers. People usually keep twine around. We’ll have to tie him down this time.”

“Wait — wait a second. Wait now, just wait a second.” Ambridge was a big man, but he was fluttering now like a little man. “I mean, maybe I—”

“Don’t make up any addresses, Wally. You’ll give us the address and we’ll keep you on ice here till we check it out, and if Menlo isn’t there we’ll come back and talk to you again.”

“I can’t be sure he’s there! For Christ’s sake, maybe he—”

“Take a chance.”

“Well...” Ambridge wiped his palm across his forehead, and it came away wet. He looked at his wet hand with a sort of dull surprise. “I’m a coward. I’m nothing but a coward.”

Handy took pity on him. “The information didn’t come from you. It’ll never get back to your boss.”

“What good am I?” Ambridge asked himself.

It was dangerous. They’d had to push him, but there was always the chance with somebody like Ambridge, a bluffer, that you’d push him too hard and he’d be forced to look at himself and see the truth. You take a coward, and you force him to look at himself and see that he is a coward, he’s liable all of a sudden to not give a damn anymore, to get fatalistic and despairing. If he gets to that point, all of a sudden nothing will work on him anymore, no threats no punishment. He’ll just sit there and take it, thinking he deserves it anyway, thinking he’s dead anyway so what difference does it make?

Ambridge was on the edge of that, and Parker could see it. A few more seconds, and Ambridge would be unreachable. Parker reached out and slapped him across the face, open-handed, a contemptuous slap, and said with scorn, “Hurry it up, punk. You’re wasting my time.”

It was enough. The slap didn’t hurt, but it stung. So did the words, and the tone behind them. It was enough to snap Ambridge out of his introspection. He threw up the old defenses again, came back with the bluff as strong as ever. He glared at Parker and started up out of the chair. Parker and Handy had to work a little to get him to sit down again, then Parker said, “You started to give us the address. Now give.”

It was the old Ambridge who answered. “You think it makes any difference? You think you can just walk in and take him? You think he’s alone? You go after him and you’re both dead.”

“Let us worry about that.”

“You’ll worry about it. There’s a house in Bethesda, on Bradley Boulevard. Menlo’s got the borrow of it from the Outfit till the job’s done. We were supposed to call him there after we found out what your partner was up to. Go on out there, get your heads blown off. I only wish I could be there to watch.”

They had him write the address down, and then they tied him and left him in a closet. They never did remember to go back.

2

On that block was a row of two-family houses, built before the war. The one they wanted was on the corner. What the Outfit used it for normally they didn’t know, but right now Menlo was living in the downstairs flat, and the upstairs flat, according to Ambridge, was empty.

They’d stopped off on the way to get rid of the truck and pick up their own car, where Handy had left it earlier in the evening. The car was a Pontiac, two years old. It was hot, but not on the East coast, and the papers on it were a good imitation of the real thing.

Handy was driving, and a block from the address he took his foot off the accelerator. The car slowed. There were taillights ahead. A car was double-parked in front of the house they wanted, lights on and motor running.

“Go on past,” Parker said. “Then around the block.”

Parker looked the car over on the way by. It was a black Continental. The man at the wheel wore a chauffeur’s cap and was reading the Star. The car carried New York plates, and they started DPL. Diplomat. Beyond the car was the house, the ground floor all lit up, the upper story dark.

It was almost three o’clock in the morning. The Continental out front with diplomat plates at three in the morning wasn’t a good sign. Parker said, “Hurry around the block. Park on the cross street.”

“I’m ahead of you,” Handy answer. “What did that guy say Menlo was? A defector?”

“Yeah.”

They left the Pontiac half a block from Bradley, on the side street that flanked the house they wanted. This way they could get to the back door without tipping the chauffeur in the Continental.

There was a white picket fence separating the back yard from the sidewalk, with a white picket gate. The gate opened with no trouble and no squeaking, and they went across the slate walk to the stoop and up onto the back porch. The kitchen door stood wide open, and the storm door was closed but not locked. The kitchen was empty, but casting bright, wide swatches of light out through the window and doorway.

Handy’s touch with doors was the lightest. The storm door never made a sound. They stood on linoleum with a black-and-white diamond design, and listened. The refrigerator hummed, and on a different note the circular fluorescent light in the ceiling also hummed. The rest of the house was silent. Bright and silent.

An open door to the right led to a bedroom, but with no bed in it. The ceiling light was on — two seventy-five-watt-bulbs unshielded — and in the glare the bedroom was a bleak cubicle full of unmarked cardboard cartons, stacked along the walls. The Venetian blinds were down across both windows.

A hall led off the kitchen. Midway along it was a brace of doorways facing each other. The one on the left opened onto the bathroom, gleaming with white tile and white porcelain and white enamel, with a brightly burning white fluorescent tube over the mirror above the sink. The doorway on the right led to another bedroom, this one containing a bed. This too was garishly lit, and looked like a whore’s crib. A double bed dominated the room, covered by a cheap tan spread, and without pillows. A scarred dresser stood on the opposite wall, and the bed was flanked on one side by a black kitchen chair and on the other by a small wooden table containing nothing but a chipped ashtray.

At the end of the hall was a dining room, lit by a rococo ceiling fixture of rose-tinted glass. The cream-and-tan wallpaper was a faded pattern of ivy and Grecian columns. Centered beneath the light was a poker table, round and covered with green felt, with eight wells around the outer edge for the players’ money and drinks. Eight chairs crouched around the table, on a faded Oriental rug. There was no other furniture in the room.

The third bedroom, off the dining room, was apparently the one Menlo was using, for there was clothing draped on the chair, hairbrush and cufflinks and other things on the dresser, and an expensive-looking alarm clock on the night table.

A wide archway led from dining room to living room, which was furnished in an old-fashioned way, in dark colors and heavy overstuffed furniture.

Every light in the house was on, and the Continental still waited out front, though all the rooms were empty.

Handy caught Parker’s eye, and pointed at the floor. Parker nodded. Still moving cautiously and silently, they went back to the kitchen. The first door they tried opened onto the pantry, but the second showed cellar stairs angling away to the left. Light came up from below, and the sound of someone talking, softly and conversationally. And there was another sound, a steady scraping and chuffing, slow and rhythmic.

Handy already had the .380 out. Parker unlimbered the Terrier, and led the way down. The stairs angled sharply to the left, and then went straight down the rest of the way, toward the rear wall of the house, so that most of the basement was behind Parker as he came down. He came halfway, then crouching on the stairs, ducked his head under the banister and looked back at the rest of the cellar.

Three hundred-watt bulbs were spaced along under the I-beam that ran down the middle of the ceiling. All were unshielded, and all were lit, throwing the dirt-floored cellar in stark, almost shadowless, relief. An old coal furnace hulked on one side, with its squat oil converter crouched in front of it. Several barrels of trash were standing alongside two deep metal sinks.

Down at the other end, the fat man was digging his own grave, while three men surrounded him, watching. Two of the three stood silently, pistols in their hands. The third had brought a kitchen chair down with him — or had someone bring it down for him — and was sitting comfortably on it, his back to Parker. He seemed nattily dressed, and he was the one doing the talking, a steady soft flow of easy conversation, a monologue almost, in a language Parker didn’t recognize. It was guttural, but not in a Germanic way.

Handy had seen too. He grinned and motioned for them to go back upstairs, but Parker shook his head. Handy looked puzzled and leaned forward to whisper. “They’re getting rid of the competition. Why not let them?”

Parker whispered back, “If there’s more than a statue in Kapor’s house, I want to know what it is and where to find it. The fat man knows.”

Handy shrugged. “I’ll take the one on the left.”

They leaned out on different sides of the staircase, showing only their heads and gun hands. The shots roared out in that confined space like cauvette blowing up.

Before the two gunmen had hit the ground, the talkative one was out his chair, spinning around, a flat white automatic coming out from under his coat. Parker and Handy both fired again, and the automatic sailed into the air as he toppled backward into the grave Menlo had only half dug.

Menlo, again moving faster than any fat man should, threw himself off to the side and rolled over against the side wall. But when there weren’t any more shots, he got to his feet cautiously. His white shirt was a sweaty, dirty mess, his black trousers rumpled and baggy. He was barefoot, and his face and hands were also covered with dirt. He stood peering toward the stairs until Parker and Handy moved toward him, and then suddenly he smiled. “Ah!” he said. “How glad I am I did not pause to kill you at poor Clara’s.”

“Let’s go,” Parker said.

“So soon? But I have not yet expressed my appreciation. You have saved my life!”

“We’ll talk later, what do you say?” Handy added.

Menlo looked around at the three scattered bodies. “There is much in what you say,” he said. “Have you dealt with the chauffeur?”

“We won’t have to. Come on.”

“Most certainly.”

Parker went first, and then Menlo, with Handy last. They filed upstairs to the kitchen, and as Parker reached for the storm door, Menlo said, “Please! Would you take me away in such a condition?”

“You can wash up later,” Handy said.

“But my shoes! My coat! My personal possessions!”

“Come on,” said Parker.

“Let him get his stuff,” Handy said. “What the hell?”

“You watch him, then.”

“Sure.”

Parker waited in the kitchen. They were gone two minutes by the kitchen clock, and when they came back Menlo was wearing shoes and a topcoat. The topcoat was too tight for him, making him look like somebody on a Russian reviewing stand. He was carrying a black attaché case covered with good leather.

Parker pointed at it. “What’s in there?”

“I checked it,” Handy said. “Just clothes and a flask.”

“And a toothbrush,” Menlo added. His face was still dirty, and when he smiled he looked like the fat boy in a silent movie comedy. “I am most proud of my teeth.”

“Let’s go.”

They went out the back way and down the block to their car. Parker got behind the wheel, and Handy and Menlo sat in back. “Where do we go from here?” Handy asked.

“Back to the hotel.”

“What if they come looking there again?”

Parker shook his head. “The only ones who looked were Menlo’s people. And Menlo doesn’t have people any more. Do you, Menlo?”

Menlo smiled again, with mock wistfulness, and spread dirty hands. “Only you,” he replied. “My two newly found friends.”

Parker started the car. When they crossed the intersection, the Continental was still waiting out front — the lights on, the motor running, the chauffeur deeply immersed in the Star.

3

Bett Harrow stretched lazily and got up off the bed. “It’s about time you came home. Three-thirty in the morning. Who are these nice people? And what happened to that man’s face?”

Parker said, “Get the hell out of here.”

“Daddy sent me for a progress report, sweetie. All that money spent and not one word from you. He got nervous. Fifty thousand dollars is fifty thousand dollars.”

“An axiom, my dear,” said Menlo, smiling and advancing, his hand extended. “You have stated what is possibly the ultimate truth. I am Auguste Menlo, yours to command.” She gave him her hand, smiling, and he bent low over it, kissing it.

“Sit down, fat man, and shut your face,” Parker said. “Bett, tell your father I’ll see him when I’m done. Now get out of here.”

Menlo shrugged prettily, smiling his quixotic smile. He had a way of moving as though he were making fun of his weight. “I must obey,” he said to Bett. “Your friend has just saved my life. The least I owe him is obedience.”

He sat down on the chair with the broken arm, crossed his ankles, and discovered the damage. “I had expected better from American hotels,” he said, frowning.

Bett strolled casually toward the door, detouring slightly to cross close to Parker. “I know you must have important things to discuss,” she said. “We can talk later.” She moistened her lips, and her eyes gleamed. “My room is just down the hall. Five-twelve. It was the closest I could get to you, Parker. Don’t take too long. You never know what I might do if you upset me.” She went on out.

Menlo kissed his fingertips in appreciation, and made a small salute toward the closed door. “A beautiful creature,” he said. “A magnificent woman.”

Parker lit a cigarette and pulled a chair over close to Menlo. “That isn’t what we’ll talk about.”

“No, of course. I quite understand.”

“That’s good.”

“Might I have a cigarette?”

Handy came over and gave him one, and a light to go with it. Menlo made a production out of how much he liked the cigarette, blowing smoke at the ceiling. “Ah! One of the few things for which America will be remembered. If you have ever smoked European cigarettes, you must know what I mean.”

Handy was still standing next to Menlo. He leaned down now, and said, “Listen to me, friend. My partner’s a very impatient man. Besides, he’s sore about her being here. You keep horsing around, he’ll take it out on you.”

“I am most sorry.” Menlo sat forward at once, uncrossing his ankles, sitting at attention, an expression of concern on his face. “It is my way, Mr.—”

“Parker.”

“Parker. Yes. It is only my way, Mr. Parker. I mean no offense by it, I assure you. I will come most directly to the point.”

“That’s good,” Parker said.

Menlo smiled. “Yes, that’s good. And the point, Mr. Parker, is: Why did you save my life?” He looked brightly from Parker to Handy, and back again. “Eh? Isn’t that interesting? Why did you save my life?”

Handy said, “Go a little faster, huh? Quit repeating yourself.”

“Yes, of course. But the question, you see, the question has many aspects. It is prismatic. With such a question, one can see around corners. With such a question, one can receive many other answers. For example — I am trying to hurry, I most honestly am — for instance, when I became aware of you, Mr. Castle — Mr. Castle?”

Handy shrugged. “It’ll do.”

“Of course. When I became aware of you, I said to myself, is this coincidence? Could you possibly be interested in the same goal toward which I was directing myself? Thus I had you summoned for questioning, and thus the additional events which have transpired. But now you and Mr. Parker have saved my life, and all at once the answer is clear. Your goal is not the same as mine. Or at least it was not, until tonight. Did you save my life for humanitarian reasons? Hardly. There could be only one other reason. To keep me alive until such time as you would know what I already know. Which means that for all your threatening statements and glowering expressions, you cannot risk having me dead.”

“Nobody said anything about having you dead,” Parker said.

“I must explain,” said Menlo. He smiled again, pleased with himself. “Becuase of my occupation these past fifteen years, I have been equipped for instant selfannihilation. One of my teeth is false; it contains a capsule. Should I bite down hard in a certain way — a rather awkward way, to avoid doing so unintentionally — I would break that capsule. Should that happen, my breath would smell pleasingly of almonds, and I would very soon be dead. That is what Spannick was talking to me about tonight, in the cellar, while I was digging my own grave. He was suggesting to me that I save the state the price of a bullet. But where there is life, as your proverb so succinctly puts it, there is hope. In this case, well-founded hope.” He smiled some more. His teeth gleamed.

“If we try to hurry you,” Parker said, “you’ll kill yourself. Is that it?”

“If you try to hurry me in too physical and violent a fashion, yes. I have an extremely low pain threshold. The price of high intelligence and self-indulgence. Ah, this is really a most excellent cigarette.” Menlo leaned back again in the chair, and recrossed his ankles. “I will now tell you the facts. In my own way. And at my own rate of speed. If you find yourself becoming too impatient, Mr. Parker, you might perhaps spend your time instead with that charming lady who was earlier here. Your associate could rapidly and succinctly tell you the highlights later.”

Parker shook his head, got to his feet, and went over to lie down on the bed. The world was full of people who never did anything but talk. “Any time you feel like it,” he said.

“You are most gracious.” Menlo took a deep breath, thought for a second to organize his thoughts, and began talking. “Our mutual target, Lepas Kapor, has for the past eight years been one of our most important liaison agents with our espionage network in this country. As an aide at the embassy of such a small and insignificant nation as Klastrava, he was far less likely to come under the scrutiny and suspicion of American counterintelligence. His duties have been twofold. First, he transmits information from the network to the Soviet Union. Second, he furnishes funds to pay for the network’s continued existence, to cover the cost of bribes and payoffs and so on. Just recently, we discovered that Kapor has systematically been cheating us ever since getting this assignment. His method is simplicity itself. Say a particular document cost one thousand dollars to obtain. In his report he would state that it cost fifteen hundred dollars, and the overage he would merely transfer to his own pockets. How much he has accrued for himself in this way we can only guess, but the estimate is that he has stolen more than ten thousand dollars a year for eight years. Perhaps in all, one hundred thousand dollars.”

Menlo looked smilingly at Handy, and then at Parker. “Interesting? Yes. Of course it is. And even more interesting is the question, what has he done with this money? Has he spent it? Hardly. An obscure aide in an obscure embassy? If he were to live beyond his means, it would be noticed at once. Shall he bank it? Considering the political orientation of Klastrava and the passion for voluminous records among bankers, this too seems hardly the answer. Nor can he invest it. He can, in fact, do nothing with it so long as he remains in his present post. He can only secrete it, somewhere in his own house, against the day when he will suddenly disappear. He intends to retire, of course, in some out-of-the-way place. South America perhaps, or Mexico. Or it is entirely possible that he will remain in the United States, in Vermont or Oregon or Nebraska. A man with a hundred thousand dollars can arrange to disappear almost anywhere.”

Handy interrupted. “How do you know for sure it’s in cash, and that it’s in his house? Maybe he’s got it buried out in the country someplace.”

“Ah, wait. I’m coming to that. Please be patient.”

Parker sat up and lit a fresh cigarette. For half of a hundred thousand dollars, he could make himself be patient.

“Now comes my own entry into the story,” Menlo continued. “I am, in a way, a policeman. Not precisely the sort you two have undoubtedly encountered at one time or another in your careers. My occupation has no true counterpart in your country, except unofficially, among the members of some stern-jawed American society or the more belligerent American Legion posts. My duties are, in a way, religious, with an analogy drawn from the Spanish Inquisition. I am an inquisitor, a seeker of heretics, of those whose heresies are against the state. It was felt that a man of my background and unquestioned loyalty would be best suited to the task of punishing Lepas Kapor and of regaining the embezzled funds. It was decided not to trust this delicate task to our espionage organization; news of this impending doom might perhaps somehow reach the ears of our suspect. And so, for the first time in my life, I left my native land — armed with a valid passport and a map to a cache containing one hundred thousand American dollars!”

Menlo threw his head back and laughed, a full booming laugh of delight. “It was wonderful! The opportunity of a lifetime!” Then his laughter subsided and he leaned forward confidentially. “Do you know what my pension would be, were I to live to the retirement age of sixty-seven? In American money, it would be — let me see — approximately five hundred and thirty dollars a year. And yet they expected me to find this hidden cache of one hundred thousand dollars in American money, and bring it back!”

He shook his head. “I am not a fool. My dear friends, you will discover that about me. I am most shockingly overweight, and far too self-indulgent, but you will find that I am not a fool.”

“So you figured to take the money and run?” Handy asked.

“Would you not? Of course. Let me tell you what I did. Laboriously, I managed to contact members of the American underworld. I was then introduced to an organization which calls itself the Outfit. It claims to exert total control over crime within the areas of its control but having met you two, it is only natural that I begin to doubt this claim. Nevertheless, I met with these people, and I discussed the situation with them. It was agreed that they would furnish me assistants and protection from local law-enforcement agencies, and — what do they call that? Protection from local law-enforcement agencies.”

“The fix,” Handy said.

“Yes! The fix is in. That’s what it was. I was delighted with the phrase. The French are so pleased with their criminal argot, but I assure you the Americans in this regard have nothing to be ashamed of. The fix is in.”

“Get on with it,” Parker said.

“You have no interest in your native idiom? A pity. As I was saying, I met with these people, and we came to a financial agreement which of course I had no intention of honoring. And thus the operation was set in motion. We moved most cautiously, I assure you, not wanting to flush our bird prematurely from the nest. What had led to the discovery of Kapor’s ingeniousness in the first place were some small slight indications that he might be planning to make a sudden move, to defect or disappear. There is a large amount of money due to pass through his hands very shortly, and we were convinced he was waiting only for its arrival before making his own departure. Unavoidable delays have kept that money from reaching him thus far, so he still rests upon his perch, awaiting my pleasure.”

“How close were you?” Parker asked.

“We had intended to enter the house this coming Friday. Kapor will be at an official dinner most of the evening, and we intended to be in the house already upon his return.”

Menlo shifted his bulk in the chair and looked with an innocent smile at Parker. “This plan could still be effected,” he went on. “Without the minions of the Outfit, of course. I doubt that they were ever really happy with the operation. They disliked the thought of being connected even indirectly with international politics, but the harvest was too tempting to be missed. Now, because of all the trouble you two caused tonight, they have abandoned the plan completely. Spannick informed me of this with great pleasure tonight, while watching me dig. The Outfit recalled those who had helped me, and recouped its losses by selling to Spannick the information that I had intended in my own turn to steal the money. So the Outfit is no longer concerned with Kapor. Spannick is dead, and if I know that egotistical idiot, he would not have made any report on me until he had already done me in. He always preferred telling his superiors about a problem only after he had already solved it. Which means that Kapor has been left to us.”

Parker studied the fat man’s face. “Us?”

“But of course. You have business of your own with Kapor, though I confess I cannot imagine what it is. In addition, you would no doubt like to share in that hundred thousand dollars. I need assistance, which you can give me. You need to know the location of the money, which I can give you.”

“You know where it is?”

“The exact spot. I must say, it is exceedingly well hidden. I hardly think you could find it without me.”

“How come you know where it is?” Handy asked.

“Clara told me. She had weeks to look for it, and eventually she found it. Poor Clara.”

Menlo smiled again, his ingenuous smile. “I forgot to tell you. I returned to Clara’s apartment tonight, Mr. Parker, after you had left. You had mistreated the poor girl most terribly. The only humane thing I could do was end her misery.”

He beamed.

Parker stubbed his cigarette. “I didn’t ask her enough questions,” he said.

“You are hardly to be blamed. You must have thought of her as only a pawn in our game. How could you know she was the key?”

“So you want to team up with us?”

“It seems most logical, does it not? My information, your experience. And we will, of course, split evenly. Half for me, half for you.”

The fat man wouldn’t be getting any of it, but Parker, for appearance’s sake, made a complaint. “That’s no even split. A third for each of us.”

Menlo spread his hands and smiled. “If you insist. I am not greedy, I assure you.”

So the fat man was planning a double-cross too, Parker thought, and asked, “You still want to do it Friday?”

“That strikes me as the best time, yes. By the way, could you possibly tell me what it is that you two are concerned with in Kapor’s house? That lovely girl mentioned the sum of fifty thousand dollars.”

“Kapor’s got a statue, supposed to be one of the lost statues from some tomb in France. A collector gave us fifty thousand to steal it from him.”

“One of the mourners of Dijon?” Menlo smiled in surprise. “I have read of them, of course. How romantic! And a collector, you say? That charming girl’s father, no doubt. I would most like to meet him.”

“Maybe I can arrange it,” Parker said.

4

Her full name was Elizabeth Ruth Harrow Conway. She was, as the fat man had said, a magnificent female, twenty-nine years old, and with honey hair made to gleam in candlelight. She had the hollow-cheeked aristocratic face that comes of generations of breeding and inbreeding, and the tall, lush, well-proportioned body of a stripper crossed with a Channel swimmer. She was rich now, and had been all her life, living currently on a combination of alimony from her ex-husband and atonement gifts from her father. She was well-sexed, with an occasional liking for self-cruelty, and she kept her hotel-room door unlocked.

Parker came in and closed the door and stood there looking at her. “Whose idea was this? Yours or your father’s?”

She was in bed, with the covers up to her neck, and two pillows under her head. She smiled languorously and stretched, her body moving lazily under the blanket. “It was mine, Chuck, don’t you know that? But Daddy thinks it was his.”

“Either you take off, or there’s no job.”

“Now, don’t threaten me like that, Chuck. Be nice.” She slid one arm out from under the covers and patted the bed next to her hip. “Come sit down beside me and we’ll talk.”

He shook his head. “Forget it.”

“Be nice, Chuck,” she murmured. “Be nice to me, and I’ll go away first thing in the morning. If you still want me to.”

That would have been a solution, but he rejected it without bothering to think about it. This was the way he always was before a job. He lived to a pattern. Immediately after a job he was a satyr, inexhaustible and insatiable. Then gradually it would taper off, and by the time the next job was in preparation he was a total celibate. When a job was being set up, he could only think of one thing. Bett’s offer slid past him as though it had never been made. It simply didn’t interest him.

“You’ll go away first thing in the morning, or the deal’s off,” he said. “And you won’t come back. I’ll see you after I give your father the statue.”

“Maybe I won’t feel like it then.”

He shrugged.

She was still trying to be coy and seductive, but the edges were getting ragged. “What if I decide not to be an obedient little girl, Chuck?”

“Your father’s out fifty grand.”

Her languorous smile all at once turned sour, and she popped to a sitting position, her face twisted in a frown of anger. The sheet and blanket fell to her waist. She was nude and her breasts were heavy but firm, and tanned as golden as the rest of her. She said, bite in her voice, “What’s the matter with you, Chuck? This is little Bett, remember? We’re not exactly strangers.”

It was true. For most of two weeks they’d shared the same bedroom, though they’d seen each other only twice since.

“I’ve got other things to think about,” Parker said.

“You want to be careful, Chuck,” she said. Her voice was hard as a stone. “You want to be very careful with me.”

“I’ll see you when the job is done.”

“I’m not so sure. And just a minute, don’t leave yet. We’ve got more to talk about.”

He kept his hand on the doorknob. “Such as?”

“Such as those other two men. The one that looks like you, only more pleasant, and the funny fat one. You didn’t say anything to Daddy about working with anybody else.”

“How I work is my business. Don’t be here in the morning.”

She was going to say something else; but he didn’t give her a chance.

The other two were already asleep when Parker got back to his room. Menlo was staying here tonight, sleeping on the floor, and the three of them would move to another location tomorrow. Parker stepped over Menlo, stripped, and got into bed. He fell asleep the way he always did, completely and immediately.

He was a light sleeper. Normal predictable sounds — traffic outside a window, a radio playing that had been playing when he’d gone to sleep — didn’t disturb him, but any unusual noise would have him completely awake at once. So when Menlo got up from the floor and crept cautiously toward the door, Parker came awake. He lay unmoving on the bed, watching Menlo through slitted eyes. Menlo took the time to pick up his suit coat and tie and shoes, but nothing else. He went out, the shoes in his hand, the coat and tie over his arm.

There was no point stopping him. Parker went back to sleep.

He awoke again when Menlo returned. The fat man was once again carrying shoes and coat and tie, but now he was carrying his shirt as well, and in the faint light from the window Parker could see that he was smiling to himself. So Bett had got what she’d come for after all. He wondered if Menlo had.

5

“Go,” said Handy. He thumbed the stopwatch; it read just about nine o’clock.

Parker edged the Pontiac away from the curb in front of Kapor’s house. Moving with the traffic, they went straight over Garfield to Massachusetts Avenue, and then turned right on Wisconsin. That took them through Georgetown and on north out of the city into Chevy Chase, and then Bethesda. It was a commercial road all the way, with more traffic than Parker liked on a getaway route, but it was the quickest, shortest way.

Menlo, sitting on the backseat like a renegade Buddha, watched with interest. At one point he said, “I still don’t see why this is necessary. Kapor will hardly be in a position to notify the authorities.”

Parker was busy driving, so Handy explained. “You say the Outfit’s given up on this job, and maybe they did and maybe they didn’t. You claim Spannick was the only one of your old crowd that knew what you were up to, and maybe he was and maybe he wasn’t. We’re going through the play the same night you planned, because it’s a good setup. Besides, now that Clara’s dead there’s nobody inside to let us know when the next good time is. But we’re running it an hour earlier than you figured just in case there is still somebody interested in you or Kapor’s hundred grand. And we’re working out the best route for the same reason.”

“Then why go only so far as the motel? Why not continue on our way as rapidly as possible? We might go to Baltimore, for instance, and come to rest there.”

Handy turned farther around in the seat, so he could talk full-face with Menlo. “Listen. If what we wanted was to get a confession out of Kapor, we’d let you handle it all the way. That’s what you’re a pro at; we’d follow anything you said. But what we’re doing is breaking into Kapor’s house and grabbing his goods, and that’s what we're pros at. So you just let us do it, O. K.”

“My dear friend,” said Menlo, looking concerned, “please not to misjudge me. I mean no distrust of your abilities. You are most certainly professionals at your craft, and I appreciate this. It is in a spirit of curiosity only that I ask these questions. I would like to learn more.” This was all said too earnestly to be sarcasm; Menlo was perched forward on the seat, his hands pressed to his chest in a gesture of honesty.

Parker would have just told him to keep his mouth shut and watch and learn, but Handy didn’t mind talking. “All right,” he said, “I’ll explain it to you. There’s three ways to handle the getaway. You can do like you said, just take off and keep going, maybe a couple hundred miles. Or you can just go two blocks and hole up there till the heat’s off. Or you can go a few miles and hole up and wait four or five hours and then take off and go your couple hundred miles. Now, if you do the first, take off and keep going, you’re on the road all the time you’re the most hot, and that’s the way to get yourself picked up fast. If you hole up real close and stay there a week or two, you’re right where the most cops are doing the most looking, and that’s the way to get picked up six or seven days after the job, when you go out for more groceries. But if you hole up nearby for a few hours, you throw everybody off stride. If the law is after you and they’ve thrown up roadblocks, they stay up for a few hours and then the cops figure you either got through quick or you’re holed up, and they take the roadblocks down. See what I mean? Right after the job is when they do their looking on the roads, and later is when they do their looking in town. So right after the job is when we stay in town, and later on is when we’re on the roads. It’s a feint, like in basketball. You go, but you don’t go, and then you go.”

Menlo nodded happily. “Yes, I follow. I can see where that would be the method most difficult for the authorities to counteract. But in this case, we need have no fear of authorities. Kapor will feel his loss most deeply, of course, but he will not contact the police.”

“Not Kapor, no. But suppose some servant sees it first, that somebody’s broken in, and calls the cops before he tells his boss? So whether Kapor likes it or not, the law will be in on it. Or maybe the Outfit is still hot for that money, and they’ll show up at nine-thirty, the way you originally figured. They find out the swag is gone, the Outfit’s after us. Or maybe it’s your old group, friend’s of Spannick’s. We do it the safe way, the reliable way, and we never get jugged.”

Menlo smiled with a touch of sadness. “I must say you remove the romance most utterly from all this. I had been seeing myself in quite dramatic terms. The defecting policeman, meting out poetic justice to the embezzler by depriving him of his ill-gotten gains, then disappearing again, quite forever, an enigma to all who seek him. But now I find I am merely a participant in a dreary and pedestrian series of quite normal activities — opening doors, driving automobiles, sitting in motel rooms.” He shrugged and spread his hands.

Parker slowed the car. The motel was just ahead — the Town Motel. They’d picked it because it was on the right side of the road, and because it was built in a U shape, on a slope down from the road, so that parked cars could not be seen from the street.

Parker made the turn, drove down into the court, and parked. Handy thumbed the watch and read it. “Just over eighteen minutes.”

“Not good,” Parker said.

“It’s the fastest way,” Handy told him.

They’d spent most of the afternoon trying various suburbs and motels, and this one had been the quickest by far. So now they had run it again at the same time of night they would be coming over it Friday. It was Wednesday, and they could expect a little more traffic on Friday, but they’d still done well. The traffic had been heavy, with the majority of the drivers — like the majority of all eastern drivers — spending the majority of their time in the passing lane. Parker had driven mostly in the right-hand lane, and had made better time than any other car on the road.

Still, he wasn’t satisfied. “What if we holed up right at Kapor’s house, until maybe two or three in the morning? Menlo, will Kapor be coming home alone?”

“Alas, no. Kapor is notoriously a party giver. A select group of friends, perhaps fifteen or twenty, will probably return with him from the dinner. This is always his habit, and I see no reason to expect that it will differ on Friday.”

Parker shrugged. It wasn’t good. Eighteen minutes on the road; with Friday’s traffic, probably twenty or more. Their direction would be obvious before they were six blocks from Kapor’s house. Twenty minutes was plenty of time to set up a block in front of them. He shook his head. “Let’s go inside and study the map.”

They clambered out of the car, Menlo with difficulty, and went up the stairs to their second-level rooms. Parker and Handy had a double, Menlo a single, three rooms down the hall.

In the room, Menlo settled in the most comfortable chair, while Handy stretched out on his bed. Parker got out the Washington-area map and studied it, frowning. “We could go over to a parallel street, but coming back’s no good. The lights along the road out there give maximum red to the side streets. We’d just sit there, half a minute or more.”

“Then we work a switch,” Handy said. “Use another car on the job, and stash the Pontiac along the way.”

“That’s better. Adds more time, but it’s better. Who knows about the Pontiac?”

Handy considered. “Nobody,” he said. “Clara knew, that’s all. Menlo’s boys grabbed me in Clara’s place.” He looked over at Menlo. “Were they following us?”

“No, no. They waited at poor Clara’s apartment for you to arrive.”

“O.K. So the Pontiac’s clean.”

Parker folded the road map and put it away. He turned to Menlo. “Next question. What tools do we want?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Tools, tools. The dough isn’t just sitting out on a coffee table, is it?”

Menlo’s smile was faintly surprised. “My dear friend, you most certainly don’t expect me to tell you where to find it. My usefulness would then be at its end, would it not? You have been so kind as to include me only because of this one piece of information I have and you do not.”

“I’m not asking you where it is. I’m asking you what do we need to get at it. Like if it’s buried under concrete we need a pick, and maybe a couple caps of dynamite. Or if it’s in a safe, we need a drill and a set of pullers for the combination or maybe some nitro, depending on what kind of safe it is.”

“Ah, I see. The professional mind at work once again. But there is no difficulty, I assure you. No special tools will be required other than our own efficient hands.”

Parker nodded. “All right. What size bag do we want? How big a bundle?”

“Well, I have not as yet seen this cash in actuality, only in my imagination. But from the manner of its secretion, let us say, I would suppose a container approximately the size of your suitcase would be more than sufficient.”

“I’ll get another one tomorrow, just like it.” Parker got to his feet and lit a cigarette, pacing back and forth across the room. “Once more, to be sure. Kapor’s leaving the house at five o’clock. The chauffeur’s driving him, and will wait for him until the dinner is over. His bodyguard’s going with him too. The cook will fix stuff for the party later on, but she’ll be out of there by six, and so will the gardener. Kapor won’t be back before ten, and maybe later. Between six and ten nobody’s home.”

“Most precisely.”

From the bed, Handy said, “We like to be precise.”

“What about this party after ten o’clock? No servants?” Parker asked.

“Oh, no. It will not be that sort of party. Morgan, Kapor’s bodyguard, will serve as bartender. No other servants will be needed.”

“There’s no burglar alarms in the house?”

“Clara was quite certain on that point.”

“All right.” Parker sat down on his own bed, flicked ashes into the nearest ashtray. “So now we wait two days.”

6

Handy was driving. They were working the side streets, back and forth, Handy sitting casual at the wheel and Parker beside him, studying the parked cars. Menlo was back at the motel.

It was seven-thirty Friday night, and already dark. The occasional major streets they crossed were full of slow-moving traffic, people heading downtown for a night out or uptown for a weekend out of town. The side streets were quiet, with few moving cars and only an occasional pedestrian.

They’d been looking for twenty minutes, and finally Parker said, “There it is.”

Handy saw it too. He stopped the car.

Parker got out and closed the door, and Handy drove the Pontiac away. Parker crossed the street and strolled down toward the car.

It was a Cadillac, gleaming black, four or five years old. Being in this neighborhood, it had to be on its second owner by now, or maybe third. Still, whoever owned it kept it clean. It wouldn’t look out of place turning into Kapor’s driveway.

The street was empty. There were no faces in any of the house windows that Parker could see. He stopped next to the Cadillac and tried both doors. He was in luck; the rear one was unlocked. It was the rear door that people forgot most often. He hadn’t needed the luck. He could have got into the Cadillac in thirty seconds even if it had been locked, but this way he didn’t have to break the side vent. He opened the rear door slightly, reached around and pulled the front lock button by the front window. Then he shut the rear door, opened the front, and got in.

He lay down on the seat and took out a pencil flash. He studied the underpart of the dashboard and found he would have to remove a small, flat plate. He put the flash away, got out a small screwdriver and, working by feel, removed the three screws that held the plate in place. Then he used the flash again, for ten seconds, and that was it. He sat up, slid over behind the wheel, and took a jumper wire out of his pocket, with sticky electric tape at both ends. He unreeled part of the tape and then, working by feel once more, reached down under the dashboard and put the jumper on. The starter caught, and slipped, and caught again, and then the engine was purring. He put the automatic transmission in Drive, and pulled away.

On Wisconsin Avenue there was a movie theater, and there was a supermarket, and a blacktop parking lot between them. In the daytime the supermarket customers used the lot, and at night the movie customers used it. Parker drove there, parked the Cadillac so there was a space on his left, stalled the car, and removed the jumper wire. Then he got out and opened the hood. He stood looking down for a minute, and then went to work. It was now twenty minutes to eight.

Handy and Menlo showed up in the Pontiac on schedule, at ten minutes to eight. They parked in the slot next to the Cadillac, and got out. Parker was just finishing. He closed the hood and said, “All ready.”

“Once again,” Menlo said, looking at the Cadillac with distrust, “I can only reassure myself with the knowledge that you are professionals in this type of activity. The idea of driving to a robbery in an automobile just recently stolen would never have occurred to me. Having occurred to me, it would terrify me so completely I would reject it.”

“This car won’t be hot for a couple of hours. By then we’ll be done with it,” Handy said.

“I trust your judgment implicitly,” Menlo assured him, “having seen you in action against those poor specimens supplied me by the Outfit. I have every confidence in you.”

“That’s good. Get in the car,” Parker said.

“Most certainly.”

Menlo got in the back again, and Parker and Handy up front. There was now a new set of wires by the steering shaft, ending in a small oblong fixture with a pushbutton. This was the new starter. Parker tested it out, and it worked fine. He backed the Cadillac out of its parking slot and drove it slowly out onto Wisconsin Avenue.

Kapor’s house, when they got there, was in darkness, the way it was supposed to be. Parker spun the wheel and the Cadillac entered the driveway. The tires crunched on the gravel. The Cadillac looked right at home here as Parker tooled it around behind the house and left it in front of the garage, hidden from the street by the house.

It was eight-thirty. They were right on schedule.

There were two back doors to choose from and they picked the one that Clara had reported led to the kitchen. Handy went to work on it. He was very good with doors. It opened almost immediately.

They went in, and Parker turned on the pencil flash. From Clara, through Menlo, they now had a good ground plan of the house. His voice soft, Parker asked, “All right, Menlo. What room do we want?”

“We’ll get your statuette first,” Menlo said. “I have a desire to see it. This bit of romanticism you will not deprive me of.”

Parker shrugged. It didn’t make any difference. He crossed the kitchen and opened the door on the other side, which led to the rear staircase, the servants’ stairs.

The staircase ended on a squarish room, with a large table along one wall. On the other side was a doorless entranceway, leading to an L-shaped hall. Parker opened the third door on the left, and because this room faced the rear of the house, he switched on the light.

It was a long and narrow room, with a dark-red paper covering the walls. The lighting was soft, furnished by fluorescent tubes in troughs spaced along the upper walls, and a rich green carpet covered the entire floor.

It resembled a room in a museum. Glass-topped cases contained coins, resting on green velvet, and on squarish pedestals of varying height were statues of varying styles — of plaster, bronze, terra cotta, alabaster, wood — none over three feet tall. Around the walls fancy swords were hung, and a tall, narrow, glass-doored bookcase at one end of the room was half full of ancient-looking volumes. Most of them were thick and squat, with peeling bindings.

“It is all garbage,” Menlo said, with something like contempt in his voice. “Kapor is indiscriminate in his artistic affections. He buys because a particular item is for sale, not because it adds anything artistically. Look at this gibberish! What a confusion of styles and periods. What would Kapor do with a hundred thousand dollars, if he were allowed to retain it? Create an entire house of monstrosities such as this? Such tastelessness deserves no hundred thousand dollars!”

He moved deeper into the room, frowning. “There are good pieces here,” he said. “A few, but only a few. There’s a Gardner over there, one of the better moderns. But in such surroundings, how can anything reveal its true value? Ah! Here is your mourner!”

It stood in a corner, near the bookcase, on a low pedestal nearly hidden from view. White, small, alone, bent by grief, the mourner stood, his face turned away. A young monk, soft-faced, his cowl back to reveal his clipped hair, his hands slender and long-fingered, the toes of his right foot peeking out from under his rough white robe. His eyes stared at the floor, large, full of sorrow. His left arm was bent, the hand up alongside his cheek, palm outward and shielding his face. His right hand, the fingers straight, almost taut, cupped his left elbow, the forearm across his midsection. The broad sleeve had slipped down his left forearm, showing a thin and delicate wrist. His whole body was twisted to the left, and bent slightly forward, as though grief had instantaneously aged him. It was as if he grieved for every mournful thing that had ever happened in the world, from one end of time to the other.

“I see,” said Menlo softly, gazing at the mourner. He reached out gently and picked the statue up, turning it in his hands carefully. “Yes, I see. I understand your Mr. Harrow’s craving. Yes, I do understand.”

“Now the dough,” said Parker. To him the statue was merely sixteen inches of alabaster, for the delivery of which he had already been paid in full.

“Of course. Most certainly.” Menlo’s old smile popped back into place. He walked over and handed the statuette to Parker. “As you so ably expressed it, now the dough.” He turned, looking around the room and murmuring to himself, “Apollo, Apollo—” Then he snapped his fingers. “Ah! There!” He moved through the clutter of statues, a fat man weaving lithely, and stopped at a gray figure of a nude young man seated on a tree stump.

Parker and Handy followed him, Handy carrying the suitcase. Menlo patted the statue’s shoulder with pudgy fingers and smiled happily at Parker. “You see? A most ingenious solution. You have a figure of speech for this, I believe. One cannot see the forest for the trees. In this case, one cannot see the tree for the forest.”

“In there? In the statue?” Parker asked.

“Most certainly! Watch.” Menlo put his hands on the statue’s head, and twisted. There was a grating sound, and the head came off in his hands. “Hollow,” he said. “The young Apollo and his tree trunk, packed with money.”

He stuck his hand down inside and brought out a batch of greenbacks. “You see?”

“All right. Let’s pack it,” Parker said. Handy opened the suitcase and as Menlo brought forth handful after handful of bills, Parker and Handy stowed it all inside.

The bills were all loose. There were hundreds and fifties and twenties, handful after handful, and gradually they filled the suitcase. They made no attempt to count, just stowed it away, quickly and silently.

When the suitcase was full, there were still some bills left over. “Alas, I misjudged,” said Menlo, smiling at the double handful of bills he held. “Who would have thought a small statue could have held so much?”

He stuffed the bills into his own pockets, and suddenly his right hand emerged holding a derringer, a Hi Standard twin-tubed. 22. It packed hardly any power at all, but at this close range it could do the job as well as anything.

Menlo’s smile was now broad and cherubic. “And now, my dear professionals,” he said, “I am most afraid we must part company. You have been of such excellent assistance to me, I truly wish I could at least repay you with your lives. But you have already demonstrated once your ability in tracking your quarry, and I should prefer not to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I hope you appreciate that.”

Parker and Handy both moved, each in opposite directions, but Menlo in his own way was also a professional. His face tightened as he fired twice, and both were hits. Handy slammed into the wall, and collapsed in a crumpled heap. Parker flailed backward, arms pin-wheeling, scattering statues, as he crashed into a pedestal.

Menlo paused a moment, but bodies lay still, and the derringer was empty. He gathered up the suitcase and statuette and hurried from the room, a round lithe fat man in a black suit, the suitcase hanging at the end of one short arm, the small white statuette tucked under the other.

The last thing he did before he left was switch off the lights.