The Mourner

1

Auguste Menlo was forty-seven years of age, five feet six inches tall, weight two hundred thirty-four pounds. His title was Inspector, his occupation that of spy on his fellow citizens. During the Second World War, when he was much younger, no taller, but quite a bit thinner, he had been active in the anti-Nazi underground movement in Klastrava, spending the last fifteen months of the war living in the mountains with a guerrilla band, every member of which had a price on his head, set by the Nazis.

An underground movement is primarily a destructive social force, and only secondarily a constructive political force. Whatever political ideology is present invariably reflects the political ideology of whichever outside nation supplies its matériel. Because of Klastrava’s geographical location, that outside nation was the Soviet

Union. The support originally came, for the most part, from the United States through Lend-Lease, but this was never mentioned by the Russians, who were not born yesterday.

Klastravian soil was liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army. The collaborationist puppet government of wartime having been summarily done away with, was replaced by men from the wartime resistance movement, and their political orientation was reinforced by the presence of the Red Army. Klastrava was quietly and efficiently absorbed, and shortly became one of the Soviet Union’s smallest but least troublesome satellites.

Before the war, Auguste Menlo had had no particular trade, being a young man content to be supported by his doctor father. During the war, and particularly during the last fifteen months of it, he had learned a trade, though his trade at first glance seemed to have no peacetime application. Then, in early 1947, through resistance comrades, he received an appointment to the National Police. At last Auguste Menlo had found his true vocation. He did his work well, and with enthusiasm, and his promotions came rapidly.

In any religion, it is the priest who is likely to ask the most pertinent questions; and if there are flaws in the religious structure, it is the priest, being closest to it and most learned in it, who is most likely to discover them. And Auguste Menlo became, in a way, a priest of Communism. In a quite literal way, he became a confessor; in the silent and private rooms of stone beneath the ground he listened to the halting confessions of the wrong in heart. Over the years, Auguste Menlo came upon the flaws that bothered no one else, and patched them as best he could, and efficiently went on about his business.

Till someone waved a hundred thousand dollars in front of his face. One hundred thousand dollars American.

Auguste knew instantly what he was going to do, the very second he was informed of his assignment. He knew it as though he had known all his life, as though his entire career had been only a preparation for this great moment when he would come into one hundred thousand dollars American. The circumstances were too perfectly joined for there to be an alternative.

Auguste Menlo had been chosen for the job in the first place because he had such a perfect record, without a blemish of any kind. He had been married, since 1949, to a plump, practical woman, a good housekeeper and an efficient mother to his two teenage daughters. So far as the record showed — and the record was exhaustive — he had never once been unfaithful to his wife, any more than he had ever been derelict in his duty to the state. He was the logical and inevitable choice.

There is a kind of man who is perfectly honest so long as the plunder is small. This kind of man has chosen his life and finds it rewarding, so he will not risk it for anything less rewarding. And while Menlo had long since lost interest in his Anna, the occasional woman who became available seemed to him hardly much of an improvement, certainly not worth the risk of losing his comfortable home. Nor were the financial temptations that cropped up along his official path worth the comfort and security he already enjoyed. As time went by, his reputation grew and so did the trust it inspired. Who better to trust with one hundred thousand dollars, four thousand miles from home?

There is no way for officialdom to protect itself from such a man. Can a man be mistrusted for being too honest?

So Auguste Menlo was informed of his mission and given his round-trip jetliner ticket to the United States. Outwardly, it was the same sober and industrious Auguste Menlo who walked out of the Ministry that day, was driven home, packed his suitcase, and kissed the leathery cheek of his wife good-bye. But inside he was a totally different man. On the train to Budapest, where he would make connections with the plane for the West, he allowed himself, concealed by a newspaper, the first outward indication of his feelings. A broad and delighted smile, as infectious as a giggle, spread over his face. It made him look like a depraved and aging cherub.

The first plane took him from Budapest to Frankfurt am Main, that foggy valley in the middle of Germany so ill-suited to the landing and taking off of airplanes. But they landed without incident, and an hour later he boarded the jet that would take him in six hours nonstop to Washington National Airport, an ocean and a continent away. A world away.

The stewardess was slender, in Western fashion, with pale-blue skirt taut over pert and girdled rump. Menlo feasted upon her, his eyes bright, almost feverish, his mouth frozen in a delighted smile. It was a foolish and dangerous way to behave. Had the Ministry chosen to keep him under surveillance — But the Ministry’s trust was complete, and only the stewardess noticed the funny, happy fat man with the glazed eyes. She merely thought he was full of vodka, and hoped he wouldn’t be sick. He wasn’t.

In Washington, sanity returned to him. He boarded the airport bus and rode to the G Street terminal, and in the course of that ride he regained control of himself. Until he actually had the money, he must be circumspect. He must be cautious.

His hotel reservation had already been made for him. He checked in, bathed luxuriously in steaming hot water, and rose from the tub a bright pink, round and flushed and happy. He donned fresh clothing, and paid his courtesy call to Spannick.

Spannick, of course, did not know the fat man’s mission. No one knew what it was, save for Menlo himself and three men back home, all in the Ministry. But Spannick did know Menlo, and was cordial and deferential to the point of nausea, for who knew what the Inspector’s quest might be? Spannick tried to pump him, to find out at least that it was not to liquidate himself that Inspector Menlo had traveled all this distance. But Menlo evaded his questions. The meeting was brief; Spannick offered whatever assistance Menlo desired, and Menlo declined the offer with expressions of gratitude. Once this was over he was on his own.

His orders had been specific. His primary mission was to deal with Kapor; remove him, and in such a way that there would be no troublesome questions from local police. The secondary task was to recover, if possible, all or part of the misappropriated funds. If they could not be located, too bad; the important thing was to deal with Kapor.

Those were his orders, but for Menlo the emphasis was all wrong. He didn’t particularly care what happened to Kapor; let him live to a ripe old age if he wished. But as to the money — that was the primary mission.

Had he intended to follow orders, he could have done so singlehanded, with little or no difficulty. But he recognized his limitations. He knew that to get his hands on Kapor’s money he was going to need experienced and professional help. Like policemen everywhere he had often diverted himself by reading American detective novels, and so had a fairly clear picture of American crime, at least as it was described in fiction. It was all organized together, like an American corporation. So Menlo began by looking for someplace to gamble.

Four taxi drivers and two doormen responded to his questions with blank looks, but the fifth cabby admitted to knowing such a place, and was willing to take Menlo there for ten dollars. Menlo paid. He was driven across the Arlington Memorial Bridge and down into Virginia, and deposited at a place that called itself Long Ridge Inn. It seemed to be an old colonial house. Menlo entered, armed with the cab driver’s instructions, and found himself in what seemed a perfectly legitimate restaurant, with a softly lit bar beyond an archway to the right.

The cab driver was gone, with Menlo’s ten dollars. Menlo was suddenly convinced that he had been played for a sucker. He very nearly turned around and left without saying a word to anyone, but the headwaiter was already there, armed with a stack of outsize menus. Feeling like an idiot, Menlo repeated what the cab driver had told him: “I’m looking for the action.”

The headwaiter, without a flicker of expression, replied, “Up the stairway at the end of the bar, sir. And good luck to you.”

So that was how he made his contact with the Outfit. The people he talked to at Long Ridge Inn were not of the sort he needed, but he told a circumlocutious story and they assured him he would be contacted once his story had been “checked out.” He left his name, and the name of the hotel where he was staying, and went on back to Washington.

Three days in the hotel room. He was living on the Ministry’s miserly expense budget, and so could have distracted himself with nothing more exciting than a motion picture. But he didn’t even go out for that, afraid he would miss the contact. He stayed in his room, ordering his meals from room service, and stared forlornly at the telephone. Finally, at one o’clock in the morning of the fourth day, it rang and a voice told him to leave the hotel and walk slowly west.

He was met by a Cadillac with gland trouble, huge and rounded and with drawn curtains at the side windows. It rolled along beside him for a few seconds as he walked, and then a voice from its black interior called him by name. He entered the Cadillac, feeling a moment of irrational fright, and for the next two hours was driven hither and yon about the city, while he talked with the two men in the backseat.

He intended, of course, to ask for help in getting the money, then to pull a double-cross. He didn’t want any percentage of one hundred thousand dollars, he wanted it all — one hundred thousand dollars. But the two men in the Cadillac seemed so confident, so competent, and so sinister, that he was no longer sure his original plan would work. He told them the story, and they agreed to join him in the venture, offering him 10 per cent of the take for supplying the information. He smiled, in mock surprise and mock bashfulness, and told them he had been planning to offer them 10 per cent for performing the physical labor. They ordered the chauffeur to stop the Cadillac, and ordered Menlo to get out.

Menlo opened the car door, and then paused to remind them he had told them everything except the name of the man who now possessed the hundred thousand dollars. He told them that if he must handle the whole thing himself he would, though he had hoped for a more sensible and businesslike attitude from any American organization, whichever side of the law it happened to be on. They said they just might be able to see their way clear to letting him have a quarter of the loot, so he shut the door, sat back, and smiled. Then the bargaining got under way in earnest.

Because he found them so impressive that he was no longer sure he would be able to get away with the whole boodle, he bargained tenaciously and well, and when he emerged from the car he had the fat end of a sixty-forty split. He also had the uneasy conviction that the Outfit really intended to try for 100 per cent. Ah, well. Though the members of the Outfit were impressive in their grim stolidity, Menlo was the product of fifteen years of Communist bureaucratic intrigue, and he thought he might be able to handle himself adequately in this situation.

His assistants came to see him the following day, and slowly the operation took shape. He revealed Kapor’s name, no longer having any choice, and it turned out the Outfit had an indirect connection with a maid in Kapor’s home named Clara Stoper. The connection was made more direct, and when Clara was offered a 10-per cent cut she would never receive she became a willing and eager member of the group. Events progressed without a ripple until the unexpected and somewhat frightening appearance of Handy McKay, who began playing up to Clara in a manner that was definitely suspicious.

Could someone else be after the money? Could there have been a leak back at the Ministry? Could there have been a leak among the higher echelon of the Outfit? There was too much uncertainty here and that was dangerous. Menlo gave the order that Handy be taken and questioned, and from that point events barreled onward like a plane in a tailspin. Menlo had shifted this way and that, always retaining his balance by the narrowest margin, and when the dust settled, there had been a total realignment. The Outfit was no longer a part of the scheme. Spannick was dead, and Menlo’s bridges were burned; he could no longer change his plans and go home now, even if he wanted to. So Menlo found himself in an uneasy alliance with the two newcomers, Parker and McKay.

Menlo had much to be thankful to Parker and McKay for. They had, initially, saved his life. They had additionally simplified the actual mechanics of the robbery, far more so than the Outfit’s plan. And also they had, indirectly, reintroduced the fat man to sex.

Bett Harrow. So long, so lean, so firm! So active and eager a participant! This was what he had been looking forward to while gaping at the airline stewardess, this was what he had been thinking of whenever the hundred thousand dollars recrossed his mind. Bett Harrow.

He had waited that night till he was sure that Parker and McKay were asleep, and then he had risen from his bed on the floor. He carried his shoes and his jacket and necktie out to the hall, and there donned them, smoothing his somewhat oily hair into place with his fingers and running thumb and forefinger down his trousers crease.

He knocked softly at the door of room 512 and after a few seconds he heard a bed creak and then her soft call: “It’s unlocked.”

He went in. The table lamp beside the bed offered the only light, amber and intimate. She was lying supine on the bed, the covers outlining her incredibly long body, her face framed by the blonde hair on her pillow. She looked up at him with surprise. “Oh, it’s you.”

“You expected our friend again?” The prospect of Parker coming down the hallway now did not please him.

“That son of a bitch!” She seemed very angry with Parker. “Get me a cigarette, will you? Over on the dresser there.”

“Most certainly. I will, if I may, join you.”

“Be my guest.”

The tendency to goggle and giggle, as it had on the jetliner, was growing stronger and stronger. He fought it away, retaining an urbane and practiced exterior as he carried her cigarettes over to the bed and leaned over to offer her a light. Her eyes were hazel, and deep, and knowing, and they gazed up unblinking into his own. He held her gaze, and smiled pleasantly.

“Thanks,” she said, and blew smoke, but not toward his face. She patted the bed next to her mounding hip. “Sit down.”

“You are most kind.” His weight sagged the mattress, and she slid just slightly toward him.

“What are you to Parker?” she asked suddenly.

“Ah,” he said. “How coincidental. Much the same question I had in mind to ask you, though of course since you are a lady, I would have phrased it somewhat differently.”

“Parker’s a pain in the ass,” she said. “Sorry if I shocked you.”

She had. Women at home did not speak in such a manner. He smiled to cover the instant of shock. “Precision in all things, my dear. And that phrase has admirable precision. My name, which our mutual friend neglected to tell you, is Auguste Menlo.”

“You told me yourself, remember?”

“Ah, yes, so I did.”

“What are you so nervous about?”

“I am most sorry. I hadn’t realized I was.”

“Parker won’t be back, if that’s it,” she replied.

That was, of course, part of it.

He said, “As to Parker, my own connection with him is most transitory, and for convenience only.”

“I could say the same thing,” she said bitterly. “I’d like to push the bastard off a cliff.”

“Dear lady, how rapidly we have come to a meeting of minds.”

She didn’t get it at first. She frowned slightly at him as she sorted out the words, and then all at once she responded to his smile with a dazzling smile of her own. “I’m Bett Harrow,” she said.

“I am charmed.” And he meant it. He leaned forward to stub his cigarette in an ashtray. “Parker has told me of the statuette.”

“I didn’t know Parker ever told anybody anything.”

“He is not a blabbermouth, no. But he did tell me of the statuette. It was, you might say, a mutual sharing of confidences. My own is irrelevant at the moment, really. We might speak of it another time, perhaps.”

To have a woman like this, and in her company to spend one hundred thousand dollars. What a glorious dream! What a more glorious reality! “If I understand aright, your father has paid for this statuette in advance? Fifty thousand dollars?”

“Cash in advance,” she replied. “We’ve got something else Parker wants too. He gets that later.

“Anything of, uh, value?”

“Not to anybody else.”

“Ah. Alas. My dear, I would like to ask you a hypothetical question.”

“He would,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My father would pay again. If Parker didn’t have the statue, and you did, and you wanted to sell, he’d pay again.”

“Another fifty thousand?”

“He might not go that high. But you could probably get twenty-five.”

Menlo shrugged. “I am not greedy.”

“I bet you’re not.”

He leaned over closer to her. “Another question, my dear.”

“What this time?”

“In my country,” he said, “women go to bed wearing great white sacks made of cotton. In the United States what do women wear when they go to bed?”

“Depends on the woman.”

“Well, you, for instance?”

“Skin.”

“Skin? You mean, no garment at all?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Incredible,” he said.

“You don’t believe me?” There was a mock challenge in her eyes, and her hands gripped the top edge of the covers.

“If you endeavor to prove that statement to me,” he replied, “I wish you to be warned that I can take no responsibility for whatever might transpire thereafter.”

“Is that right?” She flicked her arms, and the covers shot back, baring her to the knee.

He’d never undressed so quickly in his life. One sock was still half on when he lumbered into the bed, looming over her like a dirigible. Her hazel eyes darkened, her body seemed to grow firmer and more taut, and all at once he found himself in congress with a panther. He said a lot of things in his native tongue, until he no longer had breath to spare on talk, and from then on he merely clung.

When it was over, and they’d smoked a cigarette together and talked a bit more, he got up and began to get dressed. “I will see you in Miami. Very soon, I hope. And with the statuette.”

“You’ll remember the hotel?”

“It is imprinted firmly upon my memory.” He took one last cigarette from her pack, and lit it. “It might be best were you to leave in the morning, as Parker requested. He is taciturn and unpredictable, and I would want nothing to go wrong.”

“All right,” she answered.

“Until Miami, then.”

“I’ll be seeing you.”

He returned to Parker’s room and fell into pleasantly exhausted sleep, garlanded with sweet dreams...

Watching Parker and Handy at work, those last two days, he had grown more and more impressed with the way they handled themselves. He had originally planned to remain with them throughout the robbery and the getaway, letting them handle all the details, and double-crossing them only after the operation was completed. But as the time grew shorter, he revised his plans and decided to do away with them before they left Kapor’s house. Through some careful and judicious questioning, he had learned enough about the getaway route and the theories behind it to be able to handle it alone when the time came. But still, he was in a strange country and involved in an operation that was unfamiliar to him, besides being aligned with a pair of the most lupine of wolves. That last day, Friday, his nervousness and excitement grew and grew until he was afraid he would explode. It was more and more difficult to hold himself in check as the day wore on toward night.

They had not found the derringer stowed away beneath the false bottom of his leather toilet kit. It was more of a toy than a gun, especially in comparison with the weapons that Parker and McKay carried, but it was small enough and light enough to be safely hidden and it held two bullets. If he was careful, that should be sufficient.

Friday evening, when Parker and Handy left to steal the second car, he transferred the derringer to his coat pocket, hoping they would not think to search him again before entering Kapor’s house.

McKay came back at the appointed time, and Menlo carried the empty suitcase they’d bought that day out to the car. He climbed in, saying, “Have you had a good fortune?”

“Good enough.”

McKay, too, had his moments of taciturnity.

From this point, when he actually entered the automobile and sat down next to McKay, until the operation was complete, he was in such a state of high excitement that he scarcely knew his name. The operation went like clockwork, and the delight bubbled up in him, mixed deliciously with terror, in a heady combination that was almost like a drug. They drove to the house in the stolen Cadillac, they entered, they found the room containing Kapor’s pitiful collection of bric-a-brac. And there for the first time Menlo saw the white mourner. In his state of heightened sensibilities he saw the mourner as being deeply meaningful and symbolic; in some convoluted way it expressed to him the end of mourning. Now at last all was within his grasp.

The head came off the Apollo, just as Clara had said it would, and inside was the money. It wasn’t really money to him yet — when he thought of money, he still thought of his native currency — but he knew he would have no difficulty in getting used to these unfamiliar green bills, with their Presidents and public buildings. The money poured out of the hollow Apollo, filling the suitcase and more, like a cornucopia. In excitement and dread and anticipation and pleasure so intermingled and intense that he came very close to fainting, he stuffed into his pockets the fingers caressing the crisp green bills, and then pulled his hand from his right pocket again, the fingers now gripping instead the small deadly black derringer.

Both tried to escape him, flinging themselves about, knocking statues down, but the excitement ended at his wrist. His hand was calm and steady. He fired twice, and each went down. They had to go down. In one lightning bolt of time, Auguste Menlo had become invincible. His finger twitched twice; his adversaries ceased to exist. Their husks, their empty shells, lay broken at his feet.

He stowed the derringer back in his pocket, hearing the crisp crinkle of the bills again, and hurried over to pick up the spoils. The statuette under his left arm, the suitcase — heavier now, much heavier — hanging from his right hand. He was flushed, feverish, victorious. He didn’t even remember turning the light off on his way out.

2

Menlo was dreaming.

First, there was a beach. There were great round beach umbrellas, and crowds of people swimming and splashing in the shallow water. Women wearing wool bathing suits and big floppy hats shading their eyes looked out over the water, and men and other women lay face down on blankets, sunbathing. There was a steady roar of sound, shouting and splashing and laughing, ebbing and flowing like the waves that trickled up the flat beach and down again. And children running, people hurrying this way and that. But it was all muted, all slowed down. The shouting and splashing sounded far off as if under water, and all the running and scurrying was like a moving picture run in slow motion.

A woman came walking toward Menlo across the beach. She was tall and golden and blonde and slender, with pleasing fullnesses where they should be, and she was totally nude. But no one else paid any attention. She came closer and closer to him, smiling with a smile that offered everything, and he recognized her but he couldn’t remember her name. He stared at her, trying to remember, and wondering why no one at the beach was alarmed by her nudity. Then the sun got into his eyes, making them sting and water, and he closed them for relief. When he opened them again, the woman was closer, but now she was wearing Parker’s face.

“No!” Menlo screamed, and in a sudden great gout of flame and smoke she disappeared. He looked out over the water, and a huge ship with tremendous white sails was racing toward him, bombarding the beach. The gouts of flame and smoke roared up all around him. People were screaming, and running every which way.

He dropped to his knees and began scrabbling in the sand, digging a hole to hide in, when a voice said, “Why not just clamp down hard on the capsule, my friend and save all that digging?”

He looked up, there was Spannick, sitting on a kitchen chair, and smiling at him. The kitchen chair was very slowly sinking into the sand under Spannick’s weight.

“You’re dead,” he shouted, and Spannick’s face changed to Parker’s. He closed his eyes, knowing he was doomed. He opened them again, and he was in a motel room with one green wall and one white wall and one yellow wall and one wall of glass covered by draperies of the three colors all combined, and he was alone.

He sat up, and slowly the realization came to him that this was truth, that he was awake and the nightmare was over. His elbows were trembling, and his mouth hung open. He tried to close it, but his jaw immediately fell slack again. He tried again, and it fell slack again. He kept trying, sitting mounded in the middle of the bed like a squat pink fish, his elbows trembling and his mouth closing and falling open, closing and falling open. But reality was returning to him, and in a minute he got up from the bed and stood in the middle of the room. He was naked, in honor of the United States and Bett Harrow.

Nightmares did come to him from time to time, particularly when he had been working too hard, or an assignment was unusually difficult, like the purging of an old friend. He knew nightmares, and he knew what to do about them, how to pull their teeth and lay them to rest. The trick was to go over the nightmare detail by detail, remembering it as fully and completely as possible, discovering what part of his past experience had produced each distortion.

Still shaky, he lit a cigarette, and discovered that even American cigarettes taste foul immediately after one wakes up. Still, it should help calm his nerves. He made a face, and dragged deep.

The nightmare then. First, the beach. That was easy. It was one of the tourist beaches on the Caspian Sea; he had never been there, but he had seen such beaches in motion pictures. And in this instance it was meant to symbolize Miami Beach, which he had never seen, even in films.

The nude woman. Bett Harrow, of course. Odd he couldn’t remember her name in the dream. Perhaps that meant she was not an individual to him. She, and the airline stewardess, and all the women in the American magazines were simply an erotic goal, with interchangeable bodies and faces and names. One would do as well as another. He was somewhat surprised and pleased to find his subconscious so smug about his interlude with Bett Harrow.

Next, Parker’s face. It had cropped up twice, each time attached to another’s body. He had met the Harrow woman through Parker, of course, but with Parker’s face on Spannick’s body as well, there had to be a different answer.

It could be that Parker had no body anymore, Menlo having murdered it. Was some essence of Parker after him, seeking vengeance? Friends of Parker? It was hard to imagine the man having any friends. Besides, even if he did, what did they know of Menlo? Nothing. Only the Harrow woman, and she was already aware that he intended to kill Parker, and approved. So the double appearance of Parker’s face was simply an oversensitive reaction of having eliminated such a formidable opponent.

Next, the ship with the white sails. He had to think about that for a few minutes, pacing back and forth in front of the bed, and at last it came to him. Jenny’s song, from Dreigroschenoper. The pirate ship. He had been in mortal danger from the pirates — first the Outfit, and later Parker and McKay — and this was simply a recording of that fact. And the same was true of Spannick’s appearance, saying exactly what he had said in the cellar that night.

He understood the dream now, and its terror was washed away. He went over to the nightstand, picked up his watch, and saw that it was ten minutes to four. He had slept six hours, having fallen deeply asleep immediately after returning here from Kapor’s house, feeling after the high-pitched excitement of the robbery and killings a lethargy unlike any drowsiness or exhaustion he had ever know before. So he had slept, purging his mind of all residual terrors through his nightmare, and now he was rested and calm.

It was time to be going. According to the getaway theory explained to him by McKay, now was the time to get started.

He showered, calm and relaxed, taking his time. He dressed in fresh clothing from the skin out, packed his suitcase, gathered up the other suitcase, with all the money in it, and tiptoed out of the motel room.

The Pontiac was there, waiting. He stowed both suitcases on the back seat, got behind the wheel, and took the road map from the glove compartment.

He wanted to travel south from here, but he was north of the city. Northeast. Was there any way to skirt the city to the east? He studied the unfamiliar map, following thin lines of roads with the tip of one stubby finger, and finally found a way to get over to the Capital Beltway. That would take him south into Virginia, where he could pick up a route numbered 350 which would take him to a route numbered 1, which ran all the way down the coast to Miami.

He laid the map on the seat beside him, and started the engine. He was not used to so large and soft an automobile, and he drove cautiously at first, barely touching the accelerator as he brought the car up the slope to the street. He underestimated and made far too wide a right turn, but Wisconsin Avenue at this point was four lanes wide, and at this hour in the morning there was no other car in sight anyway.

His progress at first was agonizingly slow. The automobile was unfamiliar to him, as were the street signs. The standard pictographic signs common throughout Europe were not used here. Instead of the usual white background and red frame and black pictorial silhouette, there were dull yellow diamonds, some bearing words and some deformed arrows. Stop signs were red octagons with the word STOP in white, unless they were yellow octagons with the word STOP in black. It was confusing, and a little frightening. He couldn’t afford to have an accident now, not with one hundred thousand dollars in a suitcase on the back seat.

By the time he finally got to the Capital Beltway he was perspiring freely, despite the November chill, and there was a pain in his head from creasing his brow and squinting through the windshield.

But the Capital Beltway was a superhighway, like the German Autobahn. Menlo relaxed at once, sat back more comfortably, held the steering wheel less tightly. He also pressed more firmly on the accelerator. The car, bulky and soft as a heavyweight boxer out of condition, was nevertheless an eager sprinter. The car roared down the empty highway, as dawn slowly spread over the sky to his left. He was on his way.

3

He didn’t hear the siren at first. He was trying to decide whether or not to stop in this little town for something to eat, and though the wailing filled his ears, at first he didn’t connect it with himself at all.

He was just across the border between North and South Carolina, and it was one o’clock in the afternoon. He had been driving steadily for eight hours. This automobile was the most comfortable he’d ever driven, but eight hours’ driving in any car has to be tiring. All the way across North Carolina he’d been telling himself to stop, but the desire to increase the distance between himself and Washington had up till now been stronger than his need for food and rest. He had stopped only once, to fill the automobile’s gas tank and empty his bladder. That had been over three hours ago.

It seemed like a pleasant little town, this one, small and somnolent. Except for the sunshine and the warmth, it could be a sleepy valley town in Klastrava. Sunshine and warmth. He had never in his life till now had enough sunshine and warmth. Klastrava was a mountainous country, in the heart of the Carpathians, and in mountainous lands the human settlements are always in the valleys. In mountainous lands the rain falls always in the valleys and mists and fogs lay there always. The summers are hazy, humid, muggy, the winters heavy with bronchial dampness.

Sunshine and warmth. And beautiful women. And one hundred thousand dollars.

He was far enough away now from Washington. It was safe to stop in this little town. Ahead on the right, a sign hung out from a building that looked like a railroad car. It read diner. He had decided to stop here, and that was when he heard the siren.

He looked in his rearview mirror. The road was straight all the way through the little town, and almost empty. Behind him, two blocks away and coming on fast, was an automobile with a revolving red light on top.

Police.

He thought they’d caught up with him. He thought for one panic-stricken instant, that somehow they had traced him. The police authorities had learned about the robbery and the killings, and they had traced him in some inexplicable fashion. They had caught up with him.

The problem was, he didn’t have the background to understand what was happening. In all of Klastrava there isn’t one single solitary speed trap. There isn’t enough tourism to support one.

He thought: Run? Outrace him?

No good. The police car would be even faster than the one Menlo was driving. Besides, his reading of crime fiction had told him what to expect ahead. Roadblocks. Parker and McKay had talked about roadblocks too, so they were not entirely fictional. In his own work, at home, he had occasionally found the need to order roadblocks set up and trains searched, even the borders closed.

Could they, in this country, close the borders between states?

The police car had caught up with him, was now beside him. An angry-looking, wrinkle-faced old man in a cowboy hat waved to him to pull over to the curb and stop.

One man? One wrinkle-faced old man? This couldn’t be connected with what had happened in Washington. They would consider him, as the wording went, armed and dangerous. They would send more than one wrinkle-faced old man to apprehend him, if they were after him for what had happened in Washington.

He obeyed the old man’s hand, and pulled to a stop at the curb, wondering what it could be all about. There might be some sort of border checkpoint where he was supposed to stop and hadn’t, or some such thing. He would have to wait and see, find out what the old man wanted. If worst came to worst, the derringer was reloaded and in his coat pocket.

The police car nosed in at an angle in front of him, its rear jutting out into the traffic lane in the approved method, to keep him from driving suddenly off as soon as the old man got out of his car. Menlo rolled down the window on his side, and waited.

The old man came back toward him, walking with an odd bowlegged rolling gait, as though it was a horse he’d just climbed down from instead of an automobile. He was wearing black boots and dark-blue breeches several sizes too large, which sported a yellow stripe up each seam. His dark-blue uniform coat looked like the jackets worn by Army officers in the First World War. A light-blue shirt, with a dark-blue tie, and a tan cowboy hat completed him. A broad black belt, studded with shiny cartridges, encircled his pudgy waist. A heavy black holster sat on his right hip.

He came over, and stood glaring in a Menlo. “You in a hurry, bud?”

Menlo blinked. Police at home were always polite and courteous on the surface, whatever happened afterward. He didn’t know what to say. He just stared at the angry old man.

The old man said, “The posted speed limit in this village, in case you was in too much of a hurry to read the sign back there at the city line, happens to be twenty miles an hour. I just clocked you at thirty-two miles per hour, on our main street. I don’t see no fire nowhere.”

Menlo understood only half of it, and that half he didn’t believe. “Twenty miles an hour?” He’d been going through cities and towns with thirty-mile-an-hour speed limits — and occasionally twenty five — all day long.

“That’s what the sign said, bud,” the old man said.

“I saw no sign,” Menlo protested.

“It’s there. Let’s have your license and registration.”

Impossible. He had neither.

The whole situation was ludicrous; all his high spirits and pleasant anticipations drained out of him. The United States was no different from Klastrava; no different from any other nation in the world. Mighty undertakings were blocked by petty bureaucratic insignificancies.

“Snap it up, bud. I ain’t got all day.”

There was no driver’s license in his pocket, no automobile registration. He had only two things there: a wad of money, and the derringer. He thought quickly, trying to decide which to use.

The money. The money first. If that failed, then the derringer.

Menlo reached into his pocket, peeled one bill free, and handed it to the old man. The old man looked at it, frowned suddenly like a thundercloud. “What’s this?”

It was a fifty-dollar bill.

“My license and registration,” Menlo replied. He smiled tentatively.

The old man squinted, studying the bill, and then Menlo’s face. He peered into the back seat, then looked the car over, front to back. “Now, what in hell have we got hold of here?” Then, with a surprisingly fast motion, his right hand snapped back, flipped open the holster flap, and dragged out an old .38-caliber Colt Police Positive Special. He took a quick step back away from the Pontiac. “Now you get on outa there, bud. You move slow and easy.”

Menlo’s hand started to inch toward the derringer, but the old man’s trigger finger was white-knuckled with strain. The barrel of the pistol aimed at Menlo’s head seemed as big as the entrance to a railroad tunnel. Meekly, cursing himself for a fool, Menlo clambered out of the Pontiac.

The old man said, “Fat one, ain’t you? Turn around. Lean up against your car with your hands over your head.”

Menlo did as he was told, knowing the posture the old man wanted. It was standard procedure the world around. Leaning forward off balance, the hands higher than the head, supporting the weight of the body. The position of the suspect when the police officer wants to search him for weapons. Which meant that now the derringer was to be taken from him.

How long would it be before this wretched old man took it into his head to open the two suitcases on the backseat?

And all this for driving thirty-two miles an hour on an empty street.

The old man was muttering. “I thought you was one for the judge, but now I ain’t so sure. Might just be there’s a poster out on you.”

The old man began to pat him, searching him. The first thing he came to was the wallet in Menlo’s hip pocket. He removed it, and stepped back. Menlo heard him whistle softly when he opened it; it contained money, nearly a thousand dollars in hundreds and fifties.

“Well, well, well,” the old man said. “What do you know about that?” There was a pause and then a different tone. “Now, what the hell is this?”

Menlo wondered too. It hadn’t, whatever it was, sounded like something the old man was pleased over. Menlo wondered where the people were. The sun was shining brightly, and this was the main street. Two cars had already gone by since he’d been stopped, both angling wide around them without stopping. But no crowd had gathered on the sidewalk. He couldn’t understand it. He didn’t know that in a speed-trap town, motorists often get angry at policemen and policemen usually retaliate with a little extra humiliation such as a frisking, that in any such town, no matter how dreary, the sight of a policeman frisking a tourist is old stuff.

The old man kept mumbling to himself, and then all at once he shouted. “A Commie! A goddamn Commie!”

Then Menlo realized what the old man had found. He hadn’t bothered to remove his official identification cards, and these were what the old man had been mumbling over, trying to decipher the foreign printing, until finally some sign or symbol had given the game away.

“Well, well, well!” cried the old man, growing excitement in his voice. “I guess maybe it’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation that’d like you, bud. A big-shot Commie, no license or registration, carrying around bribe money. I guess the Federal Bureau of Investigation won’t mind seeing you one bit. So you just march, bud. Get on away from that car you stole, and march. To your right. The jail’s just a block away. I’ll come get your car and baggage after I got you locked up good.”

Menlo marched ahead of him down the street to the jail, a one-story frame structure with a blank façade, save for one small barred window and a door that had Police Headquarters lettered in gold on the glass.

Within, it looked like a set for a Western movie. There was a central corridor, with an office on the right containing, among other things, a rolltop desk. The door on the left was shut, and the old man had Menlo continue straight on down past it to the end, to a barred door.

It was while the old man was unlocking the door that he took his eyes off Menlo for just a second. It was then that Menlo sneaked the derringer from his pocket and fired both bullets in the old man’s head.

First, he took back his wallet. Then he removed the Police Positive from the holster and tucked it inside his belt, on the left side, butt forward, where it was well concealed but he could get at it quickly. Finally, he dragged the old man’s body through the barred doorway around to the other side of a desk to delay its discovery. The cells were back here, but they faced the other way. In one of them someone, probably a Negro, was singing softly and mournfully to himself about nothing in particular.

Menlo was feeling very strange. Until this moment all of his activities had been directed against the criminal elements of society, the outlaws. Kapor. The Outfit. Parker and McKay. He had been betraying his Ministry, true, but that hadn’t bothered him particularly. His activity against the state had been, in a way, indirect, a sin of omission rather than commission: he was simply not returning with the money. But now he had shot down a police officer in the performance of his duty. Suddenly the break with his past was total, complete, irrevocable, much broader and deeper than he had ever imagined. Tendrils of fear began tugging at his mind and making his knees unreliable.

He had to be strong. He had made his choice, and so far he had triumphed. Whatever the obstacles, he must continue to prevail. The rules were changed now, and so was he.

He was puffing from exertion by the time he’d finished. He closed the barred door again, paused to catch his breath, and forced himself to walk casually and unconcernedly out of the building. He would not be eating lunch at the diner just ahead. He would not be eating lunch at all today.

The next major city, according to the map, was Columbia, South Carolina. He could risk driving the car that far, but there he would abandon it. He would travel the rest of the way to Miami by train. It was unlikely there would be a plane.

He got into the Pontiac, feeling the bulge of the pistol against his left side as he sat down. He started the engine, backed the car, shifted, avoided the angle-parked police car, and drove sedately out of town at twenty miles an hour.

4

It looked like a wedding cake. Menlo peered out at it from the cab’s rear seat, his eyes squinting somewhat from the brightness. It was Sunday, and the sun shone bright on the Sunways Hotel, pink and white, with a great white fountain out front that looked like marzipan. The splashing water made a cool sound.

“I hate this lousy town,” said the cab driver, waiting to take his turn at the canopied entrance.

Menlo, who did not answer, was glad of the delay. It gave him an opportunity to study the place, get used to it a little.

Everything was new, everything was different. Menlo’s confidence had been shaken by the incident in the little South Carolina town, and in the back of his mind there was the growing suspicion that he wasn’t going to make it. This was a whole new world in which he had no experience. He had no papers, no satisfactory explanation of who he was or where he came from. He had no real idea even where he was going.

There were too many things he hadn’t thought of, too many things he couldn’t foresee. Even in the mechanics of everyday living he was hampered by the fact that he was so brand new to the United States, and nothing here corresponded exactly with its counterpart in Klastrava. The trains he’d been on — he’d had to change twice — were unlike those at home; only one class of carriage — an open, uncompartmented, third-class type, but with upholstered seats of a first-class style. There had been no ticket booth at the entrance to the platform; tickets were taken by uniformed conductors on the train itself. From the important difference of language and currency down to the appearance and customs of restaurants, everything was subtly and jarringly strange. He had to feel his way, groping from one situation to the next, certain that everyone he met must know that he was a foreigner. In Klastrava a foreigner as obvious as he would have been under official surveillance long before this. He knew the United States was much more lax but he couldn’t just blunder along this way forever, carrying a suitcase full of unexplainable money and hoping for the best.

The currency was beginning to seem more real to him now, and he was beginning to understand why he’d had so much trouble with the old man. Most Americans were suspicious of fifty-dollar bills. He had managed with some difficulty to spend three of them, getting smaller bills in change, and he was using small bills and coins now, hoping they would last until he’d figured out what to do with the rest of the money. He realized, belatedly, that if he’d offered the old man a ten-dollar bill instead of fifty, there might have been no trouble.

It all depended on whether or not he was given time to get his bearings. He needed it, and at least in the beginning he was going to need assistance. Which meant Bett Harrow, and the statue. Bett Harrow could help him if she chose, and the mourner should put him in the debt of Bett Harrow’s rich and influential father. That was all he needed.

His taxi finally reached the canopy, and the rear door was jerked open. The cab driver was paid and tipped as was the doorman. A bellboy carried his suitcases — the one on the left contained the money, the one on the right the mourner wrapped in clothing — to the desk and he too was tipped. The respectful but haughty clerk looked him in the eye. “Your name, sir?”

Name?

In panic, Menlo heard himself saying “Parker. Auguste Parker.”

Why did they want his name, before he’d so much as asked for a room? And why had he said Parker? On the way over from the railroad station he had invented an alias to use in signing the hotel register, but the abruptness of the question had thrown the name right out of his mind. So he had blurted out Parker’s without thinking, adding his own first name, and in the back of his mind the suspicion that he was going to fail loomed just a little larger.

The clerk had a drawer full of five-by-seven file cards. He looked at several and frowned. “I don’t seem to find your reservation, Mr. Parker.”

Menlo was not that much of a traveler. His infrequent jaunts in the past had always been in an official capacity; such problems as hotel reservations had always been taken care of by the Ministry. Coming to the United States, he had been checked into a Washington hotel by the Klastravian embassy officials.

But now he was traveling on his own, and he was doing things all wrong. “I don’t have a reservation. I only want a—”

“No reservation?” The clerk seemed unable to believe it for a second or two. Then a sudden frost hit him. “I’m terribly sorry, but we’re quite full up. You might try one of the hotels downtown; perhaps they could help you.”

Menlo and his suitcases were shunted aside. The fat man’s face reddened with anger, but there was nothing he could do. He was no longer Inspector Menlo. He was now merely a hunted refugee, alone and uncertain. Even a hotel clerk could treat him disdainfully with impunity.

After a minute he went back to the desk again, and caught the attention of the clerk. “Elizabeth Harrow,” he asked, “what room?”

The clerk looked. “Twelve twenty-three.”

“And I may call from where?”

“House telephones to your left, sir.”

The minute he reached for his suitcases a bellboy materialized, but he shook his head angrily and the bellboy went away. There was a point at which hesitancy and confusion could no longer be borne, when what was needed was a sharp, sudden show of aggressive certainty. He had pussyfooted long enough; it was not his style. He would put up with it no longer.

He even took offense at the bored tone with which the switchboard operator responded. His own voice was authoritative and brisk as he gave Bett Harrow’s room number. But there was no response; she was apparently not in her room.

He slammed the receiver down with annoyance, turned, caught the bellboy’s eye. The boy hurried over, and Menlo pointed imperiously at his suitcases.

“I wish to check this luggage. Are there facilities?”

“Yes, sir. Right over there by—”

“You may take the luggage, and bring me the claim check.”

“Yes, sir.”

He lit a cigarette. He had discovered a brand that combined the superior American tobacco with an adaptation of the Russian cardboard mouthpiece. There was an annoying wad of cotton or some foreign substance wedged down into the cardboard tube, but it didn’t alter the taste much. It would do.

When the boy returned with a square of numbered red plastic, Menlo tipped him a quarter and asked for the restaurant. The boy pointed it out, and Menlo marched resolutely through the wide doorway. He had come into the hotel looking soft and fat and slump-shouldered, but now he was his normal self again, carrying his bulk with lithe dignity.

He had steak, an American specialty. His table was next to a huge glass window overlooking the beach, and as he ate he watched the hotel guests there. A few were swimming, but most were merely walking about aimlessly or lying on pneumatic mattresses. A depressing number of the women, all in bright-colored bathing suits, were stout and middle-aged and ugly, but here and there was a tall and beautiful one, and these he watched with pleasure and a feeling of anticipation.

He ate a leisurely meal, and lingered at the table afterward to smoke a cigarette over a third cup of coffee. It was mid-afternoon, a slack time in the restaurant, so no effort was made to hurry him. When at last he paid his check, he took a chance and proffered one of the fifty-dollar bills. He was terrified of running short of the smaller bills again, and surely here a fifty-dollar bill wouldn’t seem unusual. The waiter didn’t seem to react at all, but took the bill and soon returned with a little tray full of change. In this country, he noted, a waiter’s tip was not automatically added on to the bill — at home it was a standard 10 per cent — but was left to the discretion of the diner. To be on the safe side he left a 15 per cent tip instead of 10, and strolled back out to the lobby.

Menlo crossed to the house phones and called Bett Harrow’s room again, and this time she was there. “Good afternoon, my dear, this is Auguste.”

He hoped she would recognize him by the first name alone. He didn’t want to mention his full name, in case the switchboard operator was listening in.

There was the briefest of hesitations. “Well, I’ll be damned. You did it.”

“You expected less?”

“Where are you?”

“In the lobby. I would like to talk to you.”

“Come on up.”

“Thank you.”

There was a bank of elevators across the way. He went over and was swooped up to the twelfth floor, where the corridor was uneasily reminiscent of Dr. Caligari’s cabinet, the walls and ceiling painted in bright primary colors, the carpeting wine red. He found the door marked 1223 and knocked.

She opened the door almost immediately, smiling at him in amusement. “Come in, come in. Tell me all about it.”

“In due time. It is more than pleasant to see you again.”

She was wearing form-fitting plaid slacks and a pale-blue halter. Her feet were bare, and the toenails were painted bright red. This struck him as ludicrous — it was as though she were wearing a flowing mustache — but he refrained from any comment. Still, it was unfortunate; the golden American goddess with scarlet toes. A bit of the glamour was destroyed for him forever. Inside her shoes, had the airline stewardess too had scarlet toes? Sad.

She closed the door behind him. The room looked like a more expensive version of the motel room in Washington. There was the same cheap bright-plastic look to everything.

“To tell you the truth,” she said, as they both sat down, “I didn’t expect to see you again. I thought Chuck would eat you up.”

“Chuck? Ah, yes. Parker, you mean.”

She shrugged. “He calls himself Chuck Willis sometimes. That’s the way I think of him.”

“Under any name,” he replied, smiling, “he did not eat me up. As you can see.”

“I hope you didn’t leave him alive anywhere,” she said, “I think he’d be a bad man to have for an enemy.”

“We need have no fears in that respect.”

She shook her head in slow amazement. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Auguste. Auguste? Don’t you have a better name than that?”

“I am most sorry. Only the one name.”

“It’s too ridiculous to call you Auguste. And you’re no Augie.”

“A minor problem,” he said, feeling annoyance that she should find his name ridiculous. “I suggest we table it for the moment. I have the statue.”

“I just can’t get it through my head. You really did kill Chuck and take the statue? What about the other one, that friend of Chuck’s?”

“Both of them. It is a closed issue. The past has no lasting fascination for me. It is the immediate future which now concerns me. I should like to meet your father.”

“I know, you want to sell him the statue. Twenty-five thousand?”

“Perhaps not. Possibly there is something he can do for me that would be more valuable.”

“Like what?” She seemed at once more alert.

He considered his words carefully. “In a sense,” he said, “I am in this nation illegally. My visa was for a short time only, and good only in Washington. It is my intention to remain in this country, therefore I will need papers. Your father is a well-to-do and influential man. It is not impossible that among his contacts is someone who can furnish me with the appropriate forged papers.”

“I don’t know if he can help you. If he can, is that all you want?”

“One small matter in addition. I have in my possession a rather substantial sum of cash, American. I would prefer not to carry this around with me. Your father perhaps could aid me in placing it in a bank or some other safe repository?”

“How much is a large sum?”

“I have not counted it as yet, but I believe it is approximately one hundred thousand dollars.”

Her eyes widened. “My God! Did you take that away from Chuck too?”

“If you mean was it his money — no, it was not.”

“All right. Anything else?”

“One more small matter. I had no reservation, and cannot obtain a room here.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She went to the phone, spoke to someone at length and finally hung up. She turned to Menlo. “All set. It’s on the wrong side of the hotel — no view of the ocean — but it’s a room. You can pick the key up downstairs. I told them your name was John Auguste, is that all right?”

“Perfectly.”

“My father isn’t in Miami now, but I will call him. He should be able to get here by tomorrow. I’ll let you explain to him exactly what you want. I’ll just tell him Chuck Willis is dead, and that someone else has the statue and wants to sell it.”

“Very good.” Menlo got to his feet. “I do thank you.”

“Where are you going?” She seemed displeased. “You’re all business now, is that it?”

“I have been traveling, dear lady. I should like to shower, to rest, and to don fresh clothing. I had intended to ask you to dine with me this evening, to allow me to make some small gesture of appreciation for your assistance.”

“You’re a strange man,” she said.

“Is eight o’clock acceptable?”

“Why not?”

He bowed. “I shall see you then.”

She walked him to the door and even barefoot she was a good two inches taller than he. She opened the door and stood holding the knob. “You didn’t even try to kiss me.”

Menlo was surprised. It was true that she had granted him her favors in the hotel in Washington, but he had thought then that it was only because Parker had rejected her. Could it be that she actually found him attractive? He was shorter than she, and unfortunately overweight, and possibly twenty years her senior.

But it couldn’t be the money; she was already rich.

Surprised, not quite sure what to make of her, he said, “You must forgive me. I have been, as I say, traveling. I am somewhat weary. And also, I must confess, my mind has been occupied with my own predicament. This evening, I trust you will find me more gallant.”

“This evening,” she replied, “you can tell me all about how you got the upper hand with Chuck. That I’ve got to hear.”

“I will tell all. Until this evening, then.”

He bowed his way out and took the elevator back down to the lobby. He didn’t approach the same clerk, but another one, giving the name Bett Harrow had invented for him. John Auguste. It would do as well as any. The clerk handed him the key, and a bellboy went to reclaim his luggage.

He had intended to bathe first, but once the bellboy had left the room he found his curiosity could wait no longer. How much exactly did he have in the suitcase?

When he opened it on the bed, loose bills spilled out on all sides. Hundreds, fifties, some twenties. With a flutter in his chest, as though he were standing too close to the edge of a cliff and looking over, he sat down on the bed and began to count. His weight depressed the mattress, tilting the suitcase, and another little shower of bills fluttered to the bedspread.

He made a little game out of it. First, he separated the bills into three piles, by denomination. Then, beginning with the hundreds, he sorted them into stacks, twenty-five bills in each.

Seven hundred fifty-three hundreds.

Four hundred twenty-two fifties.

And one hundred seventy-four twenties.

Nine-nine thousand, eight hundred eighty dollars. $99,880.00. Nine nine comma eight eight zero decimal zero zero. In the currency of his native land, three million, one hundred ninety-six thousand, one hundred sixty koter.

Oh, and more. In his wallet was eight hundred and fifty-three dollars. In his coat pocket, five hundred more. He had spent, coming down, he estimated approximately a hundred dollars.

Grand total: One hundred and one thousand, three hundred and thirty-three dollars!

He sang gaily in the shower. In English.

5

He was awakened the next afternoon on the beach by a funereal man in black who asked if he was Mr. John Auguste.

He opened his eyes, but immediately closed them again, against the glare of the sun. He had seen only the funereal man in black, in silhouette, bending over him, blotting out part of the sky.

Mr. John Auguste? Some mistake. I am Auguste Menlo. The similarity of—

No!

He sat bolt upright, not sure for a second whether he’d actually said the words aloud or merely thought them. But the funereal man in black was still standing there, bowed, patient, waiting for an answer. With the riot of colors on the beach, he looked like someone’s odd idea of a joke.

Menlo said, “Yes, I am John Auguste.”

“You are wanted on the house phone, sir. By the blue entrance, phone number three.”

“Thank you.”

The funereal man in black went away. He was wearing highly shined black oxfords, which sank into the sand at every step. He walked slowly and cautiously because of this, and looked like the Angel of Death. Menlo got up from the pneumatic mattress and followed him.

It was Monday afternoon, a little before three, and the hotel beach was jammed. All of yesterday’s check-ins were already there, plus the layovers from the week before. Menlo had to cut a meandering path through them to get to the phone.

He was wearing maroon boxer-style bathing trunks. He looked ridiculous, and knew it, but he also realized he looked no more ridiculous than half the other men on the beach. His flesh had reddened from exposure to the sun, and it was just as well he’d been awakened. A little longer, and he would have had a painful burn. Tomorrow he would have to get some of that suntan lotion he smelled everywhere on the beach.

Already he was beginning to feel at home. Sunshine and warmth. A pneumatic mattress to lie on, and occasional beautiful girls in skimpy white bathing suits to ogle. Plus, of course, the one beautiful girl to go to bed with. After last night with Bett Harrow, this day of sleep and warmth and contentment was more than a luxury; it was a necessity. There was a twenty-year difference between them, and by approximately one o’clock that morning it had begun to show.

He smiled to himself, plodding through the sand toward the hotel. What a way to exercise the weight away, eh? Sweat it away by day beneath the hot sun, sweat it away by night beneath the cool sheets.

To the left of the blue entrance were the telephones, a row of five mounted on the wall, with soundproof barriers between them, sticking out like blinkers on a horse. Menlo went to number three and picked up the receiver. “Auguste here.”

“This is Ralph Harrow.”

“Ah! Mr. Harrow!”

“I’m told you have something to show me. If it’s convenient, you could bring it up now. Top floor, suite D.”

Bring it? Not quite so soon, Menlo thought. “Ah, I am sorry. It isn’t, ah, completely ready to be shown; not quite yet. But perhaps I could come and discuss the situation with you? In one hour?”

There was the briefest of pauses, and then Harrow replied, “That’s fine. One hour.”

“I look forward to meeting you,” Menlo said, but Harrow had hung up. Menlo returned the receiver to its hook and smiled at it. Bring the statue? Did Harrow have some idea he could get the statue by trickery, and not pay for it?

A depressing thought occurred to him. That might be why the daughter had been so free with her charms. To lull his suspicions, to dull his wits.

But would a father, even in the United States, use his daughter in such fashion?

He wished he knew for sure what Bett Harrow saw in him. He was not young or handsome, he was only rich. But she was rich too.

He couldn’t understand it. He was grateful for it and he would not refuse it, but he couldn’t understand it.

He left the telephones and went through the blue entrance — a slate walk flanked by cool green ponds full of tiny fish and screened on both sides by tall board fences painted blue — and entered the rear of the hotel. There was a bank of three elevators here, for the convenience of the swimmers and sunbathers. Menlo rode up to the seventh floor, and then walked the endless corridors to his room.

His black suit had been returned, beautifully cleaned and pressed. His freshly laundered shirts had come back, and the new socks and underwear he had bought in the hotel shop that morning along with the maroon bathing trunks were put away in the dresser drawer. He took a shower and dressed, checked the locked suitcase full of money in the closet, which had not been tampered with, and left the room. He went to the nearer bank of elevators, and when the elevator arrived, said, “Top floor.”

“Yes, sir.”

When he got off, he asked directions to suite D, and was told to bear to his right. He did so. The halls up here were done in pastel shades, much less violent than in the plebeian quarters below, much more restful. He walked a considerable distance before finally seeing a door of any kind, which was marked “C.” After a turning he came to suite D.

A middle-aged gentleman who could have been nothing but an American businessman — or perhaps a Swiss businessman, or a Scandinavian businessman, but at any rate a capitalist businessman — opened the door to Menlo’s knock. “Mr. Menlo?”

“The name is Auguste, for the moment. John Auguste. You are Ralph Harrow?”

“Yes. Come in.”

The daughter, down on the twelfth floor, had a two-room suite. How many rooms this one contained was anyone’s guess. Harrow led the way down the foyer into a large sitting room. Directly ahead, through French doors, was a terrace. Doors in both side walls were open, leading into other parts of the suite.

“Sit down,” said Harrow. “Drink?”

“Perhaps, Scotch. And plain water.”

“Right you are.”

The long sofa in the middle of the room was white leather. The marble-topped coffee table in front of it was covered by a number of American magazines, tastefully laid out in a diagonal row, so that the name of each magazine showed. Menlo sat down on the sofa, feeling the whoosh of air leaving the cushion, and looked around. He would have to get a suite like this for himself soon. Once everything had been straightened out.

Harrow brought his Scotch and water, along with a drink for himself in his other hand. He sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. “My daughter tells me you took the statue away from Willis.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Menlo smiled. “Actually he never did have possession of it.”

“Then you’re an amazing man. Willis didn’t strike me as the kind of man you could take things from. Well. But that’s not why you’re here. You realize I paid for the statue once, don’t you?”

“So I understand.”

“Fifty thousand. Willis must have had that on him too. You mean to say you didn’t get it?”

“No, I did not. An oversight, possibly.”

“Bett tells me you have money. Quite a bit of it. In cash.”

“From another source entirely, I assure you.”

Harrow waved that aside. “The point is, I’ve already paid for the damn thing. I don’t like the idea of paying twice.”

“Your daughter didn’t explain my terms?”

“No, she didn’t.”

Menlo outlined them quickly; a safe place for his money, the necessary papers to explain himself should it ever become necessary. “And one last thing,” he said. “One of my teeth is capped, and within the cap is a tiny capsule containing poison. I don’t believe—”

“Poison!”

“Yes. I don’t be—”

“What on earth for?”

“In my former job it was thought I might find it necessary to take my own life under certain conditions. I somehow do not believe that will ever be necessary now.”

“Good God, man, poison! What happens when you eat?”

“In normal activity of the jaw, the capsule cannot be broken. But what I would like, if possible, is to have some dental surgeon remove it. If you could obtain for me a dentist who would not ask a lot of questions, I would be most grateful, most grateful.”

“I think that could be arranged,” Harrow said, nodding. “I’ll speak to my own dentist about it. He’s a good man; I’ve known him for years.”

“Excellent. And the other items?”

“No problem at all. We’ll get you the papers first, and then dispose of the funds. Some you’ll want to invest, no doubt, and the balance you’ll want handy for living expenses. No problem.”

“Very good.”

“But now,” Harrow said, “I have my terms.”

“Ah?”

Harrow’s eyes, all at once, were shining. He leaned forward. “Before we go any farther,” he said, “I want to hear the details. I want to know exactly how you managed to get the statue away from Willis, and I want to know what on earth your job was that you had to go around with a capsule full of poison in your mouth.”

Menlo smiled. “I see.” He had forgotten this essential fact about Ralph Harrow; the man was a romantic. It was the first thing that he had learned about Harrow, from hearing Parker and Bett talk about him back in Washington. On business matters Harrow was a total realist, but within was a strong streak of romanticism. It was the romantic, not the businessman, who had paid fifty thousand dollars for the mourner. “I will be most happy to tell all,” Menlo said.

“Let me refresh that drink first.”

“Thank you so much.”

Menlo told it all then, from the time he had first received the assignment until he had arrived in Miami, deleting from the story only the sexual encounters with Bett Harrow and the murderous encounter with the old policeman. He talked also about his role as Inspector in Klastrava, and this led Harrow to question him about various high points in his fifteen-year career, and about his life as a guerrilla in the latter stages of World War II. Nearly an hour went by, and Harrow was still asking questions, Menlo still talking. Harrow seemed fascinated, and Menlo, like most people, enjoyed having a good audience.

But finally it was finished. Harrow thanked him for spending so much of his time in telling the story, assuring him again that everything he’d asked for would be supplied. “Now, Mr. Menlo — or should I say Inspector Menlo, eh? — now I do want to see the mourner. The statuette. Could you bring it?”

Menlo considered briefly, but he no longer had any doubts. Harrow could be trusted. He finished his drink, got to his feet. “I shall get it at once.”

“Thank you. I’ll be waiting.”

Menlo rode the elevator back down to the seventh floor, and got the mourner out of his other suitcase. He wrapped the little statuette in one of the white bath towels from the bathroom, and brought it back upstairs under his arm. The elevator operator looked at it oddly, but didn’t say anything.

He knocked again, and once again Harrow came to the door. “You were very quick. Is that it?”

“Yes, this is it,” Menlo said, and bowed.

Harrow took the bundle and immediately began to unwrap it. “Go on in,” he said. “Go on in.” He pushed the door closed behind Menlo, and continued to stand in the foyer, unwrapping the statue.

Menlo walked past him into the sitting room and there was Parker sitting on the white sofa, a gun in his hand. Menlo took one shocked look at Parker’s face and acted without hesitation: he twisted his jaw hard to the right, and bit down.