The Name of the Game is Death

VII

The next night I was making the second of my tavern stops when the limping redhead made a mistake. He didn't know it was a mistake, because he didn't know I'd seen him in Mobile. I'd just climbed out of the Ford, ready to go inside for a beer I didn't want, when he cruised by in a black sedan at eight miles an hour. I got a good look at him.

The redhead didn't turn to look at me. He just drove past. The sedan turned the next corner, pulled into the curb, and stopped. I could tell by the quick glow and then the extinguishing of the taillights. I knew the redhead was tailing me as plainly as if he'd written me a letter.

I went inside and had the beer. I talked a little baseball to the bartender and gave some thought to the redhead. He was a luxury I couldn't afford. That decision left only two things to be settled: finding out if he'd already reported back to Manny Sebastian where he'd followed me, and how I was going to get rid of him.

I said goodnight to the bartender and went outside to the Ford. I pulled away from the tavern and turned the same corner the black sedan had turned. There wasn't a car in sight, parked or moving. I circled the block twice, cursing myself for losing him, and then a pair of headlights settled in behind me. I don't know where the bastard came from, but he was good. It takes ingenuity to tail a man in a car without the victim's knowing it. This boy had it.

I took him back uptown, then cast on Main from the

traffic fight. A little privacy was necessary now. From the edge of town I settled down to a steady fifty miles an hour. I was in no hurry. Somewhere out in the boondocks I'd find a place to leave the redhead, permanently.

I found out in the first five miles how he'd followed me from Mobile without my getting wise. He was an artist with an automobile. He didn't just lock himself onto my taillight and leave me to wonder eventually about the lights that remained the same distance behind in my rear-view mirror. There was only a sliver of moon, but he rode some stretches with his lights out. He'd be almost bumper-to-bumper with me for short distances, and then I wouldn't see him for miles. Twice he passed me, once doing about eighty, only to pick me up again from behind. The first time he went past I wasted a look at his license plate. It was carefully, unreadably mud-spattered.

Twenty-five miles up the road I emerged from the woodsy darkness enveloping the highway into a sleepy-looking, wide-place-in-the-road intersection with a blinking yellow light. There were darkened storefronts and a lighted telephone booth just before the blinker. I turned right at the intersection, right at the next corner, and right at the next. I was out of the car and sprinting between two buildings before the redhead's lights turned the last corner and cruised past the Ford. v

T he last time he'd turned the next corner and parked. I was gambling he'd follow a pattern. If he did, I had him in my pocket. I angled through another space between buildings, headed for the street.

I was in time to sec his lights arc around the corner onto the highway after he passed my parked car. Sure enough, lie pulled in and stopped not fifteen feet from the phone booth. I le cut his lights before he even stopped rolling. He'd probably figure he was getting close to the payoff I le was, but not the kind he expected.

lie climbed out of his car in a hurry, took a quick look around the silent intersection, then started to trot back to the cot net he'd just turned. He didn't want to lose me. He didn't.

I was between him and the corner, and I stepped out from between the buildings and intercepted him, the .38 in my hand. "Hi, Red," I said. "How're things in Mobile?"

It would have stopped the average man's heartbeat. This was a different breed of rooster. Even in the poor light I could see him straightening his face out. "You got me wrong, Jack," he protested, deadpan.

"Walk up to the phone booth," I told him. I wanted to see his face in better light when I asked him the question that was bothering me. I followed right behind him, shoving the gun under my armpit. "Get inside it," I said when he reached the booth. "Make out you're dialing." He took down the receiver before he turned to look at me again. "Don't make the mistake of putting your hand into your pocket for change."

"You're akin' a big—"

"You must be the wheelman who wanted the Ford," I cut him off. "Did Manny tell you that you could have it if you kept tabs on me for him?"

It must have rocked him, but he still didn't lose his nerve. "I don't know any Manny," he said sullenly. He was eyeing me, wondering where the gun had gone. He had a thin, pale face with a scattering of freckles.

"Have you called Manny since you followed me to Hudson, Red?"

He dropped all pretense. "Manny says you're a tough boy," he sneered. "You don't look so tough to me."

"One more time, Red," I told him softly. "Have you called Manny since—"

"Up your ass with a meat hook!" he snarled. He snatched the booth door closed with his left hand while he went for the gun in his shoulder holster with his right. His hand was still on its way under his lapel when I put one in his chest and one in his ear. Both of them took out glass before they ticketed Red. He did a slow corkscrew to the booth floor, his freckles stark in his white face. I emptied the Smith & Wesson into the booth, spraying it from top to bottom. I put the last bullet into the light. Nobody was going to call this one a sharp shooting job.

I walked back to the Ford at a good clip. I backed up to the next corner without putting on my lights, then reversed the way I'd driven in there. I put my lights on just before I reached the blinker. Around me lights were popping on in houses as I turned left and headed for the Lazy Susan.

The intersection's citizenry would be a while finding Red with the booth light out. When they did, they'd be another little bit jawing while they tried to unscramble the jigsaw puzzle. I put the .38 on the seat beside me in case I had to pitch it if anything came up behind me.

Nothing did.

Kaiser greeted me at the motel room door.

He stretched out at my feet and watched for twenty minutes while I cleaned, oiled, and reloaded the Smith & Wesson.

I didn't know whether Manny knew where to find me or not.

He wasn't going to if he didn't.

I went to bed.

I took Kaiser along with me on my next trip to the Dixie Pig. There was the usual sprinkling of a dozen cars in back, including Jed Raymond's sportscar. I went in with Kaiser padding sedately beside me. Jed waved from a booth. I was two-thirds of the way across the floor before I saw Lucille Grimes seated opposite Jed with her back to me.

Jed, with his fey grin, tried to maneuver me into sitting beside Lucille. I pushed him over and sat down beside him. "Good evening, all," I greeted them.

Lucille smiled but didn't speak. She was eyeing Kaiser nervously. Jed reached under the table to pat the big dog. I watched closely, but Kaiser didn't take any offense. "Hey, there, big boy," Jed said to him. He glanced at me. "Who's your gentleman friend, Chet?"

"Kaiser, meet Jed," I introduced them. I noticed that Lueille's long legs were as far withdrawn beneath the booth as she could manage. "Well, folks, what's the chief topic of conversation?" I inquired.

"The star-spangled, unmitigated dullness of life in a small town," Jed replied promptly. "Right, Lucille?"

Her thin smile was noncommittal. "Perhaps Chet hasn't always lived in a small town."

Jed got me off that hook. "They're all small," he asserted. "How much town can you live in? A couple of blocks near where you work and a couple of blocks near where you sleep, even in New York. The rest is as strange as Beluchistan. I'll take little ol' Hudson."

I thought Lucille looked tired. There were dark circles under her eyes. She kept watching the parking lot through the booth window. She hadn't long to wait. A two-tone county sheriff's department cruiser swung slowly through the lot and down the driveway on the other side. The blonde ritualistically gathered up gloves and handbag. "Excuse me, gentlemen," she said, rising. "Good night."

"For a guy slaverin' for blonde meat you don't move very fast," Jed accused me when Blaze Franklin drove Lucille away.

"Pay attention," I told him. "You could learn something. Your hurry-up technique is all wrong."

"Not since I got out of high school it hasn't been," he said cheerfully. He turned serious. "Listen, don't let me needle you about the widow. She's—well, there's a damn sight better fish in the creek. Why don't you let me slip you a number or two from my little black book?"

"All this just because a county cruiser circled the parking lot, Jed?"

He nodded. "So you saw it, too. Blaze Franklin—" Jed hesitated. "Blaze is a little bit primitive. You know? Like he's rednecked all the time. Who needs it to get involved with a thick turd like that?"

"So he's the jealous type."

"In spades, he's the jealous type." Jed pushed his glass around in the wet circles on the table without looking at me. "I've heard some stories about Blaze." He loosed his quick grin at me. "Some of 'em might even be true. Hey, Hazel!" he hollered over to the bar in a quick change of subject. "Bring on the fatted calf!"

We ate diligently. Jed fed small cuts of his steak to Kaiser, who accepted them with dignity. "You'll spoil him," I said.

"He can stand spoiling. That's a lot of dog. I like his looks." Jed glanced at his watch. "Duty calls. Five-foot-two, eyes of blue."

When he left, I sat around waiting to see if Hazel was going to be able to get away from the bar long enough to visit. I got a surprise when she did. She'd changed to a dress. It was the first time I'd seen her in anything but the skintight Levis. She'd done something to her hair, too.

"What's the occasion?" I asked. She set a drink down in front of me and one on her side of the booth, too. I'd never seen her take a drink before.

"No occasion." Her voice sounded husky. "Every once in a while I take a notion to give the animals somethin' to think about besides my ass." She plunked herself down across from me.

Her eyes indicated that the drink in front of her wouldn't he her first of the day. I remembered Jed's warning,. and I wondered if the storm signals were up. Hazel was no shrinking, violet. Every once in a while a half-splashed customer would get carried away by a sudden biological urge in connection with the contents of the Levis.

Hazel always fractured the house with her rebuttal. "What's with you, fella?" she'd rasp in her deep voice. "Your insurance paid up? Nobody told you I got my own cemetery out back for wise guys snatchin' a feel?" It took a hardy ego to survive that little speech intact.

She tossed oil her drink in a swallow and accepted my light for her cigarette. She still wore her cowboy boots, and out heel tapped steadily. Kaiser's ears pricked forward as In stretched out on the floor beside me.

Hazel picked up my drink and downed the remainder of it. She stated at me across the table as she set down the glass "I'm not a blonde," she announced defiantly, "but whatever she's got I'll double an' throw away the change. I'm closing early tonight. Come back and pick me up. Twelve-thirty."

I opened my mouth, and closed it again. "Twelve-thirty," I said finally.

She nodded, ground out her cigarette in the ashtray, then got up and went back to the bar. She didn't return.

I had time to kill. I drove into town, thinking about Hazel. I liked her. She was good company, and she had a caustic sense of humor. When she took the trouble to fix herself up, she was a damn fine-looking woman.

But—

Ahhh, what the hell, I told myself. Play the hand the way the cards are dealt. What do you have to lose?

I backed away from that bit of bravado in a hurry.

I knew what I had to lose.

I stopped in at the baseball-oriented bartender's tavern. He was the friendliest on my beat, and I was just about ready to pull the trigger on a few questions to him. I knew it wasn't going to be tonight, though, as soon as I walked inside. Blaze Franklin was sitting at the bar. It must have been a short date. Franklin had found out the reason for the dark circles under the blonde's eyes, I told myself smugly.

He saw me come in, but he thought it over before he did anything about it. Finally he couldn't leave it alone. He left his stool, which was two-thirds of the way up the bar from mine, swaggered past the half-dozen customers in the place, and pushed himself onto the stool beside mine. His elbows were out wider than they needed lo be. "Don't b'lieve I've heard your name," he said in a loud voice.

"Arnold," I answered.

He waited to see if I was going to say anything else. "Understand you're quite a dancer," lie went on. I wondered how much of his tomato face was due to weather and how much to alcohol. Around us the little tavern conversations had died out. Franklin wasn't satisfied to accept my silence. "I see you peart near ev'y day thumpin' around in the bresh out yonder," he said. "You keep it up you're gonna put your number 12 down on someone's still an' git your head blowed off."

"I carry a spare."

He didn't get it for a second. When he did, he clouded over. "You in town for long, Arnold?"

"It depends," I said.

He took a deep breath as though holding himself down. "Depends on what?"

I turned on my stool until I was facing him. "It depends on me," I told him, and returned to my beer. Franklin put his hand on my arm. I looked down at the hand, and then at him. He removed the hand, his face darkening. I knew the type. He wanted to lean on me just to show he could. I could feel the short hairs on the back of my neck stiffening. The bastard rubbed me completely the wrong way.

Franklin changed his mind about whatever he'd been thinking of doing. He snorted loudly, then got up and walked out the door. Around me the conversations slowly came to life again. The bartender sidled down the bar, his long arm going in concentric circles with a dirty rag. "That's Blaze Franklin," he said almost apologetically. "He's a little—quick. What was that about dancin'?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." I wasn't supposed to know the blonde was Franklin's playmate. Outside the cruiser roared as Franklin petulantly gunned it away. "Quick, huh? Who's he buried?" And then as the words hung in the air I shook my head mentally. It was crazy. More trouble I couldn't use. Where were my brains?

The bartender's laugh was a cackle. "That's a good one. Who's he buried?" He looked up and down the bar to assure himself a maximum audience. "Well, no one he's stood trial for," he grinned. It was his turn to listen to the sound of his own words in the stale-beer flavored air. His grin faded. "I mean an escaped convict or two—things like that," he amended hastily. He sloshed his rag about with renewed vigor. "Blaze is one of our best young deppities." Having retrieved the situation, he favored me with another smile.

I finished my beer and got out. I killed a couple of hours reading at the Lazy Susan while I waited for midnight. I left Kaiser in the room when I went out again. The fights were out in the Dixie Pig when I turned into the driveway except for the night light. There was only one car in back. Hazel's. She was standing inside the back door, waiting, but she came out and turned the key in the lock when she saw the Ford.

"Let's use my car," she said. She got in on the driver's side. I wondered how much more she'd had to drink, but I climbed out of the Ford and got in beside her. She spun the wheels backing up in the crushed stone.

She turned south on the highway. Past the traffic light in town she leaned on it. She had a heavy foot, but she was a good driver. I watched a full moon rising over the Gulf and the road unwinding in the headlights. There was no conversation. Sometimes I know ahead of time, but that night wasn't one of the times.

Fifteen miles down the road Hazel turned left on a dirt track she must have known about because she couldn't have seen it. A mile in on it she turned left again, and her car bumped along for three hundred yards over deep ruts until a cabin showed up in the headlights. Hazel switched off the car lights and we sat and looked at the cabin in the moonlight. "I built it myself," she said. "And I mean I drove the nails. Therapy. Come on."

She unlocked the cabin door and we went inside. "Well?" she challenged me in the soft darkness. "It's a damn good thing I'm shameless enough for both of us. You weren't going to ask me out. Why?"

"When I think of a good answer, I'll let you know," I told her. She closed the cabin door and I heard the snick of a bolt. I couldn't make out many details except the furnishings.

She came up behind me and dropped her hands on my shoulders. "Get into something cooler, Horseman," she said, and walked into the next room.

I undressed slowly. When I padded after her, barefoot,

she was buck naked in the moonlight on the full-sized bed. She could have been the model for all women for all time. Her eyes were closed. I knelt on the edge of the bed. "Hazel—" I began.

She opened her eyes and reached for me. "Don't tell me I've gone and emasculated you," she said softly. "You're a man. You'll do all right."

Some time later when it became apparent even to her that I wasn't going to do all right, she sat up on the bed. "Get me a cigarette, will you, Chet?" she asked me. She sounded tired. I went back out to my clothes and found my cigarettes. She studied my face in the glow from my lighter. "Is it me, Chet?"

"It's not you."

"You're not a queer." It was a statement, not a question.

"No."

"But this happens?"

"Yes. Not all the time."

She blew out a convulsive lungful of smoke. "You shouldn't have done it to me, Chet." Then her big hand closed on mine. "I'm sorry. It was me who did it to you, wasn't il?" The bed creaked as she changed position. "What do you think It is?"

"Everybody has his own opium for this sort of thing." I stubbed out my own cigarette. "Years ago I saw a cartoon in a magazine. A slick looking battalion is marching along in cadence except for one raggedy-assed, stumble-footed type who's out of step. A rock faced sergeant is giving him hell. The tag line had the out of-step character telling the sergeant he heard a different drum."

"What's your drum?" Hazel asked immediately.

I almost blurted out the truth. "Excitement," I said after I caught myself. I'd nearly said "guns." With a gun in my hand and tension crackling in the air, I'm the best damn man right afterward that you ever saw.

"Well, I've heard about bullfighters," Hazel said philosophically. "And I've known gamblers who were on-again-off-again with women." She got up from the bed and walked to the chair where she'd left her clothes. Her superb big body glistened in the moonlight that filtered into the bedroom. She came back to the bed when she was dressed and punched me in the ribs. "Forget it," she said. "Let's just scratch tonight from the results, Horseman."

But it was a quiet ride back to the Dixie Pig to pick up my car.

I've had a few quiet rides in my time.

The next night at the Dixie Pig I couldn't see any change in Hazel's attitude. She made no reference to the previous night. I hadn't gone there expecting to find the details of the disaster soaped on the back bar mirror, but it makes a difference and the difference usually shows. Hazel wasn't big only in her physical dimensions.

"I hear you're picking on our poor little deputy sheriffs now," she began without preliminary, sitting down in the booth.

"Your hearing's good, but you've got the story wrong."

"You could be underestimating Blaze Franklin."

It irritated me. "I'm not overestimating him or underestimating him. I don't give a damn about him."

"Don't get narky, Chet. I'm telling you for your own good. Blaze is dangerous."

"So how come a dangerous man is wearing a badge?"

Hazel frowned. "I don't think anyone had the full picture on Blaze until he had the uniform. A psychiatrist would probably say it gives him the opportunity to work out his aggression safely."

"Lucille Grimes must go for aggressive types."

"Something's happened to that relationship lately," Hazel said quietly. "I see it in her, not him. She always had a cocky way of flipping a hip that had the pigeons crossing the street to bask in the sunshine. It used to be that Blaze rolled over when she snapped her fingers. I don't see that now. She's lost weight, and her eyes look like two burned holes in a blanket. Something's gnawing

on that gal. I'll tell you the truth, I've been wondering lately if she isn't dipping into the till at the post office."

I had to hold myself down. "Why in hell would she need to do that?"

Hazel planted her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. "I'll tell you a tale out of school. When Charlie died, he was on his best winning streak ever, and he left me cash. I invested it. When Lou died, I inherited a whole bunch of stuff I never knew he had. In a small town that kind of thing gets around."

Her voice took on a brooding quality, as if she were thinking aloud. "Two months ago Blaze Franklin came to me and tried to borrow three thousand dollars. He had a red-hot business opportunity, he said. I'd learned from Charlie how to keep an approach like that from becoming a problem. Blaze knew that my investments were being handled by Nate Pepperman, a business consultant with an office above the bank. I told Blaze to explain his proposition to Nate, and if Nate okayed it to tell him I said it was all right for Nate to milk something and finance the deal."

Hazel gave me a little-girl grin. "I've seen Charlie send three a week like that to his business consultant, and then he'd light up another cigar and tell me that the day the guy okayed a proposition was the day Charlie got himself a new business consultant. When they couldn't lean on friendship, most propositions turned out to be swiss cheese in texture."

She sobered again. "A couple of weeks later Nate came ill to see me about something else, and I asked him about Blaze. I wasn't too surprised to hear Blaze had never been near him. Even a professional big-touch artist might choke up trying to explain a deal to a gimlet-eye like Nate."

Hazel shook out a cigarette from my pack on the table and leaned forward to accept my proffered light. She blew out a lungful of smoke and licked at a loose filament of tobacco on her lip. "About the same time I heard from one of my barflies that Lucille Grimes had been into Dick

Turnbull's auto agency pricing foreign sport cars. That seemed to be two and two adding up to four." Hazel leveled the cigarette at me. "Then lo and behold, the next time I saw Lucille she was burnin' rubber on a bright red, brand new MG roadster."

She smiled at my raised eyebrow. "Yes. I was curious enough about it myself to make it my business to find out that Blaze had paid for it, in cash. That's not the way the title reads, but that's the way it happened. So either Blaze found himself another golden goose, or I figure Lucille is into the till. She sure looks like she's waitin' for her pants to be dropped an' the paddle to burn her up."

"Blaze probably saved up for it out of his green stamps," I said, but I was doing a lot of thinking.

"Lucille was all over town in the MG for ten days or so, champagne-bubbly," Hazel continued. "Then the blight set in. I don't know how he managed it, but the reins are definitely in Deputy Franklin's hands these days. Lucille looks like a lamp with the flame blown out. It must be that jealous men are hard on the nerves. She certainly looks like something is grinding her down. Maybe a man wouldn't notice it, but it's there for a woman to see."

There was a lot that interested me in the story. A whole hell of a lot. Had I been knocking my brains out for nothing on the west coast of Florida's brush-overgrown back roads, when the pair of them had been practically under my thumb all the time? Franklin's persistent interest in my supposed timber-cruising, and then the direct connection to the post office. . . .

I gave it some more thought when the bar became active and Hazel went back to work.

I thought about it still more on the way back to the motel.

I was already in bed when something that had come to mind previously occurred to me. I got up, slipped on a robe, and went outside. I unlocked the back deck of the Ford and opened my small toolchest. I found what I was looking for: a miniature Italian automatic that fired

three .17 cartridges. It had its own little holster that strapped on a man's shin under his sock. It was no bulkier than an ankle bandage.

1 went back inside the motel room and strapped it on my shin. I didn't know yet whether Manny Sebastian knew where to find me. When I found out, it could be on goddamn short notice. I might need a little something extra going for me—like a hidden shin holster.

But right now there was Blaze Franklin.

And Lucille Grimes.

I was in the post office lobby at nine o'clock the next morning. The outer doors were opened earlier to allow boxholders to get their mail, but the windows didn't open until nine. Right on the dot Lucille raised the general delivery window. I could see two clerks, but they were busy in the back of the long room. I stepped up to the window, in a hurry to get my piece spoken before we were interrupted by someone walking in. "Morning, Lucille," I said.

She looked surprised to see me. "Good morning," she said almost as an afterthought. The dark circles beneath her eyes were still in evidence, and her blonde hair looked stringy. A trace of blotchiness marred her otherwise velvety pallor. "May I help you?" She recalled herself to business from whatever she was thinking.

"How about having dinner with me one of these nights, Lucille?"

Her original surprise was obviously redoubled. "I don't believe I should," she answered. She stood there testing the sound of it. "I really don't think—"

"You're not wearing his ring," I interrupted her. "Or his collar, I hope."

Her chin lifted "If you're implying—" "I'm implying I'd like to have dinner with you. Say Wednesday night?" "I'll think about it." She appeared confused. A woman came in the door and walked up to the window. I had to step aside. "Wednesday night?" I pressed the blonde.

"I'll have to—call me tonight," she said hurriedly, then smiled at the woman. "Yes, Mrs. Newman?"

I backed away under Mrs. Newman's bright-eyed inspection. No need to put an ad in the paper saying that I'd invited the postmistress out to dinner. The Mrs. Newmans of Hudson would eventually get the word back to Blaze Franklin. And if Hazel was right about who was calling the shots for the loving pair, an acceptance from Lucille would mean that Blaze had okayed it. That would be an interesting situation in itself.

I drove out east on Main Street, and for six hours I beat my way up and back two dozen monstrously tangled dirt roads, old logging trails, and footpaths, a few of them no more than twenty yards apart. I sweat gallons. I lost my temper. And I found nothing.

I went back to the Lazy Susan and showered, then stretched out on the bed for a couple of hours. I couldn't sleep, although I was tired. The continual frustration was beginning to do things to the hair-trigger of my temper. If it continued much longer, a little shove from one direction or another might send me careening off on a course not necessarily the correct one, just because action itself would be a release.

I was still in a bad mood when I whistled up Kaiser and headed for the Dixie Pig and dinner. The first three minutes there compounded it. I walked in to find Jed Raymond in the corner booth wearing the khaki shirt and red-piped uniform trousers I'd come to associate with Blaze Franklin. It jarred me. "Where's the masquerade?" I asked Jed. He looked at me curiously. I didn't like the sound of my voice myself.

"I told you I was a jackleg deputy in an emergency," he said in his usual cheerful manner.

"So what's the emergency?"

His grin was sheepish. "Opening of a new supermarket. I'm on traffic."

I '..it down in the booth. "You must be younger than I thought, playing cops and robbers."

"Cut it out, will you? Around here a guy's expected to do this or go into politics. This takes less time and money."

"Suppose you had to arrest a real estate prospect, Jed?"

"Now you know no prospect of mine could ever be involved in anything requirin' me to arrest him."

"But suppose?"

"If I didn't have the deposit, he just might have a little runnin' room," Jed grinned.

Kaiser padded over to Jed's side of the booth and rested his muzzle on Jed's thigh. Jed reached down and scratched him between the ears. Kaiser took Jed's arm in his mouth. Jed growled at the dog, and Kaiser growled back. I could tell the dog wanted to play, and Jed reached the same conclusion.

"You want a little roughhouse, boy?" he asked. He slid out of the booth and got down on his knees. In seconds the big gray and brown dog and Jed's ginger-colored head were locked in mock combat. They rolled around the floor in a ferocious-sounding battle so real the bar customers scattered like quail. One customer climbed on a table.

Jed got to his feet finally, laughing. He brushed the floor dust from his uniform. Kaiser wagged his big tail appreciatively. Jed sat down in the booth again. "That's a lot of dog," he said, then continued in the same breath, "I hear you're dating Lucille Grimes."

"She hasn't said yes."

"lint yon asked her, according to a dear lady who can give a large mouthed bass cards and spades. You know, I feel a little guilt in the matter. Are you tryin' to prove somethin' to me because I threw you smack dab up against the shark-toothed widow?"

"Shark-toothed?"

"I live in this town, Chet. Do you need a blueprint?"

"I asked the woman to dinner. Does that enlist me among her love slaves?"

"It enlists you on Blaze Franklin's shit list," Jed said soberly.

"How come Franklin's got this whole town buffaloed?"

Jed spread his hands. "You've met the gentleman."

"I've met him," I agreed. "And I size him up about twenty-five cents on the dollar."

"Goddammit, you're askin' for it with that attitude!" Jed bristled. "Look, I'm just concerned my big mouth pushed you into somethin' with a stinger attached."

I pulled up on the reins. The kid meant all right. "Forget it, Jed," I said. "She hasn't said yes. If she does, we'll have dinner. It's a big deal?"

His expression was still serious. "Would you believe a couple of guys who've gone out with our beauteous postmistress have had—ah—accidents? I don't believe she's had an invitation in a year. Until yours."

"Why doesn't Franklin have any accidents, Jed?"

"Who likes to go up against a badge?"

"Okay, okay. You told me. Thanks. Now can I buy you a drink before you leave to show off that Boy Scout uniform?"

"I'll have to ask you to speak with more respect to this minion of the law, suh. I'll take a raincheck on the drink." Jed reached down under the booth to pat Kaiser on the head before he got up and left by the back door.

For the first time since I'd known him I was glad to see him go. It's strange what the sight of a uniform does to me. I was happy to see Kaiser take to Jed so quickly, though. If the cards fell so I had to pull stakes in a hurry, I wouldn't be leaving the big dog high and dry.

I went to the phone booth and looked up Lucille Grimes' home phone number. "Chet Arnold, Lucille," I said when she answered. "How are we fixed for Wednesday night?"

"Oh, ah—" There was a five-second pause. She hadn't repeated my name. I wondered if Franklin was with her. Not that I gave a damn. "Would five o'clock be too early? You could pick me up at the post office, Chet." Lucille's voice sounded a bit breathless.

"Five o'clock will be fine." She didn't want me picking her up at her home for some reason. "See you then."

"I'm looking forward to it."

I replaced the receiver. She'd almost cooed the last words. Something about the way she said it—it was almost as though she'd suddenly turned up the voltage. She was definitely an attractively long-legged female, yet there was usually nothing soft about her. In Dixie Pig conversations I'd surprised an occasional feral gleam in the eyes under the long-lashed lids. Unless I missed my guess, she was a dandy little cutting tool. And now she was sounding cuddly. Interesting.

Hazel was at the booth when I returned to it. "Is Jed coming back after he finishes with his deputy routine?" I asked.

"No. He said he was going courting."

"I wonder what it feels like," I said before I thought.

"What's that?"

"Oh, sitting with a girl on her living room sofa." I tried to say it lightly. "Object: matrimony, if you can't get it any other way."

"I imagine you never tried it." It was a statement, not a question. I didn't try to reply to it. Neither of us said anything for a couple of minutes.

"I've been thinking " I began.

"Do you suppose " Hazel started to say at the same time.

We both laughed.

"You've got the floor, Horseman," Hazel said.

I searched tor the right words. "Maybe we ought to try it again some flight."

"There's a point to it?" She reached across the table quickly and captured my hand. "No, no; I didn't mean that lie way it sounds. Why do you want to try it again?"

"Maybe because you don't have 'Chet Arnold is an impotent slob'up on the front of the building in neon lights."

"What the hell do you think I am?" she began indignantly, and then she started to laugh again. "Can the corn, man. Why d'you want to try it again?"

"It offends my miserly soul to see such a brick pagoda going to waste."

"I suppose even a left-handed compliment is more than I rate most days around here," she said good-humoredly. Then she turned serious. "The fact you want to is what counts with me. I've been around enough gamblers to know that a lot of the time they're wired into different sockets." A glass bottom rapped on the bar. "I'll be back."

I watched her walk away from the booth, and suddenly I knew it was going to be all right.

I never know how I know.

I just do.

The bar stayed busy, and Hazel couldn't get away. I went over finally to one end of the bar, away from the customers. "I'll be back at lock-up time," I told Hazel when she joined me.

She looked at me quizzically but nodded acquiesence.

I had a couple of hours to kill, so I drove downtown. I went into Bobby Herman's tavern, where I'd been when I ran into Franklin. Herman was friendly because I let him show off his encyclopedic baseball knowledge. He had the type of mind that could rattle off the batting orders for the Yankees and the Pirates in the '28 World Series.

Herman greeted me with a smile and the usual tight-collared shell of beer. "Quiet tonight," he said, automatically wiping off the already spotless bar in front of me. There was only one other customer at the bar and a young couple in a booth.

Herman retreated to his washrack and began rinsing out beer glasses. The other customer finished his beer, grunted goodnight, and departed. The only sounds were the low murmur of voices from the booth and the clink of glasses as Herman placed them on the drainboard.

When he looked my way again, I was ready. I nodded down the bar in a way that took in two-thirds of the tavern. "Say, whatever happened to the big, rugged-looking guy who used to stand down there when I first started coming in?"

Herman paused, a sparkling glass in his hand. "Big, rugged—? Oh, yeah. The one with the scar on his throat. That's right, I haven't seen him lately. He must've found greener pastures. He wasn't a regular, anyway."

I felt a tightening sensation in my stomach muscles. "Did he work around here? He reminded me of someone, and I finally remembered who. I thought I'd ask him if he was related."

Herman had returned to his glasses. "I don't think he works around here. I never heard him say. He was a real quiet fella. Drove a blue sedan with out-of-state plates."

A real quiet fella.

I've seen people lose hard cash betting Bunny could talk after they'd been around him for days. He had a trick of walking into a bar and getting his first beer by holding up a finger when the bartender drew one for someone else. He got his refills by snapping a coin down on the bar. He never joined a group but stood in the background, smiling and nodding at the general conversation. He usually anticipated a direct question by turning his shoulder so that his attention seemed elsewhere, and the question flew harmlessly by.

"Could he be staying at the Walton House? Seems to me I've seen a blue sedan parked there," I said.

"I doubt he's at the Walton House." Herman dried his hands on his apron. "Every time I saw him pull away he'd swing around and head east from the traffic light." He paused as if checking his memory. "I don't think he lived in town at all."

"Oh, well, it's not that important. Put another head on this thing for me."

At least it was confirmation of sorts that Bunny had hidden out east on Main as I'd originally figured. I'd been beginning to wonder. I might be stubborn, but I had no intention of working my way to the east coast of Florida a side road at a time. I'd have to keep at it, though, now that Herman's recollection had strengthened my first guess. Bunny was out there somewhere. Not that I was going to be able to do him any good now. It had been too long.

I left the tavern and drove back to the Dixie Pig parking lot. Hazel was sitting in her car, the glow of a cigarette illuminating her face. "Let's go in mine," I called to her.

She came over and got in. I caught a whiff of perfume. She was wearing a dress again. I headed down the driveway and out onto the highway.

"Relax, big stuff," I told her. "Everything's going to be all right."

She looked at me curiously. "Don't go building yourself up for nothing, Chet. It's not that important."

"Relax," I repeated.

I drove with my left hand and held her left in my right. The full moon was past; it was a darker night. I nearly missed the turn-off road, so I had to back up before we jolted down the final three hundred yards and sat looking at the cabin that was a darker blotch in the blackness.

Hazel gave me her key, and I unlocked the door. It was so quiet it almost hurt the ears. We didn't bother with any lights. Hand in hand we stumbled from the cabin's living room into the bedroom.

I undressed her myself. She showed up whiter and whiter with each layer removed until she gleamed in the dark like phosphoresence in the Gulf. I forgot her cowboy boots. I heard the click of her boot heels when her legs came together over my back as we settled down on the bed.

We really dusted off that bed. I made it so big it was a lumped-up, soul-satisfying taste deep in my throat. I could feel the wild pulse in Hazel's neck under my lips. When she blew her boiler it was a damn good thing for me there were no spurs on her boots. I rode for a long time before my cannon fired.

Hazel's voice was a muted, husky sound against the background of our mutual deep breathing. "Welcome back, Horseman. You covered a spread of ground."

I didn't say anything. We were still in the missionary posture. I slid my hands beneath her and took a solid double-handful of her powerful, sleek-feeling nude buttocks. I pulled her up against me, tightly.

"Oh, no!" she chuckled as she felt my renewed manifestation. "Honest to Christmas, Chet—" She started to laugh, a full-throated richness of sound that remained in my mind long after it had died out in my ears.

It was absolutely the finest sound I'd heard in longer than I liked to think about.

I was on my back, relaxed, when Hazel came back into the bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. "I ought to sue you for misrepresentation, man," she said quietly. "You had me thinking there was no fire in the boiler at all." She bent down over me, searching for my face in the dark.

"There's fire enough, baby, when the damn engineer's on the job. The trouble is that every so often he takes these two-week lunch hours."

She stretched out beside me lengthily, a healthy animal. Her big arms pulled me closer to her. "At the moment I couldn't care less," she murmured. "Although I'll admit I don't understand it."

I understood it. Up to a point, anyway. I was geared to a different ratio. Bed-bouncing had never been mainline for me the way it is for most guys. Although with this big, warm-hearted, understanding, two-hundred-percent woman—

She stirred beside me. "Funny how okay it can make things, huh? When it's right?"

"You said a hammered-down mouthful, baby."

Her voice was soft when she spoke again. "Nobody's ever called me 'baby.' It sounds-—nice."

We stayed on the bed for a long time.

We showered together finally. The tiny bathroom looked us il a couple of whales had been turned loose in it. Then-was even water on the ceiling. I was conducting a mopping up operation with towels when Hazel came back in. dressed. "Leave it," she said. "I'll drive out tomorrow and take care of it."

We rode back to the Dixie Pig in a comfortable silence. I put Hazel in her car, and she ran down her window and waved to me before she drove off. I set sail for the motel and bed.

I woke with a start from my first deep sleep. A glance at the luminous dial on the alarm clock beside the bed showed I'd been asleep half an hour. My subconscious had somehow put together a nice, neat package: kick the whole bit in Hudson, Florida, and take off with Hazel. For anywhere. Really catch up on living.

I looked around the motel room's long, dappled shadows and blurred dark corners. I heard Kaiser's breathing at the foot of the bed. I listened to the thump of someone turning over in the next room, plainly audible through the thin partition.

I didn't need the cold light of day to squelch that crazy idea.

Don't try to be a bigger goddamn fool than nature intended, I told myself.

I knew what I was.

A leopard doesn't change his spots.

I closed my eyes again.

After awhile I even slept.