The Tough Guys

Mickey Spillane

The Tough Guys

KICK IT OR KILL!

An old switcher engine pulled the two-car train from the junction at Richfield over the 12-mile spur into Lake Rappaho. At the right time the ride could have been fun because the cars were leftovers from another era, but now it was a damn nuisance. Coal dust had powdered everything, settling into the mohair seats like sand and hanging in the air so you could taste it. Summer was two months gone and the mountains and valleys outside were funneling down cold Canadian air. There was no heat in the car.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't have minded, but now the chill made my whole side ache again under the bandage and I was calling myself an idiot for listening to that doctor and his wild ideas about me having to take a complete rest. I could have holed up just as well in New York, but instead I fell for the fresh air routine and took his advice about this place.

Lake Rappaho was the end of the line. A single limp sack of mail and a half dozen packages came off the baggage car as I stepped down from the last one.

On the other side of the platform, a black '58 Chevy with a hand-painted TAXI on its door stood empty. I saw the driver, all right. He and a wizened old stationmaster were in the office peering at me like I was a stray moose in church. But that's mountain country for you. When you're out of season and not expected, everybody goes into a G.I. hemorrhage.

I waved my thumb at the taxi, picked up my old B-4 bag and the mailing tube I kept my split bamboo rod in, walked across the station to the car, threw my gear in the back seat, then got in front for the drive into Pinewood. It was another five minutes before the driver came out.

He opened the door on the other side. "Afternoon. You going to Pinewood?"

"Anyplace else to go?"

He shook his head. "Not for fifty miles, I guess."

"Then let's go there."

He slid under the wheel and kicked the motor over. In backing around the corner of the station he made a pretense of seeing my duffel in the back. "You going fishing?"

"That's the general idea."

"No fishing now, you know. Wrong season."

"It's still open, isn't it?"

He nodded. "For the rest of the month. But there's no fish."

"Shut up," I said.

It was a four-mile trip into the fading sun to Pinewood and he didn't say anything again, but every foot of the way his hands were white around the wheel.

Pinewood had a permanent population of 2,500. It lay where the valley widened on one end of Lake Rappaho, a mile and a half long and four blocks wide. The summer cabins and homes on the outskirts were long closed and what activity there was centered around the main crossroads.

The Pines Hotel stood on the corner, a three-story white-frame building whose second-story porch overhung the entire width of the sidewalk.

I paid the cabby, grabbed my luggage and went inside.

The two big guys bordering the door waited until I had crossed the lobby and was at the desk. Then they came up and watched while I signed the register. The heavy one took my card from the clip and looked at it.

"Mister Kelly Smith, New York City," he said. "That's a big place for a whole address."

"Sure is." The clerk edged up from his desk with a small, fixed smile divided between the other two and me.

"I'll be here two weeks," I told him. "I want a room upstairs away from the sun and take it out in advance." I pushed a hundred dollar bill across the desk and waited.

"Like if somebody wanted to find you in New York . . ." the big guy started to say.

I snatched the card from his fingers. "Then you look in the phone book. I'm listed," I said. I was feeling the old edge come back.

"Smith is a common name . . ."

"I'm the only Kelly Smith."

He tried to stare me down, but I wasn't playing any games. So instead he reached out and picked up my C note and looked at it carefully. "Haven't seen one of these in a long time."

I took that away from him too. "The way you're going you'll never see one," I said.

The clerk smiled, his eyes frightened, took the bill, and gave me $16 back. He handed me a room key. "Two-nineteen, on the corner."

The big guy touched me on the shoulder. "You're pretty fresh."

I grinned at him. "And you're a lousy cop. Now just get off my back or start conducting a decent investigation. If it'll make you happy, I'll be glad to drop by your office, give you a full B.G., let you take my prints, and play Dragnet all you want. But first I want to get cleaned up and get something to eat."

He suddenly developed a nervous mouth. "Supposing you do that. You do just that, huh?"

"Yeah," I said. "Later maybe," and watched him go out.

When the door closed the clerk said. "That was Captain Cox and his sergeant, Hal Vance."

"They always pull that act on tourists?"

"Well, no . . . no, of course not."

"How many are in the department here."

"The police? Oh . . . six, I think."

"That's two too many. They pull that stunt on me again while I'm here and I'll burn somebody's tail for them."

Behind me, a voice with a cold, throaty quality said, "I don't know whether I want you here or not."

I glanced at the clerk. "Nice place you run here. Who is she?"

"The owner." He nodded to a hand-carved plaque on his desk. It read, Miss Dari Dahl, Prop.

She was a big one, all right, full breasted and lovely with loose sun-bleached hair touching wide shoulders and smooth, tanned skin.

"You haven't any choice, honey. I got a receipt for two weeks. Now smile. A lovely mouse like you ought to be smiling all the time."

She smiled. Very prettily. Her mouth was lush like I knew it would be and she hip-tilted toward me deliberately. Only her eyes weren't smiling. She said, "Drop dead, you creep," and brushed by me.

There was something familiar about her name. The clerk gave me the answer. "It was her sister who killed herself in New York last year. Flori Dahl. She went out a window of the New Century Building."

I remembered it then. It made headlines when she landed on a parked U.N. car and almost killed a European delegate about to drive off with a notorious call girl. The tabloids spilled the bit before the hush needles went in.

"Tough," I said, "only she oughtn't to let it bug her like that."

I had supper in White's restaurant. I had a table in the corner where I could see the locals filter in to the bar up front. The few who ate were older couples and when they were done I was alone. But everybody knew where I was. They looked at me often enough. Not direct, friendly glances, but scared things that were touched with some hidden anger.

My waitress came over with a bill. I said softly, "Sugar . . . what the hell's the matter with this town?"

She was scared, too. "Sir?" was all she could manage.

I walked up to the bar.

At 8 o'clock, Captain Cox and Sergeant Vance came in and tried to make like they weren't watching me. Fifteen minutes later, Dari Dahl came in. When she finally saw me her eyes became veiled with contempt, then she turned away and that was that.

I was ready to go when the door opened again. You could feel the freeze. Talk suddenly quieted down. The two guys in tweedy coats closed the door behind them and walked up to the bar with studied casualness. Their clothes were just the right kind, but on the wrong people because they weren't Madison Avenuers at all. One was Nat Paley and the bigger guy you called Lennie Weaver when you wanted to stay friends, but, if you had a yen for dying quick, you gave him the Pigface tab Margie Provetsky hung on him years ago.

I felt that crazy feeling come all over me and I wanted to grin, but for now I kept it in. I pushed my stool back and that's as far as I got. The little guy who stormed in was no more than 20, but he had an empty milk bottle in one hand and he mouthed a string of curses as he came at Paley and Weaver.

Trouble was, he talked too much. He tried to spill it out before he cut loose. Lenny laced him with a sudden backhand as Nat grabbed him, took the bottle away, and slammed him to the floor.

He wasn't hurt, but he was too emotionally gone to do anything more than cry. His face was contorted with hate.

Lenny grunted and picked up his drink. "You crazy, kid?"

"You dirty bastard!" The words were softly muffled. "You talked her into working for him."

"Get outa here, kid."

"She didn't have to work up there. She had a job. You showed her all that money, didn't you? That's why she worked. She always talked about having that land of money. You bastards! You dirty bastards!"

When Nat kicked him, the blood splashed all over his shoes and the kid just lay there. He twitched, vomited, and started to choke. The only one who moved was Dari.

She managed to get him facedown and held him like that until he moaned softly and opened his eyes.

She glanced up with those wild eyes of hers and said, "Sonny was right. You're dirty bastards."

"Would you like a kick in the face too, lady?" Lennie asked her.

For a second it was real quiet, then I said, "Try it, Pigface."

He spun around and my shoe ripped his sex machine apart and while he was in the middle of a soundless scream I grabbed Nat's hair and slammed his face against the bar. He yelled, swung at me, and one hand tore into the bandage over my ribs and I felt the punk draining right out of me. But that was his last chance. I almost brained him the next time and let him fall in a heap on the floor with his buddy.

I faked a grin at Dari, walked past the two cops at the table, and said so everybody could hear me, "Nice clean town you got here, friend," and went outside to get sick.

The window was open and I could see my breath in the air, but just the same I was soaked with sweat. When the knock came on the door I automatically said to come on in, not caring who it was. My side was one gigantic ball of fire and it was going to be another hour before the pills I had taken helped.

There was no sympathy in her voice. The disdain was still there, only now it was touched by curiosity. She stood there, her stomach flat under her dress, her breasts swelling out, and I remembered pictures of the Amazons and thought that she would have made a good one. Especially naked.

"Sonny asked me to thank you."

Trying to make my voice sound real wasn't easy. "No trouble."

"Do you . . . know what you're doing?"

She paused.

"What do you want in Pinewood?"

"A vacation, kitten. Two weeks. I have to do it. Now, will you do me a favor?" I closed my eyes. The fire in my side was building up again.

"Yes?"

"In my flight bag over there . . . in the side pocket is a bottle of capsules. Please . . ."

I heard the zipper run back, then the sharp intake of her breath. The gun she found in the wrong side pocket suddenly fell to the floor with a thump and then she was standing over me again. She had the bottle in her hand.

"You're a damned drug addict, aren't you? That's the way they get without their dosage. They get sick, they sweat, they shake." She poured the caps back in the bottle and capped it. "Your act in the restaurant stunk. Now act this one out." With a quick flip of her wrist she threw the bottle out the window and I heard it smash in the street.

"You filth," she said and walked out.

It was three in the afternoon when I woke up. I lay there panting and, when the sudden sickness in my stomach subsided, I got to my feet and undressed. Outside, a steady light rain tapped against the windows.

A hot shower was like a rebirth.

The .45 was still on the floor where Dari Dahl had let it drop and I hooked it with my foot, picked it up, and zippered it inside my leather shaving kit.

Every time I thought of that crazy broad throwing that bottle out the window I felt like laying her out. That wasn't getting those capsules back, though. I had maybe another two hours to go and I was going to need them bad, bad, bad. I stuffed 50 bucks in my pocket and went downstairs.

Outside my window, I found the remains of the bottle. The capsules inside had long since dissolved and been washed away by the rain.

I shrugged it off, found the drugstore and passed my spare prescription over to the clerk. He glanced at it, looked at me sharply, and said, "This will take an hour."

"Yeah, I know. I'll be back."

I headed for the restaurant. Although lights were on in storefronts and the corner traffic blinker winked steadily, there wasn't a car or a person on the street. It was like a ghost town.

The restaurant was empty. The waitress recognized me with a peculiar smile, took my order, and half-ran to the kitchen. The bartender walked across the room to me.

He was a graying man in his late 40s, a little too thin with deep tired eyes. "Look, mister," he said, "I don't want trouble in here."

I leaned back in my chair. "You know who those jokers were?"

He nodded. "We'll handle things our own way."

"Then start by keeping out of my hair, friend," I told him. "I don't know how or why those punks are here, but they're the kind of trouble people like you just don't handle at all, so be grateful for the little things, understand?"

He didn't understand at all and his face showed it. He glanced outside toward the distant slope of the mountain. "You aren't . . . on the hill?"

"Mac, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. I think you people are nuts, that's all. I pull those punks off the kid's back last night while you, the cops, and everybody else just watch and I catch the hard time. I don't get it."

The door slammed open and Sergeant Vance came in. He came sidling over and tossed a sheet of paper down on the table. It was my prescription.

"This calls for narcotics, mister. You better come up with a damn good explanation."

Real slowly I stood up. Vance was a big guy, but he wasn't looking down on me at all. Not at all. His face was all mean but scared too like the rest and his hand jumped to the butt of his service revolver.

I said, "Okay, you clown, I'll give you one explanation and if you ask again I'll shove that gun of yours up your pipe. That's a legitimate prescription you got there and, if you do any checking, you check the doctor who issued it first. Then, if it's bad, you come back to me. Meanwhile, you have a certain procedure to take that's down in black and white in the statute books. Now you take that prescription back and see that it gets filled or you'll be chewing on a warrant for your own arrest."

He got it, all right. For a minute, I thought I was going to have to take the rod away from him, but the message got through in time. He went out as fast as he came in. What a hell of a vacation this was. Brother!

Willie Elkins, who owned a garage, was willing to rent me his pickup truck for 15 bucks a week. It was a dilapidated thing, but all I needed. He told me how to find old Mort Steiger, who rented boats. The old guy let me have my pick, then shook his head at me and grinned through his broken plate. "You ain't no fisherman, are you?"

"Nope," I shook back. "I try once in a while, but I'm no fisherman."

He paused, watching me warily. "You on the hill?"

"What is this 'hill' business? Who's up on what hill?" He waited a moment, sucking on his lips. "You kiddin'? No, guess you ain't." He pointed a gnarled finger over my shoulder. "Big place up there just around that ridge. Can't see it from here, but she has a private road that comes right down to the lake, all fenced in. Whole place like that. You can't get in or out unless they let you."

"Who lets you?"

"City people. That's Mister Simpson's place. Big manufacturer of something or other. Never met him myself. He likes it private."

I let out a grunt. "He sure does. He has a real goon squad working for him. I met a couple last night. They needed straightening out."

This time his grin got broader and he chuckled. "So you're the one. Willie told me about that. Could be you'll make trouble for yourself, if you don't watch out."

"It won't come from two-bit punks, pop. Trouble is, if Simpson's such a big one, what's he doing with guys like that on his place?"

"Maybe I could tell you."

I waited.

"This Simpson feller was a big one long time ago. Bootlegging or something, then he went straight. He had all this money so he went into business. Few times a year he comes up here, does some business, and leaves."

"Everybody in town is scared, pop. That's not good business."

His eyes seemed to scratch the ground. "Ain't the business he does."

"What then?"

"The girls. He sends down to Pinewood for girls."

"The place looks big enough to support a few hookers."

"Mister, you just don't know country towns. Comes end of summer and those girls pack up and leave. It's the others he gets."

"Listen, a guy that big wouldn't try . . ."

He interrupted with a wave of his hand. "You got me wrong. He . . . employs them."

"Well, what's wrong with that?"

"They go up there, all right, but they don't come back . . . well, the same . . . Rita Moffet and the oldest Spencer girl moved over to Sunbar. Bob Rayburn's only girl, she never would speak to anybody and last year they had to send her to the State Hospital. She still won't speak to anybody at all. Flori Dahl and Ruth Gleason went off to New York. Flori died there and nobody has heard from Ruth in months."

"Nice picture."

"Others, too. That's not all. Some are still here and every time Simpson and the bunch comes in they go up there to work. Like they enjoy it. He pays them plenty, oh, you can bet that. What stuff they buy, and all from New York."

"Any complaints?"

The old man frowned. "That's the funny part. None of 'em say nothing."

I stood up and stretched. "You know what I think? This Simpson guy pays them mighty generously and for the first time they get a look at how the other half lives and want to give it a try. So they leave town. It's an old story. The others won't leave, but let the gravy come to them. How about that?"

"He got funny people working for him. They bring trouble to town, mister."

"Okay, so he hires hoods. I know reputable businessmen who have done the same."

Steiger thought it over. "Maybe, but did you ever see such a scared town in your life, mister?"

The drizzle had stopped. I zippered up my jacket and shoved my hat on. Mort Steiger watched me carefully.

Finally he said, "You're a funny one, too, mister."

"Oh?"

"You got a real mean look. You're big and you look mean. You tell me something true?"

I opened the door of the pickup and said over my shoulder, "Sure I'll tell you true, pop."

"You ever kill anybody?"

I slammed the door shut and looked at him. He was completely serious.

Finally I nodded. "Yes. Six people."

"I don't mean in the war, son."

"I wasn't talking about the war."

"How'd you do it?"

"I shot them," I said and let the clutch out.

The druggist had my prescription ready and handed it over without a word. I knew he had checked on the doctor who issued it and had another check going through different channels. I ordered a Coke, took two of the capsules, and pocketed the rest.

A fresh rain slick was showing on the street and the weather forecast was that it would continue for a few days. So I'd fish in the rain. I'd take a six-pack of Blue Ribbon and a couple sandwiches along and anchor in the middle of the lake under an umbrella.

I went outside, flipped a mental coin to see where I'd eat. The coffee shop in the hotel won and I hopped in the truck. At the corner the blinker was red on my side and I rolled to a stop. As I did, a new black Caddy with Kings County (New York) plates made the turn and I had a fast look at the driver.

His name was Benny Quick, he had done two turns in Sing Sing on felony counts and was supposedly running a dry-cleaning place in Miami. There was somebody beside him and somebody in the back, but I couldn't make them out.

I made a U turn, passed the sedan, turned right two blocks farther on, and let the Caddy pass behind me. That's all I needed to pick up the license number. A friend back in New York would do the rest.

I couldn't figure what Benny Quick was doing up this way, but I made a living being nosy and I had been too long at it to let a vacation take me out of the habit.

Back at the Pines Hotel, I shared the coffee shop with a half dozen teenagers sipping coffee and feeding the jukebox. None of them paid any attention to me. The waitress snapped the menu down in front of me.

When I looked up I said, "You ought to smile more, Miss Dahl."

"Not for you, Mr. Smith."

"Call me Kelly."

She ignored me completely and waited. I told her what I wanted, and while I waited scanned a newspaper. The headlines were still all about football.

Dari Dahl came back, fired my cheeseburgers at me, and put the coffee down so hard it spilled. I said, "Go back and get me another cup."

"What?"

"Damn it, you heard me. I've had about all the crap from you I can take. You be as sore as you please, but, baby, treat me like a customer or for kicks I'll throw these dishes through your front window. This town is giving me the business and from now on the business stops. Now shake your butt and get me another coffee and do it right."

The next time the coffee came slow and easy. I said, "Sit down."

She paused. "Mr. Smith . . ."

When I looked up and she saw my face, she grew chalky and pulled out a chair.

Dari Dahl was a magnificent woman, even scared. The tight nylon uniform outlined the daring cut of her under-things. The word bra was disputable for all that it was, and below it, far below, was a bikini-like thing beautifully discernible.

"I heard about your sister," I said.

"Let's not discuss it."

"Dari baby, it won't be too hard to find out someplace else. I remember the rough details. Any old newspaper account could fill me in. Anybody around town ought to be glad to talk about the bit."

The hardness came back again, her mouth pulling tight at the corners. "You should be able to understand it. My sister was a drug addict, when she could no longer supply her need, she killed herself. Eventually, you'll do the same."

"I will?"

"Your supposed legitimate source of supply through our druggist won't last very long. My sister used stolen and forged prescriptions, too, for a while. It was when they ran out that she killed herself." She stopped, her eyes glinting. "Tell me, Mr. Smith, are you here now because there are no other pharmacists who will honor your prescriptions? Is that it?"

Slowly, I finished my coffee. "You really are bugged, kid. You really are."

She walked away, tall, cool, a lovely, curvy animal, as beautiful as any woman ever was, but going completely to waste.

I left a buck and a half by my plate, went upstairs where I showered and changed into a city suit. I decided to try the air again. There should be a movie or a decent bar someplace.

I reached for the phone, but remembered the clerk downstairs and hung up. In the lobby, I called from a house phone where I could watch the desk, gave a New York number, and waited.

When my number answered, I said, "Artie?"

"Yeah, hi ya, Kelly, how's it going?"

For a full five minutes we made idle conversation about nothing, throwing in enough duty words so any prudish operator bugging in would knock it off in disgust. Then I said, "Run a number through for me, kid, then get me all the information on its owner. Next, find out what you can about Benny Quick. He's supposed to be in Miami." I fed him the license number, talked a little more about nothing, and hung up.

Outside, the rain had started again, harder this time. I looked each way, saw a couple of recognizable lights, grinned, and walked toward them.

Like a whore's is red, police lights have to be green, old-fashioned, and flyspecked. You knew from the sight of them what it's going to smell like inside. There's a man smell of wet wool, cigars, and sweat. There's a smell of wood, oiled-down dust; of stale coffee, and musty things long stored. On top of that, there's another smell a little more quiet, one of fear and shame that comes from the other people who aren't cops and who go down forever in the desk book.

I walked in and let Sergeant Vance stare at me like a snake and then said, "Where's your captain?"

"What do you want him for?"

The pair of young beat cops who had been standing in the corner moved in on the balls of their feet. They were all set to take me when the office door opened and Cox said, "Knock it off, Woody." He ran his eyes up and down me. "What do you want?"

I grinned at him, but it wasn't friendly at all. "You wanted my prints, remember? You said to stop by."

He flushed, then his jaw went hard. He came out of the doorway and faced me from three feet away. "You're a rough character, buddy. You think we don't know what to do with rough guys?"

And I gave it to him all the way. I said, "No, I don't think you know what to do with rough guys, Captain. I think you're all yak and nothing else."

Across his forehead, a small pulse beat steadily. But he held it in better than I thought he could. His voice was hard but restrained when he told the beat cop behind me, "Take his prints, Woody."

I gave him my name and address and stopped right there. If he wanted anything on me he could get it only after he booked me. I grinned at everybody again, left a bunch of stinking mad cops behind me, and went out into the fresh air.

It was 9 o'clock, too late for a show but not for a bar. I found one called JIMMIE'S with Jimmie himself at the bar and ordered a beer. Jimmie was a nice old guy and gassed with me.

When I finally got around to the Simpson place, he made a wry face and said, "Nobody ever saw the guy I know of. Not down here in town."

"How about the girls?"

He nodded. "You don't get much out of them. Simpson turns out to be either big or little, skinny or fat and you get the point. They don't talk it up any."

"So they don't talk about their boss. They get paid plenty, I hear."

"Hell, yes. Bonnie Ann and Grace Shaefer both sport minks and throw plenty of bucks around. Every once in a while I see Helen Allen in a new car. She comes through about once a month to see her folks. Used to be a nice kid. All of them were."

"Making money changed that?"

Jimmie shook his head, squinting. "No, but used to be they were plain hustlers and not high on anybody's list."

I asked, "You mean that's their job up there?"

His shrug was noncommittal. "They won't say. Some of them do secretarial work, answering phones and all that, because the switchboard operators here have talked to them often enough."

"If they're that interested, why doesn't somebody just ring Simpson's bell and ask?"

Jimmie gave a short laugh. "Besides the brush-off at the gate, who wants to spoil a good thing? Before that bunch leaves there'll be a bunch of money in this town, and off-season you don't kick out found loot. Then there's another angle. That boy's a big taxpayer. He's got connections where they count, as some busybodies found out. A few local do-gooders tried some snooping and wound up holding their behinds. Nobody goes to the cops, though I can't see them doing much about it. Cox is like a cat who's afraid of a mouse yet getting hungry enough so he knows he has to eat one or die. I think he figures if he eats one it'll be poisoned and he'll die, too."

He opened me another bottle and moved on down the bar to take care of a new customer. It was the nervous taxi driver who tried to steer me away from Pinewood in the first place. I was beginning to wish I had let him talk me into it.

He ordered a beer, too, said something about the weather, then confidentially told Jimmie, "Saw somebody tonight. Didn't recognize her at first, but it was Ruth Gleason."

I poured my glass full, making like I was concentrating on it. Ruth Gleason was the girl Mort Steiger told me ran off to New York the same time Flori Dahl did.

"You sure?" Jimmie asked him.

"Oughta know her, I guess. She's changed though. She's got on fancy clothes and all that, but her face is sure old looking. Wouldn't look at me. She kind of turned away when she saw me."

"Well what's she doing back here?"

"Who knows? She got in that blue ranchwagon from the hill place and drove off." He waved off another beer and went out.

Jimmie came back wiping his hands on his apron.

Bluntly, I said, "Mort told me about the Gleason kid, too."

He didn't question my tone. "Nice girl. She was up there a whole month. Hardly ever came down and when she did she wouldn't speak to anybody. Flori and she went in at the same time. Flori used to come to town occasionally and the way she changed was hard to believe."

"How?"

He waved his hands expressively. "Like you can't pin it down. Just changed. They wouldn't look at you or hardly speak. It was real queer."

"Didn't any of those kids have parents?"

"Flori's old man was dying and they had no mother. I think Flori took the job up there to help get her old man into the Humboldt Hospital. They got him there, but he died soon after. Cancer."

"That's only one," I pointed out.

"Ah, who can tell kids anyhow? They do what they please anyway. Sure, some of them had folks, but there's big money up there."

He popped the top from another bottle and passed it over. "On the house." He took a short one himself and we gave a silent toast and threw them down.

Then he said, "Better not do too much talking around town. This is a spooky place."

I grinned, paid off my tab, and waved him goodnight.

For a few minutes I stood under the awning watching the rain, then started back toward the center of town. I had crossed the street and almost reached the corner when the big Imperial came from my left, turned left, and stopped half a block up ahead of me. Unconsciously, I stepped into the darker shadows and walked faster.

Someone stepped out of the car, turned and pulled at another. They stood there together a moment and then I heard the unmistakable spasm of a sob.

I ran then, holding one hand tight against my ribs to muffle the fire that had started there. I was too late. They heard my feet pounding and the one by the car turned sharply, ducked inside, and slammed the door. The car pulled away silently and slowly as if nothing had happened.

But they left a beautiful young girl behind them. She was sobbing hysterically and started to collapse as I reached her.

She was a lovely brunette wrapped tightly in a white trench coat, her hair spilling wetly over her shoulders. She tried to shove me away while she hung on desperately to an oversize handbag and keep saying over and over, "No . . . please, no!"

I said, "Easy, kid," and pulled her to the porch steps of the nearest house. When I got her seated I tried to take her hand. She stopped sobbing then, jerked her hand, and held her pocketbook on the opposite side.

For a second the hysteria passed and she said, "Get out of here. Let me alone!"

"Relax, I'm . . ."

"There's nothing the matter with me," she nearly shouted. "Get out of here. Let me alone!"

She clenched her teeth on the last word with a crazy grimace and tried to stand up. But I was sitting on one edge of her coat and when she did the thing yanked open and half-pulled off her shoulder.

She was naked from the waist up and I didn't need any light to see the welts and stripes across her body and the small bleeding spots where something with a sharp tip had dug in.

I stood up, pulled the trench coat closed. When she realized I had seen her, she closed her eyes, let out a soft mewing sound, and let herself fold up in my arms. I put her down on the steps again and as I did, her pocketbook fell open. There was a sheaf of brand new bills inside, held by a bank wrapper. On it was printed the number 1,000.

Suddenly the porch light snapped on, the door opened, and a man stood there clutching his bathrobe at his middle. His wife peered over his shoulder, her face worried.

"You," he called out. "What are you doing there?" His voice didn't have too much snap to it.

I motioned to the girl. "There's a sick woman here. Look, call a doctor for me and hurry it, will you?"

"A doctor? What's . . ."

"Never mind what's the matter. You call. And turn out that light."

They were glad to get back inside. The porch light went out and inside one turned on. I propped the kid up, put her bag under her arm, and walked away from the house.

I didn't get very far. The car hissed up behind me and a voice said, "It's him again. The one who jumped Lennie and me in the restaurant."

There wasn't any sense running. A dozen fast steps would tear my side anyway. I just stood there and because I did the action that was all set to explode went sour. Nat Paley and the new guy who hopped out and came at me from different sides slowed, not able to figure me out.

Nat's hand came out of his pocket with a gun. The gun came up and Nat's face said it was the right time and the right place. Except somebody else thought differently and a strangely cold voice from inside the car said, "No noise."

They moved before I could yell. The other guy came in fast from the side, but I ducked in time to get the load in his fist off the top of my head. I kicked out, jabbed at his eyes, and made the touch. He couldn't yell with the sudden pain, ducked into my right and his face seemed to come apart under my knuckles.

And that was the end of it. Nat got me just right, one stunning blow behind the ear, and, as I sank to my knees, went over me expertly with a clubbed gun and ruthless feet. As one terrible kick exploded into my side, I thought I screamed and knew with absolute certainty that Nat had one more blow to deliver. It would come with bone-crushing force in that deadly spot at the base of the brain. I knew it was coming and I hoped it would, anything that would erase the awful thing that was happening to me inside.

It came all right, but a sudden convulsion that wracked my side made it miss and my shoulder took it all. Nat didn't realize that, though. A tiny part of my mind that could still discern things heard him laugh and drag the other guy into the car.

In the middle of a wild dream of sound and light I coughed, tried to turn my head away from the jarring, acrid fumes of ammonia, and then swam back into a consciousness I didn't want.

Somebody had carried me to the steps and a face peered anxiously into mine. The old guy watching me said, "It's all right. I'm Doctor McKeever."

"The girl . . ." I started.

"She's all right. She's inside. We'd better get you in there, too."

"I'm fine."

"What happened? Was there an accident?"

I shook my head, clearing it. "No . . . not actually."

When I moved my arm my shoulder muscles screamed. At least nothing was broken. I'd taken some bad ones before, but this took the cake. Under the bandages I could feel the warmth of blood and knew what was happening.

I said, "You saw the girl?"

"Yes."

"You got an idea of what happened?"

He chewed his lips a moment and nodded. "I know."

"You've seen it before, haven't you?"

At first he wasn't going to say anything, then he looked at me again. His voice had an edge to it. "Yes."

"Then you do like you did before, doc. You keep this under your hat, too. Let it get out and that kid is ruined here in town. She can be ruined no matter where she goes and it isn't worth a public announcement."

"Somebody has got to stop it," he said.

I said, "It'll be stopped, doc. It'll be stopped."

A small frown furrowed his forehead. His smile was crooked. "Toxin-anti-toxin," he said.

"What?"

"Poison against poison."

I nodded, spit, and said, "You go take care of that kid, then ride me back to the hotel."

When he had left I got sick again. I had to get those capsules I had left in my room. In just a few minutes now it was going to be worse than it ever had been and I'd be a raving maniac without a big jolt from the small bottle.

I couldn't tell how long he had been gone, but finally he came out leading the girl. A car pulled around from the side and the doctor bundled her into it, telling the driver to take her to his office and deliver her to his wife.

As soon as the car left, he had me on my feet, got me in his Ford, and started up. At the hotel he got out, opened my door, and took the arm on my good side to lead me in.

Dari Dahl was behind the desk, in white nylon no longer. She was wearing a black sweater and skirt combination that dramatized every curve of her body and making the yellow of her hair look like a pool of light.

The brief flicker of concern that hit her face turned to a peculiar look of satisfaction. She came around the desk, tiny lines playing at the corner of her mouth and said, "Trouble?"

"What else. Now get my key, please."

She smiled, went back, picked the key out, and came over and handed it to me. "Are you hurting, Mr. Smith?"

Both of us shot her funny looks.

"Is it true that when a narcotic addict tries to lay off he fights it until he's almost tortured to death before he takes a dose?"

McKeever said, "What are you talking about, Dari?"

"Ask him." She smiled too sweetly.

"She's bugged, doc, let's go."

We walked to the stairs, started up them, when Dari called, "Mr. Smith . . ."

I stopped, knowing somehow what was coming.

"Quite accidentally I dropped a bottle of capsules while cleaning your room. They fell down the toilet." She stopped, letting it sink in, then added, "And so did several prescriptions that were with the bottle. I hope you don't mind too much."

She could see the sweat that beaded my face and laughed. I could hear it all the way up the steps.

I flopped on the bed and it was then, when my coat came open, that McKeever saw the blood. He opened my shirt, saw the red seeping through the bandages, took one look at the color of my face, and rushed out.

Lying there, my ribs wouldn't flex to my breathing and the air seemed to whistle in my throat. It was like being branded; only the iron never left.

The door opened and I thought it was McKeever back, then I smelled the fragrance of her across the room. My eyes slitted open. She wasn't wearing that funny smile she had before.

"What the hell do you want?" I managed to get out.

"Doctor McKeever told me . . ." she paused and moistened her lips, "about Gloria Evans. You tried to help her."

"So what?" I said nastily.

"You tried to help Sonny Holmes the other night, too."

"Sure, I'm everybody's buddy."

I closed my eyes, trying to control my breathing. She said softly, a still determined tone in her voice, "About the other thing . . . drugs. I'm not sorry about that at all."

McKeever came in then, panting from the run up the stairs. He uncovered me, got his fingers under the bandage and worked it off. He said, "A doctor took care of you, didn't he?"

All I could do was nod.

I smelled the flower smell of her as she came closer and heard the sharp intake of her breath as she saw me. "What . . . happened?"

"This man has been shot. He's recuperating from an operation." I heard Dr. McKeever open the bag and the clink of bottles. "Didn't you have anything to take periodically to kill the pain?"

I nodded again, my face a pool of sweat. I felt the needle go in my arm and knew it would be all right soon. I said through teeth held so tight they felt like they'd snap off, "Capsules. Morphine sulphate."

"Oh, no!" Her voice sounded stunned.

McKeever said, "What?"

"I thought he was a drug addict. I destroyed them."

The doctor said nothing.

Slowly the pain was lifting like a fog. Another second and I'd sleep.

Tonelessly, Dari said, "How he must hate me!" Then I was past answering her.

It stopped raining on Wednesday. For two days I had lain there listening to my bedside radio. The hourly news broadcasts gave the latest U.N. machinations, then into the Cuban affair. Now the finger was pointing at Cuba as being the new jumping-off place for narcotic shipments to the States. Under suspected Soviet sponsorship, the stuff came in easily and cheaply from China—a cleverly different kind of time bomb a country can use to soften an enemy.

But two days were enough. I found my clothes, shaved, dressed, and tried to work the stiffness out of my muscles. Even then, the stairs almost got me. I took it easy going down, trying to look more unconcerned than I felt.

McKeever wasn't glad to see me. He told me I had no business being up yet and told me to sit down while he checked the bandage. When he finished he said, "I never asked about that gunshot wound."

"Go on."

"I assume it has been reported."

"You assume right."

"However, I'm going to report it again."

"Be my guest, doc. To save time I suggest you get the doctor's name from the prescription I had filled here."

"I will." He got up and reached for the phone.

The druggist gave him the doctor's name, then he called New York. When the phone stopped cackling, McKeever nodded, "It was reported, all right. Those prescriptions were good. Then you really are here on . . . a vacation."

"Nobody seems to believe it."

"You've been causing talk since you came."

"What about the girl?" I said. "Gloria Evans."

He slumped back in his chair. "She's all right. I have her at my wife's sister's place."

"She talk?"

The doctor shook his head. "No, they never talk." He took a deep breath, tapped his fingers against the desk and said, "She was badly beaten, but there was a marked peculiarity about it. She was carefully beaten. Two instruments were used. One appears to be a long, thin belt; the other a fine braided whip-like thing with a small metal tip."

I leaned forward. "Punishment?"

McKeever shook his head. "No. The instruments used were too light. The application had too deliberate a pattern to it."

"There were others like that?"

"I took care of two of them. It wasn't very pretty, but they wouldn't talk. What happened to them would never leave permanent scars . . . but there are other ways of scarring people."

"One thing more, doc. Were they under any narcotic influence at all?"

McKeever sighed deeply. "Yes. The Evans girl had two syringe marks in her forearm. The others had them too, but I didn't consider them for what they were then."

I stood up. "Picture coming through, doc?"

He looked like he didn't want to believe it. "It doesn't seem reasonable."

"It never does," I told him.

I stopped at the hotel and took the .45 from my shaving kit. I checked the load, jacked one in the chamber and let the hammer down easy, then shoved it under my belt on my good side. I dropped a handful of shells in my coat pocket just in case. In the bathroom I washed down two of my capsules, locked my door, and went downstairs.

The clerk waved me over. "New York call for you, Mr. Smith. Want me to get the number back? It was paid."

I told him to go ahead. It was Artie on the other end and after helloing me he said, "I have your items for you, Kelly."

"Go ahead."

"One, the car belongs to Don Casales. He's a moderate-sized hood from the L.A. area and clean. Casales works for Carter Lansing who used to have big mob connections in the old days. Now he's going straight and owns most of So-Flo Airways with headquarters in Miami. Two, Benny Quick has left the Miami area for parts unknown. Benny has been showing lots of green lately. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Name Simpson in connection with Nat Paley or Lennie Weaver mean anything?"

"Sure, remember Red Dog Wally? He's got a bookie stall on Forty-ninth . . . other day he mentioned old Pigface Weaver. Some broad was around looking him up with tears in her eyes. A real looker, he said, but nobody knew a thing about Lennie. Red Dog said he'd ask around, found out that Lenny and Nat had something big going for them with an out-of-town customer and were playing it cozy. No squeal out on them either. So Red Dog told the broad and she almost broke down."

"Then their client could be Simpson."

"Who knows. Hell, they've strong-armed for big guys from politicians to ladies' underwear manufacturers."

"Okay, Artie, thanks a bunch."

I hung up and stood there a minute, trying to think. I went over the picture twice and picked up an angle. I grinned at the thought and turned around.

She was waiting for me, tall, beautiful, her hair so shiny you wanted to bathe in it. The gentle rise and fall of her breasts said this was a moment she had thought about and planned. She tried a tiny smile and said, "Kelly?"

"Let's keep it Mr. Smith. I don't want to be friendly with the help."

She tried to hold her head up and keep the smile on, but I saw her eyes go wet.

I tipped her chin up. "Now that we've exchanged nasties, everybody's even. Think you can smile again?"

It came back, crookedly at first, but there it was and she was something so damn crazy special I could hardly believe it.

"Mr. Smith . . ."

I took her hand. "Kelly. Let's make it Kelly, sugar."

Before I knew what she was going to do it was over, a kiss, barely touching, but for one fraction of an instant a fierce, restrained moment. We both felt it and under the sheer midnight of her blouse a ripple seemed to touch her shoulder and her breasts went hard.

She went with me, out to the truck, waiting while I went into police headquarters. I asked for Captain Cox and when he came said, "I want to lodge a complaint against two of Mr. Simpson's employees. One is Nat Paley, the other a stranger."

Cox's face drew tight. "About your brawl, I suppose."

"That's right. They attacked me on the street. I recognized Paley and can identify the other by sight."

Nodding, Cox said, "We checked that one through already. The housekeeper whose place you used called us. Another party down the street thought he recognized one of Simpson's cars. However, Mr. Simpson himself said none of his cars was out and all his employees were on the premises. A dozen others can vouch for it."

"I see."

"Anybody else to back up your side?"

I grinned at him. "I think it can be arranged."

"You're causing a lot of trouble, Mister," he told me.

My grin got big enough so he could see all the teeth. "Hell, I haven't even started yet."

Dari and I drove through town and picked up a macadam road leading into the hills. Below us to the right Lake Rappaho was a huge silver puddle. Two lesser roads intersected and joined the one we were on.

At the next bend we came upon the outer defenses of Simpson's place. A sign read Hillside Manor Private. It was set in a fieldstone wall a good 10 feet high and on top were shards of broken glass set in concrete. That wasn't all. Five feet out there was a heavy wire fence with a three-strand barbed wire overhang.

"Nice," I said. "He's really in there. How long has it been like this?"

"Since the war. About '47."

"This guy Simpson . . . he's always had the place?"

"No. There was another. It changed hands about ten years ago. That is, at least the owners changed. But the visitors; they're always the same. You never see them in town at all. They come and go at night or come in by the North Fork Road or by Otter Pass. Sometimes there are a hundred people up there a week or two at a time."

"It can accommodate that many?"

"At least. There are twenty-some rooms in the big house and six outbuildings with full accommodations. It's almost like a huge private club."

"Nobody's ever been nosy enough to look inside?"

After a moment she said, "They caught Jake Adler in there once and beat him up terribly. Captain Cox has been in a couple of times, but said he saw nothing going on. Several years ago two hunters were reported missing in this area. They were found dead a week later . . . fifty miles away. Their car went over a cliff. The police said they had changed their plans and decided to hunt elsewhere."

"Could have been."

"Possibly. Only one of them made a phone call from the hotel the day they were supposed to have disappeared."

I looked at her incredulously. "You report that?"

"They said I wasn't positive enough. I only had a photograph to go on and in brush clothes all hunters tend to look alike."

"Nice. Real nice. How can we get a look in there then?"

"You can see the house from the road a little way up. I don't know how you can get inside though. The wall goes all the way around and down to the lake."

"There's an approach on the water?"

Her forehead creased in thought. "There's a landing there with a path leading through the woods. It's well hidden in a finger cove. Are you . . ."

"Let's see the house first."

We found the spot. I parked the car and stood there at the lip, looking across a quarter-mile gulf of densely wooded valley at the white house that looked like a vacation hotel.

A few figures moved on the lawn and a few more clustered on the porch, their dark clothes marking them against the stark white of the building.

Behind me, Dari said, "A car is coming."

It was a blue sedan, an expensive job, the two in front indiscernible in the shadows. But the New York City plate wasn't. I wrote the number down and didn't bother putting the pencil back. Another plume of dust was showing around the Otter Pass intersection and I waited it out. We were back to black Caddies again and this one had four men in it and upstate New York plates. Fifteen minutes later a white Buick station wagon rolled past and the guy beside the driver was looking my way.

Harry Adrano hadn't changed much in the five years he had been up the river. His face was still set in a perpetual scowl, still blue-black with beard, his mouth a hard slash. And Harry was another number in a crazy combination because wherever Harry went one of the poppy derivatives was sure to follow.

Very softly I said, "Like Apalachin . . . I got to get inside there."

"You can't. The main gate is guarded."

"There's the lake . . ."

"Somebody will be there, too. Why do you have to go inside?"

"Because I want to get the numbers on any cars that are up there."

"You'll get killed in there."

"You know a better way?"

The smile she gave me matched her eyes. "Yes. Grace Shaefer was in town yesterday. She'll be making herself available for the . . . festivities there."

"Do you think she'll go along with that?"

Dari's smile changed. "I figure you'll be able to coax her into it."

"Thanks," I said.

I took her arm and headed for the car. Before we reached it I heard tires digging into the road up ahead and tried to duck back into the brush. It wasn't any good. The black Cad swept by going back toward town and both the guys in it had plenty of time to spot the two of us, if they had bothered to look. It didn't seem that they had, but Benny Quick was driving and that little punk could see all around him without moving his head.

We waited, heard the car fade off downhill, then got in the truck. At the Otter Pass turn-off, fresh tire tracks scarred the dirt and a broken whiskey bottle glinted at the side of the road.

Just beyond the North Fork Road, the road turned sharply, and that's where they were waiting. The Cad was broadside to us and Benny was standing beside it. If we were just casual tourists, it would look like a minor accident, but anything else and it was a neat trap.

I braked to a stop 20 feet short of the Caddy and stuck my head half out the window so the corner post covered most of my face. Benny Quick tried to adjust a pleasant smile to fit his squirrelly expression, but did a lousy job of it.

But Benny wasn't the one I was worried about. Someplace nearby the other guy was staked out and there was a good chance he had a rod in his fist. I tugged the .45 out and thumbed the hammer back. Beside me Dari froze.

I put on the neighborly act, too. "Trouble, friend?"

Benny started toward me. I opened the door of the cab and swung it out as if I were trying to get a better look. I saw Benny take in the Willie Elkins' Garage, Repairs and Towing Call Pinewood 101 sign printed there, make a snap decision, figure us for locals in the woods, and decide to write us off as coincidence.

His smile stretched a little. "No, . . . no trouble. Pulled a little hard on the turn and skidded around. Just didn't want anybody ramming me while I turned around."

He got in the Cad, gunned the engine, and made a big production of jockeying around in the small area. He wound up pointing back toward the mountain and waved as he went by. I waved too and at that moment our eyes met and something seemed to go sour with Benny Quick's grin.

Either he was turning it off as a bad fit a little too fast or he recognized me from a time not so long ago.

Around the bend ahead I stopped suddenly, cut the engine, and listened. Then I heard a door slam and knew Benny had picked up his passenger. Dari was watching me and I didn't have to tell her what had just happened.

Silently, her eyes dropped to the .45 on the seat, then came back to mine. She said, "You would have killed him, wouldn't you?"

"It would have been a pleasure," I said.

"It's terrible," she whispered.

"Well, don't let it snow you, kid. I may have to do it yet."

It was dark when we reached the hotel. The clerk waved Dari over and said, "Right after you left a call came in. Girl said she was Ruth Gleason. She sounded almost hysterical. I couldn't make much out of it. She was crying and talking about needing somebody."

Dari's face turned ashen. She turned to me, waiting. "You said you could reach Grace Shaefer," I reminded her.

Dari nodded.

"See if she can meet us at Jimmie's bar in an hour."

Ten minutes went by before the operator got my call through to Artie. As usual, we made idle talk before I gave him the plate numbers I had picked up on the mountain road. He grunted disgustedly when I told him I wanted it right away. This would take a little time, so I left the number of the hotel and said I'd stand by.

I looked at my watch and told the clerk to put any calls through to me in Dari's room.

Dari's room was on the ground floor at the end of the corridor. I knocked and heard her call for me to come in. I stood there a moment in the semidarkness of the small foyer and then, unlike her, turned the key in the lock. Inside I could hear her talking over the phone.

She was curled up on the end of a studio couch, wrapped in a black-and-red mandarin robe that had a huge golden dragon embroidered on it. The fanged mouth was at her throat.

She had a Mrs. Finney on the wire. Trying to conceal her annoyance, Dari said, "Well, when Grace does call, can you have her meet me at Jimmie's in an hour? Tell her it's very important. All right. Thanks, Mrs. Finney."

She hung up and grimaced. "She knows where Grace is, damn it."

"Why is it a secret?"

"Because . . ." she gave me an impish grin, "Mrs. Finney's rooming house is . . . a little more than a rooming house. During the summer, that is."

"Oh," I said. "And she's still loyal to her . . . clients?"

"Something like that."

"The national pastime. No place is too big or too little for it. Any town, anyplace, and there's always a Mrs. Finney. Do you think she'll speak to Grace?"

"She'll be there." She stood up, the satiny folds of the robe whipping around her until the golden dragon seemed almost alive.

There is some crazy fascination about a big woman. And when I looked at her I knew that her love was my kind, greedy, wanting to have everything; violent, wanting to give everything. Her eyes seemed to slant up and the front of the robe followed the concavity of her belly as she sucked in her breath. Her breasts were high and firm, their movement making the dragon's head move toward her throat hungrily.

I held out my hand and without hesitation she took it. When I pulled her toward me she came effortlessly, sliding down beside me, leaning back against the cushions with eyes half-slitted to match those of the guardian golden dragon.

My hands slid around her, feeling the heat of her body through the sheen of the satin. There was nothing soft about her. She was hard and vibrant, quivering under my touch and, although she was waiting, she was tensing to spring, too, and I could sense the flexing and rolling of the muscles at her stomach and across her back.

Her fingertips were on me, touching with wary gentleness and having the knowledge of possession, but first exploring the fullness of something she now owned. One hand went behind my head, kneaded my neck, and the other guided my face to hers. No word was spoken. There was need for none. This was the now when everything was known and everything that was to be would be. She held me away an instant, searching my face, then, realizing how we both desperately hated the silent restraint, did as a woman might and licked my lips with her tongue until they were as wet as her own and with a startled cry let herself explode into a kiss with me that was a wild maelstrom of a minute that seemed to go on endlessly.

My fingers bit into her wrists. "Now you know."

"Now I know," she answered. "It never happened to me before, Kelly."

Dari raised my hands to her mouth, kissed the backs of my hands and smiled.

"What do we do now?" she asked me.

"We don't throw this away, kid. It's ours. We'll take it right and keep it forever."

Slowly she uncoiled, stood in front of me and let all the love in her face tell me I had said what she wanted to hear but didn't expect.

She let me watch her, then laughed deep in her throat and said, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that you're not wearing anything at all under that . . . geisha thing."

"You're right," she said.

She let me look and hunger another moment, then fingered the clasp of the robe. She held each edge in her hand and threw her arms back slowly, unfolding the robe like immense, startlingly crimson wings, and stood outlined against them in sheer suntanned beauty highlighted by the mouth so red and hair so blonde.

With another smile my Valkyrie turned and moved away slowly into the bedroom opposite, and behind me the phone rang so suddenly I jumped.

The desk clerk said, "Mr. Smith, I have your New York call."

My tone stopped Artie's usual kidding around.

"Okay, buddy," he said, "but you got yourself a mixed-up package. Two of those cars, a station wagon and a sedan, belong to businessmen who show clean all the way."

"Maybe, Art, but Harry Adrano was riding in the wagon and that boy's been working with the happy dust."

"That one Cadillac is a rented car. The guy who signed out for it is a Walter Cramer nobody knows anything about, but the guy who paid the tab is something. He's Sergei Rudinoff, a Soviet attaché who's been in this country three months."

I thanked Art, hung up, and stared at the phone. The picture was coming through loud and clear.

Dari took me out back to her car and handed me the keys.

It was 8:30. Jimmie spotted us when we walked in and came down.

"Grace Shaefer's in the back. Said she's waiting for you."

I grinned back and we headed for the back room.

Grace Shaefer sat there nursing a highball. She was a wide-eyed brunette with a voluptuously full body in no way disguised by the black, low-cut dress. The white swell of her breasts was deliberately flaunted, the outline of her crossed legs purposely apparent. One time she had been beautiful, but now her beauty had gone down the channels of whoredom.

"Hello, Dari. Who's your big friend?"

"This is Kelly Smith. How have you been, Grace?"

Her smile was to me, a plain invitation, though she spoke to Dari. "I've been fine. Let's say, I have everything I've ever wanted."

"Grace . . . are you going up on the hill this time?"

"Yes, I am," she said, almost defiantly. "Why?"

Before Dari could answer I said, "How thick are you involved, Grace?"

"Say, look . . ."

"You're hooked, baby. You can get out of it if you want to."

There was genuine fear in her eyes. "I got the feeling you're looking to get yourself killed," she told me.

"It's been tried. Now . . . how about you? If you want, you can do me a favor up there."

When she answered I knew she had made up her mind. She said, "Smithy boy, like you know my kind, I know yours. Let's not turn our backs on ourselves. The day I want to commit suicide I'll do you a favor, otherwise from now on stay clear of me. That plain?"

I nodded. But Grace wasn't finished yet. With that subtle intuition some people have, she knew what was between us and said to Dari, "I could do you a favor though, Dari. Mr. Simpson is having a party tonight. He could do with more girls. One thing a pretty bitch like you can be sure of, you'll always be welcome up there. Just come willingly. Remember?"

I grabbed Dari's arm before she could hit her and with a deliberate smirk Grace tossed her furs over her shoulders and walked out.

The outside door slammed open. The kid who came in was scared and out of breath. He gasped and said, "Mr. Smith . . ."

Then I recognized him. Sonny Holmes, the one who braced Paley and Weaver in the bar over the Evans girl.

"Mr. Smith . . . they're looking for you. I'm telling you, they're after you bad."

I grabbed his shoulder. "Who?"

"Those two you fought with because of me. They were over at your hotel asking for you and the desk clerk said you'd be here."

"Those two don't bother me."

"Maybe not them, but they went outside and talked to some others in a car. A Cadillac from the hill."

"Benny Quick spotted me. That little bastard finally got his memory back. Well, the next time I tag him he won't have any memory left." My voice came through my teeth.

"Mr. Smith, you better get out of here."

Without knowing it, I had the .45 in my hand.

"Look, kid, you take Miss Dahl out of here. Get in her car and make sure you're not followed. Try to get to the police. You tell Cox his town is about to explode."

"No, Kelly . . ."

"Don't start bugging me now, Dari. Do what you're told. This is my kind of business and I'll take care of it my way."

She glanced at the gun. "That's what I'm afraid of. Kelly . . . don't let's spoil it so quickly, please, Kelly." She paused, her eyes wet. "You've been one of them. I think everybody knew it. You carry a gun . . . you've been shot . . . you're here in the middle of all this. Run, darling . . . please. I don't care what you were, don't stay part of this or they'll kill you!"

"Not while I have a rod, kitten."

Her words sounded flat. "That's just as bad, isn't it?" she asked. "You kill them . . . and the law kills you."

I could feel the amazement in the short laugh I let out. I cut it off, grinned, and handed her the .45. "Okay, kitten, have it your way."

She dropped the gun in her pocket, went to kiss me, and then everything out in the bar went quiet. Before she could move, I shoved her in Sonny's arms and whispered harshly, "Take her, damn it!"

When the door closed behind them I turned, ran to the bank of windows at the side of the room, and felt for the catch. Slowly, a drop of sweat trickled down my back. The windows were the steel casement awning type and somebody had removed the crank handles. Another second and they'd be back here and there wasn't time to break out.

At the end of the room were the Johns and on a sudden thought I turned into the one marked WOMEN. If they searched the place they'd go to the other one first instinctively. There was no lock on the outside door, but a waste basket fitted under the knob. Another couple of seconds maybe. The window there was the same as the others, steel casement with the handle gone. It was shoulder-high and the opaque, wire-impregnated glass was practically unbreakable.

Outside, I heard muffled voices. I cursed softly, fighting the stem of the window handle. It wouldn't budge. I reached back, grabbed a handful of paper, and wrapped a section around the toothed edges. This time when I twisted, the stem gave a little. With exasperating slowness the window began to swing out. On the other side of the wall a heavy foot kicked the door open and somebody said, "Come on out of there!"

If the men's room was the same as this, they could see the shut window and know I didn't go out it, but they couldn't see into the closed toilet booth and would figure I was holed up there. I grinned, thinking that it was a hell of a place to be trapped.

The window was out far enough then. I hauled myself up, squirmed through the opening as a hand tried the door.

Under me was a driveway. One end was blocked by a building, the other was open into the lighted street. I ran toward the light and was a second too late because somebody cut the corner sharply and I could see the gun in his fist.

But the edge was still mine. He had not yet adjusted to the deep black of the alley, and for me he was a lovely silhouette. He could hear my feet and raised the gun. Before he could pull the trigger I crossed one into his jaw that took bone and teeth with it and he hit the ground as if he were dead and I spilled on my face across him.

The other guy was on top of me before I could get up. I dove for the gun the first guy had dropped, fumbled it, and the other one had me.

He should have shot me and been done with it. Instead he cut loose with a running kick that seemed to splinter into my bad side like I had lain on a grenade. It was the amazing agony of the kick that saved me. I arched away from the next one with a tremendous burst of energy and my spasmodic kick spilled the guy on top of me.

I had the other gun then. Grabbing it was instinctive. Slamming it against his ear was instinctive.

Never before had the bulging fire in my side been like this, not even when it happened. I tried to wish myself unconscious . . . anything to get away from it. And instinctively I realized that the only thing that would stop it was up in my room at the hotel.

Then it's over and you don't know how it happened. You don't remember the route, the obstacles, the staircase. You can almost forget instinct as you open the door, then it's there again, because the door should have been locked and you throw yourself on the floor as a little bright flash of light winks in the darkness. Getting the gun up is instinctive and as something tugs into the flesh of your upper arm you put out the light that has been trying to kill you.

A few feet away something crumples to the floor and you get up, flip the switch, and see Benny Quick lying face up with a hole between his eyes.

I didn't waste time. I shook out six capsules and washed them down. For a minute I stood there, waiting for the relief to come. And gently it came, like a wave of soft warm water, so that once more I could think and act like a person instead of an instinct-led animal.

They were looking for me on the street. They'd come here next to check with Benny. They'd find Benny dead and the big hunt would be on. My mind was fuzzy now. I shoved the gun under my belt, stuck Benny's in my pocket, and got my hands under his arms. Benny had died quickly. A scatter rug covered the signs of his final exit and I dragged him outside, closing the door after me.

I could think of only one place to put him. I got him down the back stairs and around the corner to the door of Dari's room. I dragged the body in and dumped it on the floor because it was as far as I could go with it.

Across the room a girl was trying to scream. She watched me with eyes so black they seemed unreal and when she got done trying to scream she collapsed on the floor.

The girl began to sob. I knew who she was. Tentatively, I said, "Ruth? Ruth Gleason?"

She seemed to realize that I wouldn't hurt her. The glazed look left her eyes and she got her feet under her. "Y-yes."

"Dari . . . have you see Dari?"

"No . . . I tried to . . . I waited . . ."

Think, I thought, damn it, THINK!

The Holmes kid would have taken her somewhere. Dr. McKeever had the Evans girl at his wife's sister's place. The kid would go there.

"Would you know Dr. McKeever's wife . . . or her sister?" I asked.

For a second Ruth Gleason stopped being scared and bobbed her head, puzzled. "Her sister is Emma Cox . . . Captain Cox's wife. They . . . don't live together anymore."

"Can you drive?"

She nodded again. I reached in my pocket and threw her the truck keys. "Willie Elkins' truck. It's out back. You call Doctor McKeever and tell him to meet us at his sister's. You'll have to drive."

I could hear her voice but couldn't concentrate on it. I felt her hand on my arm and knew I was in the truck. I could smell the night air and sometimes think and cursed myself mentally for having gone overboard with those damned capsules.

Time had no meaning at all. I heard Dr. McKeever and Dari and felt hands in the hole in my side and knew pieces of flesh were being cut away from the hole in my arm. There was Dari crying and the Gleason girl screaming.

All she could say was, "You're a doctor, give it to me, please. You have to! Oh, please . . . I'll do anything . . . please!"

Dari said, "Can you . . . ?"

There were other voices and McKeever finally said, "It'll help. Not much, but it will quiet her."

"And Kelly?" she asked.

"He'll be all right. I'll have to report this gunshot wound."

"No." There was a soft final note in her voice. "He has to get away."

Ruth Gleason was crying out for Lennie to please come get her.

The pain-killing fog I was wrapped in detached me from the scene then.

"You've been withdrawing, haven't you, Ruth?" Dr. McKeever asked.

Her voice was resigned. "I didn't want to. Lennie . . . took it away. He wanted to . . . get rid of me."

After a moment McKeever continued, "When did it start, Ruth?"

Her voice sounded real distant. "On the hill. Flori and I . . . went there. Flori needed the money . . . her father . . ."

"Yes, I know about that. What about you?"

"A man . . . before Lennie. We met downtown and he . . . invited me. It sounded like fun. He gave me some pot."

Dari said, "What?"

"Marihuana," the doctor told her. "Then what, Ruth?"

"Later we popped one. For kicks. Week later."

"Flori, too?"

Ruth giggled. "Sure," she said, "everybody. It was fun. He danced. Nude, you know? No clothes. Mr. Simpson came in and watched. He gave me five hundred dollars, can you imagine? Flori too. And that was only the first time. Oh, we did lots of dances. We wore costumes for Mr. Simpson and we made his friends laugh and we . . ."

You could barely hear her voice. "Mr. Simpson wanted . . . something special. On different nights . . . he'd take one of us. He made us undress . . . and he had whips. He said . . . it wouldn't hurt." She almost choked, remembering. "I screamed and tried to get away, but I couldn't!" She buried her face in her hands.

"You went back, Ruth?"

"I . . . had to. The money. It was always there. Then there was Lennie. Then I had to because . . . my supply was gone . . . I needed a shot bad. I . . . what's going to happen to me?"

"You'll be taken care of, Ruth. Tell me something . . . are any girls up there now?"

"Yes . . . yes. The ones who are usually there. But there will be more. Mr. Simpson likes . . . new ones. Please . . . you'll have to let me go back."

The voices were miles away now. Sleep was pressing down on me and I couldn't fight it off.

It was daylight. I cursed and yelled for somebody and the door opened and McKeever was trying to push me back on the cot. Behind him was Sonny Holmes.

I managed to sit up against the pressure of McKeever's hand. My mouth was dry and cottony, my head pounding. A tight band of wide tape was wound around my torso and the pain in my side was a dull throbbing, but it was worse than the hole in the fleshy part of my arm.

"I haven't seen anything like you since the war," McKeever said.

From the door Cox said, "Can he talk?"

Before McKeever could stop me I said, "I can talk, Captain. Come on in."

Cox's arrogant smile was gone now. Like everybody else in Pinewood, he had a nervous mouth.

I said, "I made you big trouble, boy, didn't I?"

"You had no right . . ."

"Tough. You checked my prints through, didn't you?"

He couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. McKeever was watching me too now. "I'm a federal agent, laddie, and you know it. At any time my department has authority to operate anywhere and by now you know with what cooperation, don't you?"

Cox didn't answer. He was watching his whole little world come tumbling down around him.

"You let a town run dirty, Cox. You let a worm get in a long time ago and eat itself into a monster. The worm got too big, so you tried to ignore it and you played a mutual game of Let Alone. It outgrew you, buddy. I bet you've known that for a long, long time. Me happening along was just an accident, but it would have caught up to you before long anyway."

Cox still wouldn't put his head down. "What should I do," he asked.

I got up on the edge of the bed, reached for my pants, and pulled them on. Somebody had washed my shirt. Luckily, I could slide my feet into my moccasins without bending down.

I looked hard at the big cop. "You'll do nothing," I said. "You'll go back to your office and wait there until I call and tell you what to do. Now get out of here."

We both watched Cox shuffle out. His head was down a little now. McKeever said, "Can you tell me?"

I nodded. "I have to. If anything happens to me, you'll have to pass it on. Now I'm going to guess, but it won't be wild. That big house on the hill is a front, a meeting place for the grand brotherhood of the poppy."

"It isn't the only one they have . . . it's probably just a local chapter. It's existed, operated, and been successful for . . . is it ten years now? Down here, the people maybe even suspected. But who wants to play with mob boys? It wouldn't take much to shut mouths up down here. To make it even better, that bunch spread the loot around. Even the dolls could be hooked into the action and nobody would really beef. Fear and money were a powerful deterrent. Besides, who could they beef to? A cop scared to lose his job? And other cops scared of him?"

"But one day the situation changed. Overseas imports of narcotics had been belted by our agencies and the brotherhood was hurting. But timed just right was the Cuban deal and those slobs on the hill got taken in by the Reds who saw a way of injecting a poison into this country while they built up their own machine. So Cuba became a collection point for China-grown narcotics. There's a supposedly clean businessman up there on the hill who owns an airline in Florida. The connection clear?"

I grinned, my teeth tight. "There's an even bigger one there, a Russian attaché. He'll be the one who knows where and when the big delivery will be made. There's a rallying of key personnel who have to come out of hiding in order to attend a conclave of big wheels and determine short-range policy."

"It's a chance they have to take. You can't be in the business they're in without expecting to take a chance sooner or later. Lack of coincidence can eliminate chance. Coincidence can provide it. I was the coincidence. Only there was another element involved . . . a Mr. Simpson and his peculiar pleasures. If he had forgone those, chance never would have occurred."

It was a lot of talk. It took too damn much out of me. I said, "Where's Dari?"

The doctor was hesitant until I grabbed his arm. When he looked up his face was drained of color. "She went after Ruth."

My fingers tightened and he winced. "I put Ruth . . . to bed. What I gave her didn't hold. She got up and left. The next morning, Dari left too."

"What are you talking about . . . the next morning?"

"You took a big dosage, son. That was yesterday. You've been out all this time."

It was like being hit in the stomach. I stood up and pulled on my jacket. The doctor said, "They're all over town. They're waiting for you."

"Good," I said. "Where's Sonny Holmes?"

"In the kitchen."

From Sonny's face, I knew he had heard everything we had said. I asked him, "You know how to get to the lake without going through town?"

Sonny had changed. He seemed older. "There's a way. We can take the old ice-cart trail to the lake."

I grinned at the doctor and handed him a card. "Call that number and ask for Artie. You tell him the whole thing, but tell him to get his tail up here in a hurry. I'm going to cut Dari out of this deal, doc." The look on his face stopped me.

"She's gone," he said. "She went up there as guest. . . . She said something about Ruth Gleason saying they wanted girls. She had a gun in her pocketbook. She said it was yours. Kelly . . . she went up there to kill Simpson! She went alone. She said she knew how she could do it. . ."

And that was a whole day ago.

Sonny was waiting. We used his car. My rented truck was gone. Ruth Gleason had taken it and the silenced gun I had used was in it.

Mort Steiger said, "I was waiting for you."

"No fishing, pop," I told him.

"I know what you're going to do. I knew it all along. Somebody had to. You looked like the only one who could and who wanted to."

I turned to Sonny. "Call the doc, kid. See if he got through to my friend."

Mort held out his hand and stopped him. "No use trying. The phones are all out. The jeep from the hill run into a pole down by the station and it'll be two days before a repair crew gets here."

"Sonny," I said, "you get back to Captain Cox. You tell him I'm going inside and to get there with all he has. Tell him they're my orders."

Mort spit out the stub of a cigar. "I figured you right, I did. You're a cop, ain't you?"

I looked at him and grinned. My boat was still there where I had left it. The sun was sinking.

The guy on the dock died easily and quietly. He tried to go for his gun when he saw me and I took him with one sudden stroke. The one at the end in the neat gray suit who looked so incongruous holding a shotgun went just as easily.

An eighth of a mile ahead, the roof of the house showed above the trees. When I reached the main building I went in through the back. It was dark enough now so that I could take advantage of shadows. Above me the house was brilliantly lit. There was noise and laughter and the sound of music and women's voices and the heavier voices of men.

There could only be a single direct line to the target. I nailed a girl in toreador pants trying to get ice out of the freezer. She had been around a long time, maybe not in years, but in time you can't measure on a calendar. She knew she was standing an inch from dying and when I said, "Where is Simpson?" she didn't try to cry out or lie or anything else.

She simply said, "The top floor," and waited for what she knew I'd do to her. I sat her in a chair, her feet tucked under her. For an hour she'd be that way, passed out to any who noticed her.

It was another 20 minutes before I had the complete layout of the downstairs.

What got me was the atmosphere of the place. It was too damn gay. It took a while, but I finally got it. The work had been done, the decisions made, and now it was time to relax.

My stomach went cold and I was afraid of what I was going to find.

It didn't take any time to reach the top floor. Up here you couldn't hear the voices nor get the heavy smell of cigar smoke. I stood on the landing looking toward the far end where the corridor opened on to two doors. To the left could be only small rooms because the corridor was so near the side of the building. To the right, I thought, must be almost a duplicate of the big room downstairs.

And there I was. What could I do about it? Nothing.

The gun in my back said nothing.

Lennie Weaver said, "Hello, jerk."

Behind Lennie somebody said, "Who is he, Len?"

"A small-time punk who's been trying to get ahead in the business for quite a while now. He didn't know what he was bucking." The gun nudged me again. "Keep going, punk. Last door on your left. You open it, you go in, you move easy, or that's it."

The guy said, "What's he doing here?"

I heard Lennie laugh. "He's nuts. Remember what he pulled on Nat and me? They'll try anything to get big time. He's the fink who ran with Benny Quick and turned him in to the fuzz."

We came to the door and went inside and stood there until the tremendously fat man at the desk finished writing. When he looked up, Lennie said, "Mr. Simpson, here's the guy who was causing all the trouble in town."

And there was Mr. Simpson. Mr. Simpson who only went as far as his middle name in this operation. Mr. Simpson by his right name, everybody would know. They would remember the recent election conventions or recall the five percenters and the political scandals a regime ago. Hell, everybody would know Mr. Simpson by his whole name.

The fleshy moon face was blank. The eyes blinked and the mouth said, "You know who he is?"

"Sure." Lennie's laugh was grating. "Al Braddock. Like Benny Quick said, he picked up something someplace and tried to build into it. He wouldn't have sounded off, Mr. Simpson. He'd want any in with us for himself. Besides, who'd play along? They know what happens."

"What shall we do with him, Mr. Simpson?" Lennie asked.

Simpson almost smiled. "Why just kill him, Lennie," he said and went back to the account book.

It was to be a quiet affair, my death. My hands were tied behind me and I was walked to the yard behind the building.

"Why does a punk like you want in for?" Lennie asked. "How come you treat life the way you do?"

"The dame, pal," I said. "I got a yen for a dame."

"Who?" His voice was unbelieving.

"Dari Dahl. She inside?"

"You are crazy, buddy," he told me. "Real nuts. In ten minutes that beautiful broad of yours goes into her act and when she's done she'll never be the same. She'll make a cool grand up there, but man, she's had it. I know the kind it makes and the kind it breaks. That mouse of yours won't have enough spunk left to puke when she walks out of there." He laughed again. "If she walks. She may get a ride back to the lights, if she wants to avoid her friends. A guy up there is willing to take second smacks on her anytime."

"Too bad," I said. "If it's over, it's over. Like your two friends down at the lake."

Lennie said, "What?"

"I knocked off two guys by the lake."

The little guy got the point quickly. "Hell, he didn't come in over the wall, Len. He came by the path. Jeeze, if the boss knows about that, he'll fry. The whole end is open, if he's right."

But Lennie wasn't going to be taken. "Knock it off, Moe. We'll find him out. We'll go down that way. If he's right or wrong, we'll still fix him. Hell, it could even be fun. We'll drown the bastard."

"You watch it, Len; this guy's smart."

"Not with two guns in his back and his hands tied, he's not." His mouth twisted. "Walk, punk."

Time, time. Any time, every time. Time was life. Time was Dari. If you had time, you could think and plan and move.

Then time was bought for me.

From somewhere in the darkness Ruth Gleason came running, saying, "Lennie, Lennie . . . don't do this to me, please!" and threw herself at the guy.

He mouthed a curse and I heard him hit her, an open-handed smash that knocked her into the grass. "Damn these whores, you can't get them off your back!"

Ruth sobbed, tried to get up, her words nearly inaudible. "Please Lennie . . . they won't give me . . . anything. They laughed and . . . threw me out."

I just stood there. Any move I made would get me a bullet so I just stood there. I could see Ruth get to her feet and stagger, her body shaking. She held onto a stick he had picked up. I could see the tears on her cheeks.

"Lennie . . . I'll do anything. Anything. Please . . . you said you loved me. Tell them to get me a fix." Lennie said two words. They were his last.

With unexpected suddenness she ran at him, that stick in her hands, and I saw her lunge forward with it and the thing sink into Lennie's middle like a broken sword and heard his horrible rattle. It snapped in her hands with a foot of it inside him and he fell, dying, while she clawed at him with maniacal frenzy.

The other guy ran for her, tried to pull her off, and forgot about me. My hands were tied. My feet weren't. It took only three kicks to kill him.

Ruth still beat at the body, not realizing Lennie was dead.

"Ruth . . . I can get you a fix!" I said.

The words stopped her. She looked at me, not quite seeing me. "You can?"

"Untie me. Hurry."

I turned around and felt her fingers fumble with the knots at my wrists until they fell free.

"Now . . . you'll get me a fix? Please?"

I nodded and hit her. Later she could get her fix. Maybe she'd made it so she'd never need one again. Later was lots of things, but she'd bought my time for me and I wouldn't forget her.

The little guy's gun was a .32 and I didn't want it. I liked Lennie's .45 better, and it fitted my hand like a glove. My forefinger found the familiar notch in the butt and I knew I had my own gun back and knew the full implication of Lennie's words about Dari.

She had tried for her kill and missed. Somebody else got the gun and Dari was to get the payoff.

This time I thought it out. I knew how I had to work it. I walked another 100 yards to the body of the gray-suited guard I had left earlier, took his shotgun from the ground and four extra shells from his pocket, and started back to the house.

Nothing had changed. Downstairs they were still drinking and laughing, still secure.

I found the 1,500-gallon fuel tank aboveground as I expected, broke the half-inch copper tubing, and let the oil run into the whiskey bottles I culled from the refuse dump. It didn't take too many trips to wet down the bushes around the house. They were already season-dried, the leaves crisp. A huge puddle had run out from the line, following the contour of the hill and running down the drive to the front of the house.

It was all I needed. I took two bottles, filled them, and tore off a hunk of my shirt tail for a wick. Those bottles would make a high-flashpoint Molotov cocktail, if I could keep them lit. The secret lay in a long wick so the fuel oil, spilling out, wouldn't douse the flame. Not as good as gasoline, but it would do.

Then I was ready.

Nothing fast. The normal things are reassuring. I coughed, sniffed, and reached the landing at the first floor. When the man there saw me he tried to call out and died before he could. The other one was just as unsuspecting. He died just as easily. Soft neck.

Mr. Simpson's office was empty. I opened his window, lit my wick on the whiskey bottle, and threw it down. Below me there was a small breaking of glass, a tiny flame that grew. I drew back from the window.

I had three more quarts of fuel oil under my arm. I let it run out at the two big doors opposite Simpson's office and soak into the carpet. This one caught quickly, a sheet of flame coming off the floor. Nobody was coming out that door.

Someplace below there was a yell, then a scream. I opened the window and got out on the top of the second floor porch roof. From there the top floor was blanked out completely. Heavy drapes covered the windows and, though several were open for ventilation, not a streak of light shone through.

I stepped between the window and the draperies, entirely concealed, then held the folds of the heavy velvet back. It was a small theater in the round. There was a person shrouded in black tapping drums and that was all the music they had. Two more in black tights with masked faces were circling about a table. They each held long thin whips, and whenever the drummer raised the tempo they snapped them, and sometimes simply brought them against the floor so that the metal tips made a sharp popping sound.

She was there in the middle, tied to the table. She was robed in a great swath of silk.

From where I stood I could see the town and the long line of lights winding with tantalizing slowness toward the hill.

Down below they were yelling now, their voices frantic, but here in this room nobody was listening. They were watching the performance, in each one's hand a slim length of belt that could bring joy to minds who had tried everything else and now needed this.

She was conscious. Tied and gagged, but she could know what was happening. She faced the ring of them and saw the curtain move where I was. I took the big chance and moved it enough so she alone could see me standing there and when she jerked her head to keep anyone from seeing the hope in her eyes I knew it was the time.

There was only one other door in the room, a single door on the other side. It was against all fire regulations and now they'd know why. I lit the wick on the last bottle, let it catch hold all the way, stepped inside, and threw it across the room.

Everything seemed to come at once . . . the screams, the yelling from outside. Somebody shouted and opened the big doors at the head of the room and a sheet of flame leaped in on the draft.

There was Harry Adrano. I shot him.

There was Calvin Bock. I shot him.

There was Sergei Rudinoff. I shot him and took the briefcase off his body and knew that what I had done would upset the Soviet world.

There was the man who owned the airlines and I shot him.

Only Nat Paley saw me and tried to go for his gun. All the rest were screaming and trying to go through the maze of flame at the door. But it was like Nat to go for his gun so I shot him, too, but not as cleanly as the rest. He could burn the rest of the way.

I got Dari out of the straps that held her down, carried her to the one window that offered escape, and shoved her out. In the room the bongo drummer went screaming through the wall of flame. From far off came staccato bursts of gunfire and now no matter what happened, it was won.

I shoved her on the roof and, although everything there was flame, this one place was still empty and cool.

And while she waited for me there, I stepped back inside the room, the shriveling heat beating at my face, and saw the gross Mr. Simpson still alive, trapped by his own obesity, a foul thing on a ridiculous throne, still in his robes, still clutching his belt . . .

And I did him a favor. I said, "So long, Senator."

I brought the shotgun up and let him look all the way into that great black eye and then blew his head off.

It was an easy jump to the ground. I caught her. We walked away.

Tomorrow there would be strange events, strange people, and a new national policy.

But now Dari was looking at me, her eyes loving, her mouth wanting, her mind a turbulence of fear because she thought I was part of it all and didn't know I was a cop, and I had all the time in the world to tell her true.

THE SEVEN-YEAR KILL

For seven long years Rocca had been down. And he was almost out when the beautiful brunette wound up in his closet—and started him on a trip that would lead through a terrifying maze of bodies both hot and cold. At the end of the road lay the biggest surprise of all—a surprise that could prove fatal to an ordinary guy.

From far off in the heat and sea of sweat I heard the noise and the voices.

The gloom of the room was split by a shaft of light that stretched across my face from the partly opened door. It was from there that the voice kept saying, "Open this damn door, buddy."

I rolled off the cot and finally got to the door, pushed it shut, slipped off the chain, then backed off when it almost knocked me down swinging open.

Both the hoods were big. The snub-nose jobs in their hands made them even bigger. But they didn't come that big. I said, "What the hell you want?"

Without even looking, one swung and last night came boiling out of me all over the floor and I crouched there on my hands and knees trying to keep from dying.

The other guy said, "She ain't here. This joker was drunk on the cot with the chain on. How could she get in here?"

Neither one said anything, but when I raised my head the guy with the long face and bloody shoe was looking at me. I started to grin at him. Not mean. Just a big, friendly grin like I knew how it was and I kept it going until the guy shrugged and said to the other. "He's nuts. Come on."

It was five minutes before I could get up, and another five before I could reach the sink. I ran it cold and splashed it over my face and head, washing the blood down the drain.

I didn't bother looking in the mirror. I felt my way back inside, reached the cot, and flopped out on it, suddenly grateful for the heat of the wall that sucked at the vast pain that was my head.

When I knew I was ready I said, "Okay, come on out of there."

Across the room the paneled closet door that seemed to be part of the wall swung open. For a moment there was only the darkness, then a shadow detached itself from the deeper black, took a step forward with a harsh, shuddering sob, and stood there, rigid.

I reached behind me and turned on the night lamp. It gave off a dull reddish glow, but it was enough.

She was beautiful. There was something Indian-like about her, maybe the black hair or the high planes of her face. Sweat had plastered her dress across her body, her breasts in high, bold relief, the muscular flatness of her belly moving as she breathed. Sudden fear of the hunted had drained her face so that her lips made a full red splash in contrast.

She stood there watching me, saying nothing, a quiver in her flanks as in a mare about to bolt. Spraddle-legged like that I could see the sweep of her thighs and liked what I saw.

I said, "They're gone."

"I never chain that door," I said. "Never. And that closet's the only place to hide in here. Cleverly made, that."

Her tongue flicked out and wet her lips. "When did you . . . realize."

"Right away." The words had blood on them and I wiped it away with my sleeve.

She was staring at my face. "You could have told. Then they . . ."

"I wouldn't tell them punks if their legs were on fire."

"Thank you."

"Sure. It's just a helluva way to get waked up, that's all."

For the first time she started to smile. No, not quite smile . . . a grin, sort of. It changed her whole face and somehow there was no heat and no hangover and no pain in my head and everything was different and I was different. But it was like a flash flood, suddenly there and suddenly gone, leaving behind it only damage from another broken memory.

"Can I do anything for you?"

"Nobody can do anything for me, kid."

She looked around, the grin gone now. "I . . . was running. This was the first place I came to. Your door was open."

I shaded the light with my hand. "Who were they?"

The fear touched her eyes. "I don't know," she finally said.

"They weren't just playing around, kid."

She nodded as if it were a familiar thing to her, then she took a few quick steps across the room and looked over me through the window to the street below.

Close now, I could see she was more lovely than I realized, bigger, and more scared. She was intent on the street below, and when I slipped my hand around hers and squeezed it; she squeezed back involuntarily without realizing it until I let go. Then she gave a sudden start and stepped back quickly, a frown crossing her face.

"I just kissed you," I said.

"What?" softly.

"When we were kids we called it sneak kissing, hand kissing. It meant you wanted to do more but somebody might be looking." I laughed at the expression on her face, but it hurt my head and I stopped. But it was worth it. I saw the trace of the grin again before the fear came back.

Once more she scanned the street, then said, "I'll have to go now."

"You're crazy if you do. You didn't know those two. How will you know any others who make a try for you. And right now you're a beautiful, sweaty, wet target. In this neighborhood you couldn't be missed."

She sucked her breath in through her teeth, and moved back from the window. I pointed to the chair at the foot of the couch and she sat down, hugging herself as though she were cold.

"When did it happen before?" I asked.

For a moment she stared past me, then shook her head. "I . . . don't know what you mean."

I bit the words out. "You're lying."

The anger came slowly, her folded arms pushing her breasts taut. "Why am I, then?"

"If you didn't know them and didn't expect them to hit, they would have nailed you. They were pros."

The anger receded and it was like losing her outer defenses. I had made her think and correlate and whatever the answers were put her on edge like a great big animal. "All right. It had happened before. Twice."

"When?"

"Tuesday. A car almost ran me down in front of my house. Then the day before yesterday I was followed."

"How'd you know? Pros aren't easy to spot."

Without hesitating she said, "I shopped in the lingerie department of three stores. You don't see many men there and when you do they're noticeable and uncomfortable. I saw this particular one in all three places. I left, made two cab changes, and went into the subway."

She paused, took a deep shuddering breath. Then with a small choking sob, buried her face in her hands and tried to keep from screaming.

I pushed myself up from the cot, my head a sudden spinning ball of pain. I reached over and took her hands down. She wasn't hysterical. She was just on the deep edge momentarily and now she was coming out of it. "Say it," I told her.

She nodded. "The train was coming in the station."

"Go on."

"I . . . felt his hands at my back and he pushed and I was falling and that train was coming on and I could hear the screams and the yells and the train trying to stop and my head hit something and it was like falling into a blessed sleep." She closed her eyes, rubbing at her temples to ease the pain of the thought. "I woke up and they were still yelling and hammering and lights were like fingers poking at me and I didn't know where I was. Terrible. It was terrible."

Then it was my turn to remember. "I saw the pictures. You fell between the tracks in the drainage well. Contusions and abrasions."

"I was very lucky."

"You told them you slipped off the edge."

"I know."

"Why?"

"Some silly woman said I tried to kill myself. She said I jumped. I explained that when I felt myself go I did launch myself out to fall between the tracks."

"They accepted it?"

"Yes. Otherwise I would have been held for observation."

"Smart thinking. Why didn't you say you were pushed?"

She looked up slowly. "I . . . was afraid. It isn't always easy to do certain things when you're afraid."

"Yeah," I said. "I know. What name did you give out?"

"Ann Lowry," she told me, and her eyes were squinting now. "You're asking an awful lot of questions about me. Who are you?"

"Phil Rocca, kid. I'm a nothing."

When a long moment had gone by, she asked quietly, "All right, then. Who were you?"

All of it came back like a breath of fresh air. The old days. The long time ago. The quick excitement of life and the feeling of accomplishment. The spicy competition that was in reality a constant war of nerves with all the intrigue and action of actual conflict. Then maybe Rooney's or Patty's for supper, to gloat or sulk depending on who won.

I said, "I was a police reporter on a now-defunct journal, a guy who once had a great story. But an editor and a publisher were too cowardly to print it and because I had it I had to be removed. So I was framed into prison. Nobody went to bat for me. I took seven years in the can and the paper and the story is no more. So here I am."

"I'm sorry. Who did a thing like that?"

"A guy I dream about killing every day but never will be able to because he's already dead."

She took in the squalor of the room. "Does it have to be this way?"

"Uh-huh. It does. This is all there is, there ain't no more. Not for me. And as for you, kid, there's only one question more. The BIG WHY. Somebody's trying to finger you out, and the last time they're playing guns. It doesn't get that big without a reason. You're a money dame with money clothes and you wind up in the tenement district in front of two guns. Where were you headed?"

She had to tell somebody. Some things are just too big to hold in long. "I was going to meet my father. I had . . . never seen him."

"Meet him here? In this neighborhood!"

"It was his idea. I think it was because . . . he was down and out. Not that it would have mattered. All my life he took good care of me and my mother. He set up a trust fund for us both even before I was born."

"Why didn't you ever see him?"

"Mother divorced him a year after they were married. She took me to California and never returned. She died there two months ago."

"I'm sorry."

Her shrug was peculiar. "Perhaps I should be too. I'm not. Mother was strange. She was always wrapped up in herself, and her ailments with nothing left over for anybody else, not even me. She would never speak to me about my father. It was as if he had never even existed. If it weren't that I found some of her private papers, I'd never have known what my real name was."

"Oh? What was it?"

She squinted again. "Massley. Terry Massley."

That terrible thing in my stomach uncoiled and pulled at my intestines up into the hollow. I seemed to glow from the sudden flush of blood that a heart gone suddenly berserk threw at a mad pace into the far reaches of its system.

I was so tight and eager again it almost made me sick. I got up, made another trip back to the sink, and ran the bowl brim full with cold water, washed down, and soaked my head clear. Then when the pounding had stopped I pulled in a deep breath and looked at myself in the mirror. Dirty, unshaven, eyes red with too much whiskey and not enough sleep, cheekbones prominent from not enough to eat. And I could smell myself. I stank. But in a way I felt good.

Over my shoulder I saw her. Woman—big and beautiful. Her name was Terry Massley.

And Rhino Massley was the guy who had me socked away for seven years.

Rhino had been a smart mobster with millions in loot. He was supposed to be dead, but things like that could be arranged, especially when you have millions.

And now Terry Massley was going to meet her father and, from the kill bits that had been pulled, there was mob action going on and that pointed to a big, wonderful possibility.

Rhino was alive and I could kill him myself!

I stared at my eyes, watching them change. Coincidence, I thought, ah, sweet, lovely coincidence. How I've cursed you and scorned you and declaimed you in the name of objective news reporting. And here you are now knocking at my door. Thanks. Thanks a bunch.

She was puzzled. "Do you feel all right?"

"I feel great," I said. "Would you like me to help you find your father? Coming from the coast you don't know anyone else, do you?"

She shook her head.

"Okay, I know the neighborhood. I'm part of this sewer life and I can move around. I even know tricks that could make me king of this garbage heap, if I wanted it. If your old man is here, I'll find him for you. I'll be glad to. You'll never know how glad I'll be to do it."

She didn't move quickly at all. It was with a deliberate slowness as if she were afraid of herself. She stood up, took a step toward me and slowly sank to her knees. Then she reached up and took my head between her hands and her mouth was a sudden wild, wet fire I had never tasted before and was burning a madness into me I had never wanted to feel again.

I pushed her away and looked at her closely. There was no lie in what she was saying to me. She was saying thanks because I was going to help her find her father.

But I had to be sure. After all this time I couldn't afford to lose a chance at what I wanted by taking one.

I said, "What brought you to this neighborhood to start with?"

The letter she handed me had been typewritten, addressed to her Los Angeles home.

It read:

Dear Terry,

I have just learned of your mother's death. Although we have never met, it is imperative we do so now. Take your mother's personal effects with you and stay at the Sherman the week of the 9^th. I will contact you there.

Your Father

"He didn't even sign his name," I said.

"I know. Businessmen do that when their secretary isn't around."

"This isn't the neighborhood to meet businessmen with secretaries," I reminded her. "So he contacted you. How?"

"A note was waiting for me when I got there."

"How'd you sign the register?"

"Ann Lowry." She paused. "It . . . was the name I had had all my life."

"Sure. Then how'd you get the note?"

"A man at the desk asked if anything had been left for him. When the clerk leafed through the casual mail I saw the one with Terry Massley on it."

"What did it say?"

"That today at 11 o'clock in the morning I was to walk from Eighth Avenue westward on this block and he would pick me up on the way in a cab."

"How would he recognize you?"

"He left a cheap white suitcase with a red and black college pennant pasted on either side. It was extremely conspicuous. I was to carry it on my curb side."

"I suppose it was empty."

"Of anything important . . . yes. To give it a little bulk there were a bunch of week-old newspapers in it."

"The letter," I asked, "that was straight mail?"

"Yes."

"Then how did the suitcase get there?"

"All the clerk knew was that it came by messenger. There hadn't been anything irregular about it, so he didn't remember anything special about the delivery. After I looked into the suitcase I carried out instructions. I waited until it was time, took the suitcase with me, and walked over to Eighth and started down here."

I had to turn my head so she couldn't see the look of hungry expectation in my face. The cab pick-up was another ragged edge bit that spelled hood, and I knew that someplace Rhino would be waiting alive—so I could kill him. Man, it was a great feeling!

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was almost at Ninth when two men turned the corner. They walked toward me and I knew they both saw me and I saw what they wanted. I crossed the street and they did too. Then I started back and began to run. So did they. I ran in here."

"Any cabs pass at all?"

"Yes." She looked out the window, thinking back. "None stopped. He could have come by after I ran and thought I never showed up."

"He'll contact you again. Don't worry."

There was a pathetic eagerness in her voice. "You really think so?"

"I'm sure of it."

She glanced at me again, worried. "I . . . dropped the suitcase. How will . . . he know?"

"He'll find a way," I said.

I let her sit there while I showered and shaved. I found a shirt that hadn't been worn too often and put it on. There was still an unwrinkled tie and the sports jacket Vinnie insisted I hold for the fin I lent him fit as long as I didn't try to button it.

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to walk across town a mile or so. See some people I know. You're going to stay here, kitten. It isn't the finest, but it's the best for the moment. Leave the snaplock on, no chain, and if anybody tries to get in, duck in the closet. I don't think anybody will be back again, but just to be sure, when I get here I'll knock four times twice and you won't have to break a leg getting lost."

"All right." The nervousness faded away in a small smile. "I don't know why you're doing all this . . . but thanks, Phil."

"Forget it. It's doing me more good than it is you."

I walked to the door and she stopped me. She came over, took my hand and pressed something into it.

"Take a cab," she said.

In my palm was a twenty. It was warm and silky-feeling in my fingers and I could smell the perfume smell it had picked up from her pocketbook. I held it out to her.

"With that in my pocket I wouldn't get past the first bar. I'd drink half of it and get rolled for the rest and never get back here for three four days maybe. Here, put it back."

She made no move to take it. "That won't happen," she said softly. "Give it a try."

I didn't take a cab and I got by the first bar. But I walked across town anyway and passed a lot of bars on the way and wondered what the hell had happened to me in just a couple of hours.

When I reached Rooney's the lunch crowd had cleared out. But, as I expected, the west corner of the back room was still noisy with half the eighth-floor staff of the great paper up the street marking time between editions.

I slid into a booth along the wall, ordered a sandwich and coffee, and borrowed the waiter's pad and pencil. When he brought the lunch I handed him the note. "You know Dan Litvak?"

His eyes indicated the back room. I handed him the note and he walked away with it.

Dan was a tall, thin guy who seemed eternally bored unless you could read the awareness in his eyes. He had always moved slowly, not seeming to care what he did or what happened to anybody. He was never a man you could surprise with anything and when he walked up to my booth he studied me a moment, his face expressionless, then said, "Hello, Phil," and sat down.

His eyes didn't miss a thing. With that one look he could have read down my last 10 years in detail. I gave him a break, though. I let him look at the twenty under my bill so he wouldn't have to suffer the embarrassment of thinking he was sitting through a touch.

I said, "Hello, Dan. Have some coffee?"

He waved a sign to the waiter, then sat back. "Looking for a job?"

"Hell, no. Who would hire me?"

"You don't have to go back to the same business."

"You know better than that, Dan. Anything else I'd go nuts in."

"I know. Now let's get to the point of why you're here."

I nodded. "Three years after I got sent up, word reached me about Rhino Massley dying. I never bothered finding out why or how. I want to know."

Dan toyed with the handle of his cup, turning it around in the saucer. "The date, if you're interested, was August 10, '68. It's the kind of date you don't forget very easily. Rhino was hit with polio in that epidemic we had that summer. He was one of 20-some adults who had it. He was in an iron lung up at Mayberry for a couple of months, then the one he ordered came through and he was shipped in it to that ranch he owns near Phoenix. He was still handling all his business from the lung and, although he wasn't going to get any better physically, he was still the rackets boss hands down."

"He died of polio?"

"No. A violent storm knocked out the power and the lung failed. The nurse on hand couldn't get the motor kicking over that ran the standby generator and she tried to get into town to get help. When they got back it was too late. Rhino was dead. He was buried out there."

"What happened to his estate?"

"This'll kill you. What he had, which wasn't much, only about a half million, went to polio research. Two hospitals."

"He had more than that," I said.

"Sure, but you know the mob. They're set up for that contingency. If Rhino had cash, it was ground-buried who knows where. Oh, he had plenty more, all right, and it's still wherever he put it. He couldn't take it with him after all."

Dan looked at me again, a flicker of interest in his eyes. "What's your angle?"

"You know why I got sent to the can?"

"I covered the case," Dan said flatly.

"And saw me convicted for attempting to extort money from an elected official."

"The D.A. had a good case."

"I know. The evidence was absolutely conclusive. It was black and white and open and shut. It was perhaps the most solid of any case the D.A. ever was presented with."

Dan grinned for a change. "That's right. So solid he gave it over to his newest assistant to handle who won it with ease. Your former inquisitor, by the way, is now our current D.A."

"Good for him."

His eyebrows went up. "No recriminations?"

"He wasn't in on it."

"Oh?"

"Nearly every con says he was framed."

"So I hear."

"So I was framed."

The grin came back again. "Yeah, I know."

Words didn't want to form in my mouth. I waited until my breathing was right again and I could think. "How did you know, Dan?" There was an edge on my voice.

He didn't wipe the grin off at all. "Hell, man, this is my racket, too. Nobody in our business would ever have pulled the things off they said you did. Not unless they were crazy. But now you're out and you can answer me one thing you ought to know."

"What?"

"Who did it and why?"

"Rhino, buddy. I found his protection wasn't the long green to the right people, but information he collected on them that could lay them out. I let it be known I was going after the same information and make it public and was doing pretty well when the boom came down. They sacrificed the first guy I was after, probably for a bundle paying for his chagrin of exposure, then they worked it airtight against me."

"Rough."

"That lousy sheet could have stood behind me."

"You had them on a spot."

"Nuts. They'd been on other spots before. That stinking publisher Gates . . ."

"Don't talk ill of the dead."

It was my turn to be surprised. "When?"

Dan shrugged. "A year ago. He was an editor over at Best and Hines. His heart gave out. He never did recover from losing the paper. Anyway, we're back to the first question. Why all the reminiscing?"

I looked at him across the table. "I don't think Rhino Massley is dead, friend."

He didn't say anything. He waved the waiter over, handed him my check and a buck for his back-room bill, waited until I got the change and nodded me out. We walked down the street to his office, went through the lobby to the elevators and he called off a floor.

Except for several offices and the photo lab on the north side, the picture morgue with its aisle after aisle of files took up the entire area. Dan checked at a cross-file cabinet and from a big drawer brought out what he was looking for and handed it to me.

It was a four-by-four positive of Rhino Massley stretched out in a coffin ringed with bank after bank of flowers. To erase all doubt Dan handed me an eight-by-ten blowup so I could see the dead bastard in all his final glory.

When I handed it back he said, "Enough? I can get some clips from the file if you want."

I shook my head. "Don't bother."

"Why?"

"Danny boy, I'm only just starting and you don't get the short stop blues at the beginning, y'know? Photos can be faked. Rhino could have laid real still in a box for a dead shot and from here you couldn't tell the difference. Who took 'em, Dan?"

He glanced at the back of the smaller one. "Gifford," he said.

"Unimpeachable."

He rode me downstairs and walked to the street. This time I did take a cab. I got out at the corner of the block and picked up some cold cuts at the delicatessen and started toward the house. I started to say hello to Mr. Crosetti, my neighbor, then stopped and gave him my package to hold for a minute and felt my teeth all showing in a crazy kind of grin, because across the street holding down a post where they were still looking for Terry were the two hoods who had worked me over that morning.

I held my head down and the first guy didn't even bother to give me a glance. I timed the step and the swing just right and slammed my fist into his stomach just over his belt line and the immediate spasmodic folding of his body sprayed puke over everything, and when he hit the sidewalk his mouth was a wide-open hole in a frantic, twisted face.

His partner went for his gun instead of jumping me, and that was his mistake. My foot caught him in the crotch and he tried to scream and claw at his genitals and yell for help and beg for mercy all at the same time.

But I'm lousy. Real lousy. This sportsmanship crap is for TV heroes. I like it the lousy way where the hoods don't get the wrong idea about you and about coming back to get you and that kind of stuff. I kicked each one's face into a terrible bloody mess, then went back across the street, and thanked Mr. Crosetti for holding my groceries. He didn't look like he was going to be able to hold his.

I knocked four times twice and she opened the door. I stepped in quickly, closing the door with my foot, feeling suddenly breathless because she was still wet, but this time from the shower and the water droplets were like little jewels sparkling all around her, the midnight of her hair longer now, out of its soft wave and sucked tightly against her skin. The towel she held around her was too brief. Beautifully too brief. She was wider in the shoulders than I thought. Lovely round dancer's legs were a song of motion when she stepped away.

She smiled and I smiled back, then the bottom fell out of the grocery bag and when everything began to tumble she reached out instinctively and then the towel went too.

I shook my head so she'd know the groceries wouldn't matter at all and I watched while she picked up the towel, smiled once more, and walked back to the shower.

At 8 that night I got a sweater and skirt combination from Jeannie McDonald upstairs and Terry got dressed. Jeannie passed on the information that the two hoods had been picked up that afternoon by a new Buick sedan occupied by another pair of hard guys and as yet there were no repercussions.

Terry had 300 bucks in her bag and we used part of it to sign her into the Enfield Hotel just off Seventh in the Times Square area. She used the name of Ann Spencer and paid a week in advance in lieu of luggage. Luckily, she had her hotel key with her so I took it to get some of her stuff out of the Sherman. There was no doubt about her movements having been spotted and most likely the hotel was staked out, but it wasn't likely that there would be anybody on the floor.

I was right. I packed one large bag with the things she asked for and brought along the smaller overnighter.

When I got back to the Enfield, I had her call the Sherman to ask if there were any messages for Terry Massley or Ann Lowry. The clerk said there weren't.

She put the phone down, concern deep on her face. I said, "Don't worry, he'll get in touch."

"I'm sure he will." She spun around and strode to the window.

That she sensed something was evident. She walked over and sat down opposite me. "You know my father, don't you?"

I tried to keep my face blank. "If he's the same Massley I knew once, then I do."

"What do you know about him?"

"You won't like it if I tell you."

"Perhaps not, but I'll listen."

"All right. The Massley I knew was a hood," I said. "He was the East Coast wheel for the syndicate and quite possibly head man there. He was a thief and a killer with two early falls against him, one in Chicago and one in San Francisco. A check on the back issues of any paper can verify this and, if you like, I'll be glad to supply the datelines."

She knew I wasn't lying. She said simply. "Never mind. It couldn't be the same one."

I gave her back the possibility. I said, "The Massley I knew is supposed to be dead. I've even seen pictures of him in his coffin."

"This Massley you knew," she asked, "what was his full name?"

"John Lacy Massley. He was known as Rhino."

The frown between her eyes smoothed and a smile touched her mouth. "My father was Jean Stuart Massley. So they aren't the same after all." Then the obvious finally got through to her and her hands squeezed together again. "Somebody thinks my father . . . is the . . . one you mentioned."

"Perhaps."

She held the side of her hand against her mouth and bit into her finger.

I said, "What personal effects did your mother have that might be important?"

She shook her head vacantly. "Nothing. Her marriage license, divorce papers, insurance, and bank books."

"Letters?"

"Only correspondence from the legal firm that handled the trust fund."

"Can I see all this?"

She pointed to the still unopened overnighter. "It's all there. Do as you please."

I snapped the case open and laid the contents out on the coffee table. I went through each item, but nothing there had anything of seeming importance. All it did was make more indelible the simple fact that Terry was so sure of—I had the wrong Massley in mind.

When I turned around, I was caught in the direct stare from her eyes.

She said, "You thought my father was this other Massley, didn't you?"

I didn't try to lie out. I nodded.

"You were going to help me find him, if it had been the other one."

I nodded again, uncomfortable.

"And now that you're wrong?"

I grinned at her. She didn't waste time trying to fool you and, no matter how big and beautiful she was, she was still a dame caught alone with the shadows closing in behind her.

I said, "I'm with you, Terry. I won't bug out. You just got one hell of a slob in your corner though."

She uncurled from the chair, standing almost as tall as I was. There were lights in her eyes and when she came closer I saw they were wet. Her arms reached out and touched me, and then she was all the way there, warm and close, pressing so tightly I could feel every curve of her body melting into mine. Very softly, she said, "You're no slob," and then her mouth opened on mine and I tasted that crazy excitement again so bad I crushed her hard and tight until she threw her head back to breathe with a small, moaning sob.

I had to leave before there was more. I was finding myself with limits and inhibitions again and wondered briefly if it was going to be worthwhile coming back into society again. Then I knew it was and the thought passed.

Terry smiled lazily when I left and I wanted to kiss her again. But what I had in mind wouldn't make a kiss easy to take . . . or give. I was thinking lousy thoughts once more. There were two J. Massleys involved and if there ever had been a name switch it would be following the common pattern to keep at least the first initial of the original name.

It only took a few minutes to locate Gifford. He was still in his office finishing off a picture series that had to be up tomorrow. He said he'd be glad to meet me for coffee in 15 minutes and named a Sixth Avenue automat for the contact.

When he arrived I called to him from a table, waited while he got his tray, then introduced myself over the coffee. Although we had never met before, I knew of his work and he remembered me.

When I told him about seeing his shots of Rhino, he screwed up his face, remembering back.

I said, "What's wrong with it?"

"Lousy shots, that's all. No class."

"You went all the way to Phoenix for them?"

Gifford shook his head. "Hell no, I was there in a private sanatorium." He tapped his chest with a thumb. "Touch of T.B. I was there four months when Rhino died."

"You ever see him around?"

"Not me. He lived on a ranch 20, maybe 30 miles off. Oh, I knew he was out there and running his business with that lung and all, but that's it."

"Then you had a good look at the body."

"Sure. It was hurried, but there he was."

I squinted and shook my head impatiently. "Like how? Tell me."

"What's to tell? I got a call from the paper at the time to get a body shot of Rhino for the night edition. At the time it was pretty big news and I was at the spot, so it wasn't unreasonable to ask. I went over the day they were having the funeral, managed to get by the professional criers and found this woman who was in charge of things. She didn't like it, but she let me into the room where the casket was for a quick shot."

"Who was this woman, family?"

"No, Rhino left no family except for some cousins who weren't there. She had been his nurse as I remember. Quite a looker."

"Then who were the mourners?"

"Hell, you can imagine. Hoods, politicians who wanted to stay in with the next-in-line, whoever it would be, the usual business. You know."

"Sure."

Gifford studied me. "Anything special in this? Like with pictures?"

"I don't know. I'm groping. Tell me, what did the body look like?"

He made a gesture with his shoulders. "What do they all look like? Dead. Waxy. Only difference here was the coffin wasn't the kind that opened down to the waist. Rhino's body was so twisted they kept him covered to the neck. All you could see was his face and the tips of his fingers where they crossed on his chest." He paused, fingered his mouth thoughtfully, then added, "As I remember, they only opened the casket for a short time so the public could have one last, quick look. Rhino had been pretty sensitive about his condition and had left orders to that effect."

"He was buried there?"

"Yup. Cemetery out near the hills. They didn't keep him around long, either. He was planted two days after he died."

"Oh?"

Gifford drummed on the tabletop with his fingers. "How come all the interest?"

"I had the idea Rhino Massley could still be alive."

For a moment his face took on a thoughtful look, then he shook his head. "I've seen dead men before."

"Anybody in a coffin automatically looks dead," I told him.

"Good assumption. Go on."

"Some makeup, total immobilization, easy to achieve in a three-quarters' casket, only allow a quick, unstudied look, and live men can seem pretty damn dead."

"Reasonable, but that's assuming something else."

"What?"

"His motive."

And that was that. There wasn't any damn motive in the world. He was already on top, he had no place to go that an iron lung couldn't be spotted, and no reason to fake his death anyway.

I thanked Gifford and broke up the party.

I turned south on Sixth, walking aimlessly back to the Enfield. Overhead a low rumble shook the night and I could smell the rain in the air. It started before I reached the end of the block and it felt good. Anything was better than that down-the-drain feeling of knowing your grand hopes had been washed right out of existence.

Damn that Rhino anyway, why the hell couldn't he have stayed alive! I would have choked him as he lay in that lung of his and laughed in his face when he died. I would have given anything to have been there the night the power blew out. Man, I could have watched him die by inches in his cell like I did in mine. I could have watched his face in that mirror over his head beg for me to do something and, while he kicked off inch by inch, I could have toasted his passing with a cold brew.

I stood there on the corner waiting for the light to change, and then just as suddenly as it had turned sour it turned sweet again. In a way it was reaching for straws, but it made me feel good and lightheaded like before when there was a purpose left in life yet, and this started with an assumption too.

Assuming that Terry's father was Rhino Massley, then somehow he did have a reason for playing dead.

And with that the big second assumption was laid right out in front of me. If Rhino was alive, then he had not only been assumed dead, but assumed sick too. No polio victim in a lung could hide out long anywhere, far less travel around!

I grinned at the night and held my face up to the rain. I was going against all logic and flying in the face of the classic objectiveness we had been taught to observe. It was a crazy Don Quixote move, only on the other end there might possibly be a real giant.

I opened the door of my flat and switched on the light. The two boys sitting together on the couch and pointing the cold round noses of the automatics at me stood up. They were different ones, these. Neither smiled.

The taller one said "Turn around and let's go."

"Where?"

"You talk too much," he told me. His hand gave an easy push, a hint, but it was enough. I turned around and headed outside again. The car was there at the curb, the back door open. I got in with one on either side.

In a way it was funny. Ten years of being alone, hating every minute of it. Now when I wanted it, what did I get . . . togetherness. I started to laugh and the hood on my right looked at me like I had spilled a few marbles.

On the East Side there's a steak house known as Ruby's and from the back room, across a platterful of T-bone, Mannie Waller did his business. His side was a private little niche with a phone, a walnut humidor of cigars and a shelf of light wine that was all he would drink. He was a big heavy pig of a guy who ate himself into obesity but in doing it kept out of the line of fire and inherited a fat hunk of the underworld business when the others knocked themselves off.

Nobody knew just where Mannie stood, but nobody was trying to push him out, either. Talk had it that Mannie was a Syndicate man, a paymaster for the uptown boys. He was part of a new quiet mob that had moved in and taken over after the Appalachian fiasco.

And now Mannie was looking up at me, wiping the grease from his chin. He said, "Sit down."

I took too long. The hood beside me gave me a cut in the gut with the edge of his hand and I folded into the chair.

Mannie said, "No hands, Joe. You know what he did to Jolly and Hal."

"That why you dragged me down here?"

He hunched his fat shoulders and grinned again. "Not entirely, but still I got to keep telling you little guys. One gets tough, the others try it, and then I got trouble. We like to keep things quiet. The boys were only doing a job." He belched and settled back in his chair. "They look for a girl. She ran in your place. You know something about this?"

"You know what I know. Them idiots bust in and looked around. They know what they saw."

"Sure. Nothing. They look all through that tenement and find the same thing. Only trouble is she don't get out on the roof or through the cellar and she don't have time to get any place else but to your joint."

"So?"

"So she knows where she's going."

"You're nuts."

Joe's gun muzzle slashed the top of my head open. It turned my skull into a white-hot sheet of flame that took too long to subside. Mannie was nodding approvingly, waiting.

Mannie said, "Maybe I'm wrong. Me, I got to be sure. You know where this dame is, you tell me. I got a C waiting. You want to hold out . . . so it's your funeral. Maybe later we find out we're wrong and you got to take a beating for no reason. I send you a C anyway. I'm a good guy. Meantime, you gotta hurt a little. You know how it is."

"Yeah," I said, "I know how it is, but since when are you playing it stupid?"

His brows twitched and rose in a slow gesture of surprise. "You think I am that, eh?"

"You're sure showing all the signs. What would anybody want with me?"

Mannie enjoyed his moment. He scraped his chair back from the table, folded his hands over his stomach, and smiled. "Now, that is something to think about, hey? So I'll tell you." He licked his lips with contentment and rumbled a laugh like Sidney Greenstreet used to in the Humphrey Bogart movies.

"The girl she runs in and don't come out. She don't have time to go anywhere but your place. Now, if you're a nothing, then she comes out. But if you're a something, then maybe not. So we ask around about you and find out some funny things. Used to be a big shot, hey? Reporter, and a hot one. You laid out Anthony Smith's bunch after the war and you was the guy who went to town on the Petersen snatch. You sure was a big one until you held out the wrong hand."

"So what?"

"So you're big two ways. This girl, when she runs she comes straight to the only big brain around who at the same time is muscle enough to take care of things the hard way. In all the block there's nobody but bums and punks and hookers. You're the only big one . . ." he pointed a finger at me to make his point ". . . and to you she goes."

"Look . . ."

"No," Mannie said. "You talk to me and I listen, but I won't look. Where is the girl?"

I spit on the floor in front of his feet. "Drop dead," I told him.

Mannie smiled indulgently again, his thick lips wetly red like fresh opened meat. "Take him upstairs, Joe," he said.

The rod went in my ribs again, a cold round rudder that showed me the way to the back, the iron staircase going to the third floor, the steel fire door, and the big room inside. It steered me toward the wall where the packing cases were and sensed when I was going to make my move because it beat me to the trick with a quick downward slash and I was all sobbing pain again, trying to yell out against the fire in my head and the insistent drumming of heavy feet on my ribs.

There were times when they would stop and ask about the girl and twice I almost told them but they didn't let me get my breath and after that I couldn't tell them. Then the feet and the hands and even the things they used stopped hurting and started to be nothing more than a nuisance and faraway sounds, and I drifted off into the deep black that's at the end of time.

They had used wire on my wrists and ankles and just left me there on the floor. I stared at the bare wood, tasted the dirt that had been ground into my mouth, and saw the dark red of the splotches my blood had made.

Any movement was pure torture and, when I managed to turn over, my breathing became a series of convulsive sobs that tried to tear my chest out. Somehow I got on my knees, my hands behind my back, fighting the terrible cramps that racked at pounded and beaten muscle tissue.

To one side, the heavily-barred window was showing a brighter gray now. Somewhere beyond the apartments and office buildings the sun was rising and soon the city would too.

There wasn't much time left.

Near me was a spool of baling wire. The two lengths I had been wrapped in came from that reel and seeing it there burned a little hole in my brain until I realized what it meant. There had to be cutters around somewhere.

I had to roll over completely three times to reach the packing crate. I lay on my side and lashed out with my feet until I had the crate rocking and finally tilted up against the wall. The next kick brought it over and with it the cutters that had been lying on top.

It was almost impossible to force life into my hands, but somehow it happened. I knelt there, fingering the cutters, and finally cut through the strands around my legs. It made life more bearable for a while and made it easier to recover the tool when I dropped it trying to free my hands.

Then it was done and the sun was a bright thing laying a wide band of light across the floor while it brought to life the city outside. There was a toilet and a basin in a cubicle in the corner and I soaked myself down, washing the cuts and cleaning the grime and dried blood from my face. It was bad, but I had awakened other times when it had been just as bad.

The band of sunlight was touching the far wall when I heard them coming. They stopped several times because Mannie Waller couldn't make the stairs all at once. Near the top, one got impatient as I knew he would and came on ahead. I laid the hunk of piping I had picked up across his head and caught him before he fell. I had him out of the way and his .38 in my hand before the other came up. The other one tried to yell before the pipe came down but it never reached his lips. The pipe smashed his forehead into a bloody mess and he tumbled into my arms and slid to the floor.

When Mannie came in the white sickness showed on his face and he stood still, absolutely still, trying hard to take his eyes off the two on the floor. He knew I had to be behind him. He knew I'd have a rod and he knew he was real close to being dead.

Touching the back of his skull with the muzzle of the .38 was only a gesture, but the effect was beautiful. Big Mannie, the Boss, the Head Man, went into a violent fit of trembling, making whimpering sounds that had a pleading tone to them.

I used the wire on all of them, twisted hard into the flesh so that you could barely see it. When Joe moaned and opened his eyes I kicked him insensible and let Mannie see it. Then I squatted down beside the fat man, the clippers in my hand opening and shutting suggestively, and in that movement and metallic sound he read all the terrible things that could possibly happen to him and his eyes rolled in his head.

I said, "You're going to talk, Mannie. I heard some things so I know what's going on, and if you lie I'll know it and it will be the last lie you'll tell me. You understand?"

He couldn't talk. Spit ran out of his mouth as he bobbed his head, never taking his eyes from the clippers.

"Who is the girl?"

Mannie wet his lips, trying desperately to say something. He finally made it. "Massley's kid."

"Rhino's?"

His jowls shook again with the nod. "Yeah, Rhino."

I paused, savoring the next moment. "He's alive then?"

The expression on his face made me wish I hadn't asked it. Even in his fear he was completely puzzled by it. He shook his head, swallowed hard, and said, "Rhino . . . he's dead."

"Then why do you want the girl?"

He tried not to say it, but when I moved those clippers toward his mouth he couldn't keep it in at all. "Rhino left papers . . . his wife had them."

"What kind of papers?"

"Big papers. They could send up lots of guys. They were . . . Rhino's cover . . . his protection. He even could break up . . . the organization with them."

"Why didn't you get them before this?"

"His woman. She knew where he kept them but she disappeared. Nobody knows until she dies where she is."

"What about the girl?"

"So she gets the papers, don't she? She comes east, what for if not to make contacts and use them. She's big trouble to everybody. She will die."

"And you were elected to kill her?"

He blubbered softly until I touched him with the clippers again. "I get orders . . . you know," he whimpered.

"From who?"

His eyes tried to bug out and his tongue was even too dry to dampen his mouth. "How . . . can I know. It's by phone. I get the word . . . then I do it."

"Names, Mannie."

You could smell the fear coming from his pores. He tried to talk and couldn't. "Okay," I said with a fat grin, "so maybe you don't know, but let me put in a word, too. If she dies, so will you, fatty."

"No! No . . . anybody will kill this girl. She is dangerous to many big people."

"But if she dies, you'll be right behind her, understand?"

He knew I wasn't going to kill him then. He nodded quickly, eager to please, then I gave him a boot that wiped all the eagerness off. I did it enough, so he knew what it was like to play it like back in the old days, and walked out. Only they wouldn't have it so easy. I still had the clippers in my back pocket.

I took another cab and waited until I got back to my place again before I let it all come through to me, bit by bit. I cleaned up right, shaved, and spoke to myself in the mirror. All the bits and pieces were starting to pull together and show signs of belonging to an orderly whole.

It made a nice, satisfying picture with only one ugly blot in the middle. Perhaps Rhino wasn't alive, but Terry still came from his loins. It was going to be hard to tell her that. But at the moment the prime thing was to keep her hidden. She was the target in the game from every angle. Orders were for the mob to take her. On top of that somebody else was dealing himself into the game. Somebody who said he was her father.

At the corner I called Dan Litvak and asked him to meet me in Rosario's in an hour. He got there right after I did, raised his eyebrows a little when he saw my face, but made no comment at all.

I said, "I need another favor, Dan. Check through the files and run down a Jean Stuart Massley."

"Still on that kick?"

"It's looking up."

"Anything you can tell me?"

I brought him up to date with all the details. His face never changed, but in back of his eyes strange things were happening. He let me finish, then said, "You think both Massleys were the same?"

"Could be."

"And if Rhino Massley is, as he seems to be . . . dead?"

I shrugged, "Then I want his papers. This whole thing started over those documents. I lost seven years because of them and now I want some kicks."

"Have you tried being sensible about the bit?"

"Like how?"

"Like how, if you handle this right, you can throw it back in a lot of faces the right way and maybe get back on top again. Make a story of it and every sheet in the country will want you on the staff."

"Nuts."

"Think it over anyway." He swilled the coffee down and climbed out of the booth. "Anything else you want?"

"Yes. Find out who the doctor was who handled Rhino's case. If you can get his medical history, so much the better."

"That shouldn't be hard."

I called from the Enfield Hotel lobby and she sounded a little breathless. It was as if she had been expecting me and all the anticipation showed in a few husky words. It was a heady feeling, thinking there was someone waiting. It had been a long time since there had been anything like that. And now it was only a thought and a foolish one at that. Who the hell was I to invite such thoughts at all? Phil Rocca, ex-con, the big nothing. Sweaty underwear, dirty shirt and somebody else's coat. Great.

Upstairs was a lovely woman. She was waiting, all right, because I might have some news about her old man. When I told her what I had, she wouldn't be waiting any more. So forget it, idiot boy. Let her just be something that happened and nothing more. Let's not get hurt again.

But it didn't happen like that. She was a smiling Valkyrie standing in the doorway, hair like a black waterfall on her shoulders and her hands out to take mine. Her eyes were laughing and her mouth told me she missed me. She laid her cheek against mine and squeezed my arm, then suddenly realized that there was a difference and her eyes went wide and she traced the shoe marks on my face with the tips of her fingers.

She asked, "Again?" and when I nodded she dropped her face into her hand and remained that way until I tilted her chin up.

"They were the same persons?"

"No, but the same outfit."

"What . . . did they want?"

I told her a half-truth. "To teach me a lesson. They didn't like me roughing up the hoods who started this party rolling."

She studied me, then said, "It's my father, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"When will you be sure?"

"Soon."

There wasn't long to wait. The phone rang sharply twice and when I picked it up Dan said, "Phil?"

"Here, Dan."

"I have that dope you wanted. Jean Stuart Massley was Rhino's real name, but the guy had a phobia about effeminate names and changed it someplace along the line. Apparently he hated women and this is what led to his divorce. His early record includes assault raps, mainly brought by women. He wouldn't even employ a female secretary. So he changed his name. Jean Stuart was pretty frilly to him. The John Lacy tag he used was the name of a fighter back in the old days, so he went along with that."

"Got the other?"

"Sure. The doctor was Thomas Hoyt. If you remember, he was the one the mob used back during the war. He was an alcoholic, but they straightened him out and put him back in business."

"Where is he?"

"Still in Phoenix, I imagine. He's not licensed in New York any longer. I couldn't pick up that medical history. It went with Hoyt from Mayberry to Phoenix and is probably still there. One of the old dames at Mayberry said it was a pretty quiet affair all the way around. Hoyt brought in a nurse from outside and nobody was allowed near Rhino at all while he was there. She supposed they were afraid of someone coming in and knocking Rhino off and it's a pretty good guess."

"Who was the nurse?"

"I didn't ask. Want me to check?"

"Never mind."

I hung up the phone and turned around. Terry hadn't moved.

"Now you know," she said.

"That's right. Now I know."

"You'll tell me?"

I nodded. "Rhino Massley was your father."

A shadow crossed her face. "You said he was dead."

"I said I thought he was dead. It's beginning to look like there isn't any other answer."

"But you're not sure."

"I will be."

"If he is dead, then, who is pretending to be my father?"

There wasn't any other way except to spell it out. I said, "Your father was a hood. He had documentary evidence that kept the right people in line and used it to stay on top. Your mother either lifted that stuff from him or he gave it to her to hold."

"But she never . . ."

"He might have had that much contact with her. She could still be useful even if she was divorced. Don't forget that Rhino was a louse." Her mouth pulled tight. "Sorry, kid, but that's the way it was."

"I understand."

"When it came out who your mother was, the mob assumed those documents would come to light, most likely in the inheritor's hands, which was you. They slapped a tail on you, not willing to move in until they knew where you were keeping the stuff.

"Then when they got wind of somebody else trying to come in on the deal they had to scratch off fast. They couldn't take a chance on anyone else getting it. If they could pick you up, they could squeeze out the information. If necessary, you were expendable. Knock you off and they could have time to search out what they wanted."

"But Phil . . ."

"What?"

"There isn't anything. You saw what mother left." Her eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. "There never has been anything. Surely she would have told me if there had been."

"Perhaps not. I want to look at that stuff again."

"Go ahead. I haven't touched it."

This time I dumped the lot on the bed and spread it out. I went over the papers searching for answers, but there was no more now than there had been.

To myself I said, "There has to be something else."

Terry heard me, came over and stood beside me and reached into her pocketbook. She handed me a leather folder. "Mother's wallet. She never carried a purse."

I took it from her fingers, opened the snap and leafed through the plastic cardholders inside. There was her driver's license, membership cards in local clubs, several gas credit cards, and two from L.A. restaurants. One folder held several news clippings, brittle and yellow, reporting events Terry had participated in in school. There were photos of her as a girl, two winter clothes storage receipts, a season ticket for the L.A. Dodger games, and a dime-thin ten-dollar gold piece.

"Did it help?"

"I can't see how," I told her. I put everything back where it was and handed it to her.

"Phil . . ."

Without realizing it, I had my arms around her, only now it was as if we had known each other a long, long time and I wasn't what I was at all. Her hair had the fragrance of some wild flower that I could pick whenever I wanted to. She lifted her head, her eyes going over my face. I kissed her gently, her eyes closing when our mouths touched. It was only for a moment, then I held her close and wondered where all the crazy hate went that I felt when I first saw her. And how long ago was it to then . . . years?

She said, "What shall I do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"If I stay somebody might . . . be hurt. It . . . might be you, Phil."

"I'm nobody. It wouldn't matter at all."

"To me it would."

My fingers tightened on her arms and she winced, but didn't try to pull away. "Don't talk like that. We haven't anything in common at all."

For a moment her face was blank, then shame and sudden shock touched her as with a strange hand, and the wetness that welled into her eyes overflowed to her cheeks and I could feel the sob working in her chest.

"Because my father . . . was this man . . . I'm no good. That's why, isn't it?"

Amazement pulled my face tight. "Are you crazy?" I said. "Sugar, I don't give a fat damn what your father was. You're class, kitten. You're a big, lovely woman with more class than a guy hardly ever gets to see at all."

"Phil . . ."

"No, just listen. I'm a bum, a slob. I did time, even if it was a bad rap, and things like that change a guy and stick with him a long while. All I had in my head in the beginning was to get the chance to knock off your old man and that one hope kept me going. For a while I thought I had it again. I was all geared up to kill and no matter what it cost I was ready for it. Knocking Rhino over would have been the happiest day of my life."

"Not now. You spoiled the picture for me. I could still hate him with everything inside me, but because you wanted him I couldn't touch him. That's what you've done to me. You got me all crazy gone and I can't even look at you without wanting to put my hands on you and I'm thinking all kinds of things I thought I had forgotten."

"But I'm not letting it rub off on you, girl. One touch of me and you'd be dirtied too, and the best thing I can do is to go back where I belong and let you alone. I'm going to run this bit down. I'm going to get it straight so nobody will be holding a sword over your head ever, and when I do it it's going to be so-long all the way and that's that."

Her hair shimmered with motion when she shook her head. "You can't do that, Phil."

"The hell I can't. Maybe another time it would have been different, but this is here and now and that's how it's going to be. Look at me. I'm lousy and dirty and a couple of days ago I was scrubbing for handouts so I could buy a jug. I run with the sewer rats now because there's no place else to go. I don't even care anymore, can't you tell? I like it this way. I can sit back and spit on the world and there's not a thing it can take away from me because I haven't got anything. So take a good look, kid, and you can see why I don't want anything rubbing off."

The tears were still there in eyes that were large and dark. "I don't see all those things at all," she said simply.

I took her hands away and held them. "You're all mixed up. So I did you a favor. I'll do one more. Keep it that way. Just say thanks and let it go."

She smiled, wiped back the tears that stained her cheeks, and said, "You're mixed up. If you think I'm going to let go of you just when I found you, then you're really mixed up."

Her hand came up and lightly stroked the side of my face. "There isn't any more past for either one of us. There is only now and later. Alone neither of us will be anything. Together we can be much. I want you, Phil."

This time I didn't try to keep her off.

Softly, she said, "Phil . . . I love you."

There wasn't any need to answer her. She knew. . . .

The Mayberry Sanatorium was a private institution 30 miles outside the city. It was a two-story, brick building set in the center of 15 acres and had been the private retreat of the wealthy for the past half century.

I had been up there a few times interviewing patients for the paper, and as far as I knew it had an excellent reputation. The head nurse was a Miss Mulligan, a good 60 years a spinster lady, but quick as a roach on her feet and with eyes that could snap the tail off a cat across a stone stoop.

For a moment I thought she remembered me, but the curiosity in her face passed and she acknowledged our introduction with a nod. I said, "A Mr. Litvak called here earlier for some information on a former patient."

"That's right. A police matter about Massley. That was some time ago."

"You gave him the information."

"I did."

"I see. Perhaps you can add a few points. Mr. Litvak said that the case had been handled very quietly."

"Secretly would be more like it."

"Did you see the patient?"

"Several times."

"He was . . . sick?"

This time her eyebrows shot up, then she saw what I meant. "We do get patients doing nothing more than recovering from prolonged drunkenness, or merely escaping from an unattractive home life or unpleasant business, but Mr. Massley certainly wasn't like that."

"Why not?"

"If you're going to feign sickness, there are easier and less expensive ways than faking polio."

"Uh-huh. Could be. Did you see him out of the lung?"

"Yes. I passed by when he was being handled. He was able to stay out a maximum of 30 minutes. However, neither I nor any staff nurse handled him. He had his own nurse."

"Who was she, do you remember?"

She rose, went to a wall cabinet, and opened the top drawer. From it she drew a folder, checked it, then handed it to me. "Everything is here."

The name at the top was Elena Harris. The hospital form she had filled out listed her age as 32, her address in the East 70s, and stated that she had graduated from a southern university and served at six different hospitals since. A letter of recommendation was included, written on Dr. Hoyt's stationery. At the bottom was a 2x2 photo of Nurse Harris that was typical of identification photographs in all respects except one. No camera and no uniform could make her anything else than beautiful. "Pretty," I said.

"That was her trouble." There was no malice in her statement, merely indifference.

I tapped the photo. "She seems familiar."

"Possibly. She was a type."

"Like how?"

"One to turn men's heads. She was a distracting influence while she was here."

"That was her trouble you mentioned?"

Miss Mulligan's nod was curt, again without any seeming malice. "She caused . . . well, rivalries, especially among the younger doctors."

"Deliberately?"

"No, I wouldn't say it was deliberate."

"Was she efficient?"

"I found no cause for complaint. Certainly Mr. Massley was satisfied. She scarcely ever left him. In fact, she was more than nurse to him."

"Oh?" I looked at her and waited.

"She took care of all his correspondence and seemed to be the intermediary between him and his business contacts. There were times when she acted rather the secretary than the nurse."

"You checked on her, of course."

"Naturally. In fact, she had an excellent scholastic record. As you notice, however, Mr. Massley was her first case in four years, although that isn't anything unusual. Quite often one returns to practice for private patients."

"I see. Can I keep this picture?"

"Yes. We have a duplicate upstairs."

"Thanks. Now, if it's within the realm of professional ethics, you might add something."

"We'll see."

"What is your personal opinion of Miss Harris?" At first I thought she would ignore the question entirely, then she said, "Could you give me a practical reason for your inquiry?"

Her eyes had seen a little too much of the world to be fooled by a lie or taken in by half-truths.

I said, "Massley was a hood. When he died he left behind information dangerous to certain persons. They think Massley's daughter has his documents and she's in line to be killed unless I can find them first. It's possible that anyone who was close to Massley could come up with something." I paused for a deep breath. "Now, what about her?"

Miss Mulligan's mouth tightened into a thin line, her nostrils pinched tight above it. "I see. Then perhaps my opinion won't be unethical. I mentioned that Harris was first, a nurse. Secondly, she was a confidante of a sort. Third, in her personal relationship with Mr. Massley I had the impression that he had been, or was, her lover."

"How did you determine that?"

For the first time Miss Mulligan showed the dull flush of emotion kept well under control. Her blush was faint, but definite. Her eyes left mine and sought her desktop.

"Our rooms do not have locks on the doors," she said a little breathlessly.

"I see. Were they aware that you happened on their . . . intimacies?"

A gentle whisper of a shudder touched Mulligan's shoulders and with a faraway gesture her tongue touched her lips, almost wistfully. "No," she said hesitantly. "They were . . . engrossed."

"But the lung . . . ?"

"What they . . . the lung didn't . . ." Then the deep red flooded up from her starched collar and she turned away quickly.

I let it stay there. Whatever could bring a flush to her face needed little further explanation.

I thanked her, but I don't think she heard me. I slipped the picture of Elena Harris in my jacket pocket, picked up my hat, and left. There was still a half hour before train time back into Manhattan, so I wasted it over coffee at the station diner.

From Grand Central I called Terry and had her meet me for supper at Lum Fong's. The junior executive crowd was there at the bar as usual, the deliberately casual eyes that scanned us via the big mirror showing almost professional consternation because they couldn't figure how a guy like me had a dame like her.

"You're lovely, doll," I told her. "Everybody here has eyes for you."

"You like it that way?"

She smiled, but now it was to hide the concern that came back again. "Is the trouble still big?"

"It's big." I told her most of the details of my visit with Miss Mulligan, then. "It could get bigger. Look, how much money can you get hold of fast?"

"I have $1,500 in traveler's checks at the hotel. Why?"

"I want to go to Phoenix. Phoenix is where your father . . . supposedly died. There may be some answers there. Now, do I get financed?"

"On one condition."

I raised my eyebrows and waited.

"That I go along," she said.

"Forget it. This won't be a fun trip and I can travel faster alone. Besides, I have something for you to do."

"Like what?"

I took Elena Harris' photo out of my pocket and handed it to her. "It's a little thought I have," I said. "Beautiful women usually make a stab at show business sometime or another. In the process they leave their pictures around. Do you think you could comb the agencies who might know something? I could . . ."

She didn't let me finish. She grinned and said, "I know the ropes. All of them. Many was the time I made the rounds. But can't I do this and go with you too?"

"No, because I want you to stick around to see about that contact at the Sherman."

The sudden stricken look of an animal caught off guard touched her face with fine taut lines. She was remembering the happy thought she had had in the beginning, the thought of seeing her father, and now, once again, she was being reminded that she never really had one.

"Is it . . . really necessary now?"

"Somehow that contact is a key to all this. It has to be run down."

"Phil . . ."

"Whoever it was is dangerous. The stakes are high in this game and you make up the rules as you go along. You're a necessary factor in the game because, as far as anybody is concerned, you know old Rhino's secret. Keep them in the dark and we'll have the edge."

"But we can't fight those people, Phil."

"I don't intend to," I said. "I know when to holler for the troops."

"Like when?"

"Like now."

I went to the row of phone booths at the back of the room and put in a call for Dan. When he answered I said, "Dan, I want to see the D.A. tonight. Can you arrange it?"

There was the queer sound of silence a second, then incredulously Dan said, "Cal Porter?"

I could almost see him shrug. "I'll see what I can do. Give me five minutes."

I let him have the time. When I called back he had the information. "Porter is at his desk right now having been called away from a supper party to preside at the questioning of a hot suspect in last night's park kill. He said he'd see you."

When I came back I hurried Terry into a cab and up to the hotel. She cashed $500 in traveler's checks, gave me the bundle, a smile, and a kiss for good luck.

"Be careful, Phil. Please."

"Don't worry about me. You're the one on the spot. I'm an idiot for letting you stand alone, but there isn't anybody else. If you get in trouble, you call Dan Litvak or the cops. Don't stop to think it out . . . just call."

"I will. You'll be back soon?"

"Two days will do it."

She smiled, her mouth softly damp, coming closer to mine. "I'll miss you," she said.

Dan's call opened the door for me, not too widely, but enough for five minutes of the big man's time. Cal Porter had turned gray over the years, the leanness of youth lost to the thickening effect of middle age.

He stood up when I entered and said, "Mr. Rocca?" It was merely a formal question.

I nodded.

"Sit down, please." He turned briefly and smiled at the hawk-faced woman clutching the steno pad. "You needn't stay, Miss Marie. We'll finish in the morning."

Porter didn't waste any time. "Dan Litvak said you have something on your mind."

"I need some information, Mr. Porter."

He reached for a cigarette and lit it without taking his eyes off mine. "Why?"

"Because it might help me bust a story, that's why."

"This has something to do with you personally." Again it was a statement.

"I wouldn't give a damn, otherwise," I told him. "I wasn't exactly rehabilitated in the can, Mr. Porter. I came out with about as much regard for the human race as I have for malaria and, if I had my choice between the two, I'd have taken the disease."

Porter let a small, grim smile touch his mouth. "That sounds like a former attitude. What is it now?"

"I haven't decided yet. I'm walking the fence."

"Any preference which way you want to jump?"

I shrugged. "I could be influenced."

"All right," he said unexpectedly, "how can I help?"

Before I could speak he took a deep pull on the butt, poked it out in an ashtray, and leaned back in his chair. "I'll tell you why I'm interested, Rocca. You may not realize it, but I made my reputation prosecuting your case. Secondly, knowing of your past abilities, I'm quite willing to make use of anything you might have to take another step."

"Like over my dead body?"

"That's right. If it will take me closer to the tall chair in Albany."

"Now you want to be governor," I said. I could feel my face start to tighten. "You're awfully friendly, Mr. Porter. I'm a punk, remember? Seven years con time and now a barnacle in tenement row and not a nickel's worth of whiskey credit."

"I've kept track." he told me. "Besides, Litvak is no fool. He thinks you're up to something. Now what do you want to know?"

Without sparring around I said, "When Rhino Massley died, what was the condition of the mobs?"

His expression changed slowly, not so much in his face as in the squint of his eyes and a tightening of his shoulders. He leaned forward on the desk, lacing his fingers together.

"You can read the papers."

"Nuts, buddy. You have more than that. It would have come out except that his kicking off left you holding a half-filled bag."

He waited a moment, then: "Very well. The mobs, let's say, were in good condition. Their activities increased ten times while law enforcement agencies remained at the same level. Crime of every sort has been on the increase about 15 percent or better each year. When Massley died it was, like now, at a peak. The cost-of-living index has gone up on all fronts, you see."

"Good. Now did Massley's death put any kind of a dent in mob activities?"

His fingers were showing white now and there were taut lines around his mouth. For a moment I thought he would hedge, then he looked at me seriously. "At the time nobody was willing to admit that there was such a thing as a Syndicate. The Mafia was active, but under control, and organized gangs seemed to have only local prominence."

"However, we found out later that in the face of increased activity on the part of such gangs, a close liaison was necessary for obvious business reasons. A large-scale pseudo-legitimate setup was necessary to front for criminal deals and an underworld bank sort of thing required to have ready funds for any new enterprise."

"Massley, we believe, was the banker. When he died there was quite a bit of consternation in various quarters and certain phases of action we had been alerted against failed to come off. The conclusion was that the money wasn't available for it."

"What happened to it?"

Porter shrugged. "Frankly, we don't know."

"Can you guess?"

The frown came back again. "I can," he said. He paused, unlaced his fingers, and folded his arms across his chest. "The 'bank' wasn't really big yet . . . it was in the trial stage, so to speak. My guess is that whoever took over after Massley had access to the money."

I shook my head. "You're playing games with me now. You want me to try?"

Porter nodded and sat there waiting. I said, "That was hidden money. Massley alone knew where it was. He didn't expect to die, so he wasn't setting himself up as a target for some outside operator to shoot at by making its whereabouts common knowledge or even putting it on paper. Massley was right at his job when he died and that loot is still around." I grinned at him. "How's that one?"

Porter's face had a courtroom look now. "And you know where it is?"

"No."

"You think you might have a lead?"

"Maybe. To even bigger things."

"Explain."

This time I laughed at him. "No, not now, buddy. I have some pretty wild ideas that I'm going to make pay off one way or another. If I'm right and you go along, they can even get you that tall chair in Albany. If I'm wrong nobody gets hurt but me."

"I see."

"I don't think you do, but thanks for talking to me. It was good to see you again after all these years."

He scowled but didn't say anything. I stood up and put on my hat. "There's one more thing I'd like you to know, Mr. Porter. It doesn't make any difference anymore, but I'd just like to get things straight."

"Oh?"

I grinned at his expression. "The rap you got your reputation on was a bum one, buddy. Massley had me framed like a Van Gogh original and you went the route to make it stick. That's water over the falls now and I just don't give a damn about it anymore. But it's just something I'd like you to keep in mind, okay?"

He knew then. He knew it as well as I knew it, but with him it came too quickly and the thought of it was a little too big to swallow all at once. His face got a pasty white color that was a wordless apology and a soundless attempt at explaining away the naiveté that comes with boundless ambition in public service.

I grinned again and left his office. Things were looking up again. One of his news items, properly placed in the scheme of things, pointed to an answer. That is, if certain other items fell properly into place.

I didn't bother with any baggage. I had been a slob too long to let a change of drawers bother me when I was in a hurry. I grabbed the bus out to Kennedy and picked up a ticket at the desk. I needn't have hurried because no flight was leaving until 7:50 and that gave me three hours to wait.

Two newspapers and a magazine later I still had an hour to kill and wandered to the men's room. That took care of 15 minutes. I unlocked the door to my dime booth, took one step out and thought, in the tiny second I could still think, that my brains went all over the room.

That took care of another 30 minutes. I was able to convince the two cops that I fell, but the doctor wasn't buying it. He said nothing, but I knew what he was thinking. The cops were all for throwing me out until I produced my ticket, then they helped me to a bench outside where I could wait until plane time.

The 30 bucks I had loose in my side pocket were gone. The rest of the bundle was safe way back under my shirt and for once it paid to have a few bindle stiff habits. I cursed silently at the pain in my skull and wondered what kind of an artist was shrewd enough to spot dough riding with a seedy looking character like me.

When the flight was announced, I got on, took two of the pills the doctor gave me, and didn't wake up until we hit Phoenix.

It was hot in Phoenix. I took a taxi to town, had a large bowl of chili at the counter in the bus terminal, then found the address of the Board of Health in the phone directory.

The girl at the desk was a lovely tanned kid, in an off-the-shoulder Mexican blouse, with a quick smile, who said hello in a breathless way that made me wonder what she was doing working for the city. She took one look at my clothes and said, "Visitor?"

I said, "I'm trying to find a doctor."

"You don't look sick." Her mouth hid a smile.

"What I got a doctor won't cure, sugar." She blushed a little and made a face at me. "The doctor I want is a Thomas Hoyt. He was out here several years ago."

"Hoyt." She put a knuckle to her teeth, thought a moment, then said, "I know who you mean. Let me find out." It didn't take long. She came back with two cards she had scribbled notations on. She glanced at me, then asked, "Friend?"

"No."

She seemed relieved somehow. "Oh. Well . . . Dr. Hoyt is dead. He's been dead quite a few years."

"What happened?"

"I really don't know, but he died. October second, 1965."

The cold feeling hit me again. Inside, everything seems to drop out momentarily and it never does go back into place right. "You're sure? There wouldn't be two Dr. Hoyts?"

She shook her head. "I'm positive."

Outside I had the cabby take me down to the newspaper offices and I paid him off there.

Everybody was friendly in Phoenix. They all smiled and were all glad to help. The young fellow I asked about seeing back issues of the sheet took personal charge and brought back the issue I wanted. I sat down at a table, spread out the paper, and found the story about Dr. Thomas Hoyt on an inside page.

It was all very simple, very cut and dried. He and a friend by the name of Leo Grant were coming back from a hunting trip in the mountains, tried to take a turn too fast in their jeep, and hurtled off the road. Both were killed and it was several days before the wreck or the bodies were found.

I just started on the interesting part when the tall fellow in a short-sleeved sport shirt sat down beside me and said, "Howdy."

I said hello as politely as I could.

"My name is Stack. Joe Stack," he told me. "I handle police stuff."

"Really?"

"Mind telling me what's so interesting?" he motioned toward the paper with his thumb.

I got the pitch right away. "Somebody else been reading up?"

He nodded, his face expressionless.

There are ways you can play people and ways you can't and this one I decided to play straight. I said, "I'm Phil Rocca. You might have heard of me. I took a big fall eight years ago and right now I'm trying to catch up."

His eyebrows furrowed. "Rocca," he mused. "Rocca . . . sure, I remember that trial. I was with a sheet in Boston then. Hell, yes, I remember you. What are you doing here?"

"It was a bum rap, friend. I'm out to prove it. It might seem silly, but I'd like to get back in the field again and the only way I can do it is to shove that rap where it belongs. That whole deal was wrapped up in Rhino Massley and I'm trying to pick it apart. Rhino's big club that kept him on top was some damn hot evidence that kept key people in line. When Rhino died he left it somewhere, and that, buddy, I'd like to come up with."

I grinned at him and let him have some more. Oh, not too much. If it ever broke it was going to be my story, or at least something I could sell or bargain with. But I leaked enough to make Stack's eyes go a little bright at the thought of what could come out of the thing.

When I finished I asked, "Who else was after the paper?"

"A local boy. He's new in town and hasn't got a record, but word came in that he's a representative for the big ones on either coast. We don't know what's in the works, but we know he's got something going for him. As soon as two people asked for the same issue, Carey over there buzzed me upstairs. Now, what's the poop?"

"Hoyt was Rhino Massley's personal physician."

"Yeah, I remember. He has some mob connections back east. He never had an outside practice here at all."

Then I pointed to the interesting part. "The friend who was killed in the same wreck is listed as having been a prominent mortician here in town."

Stack pulled the paper over to him and scanned the item. "Uh-huh. I knew him slightly. Close-mouthed guy who started up after the war. What about him?"

"Any way of finding out who did the embalming on Rhino's body?"

His eyes pulled tight, then he nodded and got up. He spent a few minutes at the phone down the end then came back and sat down. "It was him. Leo Grant. Rhino's doctor and mortician were both killed in the same wreck."

"Unusual?"

He shrugged. "Not so. Their fields are related, they worked together with the same patient, they could have been friends."

"Any way of finding out?"

"Possibly. I'll try. How does it matter?"

"Let's say that you come up with the answer, and I'll tell you how it matters. Fair enough?"

He flipped a card from his pocket and handed it to me. "You can get me at any of those three numbers. And look, where are you staying?"

"No place yet, but I'll find a flop."

"Then try the Blue Sky Motel. Harry Coleman is a friend of mine and will treat you right. You on wheels?"

"No."

He picked the card from my hand, scribbled something on it, and handed it back. "Take it to the Mermak garage. They'll rent you wheels without breaking your back."

"Thanks."

There was no hitch in getting a car. I picked a two-year-old Ford, paid out three days in advance, got directions from the clerk to the Blue Sky Motel, and drove out to meet Harry Coleman. He was a big, genial guy tanned to his elbows and neck, but otherwise, like most of the natives, a sun-dodger. He put me in a duplex all the way down the row of buildings, brought me a paper, a cold can of beer, and some ice.

I wondered if I could do it or not. One lousy drink could have set me off anytime a week ago. Somehow now it was different, and sooner or later I was going to have to find out.

It went down just right. It tasted good and was just enough. I looked at myself in the mirror and winked.

Then I flopped down on the bed and let the sleep ooze over me.

When I woke up I called the desk and found out that it was 7:30 and that I had wasted the whole afternoon.

Before I left I got the operator and gave her Terry's hotel in New York. We got right through and she answered on the second ring with a querulous "Yes?"

"Phil, honey."

"Oh, Phil!" She caressed my name the way no one else ever had. "Are you in Phoenix?"

"Here and working, kitten."

"What did you find out?" She said it almost breathlessly and waited for my answer.

"Nothing I can put in logical sequence yet. I've got some ideas but they'll have to keep."

"Phil" . . . and now she sounded worried, "you will be careful, won't you?"

"Don't worry about me, kid. Now, how did you make out? Anything on Harris?"

"Well, I went to several places and in three of them she was recognized at once. She had had a stage career right after high school, went through nurse's training and, instead of going into a hospital, went back to the stage. She had numerous small Broadway parts, several minor Hollywood things, and some TV work. Between engagements she served as a nurse in several hospitals but would give up nursing immediately for a stage part."

"Did anyone know where she could be found?"

"No, the last address they had on her was Phoenix. In fact, one agency wanted her very badly for a part. I even tried the unions and a press agent from Hollywood who was here in town, but she's dropped completely out of sight."

I let it run through my mind for a minute, then said, "Okay, kid, you did fine. Now stay put until I get back and keep checking on that contact at the Sherman."

"How long will you be there, Phil?"

"Another day at least. Can you hang on?"

"As long as I know I have you."

I grinned at the phone and threw her a kiss. "You have me, baby. I just hope you know what you're doing."

She said so-long with a kiss of her own and hung up.

I had a fine Mexican supper at the Sign of the Gaudy Parrot and found out what I needed to know by asking just one question . . . where Rhino Massley's old place was. In a small way he was a local legend for having left his place to a polio research foundation.

His old ranch was in the long shadows of the mountains, a compact group of buildings built to give a western touch to modern design. At the main building I blew my horn until lights came on from inside, then went up on the porch and waited. The man who opened the door was bald and in his 70s and not at all friendly like the bunch back in town. He looked me up and down and in no uncertain voice said, "What the hell you want?"

I let a laugh rumble around in my throat, then pushed the door open and squeezed inside, "Hello, Buster," I said.

The gun he was trying to clear from the back of his pants came loose and dangled from his hand. The skin on his face pulled tight until wrinkles showed in his scalp. "How come you make me?"

"Easy enough, Buster. You want the whole rundown just to show you how much I know?"

"Knock it off." His voice was real uncertain this time.

Buster Lafarge was one of the old-time killers from the roaring '20s. He was wanted by three states and the Feds and I personally knew five people who would pay 100 grand to have old Buster delivered alive to their private basements for old times' sake.

I held out my hand. "The heater, friend."

It was strictly his kind of rod, a big blue Army .45 that could knock a horse down. He laid it in my hand and I could feel him shaking when he touched me. All the toughness has gone out of him long ago. He was old now, too old to fight and just old enough to want to hang on to the last inch life had to give him.

He said, "Pal . . . look, I . . . I . . ."

"What're you doing here, Buster?"

"Pal . . . ."

"I can make money on you, you know that," I said. "I could drop you now and take a payoff or bring you in still kicking."

This time his voice came out in a dry rasp. "Jeez, pal, what'd I do? I don't know you. Look, pal . . ."

"What're you doing here?" I repeated.

Buster's shoulders sagged with the weight of the load he carried. "Rhino . . . he gimme the job here. They got to keep me on here. It's in his will. Jeez, pal. . . ."

"What do you do?"

"Nothing. What the hell can I do? I can't go no place. So I sweep up and paint some and keep the yard clean and make sure Rhino's grave is okay and that's all."

"Where's this grave you take care of?"

"West. About a quarter of a mile. By the palm grove."

"Good. Get a couple of shovels, Buster."

"What for?"

"We're going to dig old Rhino up, that's what for."

Very slowly he backed away from me, his eyes wide. "Man, you're plain crazy. Nuts. You got bats!"

"Out," I said. "Shovels."

A thick cluster of palms smothered the grave with a protective apron, screening it from casual eyes. The ground was flat, like a putting green and, instead of the ornate headstone I expected, a small bronze plaque on a marble backing nestled in the grass. The inscription was as simple as the setting. From overhead the light of night filtered through the gently moving fronds of the palms giving the place a peculiar life of its own.

I made Lafarge spread-eagle himself on the ground while I dug so I could keep him in sight, and when I was halfway down I threw him the shovel and made him get into the hole. He was caught between me on top and Rhino below and with every shovel full of dirt he tossed up came a whining moan broken with an occasional sob. He was a miserable slob, but in his time he had put enough people into the same kind of hole he was in now, and I wasn't wasting any sympathy on him at all.

He was completely out of sight, handing me the shovel with every stroke to throw the dirt up, when he hit the coffin. Even in the darkness I could sense what came over him, a sudden terror too great to call out, too big to run away from. He turned his head up slowly, the whites of his eyes almost fluorescent in the black pit of the grave.

I said, "Scrape it clean."

Mechanically, he went to clearing off the boxlike affair that covered the casket, each motion forced, each moment bringing Lafarge closer to that one second of supreme terror.

In a way it was laughable. Lafarge who had been afraid of no man and who had killed many with his own hand was shaking with fear of meeting one who could do nothing to him at all. Nothing.

I had to jump in the hole to help him tear the boards off to expose the coffin. They were pulpy rotten with time, smelling of mold, and came up easily. Then there was old Rhino Massley's last bed and I had the point of the shovel banging into the edge until it broke loose.

And now I'd know the answer.

I carved a niche into the wall and made Lafarge stand in it while I climbed out. He looked like a shrunken-up gnome standing there, shivering silently at the thought of what I was going to make him do.

"Open it," I said.

His voice was barely audible. "No. Please, Mac . . . no."

He heard the hammer of the .45 come back and it was enough. His whine turned into jerky sobs and he reached for the lid of the coffin. Twice it slipped from his fingers, then with a convulsive heave he had it open and when I struck the match he took one look at what was inside, gagged with sheer fright, and collapsed in a faint that jammed the lid wide open.

Rhino Massley's body was a bag of sand.

It was a heady feeling knowing I had been right. The excitement was pounding in my chest and head, making my ears ring. I laughed out loud right where I stood and the sound of it was just enough to cover up the sudden rush of feet until it was too late.

The first one got me across the back of the neck, then struck again across the skull. I yelled, tried to get up, but there were others on me then. I was half over the edge of the open grave when a gun roared in my ears and below me somebody let out a pitiful wail. Then it was my head again and I was falling into the pit myself, the one I helped dig with my own hands.

It hit across the thing in the bottom without feeling, a strange and new sensation like being dead, I thought. I could still hear sounds, the yells of men, and twice the hollow reverberations like far off thunder. Then as suddenly as it happened the numbness of that brief half-life was swept away on a sea of pain.

Above me somebody said, "Rocca . . . hey, Rocca . . ." and a shaft of light flooded the grave.

It hurt, but I propped an arm under me and pushed up.

"He's okay. Can you take care of those two, Johnny?"

Another voice said, "They're not going anyplace."

There was a scrambling into the hole, a long drawn-out whistle as the person realized what was there, then hands hooked under my armpits and dragged me to my feet.

"You all right?"

The light swept over me and in its beam I saw Joe Stack, the front of him covered with dirt and blood trickling down one side of his face.

I nodded. "I'm okay." I spit out the taste of mold and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. "Lafarge?"

Joe turned the light on the open end of the coffin. It was partially filled now by a sandbag and a man, and there was no difference between either because all both were, was dirt. A bullet had nearly taken the top of Lafarge's head off and the cycle for him was complete.

The .45 was half covered by dirt and I didn't leave it there. I picked it up, and without bothering to clean it, shoved it under my belt out of sight.

Joe said, "Ready to go up?"

"Sure."

He gave me a hoist and I sprawled on the mound of dirt we had thrown up, the sudden, stunning pain in the back of my head tearing down the muscles of my back and into my legs. Another light was going over me, taking in every detail, the reflection of it bouncing off the one who held it, a tall, heavyset guy with blood on his face.

"This is the one?"

I heard Joe answer, "That's him."

"He's got plenty to talk about."

My head was clearing again. I managed to get to my knees, then on my feet. I felt myself grinning foolishly at the big guy. "Who're you?"

"Police. You were lucky, mister."

He flashed the light down beside him. The two motionless shadows I had assumed to be mounds of dirt turned into men, handcuffed back to back.

"There was another one," the cop said. "He got away."

"Put your light back on them."

The beam of the flash traced a path to their heads. "Know them?"

I nodded. "One. He's a hood named Joe Coon who works for Mannie Waller in New York. The other one is new to me."

"He's local. Been here for a couple of years. Tough punk who has a small record but a big reputation. We've always pegged him for a hired gun for the L.A. bunch."

"What about the other one?"

I felt the cop shrug. "We heard his car. He took off."

"That's great."

"Why sweat. These two will talk. We'll pick him up."

Joe Stack said, "Let's not make it easy for him. Suppose I get back to town with Rocca here and get your office to work."

The cop hesitated and I saw him scowl. "I don't like it."

"Listen, Johnny, you wouldn't have tied into this one at all if I didn't steer you to it. I tried to tell you this was different and you should have seen enough to know this is hot. Now throw it through channels and you'll blow the ass right off the bit. Either play it the way I suggested or lose it and look like a fool. I know what Rocca's bumping. Don't louse him up or he won't be telling you or anybody else anything and, as far as I'm concerned, I don't blame him."

"Damn it, Stack, he'll talk too, if I want him to!"

Joe's breath came in with a hiss. "Don't rub me, Johnny. I'm from the Fourth Estate, remember?"

"He's not."

"Like hell. He is as of right now. If he wants, I'm putting him on my staff. How do you like them apples?"

The cop grunted, shook his head, and scowled. "Okay, Chief Bigheart, I'll go along. Sometimes it's better this way. Take the car and send out Aldridge and Garcia. How much time are you going to need?"

Stack glanced in my direction. I said, "What time is it?"

"Almost 10:30."

"We'll have something in the morning."

"It better be something for me, friend."

"You aren't alone," I told him. "This isn't local."

"Okay, I'm a sucker. I'm lucky I have 20 years in without any strikes. This could cost me."

Stack took my arm. "Let's go. Can you make it to the house?"

"If we don't run."

"Jokes yet he tells," the cop said.

Stack made the call to Aldridge and Garcia from his own office.

When he hung up I put down the almost-finished highball he made up for me and took the towel off my head.

"Fine. Now cut me in," I said. "You were there at the grave like gangbusters."

"I gave you the Mermak and the Blue Sky Motel so I could stay with you. Man, I was on your tail ever since you left the building here. Now let's hear your side. Where did the boys come from?"

"I thought about it all the way back. Before I left New York I got creamed in the men's room of the airfield. I thought it was for some loot, but that was a cover. Somebody sapped me, took a look at my airline ticket in time to get on the same plane. That was buddy Joe Coon. He was the one I told you about."

"That Mannie Waller deal?"

I nodded.

"Back in New York the word is going out fast. Rhino Massley isn't dead at all. His grave is empty. Ten to one the lad who got away put in a fast phone call to the office."

"So what's the next step?"

I pointed to his desk. "Can I use the phone?"

"Be my guest."

I picked up the receiver, dialed the operator and gave her the number of the Enfield Hotel, person-to-person to Terry. The hotel PBX rang for a full minute, then gave me a DA. Nobody answered. I cancelled the call and put in another to Dan Litvak, at Rooney's.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Phoenix."

"Oh? What's with Rhino Massley?"

"Rhino's grave was empty. He's not dead."

"It's your deal, kid. Go on."

"Swell! Now do you think you can influence Cal Porter to start some action on this thing?"

"Like how?"

I told him what happened back at Rhino's old place and listened to him let out a long low hiss. I said, "Give it to Porter straight, but don't let him start blowing any whistles. First have him check the State Department and steamship lines for anything on Elena Harris, Rhino's former nurse. The date would be shortly after he supposedly died. Okay. Then see if you can run down the Harris dame wherever she is. The paper ought to foot the phone calls."

"That's it then?"

"Maybe you can lean on Porter a little bit. Make sure he has somebody on Waller from here on in. If there's a political rub, he might want to play it cool."

I hung up. Stack was looking at me with a little grin. "Don't be giving anything away, friend. You're on the staff now, remember?" He handed me a fresh drink across the table and I took it mechanically. Without realizing it I held it in my hand a long minute before raising it to my mouth and when I did it was the full realization that the old compulsion was gone completely.