Woman in the Dark

Two The Police Close In

Luise came to him with her hands out. “But you are not to blame. They can’t—”

“You don’t get it,” his monotonous voice went on. He turned away from her toward the front door, walked mechanically. “This is what they sent me up for the other time. It was a drunken free-for-all in a roadhouse, with bottles and everything, and a guy died. I couldn’t say they were wrong in tying it on me.” He opened the door, made his automatic pretense of looking out, shut the door, and moved back toward her.

“It was manslaughter that time. They’ll make it murder if this guy dies. See? I’m on record as a killer.” He put a hand up to his chin. “It’s airtight.”

“No, no.” She stood close to him and took one of his hands. “It was an accident that his head struck the fireplace. I can tell them that. I can tell them what brought it all about. They cannot—”

He laughed with bitter amusement, and quoted Grant: “‘The strumpet’s word confirms the convict’s.’”

She winced.

“That’s what they’ll do to me,” he said, less monotonously now. “If he dies I haven’t got a chance. If he doesn’t they’ll hold me without bail till they see how it’s coming out-assault with intent to kill or murder. What good’ll your word be? Robson’s mistress leaving him with me? Tell the truth and it’ll only make it worse. They’ve got me” — his voice rose — “and I can’t live in a cell again!” His eyes jerked around toward the door. Then he raised his head with a rasping noise in his throat that might have been a laugh. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll go screwy indoors tonight.”

“Yes,” she said eagerly, putting a hand on his shoulder, watching his face with eyes half frightened, half pitying. “We will go.”

“You’ll need a coat.” He went into the bedroom. She found her slippers, put on the right one, and held the left one out to him when he returned. “Will you break off the heel?”

He draped the rough brown overcoat he carried over her shoulders, took the slipper from her, and wrenched off the heel with a turn of his wrist. He was at the front door by the time she had her foot in the slipper.

She glanced swiftly once around the room and followed him out...

She opened her eyes and saw daylight had come. Rain no longer dabbled the coupe’s windows and windshield, and the automatic wiper was still. Without moving, she looked at Brazil. He was sitting low and lax on the seat beside her, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding a cigarette on his knee. His sallow face was placid and there was no weariness in it. His eyes were steady on the road ahead.

“Have I slept long?” she asked.

He smiled at her. “An hour this time. Feel better?” He raised the hand holding the cigarette to switch off the headlights.

“Yes.” She sat up a little, yawning. “Will we be much longer?”

“An hour or so.” He put a hand in his pocket and offered her cigarettes.

She took one and leaned forward to use the electric lighter in the dashboard. “What will you do?” she asked when the cigarette was burning.

“Hide out till I see what’s what.”

She glanced sidewise at his placid face, said: “You too feel better.”

He grinned somewhat shamefacedly. “I lost my head back there, all right.”

She patted the back of his hand once, gently, and they rode in silence for a while. Then she asked: “We are going to those friends of whom you spoke?”

“Yes.”

A dark coupé with two uniformed policemen in it came toward them, went past. The woman looked sharply at Brazil. His face was expressionless.

She touched his hand again, approvingly.

“I’m all right outdoors,” he explained. “It’s walls that get me.”

She screwed her head around to look back. The policemen’s car had passed out of sight.

Brazil said: “They didn’t mean anything.” He lowered the window on his side and dropped his cigarette out. Air blew in, fresh and damp. “Want to stop for coffee?”

“Had we better?”

An automobile overtook them, crowded them to the edge of the road in passing, and quickly shot ahead. It was a black sedan traveling at the rate of sixty-five or more miles an hour. There were four men in it, one of whom looked back at Brazil’s car.

Brazil said: “Maybe it’d be safer to get under cover as soon as we can; but if you’re hungry—”

“No; I too think we should hurry.”

The black sedan disappeared around a bend in the road.

“If the police should find you, would” — she hesitated — “would you fight?”

“I don’t know,” he said gloomily. “That’s what’s the matter with me. I never know ahead of time what I’ll do.” He lost some of his gloominess. “There’s no use worrying. I’ll be all right.”

They rode through a crossroads settlement of a dozen houses, bumped over railroad tracks, and turned into a long straight stretch of road paralleling the tracks. Halfway down the level stretch, the sedan that had passed them was stationary on the edge of the road. A policeman stood beside it — between it and his motorcycle — and stolidly wrote on a leaf of a small book while the man at the sedan’s wheel talked and gestured excitedly.

Luise Fischer blew breath out and said: “Well, they were not police.”

Brazil grinned.

Neither of them spoke again until they were riding down a suburban street. Then she said: “They — your friends — will not dislike our coming to them like this?”

“No,” he replied carelessly; “they’ve been through things themselves.”

The houses along the suburban street became cheaper and meaner, and presently they were in a shabby city street where grimy buildings with cards saying “Flats to Let” in their windows stood among equally grimy factories and warehouses. The street into which Brazil after a little while steered the car was only slightly less dingy, and the rental signs were almost as many.

He stopped the car in front of a four-story red brick building with broken brownstone steps. “This is it,” he said, opening the door.

She sat looking at the building’s unlovely face until he came around and opened the door on her side. Her face was inscrutable. Three dirty children stopped playing with the skeleton of an umbrella to stare at her as she went with him up the broken steps.

The street door opened when he turned the knob, letting them into a stuffy hallway where a dim light illuminated stained wallpaper of a once-vivid design, ragged carpet, and a worn brassbound staircase.

“Next floor,” he said, and went up the stairs behind her.

Facing the head of the stairs was a door shiny with new paint of a brown peculiarly unlike any known wood. Brazil went to this door and pushed the bell button four times — long, short, long, short. The bell rang noisily just inside the door.

After a moment of silence, vague rustling noises came through the door, followed by a cautious masculine voice: “Who’s there?”

Brazil put his head close to the door and kept his voice low: “Brazil.”

The fastenings of the door rattled, and it was opened by a small, wiry blond man of about forty in crumpled green cotton pajamas. His feet were bare. His hollow-cheeked and sharp-featured face wore a cordial smile, and his voice was cordial. “Come in, kid,” he said. “Come in.” His small, pale eyes appraised Luise Fischer from head to foot while he was stepping back to make way for them.

Brazil put a hand on the woman’s arm and urged her forward, saying: “Miss Fischer, this is Mr. Link.”

Link said, “Pleased to meet you,” and shut the door behind them.

Luise Fischer bowed.

Link slapped Brazil on the shoulder. “I’m glad to see you, kid. We were wondering what had happened to you. Come on in.”

He led them into a living room that needed airing.

There were articles of clothing lying around, sheets of newspaper here and there, a few not quite empty glasses and coffee cups, and a great many cigarette stubs. Link took a vest off a chair, threw it across the back of another, and said: “Take off your things and set down, Miss Fischer.”

A very blonde full-bodied woman in her late twenties said, “My God, look who’s here!” from the doorway and ran to Brazil with wide arms, hugged him violently, kissed him on the mouth. She had on a pink wrapper over a pink silk nightgown and green mules decorated with yellow feathers.

Brazil said, “Hello, Fan,” and put his arms around her. Then, turning to Luise Fischer, who had taken off her coat: “Fan, this is Miss Fischer, Mrs. Link.”

Fan went to Luise Fischer with her hand out. “Glad to know you,” she said, shaking hands warmly. “You look tired, both of you. Sit down and I’ll get you some breakfast, and maybe Donny’ll get you a drink after he covers up his nakedness.”

Luise Fischer said, “You are very kind,” and sat down.

Link said, “Sure, sure,” and went out.

Fan asked: “Been up all night?”

“Yes,” Brazil said. “Driving most of it.” He sat down on the sofa.

She looked sharply at him. “Anything the matter you’d just as lief tell me about?”

He nodded. “That’s what we came for.”

Link, in bathrobe and slippers now, came in with a bottle of whiskey and some glasses.

Brazil said: “The thing is, I slapped a guy down last night and he didn’t get up.”

“Hurt bad?”

Brazil made a wry mouth. “Maybe dying.”

Link whistled, said: “When you slap ’em, boy, they stay slapped.”

“He cracked his head on the fireplace,” Brazil explained. He scowled at Link.

Fan said: “Well, there’s no sense worrying about it now. The thing to do is get something in your stomachs and get some rest. Come on, Donny, pry yourself loose from some of that booze.” She beamed on Luise Fischer. “You just sit still and I’ll have some breakfast in no time at all.” She hurried out of the room.

Link, pouring whiskey, asked: “Anybody see it?”

Brazil nodded. “Uh-huh — the wrong people.” He sighed wearily. “I want to hide out a while, Donny, till I see how it’s coming out.”

“This dump’s yours,” Link said. He carried glasses of whiskey to Luise Fischer and Brazil. He looked at the woman whenever she was not looking at him.

Brazil emptied his glass with a gulp.

Luise Fischer sipped and coughed.

“Want a chaser?” Link asked.

“No, I thank you,” she said. “This is very good. I caught a little cold from the rain.”

She held the glass in her hand, but did not drink again.

Brazil said: “I left my car out front. I ought to bury it.”

“I’ll take care of that, kid,” Link promised.

“And I’ll want somebody to see what’s happening up Mile Valley way.”

Link wagged his head up and down. “Harry Klaus is the mouthpiece for you. I’ll phone him.”

“And we both want some clothes.”

Luise Fischer spoke: “First I must sell these rings.”

Link’s pale eyes glistened. He moistened his lips and said: “I know the—”

“That can wait a day,” Brazil said. “They’re not hot, Donny. You don’t have to fence them.”

Donny seemed disappointed.

The woman said: “But I have no money for clothes until—”

Brazil said: “We’ve got enough for that.”

Donny, watching the woman, addressed Brazil: “And you know I can always dig up some for you, kid.”

“Thanks. We’ll see.” Brazil held out his empty glass, and when it had been filled said: “Hide the car, Donny.”

“Sure.” The blond man went to the telephone in an alcove and called a number.

Brazil emptied his glass. “Tired?” he asked.

She rose, went over to him, took the whiskey glass out of his hand, and put it on the table with her own, which was still almost full.

He chuckled, asked: “Had enough trouble with drunks last night?”

“Yes,” she replied, not smiling, and returned to her chair.

Donny was speaking into the telephone: “Hello, Duke?... Listen; this is Donny. There’s a ride standing outside my joint.” He described Brazil’s coupe. “Will you stash it for me?... Yes... Better switch the plates too... Yes, right away, will you?... Right.” He hung up the receiver and turned back to the others, saying: “Voily!”

“Donny!” Fan called from elsewhere in the flat.

“Coming!” He went out.

Brazil leaned toward Luise Fischer and spoke in a low voice: “Don’t give him the rings.”

She stared at him in surprise. “But why?”

“He’ll gyp you to hell and gone.”

“You mean he will cheat me?”

He nodded, grinning.

“But you say he is your friend. You are trusting him now.”

“He’s O.K. on a deal like this,” he assured her. “He’d never turn anybody up. But dough’s different. Anyhow, even if he didn’t trim you, anybody he sold them to would think they were stolen and wouldn’t give half of what they’re worth.”

“Then he is a—” She hesitated.

“A crook. We were cellmates a while.”

She frowned and said: “I do not like this.”

Fan came to the door, smiling, and said: “Breakfast is served. “

In the passageway Brazil turned and took a tentative step toward the front door, but checked himself when he caught Luise Fischer’s eye and, grinning a bit sheepishly, followed her and the blonde woman into the dining room.

Fan would not sit down with them. “I can’t eat this early,” she told Luise Fischer. “I’ll get you a hot bath ready and fix your bed, because I know you’re all in and’ll be ready to fall over as soon as you’re done.”

She went out, paying no attention to Luise Fischer’s polite remonstrances.

Donny stuck a fork into a small sausage and said: “Now about them rings. I can—”

“That can wait,” Brazil said. “We’ve got enough to go on a while.”

“Maybe; but it’s just as well to have a getaway stake ready in case you need it all of a sudden.” Donny put the sausage into his mouth. “And you can’t have too big a one.”

He chewed vigorously. “Now, for instance, you take the case of Shuffling Ben Devlin. You remember Ben? He was in the carpenter shop. Remember? The big guy with the gam?”

“I remember,” Brazil replied without enthusiasm. Donny stabbed another sausage. “Well, Ben was in a place called Finehaven once and—”

“He was in a place called the pen when we knew him,” Brazil said.

“Sure; that’s what I’m telling you. It was all on account of Ben thought—”

Fan came in. “Everything’s ready whenever you are,” she told Luise Fischer.

Luise Fischer put down her coffee cup and rose. “It is a lovely breakfast,” she said, “but I am too tired to eat much.”

As she left the room Donny was beginning again: “It was all on account of—”

Fan took her to a room in the rear of the flat where there was a wide wooden bed with smooth white covers turned down. A white nightgown and a red wrapper lay on the bed. On the floor there was a pair of slippers. The blonde woman halted at the door and gestured with one pink hand. “If there’s anything else you need, just sing out. The bathroom’s just across the hall and I turned the water on.”

“Thank you,” Luise Fischer said; “you are very kind. I am imposing on you most—”

Fan patted her shoulder. “No friend of Brazil’s can ever impose on me, darling. Now, you get your bath and a good sleep, and if there’s anything you want, yell.” She went out and shut the door.

Luise Fischer, standing just inside the door, looked slowly, carefully around the cheaply furnished room, and then, going to the side of the bed, began to take off her clothes. When she had finished she put on the red wrapper and the slippers and, carrying the nightgown over her arm, crossed the hallway to the bathroom. The bathroom was warm with steam. She ran cold water into the tub while she took the bandages off her knee and ankle.

After she had bathed she found fresh bandages in the cabinet over the basin, and rewrapped her knee but not her ankle. Then she put on nightgown, wrapper, and slippers, and returned to the bedroom. Brazil was there, standing with his back to her, looking out a window.

He did not turn around. Smoke from his cigarette drifted back past his head.

She shut the door slowly and leaned against it, the faintest of contemptuous smiles curving her mobile lips.

He did not move.

She went slowly to the bed and sat on the side farthest from him. She did not look at him but at a picture of a horse on the wall. Her face was proud and cold. She said: “I am what I am, but I pay my debts.” This time the deliberate calmness of her voice was insolence. “I brought this trouble to you. Well, now, if you can find any use for me—” She shrugged.

He turned from the window without haste. His copperish eyes, his face were expressionless. He said: “O.K.” He rubbed the fire of his cigarette out in an ashtray on the dressing table and came around the bed to her.

She stood up straight and tall, awaiting him.

He stood close to her for a moment, looking at her with eyes that weighed her beauty as impersonally as if she had been inanimate. Then he pushed her head back rudely and kissed her.

She made neither sound nor movement of her own, submitting completely to his caress, and when he released her and stepped back, her face was as unaffected, as mask-like, as his.

He shook his head slowly. “No, you’re no good at your job.” And suddenly his eyes were burning and he had her in his arms and she was clinging to him and laughing softly in her throat while he kissed her mouth and cheeks and eyes and forehead.

Donny opened the door and came in. He leered knowingly at them as they stepped apart, and said: “I just phoned Klaus. He’ll be over as soon’s he’s had breakfast.”

“O.K.,” Brazil said.

Donny, still leering, withdrew, shutting the door. “Who is this Klaus?” Luise Fischer asked. “Lawyer,” Brazil replied absent-mindedly. He was scowling thoughtfully at the floor. “I guess he’s our best bet, though I’ve heard things about him that—” He broke off impatiently. “When you’re in a jam you have to take your chances.” His scowl deepened. “And the best you can expect is the worst of it.”

She took his hand and said earnestly: “Let us go away from here. I do not like these people. I do not trust them.”

His face cleared and he put an arm around her again, but abruptly turned his attention to the door when a bell rang beyond it.

There was a pause; then Donny’s guarded voice could be heard asking: “Who is it?”

The answer could not be heard. Donny’s voice, raised a little: “Who?”

Nothing was heard for a short while after that. The silence was broken by the creaking of a floorboard just outside the bedroom door. The door was opened by Donny. His pinched face was a caricature of alertness. “Bulls,” he whispered. “Take the window.” He was swollen with importance.

Brazil’s face jerked around to Luise Fischer.

“Go!” she cried, pushing him toward the window. “I will be all right.”

“Sure,” Donny said; “me and Fan’ll take care of her. Beat it, kid, and slip us the word when you can. Got enough dough?”

“Uh-huh.” Brazil was kissing Luise Fischer.

“Go, go!” she gasped.

His sallow face was phlegmatic. He was laconic. “Be seeing you,” he said, and pushed up the window. His foot was over the sill by the time the window was completely raised. His other foot followed the first immediately, and, turning on his chest, he lowered himself, grinning cheerfully at Luise Fischer for an instant before he dropped out of sight.

She ran to the window and looked down. He was rising from among weeds in the unkempt backyard. His head turned quickly from right to left. Moving with a swiftness that seemed mere unhesitancy, he went to the left-hand fence, up it, and over into the yard next door.

Donny took her arm and pulled her from the window.

“Stay away from there. You’ll tip his mitt. He’s all right, though Christ help the copper he runs into — if they’re close.”

Something heavy was pounding on the flat’s front door. A heavy, authoritative voice came through: “Open up!”

Donny sneered in the general direction of the front door. “I guess I better let ’em in or they’ll be making toothpicks of my front gate.” He seemed to be enjoying the situation.

She stared at him with blank eyes.

He looked at her, looked at the floor and at her again, and said defensively: “Look — I love the guy. I love him!”

The pounding on the front door became louder.

“I guess I better,” Donny said, and went out.

Through the open window came the sound of a shot.

She ran to the window and, hands on sill, leaned far out.

Fifty feet to the left, on the top of a fence that divided the long row of back yards from the alley behind, Brazil was poised, crouching. As Luise Fischer looked, another shot sounded and Brazil fell down out of sight into the alley behind the fence. She caught her breath with a sob.

The pounding on the flat’s front door suddenly stopped. She drew her head in through the window. She took her hands from the sill. Her face was an automaton’s. She pulled the window down without seeming conscious of what she was doing, and was standing in the center of the room looking critically at her fingernails when a tired-faced huge man in wrinkled clothes appeared in the doorway.

He asked: “Where’s he at?”

She looked up at him from her fingernails as she had looked at her fingernails. “Who?”

He sighed wearily. “Brazil.” He went to a closet door, opened it. “You the Fischer woman?” He shut the door and moved toward the window, looking around the room, not at her, with little apparent interest.

“I am Luise Fischer,” she said to his back.

He raised the window and leaned out. “How’s it, Tom?” he called to someone below. Whatever answer he received was inaudible in the room.

Luise Fischer put attentiveness off her face as he turned to her. “I ain’t had breakfast yet,” he said.

Donny’s voice came through the doorway from another part of the flat: “I tell you I don’t know where he’s gone to. He just dropped the dame here and hightailed. He didn’t tell me nothing. He—”

A metallic voice said, “I bet you!” disagreeably. There was the sound of a blow.

Donny’s voice: “If I did know I wouldn’t tell you, you big crum! Now sock me again.”

The metallic voice: “If that’s what you want.” There was the sound of another blow.

Fan’s voice, shrill with anger, screamed, “Stop that, you—” and ceased abruptly.

The huge man went to the bedroom door and called toward the front of the flat: “Never mind, Ray.” He addressed Luise Fischer: “Get some clothes on.”

“Why?” she asked coolly.

“They want you back in Mile Valley.”

“For what?” She did not seem to think it was true.

“I don’t know,” he grumbled impatiently. “This ain’t my job. We’re just picking you up for them. Something about some rings that belonged to a guy’s mother and disappeared from the house the same time you did.”

She held up her hands and stared at the rings. “But they didn’t. He bought them for me in Paris and—” The huge man scowled wearily. “Well, don’t argue with me about it. It’s none of my business. Where was this fellow Brazil meaning to go when he left here?”

“I do not know.” She took a step forward, holding out her hand in an appealing gesture. “Is he—”

“Nobody ever does,” he complained, ignoring the question he had interrupted. “Get your clothes on.” He held a hand out to her. “Better let me take care of the junk. “

She hesitated, then slipped the rings from her fingers and dropped them into his hand.

“Shake it up,” he said. “I ain’t had breakfast yet.” He went out and shut the door.

She dressed hurriedly in the clothes she had taken off a short while before, though she did not again put on the one stocking she had worn down from Brazil’s house. When she had finished, she went quietly, with a backward glance at the closed door, to the window, and began slowly, cautiously, to raise the sash.

The tired-faced huge man opened the door. “Good thing I was peeping through the keyhole,” he said patiently. “Now come on.”

Fan came into the room behind him. Her face was very pink; her voice was shrill. “What’re you picking on her for?” she demanded. “She didn’t do anything. Why don’t you—”

“Stop it, stop it,” the huge man begged. His weariness seemed to have become almost unbearable. “I’m only a copper told to bring her in on a larceny charge. I got nothing to do with it, don’t know anything about it.”

“It is all right, Mrs. Link,” Luise Fischer said with dignity. “It will be all right.”

“But you can’t go like that,” Fan protested, and turned to the huge man. “You got to let her put on some decent clothes.”

He sighed and nodded. “Anything, if you’ll only hurry it up and stop arguing with me.”

Fan hurried out.

Luise Fischer addressed the huge man: “He too is charged with larceny?”

He sighed. “Maybe one thing, maybe another,” he said spiritlessly.

She said: “He has done nothing.”

“Well, I haven’t neither,” he complained.

Fan came in with some clothes, a blue suit and hat, dark slippers, stockings, and a white blouse.

“Just keep the door open,” the huge man said. He went out of the room and stood leaning against an opposite wall, where he could see the windows in the bedroom.

Luise Fischer changed her clothes, with Fan’s assistance, in a corner of the room where they were hidden from him.

“Did they catch him?” Fan whispered.

“I do not know.”

“I don’t think they did.”

“I hope they did not.”

Fan was kneeling in front of Luise Fischer, putting on her stockings. “Don’t let them make you talk till you’ve seen Harry Klaus,” she whispered rapidly. “You tell them he’s your lawyer and you got to see him first. We’ll send him down and he’ll get you out all right.” She looked up abruptly. “You didn’t cop them, did you?”

“Steal the rings?” Luise Fischer asked in surprise.

“I didn’t think so,” the blonde woman said. “So you won’t have to—”

The huge man’s weary voice came to them: “Come on — cut out the barbering and get into the duds.”

Fan said: “Go take a run at yourself.”

Luise Fischer carried her borrowed hat to the looking glass and put it on; then, smoothing down the suit, looked at her reflection. The clothes did not fit her so badly as might have been expected.

Fan said: “You look swell.”

The man outside the door said: “Come on.”

Luise Fischer turned to Fan. “Goodbye, and I—”

The blonde woman put her arms around her. “There’s nothing to say, and you’ll be back here in a couple of hours. Harry’ll show those saps they can’t put anything like this over on you.”

The huge man said: “Come on.”

Luise Fischer joined him and they went toward the front of the flat.

As they passed the living room door Donny, rising from the sofa, called cheerfully: “Don’t let them worry you, baby. We’ll—”

A tall man in brown put a hand over Donny’s face and pushed him back on the sofa.

Luise Fischer and the huge man went out. A police department automobile was standing in front of the house where Brazil had left his coupé. A dozen or more adults and children were standing around it, solemnly watching the door through which she came.

A uniformed policeman pushed some of them aside to make passageway for her and her companion and got into the car behind them. “Let her go, Tom,” he called to the chauffeur, and they drove off.

The huge man shut his eyes and groaned softly. “God, I’m schwach!”

They rode seven blocks and halted in front of a square red brick building on a corner. The huge man helped her out of the automobile and took her between two large frosted globes into the building, and into a room where a bald fat man in uniform sat behind a high desk.

The huge man said: “It’s that Luise Fischer for Mile Valley.” He took a hand from a pocket and tossed her rings on the desk. “That’s the stuff, I guess.”

The bald man said: “Nice picking. Get the guy?”

“Hospital, I guess.”

Luise Fischer turned to him: “Was he — was he badly hurt?”

The huge man grumbled: “I don’t know about it. Can’t I guess?”

The bald man called: “Luke!”

A thin, white-mustached policeman came in. The fat man said: “Put her in the royal suite.” Luise Fischer said: “I wish to see my lawyer.” The three men looked unblinkingly at her.

“His name is Harry Klaus,” she said. “I wish to see him.”

Luke said: “Come back this way.”

She followed him down a bare corridor to the far end, where he opened a door and stood aside for her to go through. The room into which the door opened was a small one furnished with cot, table, two chairs, and some magazines. The window was large, fitted with a heavy wire grating.

In the center of the room she turned to say again: “I wish to see my lawyer.”

The white-mustached man shut the door and she could hear him locking it.

Two hours later he returned with a bowl of soup, some cold meat and a slice of bread on a plate, and a cup of coffee.

She had been lying on the cot, staring at the ceiling.

She rose and faced him imperiously. “I wish to see—”

“Don’t start that again,” he said irritably. “We got nothing to do with you. Tell it to them Mile Valley fellows when they come for you.”

He put the food on the table and left the room. She ate everything he had brought her.

It was late afternoon when the door opened again. “There you are,” the white-mustached man said, and stood aside to let his companions enter. There were two of them, men of medium height, in dull clothes, one thick-chested and florid, the other less heavy, older.

The thick-chested, florid one looked Luise Fischer up and down and grinned admiringly at her. The other said: “We want you to come back to the Valley with us, Miss Fischer.”

She rose from her chair and began to put on her hat and coat.

“That’s it,” the older of the two said. “Don’t give us no trouble and we don’t give you none.”

She looked curiously at him.

They went to the street and got into a dusty blue sedan. The thick-chested man drove. Luise Fischer sat behind him, beside the older man. They retraced the route she and Brazil had taken that morning.

Once, before they left the city, she had said: “I wish to see my lawyer. His name is Harry Klaus.”

The man beside her was chewing gum. He made noises with his lips, then told her, politely enough: “We can’t stop now.”

The man at the wheel spoke before she could reply. He did not turn his head. “How come Brazil socked him?”

Luise said quickly: “It was not his fault. He was—”

The older man, addressing the man at the wheel, interrupted her: “Let it alone, Pete. Let the D.A. do his own work.”

Pete said: “Oke.”

The woman turned to the man beside her. “Was — was Brazil hurt?”

He studied her face for a long moment, then nodded slightly. “Stopped a slug, I hear.”

Her eyes widened. “He was shot?”

He nodded again.

She put both hands on his forearm. “How badly?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Her fingers dug into his arm. “Did they arrest him?”

“I can’t tell you, miss. Maybe the District Attorney wouldn’t like me to.” He smacked his lips over his gum-chewing.

“But, please!” she insisted. “I must know.”

He shook his head again. “We ain’t worrying you with a lot of questions. Don’t be worrying us.”