His pitch was American History. And this was her first day at the new high school...

The school bus wasn�t due at that stop until eight fifteen, but Norma Farriss didn�t want to take a chance on missing it, this first day of school. She allowed herself extra time to walk the quarter mile along the dirt road from her house to the main highway. When she arrived there, she looked at her wrist watch and saw that there was still almost ten minutes before the bus would arrive.

She fidgeted nervously, straightening her tight skirt, tugging at the bottom of her red cardigan sweater and fluffing-up her long blonde hair. She had to look right, her first day at a new school, her first day in high school. After awhile she was pretty sure that she did look okay, because several times men driving past in cars did a double-take when they saw her, craning their heads around for another dangerously long look at her after they were past. This embarrassed her, yet reassured her at the same time.

Then a car came along whose brakes were jammed on right after it passed her. Norma heard the squealing sound, heard the motor speed cut down, but she didn�t dare turn around. She didn�t know who it was in the car; she�d hardly noticed him as he passed. Her heart began to pound against her ribs as she heard the car go into reverse, heard it back closer and closer to her.

She held her head high and, she hoped, disdainfully, but at the same time panic was running through her. She wondered what she should do if just ignoring him didn�t send him on his way. She tried to think what the best thing to do would be. Of course, if he started to get out of the car, she�d turn and run. Meanwhile, maybe if she just ignored him...

The car had backed right close to her now. She had all she could do to keep from jumping like a ninny when she heard him speak.

�Hi,� he said. �Don�t be nervous. You go to Northwest High, don�t you?� The voice was polite, well-modulated, educated sounding, Norma was surprised to note. Then he gave a pleasant, reassuring laugh. �I don�t blame you for being careful, but I assure you it�s all right, my, stopping to speak with you. You see, I�m Mr. Simmons, one of your teachers at Northwest. American History. I just stopped to see if I could give you a lift.�

This took Norma completely by surprise. �Oh,� she said and forced herself to look around at the car, at the driver. She saw that the car was a middle-priced coupe, about two years old, and the man leaning across the seat toward her was about thirty-five, balding slightly at the temples and quite nice looking as older types went. He had a nice easy smile that showed good, clean white teeth.

�I... thanks, just the same,� Norma said, still nervous, but in a different way, now. �I might as well wait for the bus. It�ll be along in a little while.�

�Well,� Mr. Simmons said, �if you�d rather. You�re a freshman, aren�t you?�

�Why, yes.�

�That�s why I thought maybe we could compare notes on what we�ve both heard about Northwest. You see, in a way, I�m also a frosh. I�m new there, too. I was transferred from upstate. So, why don�t you just hop in and we�ll have a pleasant little chat on the way? You�ll beat the other kids on the bus, too, be one of the first in line to get your room assignments. What do you say?�

Norma thought about it. Maybe it would be better than getting on a crowded school bus, especially since she was a perfect stranger. She�d dreaded the hooting, whistling and catcalls she�d surely have to endure from some of the fresher boys. And it was always a good deal to be in with one of the teachers.

�Well...� she said hesitantly.

�Fine,� he said, reaching across and opening the door on her side. �Get in. It�ll be nice to have company and to be able to get acquainted with one of my students.�

Norma got into the car and placed her plaid-covered school supply box on her lap and primly folded her hands on top of it.

As the car started up, he said, �Have you always lived here in Gulf City?�

�No, sir. We moved here this summer from Miami.�

�Well,� he said, �sometimes it�s fun to go to new places, meet new people. You�ll get along all right.� He turned and looked at her. �You�re a very attractive young lady, you know.�

�Thank you,� she said and couldn�t help fidgeting her feet at the unexpected compliment.

They rode in silence for awhile, until suddenly Mr. Simmons turned off the main highway and down a narrower, black-tarred State Road. When he did this, Norma sat more stiffly and erect on the seat. For several moments her mouth was so dry she couldn�t speak.

�Why are you going this way?� she finally blurted. �Northwest isn�t in this direction.�

�I know,� he said, laughing. �You are a worry wart, aren�t you? I have to pick up one of the other teachers who lives over this way. It�s only a little out of the way and we�ve plenty of time. What are you so frightened about? You�re not scared of me, are you?�

�No... I... when you turned off there, I was just a little surprised, I guess.� For the moment her nervousness vanished, but then she noticed that the country along this road was very sparsely populated. On each side, for as far as she could see, there was nothing but fields dense with Palmetto and scrub pine, with an occasional fenced-off ranch section. But there were no dwellings, no stores or gasoline stations.

�Kind of an out-of-the-way section he lives in,� Norma said, after awhile. �This other teacher.�

�Yeah,� Mr. Simmons said. �We�ll soon be there. After we pick him up, there�s a short cut over toward the school, we�ll take.�

A moment later, he slowed the car, then abruptly swung it into a narrow, rutted dirt lane that twisted out of sight between dense growths of trees and shrubbery.

It was then that Norma knew.

�No one lives down here, down this road,� she said. Her voice sounded high and squeaky; it didn�t even sound like her voice.

�What makes you think that, honey?� he said, calmly.

�I... I just know,� she said. �And you�re not a teacher, either. Are you?�

�Well, maybe not exactly. But in some ways I am. For instance, I can teach a sweet girl like you a lot of things.�

At the same time, his right hand shot out and cleanly, firmly clasped her left wrist. She tried to yank it away, but couldn�t. It was as though her wrist were held in a steel vise. She edged over as close to the other door, as far away from him as possible, not looking at him, staring straight ahead through the windshield. She was trembling badly.

�Now, take it easy, sweetheart,� he said. �Behave yourself and there�s nothing to be afraid of. Nobody�s going to hurt you. Just don�t get smart, but do exactly as I tell you and everything�ll be all right.�

Frantic, she tried to twist and jerk her wrist from his grip, but without success. She half-screamed, �You leave me alone! Take me back! Take me out of here! Take me back, you hear!�

�Shut up!� This time his voice, viciously tough, struck at her like a whiplash.

He stopped the car. Using both hands, he jerked her across the seat toward him. She was crying now and he was holding her by both wrists. He kept telling her to stop crying, but she couldn�t; in fact, the sobbing grew louder, more uncontrolled, almost reaching the hysteria.

He slapped her, stinging hard. That did it. The crying cut off in the middle of a sob and she just sat there, staring at him in numbed surprise, trying to get her breath.

�That�s better,� he said. �Much better. Now, you listen to me, do you hear? I want to tell you something.�

He was staring hard at her breasts, and she tried to stop their agitated heaving but couldn�t. She kept telling herself: He won�t hurt me. I won�t let him. He won�t dare hurt me. I can have him arrested if he does. I�ll fight him and stop him from doing anything really bad to me. Yet, even as she thought this, she knew her fighting him was impossible; he was so much bigger and stronger than she. She began to pray to herself, but she was so desperately frightened she kept getting the words all mixed up in her mind.

�I want you to understand this,� she heard him say. �I�m no ordinary rapist. I�ve never done anything like this before in my life. I don�t know whatever came over me. I�m a respectable business man. I�m not really bad, do you understand? It was just that � well, when I first went past you, saw you standing out there waiting for a bus, I went crazy. I�d never seen anybody as beautiful as you. I couldn�t control myself. I knew I had to have you, no matter what.�

She didn�t answer. She just sat there, stiffly, her face turned as far away from him as she could turn it, sucking in ragged, half-sobbing breaths.

�Look, now,� he said, softly. �Look at me. I�m not so bad to look at. I�m not very old, really, not nearly as old as some of the movie stars you probably admire. I�m clean and respectable. It�s not going to be so bad.�

�No,� she said, shrilly. �No, no! Stop talking to me like that. Take me out of here. Please! Please, mister!�

�I can�t,� he said. �I�ve got to go through with this, now. I�ll go crazy if I don�t. Listen, don�t try to kid me. You�ve got a boy friend, haven�t you? This won�t be the first time with you, so what have you got to lose? I�ve heard all about you teen-agers and what goes on in the high schools. C�mon, snap out of it and be a sport.�

�You�re wrong. I... I�ve never��

�God,� he broke in, dropping one of her wrists. Then his hand brushed lightly across the front of her blouse. �Look at �em! What a gorgeous figure you�ve got, honey!�

At the touch of his hand, she went a little crazy. She balled the fist he�d freed and swung it at him, hitting him soundly in the face, at the same time wrenching to free her other wrist.

�Don�t touch me!� she screamed. �Let me go! Let me go!�

Swearing, he quickly caught her free wrist again. He shook her and swung her around in the seat, twisting one of her arms up behind her back, forcing her to bend forward. As he did this, her school supply box tumbled from her lap to the floor of the car and burst open. A few pencils and a sharpener, some pen nibs and compasses for drawing circles, fell out of the box, but neither of them paid any attention to that.

Norma cried out from the pain of having her arm twisted up behind her.

�You don�t like this, huh?� he said. �Well, listen to me. Fighting like that will only get you hurt. The other way you won�t get hurt. Why don�t you be smart? Now, if I let your arm go, if I don�t hurt you any more, you promise not to try to stop me, not to try to get away? If you don�t...�

He shoved her arm up another quarter of an inch and Norma cried out again, quickly saying, �Yes, yes. I promise. Don�t. Stop it. Stop it. My arm, oh, my arm!�

�All right then.� He let the arm go. She slumped over, her head on her lap, crying again, but softly, hopelessly, this time.

He waited a moment and then his hand went up under the back of the Cardigan sweater, yanked the back of her blouse out from her skirt. His hand moved, almost caressingly, up her spine to the back of her bra strap.

At the touch of his hand, she stiffened and half-straightened up, but he said, �Steady. Steady, now. You don�t want to get hurt again, do you?�

He was breathing hard now and she could feel his trembling. His voice was even unsteady. She endured, somehow, the feel of his fingers fumbling with the bra strap clasp and then she felt it come loose. She felt his palm, moist with perspiration, slide along her ribs, around to the front of her body.

A million things ran through her mind, at that moment: The things her mother had told her when she�d first started to develop, about how sinful it would be, the terrible things that might happen to her if she let boys or anybody touch her there. She thought about what would happen to her after he got tired of touching her there. She might get some horrible disease that rotted your flesh; she might even have a baby � and probably not even a normal one at that. And worst of all, everyone would know; all they�d have to do was look at her and they�d know, they�d know. She couldn�t stand that.

As both his hands reached around her, she saw the compasses that had fallen out of the school box. It was stretched all the way open, both slim metal legs out straight, to fit into a groove of the school box. She saw the needle-sharp point at the tip of one of the legs of the compasses. She acted instinctively, out of the deepest roots of terror and disgust, hardly conscious of what she was doing.

She reached down and grabbed the compasses and wheeled around and away from him. She saw him rear back, his eyes fastened on the needle-sharp weapon she was holding.

�Hey, wait!� he exclaimed. �Don�t��

�I told you,� she interrupted. �I told you to leave me alone, you horrible, disgusting thing, you! I hate you!�

Then she thrust her arm forward and saw the point of the compasses sink easily, without resistance, into his shirt front. She yanked it out and saw blood bloom redly on the front of his shirt. She saw him go deathly pale and his eyes roll back. She raised the hand holding the compasses, but not to strike again. He didn�t know that, however, and twisted violently sideways to dodge, throwing up his hands at the same time to protect himself. Doing this, he banged his head violently against the dashboard and slumped loosely, inertly, on the seat, his hands falling down into his lap.

Still not knowing, really, what she was doing, she dropped the compasses. She turned and scrabbled out of the car. She ran as fast as she could back along the narrow dirt lane and finally came out onto the tar road. There, exhausted, she stopped running. She became aware that her bra strap was still loose and reached back and fastened it. She started walking, her breathing becoming steadier, up the tar road toward the main highway. She looked at her wrist watch. It was now eight forty-five. She should be at school, by this time. She was going to be late, quite late. What was she going to tell them?

Then she remembered her school box. She�d forgotten, in her panic, to pick it up. It was still in that man�s car. She thought about going back for it, but knew she couldn�t. Not with him lying there dead in the car...

Dead.

Yes, dead. The man was dead. She�d killed him. She�d stabbed him to death. She had done that � she, Norma Farriss, fourteen years old. What would they do to her when they found out about it? Well, she�d had to kill him, hadn�t she? In self protection. They wouldn�t do anything to her. But there�d be a big investigation, maybe even a trial. Everybody would hear what had happened; she�d be forced to tell the horrible things that man had tried to do to her. Maybe they wouldn�t even believe that he hadn�t succeeded.

Suppose, she thought, I just don�t tell anybody about it? He�ll be found there, but there�s nobody can prove it was I who did it. It could�ve been anybody. But what about the school-box? Well, what about it? There were a million like it in stores that sold school supplies. Nobody would know that one was hers. How could they?

The more Norma thought about it, the more firmly she decided that was the only thing to do. She would go on back home. It was still a long walk, but she could make it. She�d tell her mother that she�d become ill in school, sick to her stomach or something � or better yet, that after registering and everything, they�d been let out early. Sometimes that happened on the first day of school. Her mother wouldn�t know any different.

When she reached the main highway, she waited for a bus to come along, using some of her lunch money for the fare, and took the bus to the side road that led to her house. On that familiar road once again, in sight of the old clapboard house where she lived, Norma was almost in full control of herself once again. Looking back she could scarcely believe that what had happened had happened.

Her mother looked surprised and a little annoyed when she opened the front door and saw Norma there. She clucked her tongue and said, �What on earth? What are you doing home from school this early?�

With the sudden shock of being home, safe at her own home, after all that had happened, seeing her mother, hearing her voice, Norma couldn�t seem to remember what she had planned to say. The words got all jumbled up in her mind. She opened her mouth and made some noises, but that was all.

�Oh, never mind trying to tell me,� her mother said, disgustedly. �I can tell by looking at you, so wild-eyed and pale and sweating and all distraught. I was afraid something like this would happen, your going to a new school and all. I knew I should have gone with you. I swear, Norma, when are you going to get over this shyness and self-consciousness that�s so bad you get yourself all upset and even physically sick, every time we move to a new neighborhood or you have to go to a new school? Honestly, at your age! I don�t know what I�m going to do with you. Now, that is what happened, isn�t it?�

Norma, still speechless, nodded slightly.

Not too gently, her mother took her arm and pulled her inside. �Just when I�ve got to go downtown and see about a job, now I�ve got you on my hands. Come in here and let me get some rhubarb-and-soda into you and then lie down for awhile and you�ll be all right. You�ll have to be, because I�ve got to keep that job appointment.�

Once again Norma just nodded. She followed her mother into the kitchen to get a spoon and then into the bathroom. Without objection, she silently took the spoonful of medicine, but when her mother started to shoo her into the bedroom, Norma turned, her eyes large with fright.

�Don�t go downtown, mother,� she said. �Not today. Please don�t. I... I don�t want to be here all by myself.�

�Oh, stop it, Norma. Stop acting like a baby, for goodness sakes,� her mother said. �You�ll be all right. You�re big enough to get your own lunch, although I�ll probably be back by then. Now, you lie down like I told you and calm yourself. Do you hear?�

The prospect of being in the house all alone, of being alone with her thoughts, her knowledge of what had happened, loomed horribly before her. �But, mother,� she cried, �I��

�You what?� her mother cut in, picking up her compact, putting a last dab of powder on her face, looking into Norma�s bedroom mirror. �What is it now, Norma? Please don�t get me more upset than I am. If I don�t get this job, I don�t know what we�ll do for food money next week. Now you behave like a good girl. All right?�

She came over and bent over Norma and pecked her lightly on the forehead. Looking up, Norma�s eyes tried to catch her mother�s but couldn�t. She suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse to blurt out the truth, to tell her mother everything that had happened and get it over with. That would keep her mother here. She wouldn�t leave, then.

But her mother turned away without looking at her again and hurried out of the room. Norma flopped down on the bed and buried her face in the pillow and began to cry. She heard the front door slam. She heard her mother�s old car starting up outside, heard it take off down the road. And then there was nothing but silence. There were no other houses within a quarter of a mile. It was very quiet out here in the country.

Norma lay on the bed a long time � the crying stopped, once her mother left the house � and listened to the oppressively heavy silence of the empty house.

A moment later, she heard the motor of a car on the road outside. She heard it stop outside the house. She heard a car door slam, footsteps coming up the walk. Norma sat up on the bed, stuffing her fist against her mouth, her heart suddenly hammering so hard it hurt. Along with the thick pounding of her own pulse in her ears, there was soon another sound � a thumping on the front door.

She sat very still, telling herself that it was only a salesman � there�d been a lot of them around since they�d moved in last week � and he�d go away, soon, if nobody answered. But the knocking on the front door went on and on. Then it stopped.

Norma waited for the sound of the footsteps to go back down the front walk. She waited and waited, but there was no such sound. Instead, there was another sound � the creaking of a floorboard in the hall outside. It was then that Norma remembered that the front door didn�t latch properly if it was slammed very hard, the way her mother had slammed it when she went out. You had to shut the door slowly, carefully, sometimes doing it two or three times before it caught just right and locked. Her mother had said a man was coming to fix it.

Norma started to breathe a little sigh of relief. That was who it was, the locksmith, come to fix the door. When there�d been no answer, he�d tried the door and let himself in.

�Who is it?� She thought she was shouting, but her words came out in only a hoarse whisper. �Who�s out there?�

The answer came from the doorway of her room. A man�s voice said, �Me. Remember me?�

She saw that the blood stain on his shirt, just under the right ribs, had almost dried now. She saw the bump on his forehead. She tried to say something, couldn�t. She wanted to move, but couldn�t because now her whole body felt as though it was made of wet rags. All she could do was sit there staring at him, feeling an awful sickness filling her stomach.

�What�s the matter?� he said. �You look surprised. You didn�t think you�d killed me, did you? You didn�t really stab very hard, you know. Just a small puncture, a flesh wound.�

She didn�t say anything. She just sat there looking at him, wondering how she�d ever thought he was nice looking, how she could have possibly believed he was a teacher, the expression in his eyes, the loose wetness of his mouth, the sweat pearled on his forehead and upper lip.

�It was bumping my head against the dash, when I thought you were going to stab again, that knocked me out,� he said. �But not for long. When I came to, I went after you, followed you � at a discreet distance, of course. I watched you get onto the bus and followed that. Then I parked up near the intersection of this road you�re on and waited to see if any cops were going to come. But I was pretty sure you wouldn�t tell what happened. None of you ever has before. That�s the beauty of it; you�re always too ashamed to tell anyone. Isn�t that right?�

She didn�t answer. She was looking at her school box, that he was holding in one hand. She watched him open it and take out the compasses. It looked like there was still some blood on the point. She watched him spread the compasses wide open.

�Then,� he said. �When no cops came, I drove up the road. I was going to go past your house and see how things looked, if there was any fuss or excitement. If there wasn�t, then I�d know by that time I was safe, that you wouldn�t tell. But I got a real break, then. I saw your mother leave. I saw that she was all dressed for town... It�ll take her at least fifteen minutes each way. Whatever she�s gone in for, will take her say another fifteen. We have plenty of time, don�t we?�

He started toward her. �Well,� he said. �This is fine. A bed and all.� He looked down at the compasses that he now held in his hand like a dagger. �See this,� he said. �Just because it didn�t get me, don�t think it can�t kill. You do as I tell you, this time.�

Relief that she hadn�t killed him flooded Norma beyond all else. Deep, grateful relief that was almost a prayer.

No one would know now. She was safe.

�Yes,� she said, �I�ll do as you tell me.�

One small question, and the crooked cop�s .45 would bark. Patiently he waited at the riverfront...

There were two of them who still sought the old man�s murderer.

The first was a slim youth of fifteen with curly hair and a soft face that was almost girlishly pretty. His name was Freddie Janss.

The other was the crooked cop who called himself Richards, a beefy man with broad shoulders and the puffy, red-rimmed eyes of a drunk. He was jowly and paunchy, and he was also very tough, for cruelty was a thing that he enjoyed. His real name was Vossmyer. He was the old man�s son.

The kid continued his search for the murderer long after the cops had given up for a simple reason. He had loved the old man and had worshipped him as a hero.

The motives of the man who called himself Richards were more complex. He had never shown affection for his father and had neglected the lonely old man shamelessly. Perhaps his compulsion was mainly ego, the outraged feeling that the murder of his father had been a personal affront. Or perhaps he merely enjoyed killing when he could get away with it in his role of cop. He had been on the force for more than twenty years and in that time he had killed four men. He had shot all of them in the belly. It takes awhile for them to die when you shoot them in the belly. Three of the men he had killed were hoods and there were no questions asked. He had a rule about hoods. You shot first and asked questions later if they happened to live. The fourth had been a drunken sailor who wasn�t doing much except throwing his weight around a barroom. There�d been a stink about that one and an investigation, but he�d been whitewashed. Richards, to give him the name he chose for himself, was seeking his father�s murderer long after the police had put the case in the back of the files, but he had no intention whatsoever of arresting the punk he sought.

The old man�s murder had been a jaydee job. The cops knew that and very little else. It was a good thing Vossmyer had been a meticulous old man who carried a wallet full of identification cards. Otherwise they might have dumped him into a hole in Potter�s Field instead of giving him the decent Department funeral he was entitled to because he was a retired fireman. Nobody could have recognized the face of the thing they shoved into the ice box of the Bellevue morgue. The jaydees had given the old man a stomp job. It was just for kicks. They hadn�t taken the eight dollars and change or the gold watch the old man had on him at the time.

They�d done the job on the strip of pavement that runs beside the East River on the edge of Yorkville, the German-American settlement in New York. They�d done it just a few yards from the millionaires� apartments in Gracie Square and not very far from the Mayor�s Mansion. The punks had been cocky and contemptuous. They�d done it in one of the best policed areas of the city. Jut a block away the regular patrolmen were augmented by Holmes men, private guards the millionaires hired to protect their property. The jaydees hadn�t even bothered to kick the old man�s body a few feet off the ledge into the river. They just left the thing without a face lying there for the first passerby to see.

To tell the truth, Vossmyer was a well-meaning old man. Retirement had made him feel of no use in the world. So he decided he would make his idleness less of a burden, by helping kids, especially those headed for trouble. But no kid, except the one named Freddie Janss could stand to be around him very long. Age had made Vossmyer talkative. And his favorite topic was the Younger Generation. To him the Younger Generation meant the punks who hung around old Hoffman�s candy store on East Eighty-fifth. The punks belonged to a social club they called the Noble Cavaliers. Whenever Old Man Vossmyer passed a bunch of the Noble Cavaliers, loitering in front of the candy store, he stopped and sincerely tried to get them to see the error of their ways. He told them they should be in school. He spoke seriously to them about the harm of smoking cigarettes and pitching nickels. He advised them to go to the Y, to get jobs and save their money for college. Psychologically, of course, his approach was cockeyed. The punks never answered him, except to blow a flatulent sound from their mouths occasionally. Sometimes they blew the smoke of their cigarettes into his face. Mostly they just stood and stared at the old man with hard, appraising eyes. Oh, the old man asked for it, all right. And he got it the night they found him without a face.

The old man wouldn�t listen to advice. Lots of people, including the beat cop, had told him it was dangerous to sit there by the river late at night. The Noble Cavaliers had worked over a couple of old bums who used to sit by the river after dark drinking Sneaky Pete from crocks they carried in a paper bag. They hadn�t killed the two vagrants. Just worked them over for kicks. One of them wound up with a broken back but he didn�t die.

The old man scoffed at the idea of youngsters injuring him. Wasn�t he on their side, interested in their welfare? And at seventy-three he believed he was still virile enough to take care of himself in any situation. He�d spent his life climbing tall ladders into the windows of flaming buildings and he�d won a Department medal for bravery in the line of duty. If he were to be scared away, he would be setting an example of cowardice for the Younger Generation. Besides, he liked to sit beside the river on warm nights and watch the excursion boats and barges sailing by.

So he sat beside the river, stubborn to the end, and one night the Noble Cavaliers found him there.

There�d been a witness to the murder, something not usual in the annals of jaydee crime. The witness was a caretaker in Carl Schurz Park. He�d left a toolshed unlocked that afternoon and he�d come back late at night when he�d realized what he�d done. He�d seen the punks working the old man over, but he�d been careful to keep out of sight himself. At first he wouldn�t talk at all because he was scared to death, understandably so, since he had to work in the park where the Noble Cavaliers roamed at will. Finally, he�d told the cops that there were six or eight of them, that they�d all pushed the old man around, but it was just one who had done the stomping. One, who seemed to be the leader.

That was the punk that the crooked cop who called himself Richards was looking for.

They�d paraded the whole lot of Noble Cavaliers and some neighborhood kids who didn�t even belong to the club before the caretaker, but he hadn�t identified a one of them. He wouldn�t even say if the one who did the stomping was tall or short or thin or fat. He said it had been too dark to tell. The caretaker didn�t want his own face to look like Vossmyer�s.

Because it was the third crime of the type, and because this one was murder, and because it happened near the sacred premises of millionaires, and because the Mayor had his official residence just a block or two away, the papers made a stink and the cops put everybody they could spare on it. They found nothing that would stick. If old Vossmyer had been a cop instead of a fireman they might not have shoved the case in the back of the file quite so soon. The case of a cop-killer is never closed. This case wasn�t officially closed, of course. A murder case never is. But for all practical purposes it was closed when the crooked cop changed his name from Vossmyer to Richards and started a private investigation. As Vossmyer, Richards had never been a very good cop. He�d made detective first-grade and a lieutenant�s pay largely through playing department politics. He was good at that. He did not lack physical courage and although he wasn�t brilliant, he had a certain shrewdness. The trouble was that he�d become a cop largely because he saw the job as a source of small graft. He wanted the handouts a lot more than he wanted glory and he�d bought himself a home on the Island and a big car and all the Scotch he could drink with the handouts he promoted. Old Inspector Sansone once said that Vossmyer earned his salary only on the occasions when they locked him in the back room with a hood who wouldn�t talk. �It�s the only thing about being a cop he likes,� the Inspector had declared at that time. He was half-right. Vossmyer also liked the handouts.

Vossmyer had had his father out to the house on the Island a couple of times on Christmas after the old man retired, but it hadn�t worked out. The old man liked his daughter-in-law, Carlotta, a plump Italian girl. But he complained of her cooking because it was too spicy. He tried to persuade her that she should switch to the plain, solid food of German cookery. He also told his son that he drank too much. And gave him advice on bringing up his child, suggesting kindness as a substitute for razor-strap lickings. For years Vossmyer hadn�t even bothered to check up and see if the old man was still alive in the little furnished room he�d taken up in Yorkville. What the hell, he had his pension. He wasn�t going to starve. Then one day they�d taken the younger Vossmyer down to the morgue and asked him to look at a body without a recognizable face.

The cops had put on a real show in the homicide investigation. But after two months they had produced nothing the D.A. could make into a case, so they just quietly pushed the murder of the old man into the back of the file. That was when the crooked cop named Vossmyer became a whisky-sodden vagrant named Richards. He went to old Inspector Sansone and asked to be put on detached duty to investigate his father�s murder on his own. He wasn�t going to lose a month�s pay by taking a leave, of course. Sansone consented. After all, you have to make allowances when a cop�s old man is murdered. Also, if the papers should suddenly revive their interest in the case and ask what was being done, Sansone could point out that an undercover investigation had been going forward all the time.

The role of a drunken vagrant wasn�t a difficult one for the man known as Richards to assume. He wasn�t a vagrant, but he was a drunk. He didn�t overdo it. He didn�t dress like a Bowery bum. His disguise, if you could call it that, was worn, shabby-genteel clothes, slightly soiled dark shirts, a necktie that was a little frayed, a hat that was shapeless and needed reblocking. He didn�t have to disguise his face, although he let his beard grow for two or three days at a time. That was in character. Nobody but the beat cop in Yorkville knew who he was, and he was sure the beat cop wouldn�t talk. He�d been born in Yorkville, but he�d been hardly more than ten years old when he�d moved away and that was more than thirty years before. Old Man Vossmyer had returned to this section of the city after his wife�s death and his retirement. He�d returned all alone.

Richards� routine was simple and for him not at all unpleasant. During the day and early evening, he hung around the bars and drank, being careful never to flash a large bill, never to spend too much in one place, never to become too garrulous with anyone. To the bartenders and the customers, he was just another drifter in the halfworld of alcoholism, a man who looked as if he�d been a respectable citizen with a steady job until the booze got him. He drank and listened. Late in the evening he went to the strip of pavement that runs between the river and Carl Schurz Park and sat and waited. Sometimes he took a bottle along with him.

Richards knew what he was waiting for. There was just one lead to the stomper. The two old bums who had lived through the stomping had been too scared and too drink-fogged to tell the cops much. But they agreed on one thing. Each had been approached by a young punk who had asked for a match. Then others had emerged from the bushes and shoved them around and when they were helpless on the pavement the punk who had first approached them stomped them. The other punks just stood around and watched. There was further verification of this method. The caretaker in the park had not only seen, but had actually overheard, the jaydees who were killing Vossmyer. One had approached the old man alone and asked him for a match. That was the one who�d done the stomping a little later. The caretaker wouldn�t describe the young hood, but he did tell the cops that much.

During the day the man called Richards gathered what bits of information he could and drank a lot of whiskey. At night he sat on the bench beside the river, with a gun in his pocket, and waited for a punk to ask him for a match. He planned to shoot the punk, of course. He�d shoot him in the belly and stand there for awhile and watch his dying.

At about the same time that the crooked cop named Vossmyer became a drunk called Richards, the kid named Freddie Janss became a Noble Cavalier. Freddie�s mother was a widow. For the past four years she�d helped to eke out a living by renting a room in her railroad flat to Old Man Vossmyer. The old man had been the only real friend that Freddie had. At his high school, the kids were tough and they pushed him around. They didn�t like him because his hair was curly and bright gold and his face was smooth and rosy-cheeked. He tried to avoid the kids at school and the Noble Cavaliers who hung out at the candy store. They called him a nance. If he protested against the filthy insinuations they flung in his face whenever they were near him, they ganged up and beat the hell out of him. That had happened more than once. Despite his timidity and effeminate manner, he was a well-grown, muscular kid and the bobby-soxers liked him, but the girls frightened him almost as much as the Noble Cavaliers. His father had died when he was a baby and he�d been brought up by women. He�d never known male companionship until the old man took a room in his mother�s railroad flat.

The kid read a lot. That was one of the things that made his schoolmates and the neighborhood punks think he was some kind of a queer. In the fiction he read, Right always triumphed and Evil was invariably avenged.

The old man who died without a face had seemed to the kid to be the only real, live hero he�d ever met. There was a framed citation and a medal and yellowing newspaper clippings in his little room to prove he was a hero. Freddie worshipped the old man. And the old man liked him, said Freddie proved there was still hope for the Younger Generation. Freddie spent hours listening to his rambling tales and his opinions and his advice. The old man, with his ill-fitting false teeth and his bald head, bore little resemblance, spiritually or physically, to a swashbuckling guardsman out of Dumas, but Freddie felt that knowing him so intimately was almost like having D�Artagnan for a father.

A couple of months after the old man�s death, Freddie decided the cops had given up. He was scared, but he felt there was no one left to avenge the old man�s murder except Freddie Janss. Just about the time that the man called Richards began to haunt the Yorkville bars, the kid set out to find the old man�s murderer. He knew, almost for certain, who had stomped his friend to death. It had been Pudge Holtz, leader of the Noble Cavaliers. Pudge was barely sixteen, but he was man-sized, with bulky shoulders and a bug-eyed cretin�s face. Once, when he was about ten years old, Freddie had seen Pudge throw a puppy into a bonfire in a vacant lot. It had made him so sick he could hardly eat for a week and his mother had forced him to go to the clinic. The doctors said he had a nervous stomach.

Freddie knew for sure that Pudge had been the one who had stomped his friend to death, but he couldn�t prove it. There was only one thing to do, he decided, with a sick feeling in his guts. He had to join the Noble Cavaliers. He started dropping around to Hoffman�s candy store, a place he had always avoided like the plague, and he let it be known that he wanted to join the gang.

The next three weeks were a living hell for Freddie Janss. It wasn�t just the pushing around he got. He found to his surprise that he could take a lot of physical pain. It was the filthy things they said to him that were the worst part. He had to stand and take it and try to grin.

They told him that a Noble Cavalier had to prove he was a man. They got one of the spik girls who had recently moved into the neighborhood and took her to the cellar headquarters of the gang and turned Freddie over to her and stood around and watched. Finally they framed a fight with Batty Himmel. Batty was tall and at first glance he seemed scrawny. But his loose-jointed body was made of steel springs. He�d been to the psych ward three times after they caught him doing things that nobody with all his buttons could conceivably do. He packed a switch blade and a set of brass knucks at all times. He was always grinning and licking at his cracked lips with his tongue. It was Batty who set up a lot of the rumbles for the gang. He�d set up the three old men they�d found beside the river, among other things.

Freddie Janss stood up pretty well in the fight with Batty so long as it was only fists. Old Man Vossmyer had persuaded him go to the boxing classes at the Y and he could handle himself. He didn�t win, of course, because Batty finally used the brass knucks when things got tough. There was a scar down Freddie�s right cheek he would carry to his grave after it was over and his mother was scared to death. But the fight did the trick, finally. When they picked him up from the corner of the alley, Freddie was bleeding like a hog in a slaughterhouse, but they told him he was a Noble Cavalier. Pudge had ruled that Batty couldn�t finish with a stomp job.

During the three weeks of Freddie Janss� initiation into the Noble Cavaliers, the man called Richards had been drinking and listening and sitting on a bench and he thought he had learned a lot. Nobody had come up to ask him for a match but he had narrowed it down to three in his mind. It was the punk with a wrestler�s shoulders and goitrous eyes called Pudge, or it was the ungainly half-wit called Batty, or it was the pretty-boy called Freddie. He was convinced that it was one of them.

The truth was he didn�t have much against the punk called Freddie. He just didn�t like effeminate males. The mere sight of them made him unreasonably furious. When he�d been a harness bull the thing he�d enjoyed most was clubbing the queers who haunted city parks.

The only trouble was that the time was growing short. The inspector had given him a month for detached duty with pay and three weeks had already gone by. Every night he�d sat beside the river waiting for the punk who would ask him for a match and all he�d seen were millionaires walking their dogs and a couple of interesting necking parties and some old bums drinking from their paper-wrapped crocks of Sneaky Pete. By this time the thing had become a fixation with him, though. He knew he was going to keep on sitting there, even if he had to do it on his own time instead of the city�s. But he had become wildly eager for the punk to show up. He was like a man who wants a woman so bad he�s about to explode, a lecher awaiting the arrival of his sweetheart. His hand would fondle the cold steel of the gun in his pocket and it would feel as warm and soft and desirable to him as a woman�s flesh had ever felt. He tortured his imagination thinking how it would be when he took the gun out, finally, and pressed it up against the belly of the punk and squeezed the trigger.

A time came when he could stand it no longer. He thought of accosting one of the three Cavaliers that he suspected, any one of the three, and killing him for the murder of his father. But that might stir up a stink, and he didn�t want to stir up another one � remembering only too well what had happened after he�d killed the drunken sailor. And then he knew that he must bring on the attack, provoke it, by making the bait more desirable. What better way, he thought, finally, than to let the punks know he was a cop, a cop who was out to get them. How to tip off the Cavaliers then became his problem. He thought hard, trying to figure out a way. Then a way in which he might use the beat cop came to him.

I was doing seventy when they nudged my car into a spin. I knew they�d never quit now...

I stayed overnight at the ranch, got up early, had a big breakfast, refused my client�s repeated requests that I stay around a few more days and go hunting with him, and finally left about 8:00 A.M. I had to drive over a narrow range of mountains; it was very pleasant that early. The road twisted tortuously but I scooted along at a pretty good clip.

I was just about through the mountains when this red hardtop caught up with me. I was going around a curve at the time and this hardtop, its horn blasting and without slowing down, started to pass. Just as it got alongside, a truck came rolling toward us from around the curve. I pushed down on the gas and also pulled right as far as I could. The hardtop�s brakes squealed and it somehow got back in behind me just as the truck roared by.

I�m not a particularly nervous type, but that one had me sweating. I was sore. I don�t mind fast drivers, but I sure as hell resent careless ones. Since the road was still a long series of curves, I pulled out in the center of the road and stayed there. The hardtop honked and honked, but I wouldn�t budge. When there was a straight stretch, I pulled over to let him pass.

He passed all right. He whipped by at seventy miles an hour and so close I swear I heard his fender tick against mine. He was going so fast and his passing was so unexpected that he almost overturned me. There were two men in the car and one of them yelled something at me as they went by. For a moment my hands were like ice on the wheel. Then I told myself it was one of those things that happen when you drive. Forget it. I had plenty of other things to think about than those two jerks.

I guess if my wife had been along, nothing further would have come of it. For one thing, I would have considered her safety. What�s more, she would have said something about �Is it that important to you?� in a voice designed to make you feel like a small boy walking a fence to show how brave you are.

Well, I didn�t yet know how important it was to me; at the time I reached the ferry, it seemed very important...

I live in Brownsville, Texas, right on the border. I�m a lawyer, thirty-eight, wife and three kids, ranch-house with a mortgage, three-year old car. I have clients on both sides of the border. I make out.

This client of mine, whose place I�d left at eight, had a big ranchero about two hundred miles south of the border in Mexico. I won�t go into my business with him; let�s just say he needed a loophole in some import regulations and I had found it for him. I�m that kind of a lawyer, not much good in a courtroom, but give me a problem and a set of law books and if there�s a way, I�ll find it. All very legal. I�m a very law-abiding citizen; I�ve seen too many people put away not to want to stay legal.

Once out of the mountains, it was a hundred and seventy-five fairly level miles to Brownsville, easy driving except for the little two-car ferry across one of the rivers where there always was a wait. I had gone about thirty or forty miles when I saw the red hardtop ahead. They had a flat and one of the two men, a big fat-gutted guy, was standing in the middle of the road waving me down.

Like anyone else, when I see someone in trouble I stop. But these two � I just poured on the gas and roared by. In the rear-view mirror, I could see the beefy guy looking after me, outrage in every gesture. I grinned. That�ll show those s.o.b.�s, I thought.

I got to the ferry about an hour later. There were eight cars ahead of me and the ferry, as usual, was moving so slowly across the river you had to line it up with something on the other side to make sure it was moving at all. I got out my briefcase and started to work on a case. This was a rough one, at least for me. A long-time client of mine had a rather wild son who had gotten himself involved in a car smash-up. The kid was coming up for trial on a manslaughter charge and it was my job to get him off.

Well, I�m a pretty good lawyer, but I�m not much of a courtroom man. I can�t put on the big act and browbeat witnesses and play on the jury�s emotions. I guess you could say I don�t have the killer instinct that a good trial lawyer has to have. I didn�t want the case, but my client insisted and mentioned a fee that would get me a new car, reduce the mortgage and give my wife and me a vacation in Canada.

I sweated over my notes for about an hour. The ferry came and went a couple times and I kept moving up and, finally, I was at the head of the line. I closed my briefcase and was just getting out to stretch my legs when the red hardtop slid by, its motor throbbing, and stopped with a jerk a half length in front of my car. The beefy gentleman in the right front seat looked back at me, his face expressionless, but his attitude saying: �Go ahead, make something of it.�

The occupants of the eight or ten cars lined up behind me came flooding around the hardtop, grumbling and angry.

�Who do they think they are anyway?� a woman said to her husband as they went past my car. There was a surge of angry voices and a sudden commotion as the right front door of the hardtop burst open. The man who got out was immense, at least six feet tall and with a bloated tub of a body like a pro wrestler. He looked about thirty.

�Who says we can�t?� he said in a loud voice. By this time the driver was out too. He was as tall as his partner, but hard and lean and he moved with the savage grace of a stalking mountain lion. He opened the trunk of the car and got four bottles of beer out of a portable ice chest, knocked the caps off two on the bumper and gave one to his partner. I noticed the car had a year old Texas license and in the back-window were two hard hats of the type oil workers wear.

I felt like such a coward, sitting there, that I got out and joined the group of people who were ringed in a half-circle around the two men.

�You all just clear out of here now,� the beefy man said with a grin. �We�re in a hurry.�

�We�ve been waiting an hour,� bleated a young fellow who was next in line behind me.

�Then you won�t mind waiting a few more minutes. Now will you?�

The youngster said something under his breath and the big bully sprang forward at him with surprising agility and pushed him sprawling against my car. The driver knocked the bottom off his beer bottle and moved alongside his partner.

�Beat it,� the driver ordered, determinedly, viciously. He made a menacing gesture with his shattered bottle and the crowd fell back. I got elbowed off balance and was left alone a pace or two from the others and the beefy guy saw me.

�That your car?� he said, jerking a beefy thumb.

�Yes,� I said, rather pleased that my voice was firm and steady.

�Let me give you some advice,� he said, towering over me and breathing beerily into my face. �You do like you did back there again and you�re going to get run right out into the cactus.�

�And you�re going to kill yourself passing on curves,� I said. He hadn�t expected me to answer and his face was red and stupid as he tried to think of something to say.

�I�m telling ya,� he said and gave me a shove. I kept my feet only because I hit my car.

The pair swaggered back to their car and got in. I stood where I�d been shoved and was getting so angry I shook. They evidently had been pushing people around for a long time. It was time someone stood up to them. The ferry was only about two hundred feet from shore, so if I was going to do anything I had to do it fast.

�Listen,� I said to the man who was second in line, �those bastards will have to move back to let the cars off the ferry. As soon as the cars are off, I�ll pull up fast and block them off. You go on the ferry first; I�ll go second.�

�Good,� the man said. �We�ll show the mother-lovers.�

�Henry,� the man�s wife said, �what�s got into you? What difference does it make if we have to wait a few more minutes.�

As I went back to my car, Henry was absorbing a lot of verbal punishment.

I locked the doors, rolled up the windows, started the motor and waited. The ferry scrunched against the bank and the first car came part way off, then honked at the hardtop to back up. The beefy man got out and came over to me.

�Back up,� he commanded.

�No room,� I said, which was true. He went around to the front of my car and waved his partner to back up. Wheels spinning, the hardtop shot back to a point where its front bumpers were even with my rear ones. As the second car came off the ferry and slid by, I cramped my wheels left and jammed on the gas. The beefy guy had to jump back and the hardtop, already moving, slammed into my rear end. I heard the tinkle of glass.

The young fellow behind me moved by and onto the ferry. The hardtop backed up furiously a few feet and tried to cut around on my right but I backed up too, forcing him to stop. The way was now clear for me to go on the ferry. And what did I do? I killed the motor.

It started right away, but by then the two bullies were on me. I got excited and poured the gas on so hard my wheels dug down in the soft sand and I was stuck.

The big ox walked around in front of my car and stood grinning at me. Then they both got on the right side and started bouncing the car back and forth. I was pitching back and forth like a row boat in a storm. The car bounced so hard the wheels lifted. One more bounce and it lurched up, tilted precariously, then toppled over onto its left side.

My head bounced from steering wheel to window and back again like a ping pong ball. I could feel blood running down my face. By the time the others had helped me out, the ferry, with the hardtop on it, was half-way across the river.

There was a general, indignant buzz from the people around me. A woman gave me a towel and helped stop the bleeding. Someone else spread a blanket for me to sit on and gave me a shot of Scotch. I was shaking from anger and frustration. About twenty men got together and with a great deal of pushing and grunting got my car onto its wheels again.

�Any of you guys got a gun?� I said, as I stood up and moved toward the group.

�Son,� an elderly preacher-type man said, �you�d better quit while you�re no bigger loser than you are.�

�I want a gun,� I said. �I live in Brownsville and you�ll get it back.�

�I got me a little .22 automatic,� a man said. �You can borry that.� He went to his car. When he came back with the gun, he gave me a couple extra clips. �Hope you don�t need it,� he said.

�I hope I do,� I told him.

But it�s hard for a guy like me to stay that angry very long. I was sore, of course, but I got to thinking of all the people I�d seen in court who were in trouble just because they let their emotions run away with them. So by the time the ferry got back, I was rational and logical again. Due process of law and all that. I�d stop at the first town that had a phone and call the border. I knew many people there. I took down the names of witnesses who were willing to give statements if necessary. And I gave the man back his gun.

The preacher-type nodded approvingly. �Revenge is not a wholesome emotion,� he Said.

So the ferry, finally, got back and my car seemed to work all right, though I had lost some gas. I filled up at the little town on the other side of the river, but they didn�t have a phone and so I headed my battered car toward Brownsville.

She got up to fifty all right and as I drove along I tried to figure who to call, the U.S. or the Mexican authorities. A man named Luis Flores was a big wheel on the Mexican side and he owed me a big favor. Luis had a brother-in-law who was somebody important in the police. I could really get that pair of hoodlums in trouble for a year or two.

I was about half-way to the next town and feeling pretty good about what I�d do to those two goons, when I came up over the top of a hill and there was the red hardtop parked at the side of the road. The beefy guy was leaning nonchalantly against a front fender, a beer in his hand. He saluted me with it as I went past.

I pushed my car up to seventy, but within a minute or two the hardtop was in sight behind me, pitching and rolling and coming fast. They came in close behind me, matching my speed; then they nudged me. They bumped me again, harder; then still harder, I went into a brief skid. By the time I was out of it, I was down to forty.

I was scared. Obviously these two didn�t feel they had settled the score. I wished I had that .22.

They started to move in again and my first impulse was to speed up. But the faster I went, the more dangerous it would be. I suddenly remembered a multiple crash I�d seen of five cars, each car with its grill neatly smashed in under the rear bumper of the car ahead of it. A car�s front goes down when you brake; its rear up.

I got up to about fifty-five, let them get close and then slammed on the brakes. There was the smash into my car�s rear, but it didn�t seem big enough to get to their radiator. The bumpers hooked briefly, then came free.

I started to pick up speed at once, but the other driver caught up with me and began to push. I hit the brakes and started to skid. I pushed down on the gas, but the car back of me could accelerate faster than my old car. I shifted into second, but they soon had me doing sixty in second. I kept touch-the brakes, but they had begun to smell. They wouldn�t last long.

The road ahead was a level stretch and I could see that the macadam had some deep pits in it. I steered right for the deepest. My head hit the ceiling as the car slammed into it. The hard jolt caused them to drop back.

But I knew they�d never quit now. In a few seconds their car leaped forward, came alongside and the Burly man half-leaned out, his face livid, as he hurled bottles. The first one shattered against the door window and a spray of glass slivers hit my face. The second bounced off the windshield. Before he could throw a third, I pulled my car hard left. His head and shoulders disappeared in a hurry. There was a shriek and grind of metal as the two cars slid against one another, the tires squealing.

They managed to pull up ahead of me, decreasing their speed and pulling over in front of me if I tried to pass. When we got down to about fifteen an hour, they braked abruptly. I almost went into them. The two men boiled out of the hardtop. I tried to back up fast and killed the motor. It was so overheated, it flooded. I was helpless.

�Get out,� snarled the husky hoodlum.

�Listen,� I said, �this has got out of hand. We�re about even. My car�s a wreck. I think��

�Come on or I�ll haul you out.�

A car coming from Brownsville slowed, but they waved it on. As soon as it had passed, the beefy guy reached in the broken window to unlock the door. I grabbed his arm and pushed it down on the shattered glass. He roared like an injured bull and pulled his arm out, looked at the blood. He called to his partner.

�Eddie,� I heard him say. �Get the rifle. I�m going to kill this son of a bitch. I�m going to drill this son of a bitch right between the eyes.�

The lean one went back to the hardtop.

I swore as I touched the starter button. I shifted into low and headed straight for the rear end of the hardtop.

The lanky guy was just reaching into the back seat for the rifle, when I slammed into the hardtop with a crash that sent him sprawling into the road. My tires screamed and smoked as I frantically got the bigger car moving, slowly at first, then faster and faster. One of the pair was running after me, but it didn�t do him any good. I was on my way.

I kept waiting for the hardtop�s wheels to cramp so it would go into the ditch. They didn�t. The damned car ran right down the middle of the road, as if it had a driver.

I had gone about a hundred yards, when the road began to rise where it went through a cut in a small hill. Just as I got to the top, the hardtop finally began to drift to the right. As I started to push it down hill, it cramped abruptly and ran its nose into the soft earth of the �cut,� the sloping side through which the road had been sliced. Because my bumper was caught on the hardtop�s, it pulled me with it.

I got out quick, to see about getting unhooked. Only one of my bumper guards was left, so I was able to work the two bumpers apart. As I got back into my car, I noticed a silvery streak on the highway. I thought at first that it was my radiator. I ran back around front. It wasn�t my radiator; it was their gas tank. I had apparently smashed their bumper right into the tank.

I jumped in my car and backed up. As I put my car in low again, I saw in my rear-view mirror that the two men were running toward me over the hill. The one who�d been knocked off the car when I slammed into it was limping, slowing their speed.

I knew that though the hardtop was losing gas, they�d probably have enough to catch up with me. And that, by now they were so enraged that they�d kill me. I had a picture of them slamming into me from the rear at ninety miles an hour, not caring any more what happened � or just shooting the hell out of me with the rifle.

As I pulled around the hardtop, my rear wheels suddenly spun, almost throwing me into the ditch. The reason was obvious. Gasoline from the hardtop was running at angles across the road, in a thin little line. Fear prickled the hairs at the back of my neck; I felt cold inside, but I knew I had to act... had to do something. I saw the one way out. I braked to a stop. I was already beyond where the stream of gas had run. I got out and sprinted back. I fumbled for my matches. My hands were sweaty and shaking. Finally, I struck a match and lit the entire book and threw it down into the little stream of gas. The men came over the hill, shouting obscenities at me.

I saw the gas puff into blue flame as I ran for my car and took off. I glanced into the rear-view mirror as I shifted, but the slope of the hill cut off my view of the top of it. And all I could really think about was whether or not it would work.

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, I was doing sixty. Wreck that my car was, I was afraid to take my eyes off the road long enough to look back. But I sneaked a quick look after a few seconds. A column of dark smoke was rising from the top of the hill. I knew then that the flame had followed the trail of gas back to the hardtop.

I slowed down, turned and looked out the rear window. Even as I looked back, I saw the hardtop pull into the middle of the road, ready to chase me, smoke pouring from its rear end.

Just as I told myself that they were crazy to try to drive that car, the explosion echoed in the hills.

If they were alive, they�d need a lot of help. But I didn�t go back. I drove on to Brownsville. My anger was gone. I was tense and nervous and utterly exhausted, but I wasn�t angry anymore � and I wasn�t sorry.

I�m still not sorry.

They were forced to do as he ordered: put their guns against each other and start firing. Each gun held one bullet...

The sheriff mentioned devils when they were half a mile out of Laurelton. Up to then he hadn�t spoken. He drove like a man of stone until Joe Hansford moved his hands and his handcuffs clanked. Then he did speak, in a sort of grim calm as if he were too much moved for hatred.

�If,� he said steadily, �if you ain�t possessed of a devil, there�s no explainin� what you did. Tom Kennedy was a good friend to you!�

Joe did not answer.

�I�m not a superstitious man,� said the sheriff. �I can figure out why people steal an� do all kinds of meanness. I�m not so good I can�t understand even wanting to kill somebody you hate. But why you did what you did to Tom Kennedy I can�t understand!�

Joe did not listen. He stared unseeingly ahead as the car rolled over the patched, not-often-used highway. The sheriff was taking him to Bradenton jail for safety. It was his duty to keep Joe unharmed for the due processes of the law, but even so he was probably over-cautious. Tom Kennedy had been found dead in his store only two hours ago. It would take time for details of the murder to spread and meditation to bring up the deep, corrosive wrath which might imperil Joe,

The second-growth pine that had been along both sides of the road drew back and there was a stream � a little creek with reeds on its banks, and a plank bridge over it. The car-wheels made a drumming sound as they went across and into untidy, ill-kept woodland beyond.

�There was a time,� said the sheriff, again, �when they�d blame what you did on Satan. It seems pretty reasonable to me. It ain�t easy to figure out a human thinkin� of a thing like that!�

Joe licked his lips. He�d come to Laurelton three months before to work in Mr. Kennedy�s General Store. It was the tiniest of villages, but he liked it. He�d met Nancy � whose father now drove him to prison and perhaps to trial and execution. The sheriff had been suspicious of Joe, as any man may be when a stranger appears to win his daughter away from him. And as a clerk in Kennedy�s General Store, Joe hadn�t been an especially glamorous suitor.

But the sheriff had been no more than suspicious until two hours ago. Tonight. Then Mr. Kennedy had been found robbed and murdered with a deliberate, unnecessary zest. And the sheriff had come to ask Joe if there�d been any strangers in the store during the day � there�d been only one. And the sheriff had found Joe with his suitcase packed to leave town, and four hundred and sixty-eight dollars in cash in his possession. It was not reasonable for Joe to be prepared for secret flight � which he was. It was not credible that the money was any other than the money of which the store had been robbed. And Mr. Kennedy had grown up in Laurelton with the older citizens, and had watched the younger ones grow. Nobody but a stranger would have murdered him. Joe was a stranger.

The sheriff turned his head to glance at Joe.

�I never said this to a prisoner before,� he rumbled on unhappily, �but if you was to try to get away from me, I don�t believe I�d try to stop you half as hard as I�d try to kill you!�

Joe found his stiffened lips cracking in an imperceptible smile at the sheriff�s attempt to keep down his rage. He and Nancy had planned to elope tonight. That was why his suitcase was packed. That was why he had all his savings in his pocket. If it were found out now, though, nobody would consider Joe proven innocent. Rather, they would think it revealed the motive for the murder and a plan for a more monstrous sequel still � which had been prevented only by his arrest. And suddenly he hoped desperately that Nancy never believed him guilty!

There was a slight curve in the road. As the car rounded it, there was a figure visible a long way ahead. It was a man, walking with a crutch. When the headlight beams struck him, he turned and seemed to squint at the oncoming car. Then he moved to the side of the road and stood there, making room for it to pass. The sheriff slowed, however.

�I�ll have company,� he said heavily to Joe, �You � ain�t.�

He came to a stop alongside the man with the crutch.

�Lift?� he asked formidably.

�Don�t mind if I do,� said a cheerful voice. �Mighty good of you. How far you� goin�?�

�Bradenton,� said the sheriff grimly. �Get in the back. I�m the sheriff, and I got a prisoner up here.�

The man with the crutch swung deftly beside the rear door and opened it. He got in nimbly. He tucked away the crutch.

�I�ll go all the way,� he said comfortably, as he closed the car-door and the sheriff started off again. �I�d never ha� made it tonight.�

�Long way to be walking,� the sheriff said. �Don�t think I know you. Live around here?�

�Nope,� said the man in the back, again cheerfully. �I�m travellin�. Not that I have to do much walkin�! People are mighty nice about pickin� up a fella.�

The sheriff stepped on the accelerator. Joe Hansford did not speak. He thought despairingly of Nancy.

�Prisoner, huh?� said the man in the back seat. �What�d he do?�

�Murder,� said the sheriff harshly. �He worked for Tom Kennedy in Laurelton. Tonight he killed him an� robbed the till.�

�My! My!� said the man behind Joe. �How�d he do it? Shootin�?�

�No!� said the sheriff. He voice grated. �He tied him hand and foot with a noose around his neck. Gagged him. Tied one foot up behind his knee. Then this fella stood Tom on the other foot an� tightened the noose. Tom Kennedy had to balance. On one foot! When he lost his balance � he died!�

The man in the back seat made clucking noises.

�That�s not nice!� he said. �But I guess he thought it was fun to make the old fella try to balance until mornin�. And he might think it�d be fun to listen to people talkin� about it, too. We got a young fella here...�

The car ran on. Joe sat stiffly on the front seat beside the sheriff. He heard the other man talking, but he did not note the words. He was conscious only of what Nancy must be going through.

�But there ain�t no devils,� the man in the back seat was saying. �No, sir! No devils! Just people! But us people could give those old-time devils lessons, if we wanted to!� He chuckled. �Over across the state last year, there was...�

He narrated, in detail, a murder equal in ghastliness to the killing in Laurelton tonight. Joe barely heard it.

The sheriff said harshly; �I remember that. They never caught the killer, either.�

�I c�n tell you another,� offered the man in the back seat, brightly. �Over yonder, three-four hundred miles...�

He chirruped another equally grisly tale. Somebody bound and left to watch death approach him, utterly helpless to prevent it.

When it was finished, the man in back giggled.

�It�s a hobby of his,� chuckled the man with the crutch. �That it, young fella? Maybe he likes thinkin� of somebody helpless, waitin� for what�ll kill him an� goin� crazy because he can�t do a thing! Maybe he likes to hear talk about it, too, the way some folks like to shoot ducks from a duck-blind and some like makin� a smart business deal, an� some like catchin� criminals like you do, sheriff.�

He chuckled again.

�It�s reasonable! What�s the use of havin� money? It�s only worth what you can buy with it! A duck-hunter won�t stop huntin� ducks because he�s got money enough to buy �em! A smart business man won�t stop makin� smart business deals because he�s rich! If there was a fella that liked fixin� folks up so they couldn�t do a thing but die, what�d a fella like that want with money?�

The car purred and rolled and jounced through the night. The moon shone brightly as it came from behind a cloud. There was a swamp somewhere nearby, because the sound of innumerable croaking frogs rode on the night-wind.

�There ain�t any devils, though,� said the man in the back seat. �No, sir! When they talked about folks possessed of devils, in the old days, they was talkin� about fellas that had hobbies. They knew what they was doin�! They just didn�t care about what other folks cared about � like some folks don�t like duck-hunting. And they knew money wouldn�t help in their hobbies! Like it wouldn�t help in � mine.�

The car swerved sharply, and then straightened out again. The sheriff�s hands had quivered on the wheel. Now he sat frozen. But his foot eased up on the accelerator, and the car slowed to a crawl, and presently it jerked and stalled. There was a very singular stillness save for the sound of night-insects outside and the very faint and far-away croaking of frogs.

The man in the back seat giggled.

�Yeah,� he said zestfully. �It is a pistol-barrel I got touchin� your head, sheriff. Funny, ain�t it? This ain�t exactly my hobby, but it�s a chance to broaden out a little. Y�see, what I like mostly is dunkin� about people bein� helpless. An� you�re helpless. And that young fella � he knows if he tries anything I�ll kill him...�

He snickered.

�People are mighty kind to a fella like me that they think can�t walk good. They never think he might be a fella that can. I could tell you stories. Want to hear �em?�

The sheriff said thickly, and it was fury which thickened his voice, �Did you kill Tom Kennedy?�

�Shucks!� said the man in back, reproachfully. �He killed himself! Just carelessness! He didn�t balance right! Now hold still, sheriff! I�m goin� to take your pistol, an� if you try to grab my hand I�ll blow the whole top of your head off!�

Joe Hansford turned stiffly. He stared, and his hands stirred, and the chain of the handcuffs made a tiny tinkling sound.

The man in the back � and he did not move, now, like a man who needed a crutch � slid his left hand over the sheriff�s left shoulder.

�Shoulder-holster,� he said, delightedly. �Nice!�

The sheriff swore in a thick, shaking voice. The man behind him withdrew his hand with the sheriff�s pistol in it. He settled himself comfortably into the back seat again.

�I�m goin� to do somethin� new, now!� he said brightly. �Y�know, my hobby�s always had one drawback. I couldn�t practice it on but one person. But I never did have two, anyways, before now. I got to think this out. It�s off the regular line of what I like to do.�

Joe Hansford said with a certain earnest calm, �Sheriff, I can tell you now that Nancy and I � we were going to run off and get married tonight. That�s why I was packed up. It wouldn�t have done any good to tell you before.�

The sheriff growled.

The man in the back seat said with a sort of meditative brightness, �I think I�ll let one of you stay alive, because it�ll be fun to see you findin� out which one it�s to be.�

Joe said with the same earnestness, �And sheriff, I�d saved some money. That was what I had when you came to my room! It was to be our honeymoon money.�

�This is goin� to be good!� the man in the back seat said zestfully. �Nobody ever did anything like this before! Sheriff, I want you to take off one of his handcuffs an� cuff yourself to him. Go on! Do it!�

The sheriff raged. He�d let his weapon be taken merely because he�d have died if he resisted. Now he was shamed. He snarled, �What if I don�t?�

The man in the back seat said in mild reproof, �I�m goin� to leave one of you alive! But if you won�t do like I say, I can�t!�

There was a small clattering, and a click.

�Hold up your wrists,� said the man in the back, �so I can see. I wouldn�t put it past you to try to cheat!� The sheriff, panting, held up his arm, and Joe�s wrist was fastened to it by the handcuff-chain. �That�s right! Now��

He opened the back door and got out very nimbly. He had a front door wrenched open before either of them could stir. He grinned excitedly. In the moonlight there was no suggestion of madness on his face. And that was more horrible than madness would have been.

�Come out together, now! I�m goin� to leave one of you alive, but if you don�t do like I say, I can�t!�

The sheriff followed Joe as Joe got stiffly out of the car.

�Up front, there,� the man said zestfully. �Out yonder where there�s light! That�ll do! Stand still, now!�

He moved himself into a headlight beam and held the sheriff�s weapon between his knees, where he could get it if he needed it. He took another revolver from his pocket, broke the shells out of its cylinder; he put one back and showed it to them, beaming.

�One bullet,� he said brightly. �This gun was in the store back in the village. In the money-drawer. I�m goin� to give it to the young fella.� He chuckled. �It won�t go off the first time you pull the trigger, young fella, so you�d better not try to shoot me!� He took out another weapon � presumably his own � and put it between his knees while, as carefully as before, he broke the sheriff�s heavy-caliber revolver and removed five of the six bullets. He snapped the cylinder shut. He grinned at them. �Now I put your guns in the road. You pick �em up. Neither one will shoot the first time the trigger�s pulled. So if I hear either gun click I�ll kill you both.�

His voice was rapt, absorbed.

�You�ll get the guns,� he went on, �an� you�ll point �em at each other. When I count three, you both pull the triggers. The first time, nothin�ll happen. Either one might go off on the second. There�s no way to tell which�ll be the first to go off. But when one does � why � I�ll let the one that shoots it live!�

Joe Hansford thought of Nancy. If her father killed him, for shame he could never tell how he�d come to do so. He�d have to pretend that Joe tried to escape,�� Nancy would be convinced of his guilt and want to die. And if he should kill the sheriff, he would never be believed. He would have to flee with two murders charged against him. And Nancy would want to die of shame because she loved him.

From the back seat, his eyes very bright, the man said: �Play it out an� one of you�ll live. But you can�t help yourselves! One will die. Get ready!�

The man waved them on. Joe and the sheriff went for the weapons. Holding the pistol now, that had belonged to Mr. Kennedy, Joe was dragged at by the handcuff that held him to the sheriff. He stumbled. His shoe-soles made rasping noises on the hard gravel road.

�Now,� said the voice behind them, eagerly, �You two put y�guns touchin� each other�s bodies. Nothin�ll happen the first time, but when I count three...�

The sheriff glared at him.

�If you ain�t possessed by a devil,� he said, �there�s no explainin� you.�

�One,� said the man, and snickered.

Joe thought of Nancy as he turned his head to watch the man the sheriff had picked up, as he began the count for someone to die.

�Two,� said the man.

He giggled.

�Three!�

The sheriff moved quickly. His heavy-caliber pistol kicked and spat flame.

There was a monstrous silence, save for night-insects shrilling on either side of the road. The man began to buckle at the knees. Then he toppled and lay still.

The sheriff let out a long-held breath. He fumbled for the handcuff key.

�Smart, that fella,� he said. �Any time he did somethin� an� they set up road-blocks, somebody�d pick him up an� carry him right through. An� they mightn�t ha� hung him if he was caught! They woulda said he was crazy. You believe he was?�

�No,� said Joe flatly.

The handcuff fell from his wrist. The sheriff pocketed the pair with a gesture that was somehow formal.

�I shoot better left-handed,� he said, �and I didn�t take no chances. More�n likely he wouldn�t ha� left either of us alive.�

He walked over to the man lying on the highway. He started to bend over him; turning somewhat he said over his shoulder to Joe. �Take his feet, will yuh? We got to get him in the car.�

Joe moved silently, quickly, to do what the sheriff had asked. Helping to carry the body gave him a feeling of closeness to the sheriff that he�d never had before. Somehow he was sure the sheriff understood.

He was able to ask, now, as though he and the sheriff were old friends, �How�d you do it? The gun was��

The sheriff frowned at Joe in the moonlight, stopping him from finishing what he was about to say. He didn�t answer either, but went about the business of getting the dead man into the back of the car, grunting and wheezing seemingly out of all proportion to the effort.

The job done, he straightened up outside the car and said, as though there had been no interruption, �Only one thing I could do. Felt with m�thumbnail �til I found the bullet an� twisted the cylinder �til it�d fire first time.�

And as the sheriff slid back of the steering wheel, he growled that it seemed like some folks were just possessed by devils � and that there were no two ways about it.

�Oh, well do the job all right,� Morgan said. �If he comes, he�s dead.�

When the knocking sounded on the door of the small hotel room at precisely two o�clock in the afternoon, the girl was in the bathroom brushing her hair. She was not brushing her hair because it particularly needed brushing, but because she always spent her idle time doing something to herself, or some part of herself, her hair or lips or eyes or nails or legs. This time, at two o�clock in the afternoon of this day, it just happened to be her hair. She stopped brushing and stood, with the brush suspended above her head, in an attitude of listening until the knocking was resumed after an interval of silence, and then she placed the brush on the back edge of the lavatory and went out into the other room. On the way to the door, because she was wearing only panties and bra, she stopped long enough to pull on a robe that didn�t actually conceal her body, but at least made it less apparent.

The man in the hall who had done the knocking was thin and tall, but not so tall as he would have been if his shoulders had not been so stooped. He had a long bony face with one eyelid that drooped, and this gave his face the expression of a rather lewd leer which was contradicted by the sour twist of his mouth. The skin of the face was fish-belly white, and the girl wondered vaguely how this was sustained in an area where the sun shone so hot and so brightly.

�I�m Morgan,� the man said. �Police.�

He said it as if there were something unpleasant about it, a bitterness in the name or the job or what he was looking at. The girl stepped back, holding the skirt of the robe, which was fastened only by a belt at the waist, somewhat together over her long golden legs.

�Come in, then,� she said.

Morgan walked past her into the room, removing his wilted panama to expose a bulging naked skull with a few surviving hairs plastered across it with perspiration. He looked around the room while the girl closed the door and locked it. When he heard the bolt slip home behind him, he moved across to a chair that was placed in reference to the door at so acute an angle that the door itself, when open, would hide it from anyone entering the room. Morgan folded himself into the chair and removed a .38 automatic from a shoulder holster under his wrinkled cord coat. He laid the .38 beside a glass ash tray on a small table beside the chair. Leaning back, he looked at the girl, his sour mouth moving slightly in what might have been a sour smile.

�This ought to do fine,� he said.

�I wasn�t expecting you yet,� she said. �You�re two hours early.�

He shrugged. �I know. Four o�clock, he said. Maybe so. Maybe earlier or maybe later. A guy like him is shifty. You can�t depend on anything he says.�

�Couldn�t you do it in the lobby?�

�Maybe. A couple of guys are down there to do it if they can. But he might get through. A guy like him is smart. You can�t tell.�

It was the girl�s time to shrug. The movement was abrupt, jerky, as if she were certainly annoyed and possibly angry. The skirt of her robe fell slightly apart to reveal a golden strip of flesh. Morgan looked at the revelation, looked up at the girl�s face, looked back.

�What the hell am I supposed to do in the meantime?� she said. �Talk with you or something? Amuse you or something?�

He repeated his sour shadow of a smile. �You sound irritable. Nervous, I guess. You scared?�

�No.� The girl laughed, injecting into the short sound a tone of scorn. �Why the hell should I be scared?�

�Well, you could have reasons, as I see it.� Morgan lifted his eyes to her face again, and she had a sudden peculiar impression that he was about to spit on the floor. �A guy like this is dangerous. Knocked off this bank solo in KC. Knocked off this teller while he was knocking off the bank. He�s got a lot of dough on the line, as well as his life. What I mean, he�s got nothing to gain by being cautious.�

The girl returned his gaze steadily. If his words disturbed her in the least, she didn�t show it. A real looker, he thought. Big brown eyes you could drown in. Soft damp mouth you could quench your thirst at. Pale blonde dye job that looked damn near real, soft and shining and uniform all through. Beautiful, beautiful chassis, a shadow under silk. No wonder a man was making a damn fool of himself. No wonder a man would risk far too much to take it to South America with him.

�You�re here, aren�t you?� the girl said. �You and two more in the lobby?�

�Sure. And six more in the street.�

�Can�t you do a job? Can�t nine of you? Does a girl have to be scared?�

�Oh, we�ll do it, all right. If he comes, he�s dead. Still, you might naturally be a little scared. A guy like him won�t like being double-crossed. He�s bound to feel nasty about it. What I mean, you never can tell where a stray bullet may strike before things get settled down. It�s a pretty big risk to take, seems to me, even for ten grand. Ten grand�s the reward, isn�t it?�

�What the hell business is it of yours?�

�None. None at all. There�s something I can�t get clear, though. Something doesn�t seem to make sense. Ten grand�s a big piece of dough, I admit, but fifty grand�s bigger. That�s what he�s figured to have from the job, I hear. About fifty grand. Looks to me like it would�ve been smarter to stick with the fifty instead of going with the ten.�

�Sure.� The edge of scorn was in the girl�s voice, as it had been in her laugh. �Stick with the fifty and sweat out the cops the rest of my life. No, thanks. I�ve got other things to do.�

Morgan closed his eyes, as if he could no longer stand the sight of her. He pursed his lips and began to breathe deeply and evenly. He appeared to have dropped off to sleep in an instant � judging from his expression, to a troubled sleep of unpleasant dreams.

�You�re smart,� he said. �Oh, you�re a brave, smart girl.�

She continued to look at him, expecting him at any moment to open his eyes and resume the conversation, but he did not. After a couple of minutes, she turned and went back into the bathroom, leaving the door slightly open behind her, but after she was there, she didn�t know what to do with herself. It was still nearly two hours until four o�clock, the time that Bruno had said he would come, and it was clearly impossible to continue to brush her hair for all that time. Nevertheless, while she was trying to think of something else, she picked up the brush from the edge of the lavatory and began brushing again. Looking at her face in the mirror, she thought that she looked very nice with the brown eyes and suntan under the pale hair. Rather striking and unusual, as a matter of fact.

After a hundred strokes, which she counted carefully from habit, forming the shapes of the numbers silently with her lips, she laid the brush down again and thought that it would be pleasant to sit for a while in a tub of hot water. She wasn�t so sure that she ought to, though, on second thought, what with Morgan out in the other room and all, and besides, she had the call being put through to KC, and she didn�t want to be caught in the tub when the operator called her back. She could redo her nails, however. Redoing her nails was something that took a lot of time because the old enamel had to be removed and then the new enamel applied carefully with the little brush, and this was really a meticulous job, a time-killer.

She had just about decided to redo the nails when the telephone began to ring in the other room. She went out to answer it and saw that Morgan was sitting erect in the chair, staring intently at the shrilling instrument. He turned his head slowly in her direction to meet her gaze.

�I�ve got a call being put through to Kansas City,� she said.

�Who to?� he said.

�Just a friend. His name�s Bunny. That�s what they call him. Bunny.�

�Okay.� Morgan leaned back and let his good lid droop to match the bad one, watching her through slits. �One of the boys in the lobby will monitor it at the board.�

She flushed angrily and went on to the telephone. From where she stood with her back to Morgan, she could look out through glass across an expanse of sand and glittering blue water. She picked up the receiver and said hello.

�I have your party in Kansas City now,� the operator said.

�Thank you,� the girl said.

She stood looking through the glass across the sand and the blue water, feeling a little tingling in her flesh in anticipation of his funny, fuzzy voice that sounded like he had a bad case of laryngitis all the time. It was funny how she went for him in such a big way, and missed him like hell when she was away from him even for a short while, and had to call him up in the middle of the night or long distance like now, especially funny when you considered how long it had been going on and how she could certainly do a hell of a lot better any old time from a financial point of view. Well, he was pretty talented, though, and he had this little band that played around some of the small spots in KC, and it was only a matter of time, that was all, until he got his chance to move up, and the ten grand would certainly help.

�Hello,� his voice said. �Are you there, baby?�

�Darling,� she said, �I�ve been waiting and waiting for you. Where have you been?�

�I�ve been out talking with Lew Sulla. You know. About the job in his club I told you about. It pays better than anything we�ve had yet, and it�s for a month minimum with a good chance for extensions at a raise if we�re solid.�

�Did you get the job?�

�Well, he�s thinking it over until tomorrow, and he�s got a couple other possibilities, but I got the impression we�re pretty well in. He caught us a couple times this week, and he never says much, never hands out bouquets or anything like that, but I could tell he liked us.�

�That�s wonderful, darling. I simply couldn�t imagine where you�d gone. I know you always sleep in till around four, five o�clock, and when you didn�t answer, I simply couldn�t imagine. I had the operator keep ringing back every half hour, and I�ve been waiting and waiting.�

�I�m sorry, baby. If I�d known you were going to call, I wouldn�t�ve gone out even for the job with Sulla.�

�Oh, no. You can�t afford to pass up anything good like that. You know how it is, though. You keep wondering and thinking something may be wrong and imagining things, and it�s all silly, of course.�

�Well, you know how I feel, baby. When it comes down to you, to hell with everything and everyone else.�

�Sure, darling, I know. It�s like that with me, too.�

He didn�t say anything for a few seconds, and she knew he was thinking about this other thing, the thing she was here for in regard to Bruno, and she wished she could say something to him directly, something reassuring about how much she loved him and how she had lain awake last night and wished he were with her in the bed, just like he�d been so many other times without its ever getting old or boring, times that reached clear back to when Bruno had still been around town before the crazy bank job and it was pretty dangerous. She couldn�t say anything like this, though, because Morgan was there, and she felt angry with Morgan and wished to hell he would get out. If he were any kind of gentleman, he�d at least go out into the hall or into the bathroom and close the door until she�d finished talking. Not that it would make any difference, really, if there was actually a cop listening at the board downstairs.

�Look, baby,� he said. �Are you all right?�

�Of course I�m all right. Why shouldn�t I be?�

�I mean, is everything all right? You know what I mean.�

�It�s all right, I tell you. You don�t need to worry.�

�That�s easy to say, baby, but a guy can�t help worrying about something like this.�

It made her feel sort of good and bad at once that he was worrying about her. She felt a hard knot in her throat that slowly dissolved.

�There�s nothing to worry about,� she said. �Nothing at all.�

�Has he contacted you again like he said he would?�

�Yes.�

�What�s the deal?�

�He�s coming here this afternoon.�

�To the hotel?�

�Yes.�

�Jesus! Is he crazy?�

�Bruno was always crazy. You know that. He thinks he can do anything and get away with it. Anyhow, he�s got no reason to think anything�s wrong. He thinks we�re going to hop a plane to South America in a couple of days. Buenos Aires or someplace like that where he�d be safe.�

�Well, I don�t like it, just the same. What I wish, I wish you�d hop a plane back to KC. Alone.�

�Look, darling, we�ve been over and over that. Over and over it. Even if there wasn�t any other reason, we�d never feel safe with Bruno loose somewhere. You like to think of Bruno looking for us, never knowing when he�d catch up?�

�To hell with Bruno. You think I�m afraid of Bruno or something? You think I�m a coward? I�m not afraid of Bruno, baby.�

She knew he was afraid of Bruno, but it didn�t make any difference. Not to her. The truth was, it made her feel all soft and funny and motherly, sort of, the way he was afraid and kept saying he wasn�t and trying to act tough about it and all.

�I know you�re not. I didn�t mean you�re afraid or anything.�

�Well, okay, then. Just so everything�s all right.�

�Everything�s fine. It�s all set.�

At that instant, just as she finished saying the words, someone knocked softly and suddenly, and she twisted around quickly, in a kind of reflex action, to look at the door. Then, almost immediately, she looked at the chair in which Morgan had been sitting, and he wasn�t there. He was over against the wall with the .38 in his right hand, and it was incredible that he had been able to move so quickly and so quietly. He jerked his head toward the door, indicating that she should answer the knocking, and she turned with her back to him again and spoke into the telephone.

�Just a minute, darling,� she said quietly. �There�s someone at the door.�

She laid the receiver beside its cradle and went over to the door. Without hesitating or looking again at Morgan, she unlocked it and opened it, and it was Bruno out there in the hall, all right. She recognized him right away, even though he had changed, and had tried to change even more than he had managed. He had dyed his hair black and combed it differently and had grown a mustache, which was also dyed black, and he was burned brown by the sun and wore dark glasses, and he looked altogether phony to her immediately, but maybe that was only because she knew he was phony.

�Hello, beautiful,� he said.

He�d always called her beautiful. It was his word, like baby was Bunny�s. He smiled and came quickly into the room, his teeth looking extremely white under the black mustache, against the brown skin. When he was beyond the edge of the open door, Morgan said something in a soft voice that was almost a croon, and Bruno twisted and saw him and registered in his face in an instant the terrible knowledge of what was happening to him, and almost in the same instant he reached for his gun and was dying. He was on the floor and dying while the sound of Morgan�s single shot was still bouncing off the walls, but before he was dead entirely, he lifted his gun and tried to find the girl with his glazing eyes. Fortunately, there wasn�t time, and even if there had been time, Morgan had the .38 ready to prevent its being used for anything.

Turning away, the girl walked back to the telephone and picked it up.

�Darling?� she said.

His voice sounded wild. �What happened? I heard what sounded like a shot. Jesus, baby, what happened?�

�It�s all right. Just like I told you, it�s all right.�

�I heard what sounded like a shot, baby. What happened?�

�I�ve got to hang up now, darling. I�ll see you soon. In a couple days. Maybe tomorrow night.�

She hung up and turned toward Morgan. He looked at her and shook his head slowly and did what she thought he was going to do earlier. He spit on the floor and walked out. When he was gone, she returned to the bathroom. While she waited for Morgan to return with the others, she began to brush her hair again just for something to do.

He knew she was bad, and he wanted to be good... because of that other time.

The moon disappeared behind a ragged froth of pale night clouds and Arleigh slipped across the dark space between the two houses and crouched silently beside the big flowering oleander. For several seconds, all the sound that reached his attentive ears was the deep unhurried rumble of the surf. Even with the moon gone, he could see the long white lines of the breakers as they slowly lifted, curled over, and crashed down on the wet sands. Then he heard her. He couldn�t make out the words, but he recognized the sound of her voice. Arleigh didn�t have to hear what she was saying. He had heard her talking in there on other nights when the boom of the surf was not so loud. Almost every night since his mother and father had gone away, Arleigh had spent his evenings beneath the woman�s window, under the big oleander.

He didn�t know the woman�s name. She and another woman had rented the house on the beach next door to where Arleigh lived with his parents. Men came over every night and they sat around the porch and drank whiskey and laughed or went out on the beach and swam in the ocean when the nights were warm and there wasn�t much wind. Sometimes the woman would walk up the beach with one of the men and Arleigh would follow them, keeping in the dark shadows of the dunes. He would watch them when they got up beyond the last houses and what he saw had a strange effect on Arleigh. It made him feel almost scared, because he knew what he saw was wrong.

But it was the other feeling that brought him there. He was seventeen years old now, and when he felt like the way he felt about the woman it brought back the awful day six years before when his mother had found him in the basement back in the city with the Watkins girl. His mother had beaten the girl, screaming and lashing her with the heavy belt until the girl lay whimpering on the concrete floor. When Arleigh�s father came home that night, his mother told him what had happened. They looked at their son with disgust and Arleigh�s father got the belt and took him down in the basement. He made Arleigh show him where it had happened and then he started in with the belt.

�That�s sinful, Arleigh,� he said each time the loud pop of the belt fell across the boy. �That�s sinful. The devil put you up to that, son.�

Arleigh remembered wondering why he was getting thrashed, if it was the devil that had been responsible.

Arleigh never forgot the punishment of that day. Even sitting there in the dark seven years later, the humiliation of it burned fresh inside him. He tried to take his thoughts off his mother and father. The voices inside the house were quiet now and he heard the high pitched complaint of bedsprings compressing. He tried to see under the shade, but the woman had pulled it all the way to the bottom this time. Arleigh poked a big hand across the sill through the open window and hooked a forefinger under the shade. He was terribly curious. He lifted the shade � gently. Pale light filtering in from the room beyond the bedroom spread across the floor and he lifted the shade a little higher, then a little higher.

Whirr-flap-flap-flap-flap... Without warning, the shade had flown to the top. Arleigh fell back into the bush and, scrambling to his feet, raced � half stumbling � across the yard toward the low line of dunes bordering the beach. Voices followed him. The woman was shouting something out the window and he heard the man�s voice. Then quiet. Only the sound of the surf and the hammering of his heart from the running and the scare the shade had given him.

Arleigh lay curled on the cool dry sand. Fear holding him immobile. What if she told his mother! He couldn�t stand the humiliation that would be certain to follow.

But she couldn�t know. It was dark and she couldn�t have seen who was at the window. Anyway, the woman didn�t know he existed. She didn�t know the feeling he got whenever he saw her. She didn�t know the thoughts that went of their own accord through his mind when he saw her in that tight bathing suit. She couldn�t possibly know that he crept along in the sand dunes when she walked up the beach at night with the men.

Arleigh turned slowly onto his back, looked up at the moon as it moved through the broken field of clouds. He felt better. He always felt his best when he was alone. Then he didn�t have to worry about what people were thinking. The way they looked at him � as if they didn�t believe their eyes. But he was familiar enough with the huge, gangling body and the wild red hair that looked like a flaming bush and the exaggerated features. He had looked at himself in his mirror often enough, always wondering why he was afflicted as he was. He had listened often enough to the girls at school snicker when he went by.

The moon broke out into the clear night sky. The clouds scuttled away toward the west, and Arleigh picked himself up and walked slowly back to his house and his lonely room.

They were the type baboons who could be most dangerous, unless you handled things just right.

Charley phoned for me at around eleven and I walked the block and a half to the Green Dollar. The blackjack tables were going all right and the one-arms were taking heavy play, but I thought that something would have to be done for the faro games.

The Green Dollar is the one I started with, but now I�ve got two more places up the street. When I�m not around, I�ve got Charley running things.

He was sitting at the desk and looking worried when I opened the office door.

�We got trouble, Tommy,� he said.

I lowered myself into a chair and lit up a king-size cigarette. �Don�t we always have something on hand to annoy us?� I said.

�This is something different.� Charley swiveled his chair to face me. �Maybe we got nothing to worry about and maybe it�s big.�

I bent the match and flipped it into a ash tray. �Somebody moving in?�

�Looks like it,� Charley said. �A big gorilla was here sticking a finger in my chest. He let me know that he and his associates would appreciate a five hundred dollar weekly donation regular every week.�

�You should have had him tossed out,� I said.

Charley snorted at my suggestion. �I�m a cautious married man with two growing children. I didn�t know how many friends he had and I wasn�t anxious to find out.�

�Anybody we know?�

�From the sound of him, I�d say mid-west. He couldn�t be from around here. He thought I owned the joint.�

�Think he might really be working alone?�

�Not completely, at any rate. I got the buzz that a runty little character is working the other side of the street. The big boy should get to the Four Deuces pretty soon.�

I blew smoke into the air and rested my feet on a hassock. �Did he mention any names?�

�Said I could call him Mugger and that�s as far as it went.�

Charley took a cigar from the desk humidor and bit off the tip.

�Is anybody kicking in?� I asked.

�The way I get it, these boys just started.� Charley lit the cigar. �Everybody�s stalling and waiting to see what you�re going to do about it.�

Charley�s eyes met mine. �I�m worried, Tommy,� he said. �Gambling�s legal in this state and pretty clean. I�d hate to see it spoiled.�

The Four Deuces is the biggest and newest of my places. It�s part nightclub and I run a floor show to keep the people entertained when they�re not gambling.

The food costs me money and I break even on the liquor, but that�s the way it always is in a place like mine. It�s the big room with the machines, the dice, and the cards that makes it all worth while.

When I walked into my office, I found Juanita Reyes with her sandaled feet on my desk and making herself at home with a Manhattan.

She has a nightclub act with feathers and a lot of confidence and right now she was wearing her costume. It consisted of a little here and not so much there, and she had left her feathers in the dressing room.

She waggled a few fingers at me and smiled. �I knew you would come back,� she said. �I�m irresistible.�

Juanita took her feet off the polished desk and stretched herself lazily for my benefit. �How do you like my new costume? Just feel the material. It�s the best.�

�Why don�t you take it off,� I said. �It�s a stifling hot night.�

She fluffed her Mexican black hair. �It must be dreadfully warm for you, too.� Juanita had long slender legs and softly curved thighs. She took a deep breath that put considerable strain on her black net brassiere and held the pose.

�Well,� I said, grinning. �What I see seems all right.�

She was reaching up behind her for the fasteners when the damn buzzer on my desk sounded.

I clicked on the switch and got the voice of Sid, the chief houseman.

�Something big out here is panting to see you. I smell trouble. You want to see him or do I form a posse and have him thrown out?�

�Send him in,� I said. �But stick around in case I scream for help.� I looked at Juanita. �You can toddle along. If you stay you�ll just distract me.�

�No,� she said. �I want to watch. But impatiently.�

The guy who came in was under six feet, but he carried the weight for somebody a good foot taller. You could blame heredity for his face, but you�d have a better case if you considered what a dozen barroom brawls could do.

He lifted a bushy eyebrow when he saw Juanita and she gave him a slow wink and a twitch of the hips. He stopped in his tracks and stared at her.

Standing at my desk, I snapped my fingers a couple of times. �I�m over here,� I said.

He regarded me with acute distaste, but decided he might as well get down to business. �You the guy, Tommy Harrigan what owns dis joint?�

�Dat�s me,� I said. �And dat�s me doll. Don�t lay no finger on her.�

He scowled at me. �Gettin� immediate to duh point, from now on you pay me five hunnert clams every week. Dis is for me bein� tender to you and not violunt. If you get what I mean.�

�I bet he can scratch his knees without bending down,� I said. �Juanita, will you see if the cook has any bananas.�

�Personally,� Juanita said. �I think he�s kind of cute.�

Mugger�s cauliflower ears were reddening. �Dat wise lip makes it six hunnert a week.�

�Is there anything else you might want, Bonzo,� I asked. �I�ll admit your case stumps me. I�m just used to feeding people.�

He came toward me, his big ham fist beginning its swing. �Seven hunnert,� he growled. �And dis is your receipt in advance.�

I stepped away from the punch and picked up a piece of petrified wood I use for a paperweight. After I slipped under his second swing, I let him have the stone with a wallop to his jaw.

His eyes glazed and he dropped without argument to the rug.

Juanita watched his peaceful breathing. �Do you think that was quite fair?� she asked.

�Sure it was fair,� I said indignantly as I hefted the paperweight. �This thing isn�t heavier than two pounds. He still had a weight advantage of over forty.�

Juanita lit a cigarette. �There�s something wrong with your logic, but at the moment it escapes me.�

I bent down beside Mugger and went through his pockets. Along with the usual things, he had a .45 automatic and a key to room 424 at the Holder Hotel. His wallet told me that his real name was Quincy Elwood Dowd.

�He�s got seventeen dollars,� I said, grinning up at Juanita. �He could really show you a good time.�

�Ha!� she said, shrugging her shoulders. �Money isn�t everything.�

I unstrapped Mugger�s holster and transferred it to my person.

�Why don�t you call the police,� Juanita said. �It would be so much simpler.�

Sid stuck his head through the doorway just then and I had him get a couple of porters to carry Mugger out into the alley.

When I had on my hat and was ready to leave, Juanita put her hand on my shoulder. �Be careful,� she said. �You don�t know what you�ll be missing if you should get killed now.�

�Talk, talk,� I said, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. �I�ll bet you�re a virgin.�

Some embarrassment touched her cheeks. �What a nasty thing to say about a modern girl.�

At the Holder Hotel I went directly to Freddie, the desk clerk. �You got a big jerk registered here? Dowd is the name.�

�Yeah,� Freddie said, eyeing the bulge in my coat. �What for you packing a gun?�

�Was he alone?�

�He�s got a single,� Freddie said. �But he seemed to be traveling with a dame and a small guy.� He spun the register around to show me. �They got three next to each other. 423, 424, and 425.�

Dowd had number 424. Number 423 was registered in the name of a Miss Mavis Frawley and 425 to a Jim Beaker.

�The dame draws a whistle out of you,� Freddie said. �Everything stacked right, but strictly out of stone. Doll face, but not a smile in a carload.�

I drummed my fingers on the desk while I thought. �Freddie,� I said. �Can you get me a clear empty medicine bottle? And fill it full of water, will you?�

�Okay,� he said. �But I won�t sleep tonight if you don�t give me a glimmer of what�s going on.�

The smile I gave him was fond and affectionate. �It�s too horrible for your young ears.�

The man who opened the door to room 425 was a little squirt, but sharp. He had on a blue pin stripe shirt with button-down collar and a nifty blonde hair-line moustache.

I smiled gently as I put the heel of my hand on his nose and shoved hard.

�Hey!� he yelled as he went staggering back on his heels. �What�s the big idea?�

I let the front of my sport coat dangle open so he got a look at the gun.

�You a cop, or something?� he asked suspiciously.

�Do I look like a cop, Shorty?�

I gave him a casual swipe with my open palm.

�Hey!� he yelled again. �Cut that out! Just who do you think you are, slappin� a innocent citizen around?�

�I�m practically nobody,� I said, regarding him with a quiet smile. �But I represent the Syndicate.�

�The Syndicate?� he squeeked. �What Syndicate?�

I shook my head sadly at his stupidity. �The Syndicate,� I said. �And I�m from the Enforcement and Retaliation Division.� I fixed him with a gimlet eye. �I�ve been briefed by the big boys that three of you Easterners are thinking of setting up business here.�

He cringed when I lifted my hand to scratch my ear. �Just talk,� he said nervously. �I kin listen without you getting free with the hands.�

Beaker sweated while I studied him long and carefully. �Yes,� I said finally. �You�re the spitting image of Hoppy Nolan. Same type. Same build.�

Beaker licked his lips. �Who�s Hoppy Nolan?�

�Hoppy was a small time hood from Philly,� I said. �He tried to buck the Syndicate about a year ago.� I took off my Panama and held it over my heart for a few solemn seconds. �He got run over by an automobile.�

Beaker�s Adam�s apple was traveling up and down.

�It was a tragedy and never should have happened,� I said. �But the bottoms of Hoppy�s feet were burned pretty bad and he wasn�t so nimble.�

I gave him a friendly shark grin and teetered a few inches toward him. �But how thoughtless of me,� I said. �I forgot to introduce myself.� I extended a hand. �The moniker is Matches O�Tool.�

His head ducked between his shoulders and he stepped back. �You got me wrong, mister,� he said quickly. �I was just passing through this burg. This minute I was packing to catch my train.�

I got out a cigarette and after I lit it I allowed the match to burn almost to my fingertips before I blew it out. Beaker watched the small flame with horrified fascination.

�I�ll be back in about an hour,� I said. �You�ll be on the train by then though, won�t you?�

�Even,� he said emphatically, �if there�s no train.�

The door of 423 was opened only part way by Mavis Frawley. Mavis had flaming red hair, green eyes, and the warmth of a bowl of ice cubes.

�Get that damn foot out of the door,� she said, �or I�ll scream for the cops.�

�Go right ahead,� I advised her, shoving my way in. �But you look to me like the type that doesn�t do much screaming.�

She watched me with smouldering eyes. �I charge a thousand bucks a minute,� she said. �If you got less than that, see some of the girls down the hall.�

�How unkind,� I said. �Do I look like that kind of a man?�

Mavis walked over to a small table and put her hand on the phone. �Do I have to get someone to throw you out, or do you get what I�m hinting at?�

I smiled at her amiably. �Before you could get the operator I could toss you out of that window.�

�You go to hell!�

�No need for animosity,� I said. �I�m prepared to be friendly... this time.�

Her eyes crackled with hate. �What do you want?�

�I wish it were you, baby,� I said. �But this is business.� I ground out my cigarette in the ash tray. �The name is Splasher O�Tool,� I said. �The boss tells me that you�ve got a couple of monkeys trying to set up a stand in this town.�

Mavis took her hand away from the phone. �The boss?�

�The boss,� I said. �This town is sewed up tight and right. We can be downright unfriendly to competition.�

�Why don�t you try telling that to my �boys�, as you call them?�

�They�ve been informed,� I said. I met and held her eyes. �Beaker got the idea right away, but Dowd is a little damaged.�

For the first time, she seemed uncertain, but she said, �You�re not scaring me!�

�Of course not,� I said.

We studied each other for awhile and she was becoming uneasy.

�Did I ever tell you about Myra Lawson?� I asked.

Mavis said nothing.

�Well,� I said, cheerfully, �Myra used to deal blackjack at one of our places. Her take wasn�t what it should have been and so we watched her until we found out why.

�She�s still around, but she washes dishes for her meals now and doesn�t go out in daylight,� I said. �The acid, you know.�

The little medicine bottle was now in my hand and I held it up. �Looks just like water, doesn�t it?�

Her face got white and I gave her time to think.

Finally she asked, �How much time do I have to get out?�

�One hour,� I said, as I rose and went leisurely to the door.

�I�ll take it,� she said bitterly. �But only because I can�t operate without the boys.�

Downstairs at the desk, Freddie beckoned to me. �Got a phone call from Sid. He says to call him right away.�

In the phone booth I dialed the Four Deuces and asked for Sid.

�That baboon you laid out,� Sid said, �left here fifteen minutes ago. On a hunch I had one of the porters tail him.�

�And he�s waiting for me?�

�Right. He ambled away but circled back. He�s in the alley now with a piece of pipe. Should I call the cops?�

�No,� I said. �I�m on a winning streak. I think I can handle it.�

I walked back to the Four Deuces, but turned into the Bar & Grill that was on the other side of the alley. I went all the way through and into the back yard.

Peaking over the wood fence, I could make out Mugger in the shadows next to the rear exit. Evidently he was hoping that I�d step out for a breath of air.

Taking out the gun and reversing it, I tip-toed up behind him. Mugger had his attention glued to the door and so I had no trouble giving him a swipe behind the ear.

He sighed wearily and caved in, but before he could fall I got under him and slung him over my shoulder. He made a heavy load and I staggered as I carried him into the office and put him on the couch.

I put a glass and a bottle of whiskey next to him and waited. Mugger slept for ten minutes before painful consciousness returned. He groaned and grunted before opening his blood-shot eyes.

He directed a bleary glance at me. �Was dat you again?� he asked.

�Face it,� I said. �I�m too damn tough for you.�

Mugger kept his eyes closed. �Don�t be so proud. You ain�t touched me wid flesh and blood yet. What was it dis time? A gat?�

He forced open an eye to glare at me, but the whiskey bottle interrupted him. Aching every inch of the way, he managed to drag himself up to a sitting position and pour four fingers of the stuff.

Mugger drank deep and wiped his mouth with a sleeve. He stared moodily at the floor. �I feel ruint,� he said.

�Don�t take it so hard,� I said. �Your friends didn�t do any better and they�re leaving town.�

Mugger polished off the rest of the glass and tilted the bottle for a refill. �I knew it wouldn�t work, but it�s still discouragin�.� He winced as he touched his head. �I�m gettin� too old for dis rough stuff.�

He tasted the liquor again and examined the office and its furniture. �You get all dis splendor honest?�

�More or less,� I said. �Brains had something to do with it.�

�Don�t rub it in,� he said, brooding. �Well,� he had a note of sadness in his voice, �I guess I better be leavin�. You ain�t got a sawbuck or two for train fare? I�m near busted.�

I considered his dejection for awhile. �The cops interested in you in any way?� I asked.

�Unless you�re thinkin� of makin� a complaint, I�m pure as the driven snow right now,� he said. �I just got out of the government boarding school and ain�t had much time for bein� bad.�

�You�re getting gray hair, Mugger,� I said. �Ever thought of trying legitimate? Like wearing a tux and a carnation and acting like a bouncer. Pays ninety-five a week.�

�You serious?� Mugger�s eyes rested on my face.

�But no pawing around Juanita,� I said. �She�s my claim.�

�You�re takin� the joy outta it,� he said. �But I accept. The tear in my eye is hand-lickin� gratitude.� He picked up his battered hat. �Only I need a day or two vacation. My head hurts.�

When he left, I removed my coat and tie and stretched out on the couch. I thought, this divide and conquer business sometimes works. I closed my eyes.

I opened them when Juanita came in wearing a smile and an outfit that wasn�t much more than the ribbons and bows holding it together.

She snapped the lock on the door and went around dimming the lights. �You look tired,� she said.

�Had a hard day at the shop,� I said.

She sat down beside me. �I�ve got a sparkle in my eyes,� she said. �What are you thinking of?�

I reached for one of the bows.

She smiled and relaxed against me...

They kept pounding away at me: �Ellison�s dead � murdered. Where�s the gun?� I wanted them to find it; but I couldn�t tell.

�Where�s the gun?� they demanded.

�I don�t know,� I said wearily. �Honest to God, I don�t know. I didn�t see it. I�ve never seen it.�

Somebody laughed and I closed my eyes. But that didn�t help. The glare of the overhead light leaked in redly through my tightly shut lids. The straight armless chair was hard and uncomfortable. My mouth was cotton fluff. I felt like I hadn�t had any water in days.

�Open your eyes,� somebody said, �and answer our questions. This isn�t any fun for us either. Now let�s have some straight answers. You think Ellison was shot without a gun? Or maybe that hole in both sides of his head got there because he sneezed just a little too hard.�

I licked my lips. That didn�t help my thirst. I opened my eyes, but I couldn�t see anything; the light was too strong. �Listen,� I said desperately, �there wasn�t any gun. You�ve got to believe that. I never was in any trouble before. I never even saw the inside of a police station except to pay a parking fine. I never was mixed up in a crime of any sort. I wouldn�t kill anybody � I��

Somebody laughed again, harshly, without humor. �We�ve heard all this before, now go over it again. Go slow. Go easy. We�re your friends here. We�re trying to help you.�

Yes, I thought, you�re my friends. Like hell. Something has happened, there�s been a murder and you can�t find the gun and I, apparently, can�t find the gun, and you�re my friends all right. Like hell. If I heard about that gun one more time, I�d scream �till I bust a gut. I took a deep breath. �Ellison called me up about seven-thirty last night, asked me to come out to his house. I didn�t want to go, but he said he had something for me. A wedding present for me and Susan. I�d been avoiding Ellison for weeks, but, I... I��

A voice broke through. �Susan Anderson. She�s the girl you were going to marry?�

�Yes. I�ve told you that.�

�Didn�t Ellison think she was his girl?�

�I don�t know what he thought. I don�t care. She was my girl and we were going to be married. That�s all I know. She loved me, not him!�

Somebody snorted. �Maybe you had a fight over the girl. It looks that way you know? And then you killed him.�

Silence.

�What did you do with the gun after you shot him?�

�No. No!� I was shouting. �It wasn�t that way. Not at all. You�ve got to believe me. I went to his house. He wasn�t there. I called his name. He didn�t answer. Then I remembered his little work room that he�d built out back. I started out the kitchen door when I heard the shot. I started to run. When I opened the door of the shack and went inside, he was lying on his face... dead.�

Nobody said anything.

�I went back to his house and called the police. Right away. I didn�t see any gun then or ever. I swear it. You�ve got to believe me!�

But they didn�t. They took me back to a cell where it was dim and cool and remote. And left me there with my head buried in my hands.

I told myself to take it easy, to bide my time. I thought about James Ellison. The first time he ever saw me � way back in grade school � I think Ellison hated me. I could see his hate shining strong and clear even then, in his little, black, beady eyes.

Outwardly, he was a smiling loser, a good sport. People said winning or losing didn�t matter to him. It was the game, whatever it might be, that was all important.

But they were wrong. Because underneath that smooth, suave exterior, hate and terror slept side by side. I knew, because I had beaten James too often � I�d beaten him in everything we had done.

But when I took Susan away from him, that was the last straw. He threatened to kill me or her � or both of us � and I knew he meant it.

Susan, lovely Susan, with the fresh smile and eyes so clear it was like looking into crystal springs; with a lithe body and high pointed breasts, full, and ripe. Anything, everything was worth doing for her.

Ten years of his life, that�s what he�d paid for the hundred grand. He intended to get every cent of it.

The Greyhound Bus pulled into the Los Angeles main terminal at noon. Joe Kedzie got off and walked out into the sunlight of a city he had not seen in ten years. Instinctively, he headed for Main Street. He walked slowly, recalling how the stores and clothes and cars had all changed. No more double-breasted suits. Very few black cars � mostly red and yellow and pink and chartreuse now. The stores were all modern, larger, with a lot of glass. And the skirts � a little longer maybe, but tight in the right places. He pushed the thought of women from his mind. There would be time for them later. After he had his hundred grand.

At Main he turned the corner and began to pass the cheap bars and honky tonks he had known so well. He remembered the shooting gallery, the penny arcade, the strip joints, the cafe where the pushers made � and probably still make � their headquarters. This part of the world will never change, he thought. If I was sent up for another ten years, it would still be the same when I got back again.

Between a bar and a Chinese hand laundry was the entrance to the Main Line Hotel. Kedzie opened the door and walked up the six steps to the lobby. A young, pimply-faced man was behind the desk. He held a racing form and studied it sleepily. Kedzie stood at the desk until it became apparent that the youth was ignoring him; he then reached across the counter and yanked the racing form out of his hand. The clerk jumped up, his face flushing.

�What�s the idea!� he demanded.

�Just want a little service,� said Kedzie calmly, laying the paper on the desk. �Does Madge Griffin still live here?�

The desk clerk tried to act tough. �Who wants to know?�

�Don�t play games with me, punk,� said Kedzie harshly, �or I�ll break your arm! Does Madge Griffin live here or doesn�t she?�

�She lives here,� said the clerk, scared now. �Room two-twelve.�

Kedzie nodded. He left the desk and walked across the lobby and up a flight of stairs. Two-twelve was the last room at the end of the dingy hallway. He stood before the door and lighted a cigarette, then rapped softly. Madge�s voice came through the door.

�Who is it?�

�Errol Flynn. Open up.�

He heard her walk across the room; then the door opened. She stood framed in the doorway, her eyes widening, plainly startled.

�Joe!�

�Hello, Madge.�

She moved aside, as he moved forward, to let him enter. The room Was small, not as crummy as he had expected, but still crummy enough. He walked to a chair and sat down. She watched him curiously for a moment, then closed the door and leaned back against it.

�How�ve you been, Madge?� he asked in his matter-of-fact tone, as if he had seen her a month ago instead of ten years ago.

�I�ve been getting along, Joe. How have you been?�

He grunted, but did not answer. He looked her over, taking his time. Ten years older, but she still had it, and just enough of it wherever it belonged. He decided that she was just a little heavier in the hips than when she had been his girl. Still � and this thought amused him � she wasn�t then, and still wasn�t now, the kind you would want if you had a hundred grand.

�How�d you know where to find me, Joe?� she asked suddenly.

�Just a guess. I figured you�d come back here. It�s just about your speed.�

�What�s that supposed to mean?� she demanded, her eyes flashing angrily.

�Forget it, baby,� he said easily, and to change the subject added, �Have you got a drink?�

She walked over to the closet and took a nearly full bottle of gin from the shelf. �There�s nothing to mix it with,� she said. �Want it straight?�

He shook his head. �It would probably knock me out. Forget it.�

She put the bottle back on the shelf. Kedzie crushed out his cigarette and lighted a fresh one. It figures, he thought. A bottle of gin in the closet. Madge never could stand the stuff. But gin was always Maxie�s drink. He�s not far away. Just wait and be patient. He�ll show up.

Madge walked over to the bed and sat down. They began to talk, idly, pleasantly. Two people have a lot to talk about after ten years. Kedzie waited for her to mention Maxie, but she did not. That convinced him that she knew where he was. And the minute she left the room and got to a telephone, Maxie would know that he, Kedzie, was back in town.

They talked until five o�clock. Finally she asked, �What are you going to do now, Joe?�

He decided to play it straight. �What do you mean?�

�I mean, have you got a place to stay tonight?�

�No, not yet. I�m so used to having my bunk waiting for me, I guess I forgot that I have to take care of those things myself now.� The bait had been dropped. He waited for her to snap at it. After a moment�s hesitation, she did.

�Why don�t you let me get you a room here, Joe? Then you won�t have to bother looking for a place.�

�Well, I don�t know, Madge. I don�t��

�Look, I�ll tell you what � I�ll go down to the desk and get you a room, and then go down the street to Jasi�s and get a pizza and some cold beer. You can lay down and rest while I�m gone; then when I get back, we can cat right here in the room. You looked tired, Joe. Why don�t you take off your coat and lay down for awhile.�

�Well, I am pretty tired. First bus ride in ten years, you know.�

�You just rest, Joe.� She picked up her purse quickly. �I�ll only be a couple minutes.�

When she was gone, he took off his coat and stretched out on the bed. It won�t be long now, he thought. Five minutes from now she�ll be in a phone booth. Maxie should be here by eight o�clock.

I made a tour of the jazz joints, showed her picture. When I found the missing girl she said: �Leave me alone!�

The elderly gentleman was dignified and very worried. In addition to these attributes he possessed a sizeable fortune, a highly respectable family name � he was Donald Norton � and an extremely beautiful young blonde daughter.

The girl had run away from home. He wanted her located. �So we can persuade her to return, Mr.�Gallagher,� he explained to me.

I sat looking at her picture. She was a girl who had everything � looks, charge accounts, one of the finest mansions in town for a home, all the liberties a girl could ask for, according to old Norton�s statement.

Why should she have run away?

He didn�t know.

She was all right � she had phoned her parents twice in the week she had been gone to assure them she was all right. Despite their entreaties and the promise of a trip to Europe if she would return, she had laughed off the idea of giving up whatever kind of life she was living now.

I dropped Carol�s picture on my desk. �I�ll take it on, Mr. Norton,� I said. �I don�t make any promises, other than that I�ll use all my energies to locate the girl and try to persuade her to return home.�

�I can�t understand it,� Norton said for about the sixth time. �She�s had everything any girl could want. Everything most girls dream of.�

Everything, except one thing. The one thing that had caused her to run away. What it might be, I of course had no idea.

�My charges are fifty dollars a day and expenses,� I said.

�That will be quite acceptable,� Norton said.

He rose, picking up his homburg hat and soft gray gloves from my desk. I watched him leave the office, the door of which carried the only advertising I do, a sign reading Joseph Gallagher, Private Investigations.

I rocked back in my swivel chair thinking over what he�d told me about Carol. He�d been in the office over an hour telling me about her. He hadn�t wanted to go to the cops because of the publicity � and, in light of those phone calls, she wasn�t actually a missing person.

Somewhere in her background must be her reason for running away. She had been brought up in genteel fashion. She had attended private schools and a girl�s fashionable finishing school. She had been popular, but had taken little interest in most of the boys in her group. One summer she had been taken with a riding instructor at a girl�s camp. The old man had broken it up, after investigating the instructor.

�You understand,� Norton had said, �whether he had money or not meant nothing to us. But there were several unsavory factors in his background.�

The instructor had been fired for mistreating a horse. He�d departed the camp, leaving Carol to mope and pitch a few tantrums. But he�d faded for good, and that had been that.

She cared little for the afternoon teas and usual social doings of her strata of society. The major trouble she�d given thus far, until her disappearance, had stemmed from having persuaded rich young swains to escort her into the seamier sections of town for an evening now and then.

Her one hobby was progressive jazz. As a listener. She played no musical instrument. Attempts to have her learn to play the piano had met with failure. She had quite a collection of Brubeck and other moderns in her record albums and a fifteen hundred dollar hi-fi outfit on which to play the records.

Well, it was a lead.

That night I hit a few of the clubs she might go to, but I didn�t see her. Pudgies was on my list. When I got there, I observed that the joint wasn�t jumping. Joints don�t jump when progressive stuff is being played. They crawl, in my opinion.

The usual assortment of characters was there with the heavy black-rimmed glasses and ducktail haircuts. The place was layered with smoke and smelled of martinis and stingers.

Fingers tapped table tops and eyes got glassy and girls with the short hairdos shivered a little. I didn�t see anybody that looked like Carol.

I listened to the quartet on the bandstand leave the original chord progression of Honeysuckle Rose and start whimpering it into neurotic chaos.

I waited until the abortion was ended and the quartet took five. The piano man waved his thin white fingers idly at his admirers as he made his way past the tables. He slouched over to let the bar support him and ordered a brandy.

I moved up to his elbow. �Hello, Buzz,� I said.

Buzz Delaney looked at me with large hollow eyes set in a thin, white face. �Hello, Gallagher.�

�I�m looking for a girl.� I showed him Carol�s picture. �Ever seen her before?�

�Certainly. That�s Carol Norton.�

�She come in here often?�

�Not often, but regularly. She needed what we have. The pressure would build up, and she�d come in. Sit at that front table over there. Cool. Real cool. She knew what we were saying. She listened until she was warm and filled and the pressure was gone. Then she would go. Quietly. Like a diminished chord that hangs waiting for the next resolution. But I guess you wouldn�t understand.�

I ignored his condescending tone.

�When was the last time you saw her, Buzz?�

�About a week ago.�

�She was alone?�

�No...� his high, pale forehead was wrinkled. �Really regrettable. Distasteful character.�

�Who?�

�The monkey she was with. A big bruiser. Looked like an ex-prizefighter. Cauliflower ears, you know, and nose with no bone left in it. Evil, vicious, tough. Only don�t mention I said so.�

�You know me, Buzz. You know the way I treat a confidence.�

�Why else does everyone level with you, Gallagher? This character � he didn�t dig us. Not at all. Sat glowering the whole time they were here. I do hope he argues with you, Gallagher. Knowing you, I do hope that.�

�Well, I�ll let you know,� I said, �if you get your wish.�

�Thanks.�

�You didn�t recognize the guy?�

�Never saw him before. Can�t imagine where she could have picked him up � though she has been seen in some very strange places.�

I glanced at his glass. �I�ll buy you another brandy.�

�No thanks. Really. My edge is fine and right. One more would spoil everything.�

�What time did Carol and this bozo leave the place?�

�Around midnight, I guess. I heard him tell her they�d eat at the Pig-N-Pen. I remember because it occurred to me that the guy belonged in some sort of a pen.�

�Anything else you can add?�

�No. I don�t think so, Gallagher. If she�s taken up with him, she must be miserable.�

�Why so?�

�Oh, he�s the kind who�d mistreat a woman. Badly. I studied him. I watched him look at her, talk to her, take her arm when they went out. A cave man, for sure, Gallagher. I know. I majored in psychology in college, you know.�

�She could leave him,� I suggested.

�Perhaps he won�t let her,� Buzz said.

It was a thought. I taxied over to the Pig-N-Pen.

The Pig-N-Pen had only one thing in common with Pudgie�s, the quantity of cigarette smoke each contained. The Pig-N-Pen smelled of crabcakes and beer and the people were a lot noisier. Elvis Presley was hollering out of the juke box at some of his country cousins.

Up near the front window Tom Ellison was tossing chunks of chicken into a wire basket to deep fry. I watched him lower the basket into the boiling, erupting grease and when he turned back toward the counter I said, �Hello, Tom.�

�How goes it, Gallagher?�

�I need some help.�

�Don�t you always.� He stood with a grin on his fat, good humored face.

�Looking for a skirt,� I said.

I showed him Carol�s picture and added: �She came in here about a week ago with a guy who looks like a prize fighter.�

Tom wiped his fat, grease-softened hands on his apron. �Some dish,� he said, taking the picture.

�You sound as if you know her.�

�Sure. She was in here not more than an hour ago.�

�How about the bozo?�

�Did I say she was with a man?�

�Your tone implied it. Or maybe it was your eyes that said it.�

�Or your imagination, Gallagher. Yeah, she was with the guy. The same guy she was in here with before. You want to be careful, Gallagher.�

�Yeah?�

�He�s Pard Ankers.�

�Hmm. Mixed in some pretty rough stuff, wasn�t he, Tom?�

�You can say that again. Dirtiest fighter ever to hit the ring. Finally barred for throwing a fight. Does a little strongarm stuff now and then for the boys who need somebody strongarmed now and then.�

�Know where the pair of them went from here, Tom?�

�Nope. But they�re staying right down the street at the old Traveler�s Hotel. Got an apartment there, from what I hear.�

�Thanks, Tom.�

�You walk on eggs, boy.�

He turned to salvage his chicken out of the fat, and I left the place and walked down the block to the Traveler�s Hotel. It was a warm, humid night and a lot of people were on the sidewalk. Clerks lounged in the doorways of late-closing stores, and the beat changed everytime I passed a joint with a juke box.

I spoke to a lot of people and gave one guy four bits. It pays in my business to know a lot of people.

An old guy with a ring of hair as white and fine as baby down was behind the hotel desk. He saw me enter the gloomy, musty lobby and quickly got his wine bottle stashed behind the desk.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and squinted his washed-out gray eyes. �Well, it�s Gallagher.�

�How�s tricks?� I said. I remembered the old boy only vaguely. I�d seen him around. I didn�t recall the name.

�Not what they used to be, Gallagher. Back when I was in vaudeville��

�Those were the days,� I said.

�That�s right. You�re a right guy, Gallagher.�

�I work at it,� I said. I leaned my elbows on the desk. The old boy�s breath was like a pig�s with indigestion from eating rotten grapes. �Listen, what apartment has Pard Ankers got?�

�Geeze, we wish he didn�t have any.�

�Yeah?�

�All-a-time arguing with that girl. Beating her up. A shame and disgrace. Only � who�s here to throw Pard out?�

�I know what you mean. How about the cops.�

�Took a chance. Called them once. The girl wouldn�t press charges.� He shook his head. �They�re living in 201, but they ain�t in.�

�I�ll go up and wait.�

�If you�re after Pard, Gallagher, and he finds out I��

�I haven�t seen you, pop.�

He relaxed a little. �Okay. I guess that�ll be okay. You came in while I was away from the desk.�

�Sure,� I said. �A guy down the street told me where they�re staying.�

He was anxious to get back at that vino; so I started upstairs. I almost tripped once on a torn place in the stair runner.

The second floor hall had an old, soured smell. A single naked bulb reflected dim light from the cracked walls.

I stopped before the door of 201 and tried the knob. The door was locked. It was an old lock and I opened it with a passkey.

I pulled the blackjack from my hip pocket and put it in the right sleeve of my coat where it could drop easily into my hand.

I entered the apartment, struck a match, found a light switch.

A tour of the apartment didn�t take long. There was a tiny sitting room, bedroom, kitchenette, and bath. The furniture belonged in a junk yard. It hadn�t been helped any by its present users. Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles littered the place. The bed didn�t look as if it had been made since they�d moved in. Old food was spilled on the kitchenette floor and there wasn�t a clean dish or piece of silver in the place.

I stood in the living room, thumbed my hat back, and thought of one of the nicest mansions in town. Charge accounts. Maids to pick up the nylons and clean up the spilled powder. Nice, respectable parents whose hearts were breaking.

I heard voices outside the door. A man�s, �Shuddup, will you?�

�Ah, Pard, I didn�t mean it,� a girl said.

�I tole you, didn�t I? Now shuddup.�

A key rattled in the lock. I stepped to one side as the door opened.

There was no mistaking the girl. She was Carol Norton, all right. Her face was flushed, her blonde hair a little disheveled. But she was a knockout. Tall, slender, very lovely. Dressed beautifully in black. It was hard to imagine anything that chic stepping out of this apartment.

Behind her was Pard Ankers, as big and mean and ugly as he�d been described to me. The blackjack felt mighty nice against my sweating arm.

�Did you leave this light burning...� he began. Then he saw me. His eyes got even smaller. �Who are you?�

�The name is Gallagher. I�m a private detective. I�ve come to take the girl home.�

I expected it now. Trouble, in a big package. Instead, he thought it over, took a handkerchief from his hip pocket, and wiped his face.

�You�re welcome to the job, buddy,� he said. Then he turned and walked out of the apartment.

Carol moved after him. �Pard�� The door slammed in her face.

She turned on me. �Now see what you�ve done!�

�Your dad and mother are worried about you,� I said.

Her lower lip drooped in a pout. She walked to the sagging couch, shoved some magazines aside, and sat down on it with her feet tucked under her. She sat there sulking for a minute or two, and I said, �We�d better get moving.�

�Oh, leave me alone!�

The apartment seemed suddenly to compress on me. I remembered the worry and fear in the respectable old gentleman�s eyes, looked at the pouting, sullen, spoiled brat face before me, and I grabbed her by the arm. Instantly, she squirmed around and raked my cheeks with her nails. They were long and left two stinging marks on the flesh.

That did it. I turned her over my knee, and gave her a couple good swats on the behind � what she�d needed for some time. She kicked with her feet and hammered my leg with her fists. I stung her hard with another good smack and kept it up until she was quiet.

Then I set her on her feet. When I caught her wrist this time, she was meek, docile.

She didn�t say a thing on the taxi ride across town. I saw her to the front door, accepted the old man�s thanks, and went back to the waiting taxi.

That was that, I thought.

Then three days later Donald Norton was again in my office. Would I please have another look around for his daughter? She had skipped again.

I checked on Pard Ankers first. He�d left town the night I�d picked her up. I spent until midnight trying to pick up a trace of her.

No luck.

Well, I thought as I headed toward my two room bachelor apartment, you cannot always make your money the easy way. Sometimes you break a case right off. Sometimes you don�t. Anyhow, Carol�s worried old man was footing the bill.

I keyed open the apartment door.

She was sitting with her feet tucked under her in a big chair near the bay window. She had a tall bottle of beer in her hand.

�I got the superintendent to let me in,� she said. �He didn�t want to do it, but I gave him twenty dollars.�

A faint smile came to her lips. It caused me to remain standing in the open doorway.

�I guess you could make Pard Ankers look like a sissy if you wanted to, couldn�t you, Gallagher?� She stood up, stretched, ran her fingers through her hair. �I�ll fix us a bite to eat, honey.�

I swallowed some of the dryness out of my throat. �Okay,� I said. �You do that. I�ll run down and make sure everything is okay with the super.�

I went downstairs. But I didn�t see the super. I ducked into the drugstore next door and went to the phone booth.

As I got a dime out of my pocket, I thought that Carol�s old man didn�t need me to help his daughter; a psychiatrist was his best bet. And if the doc had any trouble figuring why she was running away from home, what she was looking for, I�d be willing to lay five to two I could certainly give him a clue.

Just as I was about to deposit the dime, I changed my mind. I put the dime back in my pocket and headed for the apartment. Why disappoint Carol?

Our next move? �Matarlos,� Pa muttered. �Kill them!�

The pack started off slow � nine-thirty, ten, sometimes noon before we�d get to work. Stand around all morning, it seemed that�s all we did. Last year the peas were heavy and we�d started off with long hours and finished the same way. Plenty of nineteen, twenty hour days. See the sun come up, go down, come up again.

I had been all for staying in San Antonio all summer, hoping to sign up on some pipeline that might be shoving off, but Pa harped me into coming along with him. Always talking up the fortune we�d make up north. Truth is, he only wanted me along so he�d have an extra hand in the sugar beets. Before, between and after the pea and corn packs we worked the beets. This so we wouldn�t eat up our cannery earnings before we got back to Texas.

There were three of us besides Ma and Pa. Two sisters, Rosa and Guadalupe, sixteen and seventeen. I was nineteen. Ma and the girls could work, but Pa knew he couldn�t get a contract if he didn�t have any men. That�s where I came in.

We got nine hours the day the trouble started, the best we�d got so far. It was a devil of a day, hot, muggy, with the sweat clinging like glue, the splashings making your face so stiff and sticky you hated to smile or even blink. The fly and waistband of my pants shone like glass, stiff with sweat and slime from the canner.

My age was against me, and I was thrown on the end of the line with a bunch of snot-nosed high school kids. It was a grind, grabbing cans off the line, four at a time, all day long, slinging them into big steel baskets that were lowered into deep cooking pits.

The old man was waiting for me out by the cooling tanks when I got through. Pa was on the viners, pitching on. When the peas stopped coming in, he was through. It usually took the peas another hour to get to me; so he had to sit and wait for me. Seeing me come out the cooking-room door, he smiled.

Pa was a big man; muscular, his hair black and unruly. A faint odor of the pea stack clung to him, green pea-tendrils hung in his hair. The crow�s feet around his eyes gave him a benign look. This threw you off, because Pa was anything but easy-going. He was serious, a hard worker, a regular nut when it came to religion. We didn�t see eye to eye on a lot of things. He�s older than me, so naturally he�s got the old outlook. But we hit it off okay.

Born in a small village just north of Mexico City, Pa�d come to the states at sixteen, fleeing service in any of the hundred armies that overran the country then. He worked railroad section awhile, and not long after coming to this country, married Ma. She was as backward as Pa. They made a great pair.

I imagine once she must�ve been a happy, carefree kid. But nineteen years of hard work would change anybody. Kids had started coming right away, Ma being only fifteen when I was born. At thirty-four she was still a good looking woman. She hadn�t had a dozen kids like most of the other Mexican women, who were perpetually pregnant. The men in camp looked Ma over hard whenever she was out walking. It made me want to slug every one of them.

Old as he was, Pa persisted in his Mexican boyhood ideas. The girls couldn�t work in the factory; it would be indecent to have other men looking at them. Ma had to chaperone the girls if they went out at night. Even in summer, the windows had to be closed at night; the night air would make you sick. Why, he used to even tell me that urine was the only good cure for cuts. At night he would make a big thing out of his own private revival meeting. We�d all have to kneel together before bedtime while he went through some religious mumbo-jumbo. Still and all I liked the old man. I knew he�d just been brought up different from me, that was all.

But Pa�s refusing to learn English did gripe me. He knew a few indispensables � no more. Ma learned, and of course we kids had attended American schools. That�s why Pa waited for me after work every night. I had to read his time card for him, to make sure he hadn�t been screwed out of any time.

�What�s the matter with you guys?� I joked in Spanish. �Cutting the peas off so early?� It was the same routine every night. I wouldn�t have even bothered checking the card, but Carstairs was Pa�s foreman. Word was out that Car-stairs hated �Spigs�, liked screwing them every chance he got. He and Skeets, the timekeeper, had a system. They made money when somebody got his time shorted.

I glanced at the card quickly and was ready to hand it back, when I noticed something funny. Pa was punched out at three.

�What time did you start this morning, Padre?�

�A las siete.� Seven o�clock.

�What time did you quit?�

�A las cinco.� Five o�clock.

�Something�s wrong with your card, Pa. Where�s Carstairs now?� Pa pointed in the direction of the railroad spur behind the plant. �Let�s take a walk over there,� I said.

Carstairs was talking to two girls who were working in the boxcar, getting empty cans ready to load onto the conveyor belt in the morning. Nobody else was around. When he turned and saw Pa, his jaw tightened and he forced a smile.

�Troubles paisan?� he asked Pa.

�Cut the paisan crap,� I said. �You shorted the old man two hours today.� My tone was sarcastic. I was a wiseass. Running the streets of San Antonio will do that for you.

�What�re you talking about? Gimme that card!� Carstairs stalled, studying the card. The girls stopped moving the cans around to watch.

�Look here, kid,� he blustered, poking the card. �He�s punched for three o�clock. That�s when he quit. Couldn�t find him after that. Must�ve taken a snooze somewhere.�

�You�re a goddam liar! The old man�s never goofed off a day in his life. You just hoped he�d be dumb enough not to notice.�

�Who you calling a liar?� He clenched his fists. Carstairs was a big brawny blond, all red from the sun. He was big enough to whale hell out of me, but no six-footer like Pa. I didn�t expect trouble. He�d back down, I figured.

I asked Pa, �Did you quit at three?� His eyes narrowed in anger as I repeated Carstair�s story. It was a lie all right. Pa stammered around, so mad he couldn�t talk straight.

Carstairs was winking at the girls, smiling as if to say he�d make hash of these hillbillies.

It made me sore. �The old man says he worked till five!� I shouted. �Come on! Fix this card so we can take off!�

�You�ll take off,� Carstairs muttered, lunging suddenly, striking me solidly on the side of the face. I folded.

�You black Spig,� he said. �I told you to watch your tongue.�

I saw the girls smirking. Enraged, I sprang up and got two jabs into his gut before he put me down again.

Pa just stood there at first, too surprised to do anything. The second time I fell he got mad. �Juan! Quitate de aqui!� he yelled. �Get away. I�ll take care of him.�

�Have to fight both you, huh?� Carstairs muttered, backing up. �Just like a bunch of Spigs.�

Pa went in flatfooted, no cover, no idea of how to fight. Right away Carstairs hung two good ones on him. Pa staggered, his face expressionless, then doggedly moved back into him. Working beets never did a man�s muscles much harm, and the next three wallops Pa gave Carstairs almost jolted his head off. Right away Carstair�s nose started bleeding. Pa hit him four more, smearing blood all over his face. One more and Carstairs was down and groaning.

�You fix the card now, diablo?� Pa gasped, breathless.

The big, blond lug looked at him with bleary eyes.

�Punch the card,� I taunted. �Or do you want to argue some more?�

�All right, you black bastards,� he said, rising painfully. �This time you win.� He punched the battered card, scratching out the other hole with his initials. �But I�ll get even one of these days...�

�Why don�t you get us now?� I laughed, grabbing the card away from him.

�Just be on guard, Mexies,� he threatened lamely, as he turned toward the plant. Steam was pouring out of the door where an operator was cleaning his machine with a steam hose. Carstairs disappeared in the white clouds. The girls watched us leave; they weren�t smirking now.

That was on Thursday. Carstairs caused no more trouble. He just stood around saying nothing, Pa told me. I ran into him once in the latrine. He just shot me a dirty look and walked out. The talk got around the plant in a hurry � the girls spreading it � but we heard nothing about being fired.

Friday and Saturday were good days. We got fourteen hours each day. On Sunday things slackened, and we were done by noon. Pa and I headed campward, looking forward to a big dinner and an afternoon of lying around. The camp was half a mile from the plant and consisted of eleven company-owned tarpaper shacks crowded together. There were two rows of five each, with a lone cabin built away from the others.

The day we�d arrived, Pa had all but broken his neck to claim the end cabin. He had to have privacy, keep distance between himself and the others. The rest of the camp, sensing this feeling, took an immediate dislike to him and kept their distance.

There was a kitchen, bedroom and sitting room in the cabin. We used both rooms for bedrooms, Ma and Pa in one, the girls and I in another. They rigged up a sheet on a rope between them and me. I used to hear them talking and giggling over there before I went to sleep.

Our shack was filthy when we moved in, but Ma and the girls swept and scrubbed until it met Ma�s strict standards. Like Pa, Ma was proud and refused to live shiftlessly like the other transients. She bought new light bulbs to replace the ones stolen by the cabin�s last occupants. She even repaired the window shades. These Pa insisted on having pulled as soon as night fell. Modesty.

Right after dinner I dressed up and headed for Elmdale, a small village about a mile from the cannery.

I was sitting in a bar with a buddy from the line, drinking beer and damning the hours, when Carlos walked in, surprising the hell out of me. Last I�d seen him was in San Antone, in April. We were planning on going pipelining together, when Pa put the damper on the idea.

�Hi, kid,� Carlos grinned. �Your ma told me I�d find you boozing uptown somewhere. How you been?�

�Carlos! You old butcher! What are you doing up here? I thought you were pipeline material.�

�No jobs, boy. That�s a long story.� He sat next to me, roughing up my hair. �You�re looking good, sport.�

Carlos was my uncle, Ma�s kid brother. Six years older than I, he�d been around. The army, bumming all over the country, Chicago with the Golden Gloves. He was built to take it. If ever I looked up to a guy, Carlos was it.

�Let�s have a beer here for this old drifter,� I called. Carlos laughed.

�Where you working? Gonna try at the cannery?� I asked.

�Hell, no. I got 30 acres of beets out on Indian road and another contract cooking. None of that sweat shop stuff for me.�

�Will you make enough to get by?�

�Sure. I got a buddy with me. And Marcella can help some.�

After finishing our beers, we went to the village movie house and sat through an old western. Later we caught a few more beers, then drove back to camp in Carlos� �50 Plymouth. It was around eight, just getting dark when we got there. The camp was deserted; our shack was the only one sporting lights. The men were in town drinking themselves sick, and the women and kids were at the free show in the village park.

Pa was reading aloud to Ma from a Spanish Bible.

�Where�s Marcella?� said Carlos.

�She took the girls to the free show,� Ma answered.

�That girl. Can�t sit still a minute. I�ll drive down and bring them back after the show.�

When he left, I got ready for bed. Pa�s singsong reading had almost put me to sleep when I heard a car drive up. Carlos with the girls, I thought, putting my pants on. It would be good to see Marcella again. I opened the door and stepped into the kitchen. I was sickened at once by what I saw.

�Well, look who�s here. Little Big Mouth. Big Mouth hisself.�

Carstairs. Four men were with him. One of them hastily locked the door while another pulled a shade aside to look outside. It wasn�t hard to figure what they wanted. Neither Pa nor I said a word; our minds were numb with surprise.

�Manuel,� Ma said hesitantly. �What do these men want?�

Pa didn�t answer, but looked steadily at Carstairs with hate filled eyes.

�Some babe, huh, Jack?� one of the men laughed. �Not bad for a Mexie.�

�Keep your mind on your work,� Carstairs said, smiling evilly, turning his fist in his palm.

�Please go,� Pa pleaded in Spanish. �We want no trouble.�

�What�sa matter? Don�t you Spigs like to fight when the odds are even?�

Carstairs had lied to the men about the fight. On top of that he�d got them well liquored-up. They were just drunk enough to be mean and still know what they were doing. Carstairs looked the drunkest. A pint protruded from his back pocket.

�What do you guys want?� I said.

�This,� Carstairs answered, shoving me against the wall.

I tensed, and pushing the wall with one foot, I let loose with the hardest punch I had, right at his mouth. Carstairs staggered back to the middle of the room, almost falling. Right away two of his stooges came at me. Carstairs and another one went at Pa, while the fifth, a red-headed kid of about eighteen, held Ma. She started to scream, and he pulled a towel over her face. Ma fought like a wildcat. In the instant before my two moved in, I glimpsed Pa standing there flatfooted again, taking hard ones in the face. He kept swinging, not connecting much.

The pair that jumped me didn�t get away with too much. The liquor slowed them down and I was faster on the upthrust. But one of them grabbed my right arm, giving the other guy a chance to land a haymaker. My head felt like the top had been blown off. I didn�t feel any of the blows that landed after that. Both my arms were being held now and the other guy kept pouring fists at me. He stopped for breath and I saw blurred figures through a dim light. Somewhere I found strength to bring my heel up, catching the man behind me in the groin. He fell in a moaning heap and I was free.

Across the room the redhead was holding his shoulder and screaming. Blood welled between his fingers. Ma stood there, a frightened look on her face, a butcher knife in her hand. Carstairs ran to her and clubbed her twice in the face. She staggered and fell.

I started swinging, blindly, instinctively. Someone got a strangle hold on me. I couldn�t move.

�Glenn, help the kid I� Carstairs shouted. �I�ll finish the old man. Murph, hang onto him...�

Carstairs went to work on Pa�s face. Pa struggled violently to break loose, but he was getting weaker and finally sagged and fell to the floor. It was all I could do to keep from heaving, for as he fell, his left arm got caught in the rungs of a chair. Pa screamed horribly and I blinked as Carstairs, swinging, lost his balance and fell right on Pa�s arm. There was a dull snap; then Pa lay still under Carstairs. Ma, who had been lying on the floor sobbing, tried to get to him, but Glenn held her back. Pa�s arm was twisted at a sickening angle when Carstairs arose.

�God, Jack! You broke his arm!�

A shadow of fear crossed Carstairs�s face. Then his lips curled. �Serves the black bastard right. Let�s finish the kid and blow. Murph. Check the window. Anybody comin�?�

�No. Place is deserted.�

�Bill, hold the kid.�

Murphy was the only one following Carstairs. The others hung back. I thought my head would burst, I was so insane with anger. Even though I fought like crazy it did no good. They cornered me and kept smashing at my head, smashing, smashing...

I was out only a minute or two. My vision cleared slowly. Only two blurred figures remained; the others had gone. Murphy and Carstairs were taking turns holding Ma and swigging from the pint. Pa was conscious now, but he still lay where he�d fallen, his face wet with bloody tears. He kept moaning and calling alternately to me and Ma.

�Felicita, ayudame... ayudame. Juanito...�

Murphy passed the bottle and grabbed Ma again. I tried to rise, but there was no strength in my arms.

�Hey, Murphy. The kid�s coming around. Let�s go. These Spigs�ll remember us for awhile, I guess.�

�Well, Jack...� Murphy said, a smirk on his face as he looked down at Ma. �I kinda thought � you know � thought we might have a little fun with the babe.� He put his hands on Ma�s writhing body. �Never tried this dark stuff...�

Carstairs laughed quietly, looking Ma�s body over, savouring his thoughts. Ma fought harder to break loose.

Slowly his words gained meaning in my dazed mind. I felt myself trying to get up once more.

�Good idea, Murphy. But first...� Carstairs came at me.

I was on my knees. Maybe one big try�

�You better not watch this, kid,� Carstairs said from somewhere above me. �Might not like what you see.�

I remember two sharp flashes in my head, followed by dull pain. For what seemed hours, through a deep, overpowering stupor, I heard Pa�s groaning, intermixed with the gutteral sounds of Ma screaming in her throat, the thrashing of her arms and legs, the chuckles, throaty and drunken, of the two men.

Dr. Couch would crawl if Docky ordered him to. There was a very good reason...

Docky pushed open the door of the dentist�s office and walked arrogantly into the small, dilapidated room. He spat on the bare floor. �Couch!� he yelled.

Docky grinned when he heard the old man hurry from the other room. Dr. Couch, Docky figured, had been in there drinking again. Christ, he thought, he must really belt the stuff. No wonder he wound up down in this neighborhood.

A tall, stooped man paused in the doorway. His glasses had slid down his hooked nose and he peered at Docky through the space between his brows and the top of his glasses.

�Quit lookin� like a vulture!� snapped Docky. �My teeth need lookin� at.�

�I cleaned them just two weeks ago. Surely��

�My teeth need lookin� at!� repeated Docky. He pushed up his lip and muttered, �See? I got some dirt or somethin� there.�

�A toothbrush would��

�Shut up!� Docky grinned with the satisfaction only an eighteen-year-old boy can feel when he has made a man of sixty cower before him. Docky spat on the floor again. �Don�t gimme no damn backtalk, Couch! When I come in here, you do what I tell you. I know I got the best choppers in town, Doc, and you�re gonna keep �em that way. Now, I say I got some dirt on �em an� you�re gonna take it off!�