A middle-aged man taking stock of his life is to be expected. But for this to be my midpoint, I would have to make it to 94, and anyway it was the ghosts of my past haunting me, not my conscience, which after all was the nine millimeter Browning automatic I still carried all these years after my father killed himself with it � when I disappointed him taking the Outfit�s money to get ahead on the Chicago PD.

As I write this I�m closer to 94 than 47, which was my age in October 1953 when I caught an Ace Company cab outside the Kansas City Municipal Airport. The cabbie was colored, which in a city where the population was 10�% that persuasion might not have been a surprise. Still, Negro hackies didn�t generally work white areas, though airport runs could make for a decent fare and those who didn�t like the driver�s shade could take the next ride down, and those who didn�t give a damn got a smile and a nod and no funny business like unrequested tours of K.C.

And I didn�t need one of those � I�d done jobs here before. The airport was five minutes from a downtown whose �Petticoat Lane� on Eleventh Street had smart shops and patrons who could afford to frequent them; around Twelfth and Main were the usual stores and palatial movie houses, a few blocks east was a civic center whose plaza included two of the taller buildings, the Courthouse and City Hall, with the massive bunker of Municipal Auditorium to the southeast.

Everything was still up to date in Kansas City. They were giving my toddling town a run on the meat-packing and agricultural fronts. They had an impressive art gallery, fine arts museum and kiddie-pleasing zoo, and the industries included steel, petroleum, and automotive manufacturing. And one once-booming local enterprise that had faded since the �30s had made a big comeback recently.

�You in town about that kidnapping, boss?� the cabbie asked.

He was grinning at me in the rearview mirror. He looked like Mantan Moreland but with a flattened nose; that and his cauliflower ears made him a former prizefighter. Yes, I�m a detective.

�Why would you think that?�

Now he was looking out his windshield, which was my preference.

�Address rang a bell,� he said.

�Ah.�

�Anyway, boss, I read about you � you that private eye to the stars.�

Life magazine had done a story about me when I opened my L.A. branch.

�Don�t recall your name, though,� he said.

�Nathan Heller,� I said.

�Chicago, right?�

�Right.�

�...So what�s Alan Ladd like?�

�Short.�

�What about Mitchum?�

�Tall.�

That made him laugh.

For the record, I was an inch shorter than Mitchum and weighed around two hundred pounds, my reddish brown hair going white at the temples, and �almost leading man handsome� (the Life writer had said). I made up for the �almost� by being a success in my trade � president of Chicago�s A-1 Detective Agency. By way of evidence I offer the court my Botany 500 suit, Dobbs hat and Burberry raincoat, lining in � it was cold in Kansas City in October, and the sky was trying to make its mind up whether to rain or snow.

We rumbled across the Missouri River by way of the upper deck of the Hannibal Bridge.

No laughter now, as he asked, �You gonna help get that little boy back?�

�Do my best.�

�I got a boy that age myself.�

�So do I.�

�I believe somebody took my boy, I kill his ass.�

�So would I.�

He laughed again, but the sound of it was different.

Just under a week ago, a bit before nine A.M., someone rang the bell at an exclusive Catholic elementary school here in Kansas City. A young, inexperienced nun answered and found a plump, pleasant-looking (though agitated) woman on the doorstep; about forty, the caller looked respectable enough in a brown hat, beige blouse and dark gabardine skirt. The woman even wore white gloves.

She presented herself as the sister of Virginia Greenlease, whose six-year-old son Bobby attended the school, and said she�d just rushed her sister, who�d shown signs of a heart attack while they were out shopping, to the hospital. Virginia was asking to see her son. The nun � new at the school, barely speaking English � fetched the child and turned him over to the woman calling herself the boy�s aunt. The boy went along dutifully, hand-in-hand.

Later that morning the mother superior�s second-in-command called the Greenlease home to check on how Mrs. Greenlease was feeling.

Mrs. Greenlease, who answered the phone herself, said, �Why, just fine.�

The first ransom letter came a few hours later, special delivery.

We moved through an industrial area and then an unpretentious mix of commercial and residential, all pretty sleepy on an early Sunday afternoon. In the plush Country Club District, broad, winding boulevards followed the contours of the terrain, interrupted by public areas overseen by sculptures and fountains; a classy retail plaza ran to Spanish-style stucco and cream-color brick. The homes themselves were near mansions � not just �near,� really � with impeccably landscaped, evergreen-garnished yards that in warmer weather were likely trimmed as often as their owners saw their barbers.

�We in Kansas now, Mr. Heller.�

We�d only been traveling fifteen minutes. �Over the state line already?�

�Yessir. This is Mission Hills. Lots of rich folks. You a golfer, sir?�

�I am.� I disliked the sport, but sometimes it was the best way to keep clients happy.

�Well, they�s three golf courses to choose from. They keep �em open till the first snow.�

Autumn had turned the plentiful trees into a riot of color, orange, yellow, red, green, even purple, that last desperate burst of life before winter delivered death. But the grass was still green, brown barely intruding, with a scattering of those vivid colors making a patchwork quilt of lawns. Fathers were tossing footballs to sons while littler kids leapt into heaping piles of leaves with a fearlessness they�d yet to outgrow, their mothers leaning on rakes and looking on in worried surrender.

The cab was about to turn onto Verona Road from West 63rd when a figure in a fedora and raincoat ambled out from around the corner and planted himself before us with his arms outstretched. The cabbie hadn�t been traveling fast in this residential area, but it was startling enough to make him hit the brakes with a squeal.

Tall, his long, narrow oval face home to a prominent nose and jutting chin, eyebrows heavy on a high forehead, the interloper came over to the window the cabbie was rolling down and leaned in like an officious carhop.

�Local traffic only,� he said, polite but with an edge.

I leaned up and said to the cabbie, �I�ll handle this.�

I got out and said, �Nathan Heller. They�re expecting me at the Greenlease home.�

�Special Agent Wesley Grapp,� he said, stepping away from the cab, holding up ID with his left hand and offering his right with the slightest of smiles. His grip was firm but not showy. �You�re on our list.�

I gave him about half a grin. �I�ve been on the FBI�s list a long time.�

That got a chuckle out of him. �Yes, I�ve seen the file. It�s thicker than Forever Amber and about as juicy. What did you do to get on the Chief�s bad side? It�s not included.�

The Chief, of course, was J. Edgar Hoover.

�Oh,� I said casually, �a long time ago I told him to go fuck himself.�

This chuckle came from somewhere deep. �That�ll do it. Call me Wes.�

�And I�m Nate. So you�ve set up a checkpoint.�

�We have. We�ll take you from here.�

My overnight bag was in the trunk and the cabbie got it out for me. I gave him a sawbuck and made a friend for life.

Grapp walked me around the corner to his ride, a dark blue Ford Crestliner. I tossed the bag in front where a younger agent in suit and fedora sat behind the wheel � slender in horn-rimmed glasses � and Grapp and I got in back.

I said, �I guess you know Bob Greenlease called me in personally. You have no objection?�

�None. I�m all for it, actually.�

That surprised me; the FBI didn�t usually welcome private detectives to the party. �Why�s that?�

�We�ve been pretty well frozen out of this so far. Helping as much as we�re allowed. Mr. Greenlease has kept us pretty much at arm�s length. The guy�s got a lot of clout. He�s working strictly through the K.C. chief of police.�

Greenlease, a major stockholder in General Motors, was one of the wealthiest men in the Midwest. A self-made man from farming stock, he�d started out around the turn of the century making handmade cars and running a repair garage, then landed a franchise to sell Cadillacs; now he was the largest distributor of Caddies in the Southwest. His founding dealership, the Greenlease Motor Car Company, was where I first met him in 1937, when I was brought in to deal with auto parts pilfering by employees. And since just after the war, the A-1 had arranged security for the Annual Chicago Automobile Show, of which Greenlease was always a big part.

�Of course FBI policy in kidnapping cases,� Grapp was saying, �means doing nothing that might jeopardize the victim�s safe return. And Mr. Greenlease insists on no surveillance of any ransom drop... or at least he has so far.�

�So far?�

�Well, Mr. Heller... Nate... he�s called you in. Might mean a change of tactics.�

�Yeah, but it�s taken almost a week.� I�d half expected a call; the case had made the papers and even CBS-TV by way of Edward R. Murrow�s fifteen-minute national evening news. But that had amounted to little more than descriptions of the boy and the fake aunt. And expressions of ongoing sympathy for the parents.

�We don�t have a man on the inside,� Grapp said. �So your cooperation could prove key.�

�What have you been able to do?�

He offered me a smoke and I declined. He lit up and said, �With Kansas and Missouri butting up against each other, chances are good this thing has crossed state lines, which�ll give us jurisdiction. Already we�ve been able to intercept Greenlease�s mail at the K.C. Post Office and record incoming phone calls.�

�So there�s been contact. Were you able to trace the calls?�

He sighed smoke. �We probably could have, and possibly closed in on the people responsible, but the family�s wish was that we do nothing that might hinder the boy�s return.�

I frowned, shook my hand. �That�s crazy.�

�I agree. Perhaps you can reason with Mr. Greenlease. After all, he�s taken a big step, bringing you in... considering your reputation.�

�Somehow I don�t think you mean to flatter me.�

A thick eyebrow went up. �Nate. Mr. Heller. You�re well-known for your underworld connections. And you�ve been in a number of well-publicized situations where you have, let�s say, taken matters effectively into hand.�

�Gee whiz, thanks. But let me remind you, Wes, Special Agent Grapp, that J. Edgar Hoover assures us that there is no such thing as organized crime.�

The young agent at the wheel frowned at me in the rearview mirror, but Grapp only smiled a little.

He gestured with the cigarette-in-hand. �Nate, let�s just say anything you can do to help this situation would be appreciated. Whoever did this goddamn thing must be aware that, even if state lines haven�t been crossed, the kidnapping law in Missouri means a death sentence.�

�Understood. Since there�s effectively been a press blackout, what can you tell me? What don�t I know?�

The FBI man�s laugh was raspy and wry. �You have been spared experiencing one of the most sadistic, heartless series of letters and messages and phone calls any of us has ever seen. Six ransom notes, over a dozen phone calls. One wild goose chase after another.� His eyes, a dark brown and almost black, narrowed. �We do know they have the boy, or at least had him � a medal he�d worn to school that day was sent along with the second note.�

�When you say �they�...?�

�It�s at least two people. The woman who picked the boy up at school, and a man who�s been making the phone calls. He insists Bobby�s still alive. Talks about him being a handful and mentions a pet the child misses, how homesick he is. But, uh...�they aren�t the smartest pair, these two.�

�Why do you say that?�

�Well, they were lucky they snagged the kid at all. The nun who answered the door was new, very young, an import from France who spoke little English, and if the mother superior � away on an errand � had been there to go to the door that morning? That damn woman would never have pulled off her impersonation.�

�Think so, huh?�

He nodded curtly. �When the nun offered to show her the way to the chapel, to pray for her sick sibling? The dumbo dame said, �No thanks, I�m not a Catholic.� Any other nun in that facility would�ve known that Mrs. Greenlease was a Catholic, meaning her sister would be, too!�

I let some air out. �That makes the woman a dope. But maybe the guy�s got more on the ball.�

�You think so, Heller? His first ransom note? He got the address wrong.�

They drove me down Verona Road, past a trio of cars with press cards in the rear windows; a TV camera truck was pulled over there, too. A female reporter was using a phone in a box strapped to a tree, a little stool next to it for her purse and whatnot. United Press International had installed the phone, Grapp said.

The press had a good view of the house from there. Of course, �house� didn�t cover it. An imposing two-story multi-gabled structure with slate roofs and a cream-and-brown fieldstone facade awaited us when we pulled in the half-circle drive; it was almost a castle and not quite a church, and wide enough to be a hotel.

The FBI dropped me off and I toted my overnight bag to the gabled entrance. I must have been watched from a window, because the door opened after I�d barely rung the bell. In his mid-thirties, my host was of average height and weight with a squared-off head and a rounded jaw, his forehead so high it was like his features had slipped down too far on his oval face. His hair was dark and short, his eyes dark and bloodshot, his dark suit and tie unusual for a Sunday afternoon, unless an evening church service was in the mix. Yet somehow he still seemed disheveled.

�You must be Mr. Heller,� he said, and stepped aside and gestured me in. He took my coat, hat and bag and set them on a chair by a mirror.

Then I was in a world of big rooms with dark woodwork, pale plaster walls, dark wood floors, tall leaded-glass windows; along the left wall, a stairway rose with a carved lion for a newel post. The interior seemed oddly at war with itself � everything Prairie-style and spare but for carved touches, as if the house couldn�t decide if it was a mission or a manor.

Few lights were on. This was a somber place � not necessarily always so, but right now the inhabitants could not quite acknowledge light, which even the tall windows seemed reluctant to admit.

He was about to lead me deeper into the house when he froze, remembering himself, and turned and said, with a stiff nod, �Paul Greenlease.�

This was the adopted son of Bob Greenlease�s first marriage; Greenlease�s second wife, Virginia, had presented her husband with two late-in-life children, a daughter whose name I didn�t recall and of course the missing Bobby.

�I�ve been serving as the family�s spokesman,� Paul said, offering a listless handshake. �Dad has taken this awfully hard.�

We were standing in an entryway larger than most living rooms.

�I�m sure,� I said. �How�s your mother doing?�

�It kind of varies, day to day. She�s been sedated a lot, frankly. Sometimes things seem to be looking up, then...�

�Then they�re down. I understand these creatures have you folks jumping through hoops � one message, one call, one snipe hunt after another.�

He nodded, swallowed. �They�ve left us notes under crayon-marked rocks. They�ve taped letters underneath mailboxes. One note sent us to another note with instructions too confusing to follow.�

�Sounds like you�re dealing with dolts.�

He had an ashen look. �They want a lot of money. That�s not a problem, understand, but it took a while to get together.�

�How much?�

He paused, not sure he should share this, then did: �Six hundred thousand. Dollars.�

�Good God. That must be a record.�

�I wouldn�t know. Is that a lot for this kind of thing?�

Lindbergh had been asked for $50,000. Of course that was a while ago. Inflation had hit every business.

�The very first letter specified federal reserve notes,� Paul said, �in tens and twenties. Mr. Eisenhower at Commerce Trust is helping. He�s the president�s brother.�

�Of the bank?�

�No, of America. You know � Ike?�

�Yeah.� I didn�t mention I hadn�t voted for him. �And Ike�s brother got the money together?�

�Yes. And we tried to deliver it but it was raining and these letters have been kind of illiterate and... well, we left the money but the kidnapper called us later and said he couldn�t find it.�

Jesus.

�We went back and picked the money up,� Paul said, escorting me down a hallway. �We tried another time, but...�You should really talk to my father.�

We stopped at a doorless archway. Very softly, he said, �Sue�s become a sort of appendage to Dad. She�s eleven. They�re sort of... helping each other through this.�

�I understand.�

�But it might hamper what gets said. Just so you know.�

�Got it.�

We moved through the archway into a big living room. Again, the room was fighting itself, stark Arts and Crafts furnishings, walls of square-panel mahogany, but a ceiling of ornate plaster work with a chandelier; a grand piano lurked in one corner, the fireplace going, dispensing warmth out of a coldly elaborate decorative mantel over which hung a gilt-framed painting, a family portrait of Robert Greenlease and his wife Virginia with a much younger Paul at his side and a toddler Sue by her mother�s. Bobby Greenlease, not yet born, was already absent.

A dark leather-cushioned Stickley sofa faced the fire and the back of Robert Greenlease�s head and his broad shoulders � he was in a blue satin dressing gown � were to me.

�Dad,� Paul said quietly from where we stood just inside the room, �Mr. Heller from Chicago is here.�

Greenlease�s hand raised slowly, like a slow child risking an answer in class, and he gently motioned me forward. He did not turn.

Paul nodded to me and disappeared and I went around to face Greenlease, who wore a white shirt and tie under the dressing gown, its lapels so dark blue they were almost black. His eleven-year-old daughter, blonde and cute in a plaid jumper, was curled up sleeping next to him on a brown leather sofa cushion, her head on his knee; his hand was on her shoulder.

In his early seventies, Bob Greenlease was a big man with a rectangular head and white hair, wispy on top. His eyes were wide-set and light blue behind browline glasses, nose hawkish, mouth a thin line, a face that could have been severe but wasn�t, because he so frequently smiled.

Of course he wasn�t smiling now.

Seated or not, he had an off-balance look, as if he�d just realized he stood at the edge of a cliff.

He whispered, �Thank you for coming, Nate. We�ll keep our voices down. Don�t want to disturb the girl.�

He extended his left hand � his right remaining on his daughter�s shoulder � and we awkwardly but warmly shook.

I drew up a wood-and-leather-cushion chair, careful not to let it screech on the hardwood floor. �I�m so sorry about this terrible thing,� I said, sotto voce.

�Your son is well? Sam, isn�t it?�

�Yes. With his mother in California. He�s six. Like your boy.�

The tight mouth flinched. �Wish I�d called you in sooner. Should have been smart enough to take advantage of your prior experience with Lindbergh and all.�

I knew what he meant. But I wondered how it made me an expert, considering how that had come out.

I said, �You don�t have to fill me in. I spoke to Agent Grapp and your son and heard all about this damn nonsense you�ve had to endure.�

He nodded, just barely. �We seem to finally be on the verge of arranging the ransom drop. It�s been like something out of the Marx Brothers. But we�re to get a phone call at eight P.M. with the instructions.�

The fire snapped at us and was almost too warm as it cast an orange glow.

�What do you want me to do, Bob?�

�Join the team. Two old friends of mine, valued business associates, have been helping out on this thing � Will Letterman, who runs my Tulsa dealership, and from my K.C. operation here, Stew O�Neill. You�ll meet them. Fine fellas.�

�I�m sure they are. But you�re obviously dealing with dangerous, unscrupulous criminals. You need someone who can handle that breed.�

His smile was barely discernible. �Which is why I wish I�d called you sooner. Are you too old and successful, Nate, to still carry that Browning semiautomatic pistol?�

I nodded toward the outer area. �It�s in my bag. Holster, too.�

�Good. Afraid we don�t have room for you here, between the help and my support crew. I�ve had arrangements made for you at the Hotel President, just fifteen minutes away. I�ve got a new Cadillac waiting for your use, here in the garage � Paul has keys for you. Go get settled at the hotel and be back at seven-thirty. I�ll introduce you to Will and Stew.�

�Fine.� I got to my feet. �How are you holding up?�

�A lot of support here. Good people. My son and Will have been handling the press. My daughter sticks right by me, and my wife... well, Virginia has occasional rough moments, but she�s smart and strong. She took the call that came in today, herself, and let this �M�... that�s what he calls himself... have it.�

�Really.�

�Yes. Told the bastard there�d been enough runaround. But afterward...� He swallowed thickly and the blue eyes behind the glasses were glittering. �...she rather... came apart. You see, she had specific questions that M couldn�t, or anyway didn�t, answer. Name of our driver on the latest European trip... what Bobby was building with his monkey blocks in his room. The caller skated over those, just said what a handful Bobby was being. I think for the first time, Virginia... well. You know.�

I did know. She had realized how possible it was that her boy might already be dead.

The little girl stirred. She looked up at me with big eyes, as blue as her father�s, and grabbed his arm, startled, afraid. �Is he one of them, Daddy?�

�No, darling. This is Mr. Heller. He�s on our side.�

The fifteen-story Hotel President in the Power and Light District � Kansas City�s business and entertainment section � was unquestionably elegant, even if it was best known for a mysterious murder that happened in Room 1046 in 1935. Nobody asked me to solve it then and I wasn�t interested in doing so now.

But Bob Greenlease had always known how to treat the help. The lobby � quiet on a Sunday afternoon but for my echoing footsteps � put any Chicago hotel to shame, what with the golden two-story columns, chandeliers, marble floors, wrought-iron second-floor balcony, green palms and over-stuffed furnishings.

My room on the eighth floor was larger than need be, but who was complaining? The hotel had been around since the late twenties, but a recent remodel had led to modern, spindly furnishings, abstract wall art, and a red coverlet to make up for gray walls and curtains; there was even a small TV by the mirror on the dresser opposite the bed.

I unpacked my bag and retrieved the second suit I�d brought along � a gray twill woolen number from Richard Bennett in the Loop, cut to conceal a holstered accessory. I hung the Botany 500 in the closet and the tailored suit on the hook inside the bathroom door and took a shower, providing steam for the suit to hang out and for me to loosen up. The meeting with Greenlease had left me tight as a drum.

Speaking of which, the hotel�s Drum Room � a big circular restaurant with a snare-shaped red-and-yellow bar at its center � was my destination for an early supper. Sunday was the only night they didn�t offer live music � everybody from Frank Sinatra and Benny Goodman to Glenn Miller and Dean Martin had played here. Right now, at six o�clock, one of a handful of diners, I had to settle for mellow Muzak.

I had the filet medium rare, hash browns, buttered lima beans and salad, and a rum and Coke. But I only ate half of everything and limited myself to the one drink. I would be working tonight and even now I was in the tailored Richard Bennett with the nine millimeter under my arm. Maybe I shouldn�t have gone over the photostats of the ransom notes before I came down to eat.

You�d have lost your appetite, too.

If do exactly as we say an try no tricks, advised the first missive in what looked to be a feminine hand, your boy will be back safe withen 24 hrs after we check money. The second said, Don�t try to stop us on pick-up or boy dies you will hear from us later. More notes followed, with instructions like: Tie a white rag on your radio aerial. Proceed north on highway No. 169 past the junction with highway No. 69 about there miles where you will come to Henry�s place. And: Go west to first rd heading south across from lum reek farm sign. None of this gibberish had panned out, of course. Phone call instructions had been even worse.

These were people who thought stealing a six-year-old boy was a good way to get ahead � stupid people who�d spent almost a week botching their ransom delivery instructions. When I asked myself if this boy could still be alive, the food I�d eaten roiled in my belly like storm clouds.

Back in my hotel room I put a long-distance call in to my ex-wife in Beverly Hills. Peggy was married to a film director who�d had his ups and downs, currently up. We maintained a truce for Sam�s sake, but she not surprisingly never seemed glad to hear from me when I phoned.

�Sam�s at a pool party at the Lewises,� she said.

He and Jerry�s son Gary were longtime pals, longtime for six-year-olds anyway.

�And you�re not with him?�

�I think he�ll be safe with a dozen other kids and more than enough parents. What did you want with him?�

�Just to see how he�s doing. I�m his father, or did that slip your mind?�

A tense truce, admittedly.

�Well,� Peg said, �he�s fine. You�ll see him soon enough.�

I got him during his Christmas vacation. He was in the first grade.

�Would you tell him...�

�What?�

Tell him his daddy loves him.

�Nothing,� I said.

I got pulled over briefly at the FBI checkpoint, where Agent Grapp asked me to fill him in, which I did. It was a little after two A.M.

�This little trip Letterman and O�Neill are taking to south Missouri,� I said from behind the wheel, �means a state line�s been crossed. Surely you can wade in now.�

He was leaning in my window like a carhop again; it was cold enough for his breath to smoke and he peered at me above fogged hornrims. �Not unless the kidnappers actually take the kid there. It sounds like the runaround to me.�

�No argument. You don�t think that boy�s still alive, do you?� That forced-sounding remark about piss and vinegar was lingering.

The FBI man�s long face got longer. �We have to assume so. And I�ve been told to follow Mr. Greenlease�s lead.�

�Because he�s a worried father or a big General Motors stockholder?�

The only answer he�d had for that was a smirk as he backed away and waved me on.

Now I was in my hotel room, sitting up in bed with a slit of sun peeking between the closed curtains and the nightstand clock saying it was already after ten A.M. I had left no wake-up call, expecting to hear from Greenlease if anything had broken. Apparently nothing had, except maybe my head. While I hadn�t been drunk last night by any means, over the course of a long evening enough rum had been involved to give me a dull headache.

My stomach was in no mood for anything but the cup of black coffee I grabbed in the President�s coffee shop. Then I drove to the Greenlease place in Mission Hills. A different Fed stopped me at the checkpoint, but when I proved who I was passed me on.

Paul Greenlease greeted me again. His suit-and-tie seemed to be standard, for the duration of the kidnapping anyway, and the shyly smiling maid was there to collect my hat and coat. But before escorting me deeper into the big somber house, the older Greenlease son lingered with me in the high-ceilinged, expansive entryway like the only couple on a ballroom dance floor.

�Mr. Heller,� he said, and this adopted son looked enough like Greenlease to make a private detective suspicious, �may I ask you something?�

�Of course, Paul. And make it Nate. I�m a friend of the family in this.� With a check for five thousand dollars from his father in my billfold, admittedly.

�Now that the ransom has been delivered,� he said, stroking his rounded jaw nervously, �will you stay involved?�

�Is there news of your brother?�

�No. Nothing from Pittsburg yet.�

I offered a sigh. �It�s probably time to let the FBI take over, frankly. That�s what I�ll be advising your father.�

The dark eyes were still bloodshot. �I had the idea that...�well, that Dad might want you out there trying to find the people who did this.�

�Again, that�s probably better handled by the federal investigators, at this point.� I shrugged. �I do have means and methods not open to them. Uh, admittedly there are certain... niceties I don�t have to respect. So I may be discussing that with your father. Why, son?�

The word �son� had come automatically. For a man in his mid-thirties, he seemed young to me. His high forehead tensed. �Mr. Heller, there�s something bothering me that I haven�t shared with anyone. Can I trust you not to take this to Dad and Mother?�

The formality of �Mother� next to �Dad� struck me as interesting. Not sure I could tell you why.

�You can trust me to keep your confidence, Paul, unless I think it might bear on bringing your brother home or finding those responsible.�

He tried to shrug it off. �It�s nothing, really. I shouldn�t bother you or... or anybody with it.�

�No. Please. Go ahead.�

He drew in enough air to make his chest grow; when he let it out, words came along: �I took two of the phone calls. Mostly it�s been Mr. Letterman and a few times Mother. But I spoke briefly to this... individual.�

�M?�

�M.� He lowered his voice to a near whisper. �And this is what I want to share with you. His voice sounded... familiar.�

I frowned; put a hand on his shoulder. �You think you may know this person?�

�I might. I can�t give you a name or anything. I don�t think it�s one of my friends. I mean, frankly, all of my circle are well-off. Not as well-off as we are, but... nobody I know needs money. Nobody needs to do something like, anything like... this.�

�The voice doesn�t remind you of anyone in particular?�

�No. It�s almost... eerie. Something, someone, from the past.�

�Paul, you aren�t old enough to have much of a past.�

�I know. Jesus, I know! I�ve been racking my brain. When I was in military school, and later college, some of us would go out drinking. Could it have been somebody from those days?�

�Could it?�

His eyebrows went up and came down. �The voice on the phone sounded drunk to me.�

�And to me. Letterman commented on it, too.�

�If I come up with something, can I bring it to you?�

�Of course.�

�If I did get a hunch about who this might be, maybe you could look into it without getting some innocent guy in trouble.�

Did he already have a hunch? I really didn�t think so. But he was right � it might come to him.

I said, �Be glad to.� I gave him an A-1 business card. �If I wind up going back to Chicago, call me there.�

His eyes widened. �Are you planning to go back to Chicago?�

�No, but I might. If the FBI steps in and your father doesn�t have any further need of me.� I offered him my hand. �Thank you, Paul. Thank you for coming to me with this.�

We shook. Firmly, this time. He smiled a little and nodded, then led me to the library where his father and the hunting wall mural awaited, then quietly slipped away.

Greenlease was sitting on the couch with his little blonde daughter, who wore a green corduroy jumper and was reading a Nancy Drew book, The Ringmaster�s Secret. She looked up at me, but didn�t smile, still wary of me. The kid was a good judge of character.

�Darling,� Greenlease told the girl, getting to his feet, �I need to talk to Mr. Heller.�

She nodded and returned her eyes to the page while her father escorted me through the double doors onto a patio that looked onto fiery-topped trees and a browning golf course. The sun was out and the chill of the night before had backed off some. We sat at a wrought-iron table on wrought-iron chairs.

�I�m afraid we�ve heard nothing,� he said solemnly.

�Paul told me. He�s a nice young man.�

�He is. I�m going to set him up in a dealership of his own one of these days.� He shifted on the metal chair. �Will and Stew got to Pittsburg around 5:30 this morning. Checked into the Hotel Besse, caught a little sleep � Will had been up forty hours. They were at the Western Union office at seven when it opened. They took along fresh clothes for Bobby, including a topcoat.�

I didn�t know what to say to that. It was just so goddamned sad.

�They�re maintaining a sort of vigil,� he said. �We talk on the hour. Do you have any suggestions?�

I told him it was time to let Agent Grapp take over. �Bob, the FBI have cracked hundreds of kidnapping cases over the last several decades, almost always with a successful outcome. Sometimes kidnapped parties stay in their captors� hands for weeks before their return. So this is far from over.�

He nodded, his expression dazed; his dark blue eyes rarely blinked behind the browline glasses. �We�ll let the Pittsburg thing play out,� he said. A light wind was turning the wispy white hair atop the rounded square of his head into dead-dandelion tufts that refused to fly away.

�Bob, is there anything more I can do for you on this end?�

His head shake was understandably weary. �I don�t believe so, Nate.�

I got out my billfold and removed the check. As I handed it his way, the light wind whipping it a little, he raised two palms.

�That�s not necessary, Nate. You�ve earned it.�

�No. I�ll send you an invoice for five hundred dollars � that�ll cover my time and any expenses. Hotel and airfare were pre-paid, so this isn�t generous of me in the least.�

I kept the check held out and it flapped like the golf course flag on a nearby hole. Finally he took the thing before the wind did.

The thin line of his mouth said, �But if I need you...�

�You�ll have me. I�m opening a New York office next month, so you may have to get in touch there. My people in Chicago will help you on that score.�

�You sound busy.�

I leaned an elbow on a glass tabletop. �Listen. I have a six-year-old myself, remember. You need me, I�m here. In the meantime � and you�ve probably thought of this � I�d get a priest in to talk to the family. Maybe a nurse for your wife.�

He looked alarmed. �Nate, do you anticipate bad news?�

�Let me ask you. Is Bobby high-strung?�

A rare blink came. �No. I suppose it�s fair to say he�s been sheltered. Pampered, perhaps. We love him very much. Such a good boy.�

Which was why he�d been trusting enough to go with a strange woman when she came for him at his school. To a child, the world of adults is unknowable � you did what they told you to.

�That �piss and vinegar� remark,� I said. �Did that ring true to you?�

Greenlease said nothing. He looked toward the golf course. Some fools were playing. Hadn�t snowed yet.

Finally, he said, �No.� Then his eyes came to mine. �You think he�s dead. That�s why you�re talking about priests and nurses.�

�I think you need to prepare yourself for the possibility. Your wife, too. In the meantime, get the FBI on this full-throttle. If the worst happens, I can ask people I know in my world and see if we can find the bitch who took your boy and this bastard M, too. The feds can trace serial numbers. But I know how to trace lowlife scum.�

I got to my feet and so did he. We shook hands and went back inside, where he returned to his daughter�s side. Finally she smiled at me, just a little. But it was enough.

I was on my way out, back in my Burberry with my hat in hand, when an unfamiliar female voice called out to me, although I immediately knew just who it was.

�Oh, Mr. Heller?� The voice was a sweet, soft second soprano. �Would you wait a moment?�

I turned and a tall nicely built woman in her mid-forties approached from down the hall; her hair dark and short and well-coiffed, she was attractive in a dignified manner, reminiscent of Irene Dunne in some late �30s tearjerker. She wore a navy suit, white silk blouse and low heels, as if ready for church on this Monday. Of course Catholics went to church all sorts of times we heathens couldn�t keep track of.

�We may have met years ago,� she said. �I know you�ve done a number of jobs for Bob.� She seemed utterly composed, but her dark eyes screamed red like her husband�s.

She had offered her hand for me to take � not a handshake, but for me to hold, which I did in both of mine. �No, Mrs. Greenlease, I would have remembered. I can�t tell you how sorry I am about all this.�

�You were very kind to come from Chicago to help us,� she said. �I understand you played a crucial role last night.�

I wished I�d played a more crucial role, like grabbing that M by the goddamn throat when he picked the money up and squeezed out of him what he�d done with her son.

I said, �I have a boy Bobby�s age. Glad to do anything to help. I�m heading back to Chicago for now, but I�ll be on call.�

Her smile was a lightly lipsticked wound. �You were on the Lindbergh case, I understand.�

Oh, Christ � not that again.

I risked the smallest smile. �Yes, I was a liaison between the authorities there and the Chicago police department � I didn�t have my own agency then.�

�Why a liaison?�

�Well, Al Capone was claiming he could get the child back through his underworld connections if we�d just let him out. All kinds of crazy things were going on back then.�

Her hand was still in mine. �Are things really any different now?�

�Yes, and for the better. Out of that tragedy came the FBI�s ability to look into this kind of crime. I�ve advised Bob to let them take over. People like me, and family friends like Will Letterman, can only do so much.�

Her smile widened enough to reveal perfect white teeth. �That sounds like good advice. But we�ve had wonderful help. Paul has been just a dear. I don�t know what...� The tears she was holding back were pooling, threatening to overflow, and the smile was crinkling.

She hugged me. Cried into my shoulder, quietly, softly, but she cried. That was what this had come to: a mother needing a stranger�s shoulder to cry on.

She drew away, leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, and nodded, slightly, embarrassed now, and turned away and started up the stairs. But then she paused two steps up, at the first landing, and leaned a hand on the newel-post lion.

�You know, Mr. Heller... Bob and I would be lost without our faith in God�s constant and abiding love. Even in our darkest hours, we know God is holding each one of us in this family very close. Bobby included.�

As if ascending into heaven, she went slowly up.

Me, I had my doubts. If God was in this, He might have whispered in the ear of the young nun who was so quick to hand over their kid.

The front desk traded me a roll of quarters for a ten-dollar bill and, just off the lobby, I selected a phone booth from a row and settled in. An operator gave me the numbers I needed and the first call I made was to the airline at the Kansas City Municipal Airport, cancelling my reservation for a flight back to Chicago.

The second call was a quick one to Lou Sapperstein at the A-1 telling him I might not be back for a few days. The third was to the Pittsburg, Missouri, Western Union office; I was told that the two gentlemen waiting for an important wire had gone back to their hotel, but that if it came in, a runner would take it over. The fourth was to Pittsburg�s Hotel Besse, where the hotel switchboard connected me to the room shared by William Letterman and Stewart O�Neill.

�I thought,� Letterman�s voice said, �you�d be on a plane by now back to Chicago.�

He and Greenlease were talking �on the hour,� so his knowing that was no surprise.

�I just cancelled that,� I said.

�We�ve had no word.�

�I gathered. How long are you going to wait for M to get in touch?�

�Another day at least.�

�That kid isn�t coming home, you know.�

�...I have to keep a good thought, Nate. What can I do for you?�

�I need to get word to Bob and I don�t dare call him. The feds will be listening in.�

�They�ve been listening in all along.�

I knew that. But they�d been sitting on their hands, so what good had it done? That they hadn�t traced M�s calls was damn near as criminal as the kidnapping itself. I didn�t blame Wes Grapp for that � complying with Greenlease�s wishes was a directive that came from the top.

I said, �I need you to tell Bob I have a possible lead in St. Louis on the kidnappers. It may be nothing, but there are promising aspects.�

�Can you be specific, Nate?�

�No. Just remind Bob what I told him about my ability to track down lowlife scum. Tell him this may be a long shot, but I�m going to play it out. I won�t do anything to endanger his boy. Tell him I�ll report in when or if I have anything.�

�All right. You�re sure this is wise?�

�Of course not.� What would have been wise was Letterman letting me grab M at the ransom drop, but that hadn�t happened. I referred to that only indirectly: �We�re past playing it safe being a good plan. Tell Bob I�ll be holding onto the loaner Caddy. In a day or two, I�ll return it and, with luck, have something to report.�

�Maybe you�ll be bringing Bobby back, too.�

Letterman had to know he was kidding himself.

�Yeah,� I said. �Go with that.�

My headlights careened off the golden glazed ceramic-brick walls and glass-block windows of the array of Streamline Moderne bungalows that lurked on a slight slope among towering pin oaks like invaders from another planet getting ready to make their move.

I pulled the Caddy into the motor court drive at 7755 Watson Road in the St. Louis suburb of Marlborough, following Johnny Hagan in his �49 Chevy taxicab. Each of over thirty two-unit, brown-trimmed, round-cornered structures on the winding drive through the well-manicured several acres had a room on either side of paired white-door garages providing unusual privacy for motel guests.

The pink-and-black neon sign told much of the story�

��and the marquee below gave some particulars:

Room PhonesFree TelevisionAir Conditioning

The rest had been filled in on a St. Louis job of mine just after the war when I stopped by the Coral Court office looking for a client�s wandering wife. I found her in what I was told then was one of the new �Mae West� bungalows, so-called because of their rounded bays. I�d got a real eyeful, not just of my rich old client�s pretty young wife, but the double life of the Coral Court.

That it was the ultimate No-Tell Motel with hourly as well as nightly rates � the hourly (minimum four hours) were ostensibly to allow truckers to come in off Route 66 for a few hours of Z�s � did not stop families from making annual trips or honeymooners making legal whoopee. Some World War II newlywed brides, who never saw their husbands again, would remember their night at Coral Court forever.

Despite my previous visit, I had never stayed here. I pulled up at the office near the highway, joining Hagan, who was already out of his cab.

Hagan sent me in and I paid a reasonable $5.50, single occupancy, for the room reserved next to the one Steve Strand had booked earlier today as Mr. and Mrs. Robert White. The desk clerk was an almost good-looking red-lipstick brunette about forty in pink angora, her sultry friendliness suggesting a secondary business transaction was a possibility.

�Beds are comfy,� she said with a Groucho lift of the eyebrows. �We�re strictly Beautyrest mattresses at the Coral Court.�

�Good to know,� I said, and took my fifty cents in change.

That seemed to disappoint her a little. Still, there was promise or maybe hope in her voice as she said, �50-A�s next to 49-A � upper floor in the middle one of the new buildings.�

These proved to be a trio at the rear of the property, more conventional two-stories that hadn�t been here on my previous stop, but the same brick-and-brown-trim minus the bungalows� rounded curves � two rooms above, two below. Paired garages were on the first floor in front with two more in back, where Hagan stowed his cab in Strand�s. I slid the Caddy into 50-A�s adjacent garage. You accessed the upper floor by an outer staircase snugged along the building�s side and leading to a little hallway off of which were, as promised, 50-A and 49-A.

I stowed my overnight bag in my room, which had none of the moderne motel�s exterior style but did maintain yellow walls and brown trim with serviceable modern furniture and a double bed, presumably with the promised Beautyrest. And that bed looked good to me. It had been a long day with a long drive, and of course yesterday with that ransom drop had taken its toll.

Nathan Heller was not as young as he used to be.

In a personality-free hallway, Hagan � some clothes draped over his arm and a bottle of I.W. Harper in one hand � knocked at 49-A.

�It�s Johnny!� he said.

The door opened on a tall, surprisingly good-looking chippie in low heels. She wore a white blouse and brown skirt and there was nothing sexy about that wardrobe except the voluptuous body it hugged. Her hair was big and blonde and phony, but who cared? Her eyes were big, too, and gray-blue, her nose pert and her mouth too wide and too red and too full and still nobody cared. She looked like Cleo Moore in the B-movies, only tall � five ten easy.

�Sandy, this is Nate Heller,� Johnny said. We were out in the hall. �He�s from Chicago.�

�Remind me to be impressed,� she said. �Here, give me those clothes. You pick out something good? Hope you didn�t ask my aunt�s help. Her taste is in her fucking ass.�

We went in.

Sandy stepped aside, examining her share of the clothes � Hagan had provided several options. A guy only in his white-and-black polka-dot boxer shorts, a sleeveless sweaty white undershirt, and the black socks/shoes combo you see in stag films rolled off the bed and came over in a clumsy, hurried stagger. He was maybe five nine and not fat exactly, more a fruit-gone-bad softness, his legs short and stocky and nearly hairless.

He had dark thinning hair swept back, a receding hairline that emphasized a widow�s peak, and a short, wide nose and dull light blue eyes, like somebody who couldn�t remember where he put his car keys. No, his car. His mouth was a rosebud thing, and he had the kind of five o�clock shadow that just makes a face look dirty. A cigarette with an ash about to fall off drooped from the small, plump lips.

Like a greedy kid, he grabbed from Hagan the bottle of Harper�s and the remainder of the clothing � a silk shirt and fresh boxers � then beamed at him. �You are really on the ball, Johnny!�

�Aim to please, Steve.�

Steve put the shirt on over the grubby t-shirt and turned his back to us as he dropped his drawers and got into the new ones, giving us a look at a flabby ass that made Hagan and me share a cringe. Sandy was off to one side paying no attention to anything but the selection of clothes, which seemed to satisfy but not thrill her. Like her life. She took her fresh things into the bathroom and shut herself in. Nice to know she had a sense of decorum.

Then Steve turned and his face went as blank as a baby�s. He pointed at me. �Who�s this? Chicago?�

Steve�s voice was husky, low, smarter than the face.

I offered my hand. �Nate Heller. You must be Steve Strand.�

He stuck something out that proved to be a clammy excuse for an appendage.

Just looking at him, I knew he�d done this evil thing. Over against the wall was the metal luggage from the pawnshop � a green footlocker and black suitcase, likely filled with the money Letterman and I had dropped off by that covered bridge last night.

�That�s who I am, I�m Steve Strand,� he said, as if reminding himself, and went over and sat on the edge of the bed as he stuck his stubby legs into some trousers he�d plucked off a chair. �Thanks for making time. It�ll be worth your while, I promise.�

The voice might have been M�s. It seemed lower here, but a phone voice can sound higher. And he could have been disguising it on the calls.

Or wasn�t M.

I sat next to Steve. On the Beautyrest. �Well, I promise you I�ll be fair. We want you to feel like you can do business with us the next time you have a windfall.�

The dull eyes tightened. �We ever met?�

I shook my head. �I�d remember.�

Maybe he recognized my voice.

�Well, we�ll get to know each other,� he said with a shrug. He looked at me the way a dog does a hydrant. �We�re just gettin� ready to go out on the town. You�re coming along, right? What�s your name again?�

�Nate.�

�Nate, you won�t be sorry you met me.�

�I�m damn near giddy already.�

Steve laughed at that. So did I. Neither of us meant it.

Sandy came out in a four-alarm fire of a red pencil cocktail dress with a square-neck that showed off at least a third of her breasts. Once a man got past thinking contemptuously, �She�s for sale,� his next thought was, �How much?�

�Take me to the Hill,� she said to nobody in particular. That was the Italian-American enclave of St. Louis famed for toasted ravioli and roasted gangsters. �Ruggieri�s.�

�No,� Steve said, getting into a new-looking houndstooth sport coat that had been slung over a chair. �We�ll just get sandwiches somewhere.�

She gestured to herself and her screaming red sexuality. �You�re not gonna buy this a goddamn sandwich.�

He waved her off like they were married. �Okay, okay. But it�s getting late. Not everything�s open. I�ll take you for a nice dinner, but someplace near here.� He looked at Hagan, who was leaning against the wall near the door. �Know anyplace?�

�Harbor Inn is close,� he said with a shrug. �It�s all right. You can get a full meal, if the kitchen�s still open.�

�Harbor Inn it is,� Steve said, and Sandy rolled her eyes, hands on hips.

I said, �I�m not that hungry. I�ll wait for you folks to get back.� I was thinking about that footlocker and suitcase against the wall; I still carried lock picks.

Steve came over and put a pudgy hand on my sleeve; he smelled like Old Spice and desperation. �No, you come along, Nate. We�ll have a chance to talk. Get to know each other. Can you hold onto this for me?�

He reached in his pocket and got out a .38 revolver. He held it in his hand like this was a stick-up. For a moment I weighed diving for him, as death seemed a possibility and I�d rather it be his; but he shifted it to his palm and held it out like a gift.

�Ain�t it a little beaut?� he asked.

�I�m not licensed in this state,� I said, which was a lie. The nine mil was under my left arm. Thank you, Richard Bennett.

Steve swung toward Hagan. �How about you, Johnny?�

�No can do, buddy,� handsome Johnny said through a stiff smile. �I�m on parole.�

Sandy came over in a lightning flash of red and plucked the gun from Steve�s palm, startling him. �Cute,� she said. �Just what we need, going out to dinner, case the waitress is a bitch.� Efficiently she emptied the bullets into her hand. �What�s an insurance agent doing with a gun?�

�Protection,� Steve said defensively, �what do you think? I carry around considerable sums of money, you know.�

She closed her fingers around the cartridges and swayed back to her purse, a black leather clutch, and dumped the slugs into it. Then she sashayed back and returned the gun.

Under the five o�clock shadow, Steve�s cheeks were as red as Sandy�s dress. �You think I don�t have more slugs?� Proving his point, he dipped a hand into a sport coat pocket and showed off his own handful of bullets.

But they were .25 caliber. Whose gun did they belong to? A female partner, maybe? That blowsy dame he seemed to have ditched?

Steve left the .38 under a pillow and we set out for the Harbor Inn. I did not suggest using my car, tucked away in one of the garages below, because Steve � if he was M � might recognize the Caddy from the ransom drop last night; Letterman and I had not been sure we hadn�t been watched.

We went in Hagan�s taxi and I sat in front with him, keeping an eye on the couple in the backseat. Looking out opposite windows, they had less chemistry than oil and water. Steve was smoking again, and it soon became clear he was a chain-smoker. Hagan had a cigarette going, too, and so did Sandy, and a nicotine cloud formed inside the cab.

�Not a smoker, Nate?� Steve asked with his sphincter of a smile. He was fidgety back there. The woman might have been waxworks but for her occasional blink.

�I smoked overseas during the war,� I said. �Gave it up when I got home.�

I�d smoked in combat but dropped the habit when I was recuperating at St. Elizabeth�s. The only time I got the urge in peacetime was when I found myself in a combat-tense situation. That was rare. Even last night, on that wooden bridge, hadn�t qualified.

The Harbor Inn did not have so much as a small body of water to cozy up to, and the only �seafood� served was catfish; it was just a small roadside joint with table and booth seating, a horseshoe-shaped bar, and � for a touch of class � linen tablecloths and bentwood caf� chairs. For a Monday night, the place was hopping, jukebox blaring and couples dancing. Hagan ordered fried chicken and the rest of us went for the open-face steak sandwich � the menu was limited after nine. Sandy seemed annoyed or maybe frustrated with her sweaty john, who seemed to sense that, sensitive individual he so clearly was.

�Did you say you got a daughter?� Steve asked her. Beer had come for everybody while we waited for the food.

�Yeah. Michelle. We call her Mickey. She�s smart as a whip and cute as hell. Lives with my aunt and me. I�m a good mom.�

�I�m sure you are,� Steve said, nodding, though the only thing about her that suggested motherhood was her neckline. �I hope you�re putting your money away.�

That actually seemed to hurt her feelings a little. �Don�t take me for just another party girl. I already own a farm.�

If this doll owned a farm, bodies were buried on the back forty.

Steve said, �Oh, that�s great. Everybody needs a dream.�

�It�s not a dream! It�s real. Maybe you�d like to go in on it with me. You have a lot of money in that footlocker and suitcase, don�t you?�

Hagan and I exchanged quick looks: here it comes.

�Those are sample cases,� Steve said. �I�m a pharmaceutical salesman. Those are serum samples.�

Nobody brought up that earlier he�d been an insurance agent. Maybe because Sandy had glommed the greenback �serum� in the footlocker.

�Veterinary medicine,� Steve went on. �Animals and humans, what�s the difference?�

She smoothed some edges off herself. �Well, I want to buy a big Guernsey bull. To raise prize show cattle. If you�d buy me a bull, I would be the happiest woman on earth.�

If he bought her bull, Steve would be the biggest jackass on the imaginary farm.

�Maybe I can arrange that,� he said, with a wave of a plump-fingered paw. �Ah. Speaking of cattle.�

The steak sandwiches arrived; so did the fried chicken. The conversation slowed, most of what ensued coming from Steve, who had talked about how he was starving but only ate a few bites. What he had to say, however, was interesting.

�Johnny,� he said to the matinee-idol cabbie, �you seem like a right kind of guy.�

�Well, thanks, Steve.�

�You taxi drivers know a lot of people.�

Which was how Hagan had been able to add me to this little party.

�I know a few,� Hagan admitted.

Very quietly, Steve asked, �Can you score me some morphine?�

Like, Pass the salt.

Hagan was chewing, and obviously wondering how to respond, when Steve said, �My car was stolen, and along with it, my medicine, and all the paraphernalia that goes with it.�

And yet his �sample cases� were still in his possession.

�Look, I�m no damn lowlife junkie,� he said, with a sickly smile. �I just got hooked on the stuff when I was in the Pacific. During the war. When I was wounded. And they gave me more in the hospital, so till I can catch a breath and get some proper medical treatment...�

�I don�t really know of any place where I can get the stuff,� Hagan said with a noncommittal shrug, �but I can ask around.�

�Good! Good. Pick up a number 25 or 26 needle, while you�re at it. You can drop us off after dinner at the Coral Court and go on home. Your missus is probably wondering about you by now.�

�I gave her a call, but yeah. I should get home.�

Steve leaned in and put a hand on Hagan�s. �One more thing. Before you come by the motor court tomorrow morning, rent me a car and buy me a nice leather suitcase and a briefcase.�

That sounded like two things. Or three.

�All right,� Hagan said.

�Dig into that dough I gave you.�

�Sure.�

Sandy, sitting next to Steve between him and Hagan, perked up. �Oh! I love that song. Johnny, come dance with me.�

�Vaya Con Dios� by Les Paul and Mary Ford had started up on the jukebox.

They went off to dance.

A waitress brought another round of beers. The third.

Steve said, �So, Nate � you were in the war, too?�

�I was.�

�What branch?�

�Marines.�

The dull eyes got a little lively. �You�re shittin� me! Same here! Well, Semper Fi, Mac! Where did you serve?�

�Guadalcanal. Second Marines. I was wounded and sent home. My war lasted less than a year.�

His chest puffed up. �Oh, I was in for the duration... First Marine Division � New Britain, Peleliu, Okinawa campaigns. Made sergeant.�

�What did you do over there?�

�...Oh, whatever they asked me to.�

�What was your job? Mine was trying not to get my ass shot off in a foxhole.�

�Uh... telephone equipment repairman.�

I managed not to laugh. Deadpan, I said, �Where the hell would we have been without communications? Listen, while we have a moment alone...� Sandy and Hagan were dancing to �Crying in the Chapel� by June Valli now. �...we can talk money.�

He folded his hands and tried to look calm, but the eyes were lively again. �Why don�t we?�

�Depends on the nature of the currency,� I said. �Bank money could have some marked bills mixed in, so maybe fifty cents on the dollar. If it�s insurance money, why is it in cash? What�s the story there?�

He merely shrugged. No answer beyond that.

�If it�s out of a company safe and you don�t figure the serial numbers are recorded,� I said, �you can get an even higher return. Much as seventy-five, eighty cents on the dollar. But if it�s something like this kidnapping that�s in the papers, well, that could mean twenty, even fifteen cents on the dollar. Money doesn�t get much hotter.�

Steve�s laugh seemed forced. �You don�t think that�s what this is? Do I look like that kind of guy?�

You do, Steve. You really, really do.

�It�s insurance money, okay?� he blurted. �Everything would have gone fine if this one guy hadn�t made a mistake.�

If Steve was trying to wash the ransom money, did this remark indicate three accomplices? Steve, the blowsy broad he maybe already dumped, and... who?

�Get in touch with your people in Chicago,� he said. �Tell �em you got a line on a big bundle. Say I want seventy-five cents on the dollar, no questions asked.�

Sandy and Hagan joined us � apparently they didn�t care to dance to the �Theme from Dragnet� by Ray Anthony � and we gathered our things. Hagan used Steve�s money to pay the check and we headed out.

Hagan dropped us off at the Coral Court and Sandy went up the exterior staircase first followed by Steve and then me. I stopped at my door and said good night to them and Steve, who was stumbling drunk now, threw me a wave and Sandy winked at me before they disappeared into 49-A.

I paused, then moved down to the door they�d gone through and listened. I could probably have accomplished the same thing in 50-A with a drinking glass to the wall, but their conversation bled out just fine right here. The rooms at the Coral Court, unlike the glazed-brick-and-glass-block exteriors, were fashioned of flimsy stuff.

Sandy, in a sultry, slutty way that tried a little too hard, said, �Come on, honey, let�s go to bed...�

�Don�t worry,� Steve said, �you�ll get your money.�

�What the hell kind of deal is this?�

�I got you here for one reason and I�ll tell you what it is later.�

Sandy�s voice spiked. �What�s wrong with you, anyway? You got physical problems or something? Shit, I don�t understand this at all!�

Steve yelled back: �Listen, goddamnit! I haven�t slept for five days. I�m half-gone on nerves, whiskey, and dope. The last thing I wanna do right now is fuck! So sit down and shut up!�

�Oh? Well, fuck you, buddy!�

�Fuck you too, you goddamn tramp!�

Sandy shrieked and must have been hitting him, because he said, �Stop it! Stop it! Goddamnit, all I want from you is to run a goddamn errand for me tomorrow.�

�What?�

�You do a simple fucking favor for me and I�ll buy you the biggest fucking bull I can find for that fucking farm of yours.�

Then she was cooing at him and when I heard the Beautyrest starting to sing, I guessed Sandy was plying her trade. I went to my room, got into my pajamas, slipped under the covers, and switched off the bedside lamp. Went over everything I�d heard and seen tonight, feeling more and more convinced that metal luggage held the ransom money.

I mulled calling my wife�s number out in California and talking to my son, but even with the time difference it was too late for that.

Considering what I had on my mind, I fell asleep fast. The knock at my door came so soft, it worked its way into my dream. But it grew louder enough to wake me. I crawled out of bed and cracked the door open.

Sandy O�Day looked at me. For a moment I didn�t recognize her � her hair was short and black now, carelessly bobby-pinned up. Seemed all that blondeness had been a wig. Her too-wide, very red, generously lipped mouth came up with a hell of a smirk.

She said, �That limp-dick jerk-off fell asleep on me. I think I had too much coffee at that dump we ate at. Can I come in?�

I opened the door for her and she swept in, a pink nightgown trailing after like a cape. She let it drop to the floor and unleashed her long-legged body, slightly plump in the best ways, displayed in a Frederick�s of Hollywood-style purple bra and panties. Her hair might have been tousled, but her makeup was working overtime.

�You got anything to drink?� she asked.

�A couple bottles of 7-Up I got from a machine at check-in. A bucket of ice from down the hall. A couple of water glasses.�

�Sounds like a party.�

I poured us glasses with ice and we sat on top of the unmade bed with pillows propped behind us.

�I must be losing my charm,� she said. �When nothing developed in bed, Steve-a-rino took a bath to relax and I crawled in with him and got nothing but the wrong kind of wet. I�m starting to think he has eyes for Johnny or maybe you.�

I shook my head. �He�s just a lush. But he may be a rich one.�

She frowned curiously at me. �Where do you think he got that dough?�

I gave her back a question of my own. �How good a look did you get at it?�

She shrugged. �Just a flash. But, man, it looked stuffed in there like a Thanksgiving turkey.� She showed me small feral white teeth and her eyebrows went up and down and up and down. �You and me could grab those babies and South America here we come. You�re right, he�s a lush. You probably won�t even have to kill him.�

�That�s a relief. South America, huh? Wouldn�t you rather plow your share into your farm?�

Her head went back and she horse-laughed. �Ha! You didn�t buy that load of bullshit, did you, Nate?�

�No. I think you fooled Steve, though. He�s not very bright. Did he ever tell you what errand he wanted you to run?�

She sipped 7-Up, ice clinking, nodded. �Yeah. He�s gonna give me a thousand dollars to fly to Los Angeles and mail a letter.�

�What the hell?�

She repeated that word for word.

But by now I got it: �It�s a letter from him to somebody.�

�Yeah. A lawyer in St. Joe.�

�He thinks the postmark will give him an alibi. Make it appear he�s in L.A.�

�I guess.�

�You have the letter?�

�No. I saw it. He says I can keep anything left from the thousand after air fare and hotel and incidental shit. And he�ll give me enough to buy that Guernsey bull.� She giggled, then got serious and conspiratorial. �Which is all well and good, Heller, but I say take the money and run.�

�He has a gun.�

She glanced at the nightstand, where my nine millimeter was resting. �Looks like you do, too.� She worked her hand in my hair. �I think we�d make a good team. We both been to the rodeo before....�

Hard as it may be to believe, she smelled good. Arp�ge by Lanvin � a showgirl I dated a while back wore it. And the truth is, over the years, I have dated (to put it euphemistically) all kinds of females � from rich to poor, from brilliant to dumb, and a good number have been strippers and showgirls. Now that I was respectable, with a L.A. office and all, you can add starlets to the list. How can I put it politely? I�d screwed sleazier.

She turned the lamp to a low setting � that was one of Coral Court�s trademarks, although the ceiling mirrors proved to be a rumor, at least in 49-A and 50-A � and the room fell into a kind of dusk. She glided off the bed and slowly stripped off the bra � her breasts full and high and beautifully shaped � then turned her back to me and slid off the panties, revealing a dimpled bounteous ass as smooth as a marble statue. She turned to reveal a plush dark pubic bush and kicked off the heels and climbed back onto the bed and onto me. She slipped a hand inside the pajama trousers� fly and fished me out and worked me to attention.

She was about to mount me when I took her by the arms and said no.

�It�s all right,� she said. �I have a rubber.� She revealed the coil in her left palm; hadn�t seen that. She was good. Or shall we say, practiced.

�No,� I said. �I�m just not in the mood.�

�You look like you�re in the mood!�

�No. No offense, but... no. I don�t want to give you the wrong idea.�

�The wrong idea?�

�Call me old-fashioned, but I draw the line at murder.�

�I said you probably wouldn�t have to!� She huffed a sigh and scrambled off the bed. She got into the panties and bra in an irritated, unsexy way, stepped into her shoes, and stalked to the door, where she stopped and, clearly frustrated, looked at me as I reached to switch off the lamp.

�Jesus,� she said as she went out. �Doesn�t anybody wanna fuck me tonight?�

This time the knock at the door woke me at once. Insistent, the pounding was accompanied by Steve�s husky voice saying, �Nate! Are you up? Nate!�

The urgency put a frown on my face and the nine mil in my hand. But by the time I was on my feet, the sunlight peeking through the Venetian blinds said it was morning. I went over where the ruckus was, put the gun behind my back in one hand, and edged the door open a ways with the other.

Steve looked sweaty and upset, in desperate need of a shave, his dull blue eyes wide; he was in his houndstooth sport coat, brown trousers and bare feet. �Oh, good, you�re awake. I just don�t wanna leave my things unattended.�

He apparently meant the footlocker and suitcase, though he�d never admitted they were full of money.

�Okay,� I said. �You want me to watch �em while you, uh...�what?�

�Come see me when you�re dressed,� Steve said hurriedly, and was gone.

Everything�s a crisis with this guy, I thought, except things that should be.

I�d just closed the door when I heard Sandy�s voice and for a moment thought I was imagining it. Or worse, that I�d relented in the night and let her back in. Then I realized it was coming from outside, and went over and peered between blinds at the drive curving around past the small rear parking lot bordered by pin oaks.

Nobody.

But I could still hear her. In my pajamas, leaving the gun behind, I exited the room as barefoot as Steve had been, the door ajar, and stepped out onto the white metal landing at the top of the exterior stairs; it was crisp and chilly outside.

Sandy was on the far end of the landing in her purple dressing gown, leaning over the rail and yelling at a young colored maid poised by a housekeeping cart.

�What do you mean,� my unlikely Juliet was indignantly asking, �you can�t bring us some breakfast? We�ll pay for the privilege!�

The maid, in a green and white uniform, looked up and said, �We ain�t allowed to do that, lady. And I ain�t asking the manager a question when I know the answer, because he�s not in a good mood mornings. Actually, he ain�t in a good mood, period.�

And the maid and her cart rumbled on.

Sandy hadn�t noticed me, so I spoke. �Good morning.�

She gave me barely a glance. �Go fuck yourself.�

�Why, aren�t you available?�

That got a throaty laugh out of her. �Well, breakfast isn�t. I�m not hungry, but Steve�s having a cow.�

�That�ll save him buying you a Guernsey.�

She laughed again, just something short from her belly. Now she looked at me � surprisingly pretty, make-up free, though the hardness of her life lingered. �You always this funny in the morning?�

�Keep trying. Maybe you�ll find out.�

She grinned and gave me a middle finger. We were finally getting along.

�I�ll handle Steve,� I told her, as she slid past me into the hall and we slipped into our respective quarters.

Bathed and shaved and back in the Richard Bennett with the holstered nine mil accouterment, I knocked at the 49-A door and Sandy answered, back in her big blonde wig and in a pink knit sweater and black pencil skirt and low black heels. She rolled her eyes at me. Beyond, Steve was pacing like an expectant father.

I stepped past her. �What�s the problem?�

�I�m gonna talk to that fucking manager,� he said, still pacing. �Johnny told them, when we checked in, we were to get the first-class treatment.�

�First-class treatment in this kind of place,� I said, �does not include breakfast. They don�t have a restaurant, much less room service.�

�I�m gonna let that manager know who he�s dealing with.�

Sandy took my arm, sending her words back and forth between me and Steve. �I know the manager. Jack Carr. He�s tight with Buster Wortman and an ex-con himself. Not a good idea getting his attention.�

Wortman was known as the rackets boss of East St. Louis, Illinois.

She gave me a little nod toward the footlocker and suitcase against the wall. The likes of Carr and Wortman would just love to know about those... if they didn�t already.

I said, �I�ll go out and get us some breakfast.�

Steve froze but his expression melted. �Would you, Nate? That�d be mighty white of you.�

�Anything else you need?�

He put his hand on top of his head like an ice pack. �Aspirin.�

So I would play delivery boy. I only hoped this errand wasn�t meant to get rid of me just long enough for Steve and his money to move on without me. If Sandy had told him about the nine millimeter on my nightstand, he might think I wasn�t here for the advertised purpose. Which I wasn�t.

Of course, that would require Sandy telling Steve she�d been in my room, which would not thrill him, since he was the one paying for the pleasure of her company; and anyway, I was representing the Chicago Outfit, wasn�t I? Why wouldn�t I travel heavy?

I returned in forty minutes or so with three fried-egg sandwiches and paper cups of coffee from a diner up the road and Bayer aspirin from a Katz Drug. When Steve sat on the edge of the bed, to eat his sandwich, setting his coffee on the bedside stand, I picked up his hat to make room for myself, tossing it onto a chair.

�Don�t you know it�s unlucky,� I said, �to leave your hat on the bed?�

Through a mouthful of white bread and fried egg, Steve said, �Do I look like some superstitious chump?�

Well, he didn�t look superstitious. A glimpse at the fedora�s sweatband had revealed �CAH� and �LEVINE HAT COMPANY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.� Not being a chump myself, I knew at once Steve Strand�s initials were not CAH.

Nobody had much to say. Sandy turned on the TV while she ate and a sickeningly folksy Arthur Godfrey kept us company by way of a bunch of blather and Julius LaRosa singing �Eh, Cumpari!� When �Strike It Rich� came on, it was a relief.

Meanwhile, Steve prowled and paced, pausing on occasion to peek through the Venetian blinds at the rear parking lot. Finally I stepped up next to him. �Checking for cops?�

�No, no � insurance investigators, maybe.�

About a quarter after eleven, Johnny Hagan arrived, wearing the same working man�s clothes as last night but minus his ACE CAP. He had a tan leather two-suit bag over one arm, a matching briefcase in one hand, and a brown-paper-bagged bottle in the other. Still barefoot, Steve strode over, annoyed.

�Where the hell have you been?� he blurted. �We been sitting around all morning with our thumbs up our asses!�

The big good-looking cabbie cowered, as if this pudgy punk was a threat; of course Steve did have a gun in his sport coat pocket.

�I�m sorry, pal,� Hagan said. �That was some laundry list of errands you gave me. I got that luggage you wanted. Hey, and I rented you a swell ride � a �52 Plymouth sedan, two-tone green.� He held out a handful of pills. �Plus I got you Bennies off a bellboy.�

�Gimme!� Steve said. He snatched the pills from the cabbie�s palm and stuffed them in a pocket. At least he didn�t just toss them down his throat like Vitamin Flintheart in the funnies.

Hagan shook the paper bag off the bottle � I.W. Harper again � and handed it toward Steve, who grinned like a ventriloquist�s dummy. �Johnny, I won�t soon forget you!�

Then Steve was passing around drinking glasses in which he�d poured several fingers of amber liquid, like the pacing father�s baby had finally been delivered. Crossing her nice long legs, Sandy replaced me in the seat of honor next to Steve on the edge of the Beautyrest while Johnny and I found chairs.

�Stick by me a few days,� Steve said to the cabbie, between generous gulps, �and see me through this rough patch, you can be damn sure I�ll take care of you.�

What rough patch exactly?

Steve went on: �Sandy here wants a bull to hey-diddle-diddle the cows on her farm. What�s your dream, Johnny?�

The cabbie gestured around him, sloshing the whiskey in hand; his eyes traveled to where the walls met the ceiling as if that were where heaven began.

�Place of my own like this would be just about goddamn perfect,� Hagan mused. �Can you picture it? Motel down in Florida, beach for a back yard, away from the Saint fuckin� Looie snow.� He snorted in self-contempt. �Rolling drunks in your cab only takes a guy so far. Why hustle johns for whores out of a Chevy...�no offense, Sandy... when you can run a ring of �em right out of your own clean and comfy motel? Drivin� cab is no kind of life for a real man. A place like the Coral Court � hell, half as nice � would cover what it takes for a guy to make his support payments and make a bet when he feels like it, maybe buy a new suit of clothes now and again, and never feel the pinch.�

�Everybody needs a dream,� I agreed.

�Well, yours is gonna come true, Johnny,� Steve said, saluting him with an already empty whiskey glass. �Like Sandy and her farm and that male nympho bull I�m gonna buy her...�I�m gonna set you up for life, kid. And Nate, you are not forgotten in this � I�m gonna kick back ten percent of whatever you arrange for me with the Chicago boys. Consider that a promise.�

Sandy, not too subtly, said to Steve, �That new bag you had Johnny buy? You need help shifting the money into it from that footlocker and suitcase?�

Steve took no offense at this breach of etiquette. He just shook his head gently and said, �No, suit bag�s for clothes we�re gonna buy this afternoon, me and Johnny. Now, Johnny boy, first you should drop Sandy off at a cab stand, where she can get a ride to the airport for her L.A. trip. Use the car you rented and come back here after. Sandy, I got a couple more letters for you to mail from out there. Then, Johnny, rent me a nice apartment in a quiet, refined neighborhood where I can lay low for a while. If it hadn�t been for one man�s slip-up, none of this would be necessary. But it is. Pay a month�s rent if you have to.�

�Okey-doke,� the cabbie said.

�And can you score me some fake I.D.? Know anybody can provide that?�

�There�s a guy.�

Sandy was listening intently. I could hear her wheels turning: the last thing she wanted was to get on an airplane to the West Coast and leave the fortune in those metal suitcases behind.

�I need the rest of that twenty-five hundred back,� Steve said to Hagan, �but keep five C�s � a man without money is nothing. Use what�s left after buying my new I.D. to fix yourself up with some classy new threads.�

Hagan complied. At her host�s prompting, Sandy gathered her extra things and got ready to leave. Then she gave me a wry look that said, Maybe next time, and thanked Steve for the grand. He said no thanks were necessary and she could get in touch with him about that Guernsey bull through Hagan, on her return from the Coast.

Before following the cabbie into the hall, Sandy gave the footlocker and suitcase a longing look � the kind a man wishes a woman might give him before parting.

When they�d left, Steve poured himself a fresh glass of whiskey and gave me one I hadn�t asked for. He went to the window and parted blades of the blinds to watch the Plymouth go, then returned to his spot on the edge of the bed.

�Nate, I wanted to talk to you alone.�

As if sending Sandy to L.A. to mail letters had been all about giving us a little privacy.

I sipped whiskey. I�ve never cared for the way it burns when it hits bottom. �What�s on your mind, Steve?�

His unblinking gaze was unsettling. �I want to play it straight with your friends in Chicago. I got no desire to have the Outfit unhappy with me.�

�Sound thinking.�

�So I�m not going to lie to you.� He pointed to the footlocker and black suitcase. �That�s not insurance money or from a bank vault, either. That�s ransom dough. The Greenlease kid.�

I�d been pretty much convinced of that since the moment I first saw Steve�s sweaty smear of a face. But hearing it still landed hard.

�I�m no fool,� he said. �That money is bound to be marked. Means I have to settle for whatever I can get. But you can help.�

�How?�

He shrugged. �You know these Chicago people. They�re your business associates. Maybe even your friends. And the more they give me, the more I can give you, right?�

�How many others are in this with you, Steve?�

�I got a girl named Bonnie. I stowed her in an apartment because she came a little unglued after we took the boy. She drinks too much.�

�Does she.�

He nodded, looked into his own glass, finding no irony there. �I said somebody slipped up, remember? And I guess you could say somebody was me.�

�How so, Steve?�

He jerked a thumb at himself, defensively. �I thought up the plan. The whole thing was mine. I have a real mind for this kind of thing � in my time, I robbed stores, and stuck up a whole string of taxi cabs... ha, don�t tell Johnny! Never a hitch, except maybe that bank job... just bad luck, after I case the place and plan so perfectly, it turns out to be closed on Saturdays. But when I was doing time, I got really good at planning.�

I had a regular criminal mastermind here.

�You see, I come from a wealthy family, but I had a bad run of luck with some businesses, legit ones that chewed up my inheritance. In stir, I got to thinking about the rich kids I grew up around... and a kidnapping seemed like a safe, easy way to get rich again. If only... if only I hadn�t got mixed up with that crazy bastard.�

�What crazy bastard, Steve?�

�Tom Marsh.�

Marsh? M?

He sighed, shook his head. �He was just somebody I ran into in the Netherlands Hotel bar, in Kansas City. We hit if off right away � talked the same language. You know, words and expressions only ex-cons use. He had charm and he was tough. But he had bad qualities I didn�t pick up on.�

�Such as?�

�Well, he was low-class. Had tattoos on his arms and chest. And he was a perverted son of a bitch. You think I woulda snatched a kid if I knew I�d thrown in with a short eyes?�

The flesh on my arms goose-pimpled and the hair on the back of my neck bristled.

�Short eyes� was prison slang for child molester.

�And,� Steve continued, �Marsh has been looking after the Greenlease boy ever since Bonnie picked him up at that school. In a nice quiet house in a nice quiet neighborhood, never mind where. Marsh swears he�s leaving the kid alone � that he knows if he touches him, in that way, it could sink the whole damn deal. But how can I trust a goddamn kiddie-diddling drug addict?�

Good point. �He still has the boy?�

Steve nodded. �He was supposed to deliver the kid to a hotel in Pittsburg, Missouri. But he hasn�t yet. He thinks we can squeeze another round of money out of Greenlease. Greedy, grasping prick! When I found that out, I grabbed the money, and Bonnie and me took off.�

�Then it�s Marsh you�ve been on the lookout for,� I said, nodding toward the blinds.

�Yes! Yes.� He sat forward, the dull eyes getting some real life in them now. �I want to do the deal with your Outfit boys, score some real money for me and Bonnie, and you, of course... then I�ll call the cops and tell them where to find Marsh and the boy.�

�If he hasn�t killed him.�

Steve waved that off. �Oh, no, the boy is fine. Marsh is nuts but not stupid. Then Bonnie and me will lie low in an apartment till the cops take Marsh in and the boy back to Mommy and Daddy.� He slapped his knees. �So. Everything hunky-dory now?�

Yeah. Fucking swell. Bobby Greenlease�s babysitter was a drug-addicted pedophile. Steve and Bonnie were drunk and on the lam. What could go wrong?

And yet the kid seemed to be alive. I�d been ready to write Bobby off in this thing. Now here was a ray of hope in this nightmare tragicomedy.

A car motor outside announced itself. Steve went to the window and peeked out. �Johnny�s back! Help me take the luggage down and load it in the Plymouth.�

As if carrying a coffin, him in front, me in back, I helped him down with the footlocker. Hagan went up and got the black metal suitcase. We loaded the Plymouth trunk and the cabbie pulled the vehicle into the first-floor garage marked 49-A, got out and shut it inside.

�Catch yourself a cab,� Steve told Hagan, an arm around him. �I have some things to do this afternoon. Three of us�ll meet at the Pink House bar-and-grill up the street for a drink and a bite at four o�clock. Don�t forget my fake I.D. Okay?�

Hagan said, �Covered,� and the cabbie walked off to catch a cab.

Steve locked the garage and I followed him back up to his room. He poured himself some whiskey, then asked me if I wanted a �snort� and I declined. He resumed his favorite seat on the bed�s edge.

�Nate, can you get your Chicago friends to give me a figure for the money? Like I said, it�s a hell of a big bundle � around six hundred grand.�

I whistled, like I didn�t already know. �See what I can do. But I don�t know about trusting the phones here. They could be tapped by the cops or even the management.�

He nodded. �Maybe you could walk to a booth and call from there. Or use a pay phone in a restaurant.�

�You could drive me.�

He shook his head. �No, I got things to do.�

�Why not take me along?�

�No. Things I need to do on my own.�

�You�re not meeting up with Bonnie, are you? Or maybe Marsh?�

�No! Why are you pushing me, Nate?�

I got up and sat beside him. Put a hand on his shoulder. �Steve, you gotta be straight with me. If I tell the boys back home you can be trusted, and something goes off the rails, it�ll come back and hit both of us. Hard.�

He thought about that. Then had some whiskey and asked, �What if the kid was dead?�

�What? You mean, what if Marsh kills the boy?�

�I mean, what if he already has.� His eyes were looking right at me but registering nothing. �I mean... Nate. It�s better you hear this. He already has. Killed the kid.�

I didn�t say anything.

�If your Outfit pals knew the kid had been killed, would it mean less money? I mean, can we keep that from them? Make �em believe we didn�t know ourselves?�

I stood. �Excuse me.�

I got up fast and shut myself in the bathroom. I raised the toilet seat and knelt before the porcelain altar on the ceramic tile floor as if in prayer and threw up. Well, first I retched a while, then everything flew out � the fried eggs, the bread, the coffee, the whiskey, and considerable bile.

It took a while.

I got uneasily to my feet and ran cold water in the sink. I looked at myself in the mirror and my reflection looked ghostly white. My features, which were so like my son�s, stared accusingly at me. I splashed cold water on my face and then I toweled off. Thoughts were careening in my brain, but one was that I didn�t dare kill Steve until he�d led me to Tom Marsh. And the child�s body.

When I came out, Steve was gone.

A car motor roared outside and I ran to the window, fingered open blind blades and saw a two-tone green Plymouth taking off, fast.

�Shit,� I said.

I sat on the edge of the Beautyrest where Steve had perched minutes ago. I breathed hard. I clenched my fists. Tried not to trash the room. Then, slowly � and it took a good two minutes � I came to my senses. Steve had left things here. Extra clothes, toiletries, an unfinished bottle of I.W. Harper. This last alone meant he had not checked out of the Coral Court.

He would be back. He would likely still make that meeting at the Pink House at four P.M. He may have heard me puking but that didn�t mean he was on the run from me. Quite the opposite � he likely wanted me to settle down, after my unexpectedly human reaction to hearing that a little boy had been murdered. We needed a time out, before we completed our hot money transaction. Or perhaps he had things to do, unaccompanied.

So I was breathing normally as I poked around the room, a detective again. Steve hadn�t brought much with him, but I did find in the wastebasket yesterday�s morning edition of the Post-Dispatch. I lay it open on the bed and paged through. An ad in the classifieds was circled in pen � for a two-room furnished apartment at 4504 Arsenal Street.

From the Coral Court to the apartment house on Arsenal took only fifteen minutes, even for a non-native. The area was somewhat schizophrenic, scenic Tower Grove Park with its sassafras trees, manicured grounds, and gazebos facing a row of once-proud brick residences now given over to apartments � 4504 somewhat larger than most buildings here, probably home to seven or eight flats on its two floors.

The middle-aged, well-preserved landlady on the ground floor accepted unquestioningly the badge I flashed, though a closer look would have revealed it to designate a State of Illinois Licensed Private Investigator. The salt-and-pepper-haired, blue-eyed Mrs. Webb seemed to like me � I was well-preserved, too � and answered all of my questions unhesitatingly.

About noon yesterday, John Grant of Elgin, Illinois (maybe she had read my badge) rented for twenty dollars and a five-dollar key deposit her only available apartment. He and his wife Esther were staying in St. Louis while Mrs. Grant recovered from a serious illness.

�Don�t know what her problem is,� Mrs. Webb said. �But she seemed very weak. She was leaning on her husband.�

�What did he look like?�

The description of John Grant was Steve Strand right down to the five o�clock shadow and oily complexion. He had dragged in and up the stairs, one at a time, two very heavy pieces of luggage. Later in the day he had carried them back out, one at a time.

Mrs. Webb took me upstairs and knocked, said, �Mrs. Grant?� a few times, before unlocking the door for me and smiling and nodding and leaving me to it.

I went in and the place was two rooms that I would describe more as under-furnished; still, pleasant enough with its floral wallpaper and fleur-de-lis rugs. The lumpy double bed had a lumpy woman in it. In a slip, she was walking the line between deep sleep and out cold. The nightstand bore two whiskey bottles (one empty, one two-thirds empty), a water glass and the small radio Steve bought yesterday.

And one other thing: an envelope addressed with �Mrs. Esther Grant� scrawled on it. Inside was a note, similarly hasty: �Had to move bags in a hurry as report came in on radio � Girl next door looked funny � Couldn�t wake you � Stay here and I�ll call you when I can.�

On a bureau was a brown cloth purse and in it was $2,500 in twenties and tens, and another note, folded in half: �Stay where you are baby. I will see you in short order. Tell them you are not well and they will bring you food. Just say your husband was called away unexpectedly.�

I got a pad from my sport coat and jotted down a dozen of the serial numbers, then returned the money to the purse.

Mrs. Grant seemed to be rousing a little. I went over and sat on the bed by her. She groaned and so did the mattress � not a Beautyrest. Nor was Steve�s �Bonnie� a beauty at rest. She had a contusion over her left eye and a red streak across the bridge of her nose. Her dark hair medium length and unkempt, she reminded me of a dissipated version of Patsy Kelly, the movie comedienne you used to see in the thirties and early forties with Thelma Todd or maybe the Ritz Brothers.

Round-faced with a weak chin, narrow wide-set eyes and, spookily, the same kind of cupid lips as Steve, she had probably been good-looking once or nearly so. Her nose was red and it didn�t take my detective skills to figure why, though the stench of booze aided and abetted.

I helped her sit up in bed and her eyes tried to focus and her busty, not quite fat frame worked to right itself.

�You�re Bonnie?�

She frowned at me, as if to say, Am I?

�Tell me about the boy. The little boy.�

She seemed like she might cry but never got there. �It�s... it�s all hazy.� Words were hard for her. Her lips, tongue and teeth just weren�t working in tandem. �I�m so hazy on things... I don�t remember.�

�Try, Bonnie.�

Her voice had traces of emotion, but her face was a putty mask. �If you�d been drunk as long as me, you�d understand.�

�Understand what?�

�It does something to your brain. I travel around in a haze most of the time.�

�Did Steve give you those marks? Did he hit you?�

�Steve... you mean... Carl?�

CAH.

�Yeah, Bonnie. I mean Carl.�

Her shrug was in slow motion. �We fight sometimes. I didn�t like this place. I said it was a dump. He didn�t like that.�

�Tell me about the little boy.�

�I picked him up at school. Carl told me he was the boy�s father, custody thing. He took the boy off somewhere. Then I saw in the paper it was a kidnapping and thought maybe Carl wasn�t really his father. I asked him what he did with the boy and he told me to mind my own business.�

�And he hit you then?�

She swallowed, nodded. �Yeah... I been looking like hell ever since. I... I don�t remember how I got here. We were in K.C. and this is... St. Louis, right? Look, I started drinking after I saw the papers. So it�s hazy, like I said.�

�Did you see the ransom money?�

�Carl has a lot of money in his luggage.�

�If you knew Carl kidnapped the boy, why didn�t you call the police?�

The putty face managed a frown. �If I did that, they�d come take Carl away. And I love him very much.� She clutched my lapel. Something human entered her eyes. �You know, that boy just put his little hand in mine... he was just so trusting.�

Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she was snoring again.

From a phone booth down the street, I called Lt. Lou Shoulders, getting him at the Newstead Avenue Police Station, his work number.

I brought him up to date, then said, �You need to put some men on the apartment house. This woman Bonnie is the accomplice, and Steve or Carl or whoever the fuck is going to lead us to Tom Marsh.�

Shoulders groaned, �And the kid�s body, sounds like.�

�Yeah. Look, this is going to break real soon. You should post men at the Coral Court, too. Plenty of rooms to watch from. But don�t rush it... and don�t rush him. He�s armed and screwy as hell. I�ve got his confidence, though, and I�m on top of it.�

�Brother, you better be.�

The Pink House was indeed pink, a dirty coral, but not what you�d call a house � just a dive with a red overhang roof that bore its name. Though typical bar food was on offer, its rationale for existence was clearly stated by the vertical sign near the front door, red letters on pink:

The cigarette smoke within was no thicker than carbon monoxide fumes in a suicide garage, the grizzled regulars at the U-shaped bar consisting of that breed of working men who never seemed to be working. The dark-wood interior had half a dozen dark-wood tables and dark-wood chairs, on loan from the kind of jury room where guilty verdicts are frequent and deserved.

Only a couple of the tables for four were taken, and the one I chose was away from those patrons, a bald guy negotiating with a redheaded hooker at one table, and at another two guys laughing too loud as they drank too much. Maybe they were trying to be heard over the jukebox � Tony Bennett, �Rags to Riches.� After I collected a bottle of Schlitz from the bar, I made sure to sit on the opposite side of the room from the corner where a currently not-in-use dart board dwelled, in case some barroom athlete got ambitious.

I�d been right on time but my cabbie pal Hagan was five minutes late. I almost didn�t recognize him, and he sure was in the wrong bar for his new duds � navy felt hat and blue gabardine suit, blue-and-white tie on a crisp white shirt, wing-tip Oxford shoes. Florsheim, probably.

He got himself a bottle of beer and joined me. �Any sign of Steve?�

�No. But that gives us a chance to talk. We�ll start with his name isn�t Steve. It�s Carl.�

A puzzled look. �He tell you that?�

�No, his forty-year-old �girl� did. She�s Bonnie. And Bonnie and Carl make Bonnie and Clyde look like geniuses.�

I filled him in on what little I�d managed to get out of our friend�s drunk-out-of-her-mind accomplice, and how Lt. Shoulders had the Arsenal Street apartment house under watch.

�When I get Steve alone,� I said, �I intend to squeeze it all out of him. But I did get the gist from Bonnie.�

His dark eyebrows flicked up, then down. �Oh, Christ. This is the Greenlease thing?�

�Yes. It is. Is the Greenlease boy alive? No.�

A loud sigh followed. �How fucked in the ass are we?�

�Let�s put it this way, Johnny � get sticky fingers around that ransom dough? Even a snazzy new outfit won�t make you feel good in the electric chair.�

Hagan shook his head glumly. �It�s the gas chamber in Missouri.�

�Sorry. Hard for an out-of-stater to keep track. But they let you sit down for that, too.�

He scowled. �Come on, man. You know Costello was only interested in that bundle if it came from some righteous source like embezzlement or robbery.�

I let him get away with that � bigger fish to fry.

�If Joe�s to be believed,� I said, �he wants nothing to do with the Greenlease kidnap except getting credit for helping nab the snatchers. Okay, then, fine. With luck and a little sweat, I can shake the whereabouts of this Marsh character out of �Steve.� And what became of the boy... of his body.�

I gulped air, then gulped beer.

Hagan was nodding. �Give �em Steve and Bonnie and Marsh, it�ll make the cops look good, and take some of the smell off Costello�s reputation.�

�He�ll be content with that? You got any idea how much money six hundred grand is?�

�I know it�s heavy carrying it up and down those damn stairs at the Coral Court.� He sat forward. �Look, I wouldn�t worry about Costello. He�s no saint, but the one to watch is Shoulders.�

�You�re saying a crooked cop who killed three times in the line of duty might be a threat?�

He missed the sarcasm or anyway ignored it. �Shoulders is a shakedown artist from way back. He�ll give a free pass to any thief who�ll cut him in for half. He�s nightwatch commander at the Newstead Avenue Station � perfect spot to not be seen doing what you shouldn�t be seen doing.�

I was glad I didn�t have to diagram that sentence.

I said, �You think Sandy got herself off to the airport?�

He shook his head. �No, she�s headed to St. Joe.�

�What?�

Flipping a palm, he said, �She told me she got a real good look at that money in Steve�s, or Carl�s, luggage. She said he�s from St. Joe.�

�Keep thinking of him as Steve for now,� I advised. �How did Sandy figure that?�

�Saw it in his hatband.�

So much for me being a great detective.

�I put her with another cabbie I know,� Hagan said, after a gulp of beer, �who said he was willing to make a meter-off trip out of town, if the two of �em could come to terms. She has that grand from Steve, y�know. I wonder what terms Sandy and him will come to.�

�I don�t.�

Finally Steve/Carl rolled in, a cigarette drooping from his cupid�s bow mouth. He looked sloppy, the houndstooth jacket rumpled. His baggy brown slacks bore dirt stains. What had he been up to?

But his manner was upbeat and his eyes had more life than I�d seen before. He came over, grinning, and gestured with open arms like a ringmaster. �Gents, you are looking at an idiot!�

Tell me something I don�t know, I thought.

�I was sitting at the bar across the street,� Steve said, still grinning, jerking a thumb in that direction, �at Angelo�s. Waiting for you fellas! Thought that was the Pink House! They both got a red roof, y�know? Anyway, I was grousing to the bartender, a gal, about people who can�t keep their appointments on time, and then I went outa there to go back to the motel and, bingo, I see this place across the street! What a dummy!�

His words were flying.

�Johnny boy!� he said. �Man, you really look sharp. That a Hickey-Freeman suit?�

�Yup.�

Steve laughed twice. �We�re gonna both of us buy a whole closet of new clothes. Two closets, each! Nate here already knows how to dress, but you and me, Johnny Boy, we gotta spruce up our style!�

Bennies.

�You guys want sandwiches? I could eat. I�ll get us sandwiches. Burgers okay? Cheeseburgers with everything, onions too? French fries?�

�Sure,� I said, and Hagan nodded.

Steve got up and went to the bar, fast.

�He�s sure in a good mood,� Hagan observed.

�He�s high as a fucking kite. You see his pupils? They look like black polka dots.�

Steve came back, informed us we�d be having chips not fries because �this fine establishment doesn�t seem to have a frier,� and leaned in, settling a hand on Hagan�s shoulder. I was starting to suspect this guy�s gate swung both ways. He was an ex-con, after all, and being inside could expand a man�s horizons.

�You got that I.D. for me?� Steve asked the cabbie, thinking he was whispering but wasn�t. Booze and bennies are a tricky combo.

Hagan said he did and got from his suitcoat pocket an Army discharge photostat, a Social Security card and a medical record, all in the name John Byrne of Kirkwood, Missouri.

�Man, you did fine!� Steve said, looking the things over, then slapping Hagan on the back and sitting back down. �You find me new digs?�

�Yeah. Two-room suite at the Town House in the Central West End. Apartment annex of the Congress Hotel.�

�Nice?�

�Oh, yeah. Living room with a couple of couches, bath, kitchen, bedroom, whatchamacallit French doors out to a balcony. Class all the way.�

�Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Who needs more beer? I need more beer.�

He got us more beer.

�You know who I miss?� Steve was drinking Schlitz. All three of us were. It made Milwaukee famous, after all. Of course we were in St. Louis.

�You know who I miss?� Steve repeated. �Sandy. What a great gal.�

Yeah, they�d really hit it off.

The cheeseburgers arrived with a basket of greasy potato chips, delivered by the bartender, who looked irritated about it. The burger was almost as thin as the slice of cheap cheese on it, but I started eating the thing anyway � my stomach had been empty since I puked earlier.

Steve took a bite of the burger, chewed, swallowed, then said, �So did she get away all right? To the airport? Sandy?�

�She got in a cab with a guy I know,� Hagan said. �Another Ace driver. Dependable. She�ll be fine.�

That was a fairly skillful lie � Sandy had gotten in a cab with another cabbie, all right; but wasn�t going to the airport unless it was the one in St. Joseph, Missouri.

�I miss her,� Steve said again. �I was too tired last night to do right by her, but I could use some, you know, companionship of the female variety. You think you could fix me up with another girl tonight, Johnny? I don�t wanna spend the night by myself. I get lonesome. Or is the Town House too high class for that?�

�I can find somebody,� Hagan said. �I know some girls who work the big hotels. Wised-up broads who know their way around.�

�Good. I like nice girls, remember.�

I knew all about that. I�d met Bonnie.

I ate about half of my burger, and Hagan wolfed his down, although Steve took only that one bite. He finished the second beer before saying, �If I�m gonna have myself a big date tonight, I can�t be looking like a bum when a guy like you all spiffed up is making the introductions. You know anyplace around here I can get some decent things myself?�

The cabbie shrugged. �There�s a Famous-Barr department store in Clayton.�

�Where�s Clayton?�

�Just another suburb, not far.�

In the small parking lot, dusk now, the green two-tone Plymouth waited; mud was on its tires and fender.

Where had Carl/Steve been this afternoon?

He told Hagan to drive � �I don�t have a license, why take chances?� � and I got in the back. Propped against the seat next to me was a shovel. The hair on the back of my neck prickled again.

Steve got in front and Hagan started up the car.

I said, �What�s the shovel for, Steve?�

�Oh, sorry. I was gonna bury something and changed my mind. No room in the trunk. My metal suitcases are still in there. Hey! Get a load of that.�

He had spotted my loaner Caddy in the lot nearby. He�d not seen me driving it � did he recognize it from the ransom drop two nights ago?

If he did, he made no mention of it. Instead he said, �Johnny boy, we�ll all be swimmin� in Cadillacs before long. Drivin� �em right down the middle of Easy Street.�

I said, �That�s my ride.�

He turned and looked at me in the back sitting next to the shovel. �You Outfit guys travel right.�

�Well, we don�t go Second Class.�

The Famous-Barr was closed, but a pedestrian directed us to a Boyd�s branch close by. Hagan parked out front and Steve led the way, playing the big shot, striding into the men�s department and telling the first salesman he came to, �I need a new suit.�

The slender, pomaded salesman, with a superior attitude from home and expensive suit provided at work, said, �I�m afraid we have a considerable backlog of alterations. It will be several days, I�m afraid, before anything can be ready for you.�

Steve was already thumbing through hanging Hickey-Freeman suits like they were wallpaper samples. �Are you a gambler?�

�Sir?�

�I will bet you ten dollars you can have a suit ready for me by tomorrow.�

And Steve yanked a wad of cash from his dirt-smudged pants and fanned out twenty-dollar bills like he was dealing cards. �Price tag says one-hundred and-twenty-two dollars,� he said. �That�s one-hundred-and-thirty right there. Put the rest against any alteration charge. That assumes, of course...�

�It will be ready tomorrow, sir.�

�Good.�

I sat to one side and watched rather numbly while Steve � who introduced himself to the salesman as John Byrne � was measured for his suit, then bought a new pair of shoes, several pair of trousers (one to replace his muddy ones), a Dobbs hat (we were all wearing them that season), an assortment of socks, three sets of cufflinks, a belt and various neckties. Steve turned Hagan loose � �Buy yourself half a dozen shirts� � and, as the store closed around us, settled up with the salesman.

�We�ll be doing more business with your fine firm,� Steve said, �when we pick up my Hickey-Freeman tomorrow.� He had changed trousers and had the rest of his purchases in a big-handled bag. �Shall we say at noon?�

�Noon will be fine, sir.�

Back in the Plymouth, with Hagan again at the wheel, Steve said, �Sometimes I think these people don�t know who they�re dealing with.�

I couldn�t argue with that.

But Steve was coming down off his high. �I want a nice girl, remember. Some nice, sexy doll, Johnny. Go two hundred. Go three if you have to.�

�Okay,� Hagan said. �Sure.�

He�d been confident minutes ago, but now he was all nerves, lighting up a cigarette clumsily. �I don�t think I care to move to the Town House tonight. If it�s a nice place like you say, Johnny, the Coral Court�s better for a rendezvous.�

�Okay,� Hagan said.

�We need to get my luggage up to the room again.�

Outside the Pink House, they dropped me to pick up the Caddy. I followed them to the motor court, our middle two-story building at the rear, then parked in the 50-A garage and walked around where the Plymouth was backed up to the foot of the exterior stairs, trunk lid up. Hugging the black metal suitcase to him as he went up, Steve looked like he might lose his balance and tumble down onto us any moment. We were following, perhaps too close, the green footlocker in a coffin carry again, the cabbie climbing backward.

A car pulled in behind the Plymouth. In the darkness, I couldn�t discern the make or its occupants. Could it be Shoulders and his cops jumping the gun? Gun being the operative word � Steve was still armed, and the cabbie and I were between him and the new arrival. This night could easily go Fourth of July on us, exploding into deadly orange muzzle flashes and the sharp firecracker reports of pistols.

Steve, not surprisingly, panicked � somehow, still clutching the heavy suitcase to himself, he made it up those last few steps and got to the landing and through into the hall. Below, a car door opened and shut, but no one in the vehicle called out. Hagan looked startled and seemed about to panic himself when I said, very quietly, �We�re working with the cops, remember?�

An arguable benefit, but it calmed him.

We finished the last few steps of this latest trip up and rested the footlocker on the landing. We caught our breaths. Then I raised a settling palm and said, �I�ll check,� and went down. I did not withdraw my nine mil, although I unbuttoned my suit-coat and Burberry.

A man in a topcoat and hat stood next to a late-model Ford sedan. In the rider�s seat, looking abashed, was his pretty wife (or possibly �wife�).

�Sorry,� the man said, embarrassed. �We just need to get in our garage here. You�re blocking, I�m afraid.�

We exchanged a few additional friendly words and I moved the Plymouth enough to allow these occupants of a first-floor room to pull into their private garage.

Then I rejoined Hagan atop the exterior stairs on the landing, told him the score, and we carted the footlocker of ransom money back into the building. Hagan knocked with his elbow, said, �It�s us,� and Steve let us in.

He had the .38 revolver in hand, so my instincts were right � if that had been Shoulders down there, the night would have burst into gunfire with Hagan and me right in the middle.

�Just a couple motel guests downstairs,� I assured Steve, �wanting to get in their garage. Put that thing away.�

I meant the .38. He went over and stowed it in the night-stand drawer. We placed the footlocker in its familiar position along the wall by its black metal mate.

�I got the goddamn shakes,� Steve said. �That really fuckin� spooked me! Man, I am jumpy as a damn cat. I really thought that was... you know, insurance investigators or something.�

�Yeah,� I said.

Hagan looked a bit disheveled despite his new wardrobe. He was still over by the door and Steve joined him. �I�m sorry, Johnny boy. That really threw me. Everything�s gonna be fine. Let�s have a couple of drinks.�

The cabbie shook his head. �No, I need to round that girl up for you. If she has a friend or two, maybe we can have a regular orgy. Nate, you up for that?�

�Sure,� I said. Who wouldn�t want to get naked with Steve and Johnny Boy?

Hagan opened the door and Steve asked him when he�d be back with the girls.

�Oh,� the cabbie said, �maybe half an hour.�

�Okay. Knock twice fast, once slow, and say, �Steve, this is Johnny.� Got it?�

�Twice fast, once slow, �Steve, this is Johnny.� Got it.�

And Hagan was gone.

The air seemed to go out of Steve. He�d come down from the Bennies, then got rattled by that car pulling up, which had him going again; but that was over now and he was looking at me with those familiar dead dull eyes. He went over to the nightstand and poured himself a glass of whiskey from the half-empty bottle. Or maybe he was an optimist and it was half-full.

�You want a snort, Nate?� He was pacing as he drank. A slow pace, but pacing.

�No thanks. Sit down, Carl.�

He caught it quicker than I figured he would.

He stopped in mid-pace and said, �Carl?�

�That�s your name. Your first name. What�s the last?�

He trudged over to the bed and sat on the edge like he�d done so often yesterday and today. Sat hunch-shouldered. Defeat settled on him like heavy humidity.

I dragged a chair over and sat facing him, but he was looking past me into nothing.

�Your last name, Carl. What is it?�

�Hall. How did you know my name is Carl?�

�Bonnie told me.�

Now he looked at me. �Bonnie!�

�You left a newspaper with the apartment marked on it here in this room. When you slipped out this afternoon, I found it. Went over to Arsenal Street and had a little talk with her.�

�What did she tell you?�

�Not much. She was pretty drunk.�

�Big surprise.�

�Here�s the thing. My friends in Chicago don�t like surprises. If you don�t come clean with them, they�ll find you and kill you.�

�Kill me.�

�Right. If they�re going to risk fencing that money, they need to know exactly what happened and what your role was in it. If Tom Marsh killed the boy, they will want Marsh in custody or better still dead, but out of the way. That�s a must before they can do business with you. A must before they wash that dirty goddamn money of yours.�

His laugh was a small thing that happened in his chest and barely got out. A private joke. But then he shared it: �Tom Marsh had nothing to do with this. He wasn�t involved. He�s a guy I met in a bar once, yeah, and we pulled a small job together, but... I haven�t seen him in a couple years. His name just popped in my head when I needed... someone to blame.�

�Is the boy dead?�

�Yeah. Since the first day.�

That made me squint at him, like I was trying to believe he was really sitting there. �What do you mean... the first day?�

�Bonnie picked the kid up at that school. A cab took her and him. Dropped them at a Katz Drug parking lot where I was waiting with our station wagon. I had her dog along with me � Doc. She raises boxers. She�s good with dogs and horses and other dumb animals. We told the kid we were going to get him some ice cream. You know how kids like ice cream. I took Westport Road into Kansas. Into farmland. The kid enjoyed the ride. I drove us into a field and stopped. Bonnie took Doc out for a walk. I was going to strangle the kid, but I didn�t bring enough rope. He fought like a little wildcat.�

...as full of piss and vinegar as any kid I�ve ever seen...

�I shot him in the head. I missed the first time, but the second I did okay. You�d be surprised how much blood there is in a kid.�

The nine millimeter under my left arm was talking to me. I could feel it like some part of me that ached.

Somehow I said, �What did you do then?�

�Well, I had this plastic sheeting I brought. Wrapped him up in that and put him in the back of the station wagon. Covered him with a comforter Doc sleeps on. We stopped for a drink. I had to send Bonnie in because I had too much blood on me. We just sat and drank in the car. I got out once and walked around the station wagon to make sure it wasn�t leaking blood. It got on the floorboard in front, you see. When we finished our whiskey, I drove us home.�

�To St. Joe.�

That surprised him. �Yes. Bonnie has a little house there. We buried him near the back porch. She put flowers in on it and it looked nice. Seemed like the right thing to do.�

The Browning talked to me. Do it. Do it. Was that my father�s voice?

I said, just filling the air, �Must have taken a while to dig that hole.�

�Oh, yeah. I�d dig an hour, then go inside and lie down and rest a while... you know, drink a little... then go out and dig some more. Wasn�t much of a hole, though. Three feet deep, maybe. Five feet long?�

Was he asking me?

I said, burying the sarcasm deeper than the boy, �You must have been beat after such a busy day.�

�Oh, no. I dug the hole in advance.�

I backhanded him.

Then I got the nine millimeter out and his little mouth opened big, trailing blood from one corner but not enough blood to suit me, and the dead eyes got wide and afraid.

A bang followed, but it was a fist on the door � it banged three times, twice fast, once slow, and Hagan�s voice said, �Steve, this is Johnny.�

A key worked in the door and Lt. Lou Shoulders and a young patrolman came in with their guns out and ready. I put mine away. Hagan was out in the hall, glimpsed for a moment, before he slipped away.

Still just sitting there, trickling blood, Carl looked at me in tragic disappointment. �I can�t believe Johnny Boy betrayed me...�

�There are worse sins,� I said.

Lt. Shoulders kept his revolver trained on a dazed Carl Hall as the young uniformed officer shuttled me into my room next door. Oddly, the patrolman might have been a junior version of Shoulders: dark hair, high forehead, dark bushy eyebrows, prominent nose over a small but full mouth. The difference was Shoulders� fleshy face, which had seen considerable wear and tear, while this crossing guard of a cop seemed like his had barely been used yet.

The young cop followed me inside, shut the door behind him, and gestured with a traffic-cop palm, as if I�d been charging toward him and not just facing him with folded arms.

His voice was high and reedy. �Now, you just stay put, buddy, till Lt. Shoulders tells you otherwise.�

�Name�s Heller. What�s yours, officer?�

He was already halfway out the door; his slim frame didn�t resemble Shoulders � his superior had a hulking physique. �Dolan. Patrolman Elmer Dolan.�

I gestured to the wall separating 50-A from 49-A. �That creep put a gun in the nightstand drawer. You�ll want to collect it.�

�Okay. Thanks, Mr. Heller.�

I stopped him with one last question before he closed the door on me: �You�re a rookie, aren�t you?�

�I am, yes, sir.�

�Well, keep your wits about you. That dope is on dope, boozed-up out of his gourd, and capable of just about any evil shit.�

He swallowed, nodded thanks and closed me in.

I looked at the phone by the bed and wondered if I should call Bob Greenlease. But all I had was Carl�s confession. And while I believed what that greasy-faced monster had told me, it was just the latest of several versions of the kidnap tale.

On the other hand, it had been chillingly credible, and the one thing I accepted as a certainty was that Bobby Greenlease was dead.

So I stared at the phone and it stared back at me. Was what I�d got out of Carl something appropriately shared long-distance with the father who�d been hoping against hope that $600,000 would bring his boy home alive and well?

A knock was followed by an announcement: �Lou Shoulders, Heller.�

I let the big baggy cop in. He had a raincoat on over his black suit, his tie black, too, and a shapeless gray fedora tugged on his skull indifferently � he had a circuit preacher look about him, right down to hard eyes in a soft face.

�He says his name is John Byrne,� Shoulders said, in his low, rumbly way. �Insurance agent from Elgin, Illinois. No driver�s license, though some other I.D. backs that up. But this is Steve Strand, aka Carl Something, right?�

�Oh yeah. His last name is Hall. Middle initial A, if his hatband is to be believed. From St. Joseph, Missouri, if he�s to be believed.�

�You smack him? He�s bleeding a bit.�

�Just once and not hard enough. And it was after he talked. I told him if he wanted the Chicago Outfit to wash his ransom money, he had to be straight with me about his role in the kidnapping. He copped to everything.�

I gave Shoulders a quick recap. I won�t lie to you: my voice caught a couple times.

The circuit preacher�s look turned mournful. �Yeah. I got kids, too. I wouldn�t mind shooting him trying to escape.�

He didn�t know how close I�d come to doing that without an excuse.

�So,� I said, �how can I help?�

�You can�t. You already done plenty, Heller � tied a red ribbon around this slimy cocksucker. We�ll take it from here.�

I reached for my wallet and got him out a card. �I should be back in Chicago in a day or so, unless you advise otherwise. You need me for a court appearance or anything, I�ll be there with bells on.�

He took the card but shook his head. �That�s doubtful, Heller. Y�see, you was never here.�

�Is that right?�

�Carl is scared as shit of you and the Outfit. And my pal Johnny Hagan and his favorite whore Sandy, they�ll stay mum, too.�

�Like I said, I�m willing to testify.�

He shook the big bucket head. �It�d just open up a whole can of worms. See, we�re taking Carl for a ride... no, not the Chicago kind. We�re hauling him over to the Town House where Johnny Hagan rented him a suite. That�s where the arrest�ll be made.�

�Why not here?�

Shoulders lit up a cigarette and it bobbled as he talked. �Matter of jurisdiction. Marlborough is well outside the St. Louis city limits. Need to make the bust on home soil, so to speak.�

�Ah. You probably want me to clear out of this room and make myself scarce. I�ll check out right away.�

�You�re already checked out. Manager, Jack Carr, is an old pal. He�s helping us keep things on the q.t. This isn�t the kind of publicity a, uh, respectable little Mom-and-Pop shop like the Coral Court needs.�

�You�re saying I should fade.�

His grin was an unsettling array of big yellow teeth. �Heller, you are so close to gone already I can barely see you.�

He gave me a nod and sauntered out, shutting the door soft, like he didn�t want to wake the dead.

On a hot August day, I took my almost eleven-year-old son to Disneyland. He�d spent July with me in Chicago, going to boxing and ball games and museums and street fairs, and now I was returning him to his mother and her husband, the supposed film producer; but first Sam and I were having a father-and-son day in the Magic Kingdom in Anaheim, California.

I looked like any other tourist in my Bermuda shorts and polo shirt with a straw fedora topping it off; my son was dressed similarly, right down to the fedora � Nathan Heller�s son being too cool for mouse ears � and we looked enough alike in our Ray-Bans to get amused looks. He was in fact my spitting image, although we both had too much class to spit, with only Sam�s lack of a reddish tinge to his brown hair to differentiate us. That and one of us had clearly been through puberty.

This was my first visit to Walt Disney�s Magical Money Maw, and I initially had a typically cynical Chicagoan�s reaction. This place was an amusement park posing as a Disney movie come to life, with college kids in big-headed cartoon-character costumes mingling like monsters among children whose reactions veered between disappointment and terror. Here, the creator (not God but the beaming mustached one on TV) served up turn-of-the-century childhood memories painted with a pastel brush, inviting visitors into a fanciful American past sprinkled with pixie dust to banish actual memories of an era awash in financial failures, railroad strikes, immigrant tenements, racist lynchings, and social protest, right and left.

What a bunch of bullshit, I thought.

And then my son slipped his hand in mine.

It had been some time since my boy had done that simple thing. At nearly eleven, he was just too old for such sentimental slop. But Disneyland was overwhelming, and for every kid there were four adults, so the view moving through the throng was mostly of grown-up asses.

I�d parked my latest Jag in the vast parking lot for a quarter before paying a buck for myself and a half dollar for Sam at the gates. We�d promptly entered a tunnel taking us under the Santa Fe and Disneyland Railroad tracks into the Town Square and Main Street where awaited gas streetlamps and brightly colored Victorian buildings that housed shops with no resonance for a kid like Sam. That Uncle Walt was playing to grown-ups like himself, as we entered his Kingdom, was obvious � firehouse with horse-drawn wagons, Keystone Kops, general store, apothecary, penny arcade, with only the soda fountain not quite yet a thing of the past. Even the movie marquee would mystify a kid like Sam, ballyhooing a Buster Keaton comedy and a D.W. Griffith cowboy picture.

But then Main Street emptied out into pathways to worlds where Sam could immediately relate � Frontierland (Davy Crockett!), Tomorrowland (moon rocket!), Adventureland (African safari!), and (as Sleeping Beauty�s castle in all its looming presence promised) Fantasyland.

That was where we started, going over a drawbridge where finally kids seemed as prevalent as grown-ups, and ($4.25 for fifteen attractions) (never a prosaic �ride�!) into the domains of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Snow White and especially Mr. Toad and his very wild ride (well, even Disney couldn�t deny that was a ride).

In Adventureland, a jungle river cruise offered ersatz hippos and real foliage, while in Tomorrowland I jammed into a mini-sportscar with my son at Autotopia�s freeway before trading them in for pack mules in Frontierland. As a parent who could afford it, and a single dad anxious to show up his ex-wife, I was prepared to endure any indignity, up to a cumulative fifty bucks.

The hand-holding had only lasted through the squeeze of Main Street, but Sam�s giddy reaction to everything but the long lines was almost as good. And in those lines we took advantage of ice cream and other treats from sunny vendors in straw hats and striped shirts who called themselves hosts, addressing us as �guests,� not customers.

On the sky ride, as we sat aloft in a bucket, a wide-eyed Sam asked, �You ever see anything like this in the whole world?�

And I realized something had been tugging at me from the moment we emerged from that tunnel � Disneyland was unique and yet seemed somehow familiar. Not because of any kind of county fair nostalgia, but it stirred memories of the Century of Progress exposition in �33 and �34. That I hadn�t made the connection at once seems stupid in retrospect, but the Chicago World�s Fair had been futuristic whereas everything in Walt�s world spoke either of the past or of fantasy � even Tomorrowland had Jules Verne�s Nautilus sub in it, and that dated back to the 1800�s.

But the size, the scope, the audaciousness of it all, took me back twenty-five years, to where my business had begun � when my late uncle had hired me at my fledgling one-man agency to handle the pickpocket problem at the fair. They�d had a ride like this, too, in a �rocket� car between tall towers. On the other hand, Disney didn�t have Sally Rand. But sexy little Tinkerbell was based on Marilyn Monroe, they say, so maybe he did at that....

And Donald Duck�s daddy also had Annette from the Mickey Mouse Club, autographing near an old-fashioned bandshell in a mouse-eared cap and white short-sleeve turtleneck with her name on it, as if any identification were necessary. Watching this little Italian dish asking Sam his name was the first time I ever saw my son blush.

�There�s something about her, Pop,� he said, walking away, staring at the 8x10 image and glistening signature. �Just can�t put my finger on it.�

�Someday you�ll try,� I said.

Looking back at that long, terrible, wonderful day, two things really stand out, and I�m not talking about Miss Funicello. The first is Sam and me lining up along the dock by the Mark Twain Sternwheel Riverboat while Zorro � Guy Williams himself, not some nameless stunt man � engaged in a fierce sword fight on an upper deck. When the evil commandant finally leapt from the boat into the drink to flee Zorro�s rapier blade, that small hand slipped into mine again.

That was the other thing � not Sam�s hand clutching mine in excitement while a good guy in black dueled a bad guy in red, white and blue; but the thought it prompted: that another boy, who�d also have been almost eleven, would never give his father that simple joy, or himself experience the delight of seeing Zorro in person, triumphing over evil.

I might not have made that connection if Bobby Greenlease had not been on my mind of late � after all, the dead boy had in part prompted this trip to L.A. Maybe I�d have just put Sam on a plane home if the Greenlease kidnapping of five years ago had not cropped up again, in however unlikely a way, a few days before.

In the Caucus Room gallery of the Senate Office Building, known as the S.O.B., several witnesses who might have been similarly characterized waited to present their testimony. Teamsters president James R. Hoffa � the focus of much of what the Rackets Committee was looking into � was one of the three-hundred capacity audience in that vast red-carpeted rectangle. A beautiful August day, warm but not hot, was sneaking in the gilt-ceilinged, cream-marble-walled, black-marble-floored chamber by way of three tall sun-slanting windows that made of the large crystal chandeliers ice sculptures that refused to melt. The same could not be said for the senators, witnesses and audience, who despite the air-conditioning were subject to the punishing heat of the lights required for the TV and movie cameras.

The witness on deck right now was sweating as if subject to the worst Third Degree tactics, but in fact he was smiling and even chortling and doing quite well under the irritated questioning of Robert F. Kennedy.

The young Rackets Committee chief counsel looked trim and composed, his striped tie snugged, his suit crisp, his dark brown hair longish but perfectly barbered. His boyish blue-eyed face seemed perfectly calm. But his voice had an edge that sometimes quavered.

Bob, for whom I�d done considerable work last year for the committee, seemed thrown by the clowning of this current witness, and annoyed by the room�s amused response to it.

The big man at the witness table � a distinguished-looking white-haired attorney at his side � weighed less than four hundred pounds but not much. Yet he�d somehow managed to find a sport coat and trousers large enough to swim in, his brick-pattern tie loose, the collar points of his soaked white shirt sticking up like noses waiting to be thumbed. His eyebrows rode high over the close-set light blue eyes, projecting an inaccurate air of stupidity, his small head sitting on the huge six-four frame like the mistake of a careless God.

�Mr. Baker,� Bob said into his microphone, �it would seem you�ve been reluctant to appear before this committee.�

Barney Baker sat hunkered over the table, hands flat before him, as if he were waiting for a poker hand to be dealt.

�No, sir,� he said. �Here I am, right now.�

Barney�s baritone was surprisingly rich and expressive; amplification only helped it, whereas Bob�s voice seemed thin, reedy, nasal.

�You avoided our subpoenas by twice checking into weight-loss spas.�

Barney raised his plump hands as if in brief surrender. �I am down twenty pounds, sir.�

Howls of laughter.

Not from Bob, though, who next asked the witness about a shooting in Manhattan in 1936, in the parking lot of the Hotel New Yorker.

�All I heard was a lot of noise,� Barney said. �I hit the pavement. They shot myself and Mr. Joe Butler.�

�And what was the outcome?�

�I survived.� Laughter from the gallery. �Mr. Joe Butler passed away.� A little more. Gallows humor was going over good this morning.

Bob�s eyes tightened. He had clearly hoped to expose a brutal thug. Instead he was providing the audience with a rollicking character out of Damon Runyon.

�You knew several men involved in the killing of Anthony Hintz,� Bob said. �I�ll remind you that Mr. Hintz�s job was to pick which longshoremen would work on a given day.�

�That�s called the Shape-Up, sir.�

�Thank you for the information, Mr. Baker. Perhaps you also know that the hiring practices of New York City piers at that time required kickbacks � money from hardworking men to go into the pockets of gangsters. And when Mr. Hintz would not go along with this practice, it got him killed.�

Barney just looked at his interrogator as if about to drop off to sleep.

�Mr. Baker?�

�Oh, was that a question?�

More laughs.

Bob pressed on. �Did you know �Cockeyed� Dunne, Mr. Baker?�

A shrug rolled across his shoulders like a wave into shore. �I didn�t know him as Cockeyed Dunne. I knew him as John Dunne.�

�Where is he now?�

�He has met his maker.�

�And how did he do that?�

�I believe through electrocution in the City of New York in the State of New York.�

That got laughs, too. Electric-chair humor to go along with gallows. And I had to admit, Barney�s delivery was good. Jackie Gleason couldn�t have done better.

�And what of Andrew Sheridan, sir?�

�He has also met his maker.�

�How did he �pass away�?�

�Same as Mr. John Dunne.�

�Sheridan also was electrocuted by the state?�

�Yes, sir.�

�He was a friend of yours?�

�Yes, sir, he and John both.�

Bob was machine-gunning now: �A third man involved in the Hintz killing � a Danny Gentile � where is he now?�

Barney had to think about that, or anyway pretend to. �I believe he�s in jail. Implicated in a certain case.�

�Yes, this Hintz killing we�re discussing. And you were friends with these people, Mr. Baker, two electrocuted and another in prison?�

�Yes, I knew them real well.�

Reading off a sheet, Bob said, �I have some names here. Joe Adonis. Meyer Lansky. The late Benjamin �Bugsy� Siegel. �Trigger Mike� Coppola. I could go on the rest of the morning. Are these also friends of yours?�

�Some who passed away are fond memories. Those who are still with us, sir... sure. They�re friends of mine.�

Bob showed his teeth. �You seem to be friends with every big gangster and hoodlum in these United States.�

A quick one-shoulder shrug. �I know a lot of people.�

�Did you ever try to choke a hotel manager in Chicago in a dispute over a bill?�

�I don�t remember nothing in the choking department.�

Chuckles came from many of the attendees, including one named Hoffa, waiting his turn, who threw me a quick, discreet wink.

Bob�s eyes bore down on the witness. �You�re associated with leading gangsters and racketeers all over America, so it�s not so shocking to think you might be involved with taking the Green-lease money.�

Controlled anger came rumbling out of the witness. �Mr. Kennedy, it�s �shocking� you would even suggest I could be involved with that kind of blood-taint money... and I don�t go for that, Mr. Kennedy! I don�t go for that kind of action.�

The chief counsel�s words continued their rat-a-tat-tat. �You could have avoided that kind of action many years ago by disassociating yourself from Joe Costello, could you not?�

�Whhhhhhy, Mr. Kennedy?� Barney seemed to stretch the word �why� out endlessly � and into it he put hurt and disappointment and indignation. �Why would I do that?�

Bob�s rage was barely reined in. �Every place you go � we�ve checked your telephone records � finds you calling known gangsters.�

Barney�s expression oozed brotherly love. �Mr. Kennedy, what happened in the past lives of people, like Mr. Costello, is no concern of mine. They may be nice people now.�

�You arranged for Lt. Shoulders� son to work for the Teamsters Union in St. Louis. Lt. Shoulders who went to prison for perjury over the Greenlease money.�

�Maybe so, but his son didn�t. Sir, you don�t give anyone a chance to prove they�re nice. They may be nice people.�

�Are you a �nice person,� Mr. Baker?�

�That�s for others to judge.�

Bob wore the kind of smile a snarling animal does. �I don�t want you to leave the stand leaving the impression of being just the Teamsters� joker. You are associated with the scum of this country. And you are just like them.�

I tried not to groan. Bob had stepped over the line � he�d become a bully now, and a self-righteous one.

Barney sensed it and just grinned at the young counsel. He even summoned his own chuckle. �What can I say? I�m just a big ham at heart. I admit it. I talk big. I drop names. Just the way I am.�

After the lunch break, accompanied by high-profile defense attorney Edward Bennett Williams, James R. Hoffa took his position at the witness table. The Teamster president had a broad-shouldered, burly look that his lack of stature � five feet five � didn�t quite undermine. As usual, he wore an off-the-rack dark brown suit with highwater trousers exposing his trademark white socks, and a ready (if at times menacing) smile. The famous square face, rounded off by his chin, had a vaguely Asian cast, and his roughneck features were offset by an unlikely twinkle in the light brown eyes, his dark glossy hair brushed back, porcupine quills ready to fly at a moment�s notice.

Jimmy Hoffa�s father had been a coal miner and his mother had polished radiator caps in an auto plant. His first job had been fifteen bucks a week as a teenager unloading fruits and vegetables; by sixteen he�d organized his first wildcat strike. That had put him on the Teamster payroll. He still was.

Bob had something up his sleeve. I knew he did because an operative in my New York office had developed it. Sol Lippman, general counsel to the Retail Clerks International Association, said Hoffa had threatened to kill him for turning down a Teamsters merger. And complaining to the police or FBI about it would be useless, Hoffa said � �I have a special way with juries.�

Out of the gate, Bob blindsided the witness: �What did you say to Sol Lippman about having him killed?�

�Killed?� Hoffa asked. What cookie jar?

�Killed. Did you say that you could have him killed right there in your office and nobody would ever know?�

Hoffa�s chin jutted. �I did not.�

Bob�s words flew. �Did you say that Mr. Lippman could be walking down the street and be shot one day?�

Hoffa leaned against his folded arms on the table, his words as staccato as a telegram. �I... did... not.�

�Did you say anything to the effect that juries treated you very well?�

Tiny dismissive smile. �Now, that�s pretty ridiculous, isn�t it, Mr. Kennedy?�

�Did you say anything generally on the subject of having Mr. Lippman killed, murdered, shot?�

Hoffa took a moment, shifting in his chair. �Mr. Kennedy, I know you want to make this dramatic, but the answer is no.�

�Nothing along those lines?�

Attorney Bennett cut in: �I don�t see that this repetition is doing any good.�

�Bring Lippman around here,� Hoffa demanded. �Have him say it to my face!�

That was the highlight of the afternoon�s sparring. Despite the fireworks, Bob�s frustration and even weariness was showing. Hoffa, however, wasn�t showing much of anything. But his cool didn�t fool me � I knew he was mentally dismembering his tormenter.

I slipped out mid-afternoon before the capacity crowd could turn into a human traffic jam and took a cab to the Mayflower, where in my room I called the A-1 in Chicago, just to check in. I had no further D.C. business with Bob Kennedy or Drew Pearson and was ready to get back. After I hung up, I was about to change my plane reservation from tomorrow morning to a red-eye tonight when the phone rang under my hand.

�Duke Zeibert, Mr. Heller.� I recognized the friendly, midrange voice and its Catskills lilt. �Just confirming you for tonight at five.�

All of that was odd. First, Duke Zeibert was the owner of a restaurant called, well, Duke Zeibert�s. He seemed always to be in attendance, usually at the door greeting his frequently famous guests � politicians, executives, sports figures, stars of Broadway and/or Hollywood. But even if you were one of those, Duke himself didn�t call to confirm your reservation.

Also, I hadn�t made one. And while I might be an unrefined Midwestern yokel, I nonetheless did not dine at restaurants at five.

�Don�t be late,� Duke said, and hung up before I had a chance to ask a question. I might have called the restaurant back, but I felt pretty sure Duke wouldn�t be handling reservations.

I took one precaution. I was still getting specially tailored suits from Richard Bennett, and my Browning in its shoulder holster was in my suitcase. So I took a quick shower and headed out, in my sharp suit with its tucked-away nine-millimeter accessory, and caught a cab to Seventeenth and L Street NW.

The restaurant with its looming white-on-black neon sign, fieldstone facade and red-and-white canopy served up Jewish cuisine inside. Nonetheless, Duke Zeibert�s was Washington�s equivalent of Switzerland � it had been Truman�s favorite restaurant and Nixon�s; the Kennedy brothers dined here and so did J. Edgar Hoover.

Duke met me just inside the door, and this host of hosts looked uncharacteristically uneasy; stout, bald with a trim mustache, he had been described as looking like a cross between Ben Franklin and a race-track tout. As always, he was in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie.

�He�s waiting in the kitchen,� Duke said, and I didn�t bother asking who. Not that I had any idea, but if Duke had wanted to give me more information than that, he would have.

He stayed behind as I passed by the glass trophy case of Redskins memorabilia and into the blue-and-brown-hued dining room. I headed down an aisle between tables toward the back, just a handful of early diners present, though the bar off to one side was doing the usual good business. No one paid notice � the restrooms were back here, after all.

So was the kitchen, and I went through the double doors into the steaming, clanging world of white-coated minions doing prep. The long-faced head chef, whose tall hat made him Alice-in-Wonderland absurd, directed me to the double wooden doors of their walk-in cooler. I paused and frowned and got an impatient look and a head bob to get in there.

I got in there.

Jimmy Hoffa did not smoke but his breath did � it must have been 35 degrees among the high racks of vegetables and low racks of butchered meat. Didn�t take long for my breath to make itself visible, too. He was in the same dark off-the-rack suit as at the Caucus Room.

We shook hands � his usual vise-like grip � and I grunted a laugh. �So you finally wound up in the cooler.�

He grinned, but his grins rarely showed many teeth and this was no exception � just a slice of white in that wide unhealed cut that served as a mouth in a well-tanned face. �That�s no joke, if those silver-spoon Kennedy pricks get their way.�

Right behind him were shelves of the kind of produce he loaded off trucks as a kid. That had been his sole connection to such vehicles � he�d never driven a truck in his life.

�Hope you haven�t been waiting long,� I said. �Freezer burn�s an embarrassing way to go.�

�There�s worse ways. And you and me, Nate, it�s not like we can be seen together. Not without riskin� Booby gettin� wise.�

That was how he referred to Robert Kennedy: �Booby.� Until fairly recently Hoffa had been paying me two grand a month, starting early last year, when I was working close to full-time as an investigator for Arkansas Senator John McClellan�s Rackets Committee.

�Jimmy, you know damn well I�m not on their regular payroll anymore.�

His features clenched. �Well, get back on. Just temporary. I got a job for you.�

It was cold enough in there that I was already shaking. Or maybe it wasn�t the cold. �What kind of job?�

�This kind,� Hoffa said, and dug in his pants pocket and came back with a roll of bills. He thumbed off hundreds like a banker, then thrust a stack toward me. �That should be two grand. Like the old days.�

The �old days� had not been that long ago, not that I had any desire to reminisce.

I raised my hands, palms out. �No offense, Jim, but I got responsibilities in Chicago.�

�Don�t we all?� He did the Jimmy Cagney hitch of his shoulders that had become a habit with him. He handed the stack of cash and I took it. �But this�ll just be a week or two of your time. I got something specific in mind.�

I got my wallet out, slid the twenty C notes inside, my hand quivering a little.

That slit of a grin flashed again. �Cold already, kid?�

He often called me �kid,� even though we were about the same age.

I shrugged. �How could I be? It�s August.�

He put a hand on my shoulder. Even though I towered over him a good seven inches, he could look up at me and still intimidate.

�You was in that room today. You saw what Booby was up to � trying to smear me with all that mob shit. Bringin� in guys like Barney, God bless him, to make him look bad and me in the bargain. That whiny little bastard is trying to link me to every gangster in the goddamn country, and drive me out of the Teamster presidency, besmirchin� me by the company they say I keep!�

�You do keep that kind of company, Jim.�

He glared up at me. �I deal with captains of fuckin� industry every day but that don�t mean I run Montgomery Ward! I gotta sit down with all kinds of people.�

I gestured around at the fruits and vegetables, my breath pluming. �But not always in public. Plus there�s no chairs in here.�

He grunted a laugh. That was the one good thing about our relationship � he didn�t expect me to be a yes man.

�You heard the Kennedy kid in that caucus room, poking around in the St. Louis shit pile,� he said. �Bringin� up Joe Costello. Even that bent cop Shoulders. Makes me wonder.�

�Makes you wonder what, Jim?�

His eyes disappeared in pouches gone tight. �How deep is he digging? What does he know?�

�Could he know something?�

The eyes reappeared, and wide. �Nothing to know! But if the rank and file start thinkin� we had anything to do with that Greenlease ransom dough... well, it could turn the members against me. Think of it! That dirty little prick Kennedy stoopin� so low as to splash some poor dead kid�s blood on me, me! Who has nothing but love for innocent kids. I got a boy of my own! And a girl.�

I knew there was no saying no to him.

�What do you want me to do, Jim?�

�Look into it! Go to St. Louis if that�s what it takes. I�ll cover your expenses, no questions asked. You know that. See what shit Kennedy�s got � not that there�s anything to get.�

I cocked my head. �You might not like where it leads, Jim. Three hundred grand is a lot of money, and there are a lot of crooks in St. Louis.�

�Tell me about it.� He patted himself with crossed arms. �Jesus, it�s cold in here. But you go first. I�ll wait a minute and go out the back. Oh! One other thing.�

�Yeah?�

�How�s Sam doin�?�

That was one thing Jimmy Hoffa never failed to do.

He always asked about your kids.

Robert F. Kennedy and James R. Hoffa agreed on one thing: they both wanted Nathan Heller to go to St. Louis.

But before I could undertake a mission for two clients whose best interests were clearly contradictory, I first needed to confer with a client whose claim on me preceded theirs.

So, after two days in Chicago catching up at the office, I took a late Wednesday morning flight to Kansas City. I�d arranged to see Robert Greenlease mid-afternoon at his place of business, where the day before I�d reached him by phone.

�Don�t come to the house,� he�d said, almost whispering. �Make it before five, here at the dealership.�

That was where the cab was taking me, to the four-story reddish-brick wedge-shaped building on the triangular corner of 30th and Gillham and McGee Trafficway, just south of downtown. The terra-cotta-trimmed edifice, unlike its Used Car lot cousin across the way, was damn near as grand as the Missions Hills mansion. You could almost see Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady driving by drooling, money-green with envy as they took in the facade�s lettering:

above the familiar coat-of-arms crest, which loomed over

atop a showroom window displaying a current Coupe De Ville.

The cab dropped me by a garage entry where, on the side of the brick exterior wall, a less grand sign read:

I entered a high-ceilinged showroom whose tile flooring was marble as was the wainscoting. All around me were tail-fin rides as if Martians had landed � rich ones. The subtle rocket-styling that had crept in a year or two ago had taken off now, the colors getting out of hand � not just red but pink, not just blue but turquoise, and all the taillights were big bright red bullets.

To a guy with a �59 Jag Roadster at home, I didn�t know whether to feel superior or jealous. I settled for superior.

I didn�t recognize Will Letterman at first, but he knew me at once. He intercepted me before a salesman in a suit as well-tailored as mine could get to me. Letterman was in a Brooks Brothers or better himself, yet he still had a Sunday school teacher look with his wire-frame glasses and white Friar Tuck hair.

We shook hands and exchanged the kind of smiles that go with encountering a familiar friendly face tied to bad memories.

I said, �I thought you ran the Tulsa branch.�

He had already slipped his hand on my shoulder and was walking me past all the Buck Rogers rides toward the offices at the rear. �The old man is only working half days,� he said. �He brought me in. It�s an honor. This is the flagship store.�

Hearing him call Bob Greenlease �the old man� � Letterman being no spring chicken himself � was a reminder that the father of Bobby Greenlease was now in his late seventies.

�How�s he doing?� I asked.

�He does well when he�s here,� Letterman said. �I think that�s why he hasn�t retired. And both he and Virginia get a lot of satisfaction from their charity work. With her church, you know.�

�I didn�t. But that�s good.�

We were outside a glassed-in office whose drapes were drawn.

His bland face took on a desperate look, his voice a ragged whisper. �Nate... it still keeps me up at night.�

�What does?�

�Not every night, but... at least once a month, I find myself waiting for the damn sunrise.� He gripped my arm. �You were right, back then. I should have let you stay behind at that bridge. And let you grab that son of a bitch. And...�

Kill him.

�Second guessing at this point,� I said, �doesn�t do us a damn bit of good. And the boy was already in the ground. And that son of bitch has been dead almost as long.� I patted the hand on my arm, and it released. �Take a slug of something, next time, and you�ll sleep just fine. You were a great friend to Bob. You and your buddy O�Neill, who, hell, I never even met. I�m surprised you two aren�t still waiting in that goddamn hotel in Bum Fuck, Missouri.�

That made him laugh. I laughed a little, too.

His smile was wrinkled with age and regret, but at least it was a smile. �Good to see you, Nate.�

He knocked.

�Is that Nate Heller?� came a voice from within, loud but creaky, like wind coming through a broken shutter.

Greenlease answered the door, thanked his friend Letterman, who nodded and smiled at me and disappeared into the showroom with its wonderful display of space-age ridiculousness.

When he�d closed the door behind us in this rather small office, Greenlease did something that surprised me. It surprises me even telling it: he hugged me. Patted my back. He was a rock-ribbed self-made man, a good God-fearing man and I could see on a wall of photos (Kansas City celebrities, I assumed, which is of course an oxymoron) he was shaking the hand of a beaming President Eisenhower. I suddenly recalled that Ike�s brother had assembled the ransom money at Bob Greenlease�s behest.

When the embrace ended, he seemed perhaps a little embarrassed, then patted my shoulder and guided me not to a visitor�s chair opposite a big mahogany desk notable for its lack of clutter or really any work at all, but to a leather-upholstered sofa under a wall of framed color prints of current model Cadillacs. We sat there, turned slightly toward each other, old friends catching up.

Like his sales force, Greenlease wore a well-tailored suit, gray, and his tie was a silk shantung, striped red, black and gray. His glasses were black hornrims, heavy, masculine. He was working hard at projecting strength and competence. But he seemed so much older five years later � the oblong face longer, nose sharper, chin sharper, sudden harsh angles in a kind face. Age splotches, deep lines, liver spots, provided unwanted decoration.

Behind the big empty desk, a shelved wall of sales awards and local honors seemed there to taunt him with their ultimate meaninglessness. Only one shelf counted � the middle one, where family photos were lined up around a central smiling Bobby Greenlease and his papa.

We began with small talk. He wanted to know about my son and I told him, without belaboring it. Mentioned Disneyland but didn�t go into it. He was one big wound and I didn�t need to go flinging salt.

I asked about his older son.

�It�s been rough on Paul,� he admitted. �He knew this Hall creature in military school, not well but did know him, and felt guilty over bringing him into our lives. Not his fault, of course. And he�s doing very well now. Has his own dealership over at 50th and Main � he sells more Cadillacs at that location than we do here.�

�Must make you very proud.�

�I am. I am. But it does hang over him... the feeling of guilt. And it�s same for Sue.�

�Your daughter? Why would she feel guilty?� But then it came back to me, from the press coverage. �Oh, that�s right...�Hall and Heady originally targeted her.�

He sighed, nodded. �Yes, they made several attempts to take her that we weren�t aware of. Apparently they settled on Bobby because Sue was older � she was eleven � and our boy looked...�easier to handle.�

I touched his sleeve. �You don�t have to go into it.�

�The point is, she felt guilty. What do they call it?�

�Survivor�s guilt. Soldiers who come back from war have it.� I had it. �Is she doing all right now?�

�Yes. She�s in high school. And she�s had counseling over time. A child psychologist initially, lately a psychiatrist. She and her mother are very close. She and I are very close.�

�And Mrs. Greenlease?�

He gazed down at his folded hands. �My wife takes solace in her church work. She�s a very devout Catholic � I�m not of that faith, but I support her and the charities she�s interested in. She�s convinced she�ll see Bobby again in Heaven.�

He didn�t sound quite so convinced.

�Mr. Greenlease... Bob. I wanted to talk to you in person because a telephone just wouldn�t do.�

His head came up.

I continued: �I�ve been asked to look into what happened to the missing half of the ransom you paid.�

That seemed to confuse him. �What was recovered has already been returned.�

�I figured as much. But there�s a great interest in what became of the missing three hundred thousand dollars and where exactly it went... and who benefitted from it.�

He stood. Sudden enough to surprise me. He walked to the curtained window onto his showroom and stared as if he could see anything but fabric. His posture reminded me of Johnny Hagan at his flophouse window.

�I think you care about that money,� I said. �I don�t think you care about it as money... you obviously have everything you need in life.�

�Not,� he said quietly, �everything.�

�No. Not everything. And who else would put up twenty-five thousand dollars to make that cabbie talk?�

He turned quickly � quicker than a man his age might be expected to. �Is that why you�re here, Nate? You figured that out?�

�It wasn�t hard. I�ve worked for Pearson. He wouldn�t pay two dollars admission for a last moment with his dying mother. You�re the only one in this thing who could have afforded an offer like that. So you must want to know where the money went. It must mean something to you who ended up with it. I have a couple of clients who would like to know, too. Before I say yes to them, I want your blessing to go on with it.�

�You don�t need my blessing...�

�Oh, I do. You have that much coming. I�d think you would want me to go forward. But I need to hear it from you.�

His hands were in his pockets. He looked at me like I was an apparition and he was trying to decide whether to be scared or not.

�I don�t give a good goddamn about the money,� he said finally. �But I can�t stomach the idea that anyone is out there profiting off the murder of my son.�

I gestured for him to return to the couch.

He did. Sat. His hands were folded in his lap again. His head was lowered but his shoulders were straight.

�What would you have me do?� I asked.

�If you can get the money back, I�ll give it to my wife for her Catholic charities. Maybe somebody will build something in Bobby�s honor. But what I really want is... I�m not going to say what it is. I�m not Catholic but I like to think I�m a good Christian. Some of what I�ve read about you, in the cheap true detective magazines, indicates you are thought to have on occasion employed what some might call... rough justice. It seems bad people who have crossed your path, at times, sometimes... simply disappear. Or have died under violent circumstances about which opinions vary as to the party responsible.�

�Such rumors add color in my profession,� I said. �There are clients of mine who appreciate an ability to cut a corner now and then.�

�Or a throat?� He gripped my right wrist; it was remarkably firm, coming from a bony hand. �I will not only okay your efforts, Nate, I will take over as your client. And I will pay you well.�

I patted his hand on my wrist, gently. He relaxed the grip, withdrew his hand.

I said, �I already have two clients. I don�t need another. Anyway, you�ve already paid me enough on this job.�

He accepted that reluctantly, then said, �You must do what you think is... appropriate. I ask only two things.�

�Yes?�

�I want a detailed report on what you�re able, and not able, to accomplish. Client confidentiality should cover both of us in that regard.�

�Of course. What�s the other thing?�

�My wife is to know nothing of this. She is a gentle soul and she would not... approve.�

�Understood.�

I rose and he walked me to the door. �When will you start?�

�I�ll rent a car and head to St. Louis tonight or tomorrow.�

He shook his head. �No. I�ll loan you a Cadillac. And if you�re staying overnight, I�ll book you at the Hotel President. As my guest.�

Like old times, I thought.

�Matter of fact,� he said, �there�s someone you should talk to before you go to St. Louis. You�ll need to make time for that.�

I set up the meet with Barney Baker�s ex-wife Mollie by phone before I left Kansas City.

After I gave her my name, and identified myself as a private investigator, I said, �I�d like to chat with you off the record.�

Her voice was husky, sleepy. I was pretty sure I�d woken her, though it was close to ten-thirty A.M.

�What about?� she asked.

�If there�s a hundred bucks in it, does it matter?�

�...The D.C. boys weren�t paying anything. They appealed to my patriotism. I think they had me confused with Betty Ross.�

She meant �Betsy,� but that was close enough.

�I�m not from D.C.,� I assured her.

�Where are you from?�

�Chicago.�

The pause was like that proverbial long drop off a short pier. Then she said, �We�d have to meet in a public place.�

�Okay. Where?�

�I work at the Club Cosmopolitan in East St. Louis. I waitress there. I have a fifteen-minute break every two hours. One of those comes at 8:45. Can you find your way?�

�I�ll buy a compass. Should I ask for you at the bar?�

�That�ll work. Or maybe you�ll just spot me. I wear a name tag.�

�What do you look like, Mollie?�

�Claudette Colbert, in some movie where she�s sunk to working as a waitress.�

She hung up.

I timed my drive in the used �56 Series 62 Sedan so I�d hit St. Louis just after dark, having specifically asked Bob Greenlease for an older, pre-tailfin Caddy to avoid undue attention. The still familiar trip with its farm country and little towns hadn�t changed any, but some of the radio stations were playing rock �n� roll now. Which I didn�t mind � it wasn�t Sinatra or Brubeck, but it was better than country and western. In downtown St. Louis at Washington Avenue, I took the Eads Bridge to the Illinois side of the Mississippi past railroad yards and onto Broadway, cutting through industrial sprawl.

East St. Louis had been named an All-American City, fourth largest in the state, with a prosperous array of stockyards and factories. But the factories were starting to close and meat-packing was moving away, and the only industry still flourishing seemed to be vice. Like Chicago�s wide-open suburb, Calumet City, this was where St. Louis cab drivers on commission would steer passengers to gambling houses, brothels, burlesque bars and after-hours saloons.

Inside the story-and-a-half white-awninged brick building on Bond Avenue, I found a nearly packed house of maybe three hundred. A bar stretched along the wall at right and a pool table was in its own little world at left, glass-block windows letting in the vague bright colors of a dying city desperate for nightlife. Red and blue neon beer signs glowed in the smoke like the lights of incoming planes on a foggy night while raucous rock �n� roll emanated from a small stage at the far end of the big square high-ceilinged room. The back two-thirds was jammed with red-vinyl-and-chrome chairs at black-topped tables where the mostly young crowd drank from bottles of beer � the criteria for alcoholic beverage service here seemed to be a capacity for human speech. Space had been allowed near the stage for a dance floor consumed by wildly gyrating patrons, and I suppose there was nothing special about any of it except the nearly equal mix of colored and white. The Supreme Court had approved desegregation a while back and it had hit this club in East St. Louis in spades. And ofays.

In a black suit and tie and blue suede shoes, a clowning Chuck Berry was on stage doing �Maybelline,� a radio hit I�d heard on the trip from K.C.; he and a bass player, drummer and piano man were squeezed onto the small platform with a backdrop that said COSMO in pink sparkle lettering. I�d seen this outstanding showman on the South Side at the 708 Club, where one of my black A-1 operatives had succeeded in making me appreciate Chicago blues. This variant had humor and crisp diction and told kids Negro and white the kind of stories of high school, cars and young love they could all relate to.

Berry, after getting a big round of applause, whistles and whoops, announced a break, and a female voice next to me, a bored alto, said, �He used to get twenty-one bucks a weekend in the house band. Now he gets eight hundred a week.�

I glanced at the short, curvy dish beside me, who did nice things to a red-aproned white waitress uniform. As some of the crowd threaded out to smoke in less smoky environs, Mollie Baker directed me to a vacated table in a back corner. Pool balls clacked not far from where we settled.

�How did you know me?� I asked. �I forgot to say I�d wear a white carnation.�

�You didn�t need one,� she said, as we settled into the red vinyl-and-metal chairs. �You�re Nate Heller. I saw you in Life or Look or something.�

She had a heart-shaped face, a bright red-lipsticked kewpie-doll mouth, a pug nose, and drawn-on eyebrows over big blue eyes that had seen it all and not been impressed. Her hair was black and hovered over her forehead in a pompadour Elvis Presley would have killed for.

��Private Eye to the Stars,�� she said with a smirk. �Somehow I don�t think you�re here for that kind of client.�

�I�m not. But any kind of client of mine gets the same confidentiality.�

She produced a cigarette from somewhere, the way Bugs Bunny can a carrot. She stuck it in her kewpie lips and waited to see if I�d light it for her. I told her I didn�t smoke, which seemed like disgusting news to her, and she got a Zippo from a pocket of her uniform.

�Here�s the thing,� she said, firing up the smoke. �I can use a hundred bucks right now. My fat fuck of a husband has a new wife, who is about twelve and comes from Iowa of all the stupid places. Why she�s still alive after he climbs on top of her, I couldn�t tell you.�

�One might say the same thing about you, Mrs. Baker.�

�Make it �Mollie,� and I�ll call you �Nate,� just to keep things friendly. I�m not as delicate as I look, Handsome.� She made �Handsome� sound like an insult. Of course, this was a doll who could put sarcasm into �Hello.�

I said, �So we�ve established you can use a hundred bucks.� Somebody started the jukebox up and it began blaring Berry�s �Roll Over Beethoven,� which was a nice gesture if redundant.

�Yeah,� she said, letting smoke out, �we have. Here�s what else we need to establish. If you�re working for the Teamsters or any of those underworld creeps either side of the river, this conversation ends now. I got a little girl to look after, and I know what these people are capable of.�

I raised a courthouse palm. �I don�t represent anyone who means to do you harm. You have a little girl, huh? I have a boy of eleven.�

�Spare me the soft soap. I�m a mommy and you�re a daddy. That supposed to make us two of a kind? A woman reduced to waiting tables and a guy who gets movie stars out of jams?�

�No, but we�re both parents and don�t have to work at it to remember what happened to Bobby Greenlease.�

She drew on the cigarette. Held in smoke, expelled it, adding to the foggy atmosphere. �Is that what this is about?�

�That�s what this is about.�

When she frowned her forehead somehow stayed smooth. �All I�ve ever said to the FBI or that Rackets Committee investigator was Barney told me once he knew something about the Greenlease money. That�s all. Ever since then, the FBI treats me like I got the damn dough, in the attic or under the bed or something.�

�You think Barney had something to do with what became of that money?�

Another drag. �Barney�s no angel. I think I could have straightened him out if I got him away from Hoffa and the rest of those Teamster bums. I mean, he�s not such a bad guy, but he was always ready to let big shots lead him into trouble. He likes to feel like a big operator. Which he isn�t.�

�You�re still fond of him.�

Her smile was slight but it was a smile. �You should have seen him when I met him. He was tall, good-looking. Not fat at all � and a real charming guy. I can tell you one thing � I�m the best wife he ever had.�

That information wasn�t worth a hundred bucks. I almost told her so, but instead put on a smile and applied a needle.

�Have you heard anything from Barney, Mollie, since he married that young blonde in Iowa? Her father Jake is the state Democratic chairman there, and that�s how Barney met her, working for Harriman.�

W. Averell Harriman, governor of New York, had made a bid for the presidential nomination in �56. You don�t have to be much of a student of history to know how that came out.

Steam damn near streamed out of her ears and nostrils. �He�d better not let that child bride keep him from making his payments for his little girl! If he doesn�t keep up, I�ll track him down wherever he is and put a gun in his big, fat belly and blow his guts out.�

That seemed fair.

She was raving: �Do you know that flabby son of a bitch sent word to me he wanted to get back together at the same time he was planning marriage to that Iowa brat?�

�Well, that�s just not right, is it?�

�That dumb little broad will live to regret it. She doesn�t know that man the way I do. He used to beat his first wife! And I took my share of knocks, too. He�s mean when he�s crossed, and I�ve been around some pretty rough crowds in my day. I�ve seen that man go crazy. He threatened to kill my brother once! Held a knife to his throat.�

�Oh dear.�

Her eyes showed white all around. �And the violence, the terror tactics he�d go in for, for those Teamster slobs. You know, I could blow St. Louis wide open if I told what I really know about the Greenlease money!�

�You�re very close to earning this,� I said, and I gave her a glimpse of the folded one-hundred-dollar bill I had palmed.

Her mouth dropped and her eyes got smaller. �Look, I was just blowing off steam...�

�It�s good to get things off your chest.�

She put her hand over my clenched one, which held the hundred. She wiggled the painted-on eyebrows. �Maybe that could be arranged.�

There�d been a time. But this broad was tougher than a nickel steak and my middle-aged teeth couldn�t take it.

So I just withdrew my hand from hers. Gently. But withdrew it.

Her voice softened, barely audible above the jukebox blaring Berry�s �Almost Grown.�

�All I know is,� she said, trembling with desire for that hundred, �Barney had something to do with it. I can�t be more specific than that.�

I unfolded the C-note. �Sure you can.�

She swallowed. �Okay. Barney told me Joe Costello got the Greenlease money.�

Mollie snatched the bill from my open palm and put it with the Zippo. Stood. Before she hip-swung off, to show me what I was missing, she said, �That�s all I fucking know. I have to get back to work. Break�s over.�

So was Chuck Berry�s. He came on and did �Sweet Little Sixteen.�

Like Barney, he liked them young.

A waitress in an orange uniform with a white apron and cap set the basket of hamburgers and a second one of onion rings in front of Barney Baker, who already had a bottle of beer going. And I had the glass of Coke I�d ordered. I was against the wall in a half-booth with Barney in a chair opposite me � he still couldn�t fit into one of the orange upholstered booths proper. Hovering behind us was a cartoon mural of customers rushing from all directions to get into the Parkmoor.

Which was a restaurant across the street from the Tic Toc and a block up DeBaliviere. As we�d approached, I wondered if a Midwestern twister had, Oz-style, lifted up the Tudor-style brick cottage and dropped it in the midst of the street�s gaudy neon-lit businesses and onto a big, mostly empty parking lot.

Parkmoor drive-ins with dine-in service were spotted around St. Louis � their owner was the inventor of the tray carhops attached to car windows � and this branch stayed open a few hours after the drive-in service had ended, to handle the late-night crowd after an evening of strippers, cocktails and back-room gambling. Earlier the Parkmoor on DeBaliviere catered to after-school teens from nearby Soldan High and grown-ups stopping in after golf or tennis, and anybody on their way to or from the zoo or the Muny outdoor theater.

Barney and I were just two of perhaps a dozen patrons, none teenagers, who were looking for something to soak up the booze they�d consumed. Or top it off with a bottle of beer, like Barney. And hamburgers and onion rings. Pat Boone was singing �April Love,� despite it being August, on a jukebox whose selections and volume were designed not to offend. The bedraggled adults in booths and at tables were like predictions of how the town�s teens would turn out.

If that blow to my stomach hadn�t made me lose my appetite, watching Barney eat would have.

�You just happened along?� I asked.

�Not exactly,� he admitted, taking a bite of hamburger that reduced the sandwich by a fourth. He chewed and swallowed, either polite or considering his answer; he had a paper napkin tucked bib-style in his sport shirt under his suit jacket. �I was on my way to see Joe. I just stumbled onto those two, roughing you up.�

�One of them was Joe�s bouncer. Didn�t you recognize him?�

�Sure.� He reduced the burger to half of its former self. Chewed. Swallowed. �But I never liked him. Look, I saw some poor asshole getting the shit beat out of him, and then it turned out to be my friend Nate Heller, so I was happy to lend a hand.�

He�d lent a belly, really, bumping that blond up against the wall.

I sipped my Coke through a straw like I was Archie and he was Jughead � or Moose. �Why were you dropping by Joe�s?�

�Well, now there�s a coincidence.� He dipped an onion ring into a puddle of ketchup. �I�d only just heard you were in town, asking questions, and thought I�d give Joe the ol� heads up.�

�Which turned out not to be necessary,� I said. �Since I was already there.�

�Right.� Chewed and swallowed half an onion ring. �But how was I to know that?�

I leaned on my elbow and smiled. �Now let me tell you what really just happened.�

�What really happened,� he said, with a shrug, and bit into another ketchup-dripping onion ring, �really happened.�

�Well, that�s hard to argue with. But let me share the larger story.�

�By all means. Who doesn�t like a good story?�

�You have somebody who works at the Cosmo Club who keeps an eye on your ex-wife for you. Somebody who called you and told you a guy, who was definitely not a Cosmo regular, was talking to her, and maybe passed her some money. Asking questions obviously on a subject other than what-time-do-you-get-off tonight. Maybe he described to you what I look like. Or maybe he recognized me.�

Another quarter of a burger disappeared. He nodded and chewed. �You do get too much publicity. Being recognized is not good for an individual in your line of work.�

I looked around. �You probably live somewhere in the area...�

�Apartment on DeBaliviere.�

�...and thought you better go over and give, like you said, the ol� heads-up to Joe Costello.�

�Why wouldn�t I just call?�

�What does the FBI have in common with Fred Astaire?� He chuckled. �Tap tap tap.� About a third of a burger went down this time.

�That�s right, Barney. So that whole routine in the alley was a set-up. To make you look good while I was getting the fear of God put in me.�

He waved what was left of the current sandwich at me. �There you are dead wrong, Nate. And none of what you say contradicts what I told you. I walked over to see Joe and happened to see some poor bastard getting beat up, and I just waded in to help.�

�If you�re the Lone Ranger, I feel sorry for the horse.�

He looked a little hurt by that. He finished the hamburger, then shrugged elaborately as he helped himself to the final of three burgers. �Believe what you wanna believe. I cop to wanting to let Joe know you were in town, sniffing around. Question is, sniffing around about what, Nate?�

�The missing Greenlease money,� I revealed. No need not to. �What did you think?�

He batted at the air. �Ancient history.�

�Three hundred thousand unrecovered bucks is like Abbott and that other Costello doing �Who�s on First.��

His eyebrows went up. �Yeah?�

�Never gets old.�

He touched his face with the tail of the napkin around his neck, daubing away stray ketchup. �Nate, my buddy, my pal, what was done to the Greenlease child was evil and, worse, it was dumb. It stirred up Jake Lingle-type heat, St. Valentine�s Day-type heat, and anyway these rough tough mob bozos are sentimental slobs when it comes to family and innocent children. Nobody in their right mind would want anything to do with that dough. Touch that blood-taint ransom money? Jimmy wouldn�t...� He meant Hoffa. �...Big Tuna wouldn�t...� He meant Outfit capo Accardo. �...the Camel wouldn�t...� He meant Murray Humphreys. �...Buster wouldn�t.� Local mob guy Wortman. �...and Joe? He is the softest hard guy you ever saw, loves his son to the point of absurdity, loves all his off-springs, including those from rotten marriages.�

�Then why does the FBI see him as their prime suspect?�

He was so worked up, he�d forgotten his food. �The FBI! Those Ivy League losers think the Mafia doesn�t exist. Hoover thinks Cosa Nostra�s the latest dance craze! The FBI. You know better, Nate.�

�You told your wife that Joe Costello wound up with that money.�

He had the hamburger back in hand, but now he put it down. This was serious. �First of all, she�s my ex-wife. Second of all, she is one lying vengeful bitch. She would like nothing better than to wrap me up in that crime and make me look bad. Doesn�t need to be able to prove anything, just spread vile talk! I�m a labor organizer, Nate! I deal with rank-and-file folks, guys with families, salt-of-the-earth solid working Americans. She would love to smear me with those good people.�

�Okay. A woman scorned. I�ll keep that in mind.�

His smile split the difference between friendly and menacing. �Who�s your client in this, Nate? You don�t work for free. You�re not some bleeding-heart crusader. Is it that punk silver-spoon Kennedy kid? Let me point something out to you � if Jimmy Hoffa was some kind of gangster, some kind of cold-blooded, brutal asshole, why are you still alive? I will tell you why. He respects you. You have never ratted out any of your Outfit friends. In fact, sometimes I wonder if you�re really working in that committee�s best interests. Maybe you have Jimmy�s welfare at heart. Your old man was a union guy, right?�

�My old man was a �union guy,� yes, but he would�ve been disgusted with the tactics of corrupt men like you, Barney, and our friend Jimmy.�

He did something astonishing � he pushed his unfinished food aside. �Well, my friend, back in the early days, people could afford to be idealistic. Could go through life being unrealistic. But we know nothing is black-and-white, don�t we? We got to deal with how gray things are, right?... I gotta toddle off. Where can I catch you in town?�

Not sure I wanted to be caught, I nonetheless told him where I intended to stay, which amused him.

He gave me a wave. �Make sure you stop and see me before you leave St. Loo.�

The big man with the tiny head took the napkin from his collar, dabbed his mouth delicately with it, and tossed it on the tabletop. He snatched up the check, said, �I�ll get this,� as if my Coke was a real factor in his burger banquet, and headed for the register.

I tossed the straw aside and finished my Coke like a man. It would appear Barney suspected I was Hoffa�s double agent on the Rackets Committee, but apparently hadn�t had that confirmed by Hoffa � possibly hadn�t even broached the subject. Which was interesting, since he and Hoffa were tight. That could mean a number of things, including that Hoffa didn�t trust Barney, or simply that the union president knew the wisdom of keeping my inside man status to himself.

Or was Barney keeping something from Hoffa?

The St. Louis Hills neighborhood had its share of single-family dwellings, but more than a few two-stories had become rooming houses, with substantial apartment buildings invading as well. This was one of those areas developed in the 1920s to provide families with tree-lined streets, churches and schools, with bordering businesses and the green open spaces of parks. Then the Depression came along and turned the Hills into a nest of apartments.

The neighborhood did seem to be working its way back. The brick structures dominating streets were lined with tall trees, a peaceful Ozzie and Harriet world of kids, bikes, couples walking dogs, moms pushing strollers. Ex-police lieutenant Louis Shoulders lived here, on Tamm Avenue, in one of four buildings he owned. According to Wes Grapp, Shoulders had several rooming houses during his time on the police department, as well; but those were in neighborhoods not so well-shaded � just shady, serving as they did to shelter whorehouses.

The address on Tamm was a block off the Clayton Avenue business district, a big square two-story white-trimmed brown-brick building with four windows across on either floor. More an apartment complex, then, than a rooming house. I found him in the alley at the rear, wrestling a garbage can to the paving�s edge across a slightly sloping back yard, to join its tin-can twins. It was hot today and I didn�t envy him. Or feel any sympathy.

The tall, broad-shouldered man in t-shirt, overalls and work boots was huffing and puffing, a guy who�d been almost fat and was now nearly skinny, in a sick-looking way, skin hanging off him like a suit the wrong size. His black hair was threaded silver but his heavy eyebrows were charcoal smears against ghostly-white flesh, the face on the bucket head having the look of a man perpetually wondering who might be sneaking up behind him.

As he set the can down next to the others, heaving a sigh, he provided an easy irony: they had nicknamed him the Shadow, both the cops and the crooks, after the old radio show, because as a young officer he was known to prowl the back yards and alleys, looking for thieves, numbers runners and other evils found in the hearts of men.

Another irony about it came easy, too: Lou Shoulders had really been looking for crooks to shake down, thriving on bribes from pimps, prostitutes and gamblers in the midtown Eleventh Precinct police district on Newstead Avenue, where he eventually was nightwatch commander. Not that he hadn�t collared his share of bad guys � he�d killed three, including two prison escapees and a �burglar� who invaded the happy Shoulders home. Whispers had it the �burglary� was a bungled hit on a cop despised by one and all.

�Should you be doing that kind of heavy lifting?� I asked. �Didn�t you have a heart attack in stir?�

He looked at me suspiciously. Of course he probably looked at everybody suspiciously.

�Do I know you?� His voice was deep and hoarse.

�Well, we had a memorable fifteen minutes at the Coral Court once. But who in St. Louis hasn�t?�

�Nate Heller,� he said, pursing his lips like he didn�t like the taste. He grunted an excuse for a laugh. �I heard you was around.�

�I try not to hide my light under a bushel.�

The upper thick lip made a sneer. �You could get in trouble, the things I know about you that night.�

�Not as much trouble as you, Lou. Another perjury rap, for openers. Did you really have a heart attack? Or was that just a way to serve out your stretch in a medical facility?�

�I did have a heart attack,� he said defensively. �I�m a sick man. I don�t wanna talk to you. It�s not good for me.�

He wasn�t wrong.

�Look,� I said, friendly, leaning a hand on a tin lid, �just think of it as another visit to the doctor. Something you might as well get out of the way.�

His eyes, as black as the eyebrows, narrowed in their pouches. �I don�t have to talk to you.�

�My client would like you to.�

�That right?� The hoarse voice was a growl now. �And who would that be? And why should I give a damn?�

I raised my palms chest-high in mild surrender. �Up to you, Lou. You still involved in union work?�

He shook his head, folded his arms. �Not as much. My son, Lou, is. He�s security chief with the Pipefitters. What�s that got to do with the price of beans?�

�My client is somebody worried about the Greenlease money getting tied to the Teamsters. The Rackets Committee is sniffing around, which you may have heard. Be a hell of a black eye. He�d appreciate your cooperation.�

The heavy brows knit. �You�re talkin� about... Mr. Hoffa?�

I raised the palms again, higher. �Hey. I didn�t mention any names.� I nodded toward the street. �I saw a saloon on the corner, just up the block. Why don�t we find someplace quiet to talk?�

We did, in a booth in back of the Tamm Avenue Tap.

We both had beers. He was smoking a Camel. Not really what a guy with a heart condition should be doing, but I wasn�t his doctor, despite what I�d said.

�I have no idea what became of that money,� he said. �I swear on the life of my wife and my children.�

He didn�t say which wife � he�d been married four times. The fourth had been the �landlady� of one of his two bawdy houses. Of course, Lou was still married to his third wife then, and the landlady had also been his mistress. Who, after the Hall arrest, Shoulders had taken to Hawaii on a vacation.

I didn�t rub any of that in his face. But Grapp had filled me in on this colorful ex-cop, with whom I had briefly but memorably intersected five years ago, and the only question I really had for him was, Why should I believe anything you say, you lying son of a bitch?

�If you ask me,� he said, after a gulp of beer, �the only person who knows where that money is, is Carl Hall. And haven�t you heard? Dead men don�t talk.�

�He didn�t say anything worth listening to,� I said, �when he was breathing. Anyway, what makes you think Carl would know where that dough went? What, a little mud on his trousers?�

He leaned in, his big head hovering over the booth�s scarred tabletop like a window-peeker getting a gander. �I�m gonna tell you something I never told nobody before, Heller, nobody.�

�Please.�

One black eyebrow went up. �You remember I said I�d have somebody shadow that creep, once we had eyes on him? That afternoon of the day we got him that night?�

I followed that. Barely, but I followed it.

�Well,� he said, still hovering, �I shadowed him myself.�

Who knows what evil lurks...?

�He went to a hardware store on Chippewa,� Shoulders said, as if reading it off a report, �and bought two iron garbage cans.�

And the man knew his garbage cans.

�The, what-you-call-it, galvanized type,� he said. Settling back in the booth now, he rested his smoke in a Tamm Tap ashtray. �Also two big plastic zipper bags, a can of waterproofing spray, and, yup, a shovel. I watched him watch the sales gal make two trips loading up his car. Then he drove off. He went through a couple suburbs and out into the country and was slowing down here and there, like he was looking for a place to hide something. And I wonder whatever that could be?�

�Where exactly?�

�There�s a bridge over the Meramec on Route 66, not that far from the Coral Court. Few miles west is all. The banks was a mucky mess. East of that bridge he took a winding road around a bluff � I had to keep way back, because he would slow down then pick up speed and a couple times he almost got stuck. Finally I had to reverse it real quick not to be made. Anyway, he went back over the bridge, and once he slowed down at a farm and was giving it a good long look when some dogs started in barking and spooked him. He turned and headed back and I lost him. I tried driving around the area, but came up empty.�

�So he could have buried the money.�

Shoulders shrugged his. �He had time. Later we found those garbage cans at a country club that went out of business. Dumped �em in their clubhouse. But no spray can. No plastic bags.�

I frowned. �Why would he bury half the money?�

He exhaled smoke. �You spent time with him, Heller. You think that punk had his head sewed on straight? Look, I�m sick and tired of talking about the Greenlease case. Just fed up with it. I would never be so foolish as to steal that money � it had a damn red lantern tied on it!�

I was shaking my head slowly. �I don�t think he buried that money, Lou. He just drove around looking for a hiding place and never found anywhere that satisfied him.�

He leaned in conspiratorially. �Okay, then. I heard it was Jack Carr and gangster pals of his that got that money.� Leaned back. �Also, some say it all got burned up, �cause it was so hot.�

�Just burst into flames, maybe? No, Lou. Not that, and not gangsters at the Coral Court, or Carl and his shovel. You and your buddy Joe Costello got the loot. But where did it go after that? Neither one of you is living like a king.�

He shook his head emphatically and the skinny man�s fat lips were quivering. �You have got it all wrong, Heller. I go way back with Joe, that�s true, we started out driving cab together. That�s why when Joe got a line on that little psycho of a kidnapper, I�m who he called. It was just a tip I got. Nothing more. No good deed goes unpunished, they say, and ain�t that the truth. I get the kidnapper. I get the gun he used to kill that poor kid. Isn�t that enough? So I didn�t recover the whole damn ransom money. Isn�t it enough that...�

He covered his face with his hands. He was crying now. Literally crying into his beer.

�I don�t mean... I don�t mean to accuse Joe or nothing...�He�s a good man. Before June... my wife... would make the drive to the U.S. Medical Center in Springfield, to see me? He would make sure our car got topped off with gas. He and his wife had June over for supper all the time, while I was away. People say terrible things about him, like he took that money. Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone, I always say.�

He dried his eyes with a paper napkin. Found a hanky in a pocket to blow his nose, which he did louder than Satchmo hitting a high note.

When he�d composed himself, I said, �When all is said and done, Lou, there are still two things missing.�

That seemed to confuse him, the eyes under the heavy black eyebrows squinting at me.

�Half the ransom money,� I said, �and an hour. The hour after you booked Carl Hall and before you turned over the other half.�

�I accounted for that time,� he said indignantly.

�Oh, that�s right. You had to drop your car off to your �landlady,� who had an appointment. The rest was kind of vague. �Personal errands.� And all the while three hundred grand is in the trunk.�

He lifted a palm. �Well, we had to load up Dolan�s car. Elmer followed me to June�s to drive me back.� Then, as if it were a point in his favor, he added, �And that footlocker and that metal suitcase, they weren�t in the trunk. They were in the back seat.�

�Ah, well, then that�s different. So while you and Officer Dolan dragged Hall into Newstead station, you left three hundred grand in the back seat of your car? I hope you locked it up, Lou.�

He shrugged. Waved that off. �People don�t steal stuff from in front of a police station.�

�You are a very stupid man, Lou.�

The little black eyes popped big. �Fuck you, Heller! I was a good cop. They gave me medals and promotions. I did a great thing and I�m proud of it. I got that child killer put in the gas chamber, him and his scummy little honey. I got six kids! You think I would touch money with that... that little boy�s blood on it?�

He started weeping again.

Oh, brother.

He dried his eyes with his arm and he found some room to blow his nose on the hanky. He finished his beer. He plucked his smoke from the ashtray and had a few final puffs.

Then, softly earnest, he said, �You will not believe this, but I am not the man I was. I don�t just mean physically speaking. I mean where morals go. I was a good cop, but it�s true I sometimes... stumbled. In prison, in the prison hospital, I read the Bible. I read it before, of course, but this time... I really read it.�

�Did you.�

�I did. I regret certain things in my life. But I would swear on any Bible that I had nothing to do with what happened to the Greenlease money. I pray... I pray for that poor child often. Just think, as a parent, what they been through! Breaks my heart. But I read that Mrs. Greenlease, she�s very religious, too. And she understands God works in mysterious ways.�

�You mean like shooting a little boy in the head?�

He got choked up. �Please... please. I know you don�t think I�m sincere, but I swear I am. That�s why I�ve become a deacon of the church.�

Fuck you, Heller, I�m a deacon of the church.

�I�ve even begun my studies.�

�What studies are those, Lou?�

�To become a minister.�

I laughed. I went over to the bar and paid for our beers, then went back to the booth and said, �Let me preach to you, Lou, from the gospel of Who the Hell Do You Think You�re Kidding. You�re not crying for that dead kid. You�re not even crying for your lost career. You�re crying because you threw it away for a fortune that slipped through your goddamn fingers.�

And I left him there in his pew.

Extending over a carport and glassed-in lobby, the sign said in yellow-edged red neon, with the �M� and the �B� in white-edged pink�

��a neon baseball dotting the �I� in Musial, a floating star over �STAN,� and a toasting drinking glass near the �B� (Julius �Biggie� Garagnani had been a well-known St. Louis restaurateur even before bringing Musial into the business). The rest of the modern brick two-story restaurant loomed behind and to the right, the central windowed area of both floors dramatically spotlighted. All in all, aglow in the dusk, the restaurant made a gaudy eye-catching monument to a local hero, Stan the Man, the Cardinals� beloved batter. And in a town noted for Italian fare, Musial�s was not a bad place to catch a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, although I was having the filet with mushroom sauce and Sandy O�Day a shrimp salad.

After such a spectacular exterior, the dining room proved something of a disappointment, just a bland sea of linen-clothed tables-for-four with subdued lighting, and organist Stan Kann quietly playing show tunes, all overseen by an endless mirrored bar. On a weeknight, business was slow and the prices high � $4.75 for my steak, a la carte, side dishes sixty cents � with mostly tourists taking the bait.

�I was at the other location once,� I said to Sandy, as we noshed on a buck�s worth of toasted ravioli, �when Musial himself was going table to table. Signing autographs, ruffling kids� hair.�

�Sweet guy,� she said between nibbles. �But he�s usually only around in the off-season.�

She was in a creamy white silk blouse with pearls. Her gray pencil skirt and low heels weren�t apparent, seated, but when I�d picked her up at the little house across the highway from the Coral Court, I greeted her with a low wolf whistle, despite her insistence that she�d selected her wardrobe not to draw attention. Her short dark hair had an Audrey Hepburn look that shouldn�t have suited her but did.

In the little living room of the nondescript frame house, the three younger women living in had been lounging around in various states of partial dress and curlers, a blonde reading a comic book, a redhead a movie magazine, and a brunette sitting cross-legged in front of a rabbit-eared TV watching My Little Margie. They looked barely out of high school but a hardness at odds with their Bobby Soxer tastes was setting in already. Sandy had that hardness, too, the full-blown variety, but like her hair, she wore it well.

We were seated against the restaurant�s far wall under a row of baseball paintings � I�d asked for some privacy and we�d got it, at least as much as possible in a big dining room � and as we waited for our meals, I started by asking her about the owner of the Coral Court, a subject we�d largely danced around last night.

I said, �Carr claims not to be involved with hoods like Costello and Wortman, beyond the occasional favor. Is that on the level?�

�More on a slant,� she said. �It�s true he stopped doing their books for them and, like I told you, the place got too successful for mob guys to use to cool down or hide out � you know, beyond an hour or an overnight with their piece on the side. But Jack still has business ties.�

�Like your, uh, escort service?�

She nodded. �Wortman gets an overall slice � I started out with him, years ago. I was his... special girl for a while, and he still has a fondness for me. Costello gets a kickback when a cabbie lines up a john. Those Coral Court rooms wired for sound have made any number of politicians, of whatever persuasion, cooperative. Sometimes at the No-Tell Motel not telling costs you.�

�But Carr is not Mafia.�

�No. He�s nothing in the greater scheme of things.�

�Who is something?�

A cocktail waitress stopped to ask if we wanted another. Sandy ordered a second highball but I was fine with my first rum and Coke.

Sandy said, softly but unblinking, �Well, for one thing, Joe Costello got the Greenlease money.�

Almost exactly the words Mollie Baker had used; and confirmation of what Elmer Dolan had told me. Also, calculated shock value on her part.

I asked, �How is it you know that?�

She had a little speech ready; she put it across with a tiny wicked smile and an admirably droll delivery: �I don�t mean to be crass, Heller. But you already had one on the house, last night. I�m sure you�ll be picking up the check tonight, and I appreciate that. Still, it�s what any gentleman out on the evening with a more or less respectable lady is expected to do.�

�No argument.�

She leaned closer, spoke softly. �I put you off, last night, before getting into anything you really wanted to know, because I had to talk to somebody today. Somebody who owes me money. I�ll be frank with you.�

�Please.�

�If this party had come through, you and I wouldn�t be having this pleasant evening out together. But he didn�t come through.�

�If I might ask � with what?�

�I�ll get to that. We need to back up a little. Actually... more than a little. Say... five years?�

The hair on the back of my neck prickled.

She was saying, rather archly, �After I came to your room that long-ago night... and you found me less than irresistible...�

�Hey, you were sexy as hell. I just had a drunken kidnapper on the brain.�

�No apologies necessary. What�s done is done. But back then? Turned out my evening was just beginning...�

Very quietly, interrupted only by the arrival of her second highball, she told me how she had caught a cab and gone back to her aunt�s apartment, to borrow the woman�s car. She had a pal in Buster Wortman�s second-in-command, Elroy �Dutch� Downey, and caught up with him in East St. Louis at the Paddock Lounge, a sleazy bar of Wortman�s. But Buster was out of town, Dutch said; and after a moment or two of soul-searching (had she found one, I wondered?), she filled her pal Dutch in about the drunken big spender at the Coral Court with luggage full of loot. Dutch�s eyes got big and then he went off to use the phone.

�When he came back,� she said, �he told me I�d get a nice finder�s fee, if anything come of it. I said, so you got hold of Buster? And he said, no. He�d called Joe Costello. The Coral Court was Costello�s turf. So, obviously, was the cab business, and of course that cabbie Hagan was involved.�

�And did you get a finder�s fee from Joe?�

�No. And when it became obvious Costello and Shoulders had taken that ransom dough, I told Joe I wanted a piece. I led him to that windfall! He scored three hundred grand � ten percent for pointing him to it was a bargain. I said I wanted thirty grand or I�d turn his pale ass in.�

I sipped rum and Coke. �Where that money came from didn�t bother you?�

The wide red mouth twitched. �Money doesn�t know where it comes from.�

I�d said that myself enough times; how could I judge her?

But she was sitting in judgment on herself, somewhat at least, saying, �I wanted that money. I was human, poor and desperate. I had my own kid, who was alive and hungry. And I wasn�t really thinking past the payoff.�

�You�re lucky to be alive, you know.�

�Oh I know,� she said, embarrassed. �But I always got along with Joe Costello pretty well. He�d been decent to me. I was one of his Ace Cab girls. And he�s the one who set me up at the Coral Court with the... escort service. I�ve never had to do much but make phone calls and play house mother to a few of the younger girls, till they get broke in.�

�So him setting up the service, that was how he paid you off?�

She shook her head and the short dark hair bounced. �No, he still me owed me. And here I was kicking back money to him and his cabbies on their, you know, referrals. Not that my cut was unfair or anything. But, Heller, man, I�m sick of the life. I�m gonna be forty. No. I�m already forty. Fuck, I�m already forty-two.�

�You�re a swell-looking forty-two, kid.�

�Thanks. But I don�t wanna be part of the life anymore. I got my eye on a cozy restaurant back east. Medium-size burg with nice people, nice schools for my little girl. Not so little now � junior high.�

�So then it was Costello you went to see today, huh? To ask for what he owed you?�

The gray-blue eyes flared. �No!... Yes. I, uh, said I�d settle for ten grand. I can secure that little restaurant for that and stay with some people till it gets going. I said I�d turn the whole escort business over to him.�

�And he said?�

�Joe told me he didn�t owe me a damn thing. And that the escort service was his and Carr�s, and go to hell. So. Is me coming forward with this worth ten grand?�

�Is it?�

Our food came. It was delicious. We said not a word. Not even pass the salt. Coffee came.

Then she said, �Or am I reading this wrong? I figure you�re working for the Greenlease family. They want the rest of their money back, but it�s probably gone and I can�t help with that. But if I came forward and told the FBI what I know, they would have Joe Costello by the short and curlies. Dutch Downey would be in dutch. That creep cop Shoulders, too. And maybe Buster, which I kinda hate, �cause I like the guy. Anyway. This whole thing would come out.�

�Dangerous for you.�

Her eyes tightened. Her mouth dropped like a red-rimmed trap door. �Or... are you working for somebody who doesn�t want this to come out? I... I can do that, too. Ten grand would seal these lips forever. I�ll work with you, Heller. I will work with you.�

How desperately unhappy she was, behind her glib tough-girl facade, was clear. She was filled with needs that were overriding caution.

I said, �Look. You�re a smart kid, and��

�I�m not a kid and I sure as hell am not smart.� She got a deck of Chesterfields from her purse and started lighting one up, nervously.

My whispered words were like terrible sweet nothings. �Honey, I�m afraid you know just enough to get yourself killed, but not enough to change anything in the Greenlease case. Do you have family you can turn to?�

She laughed and smoke and bitterness came out. �Well, I�m the product of a rape, Heller, what do you think?�

I put a hand on one of hers. �Maybe I can help you out. You�ve given me an important piece of the puzzle and that�s going to be worth something. I can�t promise it�s worth the ten grand you�re after, but you won�t have to go public. Listen. I will help.�

Her eyes were moist. She squeezed my hand.

�I wish I�d met you a long time ago,� she said.

�I wish I could say I�d have done right by you.�

A waitress came around with a dessert menu. I ordered us a dish of spumoni to share, so we could sit here and talk some more. Before it arrived, however, the host himself, bald, chubby, cheerful Biggie in a tux, leaned in with a smile. I figured he was going to ask if we�d enjoyed our supper, but I was wrong.

�Mr. Vitale requests a few moments of your time, Mr. Heller. He�s in the Red Bird Room.�

�Uh... certainly. Tell him I�ll be there shortly.�

Biggie patted me on the shoulder and was gone.

Sandy clutched my sleeve. �Heller... what�s going on?�

�No idea. I�ve done enough business in St. Louis over the years to know Vitale�s one of the town�s top Mafiosi. Second only to Tony Lopiparo.�

�Tony Lap is ailing,� she said, a frantic edge in her voice. �He�s fucking dying.�

�Yeah, well, Vitale is dining. I better pay my respects.�

She clutched harder at my sleeve. �Nate, he�s Joe Costello�s protector. Those two are tight. He�s probably who Joe turned that ransom money over to! And if he knows you and I are here together...�

�I�ll handle it.�

The waitress positioned the dish of spumoni on the table between us. With two spoons. I was on my feet.

�Work on this,� I said, putting the colorful ice cream in front of her and handing her a spoon. �Save me some. I�ll be back before it melts.�

�Don�t be fooled by his nice-guy bull! Vitale�s a smiling snake. And goes everywhere with bodyguards.�

�They all do. Anyway, what�s he going to do to me in a big busy dining room?�

The Red Bird Room was big, all right, adorned with red velvet drapes on one wall and on another a mural of Cardinal ballplayers in action. Busy it wasn�t, however: it was entirely empty but for two central tables. At one, a couple of thugs were eating a spaghetti and meatballs dinner; they wore cauliflower ears and off-the-rack suits, the jackets a little too big, to help conceal their armaments. A table was between them and where sat two men both about fifty, well-dressed, in sharp suits and ties. They were either waiting for their meals or, more likely, had already eaten; they had a carafe of coffee with cups for each, sugar and cream handy.

I recognized these latter two, from the papers. The more conservatively attired of the pair was Morris Shenker, the mob lawyer of choice in St. Louis and a counselor utilized nationally by the Teamsters union. The other was John Vitale, whose heavy black eyebrows recalled those of Lou Shoulders, but otherwise reminded me of that smiling, pleasant, deeply self-interested straight-man, Bud Abbott. If only Joe Costello from Ace Cabs was here, we�d have the full team.

Both men stood as I approached � the two thugs just kept eating � and I shook hands first with the smiling Vitale, a warm lingering grasp, and then with the unsmiling Shenker, a quick catch and release.

As I sat and the two men resumed their seats, Vitale said, �I don�t believe we ever met, Mr. Heller, but we got many mutual friends in Chicago. I hear you knew Frank Nitto well.�

This insider�s use of Nitti�s actual last name seemed purposeful to me.

�We got along,� I said. �What can I do for you, Mr. Vitale?�

He threw a casual wave. �I won�t keep you long, Mr. Heller. I�ll let you get back to your pretty companion.�

He didn�t say whether he recognized that pretty companion or not.

�But actually,� Vitale continued, leaning in chummily, �this is about what I can do for you.�

�Oh?�

He nodded, then the black eyebrows lifted. �Coffee or a drink or maybe wine?�

�No thank you. Please go on.�

He grinned, shrugged. �I like to pride myself on bein� on top of things in my little corner of the world. Uh, excuse me, I don�t mean to be rude or anything. This is my attorney, Mr. Shenker.�

I gave Shenker a nod and got back half a nod for my trouble. Then, risking a grin, I said to Vitale, �I hope you don�t feel you need legal counsel, chatting with me.�

He laughed a little, more than the remark deserved. �No, no way... though I do need to get into some dicey territory.�

�How so?�

�Like I said, I stay on top of things.� He gave me a mock scolding look. �So what�s this about you goin� around talking to people about a very old, very sad crime? The Greenlease kidnapping?�

I leaned back in my chair casually. I could sense the eyeballs of the spaghetti eaters nearby landing on me occasionally, like flies cruising for a meal.

I said, �Not the kidnapping so much as the ransom. Or anyway, the missing half. Why, did you have some information for me?�

�I do. And this�ll save you a trip, lookin� me up. What I got for you is this: I never in any way, shape or form had nothing to do with that missing money. Not a goddamn fucking thing.�

�That�s good to know.� I put a confused frown on. �But why would I think you did, Mr. Vitale?�

He glanced at the attorney, who gave him another barely visible nod. Then Vitale said, �There is a rumor that Joe Costello, who is a good friend of mine going way back, was on the receiving end of that dirty money.�

�You don�t say.�

�And,� he went on, after receiving another tiny nod from the attorney, �that I paid him ten cents on the dollar for it, then sent that hot cash to Havana for the casinos to put back in circulation.�

Shenker spoke for the first time, a rich courtroom baritone, and it damn near gave me a start.

�Mr. Heller,� he said, �may I remind you that your client confidentiality pertains here.�

�My, uh, client... what?�

�You and I,� he said smoothly, damn near smiling, �both represent an individual whose name we don�t need to be bandying about in public.�

This was in public? A mob guy, his mouthpiece and two bent-nose meatball munchers? A waiter who stuck his nose in now and then to check if anybody seemed to want something? What the hell?

Then I wised up � since the client Shenker was referring to obliquely was hardly Bobby Kennedy, or Robert Greenlease either, a certain Teamster came to mind.

�Understood,� I said.

�May I continue?� Vitale asked.

That query was not issued to me.

Shenker again barely nodded.

The mobster went on, �For there to be any truth in such a foul goddamn rumor, you would have to figure Joe Costello felt on the hook to me for any big score he made. That if he had fell into any kind of heavy-duty dough, I would expect him to come to me with it.�

I squinted at him. �Not the case?�

He shook his head, firm. �Not the case, no. Joe is what you call an ally. Really, a friend. And a sometime business associate. But he is not... one of us. More a, uh...�

�Friend of the family?�

Vitale�s smile this time was sly. �Friend of the family, that�s good.� The smile slipped away. �Anyway, he could be a made man and I still would not feel I had any right to any part of that money unless I helped bring about how that money happened.�

He was implying something that had been nibbling at the back of my mind; but I let it sit.

I asked, �And you did not provide any help in how that ransom came to be in Costello�s hands?�

Another firm head shake. �No. If it came into his hands. I didn�t say it did! But the one thing I want you to take away from this little talk of ours: I had not a damn thing to do with any of this, and the fact that you and me, Mr. Heller, never did business before is the only reason why I don�t take offense.�

�Offense at what, Mr. Vitale?�

�Offense that you would think I�d ever have anything to do with that kind of blood money! What happened to that kid makes me sick. I have a son myself. And daughters, and making a profit off the death of some little boy... pulled out of the hands of a goddamn nun... that�s what you burn in hell for.�

Said the drug-dealing, gun-running gangster.

Still, I felt he was sincere.

�I appreciate hearing this,� I said.

�Good. Good. You know, my people... Frank Nitto�s people, Alphonse Capone�s people... went in the kinds of businesses that was available to us, as immigrants and sons of immigrants. Now time passes and we make money and inroads into more respectable things. Like backing the working man in unions � my friend here helps in that area. I think you�ll find, if you talk to our mutual Outfit friends in Chicago, that even the hardest-ass men don�t want nothing to do with foul evil shit like the Greenlease snatch.�

So quick it startled me, Shenker stood and said, �Thank you for your time, Mr. Heller.�

Vitale stood as well, but sat right back down. The thugs just kept eating. I�d been dismissed, so I gave the mobster and the lawyer a nod to share and got the hell out of there. This was one red room too many, as far as I was concerned. But I had learned things that helped bring a fuzzy picture into focus.

Back in the main dining room, I joined Sandy. The dish of spumoni had been taken away � melted and uneaten, judging by the grim look the woman wore.

She clutched my right hand. �What did Vitale want?�

I saw no reason not to tell her. �To let me know he had nothing to do with the Greenlease money.�

�Do you believe him?�

�I do. I wouldn�t bet the ranch on it, but, yeah.�

Her words came quick: �He�s not as important as he used to be, you know. He backed down when Buster muscled in on the pinball racket. And the Syrian mob has taken over the South Side. Well, they�re Lebanese but everybody calls them Syrian.�

Her nerves were getting to her.

I said, �Let�s get you out of here.�

I took her by the arm through the lobby, past a big oil painting of Musial at bat and a display case of memorabilia, trophies, and autographed baseballs. As I was paying the check, Sandy stepped through the glass doors into the warm night under the roof of the carport. A gentle sirocco-like breeze riffled her short dark hair and creamy white blouse.

A taxi was waiting and the driver called out to her. I heard him just as I was going through the doors: �Did you call a cab, ma�am?�

She walked closer and bent down to talk to him through the open rider�s side window, and said, �No, I�m sorry, must be someone else,� and he shot her in the head.

Even before she fell, the cab squealed off. Some of what had been inside that pretty head splashed on my suit coat and drops spattered my face. When her legs went out from under her, she collapsed in a surprisingly graceful pirouette, the blue-gray eyes large if unseeing and yet staring right at me. The black hole in her forehead stared at me, too, and then she was on her face on the cement with the exit wound a cavernous thing, a carved-out red room of its own.

She�d finally got that payoff.

As would be expected, I was first questioned at the scene by uniformed officers followed by plainclothes homicide detectives. Then I drove the loaner Cadillac � under police escort, as if I were a visiting dignitary, but thankfully without sirens � to police headquarters at the corner of Twelfth Street and Clark Avenue.

Somewhere in that massive six-story gray limestone cube of a building (where Carl Hall and Bonnie Heady had early on been held), I was further questioned, but not until after I�d been given my phone call. Someone on duty at the nearby FBI office, also on Twelfth Street, arranged to have a big football coach of a special agent named Don Hostetter come over to Police HQ.

Hostetter worked on Greenap with Wes Grapp, who was in Kansas City right now. Despite our never having met, the Special Agent vouched for me as an investigator for the Senate Rackets Committee. He informed one and all that the late Sandra O�Day was a potential witness I had been trying to groom for Senator McClellan and chief counsel Robert Kennedy.

That name-dropping, and an assurance I would make myself available as a material witness, got me shaken loose from the noble department that had brought the world the likes of Lieutenant Louis Shoulders and Patrolman Elmer Dolan. I was to let them know when I returned to Chicago, my contact information collected.

Walking me out into the warm, windy night, Hostetter � a no-nonsense six-three in his mid-forties � said, �You have blood on your face and gory dried shit on your suit coat.�

�I know.�

�It�s not a good look.�

�I don�t plan to go out.�

He walked me to the Caddy in the police parking lot and said, �Stop by the office tomorrow. I�ll see if I can get Wes in from K.C. Seems like you may have some things you�d like to share.�

�Thanks for springing me.�

�No problem. The Chief always likes it when we can add to your package, Mr. Heller. It�s about four inches thick now.�

I was back at the Coral Court in twenty minutes, snugging the Cadillac into its little private garage. When I stepped from there into the Red Room, I found the TV going and a guest watching it. On the red vinyl couch, in a yellow sport shirt and brown slacks and moccasin slippers with no socks, sat the motel�s proprietor � Jack Carr, smoking a cigarette, an ashtray on the coffee table before him, from a pack Sandy had left behind the other night. A book of Coral Court matches was nearby.

He glanced at me with his dark-circled gray eyes. �Sandy made the news but you didn�t,� he said, sounding like an all-night D.J. who smoked too much. �Blood on your face.�

�Yeah.�

�Crusty shit on your jacket.�

�Not the first to notice.�

�Brush it off and take it to a dry-cleaner.�

Unintentional irony.

I went into the bathroom and got out of the suit coat and wadded it up and stuffed it in the wastebasket. Richard Bennett could make me a new one. I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My tie was loose but I didn�t remember making it that way. The blood spots on my cheeks were like freckles applied for a high school play. I ran cold water and splashed it on my face. Soaped up my hands and rubbed the stuff off. Brownish water swirled down the drain.

I went back out there in my short-sleeve white shirt and shoulder-holstered nine mil. I said to Carr, �Any special reason you�re here?�

He didn�t answer me. The TV was heading into the national anthem, signing off for the day, and he got up and shut it off, the cigarette dangling from that not-quite-a-smile. We stood facing each other in the open area between the foot of the bed and the door. He brought his ashtray along, nursing the cigarette�s gray residue.

�I liked her,� he said. �She was a tough broad but she wasn�t mean. That�s not a bad combination.�

�No it isn�t.�

He took some smoke in. Let it out. �And she really held onto her looks. Always a pleasure doing business with her. See who killed her?�

�Somebody in an Ace Cab.�

�Almost anybody could be driving an Ace Cab. They all have records, you know. You could hire any of those crumbs to do about anything. Still. Doesn�t mean Joe Costello was behind it.�

�Is that right.�

The zombie eyes slitted. �I heard stories about you, Heller.�

�Have you.�

�I wouldn�t be surprised if you went out and did something about this.�

�You wouldn�t.�

�From one old soldier to another, it�s not worth it. I liked Sandy fine. I am gonna miss her sweet ass and salty talk. But she knew what she was getting into. All these people do. It�s like my son.�

�You have a son?�

�I did have. He was wild. I tried to put him on the straight and narrow, but that�s hard when you don�t set a good example. He made it out of Korea alive. Came back and, here�s a funny coincidence, drove cab a while. Then he got involved with some East St. Louis lowlifes, and the next thing you know, Bobby... that was his name, Bobby...�

Another unintentional irony.

�...turns up dead in the trunk of his car. Stab wounds, gunshot wounds, tortured first. People said some assholes figured his old man hid the Greenlease money and maybe he knew where. He was twenty-four. People would come up to me all sorry and sympathetic, tell me how terrible it was. I told them, he was dead to me long before that. After that, I could�ve cut ties with every crooked son of a bitch on both sides of the river, but I didn�t. My boy made his bed. Like Sandy. Not telling you what to do or not to do, Mr. Heller. Just one old soldier to another.�

I said nothing.

Going out, he paused to say, �They�re going to be crawling all over this place again, the cops and the feds. I�ve already found a new home for those three girls who lived with Sandy. But, uh, you need to be out of here tomorrow morning.�

He gave me a little salute and was gone, door shutting gently behind him, as if trying not to stir any ghosts.

I shut off the lights and sat on the foot of the bed in the dark and tried not to cry. Worked hard at it. I would be goddamned if I�d blubber like Shoulders and Dolan and everybody else on this fucking job. Carr was right: Sandy knew what she was getting herself into. The scent of that Greenlease money had made her crazy. What did I care if she lived or died? She was just another whore. I barely knew the bitch. Then the fucking tears came.

A two-rap knock came to the door. My palms took away the wetness and I wiped them on my trousers. I glanced around as the double knock repeated. Carr had forgotten Sandy�s pack of smokes on the coffee table. Not hitting the light switch, I cracked the door to make sure it was Carr, but it wasn�t, and a big guy who was mostly silhouette shouldered his way in. Behind him was another male shape. He came barreling in, too, as I backpedaled, going for the Browning under my arm, but my arm got batted away and somebody snatched out the gun and gave it a toss that made a thud somewhere on the carpet. A hand on either side gripped my biceps from behind as the guy in front of me lifted a hand with white cloth in it, and he poured liquid from a can that infused the cloth with the antiseptically sweet-smelling liquid that was chloroform, and clamped the damp cloth over my nose and mouth.

It took longer to take effect than you might think, and I fought it, flailing, kicking, for what must have been two or three minutes anyway. Which is a long fucking time. And it took two good-size strong men to hold me down, the cold and oily feel of the damp cloth the last sensation I experienced before I learned that the lights could go out in a room where the lights were already off.

By the time I got back to the Coral Court, I figured I�d been up eighteen hours. The only sign of a struggle in the Red Room was my nine millimeter on the carpet where it had been tossed by either Dutch or Mel � their entry had been a blur. I picked the weapon up and placed it on the nightstand by the phone.

I didn�t feel tired � more like overwrought. I took a warm shower, to help come down from that high a guy can get surviving a kidnapping by hoods after his dinner date got killed and two chatty gangsters made him the center of their attention. You�ve had evenings like that I�m sure.

My head still ached from the chloroform dosing and I got a bottle of aspirins out of my shaving kit and shook out five or six. Took them. Pajamas seemed wrong somehow and I just crawled under the cool sheets in my boxers and settled my head into an equally cool pillow and waited for the wings of Morpheus to flap down and carry me off.

They didn�t.

Pieces were floating inside my head like a Dali painting trying to make sense of itself; but after a while the fragments assembled into something more on the Norman Rockwell order, minus the saccharine Americana. I had caught the barest glimpse of the cab driver who�d fired that bullet into Sandy O�Day�s forehead, but he might have been the blond from the Tic Toc alley who�d seemed vaguely familiar to me.

What do you need, Heller? An engraved invitation?

I switched on the bedside lamp and got the phone book out of the nightstand drawer. Looked to see if Joe Costello�s home number was listed and it wasn�t. I called the FBI office and asked if Special Agent Hostetter was available and he was.

�Mr. Heller,� he said in his gruff, businesslike way, �don�t you ever sleep?�

�Not lately. I need a favor.�

�Always a pleasure to accommodate a taxpayer.�

�Can you give me Joe Costello�s unlisted number?�

�Any special reason?�

�I�m thinking of sending him flowers.�

A long pause. Then: �Stay on the line. I can get that for you.�

About a minute later, he kept his promise, and then I was dialing my buddy Joe at home. It rang a long time. I was hoping to rouse Costello himself, but the voice... �Yeah? Hello?�... was female and sleepy and properly irritated.

�Mrs. Costello?�

�Yes?� It sounded like she wasn�t sure.

�Sorry to call at this hour, but it�s important. Could I speak to your husband?� I had cooked up a reason for bothering Costello about being questioned at Police HQ on the cab-driving shooter. Which was basically true.

But she said, �He�s still at work,� and hung up.

The Tic Toc stayed open till three A.M., and it was just past that. When I called their Yellow Pages number, somebody was still there, cashing out or cleaning up. A male, probably the bartender, said, �I think he�s over at Ace Cab, workin� on the books. He�s a night owl, Joe is.�

I got out of bed and into a Playboy-approved ensemble � sports shirt by Viyella, navy slacks by Corbin, and sports jacket by Cricketeer, one size up to allow for my holstered nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol by Browning.

I felt good. As refreshed as if I�d just had eight hours of sleep and not twenty minutes of brooding. I snatched up Sandy�s pack of Chesterfields and the book of Coral Court matches on the coffee table. I only smoked in combat and certain civilian situations mirroring combat. So somebody was in trouble.

Maybe me.

I sucked smoke into my lungs and held it there and embraced it like an old friend I wasn�t afraid to hug just because we were both real men. I dropped the pack of smokes in my left-hand pocket, the matches, too. In my right-hand pocket I slipped a spare magazine of nine-millimeter cartridges.

Heading back into St. Louis on a morning that still thought it was night, I kept the Cadillac�s front windows down, letting the smoke out and the warm wind in. It rustled my hair like Stan the Man with a Little Leaguer visiting Musial and Biggie�s with his dad. Right now, the city was just a stray scattering of insomniac windows, neon signs and the dark husks of sleeping businesses; occasional headlights ahead and behind reminded me I wasn�t the last man on earth.

At this hour, empty taxis slept shoulder to shoulder in the smallish parking lot in front of the dingy white-brick vertical building with ACE CAB COMPANY on its picture window at right and two closed garage doors at left. As before, I parked across the way in front of the Swiss Chalet-style shopping arcade. My jacket was unbuttoned. When I reached the other side of the street, I tossed the butt sparking into darkness to sizzle in a gutter, then slipped the slumbering nine mil quietly from its cradle, ready to wake it up.

No one was around in the parking lot and no sounds emanated from behind the twin closed doors of the double-bay garage. I moved quietly to the big picture window. The switchboard where a good-looking dye-job redhead had been seated on my previous visit was just her empty chair now. At left, however, that burly natural blond dispatcher was sitting at his microphone like a disc jockey waiting for a song to be over; his big wall-mounted map loomed before him, with only a small scattering of magnetic pins dotting it in these wee-small skeleton-crew hours.

He was snoozing in his tilt-back chair, or anyway loafing, arms folded. I hadn�t been able to place him in the alley � the one time I�d seen him was five years ago, after all � but that glimpse of the shooter behind the cab�s wheel who leaned over to fire a round into Sandy�s head finally sealed it.

If the EMPLOYEES ONLY door was locked, I would have to shatter that picture-window glass with a gunshot; but it opened just fine.

As I went in, the blond turned in the swivel chair and his eyes got big and his mouth, too. He was in a white shirt with a black bow tie and navy slacks and his cabbie cap was on the desk. Here�s the cute part: a revolver was angled in it, a small .32 Remington, pre-war I thought. Didn�t figure this for the gun he�d used at Musial�s.

But he�d brought a pistol to work, so he must have known the coming hours might not just be another day at the office. His fingers were almost on the gun when I slapped him with the nine mil barrel, hard, along the right side of his face. It bloodied the ear and ripped the cheek like a red Christmas package a kid was getting into, and then he slid from the chair, hitting his head on the edge of his desk, and folded up like a big stillborn fetus on the wooden floor.

He�d made just enough noise going down for me to pause a few seconds with the nine mil in hand, ready for anything. Beyond his dispatcher�s workstation were double doors open onto the adjacent repair garages, one big room despite the overhead door above each of two bays. No one seemed to be in this area, its lights off, though a mid-�50s Chevy sedan with Ace Cab markings was on the nearest of two lowered hydraulic lifts.

Nothing but silence followed. From the cabbie cap, I collected the revolver, a .32, and emptied the cylinder of bullets onto the floor and tossed the little gun out the door into the parking lot, where it skittered away on the cement. I knelt and checked the blond � he wasn�t dead, because the red juice in him was still flowing, making a puddle actually; but he was out colder than Jersey Joe after Marciano finished him.

In the recess between the dispatcher�s area and the switchboard, between men�s and ladies� rooms, an edge of light ran along the bottom of the closed unmarked door. I went into the little office and found the proprietor of the Ace Cab Company indeed hunkered over a ledger book. But also on the beat-up old desk was a .38 long-barreled revolver, a Smith & Wesson Police Special. I crossed the short distance, plucked the gun from his desk and dropped it into his metal wastebasket. The metal-on-metal made a satisfying clunk.

His smile was as immediate as it was nervous. As always, he was sharply dressed, a black sport shirt with a white-and-pink diamond pattern. His sandy, curly hair was combed over and his hooded blue eyes looked bloodshot. �How did you get past Howie?�

�Is that his name?� With the hand that didn�t have a Browning in it, I pulled up a chair opposite him and sat, hefted the pistol. �Love tap with the barrel of this. He may live.�

�Hope he does,� Costello said, �or I�ll never hear the end of it. My wife�s nephew. Kind of late to be calling, isn�t it, Nate?�

�Or early. Of course there�s no tomorrow for Sandy O�Day. You heard about that?�

He nodded and put on a sad face that wouldn�t have convinced a six-year-old. �I did. Hell of thing, in this day and age. Too bad. She was a good kid. Good earner in her day, and did very well for us out at Carr�s.�

�Your nephew was the shooter.�

�No, that can�t be,� he said, waving it off, the gold-set diamond on his hand catching the meager overhead light and winking at me. On the wall, in the framed photos of Joe and his late partner at Ace, Leo Brothers seemed to be winking at me, too, as he grinned at the camera.

�I saw him shoot Sandy, Joe,� I said. �I didn�t mention it to the cops. Or that he jumped me in the alley alongside the Tic Toc. I mean, we�re friends here, right? So how about you cut the bullshit.�

I put the nine mil on the desk. Close to me. But right there on the desk. He couldn�t keep his eyes off it, a man trying not to look at his wife�s sister�s tits. I got out the Chesterfields and shook one loose and lighted it up.

�Question is,� I said, �did you send him? Howie doesn�t look bright enough to have too many of his own ideas.�

He showed me surrender palms. �Hear me out. Sandy O�Day came around to my house... my house, where I live with my wife and son��

I stopped him with a raised forefinger. �That�s the wife with a nephew, right? Right. Go on.�

�She wanted ten grand. Said she worked up a story she was going to peddle to the FBI about me getting the Greenlease money.�

�Just another dirty blackmailer, huh?� I let a serpent of smoke curl out. �And here we both thought she was a good kid.�

His voice turned apologetic. �What happened to her outside Musial�s, that was probably my fault, partly � my bad judgment.�

�Oh?�

He sighed. �Y�see, after I talked to Sandy, I got pretty hot around the collar. I blew my top about it to Howie and a couple of the other guys, how she was putting the squeeze on me so tight I might have to shutter Ace Cab. And these are ex-cons who need the work. Who in St. Louis but Joe Costello pays good money to bad eggs just outa stir? It�s what I get for trying to give �em a helping hand and a leg up. All I can think is, Howie musta got it in his stupid head to remove the problem. Without my urging, mind you.�

�Rash of the boy. Your wife�s nephew needs a good talking to. If he ever wakes up.�

He just sat there looking at me and trying not to look at the gun I was tempting him with. Then: �Heller... I�m willing to let it go.�

�Let what go?�

�You bashing my wife�s nephew.�

�Howie? What if he doesn�t wake up?�

�These things happen.� He sat forward. His mouth was twitching a little. �I, uh, understand you�ve been going around talking to people on both sides of the river.�

�I have.�

�Come up with anything?�

I flipped my left hand casually. �Just that one crisp fall evening in 1953, you and Lou Shoulders spent an hour at your house... you know, the place where you and your wife and son live?... counting that �missing� three-hundred grand. That kings-in-the-counting house routine covers the missing hour between when Carl Hall was booked and the other half of the ransom finally got logged in.�

�You have no proof that meeting took place.�

�You mean, I have no proof because Johnny Hagan is bought off and afraid? And Lou Shoulders is lying his ass off and bawling his eyes out, tossing in the occasional heart attack as a convincer? Then there�s Sandy O�Day, with a baseball-size hole in the back of her skull at Stan Musial�s. Good thing Stan the Man has an alibi � he�s on the road with the Cardinals. Everybody else�s alibi seems kinda on the shaky side. My smoking isn�t bothering you, is it? This is a small space.�

�No,� he said coldly. �I don�t mind.�

I shrugged. �But proof is beside the point, in a way. I�m not a cop. Yes, I am an officer of the court, and as a licensed private investigator, I have a responsibility to share information with the authorities. Theories, however, I don�t have to share.�

The hooded eyes were boring through me now. He studied me for maybe ten seconds, which is longer than it sounds. �How much?�

�Oh, this isn�t blackmail. I was out with Sandy O�Day earlier, remember? I know how you dealt with her, and really all she wanted was a share of the spoils. No, I have no interest in your money. But I do have a client who will pay to hear what I learned.�

�Some you talked to,� he said, �come away thinking your client is Jimmy Hoffa. Others that you�re working for the Rackets Committee. Or maybe Robert Greenlease.�

�Why not all three? Everybody and his dog is interested in you, Joe. You�re a popular man. I don�t think anybody will be hard to convince that you and Shoulders and poor scared Dolan were divvying that dough up in your rec room back in September �53. But the sad thing is, I don�t think any of you got much for your trouble. That money was so goddamn hot, it cost so much to launder it, only dribs and drabs came back. And nobody approved of what you�d done � not Vitale or Wortman, and sure as hell not Accardo and Humphreys... all of them saw that three-hundred grand as drenched in the blood of a child.�

�Easy for them,� he muttered.

�Easy for them is right. They�re making big money off the public�s little sins � pinball machines, gambling halls, slot machines, bookie parlors, union racketeering. Of course, there�s also loansharking, handbooks, prostitution, and some people traffic in narcotics... but nobody�s perfect. Kidnapping is something out of the Lindbergh past, the kind of ill-advised, out-of-date venture that in the �30s got Ma Barker and her boys riddled with lead and made J. Edgar a household word. And these Outfit bigwigs, like Accardo and Humphreys, and field lieutenants like Wortman and Vitale, they see themselves as good old-fashioned American businessmen, standard bearers of capitalism, and all of them are working toward the day they�ll be wholly legit. More or less.�

�What do you want from me, Heller?�

�I want the name of the other man who was there that night.�

�What night?�

I slammed a fist on the desk and the nine mil jumped; so did Costello. �What night do you fucking think? Some big shot with Outfit ties who connected you to the Southmoor Bank and suggested how to avoid attracting the attention of the top dogs by using second-tier Outfit players, who didn�t have the luxury of being moral about blood money � the big man who said he�d buy the laundered money, when it finally made it through the wash.�

He thought about that, but not for long. �I think you already know that name.�

�I think I do,� I said, and spoke it.

He just nodded. �So then we don�t have other business to discuss, do we, Nate?�

It had gone from �Nate� to �Heller� and was back to �Nate� again.

�Really, just one other little thing.�

He clearly had no idea. �What?�

I leaned into the desk, the nine mil very nearby. �Johnny Hagan wasn�t with you in your rec room when you and Shoulders counted the money that night... or maybe the end buyer actually counted the money, but... anyway, Johnny wasn�t there. Yet he�s still on your payroll. Why?�

He shrugged that off. �I don�t pay him all that much.�

�Oh, I know. Mostly he�s just afraid. Doesn�t want to die. Who does?�

�What�s your point?�

I used an ashtray on the desk to dispose of the butt and lit up a fresh Chesterfield. �Just that I think Johnny knows something...�and I think maybe Sandy learned about that something from him... which would change everything. Everything.�

He recoiled but then recovered: �I doubt that. We�re done, Heller. You should leave before Howie wakes up.�

�If he wakes up. I hit him pretty hard. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Here�s the thing � you played a much bigger role in all this than anyone knows, even though you were at the center of the Case of the Missing Ransom Money from that very first night. Only, really, this all began long before that.�

�That makes no sense, Heller.�

�Sure it does, Joe. Because Carl Hall came to you, months ahead of time, with a plan to take down the biggest ransom in history. He had an insider�s knowledge of the Greenlease family because he was friends with Bobby�s older brother, Paul, who Carl knew at military school. Carl may have oversold it to you...�I don�t think Paul and Carl remained close or anything, Carl was just a guy who could get the cadets booze and maybe reefers and, who knows, even girls... but the kind of payday Carl was talking about was worth considering. Greenlease was maybe the richest man in the Midwest. The plan was to kidnap the daughter, who was eleven. She�d be easy to handle. Maybe you backed Carl in what looked like a potentially big, easy score, plowing a little money into the scheme. But for sure you told him to come to you with the money, after the snatch came off. You could get it laundered for him.�

�You�re out of your goddamn mind. You need to go.�

�Where you really went wrong was not taking a harder look at Carl Hall. He was another of your ex-cons, right? But he was a big talker, a dreamer who lived on a diet of booze and dope, with a blowsy girlfriend who hooked out of her house and was as big a boozer as her boyfriend. They wound up taking the young boy, not the almost-teenage girl, and the part of his plan Carl hadn�t shared with you was that he would shoot that child in the head, rather than have to deal with him. And then go after the ransom.�

�You... should... go.�

�But at least Carl did stick with the rest of the plan. He drove to St. Louis. Rented a room for his dipso sweetie and himself. And connected, as prearranged, with your cabbie, Johnny Hagan. The Coral Court was a good place to hide out for a while because Jack Carr was pliable for this kind of thing. You were not in a position to alert any cops about all this money rolling into town, except the crooked likes of Lou Shoulders. It was a pity, a goddamn shame, that boy had been killed. But that money... so much money...�

He was trembling; you could barely see it. �It... it was a pity. Killing that child. Horrible. I still picture my own son being driven into that field...�

�Don�t cry! Everybody�s been crying and it�s starting to piss me off.�

Shaking now. �I... I don�t sleep... I take pills... every night, Nate, I take pills. You�re no saint! You know how things can get out of hand. It got away from me, is all. It just... got away from me.�

They came in the door all at once, four cabbies still in their fucking caps and bow ties, like I was a car getting full service at a top-notch gas station, We are the men of Texaco, We work from Maine to Mexico. Only what was happening was they were yanking me off the chair and dragging me by the arms out through the dispatcher�s area and into the double garage. Howie was leading the way, walking backward, grinning as his buddies shoved me onto the cement floor and started working me over, the smell of oil and grease in my nostrils. Costello�s nephew-in-law was holding a bloody hand towel to the side of his face where I�d whacked him. He had a monkey grin going.

The saving grace was they were idiots. The place was filled with tools and implements designed for fixing but that could break you; only these were cabbies, ex-cons with scarred faces and cauliflower ears and assorted missing teeth, and all they knew to do right now was hit me with their fists, and bending down like that did not give them their full power, making for mostly glancing blows and the occasional bread-basket punches I could tense my muscles against. My nine mil was back there on Joe�s desk but at least, apparently, none of them had grabbed it. I protected my face and took as much of it on my arms as I could.

Finally I kicked one in the balls and he howled as if the steel-beamed ceiling was the moon and he tumbled back and took another dumb shit down with him. Then I scrambled through the hole I made like a desperate linebacker and cut around that Chevy on the hydraulic lift, almost running into a metal cart that I pushed back into the four men coming at me, hard enough to make the two in front stumble into the other two, and then something wonderful happened: one of the assholes slipped in grease and landed on his back but his head slammed into the lip of the lowered lift. He sprawled as if taking a sudden nap, either out cold or dead and I didn�t give a damn which, my only regret that I didn�t have time to laugh.

Up ahead was a wall of hammers and wrenches and I started pulling them off their pegboard hooks and flinging them, randomly at first, but targeting as the attackers slowed and began bouncing off each other as they danced in place when the tools struck home, yowling with pain appropriate where each hammer and wrench hit.

I hadn�t seen him come around the other side, but suddenly there he was, having circled the sedan on the lowered lift, Howie with my nine mil in his hand. When he aimed it, I aimed, too, flinging something as hard as I ever flung anything � a hammer that flew straight and true and sank into his forehead, so deep only the rounded peen of the ballpeen hammer showed.

And the best part was the hammer found purchase pretty much in the same spot where his shot had taken Sandy down.

I scavenged the Browning and turned on my attackers, who were already scrambling away, one dragging the guy who hit his head on the lift edge, leaving a red snail trail. Then they were gone. A few had left their caps behind.

I found Joe Costello sitting at his desk with the revolver I�d dropped into his wastebasket in his hand now, angled toward his head. Toward his temple.

He said observationally, �Well, you look like hell.�

He was right. I was bloody and my clothes were torn and splotched with grease. But unlike his cab drivers, I had all my teeth.

I kicked the chair aside � he flinched � and walked to the edge of the desk. �Where did those pricks come from?�

His smile had a crookedness. He lowered the revolver, rested his hand with it on the desktop. �You�re not so smart, Heller. You cold-cocked their dispatcher. They came to see why he wasn�t responding.� He shrugged. �Least that�s how I make it.�

�So.� I nodded toward the revolver he still held. �What�s this? You gonna kill yourself now?�

�Why? You want to watch?�

�Best offer I�ve had today. But it isn�t even dawn yet.�

His lips were trembling. �I haven�t had a good night�s sleep since September 1953. I nap, but I�m up all night. I have a son, Nate.�

�So you said.�

�How can I live with this?�

To cool things down, I said, �You didn�t mean for it to happen. You just... set the stage. It went sour because you didn�t size up that psycho Hall right.�

He raised the gun, pressed the barrel to his head and his finger was on the trigger when I lurched across the desk and yanked his hand away from his head and it went off between his shoulder and his chest. Not near enough to his heart to matter. I already knew he would live. So did he. Maybe that�s why he skipped yelling in pain as the blood bubbled and went straight to crying.

There was no getting away from tears on this fucking thing.

Jack Carr, trimming hedges along the curved honey-color exterior of the Coral Court office, saw me coming and put his clippers down. In a sweat-stained t-shirt and shabby jeans, he might have been the motel�s gardener at that, or maybe a drifter in a James M. Cain novel planning to help some bimbo kill her husband.

�Checking out?� he asked, not unpleasantly.

�As requested,� I reminded him.

�I�ll get you myself,� he said. �Desk girl�s on her break.�

I followed him in and he got behind the counter, that almost smile still hanging around and not turning into anything. The black-circled eyes might have indicated he�d had a rough night too, but I knew they were nothing new.

�Normally I don�t do a refund,� he said, �when somebody who pays weekly rate leaves after only a few days. But seeing as I asked you to go, you have fourteen dollars coming.�

Considering that fair, I signed the receipt he gave me, and slipped the cash in my billfold.

�Seen the papers?� he asked, leaning on the counter, looking like a friendly emissary of the undead. �Catch the TV news maybe?�

�No. I slept right through to my wake-up call.�

That had been eleven A.M. It was noon now � checkout time on the dot.

�Very lively day yesterday,� he commented. �Dispatch gives the O�Day shooting a lot of play. Some other juicy stuff didn�t make it in before deadline, but the TV had it. Seems Joe Costello shot himself cleaning his gun at home � in his rec room. He�ll live.�

�How about an Ace Cab employee who didn�t?�

�Nothing that made the TV news. Afternoon paper may have it. Oh, there�s a message for you.� He went and got it from the Red Room�s slot on the wall of key cubbyholes.

I opened the folded note �If you�re still around, call me,� then the number and the caller: �Barney.�

�Hope you had a pleasant stay,� Carr said.

�Call it memorable,� I said.

But as I pulled out onto Watson Road, AKA Route 66, I didn�t bother giving the array of yellow-glazed and glass-brick bungalows, shining in the sun, a last look. I remembered what happened to Lot�s wife.