Friday � 8:45 P.M.

Sergeant Michael Holland sat extremely still and tried to make out as much of the man�s features in the rear-view mirror as he could. Night had fallen within the hour and the only illumination came from the reflected light of a streetlamp a few yards down the block, plus the occasional glow from the cigar tucked in one corner of the man�s bearded mouth.

Sergeant Holland�s first thought at being accosted in his own car in his own driveway had been that some of the boys from the Hall of Justice were playing a practical joke on him on this, the day of his retirement from the force; but another look into the mirror revealed a strange, casually cruel, faintly smiling bearded face, cigar atilt, that instantly disabused him of the notion. Holland had no idea of how the man had managed to get into the rear seat of the locked car, nor when; but he recognized the authority of the cold muzzle against his neck and accordingly kept his hands pressed tightly on his knees. In addition to the sardonic cast of the full lips gripping the cigar, the small mirrored glass showed enough of the weapon held in the gloved hand to be instantly recognized. Mike Holland knew the gun well. It was a .38 caliber police positive, and until five o�clock that afternoon, one just like it had been as much a part of him as his right arm. Michael Holland had spent a portion of his career on the San Francisco police force teaching recruits how properly to use precisely this weapon. He knew the damage it could do to a two-inch plank in the ballistics lab, and in the course of the few years he had spent in Homicide before being shunted to Communications to work out his final years, he had also seen the damage it could do to the human body. That damage was considerable. It was not easy to forget.

He cleared his throat, surprised when he spoke that his voice was not even tighter than it was. �What goes on?�

�Relax,� the man said amusedly. �Keep quiet and keep still.� The voice was calm, detached. He took the cigar from his mouth, flicked ashes to the floor almost contemptuously, and replaced the cigar. The pistol never moved from Holland�s neck.

�But��

�I said, quiet.�

Mike Holland sighed and glanced about, moving his head with extreme caution, feeling the muzzle scrape lightly against his neck, but being most careful in keeping his hands on his knees. From the house on the right, his own, he could see the faint glow of the lamp he always left lit whenever he went out evenings, for Michael Holland lived alone and had since his Katherine had died eight years before. And to the left the Horvath place was dark, as he expected, since Steve and Margaret were off someplace on vacation. Los Angeles, he remembered, and then thought how unimportant it was, any more than it was important that the other houses around held neighbors who were not on vacation. It would take quite a shout on his part to be heard over Walter Cronkite, or whoever � even assuming anyone would come if they heard him. Or if he�d even be alive when they got there. The man in the mirror, with that faint smile on his kisser, looked just wild enough, with all that hair, to use the revolver just to hear the bang.

Mike Holland wet his lips, and wondered what they were waiting for. He glanced into the mirror, read nothing in the steady eyes that stared back at him, and brought his attention to the closed garage ahead. Take it easy, he told himself. Don�t let yourself get up-tight. This clown has to be making a mistake. And the guy in the mirror, despite that slightly off-beat smile, still didn�t look like a hophead � although Mike Holland had to admit it was getting pretty hard to tell these days, what with the drug companies coming out with new pills every half hour, bless their little commercial hearts. He looked back up into the mirror.

�What�s this all about? What are we waiting for? What do you want? Who are you?�

As if in answer to his questions, the door beside him suddenly opened and he saw that his assailant had not been alone. A second man appeared in the opening, thin to the point of emaciation, abnormally short, his face hidden in the shadows of an excessively wide hat brim. �Nobody around,� the newcomer said in a deep gravelly voice that seemed odd coming from his stunted body. �Just what I like � a nice quiet neighborhood.� He turned his head in Holland�s direction. �Okay,� he said. �Feet first.�

Mike Holland stared, not understanding. �What about my feet?�

The thin man seemed to double over, and for a stunned moment Holland hoped it was with pain, but then he realized with sudden fury that while he had been staring at the weird-looking hat and hoping the little bastard had suffered a burst appendix, the skinny little son-of-a-bitch had clamped a set of cuffs about his ankles.

�Hey!� Mike Holland said, outraged, and started to reach. The gun instantly was thrust with force against his neck and Holland froze. This was no Saturday-night special, a four-buck job that maybe it went off and maybe it didn�t. This one served for the police, and this one went off each and every time, without fail.

�Hands,� the little man said evenly, and looked up at the large sergeant. In the reflected light from the streetlamp, Mike was able at last to make out the face. The eyes beneath that ridiculous hat brim were sunken, as were the nose and cheeks. The whole effect was like seeing two burned holes in a scarred and ravaged barrel stave, and somehow reminded Mike Holland of pictures he had seen one time of lepers. He looks like a very sick kid with his old man�s hat on him, Mike thought with sudden anger; a fifty-year-old bastard kid who ought to have that stupid hat jammed over his stupid ears and then given a good healthy kick in the butt for luck.

�Hands,� the little man repeated.

Mike fought down growing anger, knowing temper could only be a mistake.

�Now, look, you characters,� he said in as reasonable a tone as he could muster. �I got a sum total of maybe thirty bucks on me, and the car�s practically worthless. I don�t even carry theft insurance on her. She�s damn near as old as I am.� Or anyway, as I feel, he thought bitterly. You didn�t retire out of the force one day too soon, Holland, he thought, getting picked up like a farmer his first night in a topless joint! �And there�s not a thin dime in the house, either,� Mike went on, �plus my son�s in there asleep, a Medal of Honor winner, and if you wake him up over some nonsense like this, he�ll take that toy pistol away from you and push it in one of your ears and pull it out the other!� And he would have, too, if Michael Patrick Holland, Jr., hadn�t died at the age of four from what they called the croup in those days. �Take the lousy thirty bucks and leave me be,� Mike Holland said wearily. �I got an appointment tonight.�

The little man had been listening to this story with the air of a person who had gone into a jewelry store to buy a cheap watch strap and found himself the unwilling participant in an auction. He snapped out of his reverie.

�Hands,� he said evenly. �Out in front of you. And keep them together.�

�Now listen, you dumb baboons!� Mike Holland said furiously, no longer able to contain his ire. �I�m a police officer and you guys are asking for more trouble than you can handle! Sweet Mary and Jesus! Take the lousy thirty bucks and pray to your saints I don�t never run into either one of you two again...!�

There was the sudden wiping of the gunsight against the burly neck. The gunsight had either been given a poor tumbling job at the factory, or had been sharpened by its sadistic owner to serve as a weapon on its own. Holland felt the chilling pain, the sudden automatic cold tightening of the scrotum at the thought of flesh being parted by edged steel, and then the dampness of blood, warm blood, his blood, running down his collar. His first thought was that his nice new white shirt, bought especially for the occasion of the evening, would be ruined; but then he knew it really didn�t matter. It didn�t look as if he were going to get to any dinner tonight, anyway.

�Hands,� the little man repeated for the third time in that oddly inconsistent rasping voice. His tone was not remonstrating, merely reminding. Mike Holland took a deep breath and brought his big hands forward slowly, fighting down the impulse to take the scrawny neck before him and wring it like a dishrag, but he had no doubt that the bearded bastard with the cigar behind him wouldn�t hesitate to use the gun. Mike brought his hands together and felt the cold steel snap around his thick wrists.

�Over,� the small man said in that same impersonal tone, and made a move to enter the car. Mike stared at the familiar dashboard as if seeing it for the first time, and then slowly edged his large body toward the other side of the car. He knew he should be making mental notes on the two hoods, burning details into his trained memory beyond the mere fact that one was skinny and had poor taste in hats, and the other was bearded, smoked cigars, and was nasty, but at the moment his anger blotted out the ability to act properly. Besides, his neck hurt, although not half as much as his pride. Taken like a child! The fact that he had climbed into his car quite naturally and suddenly found a gun put on him had nothing to do with the matter; somehow he should never have allowed himself to be suckered like that!

The skinny little man slid into the driver�s seat, pushed down on the adjusting button and slid the seat closer to the steering wheel to accommodate his reduced size, reached up a skeletal hand to adjust the rear-view mirror to his satisfaction, reached out to do the same for the side-view mirror, and then squirmed into a more comfortable position. The skin-tight gloves he wore made him appear to have brown hands attached to pale thin wrists. The bearded man took his cigar from his mouth and leaned over, bringing his lips close to Mike Holland�s ear.

�We can do this the easy way or the hard way,� he said softly. �I can lay this gun barrel alongside your ear and put you to sleep, and then we�ll just be two pals taking a drunken friend home. And you�ll wake up with the large, economy-sized hangover. Or we can go along just the way we are without any big disturbance from you, and you may even live to see the grandchildren from that Medal of Honor son you don�t have.� The gun snaked forward, pressing cruelly against the cut, and then was partially withdrawn. Mike winced involuntarily. The quiet voice went on. �It�s that simple. Take your choice.�

Mike remained silent. The bearded man seemed to take it as acceptance.

�Good,� he said pleasantly, and tucked his cigar back in place. He looked toward the small driver. �Let�s get going. We�re behind schedule, listening to Sergeant Holland, here, tell us how he�s a policeman.�

�Yeah,� the little man said with a grin. �I thought he was a streetcar conductor without his uniform, myself.� He turned on the ignition, listening to the steady purring of the old motor in appreciation for the obvious attention it had received, and then put on the lights, put the car into gear, and backed from the driveway. �Not bad for an old clunker,� he said to no one in particular, and swung the wheel. He changed gears and started down the street, driving with obvious skill, but with equally obvious care.

The man in the back seat spoke, a small edge to his voice. �A little faster, Harry, if you don�t mind?�

�What�s the difference we�re a couple minutes late?� Harry asked, but nevertheless he pressed the accelerator a trifle. The car responded, moving a bit faster.

�We made a schedule, let�s stick to it,� the bearded man said, and lapsed into silence, sucking silently on his cigar.

In the front seat, Mike Holland tried to remember, in recent months � or even years, for that matter � whom he might have so enraged as to account for being picked up and treated in this manner. From his personal life? But he had never been a mixer, had never had trouble of any kind with his neighbors, and had spent nineteen out of twenty evenings watching television, with an occasional night out for the movies to break the monotony. And it certainly could be nothing connected with women. Before Katie�s death Mike had felt no need even to look at another woman, and since her death, he had felt no desire to.

From his professional life? Well, in Communications one scarcely played any role in an important case serious enough to warrant revenge; and his days in Homicide were so far back that Mike doubted these two were more than kids in those days. Besides, even when he was in Homicide, as Mike Holland himself would have been the first to admit, he had never done anything startling; it was one of the reasons he was still a sergeant when he had been retired that afternoon after over forty years of service. The sad fact was that nobody whom the other men called �Pop� � some damn near as old as he was � had ever done anything he could recall that could possibly result in such demonstrated enmity. So what in the name of sweet Mary and Jesus could be the reason for picking him up?

The bearded man rolled down the window on his side of the car, tossed out his cigar, and rolled the window back in place. He leaned his wrist against the glass, trying to read the time by the light of a passing lamppost. He finally managed to see the watch hands and looked up at the driver with a frown.

�Let�s get a little more speed out of this wagon, shall we, Harry?�

�Let�s not get picked up for speeding,� the little man said, and then added hastily, �That�s what you told me, remember?�

The bearded man accepted this recognition of his leadership.

�I know what I told you,� he said with a touch of impatience. �Now I�m suggesting we don�t get stopped for loitering, or for obstructing traffic. Move it!�

�Right.� The thin man speeded the car up again. He glanced over at their prisoner. �He�s bleeding all over the car,� he said conversationally.

�So let him bleed,� the bearded man said indifferently. �It�s his blood. And his car.� He leaned back, the revolver dangling indolently from one finger, his other hand stroking his full beard thoughtfully. His eyes were fixed on the blood welling from the cut on Mike Holland�s neck, but his thoughts were already on step two of his daring scheme.

Friday � 9:20 P.M.

Lieutenant James Reardon, nursing a brand of cognac he normally would never have considered ordering, primarily for economic reasons, sat back in his chair at the head table and thought that if noise made an affair a success, then the party being thrown for the retirement of Sergeant Michael Patrick Holland had to be the achievement of the year. Some clown on the entertainment committee � as Reardon recalled, that had been the responsibility of Burglary � had managed to locate a jukebox, and the lieutenant only hoped they hadn�t swiped it. In fact, he wished they hadn�t found it at all; but they had, and they had dragged it into the sacrosanct precincts of the back room of Marty�s Oyster House, and some other clown had fed the monster a fistful of quarters, and if the thing had a volume control, nobody had located it. Or, more likely, nobody had even bothered to look for it. At the moment, fortunately, the machine was delivering itself of a Hawaiian love song, so the racket was less deafening, although the difference in decibels was easily made up for by the loud guffawing of a group from Traffic who were over at the temporary bar probably telling Polish traffic jokes, if there were such things.

Lieutenant Reardon was in the Homicide Division of the San Francisco police, and as a general rule enjoyed his work very much. He was a stocky athletic-looking man in his early thirties, with thick russet hair, a rugged yet remarkably sensitive face, and with sharp intelligent gray eyes. At the moment a deep groove between those eyes outlined a frown. Where the devil was Pop Holland? Reardon was not worried that the meal would be spoiled because the guest of honor was late; Marty�s Oyster House, whose front dining room boasted the finest cuisine in all San Francisco, had a standard dinner for affairs held in the back room, apparently designed to discourage people from ever holding an affair there again. But what might well happen, the lieutenant knew, was not a question of whether the rubber chicken with plastic peas was up � or down � to standard; the problem was that any further tardiness was apt to result in the guests being too far gone with liquor to partake of the fare. Which, thinking about it, might not be such a tragedy at that.

There was movement at his side and he looked up to see his good friend and co-worker Sergeant Dondero pulling up a chair beside him. Dondero, two years younger than Reardon, was one inch shorter and thirty pounds heavier, an increase in weight he claimed came about when he stopped smoking in a bet with Stan Lundahl, also of the department. It was a bet Dondero had won, to his intense sorrow. Reardon smiled, pleased to see the other.

�I thought you were still on vacation, Don. When did you get back?�

�This afternoon. Think I�d miss Pop�s retirement party? With free booze?� Dondero smiled at Reardon affectionately. �How�s the old married man?�

Reardon�s smile faded. �We didn�t get married.�

Dondero�s smile changed to a puzzled frown. �What do you mean, you didn�t get married?�

�What does it sound like? We didn�t get married, that�s all.�

�But you phoned me from Tahoe! You said you were up there with Jan, you were going to get married��

�I know what I said. But Jan changed her mind.�

�Changed her mind? Why?� Dondero sounded more put out about it than his friend.

�Skip it,� Reardon said wearily. �It�s a long story and one I�d rather not go into right now.�

�But��

Reardon�s eyes hardened. �Let�s drop it?�

�But � oh, sure, if you insist,� Dondero said, and then brightened. �Hey, maybe if I talk to Jan? You know she always pays more attention to me than she does to you�� He saw the look on Reardon�s face and grinned. �I was just joking, pal.�

�Very funny!�

�We can�t hit zingers all the time,� Dondero said, and looked around the room. �Where�s Pop?�

�I haven�t a clue.�

�The story of your life,� Dondero said sadly, �and a pretty sad confession for a so-called detective.� He studied the room again, and frowned. �It�s not like Pop to be late, especially for his own party.� He looked about the room for a third time and was struck by a sudden thought. �Hey! If all the cops in town are here, who�s minding the store?�

�They aren�t all here,� Reardon said sourly. �Pop isn�t.�

�Well, outside of him��

Reardon shrugged, his good humor returning. �Maybe all the crooks are having an affair of their own over on the other side of town.�

�Well,� Dondero said expressively, �if they are, I hope for their sake the service is better than it is here. How do you get a drink in this dump? And who in their right mind ever picked this place for the dinner, anyway?� He came to his feet, shaking his head. �A guy could die of thirst. Hold the fort while I raid the bar. Another for you?�

�Remy Martin.�

�In a water glass,� Dondero said, and moved away.

Reardon looked after him. He felt like he�d like to take it in a water glass. After all, the very least the chairman of the dinner committee ought to be able to do was to get his fair share of the liquor allocation, or anyway before Traffic drank it all up. He studied the crowded room with a faint air of proprietorship, although now that Dondero had reminded him, he wondered why indeed he had selected Marty�s Oyster House for the festivities. If he thought the waiters at Marty�s would change their habits merely because a cop was being honored, he should have known better. Possibly if a cop was being dishonored? Probably not even then. The waiters at Marty�s operated on the principle that, right or wrong, the customer was always neglectable.

As if to refute that uncharitable thought, a waiter pushed through to his side. For a moment Reardon wondered if he should apologize to the aproned figure, but he was saved the necessity because the waiter was busy making a circular motion with one hand, as if he were cranking some imaginary object, while his other hand, curled, was pressed tightly against his ear. It was the time-honored charade to indicate someone was wanted on the telephone, and even as Reardon came to his feet he wondered how the ancient pantomime had ever managed to survive. What it actually looked like, he thought, was that the waiter wanted him to come to the kitchen and listen to the meat grinder.

A sudden thought came and he moved with greater alacrity, a broad smile beginning to change his face. Jan, of course! Calling to apologize, probably, although he was magnanimous enough to realize no apology was necessary. He started to follow the waiter and almost ran down Dondero, carefully balancing a drink in each hand. Dondero paused to proffer one, but Reardon shook his head.

�Later,� he said, raising his voice over the din. �There�s a phone call for me.�

Dondero noted the fatuous grin. �Jan?�

�Probably. I hope,� Reardon said, and raised crossed fingers.

�Then I�ll tag along. You�ll need moral support. And with me there you won�t say anything you�ll be sorry for afterward.�

�And you�re also nosey.�

�That, too,� Dondero said agreeably, and followed along, balancing the drinks carefully.

The waiter paused at the entrance to a corridor leading from the hall, to make sure his trail-blazing had not been in vain, saw Reardon and Dondero close behind, and led the way to a small unmarked door at the end of the narrow hallway. The waiter opened the door, closed it after their entrance, and then hurried back to take his place once again near the thick of the crowd. After all, one could hardly ignore customers unless one were near at hand, could one? Obviously not.

Inside the office Reardon was pleasantly surprised to find that Marty, no fool, had soundproofed the room and that the bedlam of the back room had disappeared as soon as the door had been closed. �That�s better,� he said with grateful relief, and raised the receiver from the desk blotter, making no attempt to hide the eagerness in his voice. �Jan?�

A strange masculine voice was on the line. �Lieutenant Reardon?�

Reardon swallowed his disappointment. �Speaking.� Another possible explanation for the call suddenly occurred to him, an explanation equally disturbing. �Is this in regard to Pop Holland? Is something wrong with him?�

�I don�t know about wrong,� the voice said apologetically, �but I�m afraid Sergeant Holland won�t be able to make your party tonight. I�m extending his regrets for him.� There was a strange touch of amusement in the event, semicultured voice.

�What? Who is this?�

�Just call me a friend��

�Well, listen, friend,� Reardon said, in no mood for mysteries at the moment. �Put Mike Holland on the line, will you?�

�I�m afraid that�s not allowed,� the voice said with false regret. �You see, he�s been kidnapped.�

Reardon shook his head in annoyance. These gagsters could be a pain in the butt at times.

�Look, friend,� he said with a patience he was far from feeling, �just put Mike on the phone, will you?�

�You�re not paying attention,� the other man said reprovingly. �You�re not keeping your ears open. I said, Mike Holland is being held captive, and therefore is unable to appear at your little wing-ding��

Reardon took a deep breath. He had about had it.

�Now look, chum,� he said firmly. �Fun�s fun, but this isn�t any college fraternity initiation we�re holding here. I�ve got forty-eight characters getting stewed to the ears, waiting for Pop to show up. And we all have lots of vital things to do tomorrow � like golf, for instance, or even go to work for the less fortunate � and we�d all like to get home in reasonable time to sober up. So will you please tell Mike Holland to quit fooling around and get his butt over here? Right now?�

�You still refuse to understand,� the voice said, and there was the slightest touch of disappointment in the tone, as if in sincere regret for Reardon�s thick-headedness. �I am quite serious. I said that Sergeant Michael Holland has been kidnapped. By us. I mean it. He has been abducted. Spirited off. Snatched, if you prefer the vernacular.�

Reardon opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it again. He looked at the phone in a slightly dazed manner and tried again.

�Just what in hell are you talking about?�

�What an oddly neutral response!� the man said, and sounded quite sincere. He sighed. �Still, I suppose it�s understandable. You�re probably half in the bag yourself, by this time. I knew we shouldn�t have delayed this call, but poor old Sergeant Holland insisted on telling us the story of his life. As he saw it, of course.�

Reardon gritted his teeth. �Look, pal! What sort of a gag is this?�

�My, you are stubborn, aren�t you? Here � possibly this will help to convince you.� There was a slight pause; then in a muffled but clearly recognizable tone, Reardon heard, �...listen, you dumb baboons! I told you before, I�m a police officer! I don�t know who you think you got, but I�m a cop! Can�t you get it through your thick skulls? Now who in the name of sweet Mary and Jesus is going to give a plugged dime for an old cop...?� The voice returned. �Recognize it? I�m sure you do. Taped just moments ago.� The voice turned sardonically apologetic. �The fidelity isn�t all one might wish, but it�s a new recorder and I expect it will take a little time to get used to it.�

Reardon realized that Dondero was standing beside him, drinks in hand, staring at him with an odd expression on his face. He cupped the mouthpiece without removing the receiver from his ear.

�Get on another phone and trace this call!�

Dondero didn�t waste precious time asking questions, he put the drinks on the desk hastily, slopping good liquor on the blotter, and hurried from the room, dragging the thick door closed behind him. Reardon returned to his call, trying to sound the same.

�I�m not sure I got everything you were trying to say, chum. You were saying about Pop Holland...?�

There was a delicious laugh from the telephone.

�Lieutenant, you are delightful! Not subtle, not particularly bright, but delightful! Your delay in answering was obvious, not to mention the fact that the tone changes slightly when one puts his hand over the mouthpiece and speaks. So I can only assume you were relaying the situation to a confederate, and asking him to trace the call, no doubt.� The laugh was repeated, delicate, refined, sardonic. �You know, you�re not as familiar with Marty�s Oyster House as you should be. They have only the one telephone, and you�re using it. The one on the ma�tre d�s desk is an extension, you know. And the nearest other telephone is a block away, and I�m afraid when your friend gets to it, he�ll find it out of order. A pity, but we had to do it. On the other hand, we own no shares in A.T.&T. And, of course, I�ll be long gone from this booth before your friend can locate any other means of tracing me.�

Reardon stared at the instrument, feeling helpless. There wasn�t even a squad car around for its radio; it had been decided it would look better for the public if the patrol cars were left where they belonged, either in service or in the garage, and not around Marty�s, looking like a raid.

�What do you want?�

�Oh, that?� The man sounded surprised that it had taken Reardon so long to come to the point. �Well, we didn�t want all you dedicated public servants to waste an entire evening waiting for Sergeant Holland, when he won�t be able to attend. Much better you should all be out on the streets protecting us citizens from those nasty criminals, you know...�

�You bastard!�

�Language,� said the other man, and laughed genially.

Reardon brought his temper under control. One day, he promised himself, he�d get his hands on this joker, and that would be time enough either for language or reprisals.

�All right,� he said tightly. �What do you want?�

�I just told you��

�For Pop Holland!�

�Oh, that! Well, you�ll receive a tape in the morning mail, Lieutenant, addressed to you. It seems to be the modern method of relaying demands. The tape will explain our requirements quite clearly. And now, I�m afraid I can�t stay on the line much longer. Your friend might know of a telephone in the neighborhood that I don�t.�

�Hold on a second��

�And one more thing...� The voice turned cold, deadly serious. �Let�s keep the newspapers out of this. Or any other medium. That�s if you care for Holland�s health.�

�Don�t hang up��

�I�m afraid I must. So good-bye. Or, better, au revoir.� There was the briefest of pauses, then a faint laugh, the caller�s good humor restored. �And, of course, considering your banquet � bon appetit.�

There was a quiet click as the other man placed the receiver in its cradle gently. Reardon pumped the button furiously, and then forced himself to refrain from attacking the instrument long enough to permit the telephone to respond with a dial tone. He dialed for the operator quickly, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. At long last the distant ringing stopped and a bored voice came on the line.

�This is your operator. May I help you?�

Reardon managed to bite back his first furious comment.

�Yes! This is the Police Department. We want to have a call traced.�

�One moment. I�ll connect you with the supervisor...�

�Wait...!� Too late! God, Reardon thought savagely, glaring at the instrument, where do they dredge up some of these zombies, anyway? There was another prolonged bout of ringing somewhere in limbo, while Reardon fumed helplessly. Then, when he was on the verge of ripping the instrument from the wall and stomping on it, the receiver at the other end was finally lifted.

�Supervisor...�

Reardon took a deep breath, trying to moderate his tone of voice.

�Supervisor, this is urgent! My name is Lieutenant Reardon of the Police Department. We want a call traced. It was made� � he consulted his watch � �at 10:02. Terminated, that is. The call was made to the number 664-0398. The party disconnected a few minutes ago.� Or maybe more, he thought bitterly, considering the time it takes any of you clowns down at the phone company to lift a receiver!

�Was it a toll call or a local call?�

Good God! �I haven�t the slightest idea. There weren�t any coins dropped, if that�s what you mean.� The situation came back to him. �And you�re wasting time, damn it!�

�If it was a toll call,� the woman said, not at all perturbed by the thought of wasting time, nor at all prodded by the note of urgency in the other�s voice, �then we can check it. Unless, of course, it was made from a public booth, in which case I�m afraid it would be very difficult��

�Look, miss, damn it! Will you...?�

�But you said you heard no coins drop, didn�t you? Well, we�ll do what we can. What number did you say the call was made to?�

Reardon gritted his teeth. �664-0398! Look, miss��

�And that�s in the city proper?�

�Yes, damn it! It�s in the city! It�s a restaurant, Marty�s Oyster House! Look��

�And to whom am I speaking?�

Reardon started to close his eyes and count to ten, or possibly a hundred, but then he realized he would only be aiding and abetting the imbecile in wasting time.

�My name is Reardon,� he said, amazed at his calmness and wondering how long it could last, �Lieutenant James Reardon. Of the Homicide Division,� he added significantly, hoping this fact might startle the woman into some form of useful activity. �And now, would you please get started on��

�And what number are you calling from?�

�Goddamn it! I told you a dozen times! 664-0398!�

�You didn�t say that was the number you were using. You said that was the number where the call was received,� the woman said primly, overlooking his language since she was a lady. Reardon bit his lip. So he hadn�t told her exactly, but if she had enough brains to come out from under a falling safe, she could have figured it out. �In any event,� the woman went on calmly, �I�m afraid we can only trace calls when the authority to have the trace placed comes through the Police Department. Directly, that is,� she added, forestalling any argument, �from the Communications Center at the Hall of Justice.�

�What do you mean, directly? I�m a police officer! My shield number��

�I mean, we have no means of identifying you as a police officer over the telephone, I�m afraid.�

�Miss,� Reardon said with a patience he was far from feeling, �who else would want a call traced, except the police?�

�Many people,� the supervisor said, and sniffed loudly at the memory of irate husbands and cheating wives, not to mention cheating husbands and irate wives. It was one of the major reasons she had never married, and nobody was ever going to convince her there were any other reasons. �I�m sorry, but if you�ll relay your request through proper police channels, we�ll be glad to see what we can do��

Her tone clearly indicated that in her opinion if he was a policeman, she was Greta Garbo. Reardon stared at the wall. Well, the chances of tracing the call after this delay were undoubtedly zero in any event.

�Miss,� he said wearily. �What�s your name?�

�I�m afraid we�re not permitted to give out that information.�

�Now, look!� he began furiously, and then gave up. �Forget it,� he said, and dropped the receiver with a bang just as Dondero came back into the room in a rush, panting.

�Damn nearest phone�s a block away and the damn thing doesn�t work. Was going to cut in on you from the cashier�s desk, but I figured it would just screw things up. Just once I�d like to see a street phone that hasn�t been ripped off! Or a patrol car when you need one! Anyway, I figured you�d be off the line by this time...�

Reardon was still trying to bring himself under control. The day he bought stock in A.T.&T. would be a cold one in Panama, although it would be wonderful to be on the board of directors just long enough to fire about two million operators and supervisors.

�Never mind,� he said, and picked up the receiver again. �It�s probably about a week too late now, in any case.� He clicked the button several times. �And now where in hell�s the dial tone?�

�What gives?� Dondero asked, and picked up his waiting drink, marveling that it was still there after his absence. And not only his, but Reardon�s as well. Amazing! �What was all that mishagas about tracing the call? And all that about Pop?�

Reardon suddenly realized he also had a drink waiting. He picked it up, drank it down in one healthy gulp, shuddered a bit, and set the glass down. He also suddenly realized that Dondero didn�t know what the whole thing was all about.

�Pop Holland�s been kidnapped,� he said somberly, holding the receiver to his ear, wondering if he might have broken the idiot apparatus when he had smashed the receiver down. �Snatched.� Where the hell was the bloody dial tone?

�What?�

�That�s what the man said. He wasn�t fooling. He had Pop on tape.� The dial tone was suddenly in his ear and for a moment Reardon wondered if it had been there all along. Wake up, he advised himself sternly, and dialed a number.

Dondero was staring at him unbelievingly.

�Who the devil would want to kidnap Pop? Why, for Christ�s sake? He doesn�t have an enemy in the world��

�I doubt it was a friend.�

Dondero hadn�t even heard. �...and as far as dough is concerned, he�s got no family, and outside his pension and the house, I doubt he�s got five bills in the bank! So, why...?�

A sexy, feminine voice answered the telephone. Reardon stared, and then barked into the telephone:

�Who�s this?�

There was a giggle. �It�s your nickel. You tell me first,� the sexy voice said, wheedlingly. �Who are you?�

�Damn!� Reardon said, and hung up, warning himself not to allow the phone company to get him down. Your nickel! He had to get octogenarian sex pots on his wrong numbers, yet! He clicked for the dial tone for what seemed to be the hundredth time, feeling as if he had spent the last three years of his life on the phone.

Dondero looked at him. �Who you calling?�

�The Hall, of course. Like I should have right off the bat.� He stared at Dondero sourly. �And don�t ask me if the kidnapper didn�t tell me not to contact the police...�

�Who, me?� Dondero was shocked. �Joke at a time like this?�

�You,� Reardon said. The dial tone came on and he finally managed to dial the proper number. �Go out and tell the guys the news. Let them eat and go home, or just go home. And then come back.� It was going to be a long, long night, he knew, and it would undoubtedly be made a lot longer by the fact that a large part of it would probably be spent in using the blaggedy blanged blumpery blithery instrument in his hand.

Saturday � 1:10 A.M.

Frank Paul Oliver � Porky Frank or Porky Oliver to his friends, depending upon the closeness of the relationship � was a businessman with various interests, and one of his interests, in a minor fashion, was the collecting of information. It was not his principal business; his major interest was in running a small but honest handbook, but when in the course of his daily endeavors he ran into facts that could have a monetary value, Porky quite properly collected those facts and eventually sold them. To have done otherwise would have been unbusinesslike, and contrary to the �Waste Not, Want Not� philosophy instilled in him as a youth by an equally businesslike mother.

The standard word for a person who indulges in the sale of information for money is �stool pigeon,� but the word carries the wrong connotation. Years of conditioning by television, the movies, and cheap novels have left the public with the mental picture of a stool pigeon as a small, cringing man, usually with a terminal cough, dressed in a crumpled suit with frayed cuffs and upturned jacket collar, who whispers hoarsely from the corner of his mouth, normally past a stained cigarette plastered to his lower lip. Frank Paul Oliver would have smiled gently at the description. A large, well-built young man with a fine sense of humor and flair for the finer things in life, Porky had gained his nickname because of his ebullient self-confidence. To be honest, Porky was quite content with the propaganda of the movies and television. It obviously made it much easier to gather information when the people speaking in his presence were constantly looking over their shoulders for small cringing men with frayed cuffs and terminal coughs, and not paying the slightest attention to the well-dressed, self-confident people in the area.

At the moment, Porky was not working. Or, one might better say, he was engaged in one of his lesser income-producing pursuits. He stood, thoughtfully chalking a pool cue, at the nine-foot, professional table in Sawicki�s Pool Hall, carefully considering the plethora of goodies left him by an inadvertent miscue on the part of his opponent, none other than Sawicki himself. The proprietor of the pool emporium, his face twisted in understandable pain as he foresaw the inevitable result of his error, leaned back against the nearby cigar counter, his head and shoulders shadowed in the darkness that lay beyond the cones of light cast by the twin shades, and waited for total disaster. Porky, satisfied that the campaign he had planned would result in clearing the table, leaving himself a proper break shot, and reducing Sawicki�s profit for the week considerably, put aside the chalk and bent down, prepared to begin the mayhem. But before he could begin his stroke, the telephone rang. Porky straightened up again politely as Sawicki put down his cue and went to answer the phone. It was not that Sawicki had the slightest doubt, Porky knew, of what was going to happen, but it was simply safer, in that milieu, to have witnesses to the feat � particularly the man who was going to have to pay.

At the telephone behind the counter, Sawicki spat carefully into a spittoon by way of preparation, raised the receiver, and growled into it in his normal foggy voice, �Sawicki�s Pool Hall.�

�Is Porky Frank there?�

Sawicki covered the mouthpiece with a hand the size of a pool rack and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper that carried the length of the room, disturbing players at several distant tables. �Hey, Porky � you in?�

�Who is it?�

�Same guy calls you here every now and then. Calls you Frank. Quiet voice. Usually sounds tired.�

�Ah!� Porky said. He laid aside his cue and moved toward the telephone. �Well, these people who keep silly hours � like nine to five � come the wee hours of the morning and they�re all through. No stamina,� Porky said sadly, and took the telephone from Sawicki�s hand. �Hello?�

�Porky?�

�I suspected it was you, Mr. R,� Porky said, pleased with his deductive powers. �Tell me, in confidence, why would a recently married man climb out of a warm bed at this hour of the morning � or any other hour, as far as that goes��

�I�m not married,� Reardon said shortly. �Look, Porky, I have to��

�Not married?� Porky was properly shocked. �I sat right next to you in Marty�s Oyster House less than three weeks ago and heard you propose to a lovely young lady. And I heard her accept. Tahoe was mentioned, object matrimony. And now you tell me you�re not married? I shall be a witness. In fact, I�ll offer the services of my lawyer��

�I don�t need any lawyers. Porky, I have to��

�Not for you! You, sir, are a cad! I meant the lawyer for the young lady. I shall suggest she sue for breach of promise, malfeasance in office, contributing to the delinquency of a major � unless the young lady had made colonel by this time, of course��

�Porky, shut up! Can you talk?�

Porky was far from intimidated by the other�s tone; still, he glanced about. Sawicki had tactfully retreated to the pool table, where he gazed upon the spread with anguish, but other ears were in evidence in the smoke-filled room.

�I can speak of ships and shoes, and pool cues, and dollar bills with wings,� Porky said cautiously, �but nothing of greater delicacy, I fear. Why?�

�Because if you can�t talk, I want to see you someplace else, right away. What places are open at this hour?�

�Now? You want to see me now?� Porky stared in horror back toward the pool table, with the balls laid out there for the easy seduction of his cue. �Right now?�

�Right now. Where can we meet? What�s open at this hour?�

�Other than Sawicki�s Pool Hall, I gather you mean,� Porky said sadly, and sighed at the vicissitudes of an unkindly fate. �You sure you couldn�t wait half an hour...?� He sighed. �No, I suppose not. Well, the Mouse Trap�s open and relatively safe, if you don�t try their drinks; and there�s always Tommy�s Joynt��

Reardon suddenly remembered he hadn�t eaten for hours. �Tommy�s Joynt in fifteen minutes,� he said abruptly, and hung up.

Porky put the receiver back on its hook, stared at the instrument a moment, and then walked dispiritedly back to the table. Sawicki was watching him curiously.

�Sawicki,� Porky said, reaching over to retrieve his stick and beginning to dismantle it, �if anybody drives up in a dog sled and asks you, you have my permission to reveal that you�re luckier than a guy with two straight cues.�

�Hey!� Sawicki said in his gravel voice, unable to believe his good fortune. �Hey, hey! You quittin�?�

�A call from my dying mother�s bedside,� Porky said dolorously, �and the only thing in this world that could prevent me from putting you into instant bankruptcy.� He slid the two halves of his stick into their case and placed the case in his locker. He twisted the combination lock, and moved toward the door. �Remember me in your will,� he said, pausing with his hand on the knob. �It�s the least you can do.�

�Yeah,� Sawicki said. He paused and then figured he might as well try it. �But what about the charge for the table?�

Porky stopped and looked the big man in the eye.

�I was only askin�,� Sawicki said defensively, and started to rack the balls again to avoid that baleful look. Porky shook his head unbelievingly at the ingratitude of man to man, sighed, and walked out.

Saturday � 8:00 A.M.

The men sitting around the conference room on the fifth floor of the Hall of Justice, waiting for Chief Boynton to arrive, represented the major departments of the Police Department, with both the division head and his chief assistant present. The men had been called in from many endeavors, some from time off, some from duty, some from sleep, but they were all there. Lieutenant Reardon, seated beside the head of Homicide, Captain Tower, leaned back and took advantage of the delay to relive the lovely reunion he had unfortunately been forced to leave such a brief time before.

Jan! How had he ever been lucky enough to find himself a girl like Jan? It wasn�t just that she was rapidly becoming known as one of the best of the rising crop of young architects in town; it wasn�t just that despite the considerable difference in their education she actually made him feel smart at times; it wasn�t even her wonderful looks, with the short boyish hair topping off that lovely face, and the whole kissable head topping off that incredible body; it was � well, he didn�t know exactly what it was, but he promised himself he would never again jeopardize their relationship by insisting on marriage if Jan didn�t want to marry a cop. When he was really honest about it, he didn�t blame her. Just suppose, for instance, that Kate Holland was still alive; picture her at this moment, sitting home, wondering what some nut was doing to her husband, wondering is she�d ever see him alive again...

The door opened, breaking into his reverie. Captain Clark, of Traffic, was in the doorway. Reardon put aside any further thoughts of Jan; to think of his lovely Jan while looking at Clark�s sour bulldog face, with its usual expression of belligerence, somehow didn�t seem fitting. Clark looked around the room.

�Nothing on the so-called missing car,� he announced to nobody in particular, and dragged a chair around to face Tower. He sat down and stared at the head of Homicide. �That�s if the thing is missing in the first place.�

Tower frowned. �What�s that supposed to mean?�

�Just what I said,� Clark said, his chin thrust out. He was looking at Tower but his words were obviously intended for the lieutenant at Tower�s elbow. �Mike Holland went out on a toot to celebrate his retirement, forgot all about the dinner you people were throwing for him until it was too late, and then, when he finally remembered, he didn�t have the guts to call himself, so he got a pal to do it for him.� He shrugged. �And the pal thought he had a sense of humor��

�So where�s his car?� Reardon demanded.

Clark disregarded him.

�When Mike sobers up sometime today, he�ll call up or show up all embarrassed, and in the meantime we�ll have wasted the time of dozens of men, and put God knows how many patrol cars out of service��

�So where�s his car?� Reardon repeated.

�How the hell do I know where a drunk stashes his car?� Clark said angrily. He snorted. �This town has a million bars and nine tenths of them have parking lots!�

�No way,� Reardon said stubbornly. �The footmen have been checking parking lots. Anyway, Mike was sober on that tape. I heard it. It was no gag.� He remembered something else. �And he was in pain. I could tell by his tone of voice, even if he didn�t say anything.�

Clark looked at the ceiling in supplication. �Even if he didn�t say anything!�

Gentry cut in quickly. Roy Gentry was the head of Laboratory Services and probably knew more about drunks than any other man in the room. The result of the bag tests ended up in his lap, and any blood or urine analyses for alcohol were part of his responsibilities. Gentry was also a conciliator by nature, possibly because he was tall and thin and craggy, and in college somebody had told him he looked like the young Lincoln. If so, it was a Lincoln with spectacles that always appeared to be on the verge of falling from the large thin nose.

�Captain Clark might have a point,� he said in what he obviously hoped was a compromising manner. �I would judge it rather hard to determine if a man is drunk or sober merely by listening to a tape recording of his voice. Oh, of course,� he went on in a manner that surprised no one in the room, �if he was really drunk, where his speech was visibly � I mean, well � where it could be heard to be...� He trailed off.

�Anyway,� Clark said, as if he wanted to make clear he neither needed nor wanted Gentry�s half-hearted support, �how do we know when that tape was recorded?�

�You mean, Mike Holland might have made a recording ahead of time, saying he was kidnapped? On the offhand chance he might have a few drinks too many on the night of his retirement dinner and forget to show up?� Reardon stared at Clark. �What goddamn kind of sense is that supposed to make?�

�Now, let�s not get excited�� Captain Tower began.

�Let�s not get excited?� Reardon turned to look at his superior in astonishment. �A cop is kidnapped � kidnapped! � and everybody here talks as if the whole thing was a gag of some sort! What do you mean, let�s not get excited? I figure on getting goddamn excited!�

�Nobody is talking as if it�s a gag,� Captain Tower began, but this time it was Clark who interrupted.

�Let him get as excited as he wants,� he said in a half-amused tone. He turned to Reardon. �Just answer me one question, Lieutenant � who in God�s name would want to kidnap Mike Holland? Why? What would anyone gain? The man has no family, and if he had any money other than his paycheck, I don�t know about it, for one.�

There was a moment�s silence. Then Reardon said quietly, �Damned if I know. But we�ll know when that tape comes.�

�If it comes,� Clark began, and then stopped short as the door opened again and Chief of Police Alex Boynton strode in in his usual hurried manner. Boynton had only been promoted a short time, but the change had been one that the huge majority of the men at the Hall favored. He walked to the head of the long table, looked about in the silence that had fallen, and then nodded abruptly, sitting down.

�All right, gentlemen,� he said in his deep voice. �Let�s get started. Who�s first?�

Clark spoke up. �I was saying, Chief, that this whole thing sounds to me as if it could be a gag��

�You didn�t hear that tape and I did,� Reardon said, and then was rapped to silence by Boynton.

�Let�s take it one at a time,� Boynton said. �All right, Lieutenant. You were the one who reported it. Let�s start with you.�

�Yes, sir.� Reardon hitched his chair a bit closer to the long conference table and paused to collect his thoughts. Getting excited and talking off the top of one�s head might be all right with a man like Captain Clark, but Boynton was a different matter. �Well, sir, as you know, last night we had scheduled a retirement party for Mike Holland, and he didn�t show up. We were waiting for him at the restaurant when there was a call for me, and the caller said that Mike had been kidnapped. He played a tape with Mike�s voice on it for proof. Mike said something like � he was talking to these men � Listen, you dumb baboons, I�m a police officer. I�m a cop. Who in the name of sweet Mary and Jesus is going to give a plugged dime for an old cop? Or words to that effect��

�A good question,� Clark said, and grinned.

Boynton took one look at Clark and the traffic officer subsided, but there was a twinkle in his eye in appreciation for his own wit. Boynton turned back to Reardon.

�Go on.�

�Yes, sir. Well, we all know that �sweet Mary and Jesus� was a favorite phrase of Mike�s. And he hadn�t been drinking, not a drop, I�d swear it. Anyway, I asked this character on the phone what he wanted, and he said the demands would be on a tape sent here this morning in the first mail, addressed to me. He said��

�Why you?� Boynton�s deep-set eyes were watching Reardon steadily.

�Sir?�

�I said, why would he address the tape to you?�

�I don�t know, sir. He knew my name and he knew I was in charge of the dinner. I�m just reporting what the man said. We tried to trace the call, but Marty�s Oyster House � the restaurant the affair was being held at, sir � only has the one phone, and the nearest outside phone was a block away and out of order. The man said he�d put it out of order, which means he knew the area pretty well��

�It also seems to mean he was an amateur,� Boynton said.

�Sir?�

�He seemed to do a lot of talking. Unnecessary talking. However.�

�Yes, sir.� Reardon frowned, recalling something else. �There was something odd about that call, sir. If he had called from his home, or a house, he would have been taking a big chance of having the call traced. But at the same time, I have to doubt he would have made the call from a public booth.�

�Why?�

�Because I can�t see a kidnapper standing in front of a window in a drugstore, or out in the open at a street booth, playing a tape recorder into a telephone receiver,� Reardon said firmly. �Too many people could see him and remember the scene.� He shrugged. �Still, we weren�t able to trace the call in any event, so I don�t expect it makes that much difference.�

�On the other hand,� Boynton said, voicing his thoughts, �anyone screwy enough to kidnap a retired cop with nothing but his pension could be screwy enough for anything.� He looked at Reardon. �Did the man sound � well � unstable?�

Reardon didn�t have to think about that one.

�No, sir. He sounded happy, but not slaphappy, if you know what I mean. Not giggly. Just pleased with himself, as if he�d pulled off a good one and was congratulating himself. He laughed a few times, but it was all plenty sane laughter. He was simply enjoying himself.�

�Could he have been on anything? High?�

�I don�t think so, sir. He sounded sharp. On the ball.�

�Any sort of accent to help identify him?�

�You mean, black or white?�

�Or Chicano. Or British. Or French or Chinese. I mean, any accent?�

�White American, I�d say. Almost certainly white American.�

�I see.� Boynton drummed his thick fingers on the table before him while he thought about it. �Well, black or white, screwy or not, it might not hurt to have the footmen check out the drugstores in their areas to see if anyone remembers someone using a tape recorder in a phone booth at that hour last night.� His eyes came up. �Incidentally, what time was it?�

�He hung up at 10:02, sir.�

�Right. The street phone booths would be harder to check, unless we give the story to the media and ask them to ask for the public�s co-operation. Maybe somebody��

�We can�t do that, sir,� Reardon said quickly. �That was one of the things the man said. No publicity. No newspapers. He was definite on that score.�

�I see.� Boynton didn�t sound surprised. He swung around to a man sitting beside him, scribbling in a shorthand notebook. �Mark, make a note. Get it out to the stations for relay to the footmen. Have them check where possible without advertising. Man at a phone � tape recorder. You know what I want.� He swung back. �All right, Lieutenant. What else?�

�Well, sir, we � Sergeant Dondero and myself � went out to Mike�s house and I got in using a slip card. There was no sign of any disturbance. The evening paper was on the floor near a chair in the living room; Mike had read it and it comes about five-thirty, because we checked this out with the neighbors. There were signs in the bedroom that he�d changed clothes, for the dinner we can only assume, or our guess is he was snatched when he walked out of the house to get into his car. It�s a quiet neighborhood, and apparently none of the neighbors heard or saw anything, because we checked them out, both sides of the street, for a block in each direction. We��

There was a sharp ring of the telephone, and Reardon paused. Boynton reached over and picked it up, grunting into it. A brief moment and he handed it down the table to Reardon. The lieutenant brought the receiver to his ear.

�Yes?�

It was the lobby desk. �You wanted to know when the mail got here, Lieutenant. The mailman�s here now.�

�Hang onto him!� Reardon said, and came to his feet. He looked at Tower. �Mailman�s here,� he said shortly. �Dondero�s probably still sacked in � he worked late � but Stan Lundahl ought to be in by now. Could you have him meet me in the lobby?� He glanced at Boynton. �Be right back, sir.�

Boynton grunted. The last thing Reardon heard as he left the room was Clark�s voice, a bit more respectful since he was addressing the chief, but still the same niggling whine.

�Chief, if you want my opinion, the whole thing still sounds like a tempest in a�� The closing door ended the sound.

Clark! Reardon thought and wrinkled his nose in distaste as he rang for the elevator. If they had to kidnap somebody from the Police Department, why couldn�t it have been a loud mouth like Clark? Then none of them would have to sweat getting him free; the kidnappers would undoubtedly throw the bastard out into the street just to stop hearing that voice.

Saturday � 9:45 A.M.

�No fingerprints on the cassette itself, which figures, but we have a lovely bunch from the package,� Reardon said. He sounded more sanguine about them than he felt, since the chances were they belonged to the wino who had planted the package. Still, it was a slip-up on the part of the kidnapper, if only a tiny one; first, not to have instructed his messenger about leaving prints, and secondly, using one of the few kinds of paper that retained fingerprints easily. Maybe old happy-voice wasn�t as smart as he seemed. �If Stan doesn�t pick up the drunk, maybe we�ll be able to identify him through the prints.�

�If the prints don�t belong to the mailman,� Clark said dourly.

�The mailman didn�t touch that package,� Reardon said confidently. �He didn�t even know he had it. Anyway, the package and the paper and the string are all down in the lab, on the offhand chance they�ll tell us something. In the meantime, let�s hear what the tape has to say.�

He pulled the tape recorder he had borrowed from the sound lab closer; the men in the room crowded nearer, tense now that the tape was about to be played. Boynton gave a terse nod and Reardon slid the cassette into place and pushed the proper buttons. He stared at the slowly unwinding tape, willing himself a picture of the kidnapper from the voice he was awaiting, a picture that could lead him to the man quickly. Once located, Reardon was fairly sure he could drag some facts from the man, possibly even painfully.

There were several seconds of scratchy silence, followed by a sudden aliveness in the tape, as if it had been slumbering and was now awake and ready to go to work. In the background there was a rhythmic bumping sound, muffled, and then the scratchiness disappeared and the familiar cheery voice broke in on them, too loud. Reardon hastily twisted the knob, the volume dropped until they were straining to hear; he twisted again, bringing the sound to a reasonable level. They apparently had missed little.

�...lo, hello, hello. Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three. Are you there? Are you ready? No, I�m Reddy�s brother. Old joke.� There was a break in the voice pattern, during which the strange rhythmic background sound dominated, then even that stopped. Reardon was about to reach for the recorder when the voice returned. �It played back reasonably well, folks. I�d hate to have my deathless prose lost to posterity � or to you folks � simply because I haven�t learned how to properly work this ridiculous little gadget, yet. But I�m sure you�re not interested in my problems, so let�s get down to yours.�

There was another brief pause, during which someone in the room was heard to mutter, �He talks too gaddamn much!� Then the voice returned. Now, however, the tone was subtly changed. The lightness still seemed to be there on the surface, but it was only a thin veneer over a deadly purpose. The men around the table stared at the small tape recorder with hard, expressionless faces.

�Gentlemen, we are holding Sergeant Holland as our prisoner, as you know. In order to obtain his release, you will release a prisoner you are now holding in your cell block on the top floor of the Hall of Justice. This prisoner is awaiting trial on a minor charge, and possibly extradition. He means nothing to you, but I want him. His name is Guillermo Lazaretti. You will release this prisoner to us at exactly two o�clock tomorrow morning. You will not be cute and try to follow him once you drop him off at the proper place, nor will you try to put any gizmo on him that might enable you to track him electronically, or any other way. Not that any such gadgetry would work, since we honestly are not fools, but primarily because Sergeant Holland would suffer for any such stupidity on your part.

�Incidentally, I should hate to hear the sound of any helicopter or any low-flying aircraft in the vicinity of the release point, so I suggest you inform the necessary officials of any airports. Two in the morning is scarcely the time for low-flying pleasure craft, so for Sergeant Holland�s sake, I hope everyone remembers this point.

�Now, for the release point. Your car, containing just the driver and Lazaretti, will leave the Hall of Justice at precisely one-thirty in the morning. If you wish to keep Lazaretti cuffed during the ride, you may do so, as the cuffs will present no problem, but a third person in the car is strictly prohibited. You will have the driver take Third Street south past China Basin and along the docks. He will pass Central Basin and continue. Just beyond the point where Army Street dead-ends into Third, there is a small bridge that crosses Islais Creek Channel. You will drop your man off at the center of the bridge and immediately drive on and out of sight. And I mean on, and I mean out of sight, and I mean immediately. Nor would I suggest planting anyone either under or even near the bridge beforehand. The only one who would suffer would be Sergeant Holland.

�It�s just that simple. Until two o�clock tomorrow morning, then.�

There was a stop in the voice recording, although the background thumping sound continued. Reardon stared at the little the machine as the tape grated on; then the voice was suddenly back and Reardon knew what he had been waiting for. Now the old jollity was back again.

�Oh, yes, I almost forgot, didn�t I? If you are all good little boys and do what Papa says, your Sergeant Holland will be freed � relatively unharmed � exactly twenty-four hours later. We haven�t decided just where at the moment, but if he needs a dime for a phone call, we�ll loan him one. We�re not all bad, you know.

�And that, I�m afraid, is really that.�

This time there was an air of finality about the voice stopping. The background sound returned, fainter now; the tape ran on for several more revolutions and then ended. Reardon leaned over and pressed the STOP button. There were several moments of dead silence in the room; then Captain Tower of Homicide spoke. He sounded puzzled.

�And just who in hell,� he asked wonderingly, �is Guillermo Lazaretti?�

There was dead silence as the men at the table all looked at one another in equal bewilderment; then all eyes seemed to turn at the same time to contemplate Lieutenant Zelinski, of Detention.

�Well, Jeez,� Zelinski said sullenly. �You know how many guys we got in the tank upstairs? You guys got any idea? What am I supposed to do? Keep track of each one of them individually? Kee-ri!� He reached out a hamlike hand and dragged one of the telephones on the table closer, dialed an internal number, and growled into it when it was answered. He waited and the others waited with him. A moment later Zelinski had the information he wanted and was bobbing his bullet-head up and down as he hung up. �Yeah, now I remember. Sure, now I remember. A foreign guy��

�We don�t extradite many nationals,� someone said dryly.

�I remember,� Zelinski said, paying no attention to the interruption. �A tough guy. Weighs a hundred pounds dripping wet and because he had a couple weapons on him, he thinks he�s Joe Louis. He was picked up in a scrap with another guy, another foreigner, both of them armed. Guns and knives. They were going after each other with the shivs when a plainclothes cop busted it up and called the wagon. Yeah, now I remember. They both come up in front of Judge Melchor either next Wednesday or Thursday, I forget which.�

Boynton frowned. �What was all that about extradition?�

�I remember,� Zelinski said, as if to flaunt his now-operative memory. �Yeah, now I remember. They both refused lawyers A guy come out from the Italian Consulate. Said something when he left about how they�d both probably be extradited.�

�They�re wanted in Italy?�

Zelinski grinned. �Naw.� His face straightened. �I mean, no, sir. Not that I know of. I guess it�s just that the consulate guy figured they wouldn�t be wanted over here. I mean, concealed weapons, attempted assault with a deadly weapon��

�And they�re not even citizens,� someone said sardonically.

�Yeah,� Zelinski said, pleased someone understood.

Chief Boynton brought the meeting back to order.

�Italian eh? The other one, too?�

�Yes, sir. His name is Vito Patrone.�

�Were they drunk when they were brought in?�

�No, sir. Sober as a judge, the two of them.�

�Did they say what the fight was about?�

�No, sir. Matter of fact,� Zelinski said honestly, �neither one of them speaks a word of English, and after we got an interpreter from the courts downstairs, they both clammed up. Haven�t said a word since, either one of them.�

Boynton drummed his fingers on the table, frowning. �No English, eh?�

�No, sir. Not a word. Or if they have, we don�t know it.�

�What about their passports?�

�All in order, sir. Tourist visas good for ninety days, issued in Rome a month or so ago.�

�Had they ever been in the States before?�

�If they did,� Zelinski said, his memory now prodded into working on all twelve cylinders, �it had to be more than four years ago, if they come into the country legally, that is. I remember all about them two guys, now. Yeah. We got their passports upstairs if you want to see them, but I remember them passports. Four years old and no trips to the United States in that time. Other places, I don�t remember where, but not here.�

�Any other identification on them?�

�Well, their passports, and they each had a wallet and each one had plenty of cash on him, but��� he frowned � �now you mention it, sir, no other I.D. in the wallets.� Zelinski had a sudden thought. He pointed toward the tape recorder. �But that guy, he knew Lazaretti, at least by name.�

�True,� Boynton said, not greatly impressed. �What about their passage? Their plane tickets?�

�They didn�t have them on them, sir.� Zelinski tried to answer what he considered an unspoken criticism. �We figured, what the hell, they�d be out of our hair in three, four days, Chief. We didn�t really get very involved with them. They were just in for a street scrap. We get a lot more serious stuff coming through all the time.�

If Boynton had been contemplating criticism, he didn�t voice it.

�Were they staying in town?�

Zelinski reddened a bit. �Like I said, sir, they didn�t hand out any information.� He brightened a bit. �But if they were staying in a hotel under their own names � and they probably would be, because maybe they figured they had to turn in their passports here like they do in Europe � it shouldn�t be too tough to trace them.� A thought came to him. �But we don�t have to trace them sir. We got them.�

�Except you say they haven�t been overly communicative.� Boynton shrugged. �Besides, staying in a hotel without speaking a word of English? My own guess is they�d be with friends or relatives. Not,� he added half to himself, �where I can see it makes one damn bit of difference.� He drummed his fingers on the table, while he stared off into space, thinking.

Reardon suddenly spoke without really knowing why. Only a faint memory of something Porky Frank had said � or hadn�t said, he didn�t recall which at the moment � seemed to prompt him.

�Was there anything in the newspapers about these two characters? Being picked up by the police, I mean?�

Zelinski shrugged. �I haven�t the faintest idea. If there was, I didn�t see it. I can�t imagine who would be interested, but there�s always reporters hanging around, and one of them maybe might have put in a squib. Easy enough to find out, I suppose. Just ask the reporters.�

�Yeah,� Reardon said, and fell silent.

Captain Vinocur, of Communications, spoke up. He had been Mike Holland�s latest superior, and had been lying back in the bushes, waiting to see what would develop. He was a giant of a man, with spiky black hair that jetted from his wrists and arms, as well as his head, removed to Communications after ten years, eight citations, and three trips to the hospital as head of Narcotics.

�All right,� he said in his booming voice. �In the meantime, what do we do about Mike?� He glared around the room. �Damn it, he�s a good man!�

�Well, damn it yourself,� Clark said with even more than his usual irritation. �We sure as hell don�t let ourselves get blackmailed, that�s for damned sure!� He seemed to have forgotten that moments before he had been positive the entire thing had been a tempest in a teapot. �Look like bloody idiots if we did!�

�Except that it might make it a little tough on Mike, don�t you think?� It was Captain Tower, huge in a suit that seemed, as usual, far too small for him. He spoke in a deceptively mild voice.

There was a brief silence, broken by Chief Boynton.

�Captain Clark has a point,� he said. He had forced all emotion from his voice and was speaking in the flat, impersonal tones of a person responsible for the Police Department, and not as an individual. He paused in his finger-drumming and looked at Tower, but he was addressing each man in the room independently, and each man knew it. �Let�s face it � if we let one prisoner be exchanged for a kidnapped police officer, there wouldn�t be a police officer safe on his beat, or in his patrol car, or in his home, or anywhere else, from then on.�

Vinocur started up in his chair, prepared to argue, his big pockmarked face reddening. He was in no mood to watch his language at the moment, chief or no chief.

�Now, let�s wait a goddamn second! You mean we just sit around on our big fat duffs and let Mike Holland go down the drain? What the hell gives around here? A couple guys get into an argument on the street, so they get pulled in! So what? So they were armed. Who in hell isn�t, in this town, for Christ�s sake? Ten-year-old kids got guns in this town! And these two guys, they didn�t kill anybody � nobody even got hurt! So we let one of them go in exchange for Mike, for a police officer! What�s the difference we let him go or Judge Melchor fines him fifty bucks next Wednesday or Thursday and then kicks his ass out of the country? You tell me, what�s the difference? Except maybe Mike gets taken out of the play in the meantime!�

�It�s the principle of the thing, dummy...!� Clark began, but Boynton cut him off abruptly.

�Let�s all calm down. And watch our language.� He frowned and began drumming on the table again, speaking in a low voice, as if more to himself than to the meeting. �And it isn�t the principle of the thing, at all. Principles are great when they�re practical, but otherwise they�re just so much shouting down a rain barrel.�

He swung around to look Vinocur in the eye.

�Let�s keep remembering one thing � the crime here isn�t a street fight, where we can make up our mind easily to let a hood go. The crime here is kidnapping. And you ought to know as well as anyone how often the victim of a kidnapping is ever freed after the demands are met. Especially if he�s in a position to identify his kidnapper. You know as well as I do that the percentage is that Mike Holland is dead right now, whether you want to face that fact or not.�

Vinocur couldn�t wait for the chief to finish before he burst out:

�Then what in hell is to be lost by letting this Lazaretti go?� He looked around the table, as if soliciting support. �Anyway, maybe you kill a kidnap victim if big dough is involved, but just to get some two-bit punk out of hock? Why would any guy kill a cop just to get a man out of jail who�ll be out in three, four days anyway?�

�I don�t know why the man on that tape wants this Lazaretti out right now,� Boynton said quietly, �Probably because he may well be extradited to Italy at once, and not be available. But that�s not the point. The fact is this man has kidnapped a police officer who can identify him. And you can talk around it all you want, you still know what the chances are for the victim in cases like that.�

�Maybe,� Vinocur said. He had cooled down somewhat during the chief�s last statement. Then he added a bit desperately, �But on the other hand, sir, maybe Mike�s still alive. And even if you�re right, like I said before, what�s the big loss in letting some smalltime punk go just on the tiny chance that maybe Mike is still all right and will be all right? A couple of lousy days in the time of some nobody tough guy � that�s all that would be lost.� He stared at Boynton. �Maximum.�

�It�s still the principle of the thing, I say,� Clark started.

Boynton cooled him with a look. He turned back to Vinocur, considered the scowling face a moment, and then looked around the circle of frozen faces slowly, pausing a moment at each man�s face to consider him individually.

�All right,� he said at last, without any expression in his deep voice. �Let�s spread this thing around. What do the rest of you think?� He held up a broad palm, interrupting the four or five voices that had instantly broken out. �Wait a second. Before you speak, just remember a few things. One � in the entire history of this world, nobody ever reduced terror by giving in to it. Nobody. Ever. And that�s what we�d be doing. Two � a police officer � and for the purpose of this discussion Mike Holland is still a police officer, retired or not � automatically accepts certain risks when he signs up for the job. Among those risks are to do whatever is necessary, at whatever personal risk, to protect innocent people, and this includes his fellow officers. If we give in to this man�s demands, I tell you again in my honest opinion, no cop will ever be safe in this town again. Three � this Lazaretti is the only connection we have at the moment with the kidnapper. If we let Lazaretti go, we�ll probably be releasing our only chance of ever catching the man who kidnapped Mike Holland. And last but not least��

He paused a moment before continuing, adding emphasis to his words.

��if Mike Holland is still alive, the chances are he�ll only stay alive as long as this man�s demands are not met. The minute his demands are met he�ll have every reason to eliminate Mike. Remember, kidnapping comes under the Lindbergh law, whether the ransom demanded is a small-time tough guy or a billion dollars.� There was another pause; then Boynton said in a quieter tone, �All right, that�s how I feel. Now, let�s have your opinions.�

There was dead silence. Even Vinocur had nothing to say. Boynton sighed.

�All right. Then this Lazaretti stays in his cell, and beyond Wednesday or Thursday, too. Until we get the man who wants him out; until we get Mike Holland� � he did not feel it necessary to repeat the possibility of Holland being dead � �and the man who kidnapped him.�

Captain Tower cleared his throat. �Which department gets it?�

�All departments. I�ll co-ordinate myself.� He turned to Roy Gentry, all business now that the decision had been made. �From the laboratory, the first thing I want is a complete study of that tape. Voice patterns and graphs. Possible places of purchase; all efforts to trace. Call on any department you want for legwork, or hands; call on outside tape experts if you need them. Maybe some of those people who studied the eighteen-minute gap in the Watergate thing, if necessary. Since Lazaretti just came from Italy and hadn�t been here before that we know, we�ll also want to know if there might be any indication the speaker on the tape could be of Italian extraction, or anything else you can determine. Age, if possible, or education��

�Also any idea as to what that funny background sound could be,� Reardon said, interrupting.

Boynton frowned at the interruption and went back to Gentry.

�Also any ideas on anything. Including the package it came in, string, paper, inside box; everything.� He swung around to Clark. �I want Traffic to concentrate on Holland�s car. The bridges; maybe the toll-booth attendants will remember something, if he crossed a bridge. All garages, the streets, public parking lots. The car may be parked someplace overtime.� His voice turned conversational. �I remember one time we looked all over for a car, damn thing was downstairs in the police garage, pulled in for scofflawing. Everyplace.�

He turned to the man at his elbow, still scribbling.

�Mark, I want the stations to have their footmen check out drugstores, public buildings, movie theaters � any places that have interior telephone booths, and see if anyone might have seen a man with a tape recorder in a booth last night. Bus stations, the airport � everywhere. They�ll also be keeping their eyes open for Holland�s car. What kind was by the way?�

�Black Chevy, four-door sedan,� Clark said. �1965. Plate number 6Y-286.� Reardon looked across at him in surprise and then shrugged. A bastard he was, but he was still a cop.

�Mark it down,� Boynton said. �All of you.� He turned to another man, busy scribbling the license number in his notebook. �Dave��

Davidson, of Robbery, looked up.

�I want your men to go out to Holland�s house and go through it with a fine-tooth comb. Not just the top, but under the rugs. Look for a safe, or secret compartments. Look in the cellar. Look for betting slips, or a possible tie-in with gambling�� A hush had fallen on the room. Boynton was aware of it. �I know,� he said quietly, �but we do this all the way.� He turned back to Davidson. �Also check the driveway and the garage for any hint as to what might have happened. Hit the neighbors again, any enemies Holland might have had we don�t know about. And don�t stop at one block either side of the house � go two blocks, or three. And check the stores near there, where he bought stuff, the butcher, the liquor stores, the bars. You know what I want.�

He turned again. �Sam��

Captain Tower looked at the chief without expression. �Chief?�

�Well, nobody�s been murdered yet in this affair, at least that we know, and I know you�ve got your hands full...� The chief considered a moment. �Well, since your men have started out after the drunk who put the package in the mailman�s bag, you might as well continue on that. And then maybe you ought to have a man down at Third at that channel bridge tonight...� He paused to think a moment. �No, that�s not such a good idea. Let�s play it his way, at least for the time being. In fact, Clark, you better tell the patrol cars to steer clear of that area from one to three in the morning, at least.�

Clark leaned forward.

�Maybe we could still keep an eye on the bridge, sir. From the water. In fact, I wouldn�t be surprised he plans on picking up this Lazaretti by boat � that�s why he wanted it at that channel bridge, sir!� The more he thought about the idea the better he liked it. �Yes, sir! We could get hold of the Harbor Patrol��

�That�s an idea,� Boynton said, and turned to the man at his side. �Mark, be sure and contact the Harbor Patrol and tell them to keep their goddamn boats away from the Islais Channel Bridge � in fact, tell them to keep the hell away from that whole side of the bay unless the city is burning down. Okay? From one to three in the morning. After that they can go back to fishing for gropers.� He gave Clark one look and then turned back to the room in general. �Who do we have who speaks Italian?�

Reardon spoke up quickly.

�Sergeant Dondero, sir.� Damned if Homicide was going to be left out of the case altogether! He knew Dondero spoke some Italian � he was positive he swore in it fluently � but he wasn�t sure about the normal vocabulary. He only hoped it was enough; it would be a pity to hang Don because of his own big mouth.

�Fine. Well, he can be detached from Homicide, temporarily. I want him to try to check on all the hotels to see if Lazaretti stayed at any of them � Lazaretti or the other one, whatever his name is. I want him to try and find out who Lazaretti was in contact with, what phone calls he got, and so forth and so on. I want him to check with the Italian Consulate, with Interpol, or with anyone else he can think of, to see if he was known. He can try the neighborhood clubs; they�re strong in old-country family relationships. Maybe there was a vendetta of some sort.� He nodded. �Have him look for any possible connection with the Organization here, although I doubt the Organization would fool with kidnapping a cop. Or that they would tolerate a long-winded joker like that on their payroll. And have him interview the man��

Captain Tower leaned over to speak quietly into Reardon�s ear. �And you stick with Dondero, understand?�

Reardon grinned and then straightened his face. �Yes, sir.�

�Good.� Tower rolled back.

Boynton turned to Lieutenant Giordano, of the Loft Squad.

�Tim��

He was interrupted by a brief but loud series of rappings on the door, after which it was opened diffidently. Stan Lundahl stuck his head in, looked around until he located Reardon, and then straightened up, holding the door open with one hand. Boynton looked at him severely, not pleased by having his instructions interrupted.

�Is there something you want?�

�Sir, I was looking for��

Lieutenant Reardon stood up. �It�s Detective Lundahl, sir, from our department. He went after that wino.� He looked at Lundahl, fearing the worst from the doleful expression on Stan�s face. �Well? What happened? Did you find him?�

�Yeah,� Lundahl said, to Reardon�s surprise. He took a deep breath and went on. �He�s downstairs in the morgue. He was run down and killed up in Potrero, out at the end of a dead-end street on top of the hill. No witnesses, at least so far. We found the car that hit him abandoned less than a block away. Frank Wilkins is finishing up with it now; he should have it down in the garage in an hour or so at the most.�

He saw the look on Reardon�s face and nodded lugubriously.

�Yeah,� he said heavily. �Yeah. We also found Mike Holland�s car. It did the job. And if they used it to kill one guy, why should they play tippy-toe with Mike...?�

Saturday � 11:30 A.M.

Dondero sat with one knee shoved tightly against the edge of his desk, looking at Reardon with a vicious glower. He had his fingers tented and he pressed them together tightly, then suddenly released the pressure, only to repeat the gesture again and again. It looked as if he were practicing isometric exercises and he was, but Reardon knew it was more than that; it was one of the few indications Dondero ever gave of being deeply concerned about something. He finally gave up the finger exercises, flexed his fingers into fists several times, and then slammed one hand down on the desk top with a bang.

�Jeez! So Pop gets thrown to the wolves, huh? Just for some zero character who got picked up in a street fight!�

�With a shiv in his hand and a gun in his kick,� Reardon reminded him.

�With a shiv in his hand and a gun in his kick,� Dondero repeated disgustedly. �Man, that�s rare, that is! Almost as rare in this town as fog!�

Reardon sighed helplessly.

�Look, Don. It was talked over and the decision was made. I�ve tried to tell you why six times, but you just don�t want to listen. Any maybe it was the right decision. I don�t know.�

�It was talked over! The way you told it, Boynton talked it over with himself, asked himself to vote, and surprise, surprise! Unanimous!� Dondero snorted. �Talked over!�

�Everybody had a chance to speak his piece. Vinocur let go loud and clear.�

�With what result?� Reardon remained silent. Dondero nodded. �Yeah. And what was your contribution?�

Reardon reddened.

�Look, let�s not waste all day sitting around here discussing it. I want to go up and talk to this Lazaretti with you, and then I want to go over Pop�s car down in the garage�� He suddenly paused, frowning. �I told them you speak Italian. Do you?�

�And how would you know if I didn�t?� Dondero shoved his swivel chair away from his desk abruptly and came to his feet, jamming his fists angrily into his jacket pockets. �I still say we ought to deliver the bastard and get Pop back; but all right, let�s go up and have our little chat. Let�s see how good his Italian is!�

They walked out of the office and down the wide hallway to the stairwell. The detention cells were only two floors above them and neither man was in the mood to stand waiting for the elevators. Reardon glanced sideways at Dondero�s rigid jaw and then looked away. He could understand the other man�s resentment at the decision, but he could also understand the attitude of Chief Boynton. Even though the majority of men in the department knew it was only a fantasy, most of them always had secret dreams of arriving at the exalted position of top man, and now for a moment Reardon honestly wondered if it was worth it. There were a lot of tough decisions to be made up there, and like the man said, if you can�t stand the heat, you ought to stay out of the kitchen. Or out of that big fourth-floor office with the Chief of Police medallion on the door.

They shoved through the swinging doors leading from the stairwell to the detention-cell section, paused to unclip their belt holsters and deposit them with the security guard in his cage there, and then waited while the automatic main cell door to the inner prison corridor was activated and slid open.

�Lazaretti,� Reardon said to the inside guard.

�Sure, Lieutenant. What�s his number?�

�No idea. He�s the man only speaks Italian. Brought in for fighting. Or he�s one of them, anyway.�

�Oh, yeah. I know the one,� the guard said. �He�s the little guy. You want to see him in his cell, or in the conference room?�

The �conference room� was one of the cells built for recalcitrant prisoners who had to be put into solitary for any one of many reasons. The cot and its hardware had been removed, and only the lidless toilet broke the austerity of its solid-wall interior. It had the advantage of being soundproofed, which offered privacy to both the prisoner and his interrogator during an interview, without the necessity of leaving the cell-block area. Unfortunately, it also had the distinct disadvantage of giving the interrogator the feeling of what solitary confinement at the Hall of Justice was like; and most of them didn�t like it.

�Conference room,� Dondero said without hesitation, and looked at Reardon as the guard left to get the prisoner. �It might get a little noisy, and there�s no sense in disturbing the neighbors.�

Reardon frowned. �Now, see here, Don. We don�t have a thing on this man, other than the weapons charge and the assault thing. We don�t have a thing to connect him with��

Dondero held up a hand, cutting off the flow of words.

�You look, Jim. I�m quite sure they read him all his rights, probably in two languages, when they booked him, and you know I�d never do anything that wasn�t in the book. But what you don�t know is that us Italians, see, we get pretty emotional at times, and when I hug him he�s liable to start crying for joy��

He paused as the guard came up leading the prisoner. Lazaretti was a small man with fine delicate features, dressed in a wrinkled suit of Italian silk, with smooth Italian handmade shoes, and with an expensive silk white-on-white shirt that may have been clean at one time, but which showed the effects of being worn for more than four days in a row, even though it was evident an attempt had been made by the prisoner to maintain it as much as possible. Dondero knew the man had been given his choice of clean prison clothes, so he scarcely felt much pity for him. The necktie had been removed, of course, together with the belt and shoelaces, and the absence of the tie made the neck appear even more scrawny. Lazaretti�s hair was long, dark, and wavy, and had been cut in the latest style; the days in prison had allowed the edges to become shaggy, but otherwise it was neat. Dondero would have bet a week�s pay that when Lazaretti had been searched, they had found in addition to the shiv and the gun, a comb probably treasured more by the prisoner than the weapons. Still, despite the lack of size, there was a look of cold determination on the frozen features.

Dondero�s expression remained fixed, but inwardly he was smiling. He knew the type all too well; the small tough guy. They were the kind he liked.

�In here,� he said to the prisoner in Italian, and waited with exaggerated politeness until Lazaretti had preceded him into the small confinement cell. Reardon crowded in and closed the door behind them. It was instantly pitch dark. The lieutenant opened the door, switched on the light from outside, and then closed the door after him once again. The fact that now there was light, coming from a small bulb set in the ceiling, made the tiny cell bearable, but just. Reardon leaned back against the door, watching.

�Real cozy,� Dondero said in English, and then switched to fluent Italian. Reardon�s eyebrows raised in surprise. He didn�t understand a word, but the speed and effortlessness of the demonstration impressed him. �All right, friend,� Dondero said. �Let�s start at the beginning. What brings you to the United States?�

There was silence. The prisoner stared at the wall, only inches from his face, quite as if he had not heard the question. Dondero suddenly raised his hand and slapped the frozen face open-handedly. The long hair flew; the small head bounced against the wall. The little man turned to stare at Dondero with a dazed expression slowly hardening to hate, and then brought up a small hand to rub the side of his head.

Reardon straightened up instantly, reaching out a hand. �Hey, Don!�

�Man�s deaf,� Dondero said lightly. �You�d be surprised how sometimes something like that clears the ears.�

Reardon�s jaw tightened. �Look, Don, I don�t want to pull rank, but��

Dondero dropped the light tone, glaring at the lieutenant savagely.

�You don�t want to pull rank, then don�t! If you�ve suddenly gotten a weak stomach, why don�t you wait for me downstairs? This character has a connection with the goon who�s holding Pop Holland, and he�s going to tell me what it is, and in great detail, before he walks out of here. If he walks out of here!� he added grimly.

�But not that way!�

�Then what way? You wanted me to question him, didn�t you? What did you want me to ask him? How you get from Market Street to the Colosseum? His momma�s recipe for pizza? Good Christ! There�s only one way a character like this is going to answer questions, and that�s if he knows he�ll be picking his teeth off the floor if he doesn�t!� He saw the hard look on Reardon�s face and added more quietly, but just as insistently, �Jim, Jim! Listen to what I�m saying! This man has some connection with the guy who�s holding Pop. I�m going to get it out of him. Because if you make me leave him alone, I�ll just wait until Judge Melchor lets him go in a couple of days and then I�ll be a lot rougher with him than I can be here. Here, I�ll try not to mark him; outside I�ll rip both his arms off and beat him black and blue with the bloody stumps if I have to!� He shrugged. �So take your choice.�

He waited a moment. Reardon was silent. Dondero nodded and returned to the prisoner, changing back to Italian.

�A little disagreement between me and my friend. You lost. Now, let�s start all over. What brings you to the United States? And silence is not considered an answer.�

The small man looked from face to face, apparently read his fate in the expressionless look on the face of the lieutenant and the triumphant glitter in the other detective�s face. Then he said, sullenly, �To visit my cousin.�

Dondero indicated no particular triumph in having broken the ice, but continued evenly. �Oh? And just where does your cousin live?�

�In New York. In Brooklyn.�

�I�ve got news for you, friend,� Dondero said. �You missed Brooklyn by three thousand miles. What I meant to say was, what brings you to California? Specifically, what brings you to San Francisco?�

There was silence. The little man jammed his jaw tight, and then shut his eyes, squeezing them tightly shut as Dondero raised his hand. Reardon bit his lip as Dondero�s hand came down, changing direction, and chopped viciously at the small man�s stomach.

�No marks, like I said,� he said in Italian, probably thinking he was addressing Reardon, or maybe just talking to himself, or even possibly to advise the little man what to expect in the future. He shook the little man until the eyes opened, and then shook him a few more times for luck; the long hair flew. �You must like getting shoved around,� Dondero said evenly. �Well, you got the right guy, because I�m willing to work out on you all day long. You�ll wish you were home. Now, what brings you to San Francisco?�

The little man massaged his stomach. His face was gray with pain. He stared at Dondero�s pleasant look of comradeship a moment and then shivered involuntarily. That look of false friendship was one he had seen before; it was a look he had employed himself in the past when he had the upper hand and was prepared to use his advantage. It was not a good look to see on the face of a tough opponent.

�I � to see it. They all said San Francisco was worth seeing. They said it was beautiful...�

�They did, huh? Who are all these boosters?�

�I beg your pardon?�

�I said, who told you about San Francisco?�

�People in Italy,� Lazaretti said vaguely. He saw the hardness that twitched Dondero�s jaw and added hastily, �And my cousin in New York. He said so, too.�

�Yes,� Dondero said, relaxing, �it is, indeed, a beautiful city. Now, how did you manage to enjoy this beautiful city of ours, when hardly anyone you run into on the street happens to speak Italian?�

�Pardon?�

�I said, who was your interpreter?� There was silence. Dondero reached out and took the small man by the arm, slowly tightening his grip on the thin biceps. �Am I speaking too fast for you? Did you understand the question?�

Lazaretti swallowed and said, still in Italian, �I had no interpreter. I... I... you see, I have a little English...�

�You have? Great!� Dondero accommodatingly switched to English. �Then tell me in English, which portion or neighborhood of our delightful metropolis did you particularly relish?�

Lazaretti stared at him, his eyes hopeless. Reardon was sure he could not understand.

�Ah, well, the hell with it,� Dondero said, dropping the matter as well as the small man�s arm. He went back to Italian. �We�re not here to give you lessons in English. We�re here to get answers to questions. Let�s skip the preliminaries and get down to the nitty-gritty. Who in this town do you know who is so interested in getting you sprung from jail?�

The little man looked up, surprised. Dondero frowned. Either the little character was honestly startled by the question, or he had to be the best actor to come out of the old country since Vittorio De Sica.

�Pardon?�

�You heard me,� Dondero said. �Somebody in the town wants you out of jail, and he isn�t being subtle about it, either.� He frowned and looked at Reardon, returning to English. �Which brings up an interesting question � how come this little monkey isn�t out on bail? Or if he couldn�t raise it, how come the character who�s got Pop Holland didn�t spring for the bail and take Tiny Tim, here, home under his arm?�

�He�s up for extradition when, as, and if he gets out of here after his trial,� Reardon said, surmising. �They seldom set bail for foreigners up for extradition because they probably figure a large number of them wouldn�t show up at the dock.�

�True,� Dondero conceded, and went back to Italian. �Like I was saying, somebody wants you out of jail very badly. Who? Take a guess if you honestly don�t know.� Dondero had a feeling he was whipping a dead horse, but he had to keep trying. He reached for the small man�s arm again and squeezed. �Try talking.�

Lazaretti looked bewildered. For the first time he became almost voluble.

�I don�t know a soul in this town. Nobody��

�No? How about your friend? The guy you were trying to carve up with your shiv when you got picked up?�

�He... I... I don�t know him...�

�Oh, come on,� Dondero said disbelievingly. �You come over on the same plane from Rome, you come out here in the same plane� � it was a guess, but Dondero was suddenly sure � �you leave New York the same day, holding hands, and you don�t even know the guy?�

�I... I don�t know anyone out here.� The prisoner looked up, convinced Dondero had done his worst. �Anyway,� he added bluntly, �they cannot hold me for what I did. What did I do? A fight! Americans do not take such things seriously. I will be free very soon.�

�Don�t hold your breath,� Dondero said, and smiled wolfishly.

�What do you mean?� The prisoner thought he might see an answer and it was an answer he did not like. �What did he do? This man, to get me out of prison?� His hands came up expressively, palms out. �I am not responsible! I am not responsible!� He frowned at Dondero. �What did he do, this man?�

�I�ll ask the questions. Let�s start over. Why are you here in San Francisco?�

�I told you!�

�What did you tell me?�

�I... I came to visit. Just to visit. Many people come to visit, do they not?�

Dondero looked at Reardon. �Jim, don�t you have something else to do? This looks like it may take some time.�

�Don,� Reardon said coldly, �you�re going to get in one hell of a jam if you rough up this prisoner. You��

�You ought to be getting hungry around now,� Dondero said, quite as if Reardon had not spoken. He sounded quite concerned. �Why don�t you run down for a sandwich? Or, wait a second � Pop�s Chevy ought to be in the garage by now. Didn�t you say you wanted to see it as soon as it came in?�

Reardon looked at him a long moment and then sighed.

�All right, Don. Just don�t get your butt in a sling. None of these characters are worth it.�

�I�ll be as careful as a mother with her first-born.�

Reardon looked at him and then shook his head. �All right. I�ll be down in the garage when you�re done. Or back in the office.�

�I�ll try not to keep you waiting,� Dondero said with satisfaction, and turned back to the prisoner as Reardon closed the solid door behind him. Lazaretti stared at the closed door with widening eyes and then turned to stare at Dondero�s hard, smiling face.

�Now,� Dondero said pleasantly, �where were we?�

Sunday � 3:00 A.M.

Reardon was having a dream. Under a completely neutral sky that almost looked like a drop cloth rather than a real sky, he drove quickly and confidently down a deserted road that twisted and turned between endless darkened warehouses. Though his neutral sky exhibited neither moon nor stars, and there were no streetlights nor headlamps to his car, somehow there seemed to be ample illumination, and though he did not know where he was going, he was sure he would recognize the place when he got there.

Ahead and slightly below there was a sudden bright cluster of lights, and he slowed the vehicle he was piloting � for now it was a tiny airplane � bringing it carefully through the tangle of overhead wires with skillful slips and edgings and stops and starts, to set the craft gently down alongside the roadway beside a narrow bridge. Then, without consciously alighting from the plane, he found himself with a noisy group at the top of a well-lit flight of stairs that led downward beside the small bridge to the water below. It reminded him of Paris, as seen in the movies, which was the only way he had ever seen Paris, with the Seine twisting through the city and these sets of steps at every bridge leading to the quays below, and suddenly he was in a gay mood, ready for celebration. Among the group with him he recognized Dondero and Captain Tower and Frank Wilkins, although Captain Clark was missing, and he found himself pleased at this. A band was playing from below and he found himself anxious to get down the steps and join the festivities.

He handed over flying goggles and a leather jacket to the waiter from Marty�s who had advised him of the telephone call the night before, and then he was hurrying down the steps to join the others, who presumably had preceded him, but when he reached the bottom he found he had somehow managed to get himself on the opposite side of the narrow channel, and that the music and the tables and Dondero and Tower and the rest were across the water from him, sitting near the band with drinks in their hands and obviously enjoying themselves.

At first he thought it was merely a joke, his having been put across the river from the party; all he had to do was to climb the steps, cross the bridge, and descend on the proper side to join the others, but when he looked up he saw that the steps weren�t the wide stone steps he had descended but were the narrow grating type used on fire escapes, and that they twisted and turned to disappear into infinite blackness, and he knew if he started up them, when he came down the other side, if he could ever find the other side, the restaurant would be gone.

For a moment he wondered if possibly he might be dreaming, one of those endlessly frustrating uncomfortable dreams from which one had to awaken to escape the overwhelming tension; but then he saw there was a small rowboat tied to the jetty on his side of the water, and he knew he was not in any dreaded impossible position, because all he had to do was row across and he would be with the others.

He climbed into the rowboat, pleased to see that it was dry and equipped with oars, and set out, facing the other shore and pushing on the oars as his father had taught him when he wanted to see where he was rowing. But the harder he pushed, the farther away the other side of the narrow stream appeared, and the larger the boat in which he was riding, until he found himself at the prow of a large liner steaming silently through the night. He stared helplessly out into the darkness, searching for the shoreline and the lights, and thought desperately, I�ll have to warn them somehow that I won�t be able to get to the party. Then Mike Holland was at his side, dressed in his police uniform, and he knew that Mike was one of the officers on the ship. And Mike said comfortingly, I�ll warn them with the ship�s whistle. But instead of the deep throaty rumble of the ship�s whistle, what came out of the whistle was the high soprano shrilling of a bell, and it rang and it rang and he wanted Mike to stop it, but it kept on ringing...

Reardon rolled over, annoyed at the racket, coming from his dream slowly and with effort. The ringing would not go away, and he tried to sit up, hampered a bit in his efforts by Jan�s arm across his chest. He lifted it tenderly and placed it to one side, groping in the dark for the telephone. He raised the receiver, still trying to bring himself back from the compelling grip of the dream, from the unknown but frightful dread he had felt on the liner�s deserted deck to the warm security of the darkened bedroom.

�Hello? Yes?�

�Lieutenant Reardon?�

Sleep tried to escape but was checked by the remnants of the dream. Reardon squeezed his eyes tightly shut and then opened them wide, fighting the anesthesia of his almost coma-like sleep. The voice sounded faintly familiar. Probably one of the new men in Communications, Reardon thought sleepily, and yawned deeply, hoping the call was nothing that might drag him from his warm bed, although his subconscious was happy it had brought him from that ghastly liner and that invisible shoreline. Somehow he felt he had been saved from a terrible experience by being wakened. The voice in his ear repeated itself, a bit sharper in tone.

�Lieutenant Reardon!�

�Yeah, this is Reardon...�

�Good. Did I wake you?�

Sleep fled and this time kept its distance. It was a voice Reardon had sworn he would never forget for the rest of his life, and he kicked himself for not having recognized it immediately. He reached up and flicked on the lamp over the bed, glancing at the clock on the nightstand, automatically registering the hour in his mind.

�What do you want?�

There was a dry, humorless chuckle.

�So you�re finally awake and know who you�re speaking to. Good!�

�What do you want?�

�What do I want? That�s rather a stupid statement, you know? I told you before what I want. I want Guillermo Lazaretti! I thought I had made that abundantly clear in my tape, but apparently you people thought I was not serious. Well, believe me, I was! If you��

�How�s Mike Holland?�

The voice continued as if there had been no interruption. It almost sounded like a tape, with the lack of personal inflection. Reardon strained to hear, but the mechanical bumping sound that had been present in the tape was now lacking.

��search the small ledge under the bridge that crosses the Islais Creek Channel, along the south side of the channel, I think you�ll discover something that may convince you I�m really quite serious. Now, listen to me and listen carefully! I expect you people to stop your foolishness and drop Guillermo Lazaretti off at the bridge at two tomorrow morning. My patience, my friend, is not unlimited. If you search the ledge beneath the bridge you�ll know I mean what I say. The instructions for delivering Lazaretti remain the same. Follow them!�

The telephone was hung up abruptly. Reardon instantly clicked the button until he got a dial tone and then quickly dialed. The telephone at the other end rang once and was answered.

�Police Department. Sergeant Silvestre.�

Reardon was pleased that Silvestre was on duty; at least he knew his orders would be carried out quickly and efficiently. He swung his feet over the side of the bed, leaning over the receiver, blanking his mind to what might be found under the bridge.

�Sergeant � this is Lieutenant Reardon. First, I want to put a tracer on a call that was made to my home number just a minute ago. The call came in at 3:04 exactly. Once you�ve put the tracer in motion, call me back.�

�Right,� Silvestre said, and hung up.

Reardon hung up and slid from bed, padding quietly to the chair in one corner, where his clothes were draped. He dragged on his trousers, pulled his turtleneck over his head, and sat down to put on his shoes and socks. He came to his feet, trying to scrape his hair into some semblance of order with his fingers. Jan was watching him quietly from the bed. �Emergency,� he said, and tried to make the word sound innocuous.

Jan glanced at the clock and then looked at him. �You haven�t had much sleep.�

He smiled. �It�s getting to be the story of my life. A policeman�s lot...� He felt it was better for him to say it, than for her; although since Jan had come back there had been surprisingly little talk about the problems of his job. �I�ll try to catch a nap this afternoon.�

Jan sat up. �Time for coffee?�

�I�ll get some down at the Hall. You go back to sleep.� The phone rang and he walked back to the bed to pick it up. �Yes?�

�Sergeant Silvestre, sir. We�ve put the tracer in motion.�

�Good. Sergeant, which patrol car is nearest Third and Army?�

�Just a second, sir.� Reardon waited, picturing Silvestre and the large electronics locations map on the Communications Center wall. �Potrero Five, sir. It�s at General Hospital.�

�In service or out?�

�Just came back in. They delivered a stab victim to emergency; no ambulance available.�

�All right,� Reardon said. �Tell them to get over to Third Street. There�s a small bridge that crosses Islais Creek Channel just a couple of blocks south of Army. Tell them to get under the bridge, on the south side. There�s a ledge there, and there�s supposed to be a package on the ledge. I want it.�

Silvestre, at his end, frowned.

�Do you have any idea what�s in the package, sir? I mean, is it a job for the bomb squad, maybe?�

�No, it isn�t a bomb��

Reardon paused, frowning. Could it be a bomb? Was that what the unknown man meant to use to convince the police he was serious? It was highly doubtful, but why take a chance? Also, what the hell! Let the Bomb Squad be dragged out of bed like everybody else.

�You may be right,� he said. �Send Potrero Five plus the squad. Whatever they find, assuming it isn�t a bomb, have them bring to the Hall. I�ll be there when they get there.� In one way, he thought, it would be far better if it were a bomb, rather than what I�m afraid it might be.

�Yes, sir. Anything else?�

Reardon thought a moment. The kidnapper had definitely sounded sincere, as if he meant business. And, if he had to be wakened, as well as the members of the Bomb Squad, why not make it a full house?

�Sergeant, can you arrange to tie me into a conference call? To both Chief Boynton and Captain Tower?�

�At this hour? You mean, wake them, sir?�

�That�s what I mean.�

�Oh, sure I can do it, sir. Just hang on.�

Reardon waited, wondering if the small bridge bore any resemblance to the bridge he had pictured in his dream, and then put the thought away as voices began to mix on the line.

Sunday � 12:10 P.M.

The night was a huge black box with no bottom, top, nor sides, and Reardon was surprised that he was no longer frightened to be back aboard the mysterious liner. He looked around for Mike Holland, but the deck was deserted. Beneath his feet he could feel the steady pulsing of the ship�s engines. There was something faintly familiar about the even, rhythmic bumping, like a background soundtrack to something he was acquainted with; but he did not dwell on the thought. Far more important exploration lay before him. This was a new life, totally separated from the small bridge over the narrow channel, and the party and the band and his friends there. This was adventure!

He turned from a view of the endless ocean, stretching to the same neutral sky hung like a drape in the background, and found himself looking with pleased excitement into the depths of the ship�s hold, and was surprised and pleased at hearing voices and seeing men and knowing he was not alone on the ship. He leaned over the hatch coaming, peering down. On the deck far below, wreathed in vapors and spotlighted with huge klieg lights, barebacked sweating figures were working swiftly over a large form hidden in the steam and the shadows, and Reardon suddenly realized he was on a whaler, watching the long sharp pole knives stabbing away, expertly slicing the wide strips of blubber from the inert shape.

He suddenly wanted to be with the others, all those fine men, friends, fellow crewmen, brother whalers!�� and then he was down in the hold, bare-chested, sweating in the steam, reaching out eagerly like the others with his long pole knife at the shapeless form on the floor, but then he saw with shock that it was Mike Holland spread-eagled there, and the men were jabbing at his outstretched hand while Mike tried to avoid them by turning and twisting his wrist. Reardon found himself struggling to get through the crowd of men to reach Mike�s side, but the harder he fought, the farther back in the crowd he found himself, until he wasn�t in the ship at all but in a subway train, one of the Bart cars, plunging through a black tunnel, full of people, and he was trying to break his way through to the car ahead, where he knew he�d find Mike, and then just as he managed to get the door between the cars open, he saw that there were no cars ahead, just the endless tunnel, and there on the tracks he thought he saw a man up ahead, tied across the rails, and he could see, as if with zoom vision, one hand spread on the rail the same way Gentry had demonstrated, one finger along the edge, the others at right angles, and he turned to the motorman to make him stop the car, but hands pulled him back from the small door until he tore himself loose with a final wrench and was rolling across a varnished floor, bumping his elbow painfully.

�Man!� Lundahl said admiringly. �When you sleep, you really sleep, don�t you, Lieutenant!�

�Ghaaa!� Reardon sat up groggily, rubbing his elbow, aware of the bare floor beneath him and the pile of gym mats he had been sleeping on, off to one side. If I keep up like this, he thought sourly, I�m going to have to sleep in a crib, with railings all around. He yawned deeply and shook his head violently, trying to work off the horror of the dream enough to enable him to look at Lundahl with a modicum of intelligence.

�What time is it?�

Lundahl checked his watch, then verified it with the big gym clock on one wall. �A little after noon.�

Reardon sat more erect. �What!� He looked around. �Where the hell was that recruit class that works out here at eight o�clock? I figured they�d wake me.�

�It�s Sunday, Lieutenant,� Lundahl said gently. �September fifth.� He smiled faintly. �I�m scared to tell you the year, because you�ll accuse me of swiping your beard and your bowling ball and maybe even your little dog...�

Reardon grunted, unamused, and came to his feet stiffly. He rubbed his face, trying to bring some life to the rubbery, inert skin, and then looked around the deserted gymnasium while he stretched. If there was anything in the world more deserted-looking than a gymnasium with only the smell of old socks for company, he couldn�t imagine what it was. He put the pointless thought away and tried to bring his mind back to business.

�What about the board meeting on Mike Holland?�

�They�re still at it, hot and heavy,� Lundahl said. �They�ve been at it since a little after nine this morning. They just sent out for some sandwiches, so maybe Mike has a chance, at that.�

�Let�s hope.� Reardon yawned. He still felt groggy, still felt the edge of his dream. What he needed was a hot cup of coffee, or a cold glass of beer, or both. He started to dust himself off, and then paused, frowning. �So if nothing�s new, why the rush to wake me up?� Not, he had to admit, that he was unhappy to be rid of his dream; he was sure he didn�t want to be riding on that subway car when it ran over that hand!

�Oh, yeah,� Lundahl said, suddenly remembering. �I didn�t want to wake you up at all, at first, not just for some nut call, but then I figured, what the hell, if it happened to be important, which I�m sure it isn�t, then I�m in the doghouse for not telling you.�

�Whenever you get through with the self-analysis...�

�Yeah. Like I said, it was a nut call for you. Some character calls up on the phone and wants to tell you he was Mo House, the First.�

Reardon stared. �What?�

�That�s it, Lieutenant. Like I said, a nut. He even spelled it. M. O. House, the First. He wanted us to pass it on to you as soon as possible. And that was the entire message.� He frowned as a sudden thought struck him. �Hey! That M.O.�� could that be, like, modus operandi?�

Reardon suddenly laughed. Mo House, the First, eh? The message was clear enough, now; Porky Frank wanted to meet him at Marty�s Oyster House at one o�clock. The wild code he and Porky employed from time to time may have had something to do with security at one time, but that time had long passed. Now the code was reinvented constantly, used as a form of one-upmanship on the part of the two, and Reardon had to give Porky credit for brevity with this one, if nothing else.

Lundahl was watching him closely. �It didn�t mean modus operandi, huh, Lieutenant? And it wasn�t a nut call, either, was it?�

�Just a code,� Reardon said, coming back to life from his nap. �It was my broker telling me that Mohouses are going up on the first.� He glanced over his shoulder and dropped his voice. �Don�t blab it all over the place. We don�t want it to get around.�

Lundahl looked hurt. �You mean, if you wanted me to know what it was all about, you�d tell me, right?�

�Right,� Reardon said, pleased with Lundahl�s ready intelligence, and led the way from the gymnasium, not unhappy to leave his dream behind in the large vaulted room, keeping company with the dust and the odor of stale socks.

Monday � 8:20 A.M.

There were other men in Chief Boynton�s office, many of them, but from the charged atmosphere it was plain that Lieutenant Anton Zelinski, in charge of Detention, and Patrolman Charles Travers, the night guard of the main cell block, considered themselves practically alone. Reardon thought that Zelinski�s jaw looked hard enough to strike fire off of with flint, and if Travers was at all intimidated by his superior�s belligerent appearance he didn�t show it.

�Goddamn it, Lieutenant!� Travers was saying with what he obviously considered justifiable resentment, �a guy comes walking in with a paper, what am I supposed to do?�

�You should use your head, goddamn it!�

�Jeez, thanks!�

�Jeez, thanks, yourself! How many times somebody comes up to you at one o�clock in the morning with a prisoner release?� Zelinski asked with withering scorn. �Fifteen?�

�So maybe it was the first time,� Travers admitted without backing down one inch. �So there�s got to be a first time for everything, don�t they?� He raised a thick finger in the lieutenant�s face. �You ain�t saying it wasn�t a proper release form, you notice? You ain�t saying that.�

�So did you even bother to see whose John Hancock was on the release?� Zelinski demanded. �Or was that too complicated for you?�

Travers looked at the ceiling in supplication, and then brought his hot blue eyes back to the lieutenant�s angry red face.

�No, I didn�t bother to send the signature down to the lab if that�s what you mean. I saw it was signed, that�s enough. I honestly don�t know who signs releases; Charley Finley, for all I know. Anyways, lots of judges sign releases, and I don�t know all their signatures. This one was just a big scrawl, anyways. You couldn�t hardly read it, even.�

�My God!� Zelinski struck his head with exaggerated dramatics. �And the fact that a guy hands you a release form with a signature you can�t even read � that don�t mean a thing to you?�

�Jeez, Lieutenant, I can�t even read your signature!�

�Except you know damn well I don�t sign release forms for prisoners!�

Travers almost wailed in frustration.

�Damn it, Lieutenant, you ain�t being fair! A cop � a sergeant I know is a cop � comes to me with a proper release form like I�ve seen hundreds of times, saying this Lazaretti is being transferred from the Hall to Soledad, and this sergeant I know is a cop tells me he�s been assigned to accompany the prisoner.� He appealed to the faces around him. �What in hell am I supposed to do? Refuse to honor a release? Tell the sergeant to go to hell?� He turned back to Zelinski. �Call you up at one o�clock in the morning and get reamed out for bothering you for nothing? Jeez, Lieutenant, try to see it from my angle!�

�I�ll see it from your angle! I�ll��

Boynton had had enough. If he had previously thought any useful information might come out of the confrontation, he was pretty well convinced by now that it wouldn�t. He banged on the table, breaking up the t�te-�-t�te.

�We�re not getting anywhere,� he said heavily. �Let�s take it over again from the top.� He swiveled about, looking at Captain Tower stonily. �As I understand it, Captain, your Sergeant Dondero went up to the cell blocks last night with a falsified release form and took a prisoner from custody. A prisoner, incidentally, that the board had specifically decided was not to be released. And a few hours later that prisoner, with every evidence of having been extensively tortured, is found dead. And now your Sergeant Dondero can�t be located. Is that the case?�

Tower clenched his jaw. �Yes, sir.� He was unhappy and both looked and sounded it. It was the first time since he had taken over Homicide that anything like this had happened, and in his mind he promised all subordinates silently and grimly that it would be the last. �We�ve checked everywhere he might be, but so far we�ve been unable to locate him. We�ve put an all-points out on the man, and we have a watch being kept on his apartment as well as on most of his known hangouts, in case he shows.� Tower hesitated a moment and then went on, although he knew he was courting trouble. �Sir, do we have to give this story to the papers?�

Boynton�s expression turned to rock.

�What are you suggesting? A cover-up for a cop? Then we�d really be in the��

�No, that isn�t it��

�Then what the devil is it?� Chief Boynton studied the head of Homicide blackly. �And are you also trying to tell me the newspapers haven�t got the story yet?�

�They�ve got the story about the body being found,� Tower said, �but as far as they know, it�s an unknown. They don�t have his identity so far, and they don�t know he was a prisoner here. They also don�t know about the torture inflicted on the body, nor that a police officer is involved. Maybe if we��

Boynton exploded. �Damn it, don�t give me any �maybes�! Maybe if more of our men were properly motivated, things like this wouldn�t happen! And there�s going to be no cover-up for this Dondero, I assure you of that!�

�What I�m trying to say,� Tower said stubbornly, �is that it seems to me we ought to sit on as much of the story as we can until we get our hands on Dondero and hear his side��

Zelinski snorted. He was still irritated at having the security of his detention cells violated.

�His side! What side? Hell, he was up there yesterday during the day and he had Lazaretti in the �conference room� and beat the living crap out of him there.� He jerked a contemptuous thumb. �Reardon was with him. Ask him.�

All eyes swung to the lieutenant.

�Don was just trying to get information from the man, to help locate Pop Holland,� he said quietly. �He was told to go up there for that purpose. It wasn�t his own idea.�

�Was he also told to beat the guy?� Zelinski asked with exaggerated politeness. �I heard about that interrogation session; my man had to take Lazaretti back to his cell. But Dondero couldn�t do a proper job on Lazaretti inside the Hall, so he sneaks the guy outside at night and gives him the works. What side of what story can he have? That he had the tough luck to have Lazaretti die on him?�

�You�re crazy!� Reardon promised himself to take Zelinski on in the next interdepartmental boxing matches and he meant to hammer on that thick skull until some sense dribbled in through the cracks. �Dondero isn�t that kind of a cop!�

�I know,� Zelinski said with exaggerated sympathy. �I know. He�s also not the kind of cop to fake a release form, either. He�s just a good, clean, one hundred per cent All-American boy with a heart of purest gold.� He tried to look apologetic. �I�d stand at attention in his honor, only my feet hurt.�

�You make a great judge-and-jury combination,� Reardon said angrily. �I�m surprised Dondero didn�t leave a full confession along with that fake release form; then we could put out a shoot-on-sight order and get it over with!�

Boynton�s fist bounced off his desk blotter.

�All right!� He looked at Tower and then at the rest of the men, one by one. �All right,� he repeated in a quieter tone. �There�ll be no cover-up, I assure you, but we�ll keep this matter among ourselves for the time being. No leaks to newspapermen, or anybody else, or somebody�s head will be on the block along with Dondero�s! And I want that Sergeant Dondero! I want him bad! I hate a bad cop! We�ll get him, and we�ll get his side of the story, and he�ll be called upon to answer charges to the department as well as all criminal charges.� He looked around the room for one last time. �All right, that�s it! Get this Dondero!�

Sure, Reardon thought sourly as he filed from the room with the rest; get this Dondero. Whatever happened to the original scenario, he wondered � get Pop Holland?

Tuesday � 1:05 A.M.

Fog was beginning to sweep up from the bay as Reardon bumped down the rutted lane leading from the main road to the jetty and the dock mooring Dondero�s small fisherman; a light drizzle was attempting to dissipate the mist and managed only to compound the general unpleasantness of the night. Reardon kicked himself for having left both umbrella and raincoat at home, pulled the car around to face the way he had come in, and turned off the ignition. He flicked the lights to the parking position, stared out at the rain for a moment, and then ducked from the car with his bundle, holding it over his head for as much protection as possible. He made his way down the precarious length of the dilapidated slippery dock, almost going into the water several times, and finally reached his goal, cursing loud, long, and fluently. As if in response, the hatchway was opened and light angled up from below, losing itself at once in the sodden night.

�About goddamn time!� Reardon muttered savagely under his breath, and dropped to the pitching deck of the small fishing boat, feeling it heel under his weight.

Dondero was watching him with a smile. �I heard you give the password. Advance, friend. Hey, you got the stuff!� His smile faded. �It isn�t wrapped. It�ll be all wet.�

�Yeah.� Reardon climbed down the narrow companionway after Dondero, happy to be out of the rain, but still not overjoyed to be involved in the idiotic scheme at all. He tossed the damp bundle onto one of the two bunks that lined the outer bulkheads of the small cabin, walked over to the head and helped himself to a towel, vigorously wiping his head with it. �You�ll probably be wetter after tonight if you go through with this ridiculous idea,� he said darkly. �Probably a lot wetter,� he added ominously, �when we fish you out of the bay.�

�You�re just trying to make me feel good,� Dondero said. He was unfolding the bundle. �You�re just mad because you didn�t think of the idea yourself.� He shook out a wrinkled dirty white shirt that had been at the bundle�s core and slipped it on over his undershirt, buttoning it up to the collar. He considered himself in the mirror. �I�ve got a picture of my great-grandfather taken somewhere in the Abruzzi when he was a young man, and he wasn�t wearing a tie, either. Now I know where I get my good looks.�

He kicked off his sneakers, slipped out of his dungarees, and pulled on the trousers of his black silk suit. He started to bring up the zipper and suddenly cringed.

Reardon looked at the other�s grimace unsympathetically. �What�s the matter? Catch yourself?�

�No, they�re wet! Why the hell didn�t you at least leave the pants on the inside?� He pulled on the jacket and studied himself in the mirror. He turned to Reardon for approbation. �How do I look?�

�Like your great-grandfather. All ready to be laid out.� Reardon bent to a small cabinet beneath the cabin�s desk, brought out a bottle of brandy, and lifted a glass from one of the gimbal-type holders there. He straightened up, poured himself a generous drink, and took it down in one gulp. He gasped and stared at the bottle. �Good God! Where did you get this stuff? What is it? Fermented bay water?�

�You have no taste,� Dondero said with the air of a connoisseur. He bent down, brought up another glass, and reached for the bottle, but Reardon took the glass from his hand, setting it down on the desk.

�Are you intent on committing suicide? He�d smell the liquor on your breath. We don�t give prisoners brandy before releasing them, and we don�t stop at bars with them on the way to trading them for sergeants. It isn�t regulations.� He looked at the bottle and wrinkled his nose. �Anyway, we don�t give prisoners this kind of brandy, or they�d have us up on cruelty charges.�

�If you hate it so much, quit polishing it off,� Dondero said. He dropped down on one of the bunks and slid into his shoes, reaching down to tie them. He straightened up and looked at his watch. �How much time before we have to leave?�

�About five minutes,� Reardon said. �And give me that watch. We also don�t furnish prisoners with timepieces before trading them for sergeants; anyway, not Timex watches, made in America.�

�I forgot. Anyway, they probably sell Timex in Italy, too, or Patrone could have bought it here. If I really wanted to take the part of an Italian visitor, I ought to be wearing about six of them.� But he still took off the watch and handed it to Reardon, and then stared down at his hands. Then he stood up and studied himself in the mirror again. �Not bad. I hope.� He glanced over his shoulder. �Incidentally, how did you get the stuff out of the apartment?�

�Johnny Merchant was watching the place. I told him I was going to shake the joint down. Since we had no instructions to break in, and since we had no warrant � and since Johnny is a smart cop � he went around the corner for a beer while I went through the closets.� Reardon shrugged. �The stuff was in my car, stuffed down behind the seat, when he came back.�

Dondero�s preoccupation momentarily took a back seat to his admiration.

�You know,� he said, �you�d make a great criminal, James. Remind me not to leave any valuables around the apartment from now on.� He started to look at his wristwatch and then remembered he didn�t have it. �Hey, let�s get going, huh?�

�If you insist,� Reardon said, and poured himself one for the road. Dondero was getting a bit up-tight sitting around, and if he was going through with his idiotic scheme, at least he shouldn�t be allowed to get overly worked up ahead of time. Reardon slugged the drink down, grimaced again at the taste, and went to the companionway ladder. �Up we go.�

Dondero grunted and followed. He paused long enough to lock the hatchway cover and then made his way behind Reardon down the length of the convoluted dock to the jetty. Reardon splashed through the puddles to the Charger, ducked inside hastily, and leaned over to unlock the opposite door. Dondero clambered inside, slammed the door shut behind him, and wiped water from his face.

�And I�m going to stand out on an open bridge in this weather waiting for somebody to pick me up?�

�As you�ve been so fond of saying � this was your bright idea.�

�Yeah. I got to be crazy, huh? What a night!� He tried to peer through the window and gave up. �Man, I don�t care if this guy�s picking me up in a boat, or a car, or a helicopter � I hope whatever it is has a roof, is all.�

Reardon looked at him. �You can still change your mind.�

�Change it for what?�

Reardon studied the set face a moment and then started the engine. Dondero�s mind was made up, and it was apparent in the hard jaw and narrowed eyes. Reardon sighed and put up the headlights; he started the windshield wipers and defroster, and started to drive down the muddy lane toward the main road. He bumped over the curb into the highway, checked in both directions for traffic, and started the long drive toward the city, leaning back and trying to wriggle into a more comfortable position in his wet clothes.

�Incidentally, I saw Patrone this evening,� he said conversationally.

�Oh?� Dondero was looking at him expectantly.

�He�s a little bigger than Lazaretti, but not all that much. A little smaller than you.�

�And needs a shave like me, I hope,� Dondero said with a grin, and rubbed a hand over his own stubble.

�And needs a shave like you do, and like Lazaretti did,� Reardon said. His eyes were steady on the deserted, rainy road; his hands steady on the wheel. �And you were right. He speaks English.�

�I�m always right��

�Except when you get bright ideas. Anyway, my guess is when he was pretending not to speak English, it was probably just to be hard-nosed with Zelinski.� He smiled. �Which almost puts me on his side.�

�Me, too.�

�He tried to pull the same routine on me, only before I even saw him I took the trouble to call Rome and talk to some police captain there. He checked for me, and Patrone�s got a sheet. Nothing major; nothing to stop him from getting and holding a passport. Small-time stuff. He used to make his living escorting visiting Americans around Rome � which is difficult if you don�t speak English � and every now and then, according to the cops there, servicing some of the lonely American ladies��

�Hey, hey!� Dondero said. �Do you suppose this character wants Patrone out of jail to service a lonely lady?�

�You can hope so, anyway,� Reardon said dryly. �At any rate, the cops there have a pretty good idea Patrone used to augment his income by picking up tips from pocketbooks on bedroom dressers without his patroness of the day knowing she was being so generous. Only one really raised a stink, but she had no proof as to how much she had in her purse when she went to bed, so Patrone walked out free and clear.�

�Our boy�s a bum,� Dondero said disappointedly. �A small-time bum.�

�Who did you hope you were impersonating?� Reardon glanced across the car. �The head of the Italian CIA?�

�No, but a plain bum��

�Well,� Reardon said, �maybe he�s a bum, but he was a bum smart enough to con some American ladies.�

�What�s that mean? Look at how many American ladies you�ve conned. Hey!� Dondero suddenly said, struck by another of his brilliant ideas. �Maybe that�s it! Maybe this guy who�s holding Pop, maybe Patrone conned his wife, or his girl friend. Maybe he took her to bed��

�And for this, this guy goes to the trouble of kidnapping a policeman � and mutilating him � and killing a second man?�

�Well,� Dondero said, still intrigued by the idea, �you know how some guys are about their dames, and about revenge...�

Through the rain and the darkness a glow against the sky ahead marked the location of the San Francisco International Airport. Reardon glanced at his watch in the light from the dashboard. Still ample time. He went back to Dondero�s statement.

�I only know how I am about revenge,� he said, wondering if what he was saying was accurate or only an answer to Dondero�s presentation. �If I wanted revenge on some street guide in Rome, I think I�d take a plane to Rome and look up this street guide, and do something about it. I doubt if I�d sit in San Francisco, here, and wait for the man to conveniently show up. He just might not do it.�

�Well, maybe not,� Dondero said grudgingly. He hated to see a good theory go down the drain, especially one of his own. �Maybe we�ll know more about it after tonight.�

�Yes,� Reardon said quietly. �I certainly hope to God we do!�

Dondero seemed to find something significant in Reardon�s tone. He frowned.

�I don�t like the way you said that, Jim.�

�You don�t like the way I said what?� Reardon looked hurt. �All I said was, �I hope we will.� What�s wrong with that?�

�Nothing�s wrong with that,� Dondero said quietly, �only that�s not exactly what you said. To me, it sounded like we were back on the same argument we had this afternoon. It sounded like you were right back with some screwy idea of trying to follow me tonight.�

�Who, me?�

�Yeah!� Dondero said, now convinced. �And when you give me that �Who, me?� routine, I�m more convinced than ever.� He glared across the darkened interior of the car. �Look, you wouldn�t even let me slide a beeper down my pants like I wanted��

�If they found it on you,� Reardon said flatly, �you�d be dead in five minutes. And Pop, too.�

�And if they find Lieutenant James Reardon, my bosom buddy � who they have demonstrated they know inside and out � on my tail, what then? What rebate do I get on my insurance premium then, pal?� He shook his head violently. �No, damn it! If you want to play Lone Ranger, do it on somebody else�s horse! Drop me off, like the man wants, and then go about your business. Go to a movie, or go home and take a cold shower, but don�t � please!�� don�t try and be cute and follow me.� His voice became plaintive. �Damn it, Jim, I thought we went all over that this afternoon!�

Either the fog was getting thicker or the rain more dense, or South San Francisco was economizing on its electricity bill, Reardon thought, because the blackness continued to stretch on either side of the highway. It was like driving through an endless tunnel. The kidnapper, whoever he was, was luckier than he deserved to be, to get weather like this tonight! Or maybe not...

�That was this afternoon,� Reardon said slowly. �I�ve been thinking � on a night like this I could follow you and never be seen.� He checked his watch in the light from the dashboard and nodded. He gestured with one hand toward his two-way radio. �As a matter of fact, we could even be a few minutes late and I could probably raise Stan, or Ferguson � they�re both on nights; it wouldn�t take long � and we could cover you like a tent. They could cover Third Street from each side, down a side street nobody could see, and I could even probably get the Harbor Patrol to have a boat around, in case they pick you up that way��

�No!�

�They�ve got these night binoculars that cut right through this garbage weather��

�No! Damn it, how many times do I have to say it? NO!� Dondero changed his tone, turning to pleading. �Jim, please. Don�t help me. Don�t even try to help me. Eighty-seven and a half per cent of all the trouble in this world comes from people trying to help other people. That�s a reliable statistic.�

�That�s a great attitude for a cop.�

�At the moment I�m not a cop. I�m an Italian fugitive named Patrone who just got let out of jail for reasons he can�t fathom, and if you don�t blow as soon as you drop me off, I�ll probably end up being a dead Italian fugitive named Patrone! Who still won�t know why he�s being sprung...�

�Nobody followed Lazaretti,� Reardon pointed out, �and look where he is.�

�I�m not Lazaretti; I�m Patrone. And nobody followed Pop Holland, and look where he is,� Dondero said stubbornly. �Besides, Lazaretti didn�t know the answers the man wanted.�

�And you do?�

�I�m a better bluffer,� Dondero said aggressively, and lapsed into silence.

Reardon sighed and appeared to concede. The city had mysteriously sprung up about them as they had driven, and they were approaching the intersection of Route 101 with Bayshore, and the turnoff to Third Street; he wanted to concentrate all his attention on the scene. Somewhere off to his right, he knew, was an empty, deserted Candlestick Park, but all he could see when he glanced in that direction was a wall of wet mist.

He slowed down and turned into the Third Street exit. A careening automobile swung past him, startling him by its sudden appearance, drenching the Charger with water and then disappearing into the night, its taillight fading quickly in the fog and rain. It made Reardon realize how easily one could allow the night to hide one, if one was courageous enough to drive without lights of any kind. True, one might run over an embankment, or into a telephone pole, but at least he would do it invisibly. He glanced into the rear-view mirror, saw nothing but mist, and brought his attention back to the roadway.

Through the fog the faint outlines of small houses crowding the side streets in working-class land economy could barely be seen, and then they were lost to sight as the fog swirled up. The lampposts edged by, one by one, until there, ahead, the bridge over the channel could suddenly be seen under a pair of overhead hooded lamps, swinging in the wind and rain. Reardon started to slow down when he thought of something.

�Don, what if he doesn�t show up?�

�Then I�ll catch my death of cold and they won�t have to fire me off the force,� Dondero said with a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. He stared through the blurred windshield and his voice turned bitter. �Why in hell wasn�t Patrone wearing a raincoat when he was picked up?� He saw the bridge ahead and his voice tightened a bit despite himself. �All right, here we are. Stop the car and heave me out like the man would expect a good cop to do.�

Reardon obediently brought the car to a halt in the center of the bridge, reached across Dondero�s body, and opened the door. His hand appeared to be aiding Dondero in descending, but in reality he was squeezing the other man�s arm tightly for good luck. �Take care,� he said under his breath. �Get lost,� Dondero replied, equally quietly, and then the door was closing behind him and Reardon was driving off into the darkness of the night, his wheels spraying water on either side.

He drove slowly, as a man would in weather like this, his eyes searching the darkness of the street�s shoulder for any sign of an occupied car, or an approaching vehicle which might be coming to pick Dondero up, but there was nothing for him to see, and his rear-view mirror revealed nothing in that downpour. It was probably a boat, he thought, as they had considered. He thought again of calling the Harbor Patrol, and then decided against it. It was one thing for him to take on the responsibility of following Dondero, if the man coming for him was coming by road, but it was quite another thing to let the responsibility fall into other hands. Other hands might, without meaning to, do something sufficiently suspicious to lead to harm for Dondero. The same held true of Ferguson, or Stan Lundahl, or any of the others. This was something he�d have to do himself, and he knew he had known it ever since he had agreed to the scheme.

He came to Army and passed it without diminishing his speed. He would swing around at the next block, assuming he didn�t see anything in the meantime, and start back slowly; then pull off at the small road just this side of the bridge, his lights out. Anyone coming for Don would certainly not be coming from that direction, not down a dead-end street, and he should be able to pick them up and follow them, using their taillights for a guide.

He turned into the next street, backed out swiftly, and started back down Third Street at the same even speed, thinking. In a way, Dondero was right; to follow could easily lead to disaster. Still, not to follow was unthinkable. The entire idea was what was basically wrong. Even as the thought came, another followed, one he knew to be correct and certain. The thing to do was not to follow anyone, and not to have anyone to follow. The proper thing to do was to get back to the bridge as soon as possible, pick Don up if he had to pull him into the car by his ears, and let the brains at the Hall decide what was really the right thing to do after that!

His mind made up, and satisfied that he had come to the right decision, even though tardily, he stepped on the gas, the car swaying along, shoving water from under the tires in steady spurts. He glanced at his watch and then instantly back to the road, surprised he hadn�t lost control even in that split second. It was still a minute or two before two o�clock; they wouldn�t have come for Don yet. He must have been insane ever to let Don talk him into the stupid idea in the first place.

No car had passed in either direction since he had swung around; in fact, he had seen no car at all on the road since that crazy character off Route 101. And they would never attempt using a boat on the bay in that weather; the best bay captain in the world would be docked tonight, and not taking any chance in that garbage of being sunk by a tug, or another of those hooting monsters out there. As a matter of fact, the chances were the deep-voiced sardonic bastard would simply forget the whole thing on a night like this. He�d probably postpone it until the following night, and probably manage a message, one way or another, to that effect once everyone had gotten soaked to the skin! What a system!

He crossed Army, his speed dangerously high, his eyes alert for any other car, but there were none. The streetlamps fled past; the overhead swinging arcs making the entrance to the small bridge appeared suddenly out of the dark. He slowed down, his eyes searching the gloom for Dondero, a smile quirking his lips at the thought of the half-drowned detective. It would serve him right, getting bright ideas!

His headlights rose as he hit the bridge, his foot pressing insistently on the brake; then they dipped, sweeping the entire expanse.

The bridge was empty. Dondero was gone.

Tuesday � 1:58 A.M.

Dondero turned his collar up against the rain and watched the taillights of Reardon�s Charger disappear in the fog and darkness in the direction of the Embarcadero and the center of the city. He tried to put aside any thought of his discomfort, concentrating instead on what a real fugitive would do, Italian or otherwise, if the police � for mysterious reasons of their own, not explained to a prisoner � took him to some unfamiliar place on a miserable night like this, and kicked him out of the car. Well, his first thought, quite naturally, would be to expect a gun blast to cut him down, and when this didn�t occur he would probably take the next second or two thanking his saints he hadn�t been brought here to be assassinated, in the manner of some cops in some countries.

After that, the fugitive would probably waste another second wondering why, then, he had been taken there at all. And after that, there is no doubt at all as to what he would do: he would get out of there as fast as he could, and leave the mystery of his release to be explained another time.

He would not know that a person was scheduled to meet him; he most probably would also not know of Lazaretti�s death � although the prison telegraph system was remarkable, and a lot better than Western Union, as what wasn�t; so he would merely assume his release was either an administrative error, or that some unknown friend had greased a few palms. But after spending a maximum of five seconds cerebrating the above, he�d get the hell out of there.

With that final conclusion reached in even less than five seconds, Dondero took one swift look about him and then started off in the direction Reardon�s car had taken. He had taken exactly one squishy step when he realized he was not alone.

�Hold it!�

There was something about the authority of the voice which, though the words were not delivered in overly loud tones, sounded familiar to him as a cop, and would even have been recognizable to him in his role of Italian fugitive. It was the authority of someone with a weapon to back up that authority, and even if Patrone hadn�t spoken English, he would have known what was required of him, just from the tone. Dondero stopped abruptly, waiting, staring in the direction he thought the voice had come from. Then, almost to his relief, he saw the small shape near one corner of the bridge; as his eyes adjusted to the dark he saw that it was a small man with a very large hat and a raincoat that dropped almost to the ground. In that light he almost looked like a large tree stump on which someone had deposited a large hat. Dondero eyed the hat enviously; it was almost as good as an umbrella. He had brought his hands up almost automatically at the command; now he was about to drop them when he saw, extending from the tree stump, a large revolver, apparently taken from beneath the raincoat. Dondero, having been expecting it, was not surprised.

�Over here.�

Dondero shrugged. He had wanted to be picked up, so why be coy about it? Anyway, if he remained where he was very long, he figured the chances were he�d drown. He walked toward the small figure, but as he approached it, it seemed to recede; then he saw that the small man had merely stepped back and was now walking down a narrow path that paralleled the channel in the direction of the bay, looking back over his shoulder with his revolver ever ready.

�Follow me, but not too close.�

Dondero followed along. He stumbled over something, realized at the last moment that it was a railroad rail, and was more careful in crossing its companion. They were in a weed-filled area, with the grit of cinders beneath their feet, walking past empty boxcars; what little could be discerned of them in the darkness indicated they had been abandoned years before. Dondero suddenly realized it was a spur of the S.P.R.R. he had thought torn out years before; he was going to have to keep up on his geography of the city if he was going to know where he was being kidnapped in the future, because he would have sworn that there was nothing but empty fields between Third and the bay in this area.

He slogged on, the cinders underfoot giving way to mud, the wet weeds slapping at his thighs, soaking him to the skin. Ahead of him the little man moved steadily, the gun held in readiness. A fourth shadowed boxcar was passed when he noticed the little man had stopped and was motioning him forward with the gun.

�Over here.�

There was a car parked there, almost invisible, paralleling a boxcar and almost touching it. In that darkness and fog it would be well out of sight of anyone on Third Street, Dondero realized, and then thought it would probably be equally invisible from Third Street on a bright, sunny, day. He approached the car, his main consideration being that it represented shelter from the weather, but when he reached for the door handle, he felt the gun jabbed into his ribs. He winced.

�Hey! What that for?�

�Lean against the car.�

�All you got to do is ask.� Dondero hoped his harsh gutteral was an approximation of Patrone�s voice; he also hoped his captor was as unfamiliar as he was with the extent of English possessed by street guides in Rome. Still, being searched was only to be expected, although what they thought the police allowed prisoners to carry with them when being traded would make interesting conjecture. Well, he had on him what Lazaretti had on him when he had dropped the other man off at the bridge the night before, and that was nothing. He leaned against the car, feet apart, as if he were quite accustomed to both the position and to being searched. A small hand fanned him expertly; then the small man stepped back.

�Okay. Inside.�

Dondero climbed in, pleased finally to be out of the terrible weather. The door across from him opened and the small man got in, preceded by the raised gun. He held the gun on Dondero steadily while he closed the door and fumbled in one pocket of the raincoat, producing a pair of handcuffs.

�Slip these through the armrest and cuff yourself.�

�I don� unnerstand.� Dondero prayed to his ancestors for forgiveness for his stage-Italian accent. He glowered at the little man. �Who you? Why dose cops, dey take me out of jail and put me down out dere in all dat rain, huh? What goes on, huh? What you want from me? Who are you?� Listening to himself, Dondero thought he sounded more like a stage-French Canadian, rather than an Italian, and could only hope the little man was no expert in linguistics.

�I�m a friend,� the little man said quietly, �just as long as you behave yourself and do what you�re told. Now, put the cuffs through the door handle and cuff yourself, and don�t pretend you don�t know what I�m talking about, because if I�ve got to translate any more, I�d just as soon shoot you. Not kill you, friend, because George wouldn�t like that; just shoot you where you won�t be cantankerous. Now, do what I told you.�

�I don��� Dondero suddenly decided the little man meant what he said, and getting shot, at least this early in the game, wasn�t part of his brilliant scheme. He put the cuffs through the heavy handle of the door and with some maneuvering managed to click them about his wrists. The little man reached over with his free hand to check them, and then moved back, satisfied. He slid the gun onto a small tray built to the left of the steering wheel beneath the dash, and then leaned back, more relieved. Dondero stared at him.

�Okay, I�m cuffed. Now, what�s all this? Who are you?�

�I said, a friend, didn�t I? We got you out of the slammer, didn�t we?�

�Slammer?�

�The clink, the jug. Jail,� the little man said, and muttered, �Good God!� under his breath. He thought the dummy was supposed to speak English!

�Sure,� Dondero said suspiciously. �For why?�

The little man looked at him with amusement. �You wouldn�t kid me, would you, buster?�

�I don� understand.�

�If you don�t, buster, then you�re even dumber than you look.� His amused look turned into a grin. �And if you�re as dumb as you sound, old George�ll smarten you up. He�s got a talent for that.�

�What you mean? Who is dis ol� George?�

�I said, don�t worry.� The little man seemed to realize he was talking too much and lapsed into silence.

Dondero was just getting warmed up. �Why we sittin� here? We waitin� for somebody?�

�We ain�t waiting for nobody. We�re just waiting.�

�Why?�

�Because I feel like waiting,� the small man said shortly, and added almost grudgingly, �Anyway, it won�t be for much longer.�

There was a brief silence, then Dondero said, �Hungry.�

He was proud of the conversational change of direction, although he had no notion as to what had suddenly made him say it. The fact was that at the moment he was sure he couldn�t have eaten a thing, although a drink would certainly have been gratefully accepted. But he doubted the little man had a drink in the car, or would offer him one if he had it.

The little man frowned in his direction. �What?�

�Hungry. Affamato.�

�What the hell � didn�t they feed you in the joint?�

�Food rifuiti.� Dondero made an expressive grimace. The little man didn�t need to understand Italian to get the meaning.

�Well, I doubt we got much in the place, and we certainly ain�t stopping at no McDonalds,� the little man said, and looked at his wristwatch. He nodded; they were on schedule. �Okay, Pisano, we�re on our way. It ought to be clear by now.� He considered Dondero thoughtfully and then said, �Look, I�m going to blindfold you. Those are orders, so don�t blame me. And don�t try to butt me with your dome � guy did that to me once, almost bust my nose.�

He picked an elastic ski band from the all-purpose tray beneath the dashboard and slipped it over Dondero�s head, adjusting it so the wide portion covered the eyes. Satisfied with his handiwork, he slid back under the wheel, inserted the ignition key, and twisted it. A powerful and nearly silent motor sprang to life beneath them, rumbling quietly. The little man listened to it with evident pride for several moments, and then eased the car from its position beside the boxcar, swaying over the rough terrain until he bumped gently over a curb into a street. To Dondero�s surprise they turned to the right, toward the bay, rather than to the left in the direction of Third Street; for a moment he wondered if they were to be picked up at some small dock and transported by water, after all, but the detour was only temporary, and then they turned again, heading north once more. One more turn and the car gathered speed as it crossed what Dondero judged to be Third Street in a rush, far from the bridge, and well north of Army. If Reardon was parked anywhere near the bridge, still wondering where Dondero had disappeared to, the blindfolded man thought, he was apt to wait there for a long time.

Beneath the lightly itching ski mask, Dondero tried to keep track of their location by counting dips at each intersection, trying to picture a map of the area in his mind and then place them upon it, as the car twisted and turned, but he soon gave it up. According to his calculations, they should have been halfway to Oakland, somewhere in the middle of the bay. In any event, he assumed he would know where they were when they stopped and the ski band was removed; in the meantime it was reassuring to think that if they had blindfolded him, they obviously had no immediate plans for killing him, since what difference would it make what he saw if he were going to end up in the bay in any case? On the other hand, he suddenly realized, the man they weren�t planning on killing was an Italian fugitive named Patrone with some valuable answers, and not an upright, hard-working, well-intentioned � if overly nosey � cop, who could well be into something a trifle over his head.

The little man drove with the assured knowledge of both his vehicle and the area. Dondero leaned his head against the cold glass, listening to the rhythmic clicking of the windshield wipers, and tried to blank his mind to whatever he would face when they arrived wherever they were going. Sufficient unto the day, or the night, he thought, and would have liked nothing better than to take a brief nap, but the constant braking and acceleration for the many corners made that impossible. He knew he should be thinking like mad, except he couldn�t think of anything at the moment to think about. He bit back a yawn and waited.

They drove in this fashion for what Dondero judged to be approximately half an hour before he felt the car being braked. It halted, purring contentedly, and he heard the car door open and felt the car list slightly as the little man descended. There was a brief pause and then the screeching sound of a large motorized garage door being raised. Then the little man was back and they were driving inside a building. The motor revved once in a powerful roar; the garage door screeched its way to closing, and then there was silence. A small hand touched his wrist, one cuff was unlocked, and then relocked free of the hampering armrest. The small hand touched his forehead and the ski band was removed.

He looked up and saw a large man with a heavy beard studying him expressionlessly through the wet glass of the car window. Well, he thought, in for a nickel, in for a buck; he pushed down on the door handle with his handcuffed wrists, shoved the door open, and stepped from the car, raising himself to his full height, but the other man was still looking down on him from a much greater height.

�Hello, Patrone.�

What attitude to take? Well, his mother always taught him that nobody ever got ahead in this world by being overly subservient, and even though any time he tried to disobey one of her orders he got himself a fat ear, it still struck him as being a basically proper teaching. He therefore paid no attention to the greeting but looked around coolly, noting that he was in what seemed to be the loading area of a factory of some sort. He tried to picture what part of the city was most apt to provide factory buildings, but dropped it as being highly unimportant. Instead he chose to bring his gaze back to the man facing him; he made his voice harsh.

�Okay, what in hell�s all this about?�

If the little man who had driven the car noted any marked improvement in his captive�s English, he made no mention of it, but remained beside the automobile, as if waiting. The big man with the beard smiled genially.

�Look, Patrone � Vito � we�re not enemies; not really. We�re on the same side, or we can be if you have any intelligence. You came over to this country to � but we can talk more comfortably upstairs.�

Dondero masked his disappointment. Old hair-face might have waited until he got through saying exactly why Patrone had come to this country before he became so hospitable! He held a poker face, however, and followed the bearded man up a small flight of steps to the loading dock itself, and then along the platform to a freight elevator in one corner. The little man stayed behind with the car.

The elevator rose creakily in the silence and the gloom. Dondero wondered exactly what kind of place he was in; he knew it was a factory or a warehouse of some sort, but the nature of the operation was a mystery; the elevator doors effectively hid any sight of the floors they were passing. The cab stopped at the top floor and the two men got off. The bearded man opened a door set in a partition across a narrow corridor, and Dondero entered. He was not at all surprised to find that Pop Holland was not present. His analysis for all the reasons the kidnapper would keep the two apart, apparently, was sound. He looked about.

A comfortable sofa graced one wall of the large room, flanked on either side by small end tables. Colorful pictures were spaced tastefully on the walls, a wide desk occupied one corner of the room with a utility bar behind it; venetian blinds had been tilted as if to keep out light, but heavy closed shutters could be seen behind them at the edges.

The large man closed the door behind him, walked over and seated himself behind the desk, and waved a hand hospitably for Dondero to take a seat. Dondero managed to drag up an upholstered chair with his manacled hands and dropped into it. The bearded man lit a cigar, offered one to Dondero; Dondero shook his head and raised his manacles as if in explanation for his refusal. The bearded man appeared not to notice the gesture, but leaned back, puffing smoke, stroking his beard gently with his free hand.

�All right, Patrone � Vito � let�s get down to business.�

�I got no business with you,� Dondero said, and tried to sound disdainful. He had no clue as to what he was talking about, but he did know he was at least stretching out an interview that could well end up uncomfortably for himself. He thought of Scheherazade and the thousand nights, and forced himself not to smile. �I got no business with anyone handles me like you handle me.� He raised the manacles again.

The large man shrugged. �I�m afraid that�s necessary for the moment. Certainly they are not uncomfortable; be patient and put up with them for the moment��

�And I want dry clothes. I want��

�Later,� the bearded man said and leaned forward. �Let�s forget what you want and get down to what I want. Where...?�

�And another thing,� Dondero said, frowning across the desk, �how much you have to pay to get me out of jail? And who you pay it to, huh? I meet a guy up there, good guy, maybe I buy him out, too.�

The bearded man smiled. �I�m afraid we didn�t buy you out of jail. I saw no necessity for wasting time determining the extent of corruption in our city police. No, we kidnapped a policeman and offered to trade him for you. It was that simple.�

�What!� Dondero glared across the desk. �Un vigile? A cop? You kidnap him?� He shook his cuffed hands violently. �I got nothin� to do with no kidnap of a cop!�

George laughed, a small delightful laugh, somehow oddly out of place coming from the large body.

�Don�t worry, my friend. As you say, you have nothing to do with the matter.� The smiling face lost some of its jollity; the eyes studying Dondero turned cold. �The policeman need not concern you. You are here��

�This vigile � you kill him?�

�I said, that scarcely concerns you��

�What you say, it don� concern me!� Dondero glared at the bearded man and waved his hands excitedly, the manacles jangling. �Right now they got nothin� on me! Nothin�! I don� get mixed up in no kidnap, see? An� I don� get mixed up in no killin�, either, see? They got nothin� on me, an� I don� get��

�They have nothing on you?� The delightful laugh returned. �Oh, my dear friend! Please! They may not know what they have on you, but I do. So let�s stop playing games��

�I wan� a drink,� Dondero suddenly said. He thought about it a moment and nodded. �Yeah, that�s what I wan�. Hey, all I think about in the figlio de madre carcere is somethin� to drink, you know?�

George looked at him a moment, finally sighed, and swung his chair about. He searched the top of the small bar a moment, found a bottle that suited him, and poured a generous drink. He swung back, leaned over, and placed the glass on the far side of the desk.

�This is some of the finest cognac to ever come out of France. I hope you appreciate it.�

Dondero showed his appreciation by clasping the glass in both hands, upending it, and taking the drink down in one gulp. He shuddered, grimaced, caught his breath, and then wiped his mouth on the back of one of his cuffed hands. He wiped that hand on his trouser leg and belched.

�Okay, I guess.� He looked around the room and his eye fell on the sofa. �Hey, you know, the bed in that figlio de madre carcere, nobody can sleep on her. Guanciale, she�s like stone.� He suddenly yawned and came to his feet. �Hey, we talk in the morning, huh? Right now I think I sleep.�

George�s big hand slammed down on the desk in sudden fury; Dondero�s empty glass jumped. Dondero looked down on the bearded man with a faint sneer.

�What�s a matter?�

�Sit down.�

The voice was dangerously quiet. Dondero shrugged and sat down again. �Okay, I sit. Now, what�s a matter?�

�The matter,� George said through his teeth, �is that we didn�t get you out of jail just to watch you drink or watch you sleep. We��

�Yeah,� Dondero said, interested. �Why did you get me out of jail?�

�You know damn well! Where is the stuff?�

�Stuff?� Dondero looked puzzled. �I don� know what you talk about, you know?�

George took a deep breath and slowly exhaled it, managing to keep himself under control. He studied the insolent look on Dondero�s face a moment and spoke quietly and clearly.

�Now, look, my friend. Listen and listen carefully. Before you continue with this charade about now knowing what I�m talking about, do you remember your friend Lazaretti?�

�Lazaretti ain� no friend of mine!�

�Lazaretti,� George said slowly, �is no friend of anyone at the moment, unless it�s the crabs on the bottom of the bay. You are probably not aware of it, but we first thought Lazaretti was the man we wanted, and last night we got our hands on him in what the police thought was a trade for their sergeant. In any event, before he died � and he died very poorly, my friend � he talked, or tried to talk. His English was practically nonexistent, and I had no intention of bringing anyone else into the deal just to serve as a translator. Still, he did make enough sense for us to gather that he was merely the bodyguard. You were the courier��

Dondero wrinkled his forehead; it was not all acting. He looked like a man who was doing his best to understand someone speaking too rapidly in a language he didn�t thoroughly understand. Still, he got the general idea. What he needed were details.

�Courier? What�s a courier?�

�You still want to be cute, eh? A courier, my friend, is a man who carries things from one country to another. You brought the stuff in. You brought it in for someone else, it�s true � and that someone else is just stupid enough to be waiting for you to get out of jail to take delivery � but I�m afraid it will be a little late for him by then.�

Dondero maintained a poker face. Now, at least, the whole thing made sense. Although how knowing what it was all about could help him at the moment was still one of the great mysteries. He brought his attention back to George and studied him through narrowed eyes.

�You think you know so much, maybe you don�t know as much as you think you know.�

George smiled. �No? You think I�m guessing? I don�t go to this much trouble for guesses, my friend. You brought two and a half kilos of Turkish pure into this country a week ago. Let�s stop playing games. I want to know where you hid it.�

Dondero sneered. �An� if I don� tell you, then I gonna end up in the water with Lazaretti, huh?� He shook his head. �Then nobody ever goin� to find it, huh?�

The bearded man considered the tough unshaven face across from him for several moments, then took a deep breath.

�All right, Patrone. You can be broken, and if you think you can�t, you�re wrong. Your share in the deal is so damn small, anyway, that you�d crack the first time you started to hurt. But I�m getting tired of wasting time. So I won�t even threaten you � I�ll talk business with you.�

Dondero nodded. �That�s better. I don� like threats, you know?�

�And I don�t like to make them. Let me put it this way � I know more about the deal than you think. You were paid the equivalent of five thousand dollars to bring the stuff in and deliver it. Five thousand lousy dollars!� He leaned forward, impressively. �If you�d even consider handing it over for that, you�re a bloody fool. You�ve got a fortune there, man! Come in with me and we�ll split right down the middle. I�ve got the best distribution system in the world, one that nobody can touch. Right here in this building I�ve got a system that makes all the rest of them look silly. No pushers, no street-corner exchanges in front of half the town, no kids selling in some dumb locker room. No chance, in short, of getting caught. Come on, Vito � come on in! It makes sense all around.�

Dondero appeared to think about it. �Sure,� he said at last. �It makes sense, but it only makes sense for you. I go for any deal like that, then the guy who hire me in Italy, he get mad, and I go down the street in Roma someday, and bang! bang!� Despite the manacles he managed to raise a pointed finger to his head, triggered by his thumb. �Then Vito Patrone, he�s just a memory. Like Lazaretti.� He shook his head dolorously. �I don� like it.�

�Listen!� George said fiercely, scenting victory without the waste of time involved in torture, �don�t be a bloody fool! You don�t have to go back to Italy! You can be in Mexico tomorrow, or anywhere else you want to be! Hell, your share would be a kilo and a quarter of Turkish pure, and do you have any idea of what that�s worth when I get through cutting it and spreading it around? Man, you can pick your spot � Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney � and live like a king!�

�Yeah, but��

�But, what?�

�Hey, you know, them guys, they trusted me��

George came as close to snorting as he ever permitted himself.

�Trusted you? Trusted you? Who do you think you�re kidding? A man who made his living showing tourists the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, and then stole some loose change from their purses? Did you think I didn�t know that? Trusted you? What do you think Lazaretti was doing traveling with you?� He waved that phase of the matter away as being of minor importance. �In any event, they wouldn�t use you as a courier again, if you handed it over to them or not. Once is par for the course. I mean, they never use the same courier twice; why take the chance? So where does that leave you? Back to rolling little old ladies from Iowa for lunch money! Man, get smart!�

Dondero appeared to be thinking about it. �I don� know,� he said at last, slowly. �I don� know...� He looked around the room as if seeking some divine inspiration in arriving at so momentous a decision, and then spotted the sofa. He turned back to George, nodding his head. �I know. I sleep on it.�

�Sleep on it, nothing! You�ll tell me��

Dondero�s jaw hardened. �I sleep on it,� he said simply.

George studied the tough face across from him a moment and then came to a decision, nodding. �All right, you sleep on it,� he said. �You get a good night�s rest and we�ll talk about it in the morning.�

�I sleep on it,� Dondero said vaguely, and came to his feet, turning toward the comfortable-looking sofa. He suddenly seemed to realize he was still encumbered by the handcuffs. He raised them. �Hey, how about taking these off? I don� sleep so good with them on.�

�We�ll take them off when you�ve come to the proper decision,� George said, and his faint smile was back. �And I�m afraid that sofa isn�t as comfortable as it looks. Besides,� he added, �there�s nothing to handcuff you to there, you see. And I�m sure you can understand that we�d hate to lose you after all the trouble we had arranging your coming. No, we have a nice clean bedroom for you...�

He reached into the top drawer of his desk, withdrew a revolver, checked it carefully, and came to his feet, gesturing toward the door.

�After you, please.�

Dondero shrugged and shoved the door open to walk into the corridor. He hadn�t exactly expected them to give him a car for a getaway, but he had gained a little time, at least, which he had a sad feeling he was going to waste actually sleeping. True, he had found out what the whole case was all about, but the question was, would he live long enough to pass the information along to the department? At the moment it looked doubtful. If he turned George�s extremely generous offer down in the morning, he had a feeling George could turn nasty. And if he accepted it, how could he pretend to know where the stuff was stashed? It was a pretty problem.

Still, he was alive at the moment, which was a giant step in the right direction, and the bluff was working on all twelve cylinders. He wondered idly what decision he would have made if he really had two and a half kilos of Turkish pure hidden someplace. Probably go along with George�s proposition, although it was highly doubtful that old George had much intention of allowing a confederate to live long enough to enjoy Lincoln Park, let alone Rio, or Hong Kong, or Sydney. It was what happened when you dealt with crooks; you couldn�t trust them.

�Right here.� George had stopped before a door. He opened it and stepped back for Dondero to enter. Dondero walked into the darkness and stood still while George reached in a hand and flipped on the light switch. Light flooded the room.

A gray-haired man was lying on one of the twin beds in the room. He looked up through feverish eyes. One hand was heavily and clumsily bandaged; his other was handcuffed to the bedstead.

�Hello, Don,� he said weakly, and tried to sit up. �So you guys finally got here, huh...?�

Tuesday � 9:00 A.M.

The rain had finally won the battle with the fog, and magnanimous in victory had swept off to the east, leaving the morning clear and cool. Lieutenant Reardon, pushing through the heavy glass doors of the Hall of Justice, glanced in the direction of the corner desk hoping for some message, received a negative shake of the head from the sergeant there, and continued on his way to the elevators. He walked into a waiting car, punched the button for the fourth floor, and rubbed his face wearily as the cab dutifully began its silent climb. He had slept not at all, lying in bed fully dressed, instead, waiting for the telephone to ring and to hear that sardonic voice, no longer smiling, inform him that their little ploy had failed, and that if they didn�t stop fooling around and put the real Vito Patrone on the bridge at two the next morning, there would be two dead cops, and not one.

But there had been no call, and the elaborate equipment that had been hurriedly installed to trace any such call had apparently been wasted. Either Dondero was getting away with the bluff, at least for the time being, or the sardonic man had become a bit leery of a trap, which was not surprising. The kidnapper, whoever he was, was far from stupid; and he never seemed to contact the police with his messages twice at the same place.

The elevator stopped, the doors moved obediently back, and Reardon stared blankly out into the corridor, remembering where he was only when the doors began to close. He reached out in time to send them sliding back with a reproving hiss, and walked from the car shaking his head. Man, he thought, I�d better wake up before I step into an open manhole!

Stan Lundahl was shrugging himself into his jacket, happy that his extended graveyard shift was finally over, when Reardon walked into the office. Stan pulled his jacket straight, tugged his necktie into a semblance of respectability, and nodded.

�Hi, Lieutenant. How�s it going?�

�Don�t ask,� Reardon said, and yawned deeply. He finished by stretching elaborately and considered Lundahl. �What�s new around here? No meeting scheduled for this morning?�

�Not that I heard of. Nothing to meet about, I guess.� Stan dug into a jacket pocket for cigarettes, pulled a pad of matches from his shirt pocket, and put the two of them together. �My guess is that the brass figure Pop is long gone, and more meetings won�t bring him back. They�d just interfere with the work of getting the bastard who did it.� He picked a shred of tobacco from his lip with a fingernail and looked at Reardon speculatively.

Reardon frowned. �What�s the long look supposed to mean?�

�Nothing.� Lundahl changed his look to one of curiosity. �Aren�t you going to ask me about Dondero?�

Reardon woke up. �Oh. That�s right. Anybody hear anything?�

Lundahl quit playing games. He had been waiting for the lieutenant to arrive in order to spring his news, and had just about given up when his superior had entered the office. He sank back into the chair behind his desk, prepared to spend a little bit more of his overtime.

�He had a boat, did you know that?� He went on before Reardon could perjure himself. �Yeah. A small fisherman he must have bought cheap and fixed up. Kept it down in Burlingame.�

Reardon merely grunted. He walked over and sat down behind his desk.

�Yeah. Way we heard about it,� Lundahl went on expansively, �the guy who sold it to him has a brother-in-law on the force. Patrol officer named Garrity, works out of Park Station. Anyway, Garrity mentioned it to the guy when the two met about four this morning to go fishing, because the chief has cut out time-off until we get somewhere on this case, and Garrity was supposed to be off today, but instead he�s got to be back on at nine, but he still wanted to get in some fishing...� He paused and frowned in a puzzled manner. �Can you imagine getting up at four o�clock in the morning just to catch a lousy fish?�

�Some guys do, I guess.�

�Yeah. Anyway, this guy remembers about Dondero and the boat. Garrity called it in around five this morning. Said he hadn�t been near a phone before. Probably waited until he caught his first swordfish, or whatever.�

�And?�

�Well, anyway, it never occurred to this jughead Garrity that he was a police officer and maybe he should go down to Burlingame to check it out � hell no, he had to go fishing!� Lundahl shook his head at the idiocy of some people. �So, anyway, it filtered down to me a little after six this morning. Nobody else around, so I took a drive down there. Just got back, matter of fact.�

Reardon tried to sound curious. �What did you find?�

�Well� � Lundahl paused to light a fresh cigarette from the old butt before continuing � �somebody�s been using the boat mighty recently, and it stands to reason it was Don. He wasn�t there, but he had to hang out someplace, didn�t he?�

�I guess.�

�Yeah, And the hatchway was locked with a padlock, and no sign of any break-in,� Lundahl went on, �that is, until I pried the hasp off to get in, of course. It�s his boat, all right � owner�s certificate in the cabin, framed on the wall, fishing license tucked in the corner of the frame. Anyway, to get back to this morning, there were wet footprints on the hatchway steps, and the same wet prints down in the cabin. They had to be from last night because it hasn�t rained in a week, and they would have dried up by now if they were old ones, don�t you think?�

�I think,� Reardon said, his face expressionless �Go ahead. You�re doing fine.�

�Yeah,� Lundahl said, and leaned over to flick ashes toward the wastebasket. He leaned back and continued with his story. �Matter of fact, there were two sets of footprints; the ones from the wet shoe, like on the steps, and some sneaker prints on top of them in a couple places, and also on the linoleum of the cabin floor. The sneakers were there over to one side, like they were kicked off, you know. They had Don�s name inside them marked in ink.�

�Maybe he made both the prints,� Reardon suggested. �Maybe he changed shoes before he went out. He may have come back for something � a raincoat, maybe � and managed to make both sets of prints. After all, nobody would go out in sneakers on a night like last night, not if he had anything else to wear.�

�No, sir.� Lundahl shook his head. �The sneakers and the shoes were different sizes. There was a pair of dungarees on the floor, too, like he changed clothes. Also, funny thing � there was his raincoat there, hanging up on a hook. Not that he couldn�t have two raincoats, of course, but this one was the one he always wears around here. And another thing that makes me sure somebody else was there last night; there were two glasses out for liquor. Only one had been used, but the glasses were regularly kept in a little cabinet in swivel holders, so they wouldn�t slide and break, and somebody had taken out two glasses and left them where they could have fallen and broken. Just a miracle they didn�t. No, my guess is that Don was holing up in his boat, and last night after it started to rain he had a visitor, and for some reason or other he went off with the guy, leaving his raincoat behind. I know it sounds crazy, but that�s the way I read it.�

One of these days, Reardon thought, Stan Lundahl will be getting a promotion, if he isn�t careful. He considered the other man steadily as he thought of a proper response.

�He went out without a raincoat in that weather last night?�

�I know.� Lundahl shrugged. �Every time I�ve seen him with a raincoat it was the one I saw on the boat, so I figure it was the only one he had. I�ve only got one.�

�But why would he do it?�

�He must have had a good reason,� Lundahl said cheerfully, and crushed out his cigarette. �No sign of violence in the cabin. He just changed clothes and went off with this guy.�

�In whose car?�

�The other guy�s,� Lundahl said. �Don�s car�s still in the garage at his apartment. I figure he went out to the boat by bus, or something, hung around there until this other man came. It had to be after midnight, because that�s when it really started to rain. Washed away any tracks of the car, but that�s how they had to leave. The last bus that passes that part of the road in Burlingame passes at midnight, sharp.�

Reardon nodded. Lundahl had done a good job. �Anything else?�

�Yeah,� Lundahl said slowly. �Those glasses that were out for drinks; I handled them real carefully. In the light you could see there were fingerprints on the two glasses, and even without equipment you could see they were different.�

Reardon looked at Lundahl speculatively. �Fingerprints, eh?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Did you bring them in?�

�Of course,� Lundahl said. �They�re in the side drawer of your desk.�

Reardon frowned in surprise. �My desk? Why didn�t you take them down to the lab?�

�Lieutenant,� Lundahl said quietly, �if I�m wrong, all you have to do is send those glasses down to the lab yourself. But if I�m right, then you knew all about that boat of Don�s, because he tells you about everything; and you were out there last night and you and Don have something cooking between the two of you, and if you wanted me to know what it was, you�d tell me.� He looked Reardon in the eye. �Right?�

Reardon�s expression didn�t change in the least. �You�re telling the story.�

Lundahl shook another cigarette free, considered it a moment, and then shoved it back into the pack. �I�m smoking too much,� he said, and came to his feet. He considered his superior a moment. �I�m all through telling any stories, Lieutenant. I�ve been on duty a long time, and I�m going home to get some rest.� He raised a hand. �Have a good day, Lieutenant.�

Reardon watched the tall angular man walk from the room. He sighed. Here was Dondero off on a wild-eyed scheme he should have been stopped from touching with a ten-foot pole; and now Lundahl was joining the club. Department rules were taking a beating, and those rules had been promulgated for good and sufficient reasons. Nor was it even faintly possible that any discipline committee would ever accept good intentions as an excuse for violating all the sacred precepts of the department. Even worse, it was very doubtful that the flaunting of the rules would get them one step closer to Pop Holland�s kidnapper. In fact, they had probably made things worse by letting Dondero have his head.

Still, he had to admit with a touch of pride in his group, Lundahl had done a very nice bit of thinking on the job, and should have been complimented. And then had his head handed to him for not having put his suspicions on paper and seen that they were distributed throughout the Hall...!

Tuesday � 9:35 A.M.

Foot Patrolman Daniel C. Gottlieb reached his call box in ample time for this, his first report of the day, prepared as always to advise his sergeant that nothing of earth-shaking importance had occurred between the time he had left his home station in the Mission District and the time he had arrived on his beat. Then he paused in surprise, for it appeared that something had happened after all, albeit not very much. It seemed someone had gone to the trouble of prying open the door of the call box, and the only reason for going to this much bother had to be mischief, since the little telephone inside was of no inherent value, and could only be used to speak either with the Mission Police Station or the Communications Center at the Hall of Justice. It didn�t even have a dial to permit other calls. In addition, he noted that whoever had pried the door open had gone to the additional labor of refastening the door with a bit of cord, as if to make sure the door did not bang in the wind and possibly disturb someone, although this consideration was largely wasted, since the neighborhood where Patrolman Gottlieb�s call box was located was quite deserted.

Patrolman Gottlieb unwound the cord with a slight touch of excitement. His beat in this quiet section of the sprawling city usually produced little activity worthy of revelation to his superiors, and now, at least, he could begin the new day with a report of vandalism, even though the purpose of the vandal had been no more than the mere breaking of a patrolman�s box. Still, it was city property, or county property � Patrolman Gottlieb wasn�t sure which � which all citizens were importuned to respect, and he opened the box prepared to transmit all vital details to the desk sergeant at Mission. But then he paused, frowning, for it appeared that whoever had vandalized the call box had not done so without a purpose. They had apparently done so in order to leave behind a sealed envelope tucked between the old-fashioned mouthpiece and the back wall of the metal box. Patrolman Gottlieb removed the envelope and studied it closely.

It was addressed to one Lieutenant James Reardon, and Patrolman Gottlieb knew very well that Lieutenant James Reardon was one of the brighter lights in the Homicide Division, and that the message was undoubtedly meant for him and not for any Lieutenant Reardon in the Army, or the Navy, or even the Fire Department, although they also boasted lieutenants, a fair share of whom were probably named Reardon. Besides, if the note were intended for someone in the Fire Department, why hadn�t it been left in a fire box, of which there were even more in the city than patrolmen�s call boxes?

No, the note was clearly meant for Lieutenant James Reardon of Homicide, and Patrolman Gottlieb had a strong feeling it was important that the lieutenant receive the message as soon as possible. For, among other things, such as the method of delivery, there was something quite mysterious in the manner the vandal had addressed the envelope, what with each letter apparently of a different size and cut from some magazine or newspaper and pasted in place. Patrolman Gottlieb knew this to be suspicious in the extreme, clearly indicating someone�s desire to avoid self-identification.

Convinced that this was only the first step on the sure path to promotion, and subconsciously thanking the vandal for having chosen this particular call box for the leaving of the envelope, Patrolman Gottlieb raised the receiver and pressed the button connecting him to the Hall of Justice, asking that a patrol car be sent around at once to pick the message up and deliver it. He only refrained with effort from adding that Gottlieb was spelled with two �t�s.

Tuesday � 9:45 A.M.

One of the many things that often puzzled Lieutenant Reardon was how his lovely Jan could possibly consider his work dangerous, when 95 per cent of his working day seemed to be spent either in putting words on paper or in attempting to make some sense from papers upon which others had spent hours putting words. If they gave service awards for writer�s cramp, he often thought, or for strained eyesight, a man could retire from the police force after five years with a chest full of medals that would have made a five-star general jealous.

The ringing of the telephone spared him from one more report. He gladly put it aside and picked up the receiver, grunting into it.

�Reardon, here.�

�Hello, Jim? Roy Gentry. How�d you like to get a preview of a report that�s about to go up to the chief?�

�Why a preview?�

�Because the chief is out of the Hall at the moment, and Homicide will be getting a copy anyway after the chief sees it, and I thought maybe you wouldn�t want to wait.�

And you also have found something you feel you can brag about, Reardon thought; and I hope you�re right. I�ll be the first to kiss you on both cheeks.

�I�ll be right there,� he said, and happily shoved papers aside, coming to his feet. His departure was delayed, however, by a repeat of the telephone ring. Reardon sighed and picked it up.

�Reardon, here.�

�Sergeant Martin, Communications, Lieutenant. We just received a call from one of the foot patrolmen out of Mission. He was checking in at his box and found it broken open. Somebody had left a sealed envelope inside, tucked between the mouthpiece and the wall. It was addressed to you.�

Reardon leaned back against his desk, taking some of the weight off his feet. His eyes were narrowed. �What did it say?�

�He didn�t open it,� the sergeant said. �Like I said, it was sealed. He asked for a patrol car to pick it up and take it down to the Hall for you. We sent the nearest car we had. It ought to be there and back in a couple more minutes.�

�Very gentlemanly not to open other people�s mail,� Reardon murmured.

�Sir?�

�Nothing. I�ll be down in the lab with Roy Gentry when it gets here.�

�Right, sir.�

Reardon hung up the telephone and stared at it a moment in thought, an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew he had been expecting a message from the kidnapper ever since Dondero had disappeared from that bridge that night before, and he wished that knuckle-headed patrolman had had the sense to open the envelope and relay the message. And the kidnapper, whoever he was, remained as cagey as ever. Using the call box would assure him relatively quick delivery � quicker than the post office, surely � and be almost impossible to trace.

Because in Reardon�s mind there was no doubt the message was from the kidnapper. Well, the bastard was still keeping his distance ahead of them all, but he had to slip sometime. They all did, sooner or later, according to the book; although nothing in the book had told him to put Dondero in jeopardy together with Pop. He sighed, hitched himself from the desk, and headed for the door.

He trotted down the steps to the floor below, walked down the corridor to the end, and pushed through the swinging doors to the laboratory. He nodded to the people working at the various benches and continued on through two more sterile-looking rooms to the small private laboratory Roy Gentry usually used to verify results obtained by subordinates in other sections of his department. Gentry was bending over a microscope, his horn-rimmed glasses perched on his head out of the way, while his ever-present cigarette was held as far from his work as possible, as if to avoid contamination of his samples. Reardon came up behind him, plucked the cigarette from the extended fingers, and placed it neatly in an ashtray. Gentry looked up.

�Oh. Hi, Jim. Want to take a look?�

�Sure, but where�s the report?�

Gentry pulled his glasses into place, tucked his cigarette back into one corner of his mouth, and jerked a thumb toward the small office in one corner of the room.

�On my desk,� he said, speaking around smoke. �But this is all part of it. Thought you might be interested.�

So let him show off, Reardon thought. I just hope it�s worth bragging about. He bent over the microscope and adjusted the knob to bring the surface of the slide into focus. In his circle of vision, coming from blur to sharp image, was what seemed to be, in principal, a grayish stain with a series of darker streaks throughout. Reardon changed lenses, bringing up the magnification, since he knew he couldn�t read as much into these mysteries as Roy Gentry.

Now the streaks seemed to have little various colored nodules attached to them, and were in turn attached to each other by little stems. Lighter bluish-colored random shapes were scattered throughout the area of vision, almost as if added as an afterthought. It looks like a moonscape, Reardon thought, and straightened up.

�It�s beautiful,� he said. �What is it?�

�Dark air-cured.� Gentry was smiling proudly.

�Dark air-cured what?�

�Tobacco,� Gentry said, not at all surprised by the other�s ignorance. �Tobacco ash, that is.�

�And what�s so impressive about that?� He looked at the cigarette in Gentry�s hand and nodded. �I see. You�re checking the stuff you�re smoking these days. You�re trying to figure out if you can�t come up with something cheaper, using old broom straws or something.�

�No,� Gentry said, not at all disturbed by this Philistinism. �That, my friend, came from the stuff collected from the floor of the back seat of Mike Holland�s Chevy by Frank Wilkins and his crew. It was found on the portion of the back seat behind the passenger side of the car. It indicates that whoever was sitting in the back seat was smoking��

Reardon stared at him a moment and then broke into a grin.

�For this you need a microscope? My old mother, bless her soul, never smoked a day in her life, but she sure as the devil saw enough cigarette ash on my father�s jacket lapels! She could have saved you scientific geniuses a lot of work. Good grief! A microscope to tell tobacco ash! And as far as it being on the floor of the car in the back,� he added, playing the devil�s advocate, �it was probably from someone Pop gave a lift to fourteen years ago when the car was new, or maybe even a neighbor he took to the ball game last week.�

�No,� Gentry said evenly. He was enjoying himself. �A guest doesn�t usually drop ashes on the floor, not in those quantities; he uses the ashtrays. And the ashtrays were clean, unused. The rest of the car was clean, too, so we can assume Mike kept it that way normally. Therefore, finding ash where it was found clearly indicates to me that the man who dropped that ash dropped it quite recently, and most probably was the man who kidnapped Mike Holland.�

Reardon considered the idea and shook his head. �That still doesn�t sound too conclusive to me. Mike may not have cleaned the car for weeks��

�No,� Gentry said calmly. Behind his thick glasses his eyes were twinkling. �You�ll also note � if you can note the difference � that there is very little black dust mixed with the ash, and in this town, as in most towns unfortunately these days, it doesn�t take very long for dust to settle.�

�In a car with the windows closed?�

�Even in a car with the windows closed; modern cars certainly aren�t dustproof. And we don�t know they were always closed. We just know when the car was found, all the windows were closed, except the one across from the driver, which was partially open.�

�All right,� Reardon said, happy to agree. �Let�s assume that the man who kidnapped Pop smoked. So what? Half the idiotic population of the entire country smokes � present company included.�

�Actually, less than twenty-five per cent,� Gentry said, ever the pedantic, �although that statistic includes children, of course, too young to smoke.� He puffed on his cigarette with enjoyment as he went on. �However, the percentage is smaller for those who smoke cigars.�

Reardon frowned. �Cigars?�

�That�s right.� Gentry was enjoying his triumph. �The ash is definitely from a cigar.�

�Look,� Reardon said, �I know you can tell a lot from tobacco ash in the laboratory, but it still seems a little Sherlock Holmesish, again, to me. So tell me, Holmes, how do you deduce the ash was from a cigar? And don�t tell me you found the cigar band on the floor of the back seat.�

Gentry shook his head unhappily.

�I wish we had. You see, we can�t go as far as Holmes. He was supposed to be able to identify every known make of cigar and tobacco by its ash, but we�re satisfied to be able to distinguish between the eight basic classifications of tobacco by their ash � flue-cured, dark air-cured, oriental and semi-oriental, dark sun-cured, Burley��

�All right! All right. I believe you. So?�

�So each type leaves a distinctive ash.� Gentry gestured toward the microscope. �That is dark air-cured, which is used almost exclusively for cigars. Unless,� he added with dry humor, �the man was smoking a hookah in the back seat, because dark air-cured is also used in water pipes in the Middle East. But of course,� he said, thinking about it, �there wouldn�t have been any ash at all with a hookah, would there?�

�I doubt it. Look, Roy��

�Now, cigarettes, of course, are blends, either of whatever the smoker prefers, or what is available at a good price, or whatever the manufacturer feels like putting in at the moment,� Gentry went on, now wound up. He smiled. �Sherlock Holmes would have gone crazy in today�s cigarette market.� His smile disappeared; the lecturer returned. �Most American cigarettes contain a blend of flue-cured, oriental, and Burley, with or without Maryland light air-cured. English cigarettes are wholly flue-cured tobacco with no additives permitted by law, other than water. Pipe tobaccos��

Reardon interrupted at last, weary of more knowledge.

�Look, Roy, I�ll read about it in your report, if you don�t mind.�

�If you wish.� Gentry was not at all disturbed; his show was scarcely half over. He turned to a second microscope. �Now, here we have an example of hair. You might know that the man was bearded��

Reardon was quite aware of the magic sometimes developed in a police laboratory, and he knew that hair gave many more clues than most people knew. Still, it seemed a pity to break up Gentry�s triumphant mood.

�All right, Roy, I�ll play the straight man. How do you know he was bearded?�

Gentry crushed out his cigarette and automatically reached for another.

�When we first separated the stuff Frank Wilkins vacuumed from various parts of the car, we found among the vacuum cleanings of the back seat, in addition to ash, hair. Now, hair,� he said, thinking about it, �is of great importance in identification. Not only can race and sex be determined by microscopic evaluation of hair, but even age can be roughly calculated. Not to the year, of course, but childhood can be differentiated from youth, youth from middle age, middle age from old age, and so forth. In addition, hair from different parts of the body varies considerably in appearance under a microscope. According to Belfield, the hair of the male beard is readily distinguishable from scalp hair by diameter, shape, and pigmentation. The hairs of the scalp generally vary from 1/200 to 1/1000 of an inch in diameter, while the hairs from the jaw are larger, varying in diameter from about 1/150 to��

�All right!� Reardon modified his tone. �All right, Roy. Do you mind? I appreciate the job you�ve done, but give it to me in nice short sentences. What race, sex, and age are we talking about?�

Gentry nodded, pleased with the reaction of the other man. He brought his exposition to a properly dramatic close.

�The man we�re talking about � the man I am assuming kidnapped Pop Holland � is a white male, between twenty-five and forty years of age, with a beard at least three inches in length and possibly more, beginning to gray at the tips, who smokes cigars. As you know from our voice graphs, we assume him to be a native Californian, probably raised in the bay area, and with a decent education, no doubt at least some college.�

�And a nasty habit of hurting people,� Reardon added. �Also accompanied by a small companion who isn�t any angel himself, considering we figure he was driving the car when the wino was run over.�

He drummed his fingers on the laboratory bench absently while he went over it all in his mind. There were undoubtedly many hundreds of people who fit the physical appearance that Gentry had magically evoked from his microscope and his voice comparator, but the lieutenant had to admit they were a lot farther along than they had been, and a lot farther along than he had expected to be. Still it was a long way from being sufficiently identitive to permit the issuance of an all-points bulletin. If only they could pinpoint the kidnapper a bit more accurately; if only they had one or two more descriptive elements to narrow the field! Well, maybe the message that had been left in the patrolman�s call box might give them what they lacked, though it was doubtful if the kidnapper would make that hoped-for mistake.

As if in answer to the thought, the door swung back and one of the uniformed officers from the reception desk in the lobby was there, holding out a crumpled envelope.

�Not much chance for fingerprints,� he said apologetically. �The patrol car driver said the footman who gave him this was hanging onto it like it was his birthday present. Ruined any possibility of prints.� He added under his breath, �The dummy!�

�Don�t worry about it,� Reardon said shortly. �This guy doesn�t leave prints.� He studied the pasted letters on the envelope a moment, and then slipped a finger under the flap, ripping open the cover. He removed the single sheet of paper, unfolded it, and read it. The words, also clipped from a newspaper or magazine, were of varying sizes and type shapes, but together they formed a message that was short and to the point:

The words were evidently cut from the same newspaper or leaflet as the letters on the envelope; and the underlining of the last four words, as well as the exclamation points, had been added using a heavy black marking pencil. Reardon read it again, although the message was clear enough. He felt a sickening feeling in his stomach. He should never have permitted Dondero to go ahead with his harebrained scheme! Permitted? He practically abetted it! Which was what came from desperation and frustration. Idiot! He forced down the fury he felt at himself and handed the note and envelope both to the laboratory head.

�Okay, Roy,� he said heavily. �This is the only tangible thing we have from the man, other than that first tape. What can you dig out of this to add to what we�ve got? And maybe give us enough to nail the bastard!�

Gentry took the paper and envelope. He looked at the envelope briefly and then concentrated on the note. He looked up, curious.

�What does he mean, two for one? And �good bye to both�?�

�Never mind,� Reardon said shortly. �Forget the words � concentrate on the note itself. Give me something to work on.�

Gentry studied the angry face a moment and then shrugged. He considered the sheet once again, and then placed it on the bench; his glasses went back up to his forehead and he bent over the paper, studying it through a large lens he took from the jacket pocket of his laboratory coat. Reardon waited impatiently while the tall thin man scanned the letters carefully. Gentry looked at the pencil markings last and then looked up. He sounded and looked apologetic.

�Printing isn�t our big forte, but I can make some educated guesses. Obviously, none of these letters came from any magazine, but rather from newsprint stock of some sort. Secondly, I�d say the paper the letters were printed on was the same grade paper stock as the paper the words were pasted on, which is a bit unusual��

�Unusual? In what way?�

�Well, now.� Gentry said logically, �if you were cutting out letters to paste up a message, from the evening newspaper, for example, what would you normally paste them on?�

Reardon stared at him a moment in dawning understanding and then nodded.

�I see! You�d scarcely have some of the same blank newsprint around the house, would you?� Could his bearded, cigar-smoking, sardonic adversary finally have made a mistake? If so, it was a dandy! Reardon picked up the note, folded it along the original creases carefully, and replaced it in the envelope.

Gentry frowned. �Don�t you want us to work on that?�

�You keep working on what you have,� Reardon said, and tucked the envelope into his pocket.

�And what are you going to go?�

�Something I should have done long ago,� Reardon said grimly. �Do some work myself!�

Tuesday � 10:30 A.M.

Lieutenant Reardon parked his Charger on Mason, around the corner from the new, impressive four-story building that contained the San Francisco Express. As the first new newspaper in the city since the demise of the old Call-Bulletin, it was rumored that the Express was having its problems combatting the age-old prestige of the Chronicle and the sheer power of the Examiner. Still, Reardon wished the newcomer all the luck in the world � especially if it could provide him answers to some questions. There was, of course, the ridiculous question Porky Frank thought he should ask, as to who might have known about the dinner arrangements for Pop Holland�s retirement party; and then there were the far more important questions arising from the pasted-up note Reardon was guarding in his jacket pocket.

He trotted up the two steps to the wide glass doors, pushed through into a lobby dominated by a huge globe of the world rotating slowly overhead, and advanced to the information desk beneath the round monstrosity. The only person he even had the slightest contact with was whoever wrote the �View from Nob Hill� column, so he felt he might as well start with him. He nodded to the girl behind the desk pleasantly.

�Miss?�

She smiled up. �Sir?�

�I�d like to see��

Reardon suddenly paused, a tingle passing through him. Ever since he had entered the building he had subconsciously been aware of a faint throbbing somewhere in the background; but now the sound intruded upon him consciously, like the incipient rumblings of an approaching earthquake, except that now he was so immediately aware of it, there was a certain definite rhythm to the sound. He could feel the slight beat that accompanied the sound coming through the marble-tiled floor to the soles of his feet. He didn�t need to listen to it very long. It was a sound that was engraved upon his memory for all time. He swung back to the girl, his pleasant expression gone.

�What�s that noise? That rumbling?�

The girl smiled indulgently. �Everybody asks that. It�s not the San Andreas fault, though I guess that�s what most people think, the first time they come here. It�s just our presses rolling, sir. I�m so used to them I don�t even hear them any more.� That quite-normal inquiry satisfied, the girl smiled brightly. �Now, can I help you, sir?�

But Reardon wasn�t listening. His mind was racing. Newspaper presses, eh? That tape had been made in a building with newspaper presses, and the man who made it was probably like the receptionist � he was so used to the sound he hadn�t even realized it was there, providing a clue to the police. And the note that had arrived that morning, containing the pasted-up threat; that note had been cut from a newspaper and pasted up on blank newsprint, and where was the easiest place to have newsprint lying around if not at a newspaper plant? And then there had been a columnist � one who chose not to sign his name � who was quite openly disdainful of the police...

The entire series of connecting ideas swept across the lieutenant�s brain in analytical process, completed in seconds. He stared at the girl.

�Miss, who writes the column �View from Nob Hill�?�

The smile remained, but now it was frozen, no longer as friendly as before, but maintained because that was one of the requirements of meeting the public.

�I�m afraid we�re not allowed to give out that information, sir.�

Reardon�s jaw tightened. A conspiracy, eh? He reached into his pocket, extracting his billfold, opening it to expose his warrant card on one side and his lieutenant�s shield on the other. He allowed the girl to study it a moment, and then closed it and restored it to his pocket. His voice became official.

�All right, miss. My name is Lieutenant Reardon, and I asked you a question! Who writes that column? And why doesn�t it carry his name, as every other column in the paper does?�

The girl looked startled by the attack. �I... I�ll have to make a call, sir.�

Reardon reached over the desk, clamping his hand tightly on the phone.

�No calls! Who writes that column? And why the big secret?�

The girl looked terrified. Tears began to well in her eyes.

�I can�t��

�Then we�ll take a trip down to the Hall of Justice and see if we can�t get some information out of you down there!� Reardon said grimly. �Let�s go!�

�No! I�� The tears came in a flood. The girl looked miserable. �I�ll tell you. It�s... it�s Mr. Maxwell. He�s the publisher. He��

She looked around as if for help, but the lobby remained empty except for the two of them. Her teary eyes came back to Reardon�s hard face.

�It�s � he doesn�t sign the column because he often, in fact most of the time, writes editorials in direct contradiction of his column. It�s just � he says he does it to generate interest. Nobody outside the paper is supposed to know...�

Reardon released the telephone, but stayed close enough to take charge if the girl tried to call for help. Maxwell, eh? And a devious man, too! Add that to the pot!

�Is this Maxwell in the building?�

�No. He... he hasn�t come in, yet.�

Just one more thing and we�ll have it all tied up! Reardon thought. �And tell me this � does Mr. Maxwell happen to have a beard? And does he smoke cigars?�

There was the sound of the twin glass doors being opened before the girl could answer; Reardon turned to find a small, portly white-haired gentleman dressed in extremely mod clothes for one his age come bustling up to the desk. He looked like Charlie Winninger to Reardon�s eyes, and he wished the little man had waited a moment longer before breaking into his interview. The newcomer beamed at the girl.

�Ah, Jane! Good morning! How�s everything this morning?� The little beaming man seemed to notice for the first time that the girl had been crying. He glanced at Reardon sharply, as if to determine if this man might be the cause of the girl�s unhappiness, and then brought his attention back to the receptionist. �Is something the matter?�

It was too much for the girl. She burst into tears again. �Oh, Mr. Maxwell...!�

Maxwell frowned and turned to Reardon. �What on earth seems to be bothering the girl? Did you do something, or say something?�

Reardon felt his face getting red. His theory disintegrated about him. He brought out his billfold for the second time and opened it for Mr. Maxwell�s inspection. Maxwell looked puzzled.

�Are you going to arrest her? On what grounds? I�m afraid we�ll have to have our company attorneys look into this. I�ve known Jane since she was a child. Her father��

�No, no!� Reardon said hurriedly, and felt foolish. �It has nothing to do with the girl. It�s... well, sir, I was asking her questions about you.�

�About me?� Maxwell�s deep blue eyes considered Reardon sharply. �I see. Well, the one to properly ask questions about me would be me, don�t you think? Come along.� He turned and trotted off about the back of the reception desk in the direction of the elevators, calling back over his shoulder, �It�s all right, Jane. It�s all right...�

Reardon followed the small man into the elevator. They rose in silence to the top floor, and emerged into a room filled with desks and people and noise; the steady ringing of telephones drowned out the strange rhythmic sound of the presses downstairs, but the faint bumping could still be felt through the floor. Maxwell pressed through the crowded room without paying the slightest attention to the racket about him, nor did anyone bother to look up or greet him as the small man and Reardon passed. They reached a corner office and Maxwell courteously held the door open until his guest had entered; he then followed along, leaving a small hissing cylinder to shut the door, and trotted to his desk, seating himself and gesturing toward a chair, all in the same motion. He smiled at his guest and pressed a button on his intercommunicator.

�Miss Tenefly? No calls, no interruptions. I�ll be in conference until further notice.� He clicked the button upward and leaned back in his chair, fixing Reardon with a shrewd look. �All right, Lieutenant. Suppose you tell me what this is all about.� A sudden thought came to him and he leaned forward, frowning. �Reardon! Lieutenant Reardon! Good God, I hope it had nothing to do with that column about the police! But I wrote an editorial the same day�� He stopped abruptly. �I mean��

Reardon smiled. �The girl downstairs told me. I�ll keep it a secret.� His smile disappeared. �No, it has nothing to do with that column. Or it does, actually, in a way...�

And it did, in a way, he thought, because if Porky Frank hadn�t kept harping on that column, he didn�t know whether he would have been here or not. He stared at the round little man a moment and then pulled up a chair and sat down across the desk from him. He watched the steady shrewd blue eyes a moment and made up his mind. After all, you had to trust somebody in this world, and if you couldn�t trust the Charlie Winninger types, who could you trust? He wasn�t sure that Captain Tower or Chief Boynton would have agreed with him, but the fact was that time was rapidly running out. He took a deep breath.

�Mr. Maxwell, I need help. That�s why I came here this morning, but when I got here I got sidetracked with a stupid idea, and that�s how I came to upset your receptionist. I think I�m back on the track now. I�ve got a story to tell you, but first I want to tell you � not ask you � that it cannot be published without our permission. Is that understood?�

Maxwell nodded. �Understood. Provided when permission is granted, the Express gets first crack.�

�If you prove helpful,� Reardon said flatly, and went on. �I�ll put it very briefly. Four days ago we had a police officer kidnapped, and last night another one was taken. The kidnapper was very insistent that no publicity be given, which is why you have not heard of this before, although we would have held back on publicity regardless of his instructions. That�s also why I asked you not to publish anything of what I am telling you, without permission.�

He paused to put his thoughts in order and then continued.

�Now, whoever is holding these two officers has offered to release them in exchange for certain men in our custody. The crimes for which the men in our custody are being held are very minor, and I doubt if you would recognize their names if you heard them.� He paused, thinking. �Or maybe you would. Guillermo Lazaretti and Vito Patrone.�

Maxwell shook his head. �The names ring no bells.�

�I didn�t expect them to. However, I may ask you later to see if possibly one of your stringers turned in a story about their arrest, but at the moment it�s not too important. At any rate the decision was made by the Hall of Justice not to accede to what amounted to blackmail demands on the part of kidnappers; the feeling was that if we began trading kidnapped officers for criminals in custody, no officer would be safe in the future.�

�I agree,� Maxwell said bluntly.

�I suppose I do, too. In any event, we received several messages from the kidnapper, the first one being on tape. We also recovered the automobile in which the first officer was kidnapped. The details of how our laboratory got their results are unimportant, but I can say that we were able to determine that the kidnapper is a fairly well-educated man who we believe was raised in the bay area and who is bearded and smokes cigars. He is accompanied by an accomplice who drove the kidnap car, who we believe is about five-foot-four inches tall.�

Maxwell smiled bleakly. �About my size.�

�I�d put you at closer to five-foot-six,� Reardon said, and smiled mischievously. �However, just for fun, where were you last Saturday morning between nine and ten o�clock?�

Maxwell was not at all disturbed by the inquiry. He swung around in his swivel chair and reached for his desk diary, flipping it open. He leafed through a few pages and paused.

�Saturday, September fourth,� he said. �At that hour I was having breakfast at the Peninsula Golf Club with the mayor, prior to a round of golf.� He closed the book and swiveled back. �Our waiter was Tom. I had shirred eggs and a sweet roll. Now, you were saying?�

Reardon started to smile and then wiped it away.

�Does the description I just gave you ring any particular bell?�

Maxwell shook his head. �I�m afraid it also rings no bell.�

Reardon sighed and plowed on, wondering if he was wasting his time. �I mentioned Saturday because at that hour the smaller accomplice was killing someone up in Potrero. However, to get back to the story � we also have evidence that indicates the kidnapper taped his message to us in a building where printing presses were in operation.�

Maxwell tented his fingers and watched Reardon thoughtfully over them. He almost seemed to be composing the first line of either his column or an editorial, probably, Reardon thought, on the dangers in the street or the idiocy of the police. He went on:

�Then this morning we received a second message. This one was made up of letters and words cut out of what seems to be a newspaper, pasted on a sheet of paper. Our laboratory believes the letters were all cut from the same paper. And they think the paper the words were pasted on was the same paper as the letters and words were printed on.� He reached into his pocket and brought out the envelope, handling it gingerly. He eased the note from the envelope, unfolded it, and laid it on the desk. Maxwell leaned over and studied it closely. His nose wrinkled at the message.

�I assume the 2 A.M. is tomorrow morning?�

�Yes.�

�Hmmm.� Maxwell leaned back in his chair, studying the sheet from a distance, and then sat erect. �You know, Lieutenant,� he said slowly, �newspapers also operate in the manner of a detective bureau at times. Take those two lads from the Washington Post, in the Watergate case. They certainly did a better job than the police in that city; or than the FBI, for that matter, even assuming the bureau was trying.� He pointed toward the note. �Now, I think it�s quite possible one or two of our old compositors might be able to read more into this note than the police can � or than I can, frankly. I�ll need your permission to call one of them in and ask him.� He paused. �Or maybe you�d feel better if I cut the message into separate words and moved them around to change the meaning?�

Reardon sat up. �No! You can have one of your people look at it � in fact I�d appreciate it � but let�s leave the note intact. It may well be evidence in a murder trial someday.�

�Of course.� Maxwell shrugged. �Oh, well, if I know the man I want to show this to, he won�t even read it. He�ll just look at the type and the paper.� He leaned over and flipped the communicator switch. �Miss Tenefly? Get McDougal up here, will you? On the double.� He clicked off the set and leaned back. �Well, let�s see what the Scots Wizard has to say.�

They waited in silence, Maxwell tapping his tented fingers together, Reardon staring from the window, wondering if he was right in being here at all. There really had been no need to give Maxwell the information he had; all that any other police officer would have done would have been to show his shield and ask the questions he wanted answers to. If any word leaked out as a result of his needless disclosure, anything that resulted in harm to either Pop Holland or Dondero, he swore he�d come back to the Express and feed a few people here through one of their noisy presses, starting with the publisher! Although, to be honest, if anything unfortunate did occur, the fault would be his alone, as was the fix Dondero was in.

There was an abrupt rap on the door and it was opened without the visitor waiting for permission. The man who entered did so in stumping manner, as if his legs had been bound at the knees. He was an elderly man, stocky, with work clothes that had seen countless washings, and an ink-stained apron across his waist that he wore like a guerdon for services rendered in many a publishing battle. A neatly folded cap of newsprint hid his graying hair, a tribute to the origami talents of American pressmen; his huge gray mustache hid all but red-veined cheeks. Tiny blue eyes peered out cautiously from beneath bushy eyebrows of indeterminate color. A huge curved pipe, unlit, hung from the corner of his mouth, touching his chin. He nodded to Maxwell as if the two of them were alone in the room.

�Y�wanted to see me, Mr. Maxwill?�

�Yes, Mac.� Maxwell made no attempt to introduce Reardon, but pointed to the pasted-up note on his desk. �What do you think of this?�

Maxwell leaned over the thing, making no attempt to straighten it out. �It�s a piss-poor paste-up job,� he said, mostly under his breath. �Me grandson would have done better.�

�Forget the paste-up job,� Maxwell said impatiently. �I want your opinion on the printing, and the type. And the paper. Can you � I mean, do you have any idea of those?�

McDougal looked around shrewdly at the stranger, and then back to Maxwell. �Can I touch the thing?�

�You can touch it,� Reardon said. McDougal�s eyes remained fixed on Maxwell. �You can touch it, Mac,� the publisher said, and smiled at Reardon. Reardon shrugged. He had a feeling he should have let Roy Gentry handle the entire investigation of the note. Time was passing and they were getting nowhere.

McDougal picked it up, studied the printing closely, his one hand pinching the paper the letters were pasted on. He looked up. �What d�you want to know?�

�Everything,� Reardon said without much hope of a useful answer. �Can you identify the type? Or the paper?�

�Oh, aye,� McDougal said. Reardon sat more erect. Maybe his visit wasn�t going to be such a waste as he had feared. �It�s from a shopping broadsheet; anyone can see that.�

�Shopping broadsheet?� Reardon had come to his feet and was standing beside the stocky printer. McDougal cocked an eye at the interloper and then shrugged. If Maxwell didn�t mind the stranger butting in constantly, why should he?

�That�s right,� he said, and took his pipe from his mouth to point with the stem. �Those numbers are probably the price of cheese, or eggs, or something. The job was set up with phototype, probably on aluminum plates, judging from the tone of definition. Printed on a web press, probably. And the paper.� He rustled it again between his fingers. �Twenty-eight pound circular stock, cheapest stuff around. Even cheaper than the newsprint we use, which is thirty-pound.�

Reardon felt a sudden stir of excitement.

�Assuming it was printed in the San Francisco area,� he said, �how many shops would you say are equipped with presses capable of doing work of that nature?�

�Plenty. Too many.� McDougal shrugged and shoved his pipe back somewhere beneath his mustache. �Including those around the other side of the bay, I�d guess at fifteen. Maybe more.�

�And just in the city proper?�

�Oh, maybe eight.�

�And is there a list of them anywhere? Who would know who they are?�

Maxwell broke in. �They�re in the phone book, I imagine, but McDougal would probably know as well as anyone. He�s worked about every shop in the area, haven�t you, Mac?�

McDougal nodded; he seemed to be pleased to be labeled a rolling stone.

�Oh, aye. I�ve worked plenty of them, but I know them all. I�ve been president of the union three times, and treasurer twice. I�ve seen them come up and seen them go broke.� He looked at Maxwell calmly. �Newspapers, too...�

Reardon mentally crossed his fingers and asked his final question.

�Mr. McDougal, do you know of any shop, the kind of shop that might have produced that� � he pointed to the note still in McDougal�s hand � �where there is someone working, in a supervisory position, I imagine, or more likely the owner himself, who has a beard, and smokes cigars, and has a small accomp � I mean, a small person � working with him closely, a person who is maybe five-foot-four?�

McDougal frowned at him. Up until the moment he had tolerated the stranger and his questions, but it seemed to him that now the man was getting damnably nosey. �And who might you be?�

�It�s all right,� Maxwell said. �He�s the police.� He was sitting up eagerly, his deep blue eyes sparkling with excitement. �Well? Would you know?�

�Oh, aye,� McDougal said, and laid the note down on the desk again. �That�d be George Morrison, who owns the Neighborhood Print Works, over on Galvez. Mob money in the place, if you ask me. Bunch of goons working there. It�s a scab shop We�ve had our troubles with Morrison, the sweet-talking thug!� He looked around for a place to spit, found none, and swallowed. �The little guy�s probably Harry Wittwer. He drives for Morrison. Big George doesn�t like to drive.�

Reardon looked at the stocky printer unbelievingly. It had been that easy!

Tuesday � 12:00 NOON

Chief Boynton marched through the closely set desks as if they were obstacles to be overcome, following a prim Miss Tenefly, with Captain Tower on their heels. Miss Tenefly tapped once on the door of the corner office and then opened it, permitting her guests to enter. Once they had been properly delivered, she closed the door and returned to her desk, prepared � as anyone working for Mr. Maxwell had to be prepared � for anything.

Inside the office, Chief Boynton acknowledged the introductions and then frowned at the lieutenant.

�All right,� he said quietly. �What�s this all about? And if you�ve got something to report, why not at the Hall?�

�Because I think we can save ourselves a lot of trouble, with Mr. Maxwell�s help,� Reardon said. He was standing with his back to the window, looking at the chief evenly. He had had plenty of time since his call to the Hall to work things out. �If you�ll just take a seat...�

Chief Boynton looked for a moment as if he might object, but then he shrugged and sat down. Captain Tower considered his subordinate a moment and then found a chair and followed suit. Lieutenant Reardon had always done a good job, and the captain had a feeling this case was no exception. Reardon could almost read his mind. Well, he thought, it�s a damn good thing the captain doesn�t know how much luck played in this one!

�All right,� he said. �With the help of the Express, we�ve located the people we believe kidnapped Pop Holland. There�s very little room for doubt. The man in charge is named George Morrison, and the small man who ran down the wino in Pop�s car is named Harry Wittwer. Morrison runs a small printing plant called the Neighborhood Print Works, over on Galvez. Wittwer is his driver; Morrison apparently doesn�t like to drive. We think Pop and Dondero might be held there, at the��

�Dondero!� It came as a chorus from both Tower and Boynton.

�Yes, sir. Dondero took Lazaretti out of the cell block, it�s true, but he didn�t torture or kill him. Morrison and Wittwer did that. Don took the man out to trade him for Pop Holland, and � well, the kidnapper has him, too.� And the statement, Reardon told himself, was true; it didn�t seem the time to go into details that had been abridged. �As I started to say, Pop Holland and Don may be in the building on Galvez, or they may not. My guess is they are. Now, we could surround the building with a dozen squad cars and end up with a shoot-�em-up, and somebody would get hurt, and that includes Pop and Dondero. Or, we can play it smart and ask Mr. Maxwell for his help.�

Boynton was quiet, trying to absorb the information he had just received. Tower frowned. �Mr. Maxwell�s help? How?�

�Well,� Reardon said, �I spoke with Davidson while you were on your way over here, and he�ll have men on the Neighborhood Print Works in the next fifteen minutes. They�re probably there now. They�ll be instructed not to be obvious. There are men on foot and cars, both, but if Dave knows his job � and he does � nobody at the print works will have any idea they�re covered. Then, as soon as Morrison and Wittwer leave��

�How do you know they�re there?�

Reardon smiled. �Because Miss Tenefly, Mr. Maxwell�s invaluable secretary, just had a wrong number and spoke with Morrison. She was looking for the Neighborhood Dry Cleaning Company to register a complaint, and she wouldn�t believe they weren�t giving her a run around until she spoke with the boss. No, Morrison�s there.�

�And what makes you think they�ll leave?�

�That�s Mr. Maxwell�s part of the job.� Reardon looked at Maxwell. �Ready?�

�Ready,� the little man said. His eyes were twinkling with delight. He picked up the telephone, asked for an outside line, and dialed. There was a short wait; then the telephone at the other end was raised.

�Neighborhood Print Works.�

The humor died from Maxwell�s face. He looked to be exactly what he was; a tough experienced publisher. Tower and Boynton watched the small man with curiosity; Reardon smiled. Maxwell�s voice was harsh.

�I want to speak with Mr. Morrison.�

�Who wants to talk to him?�

�This is Ira Maxwell, publisher of the Express. Please tell Mr. Morrison this call is extremely important.� He cupped the receiver and winked jovially at the others, then straightened his face and removed his hand as another voice came on the line. �Morrison? Is this George Morrison? How are you? We�ve never met, but I�ve heard a lot about you, and I think you can help me out. And, in return, I think I can help you out.�

�Help you out? How?� Morrison sounded slightly amused by the call.

�I understand you run a nonunion shop. Well, we�re sitting here, me and my lawyers, talking about just that. We�re about to come up for negotiations and these damn fools here are ready to give away the whole damn plant! I thought if you could come over and join us for an hour or so, maybe you could give us some idea of how you operate. Damned if I�m going to give everything I�ve worked for to some damned union...!�

�I don�t know...� There was a brief pause while everyone in the room waited tensely. Then Morrison spoke. �And just what would be the quid pro quo you mentioned if I did help you out?�

Maxwell was quite prepared. He had a pencil in one hand and doodled as he spoke.

�You buy your newsprint through Western American, don�t you? Of course you do. I happen to be a major stockholder in Western American. How do you think I�ve stayed in business as long as I have against such competition as the Chronicle and the Examiner if I didn�t have an edge? Now, we had a board meeting of Western American not very long ago, and the question came up of a price rise��

Morrison laughed, genuinely amused. �I�m not afraid of any price rise.�

�I don�t believe you understand,� Maxwell said, and Reardon was amazed at the toughness that had crept into the little man�s voice, a toughness he was sure Morrison would recognize. �The reason we are thinking of a price rise is that we have overcut our forests, and the concensus was we should raise prices and reduce output for a few years. The oil producers have done very well with this method, and we believe it would have equal advantages for us. That, of course, would mean dropping some customers...� He allowed his voice to drift off.

There was silence at the other end of the line for several moments. Then Morrison said quietly, �I�ll be in your office in twenty minutes, Mr. Maxwell.�

�Thank you,� Maxwell said graciously, but he was talking to a dead line. He hung up and turned to the others, smiling faintly. �Morrison will be here in twenty minutes.�

Reardon looked at that bright, shrewd, smiling face with the sharp blue eyes and hoped he would never have to face the little man on a business deal. He reached behind him, to his belt holster and removed his service revolver. He checked it carefully, slid it into his outside jacket pocket for easy access, then seated himself, waiting. Captain Tower did the same with his revolver and also placed it in his side pocket. Chief Boynton merely came to his feet and moved to the window, staring out.

The minutes ticked by. Then there was a rap on the door; it opened and a large bearded man stood on the threshold. His glance passed the other three men in the room and fastened on Maxwell. �You�re Mr. Maxwell...?� he started to say, and then did a rapid double take, turning swiftly to face Reardon. �You�re...!� His hand went to his pocket, but before either of the others could draw their guns, Chief Boynton had moved swiftly. His big hand slapped Morrison across the face with all his might. Morrison stood there a moment, dazed, and then slid to the floor, unconscious.

�Too many guns around, these days,� Boynton said briefly, and bent down to frisk the man on the floor.