William R. Cox

Death Comes Early

one

Jack Ware cut the deck for Ted Colyer and walked to a one-way window which looked down on his restaurant. No one glancing up could see him, but he could count the crowd, which was good sized for late afternoon, and keep an eye on the cash register and look for pretty girls.

Ted Colyer said, “The damn Pirates had to take everything and now you beat me at gin.”

“You should have saved your money. You should have invested in Polaroid Camera. You would be a millionaire by now, instead of a bum.”

“Agh. Shaddup,” said Ted amiably. He was as lean and good-looking and tanned as when he was with the Yankees, a fine outfielder with a rifle arm, a consistent long ball hitter and a sparkplug for Casey. He was thirty-seven and only the worry lines on his face betrayed him. “Pick up your hand. I can’t afford to quit now.”

Jack walked across to the other window. His office was part of a second-story layout which allowed him to watch his kitchen and his cash box. He thought about how fond he was of Ted Colyer.

He said, “I still think you’re wrong about that horse.”

“You don’t know your elbow from horses. Play cards.”

“Nobody knows from horses and I don’t even believe in boat races,” said Jack.

“Play your hand,” said Ted.

Jack lowered his large, wide frame onto a chair across the desk from his friend. He was a muscular man; even his face had muscles. He was blond and colorful to the eye, not handsome, blunt-featured, with a direct manner. He picked up his cards and arranged them. He took the king of hearts and fitted it in and discarded the ten of diamonds to keep from blocking himself.

Ted picked, discarded the king of spades. Jack said, “You were first in line when bad luck was handed out. Gin.”

“You dirty slob,” said Ted. “Fifty-nine.”

“That’s another blitz.”

“How much I owe?”

Jack counted it up. “Five hundred and two bucks.”

“Okay.” Ted was listless, which was very unlike him. He usually cursed and screamed and damned his luck, Jack, his ancestors and his brother.

Jack folded the cards away, put them in the drawer of the small desk. The office had been built for convenience and comfort, not for bookkeeping or business conferences. There was a small bar, a hi-fi with stereo, books of all kinds, comfortable chairs. There were sports lithos on the wall which set the motif for the room and the people who habituated it.

A door led to a bathroom and a tiny cubicle containing a double bed, a dresser and a huge closet. Another door led to the hallway and the elevator and stairs required by fire regulations. It was a home away from home and a hangout for a carefree Broadway crowd and some other people.

“Mind if I tune in the race?” asked Ted.

“If you can stand looking.”

The ex-ballplayer went to the color television set which was built into a corner. He fiddled with the switches.

It wasn’t anything new, Jack thought, it merely had new overtones. Ted had retired from baseball with a fortune. Ever since that day he had been trying to find an excuse for living.

Ted never had a job. He was a ballplayer, period. From seventeen until thirty-seven he had spent his time on the baseball fields of the nation. It had been impossible for him to believe he would ever be anything but a baseball man.

It hadn’t worked out that way. For various reasons, none of them all Ted’s fault, the business hadn’t wanted him. Once his legs gave way, there was no job.

The picture arranged itself in black and white. The color would come on when they started the race. It was the Camptown Special, a stakes race worth $90,000. There were ten other races on the program, but Ted was laying it all on Gold Bug in the Special.

Jack had a couple hundred riding on the horse, because Ted was so certain that it couldn’t lose. Fortune was the favorite, Jack Jim was rated second best. Ted knew something, he knew the trainer, he knew the stable. The stable was owned by Cyrus Easton Camp, who had said nothing to Jack Ware about Gold Bug, but Ted had it bad for the nag. Bugged by Gold Bug, Jack thought

There was no use saying anything more. Ted was older than Jack, he had been around. He was a positive guy, in his pleasant, friendly way. The bets were down and the race was about to begin. Jack adjusted the color as the scene shifted to the track, the announcer began his staccato, brittle call, the horses paraded on the brown dirt.

Ted said, “Stop worrying. It’s for sure.”

“Who’s worrying?” Jack knew who. He tried to keep it light “They’ll be running tomorrow. I just took you for more than I’ve got on your damn Gold Bug.”

“Chicken.”

“You bet. Horses, to me, are large, inimical animals. Whenever I’m near them they bare their fangs. They step on me, try to kick me in the groin.”

“Horses don’t aim their punches.”

“Mine do. Right in the groin.”

Ted laughed, but there was no lift to it. He had always been a big laugher. Nothing had ever deterred him on his merry way, until lately.

Jack said, “We ought to go up to the country for a weekend. Catch a fish, maybe.”

“You hate to fish, you clown.”

“I like to make believe I enjoy fishing. It’s unmanly not to enjoy fishing.”

“Nuts,” said Ted. His eyes were glued to the screen. They were in the starting gate.

Jack moved to where he could watch Ted and the race at the same time. Concern was growing in him every moment. The little lines on Ted’s face had become canals.

The man at the track began his call. “It’s Fortune breaking on top, then Whirligig, then Jack Jim, then Gold Bug, Skyaway, Carmen’s Daughter, Underway, Gray Leg and Marbletop…”

Jack wondered how a man could call them like that, identifying the position of each horse. He must have four pairs of eyes and a helper or two, he decided. It was all a blur of color and motion. He had never cared about horse racing. He liked to bet, would gamble on anything, but horses were for the addicts in his opinion and he was not hooked.

He watched Ted Colyer. It was like watching a man in death row awaiting a reprieve.

“Gold Bug is making his move. Wester has him on the outside… Wester goes to the whip… It is Fortune, Jack Jim and Gold Bug at the turn…”

It happens fast in a race. They come out, they go around, they come into the stretch. Only this time in the stretch, after one look, Jack Ware knew the truth. The race was close, it was a dandy, only it lay between Fortune and Jack Jim. Gold Bug was a bad third.

Ted Colyer leaned back and fumbled for a cigarette. He allowed Jack to light it, inhaled, blew out a cloud of smoke. Then he went over and turned off the television set.

Jack said casually, “Wanted to talk to you, amigo.”

“That was real funny,” said Ted, “that race. Really ridiculous. That race didn’t make sense.”

“They seldom do unless you win.” He felt that Ted was not listening. “Look, I do want to talk to you.”

“Sure, Jack. What like?”

“Well, I’m opening this new place in Hollywood, remember?”

“Sure. You told me.”

“Just like this one. Jack’s of Hollywood. On restaurant row, La Cienega Boulevard. So many New York people out there, it will be an annex, sort of.”

“Lots of luck, pal.”

“Uh-uh.” He had to break through, get Ted’s attention. “I figure it’s about time you went to work. Take charge of the joint for me. It’d be a hell of a favor.”

Ted said, “One hell of a dumb race. I wonder…” He broke off, stared at Jack. “Me? What the hell do I know about restaurants, you idiot. I can’t even pay my tabs!”

“You think I know anything? I hire people. I’ve got a man out there knows what to do. I need a greeter who knows how to meet folks. I need a pal to watch things and call me every day, someone I can trust.”

Ted started to say something, stopped, took a new grab and began softly, grinning. “You sonofabitch. You know too much about me.”

“I know the way things have been going.”

“Well, sure. You’re right. Not going good.”

“This job—there’ll be something in it, a percentage. Maybe we’d open another place in Florida. Hell, if I can learn it, you can.”

“That’s for sure. I don’t know how you did it.” Ted looked at the ceiling. There were deep circles under his eyes. There was a minute of silence.

He’ll take it, Jack thought. He’s a reckless guy and all that but he never was stupid. It’s a chance to get away from New York and the mob and that damned broad…

The door opened and Lila Sharp came in, as if on cue. Jack swore beneath his breath, watching Ted come back to life. He wished Lila Sharp were in hell, where he believed she rightly belonged.

She was all style, a tall one. She wore a gray suit which fit her like a full-length Bikini. She was fair without being blond, with fortunate honey-colored hair that needed no dye job. Her eyes were slanted, her lips curving as though on the verge of smiling. She was lovely as a sailing ship on a calm blue sea.

If she were only also without brains, Jack thought, as Ted hugged her tight If she only had something inside to match the outside.

If she would only go away and leave Ted Colyer alone. Hell, she had most of his money, or had spent it, or had led him to invest it in ruinous projects; why did she hang on?

Lila said, “Hi, Jack.” She also had a low, exciting voice. “Gold Bug didn’t do it?”

“How could you tell?”

“I can tell.” She held Ted at arm’s length, looking at him. “I can always tell.”

Ted said, “Can’t win ’em all, baby.”’

“I know, I know. Stiff upper lip, all that.”

“Forget it,” said Ted. “It’s happened before.”

“Has it?” It seemed as though she would say more, then she looked warily at Jack, knowing his dislike of her, and was silent.

Jack said, “Will you take the job, Ted?”

“Maybe. Tell you later. Got things to do, now.” He scribbled in a small checkbook, flipped the bit of paper on Jack’s desk. “Five hundred and the hell with the extras, I think you cheat on the score, anyway.”

Lila asked, “What job?”

“Tell you about it later,” said Ted. He was, suddenly, in a hurry, as though he had made up his mind to something definite.

“It’s open from now on,” Jack said.

Lila went out, looked back, then vanished toward the elevator. Ted paused a moment, smiling, looking for that moment as he always had, gay, kindly, happy.

“Thanks, you slob.”

The door closed. Jack picked up the check. The handwriting was hasty, half-formed, indicative of Ted’s inner turmoil.

That damned walking broad, that high-toned stripper, he thought. She won’t marry him, she just takes his dough. Now that he’s broke, and I believe he is broke, she’ll ditch him soon enough. If I could only get him off to California, maybe that would do it.

He put the check in a drawer. He wouldn’t cash it until he knew more about Ted’s finances. Sooner or later he would have to cash it because of Ted’s pride, but not now.

He sat for a moment, decided against taking a drink.

He felt low in spirits when he went out and down into the restaurant and bar which was making him a pocketful of money and giving him a lot of fun and some little fame.

two

Jack’s Place was on Third Avenue between 45th and 46th. The general refurbishing of that old, disreputable street had led him to build where once a brick tenement had moldered on the shady side of the El. The entry was modest, the interior was comparatively Spartan, the booze was the best, the food was plain but luscious.

The circular bar was nearest the street, tempting the thirsty customer to linger under the spell of Brownie, who had been a referee and an umpire, football and baseball. The other night men were Spike and Jake, who could fan any sport or for that matter any show, on Broadway or off, any night club act or movie or carnival. They had been selected with care and were the best paid dispensers of liquor along the Avenue if not in the city.

The restaurant was beyond the bar, deep and wide, with booths along each side and tables well-spaced between them. The kitchen was at the far rear end of the building. There were two private dining rooms upstairs, sound-proofed, flanking Jack’s office-apartment. The decor was red leather and white, the walls splattered with paintings of people: sports people, stage and screen people, newspaper and magazine people.

There was no snob appeal in Jack’s Place and no knuckling to the intelligentsia, yet snobs and intellectuals fought to get in on a night like this, an autumn Saturday. They were coming in droves and Jack moved among them, towering, dressed as always in a fine gray suit of dacron and silk, wearing a plain, narrow blue tie and a white shirt and black, imported laceless shoes. Toots was just leaving and paused for an interchange of insults laden with “Crumb-bums,” before hastening to his own new place, where Jack would join him later. Sergeant Hal Damon came in as Toots departed.

Damon wore blue serge because that was what he believed a cop should wear. He looked like a shabby car salesman. He had a long nose and watery green eyes and a suspicious mouth. He said, “Whyn’t you and that other slob go in business together? You got the same customers.”

Jack said, “Always nice to see the law. Have a drink, Sergeant. On the house, of course.”

“You miserable bastard,” said Damon emotionlessly. “You think I’d pay?”

They stood at the bar and Jack had his first, a Daniel on the rocks. They understood each other very well. There was no warmth between them, only grudging tolerance.

Damon said, “Where did Ted go when he left here?”

Jack sipped his drink. He had surmised there was trouble, but this was bad. “I wouldn’t know.”

“It would be better if you told me.” The detective swallowed vodka and soda. People called out, eddied to and fro, yelling at Jack. “I might could do something.”

“About what?”

It was Damon’s turn to be surprised. “Hell, he’s your best friend. You know all about it.”

Jack said deliberately, “Don’t ever try to con me, Damon. It makes me very nervous. You can come in here any time and free load, you can check the trade as long as you do it legally and quietly, you can enjoy any privilege that’s coming to you. But don’t crap me.”

Damon finished the drink. “All right, weisenheimer.” He turned and padded out, an inconspicuous, thin man with a prominent adam’s apple and sore feet. Jack looked after him and wondered if his tender temper hadn’t led him wrong again. If Damon had been tipping him to something about Ted, he had surely been wrong.

On the other hand, the cop was a sneaky one. Maybe he was, as Jack had believed, prying, hoping to make Jack talk by implying that they were all in it together, whatever it was.

It added up to trouble and plenty of it. Ted was mixed up in a dozen enterprises, any of which might well be shady, thanks to Lila Sharp and her friends.

Ted’s failing lay in the fact that he never had any job outside baseball. He had made a fortune at the game and through side efforts, such as television, advertising testimonials and the hunting lodge which was run by his brother, Alvin. Work of any sort was foreign to him. He was a late-to-bed, late-to-rise man. He liked drinks and dames.

Lila had, of course, contributed to this. She had cut off the other women and moved in on everything else.

Jack turned from the bar, frowning. He spoke absently to several people, making his way into the restaurant. Pat Shapiro was handling the crowd and the scurrying waiters with an iron hand: a graying man, half Irish and half Jewish, shrewd and honest and loyal. Pat ran the place, to be honest about it.

In the kitchen there was Louis Alphonse, Louie the Knife, who took care of that end of the business. Jack wondered if they would miss him if he walked out and did not return for six months. He doubted it.

Well, he thought, that’s what makes a good executive, they tell me. Hire men who know how, pay them well. Then raise hell with them.

Only he didn’t have to raise hell. He gave them their heads and when the money rolled in he bought more land in other places like Miami and Hollywood. If he could find other men as good, he would be a blinking millionaire and begin worrying about taxes.

No, he wouldn’t worry about taxes, either, because downtown there was Max Somerwell who did that for him. Truthfully, he was on the edge of boredom, everything was going so well.

The kitchen was immaculate, it smelled of good meat and fresh air, the vents were working, there were no stains or spots, French Louie the Knife regarded him with mordant suspicion. He went on out into the back alley where he half hoped he might find a garbage can uncovered. There were some trash cans, huge things for refuse, cartons, sundry dry items. The top was off one of these.

Then he paused, amused at himself. Here he was, healthy, wealthy and thirty, looking for some picayune detail about which to complain. It had been that way all his life, a restlessness, an impatience with the good fortune handed out to him by the gods.

He had been born in Greenwich, Connecticut, of rich parents. They had neither loved nor disliked him, being content with their own pursuit of happiness and excitement. They had been handsome and young, ever young, because in 1943 his father had gone down in flaming glory to a hero’s death over Germany; his mother had never learned of this. She was in London at the time and a blitz bomb had wiped out the ambulance she was driving.

Jack had been brought up by a Trust Fund, sent to Lawrenceville, then to Princeton, where he had done very well until he was twenty, when the police action started in Korea and he had gone into the Navy. Nothing much happened to him, except he learned to dislike the sea and had been transferred for a brief time to OSS which he had also found unrewarding, if informative.

Then he had returned to New York, homeless though rich. He hung around Toots’s and Twenty-One and got to know everybody and played the horses and bet the ball games and threw some dice and always came out a winner. He had athletic skill, and gyms were fun, but sweaty. He did not hunt or fish, he played on the beaches up and down the east coast, took a whack at Hollywood and West Coast Florida, then Europe for a season.

Then, partly through his friendship with sporting folk and Ted Colyer, he had got the idea of a hangout restaurant in midtown. Two years and a lot of money later, he opened Jack’s Place and success came at once.

He had never thought far beyond this, he had never found a girl he wanted to marry, he had no urge for posterity nor craving for home and fireside. He sometimes slept at the Waltham Gardens on Park Avenue but he lived in the restaurant. Now he was restless again and at this moment he recognized that he needed a change of tempo, something to add flavor to the days and nights.

The alley behind the restaurant ran to 46th Street from a dead end and was paralleled by an office building, deserted at night. There was an electric fixture, required by law, to throw some light, but it was not bright. The lid to the fat, round trash can lay in shadow and Jack leaned over to pick it up.

There was, in back of him, a light but explosive cough, the kind that is held back too long. Something hard hit Jack at the nape of the neck, dropping him to his knees against the trash can.

He was momentarily dazed, but heard footsteps flying past him to the 46th Street exit. He tried to get up, slipped. When he had regained balance and vision, the alley was deserted. He ran fast as he could to the street. A dark coupé, either a Ford or a Chevy, without lights, was going toward Third Avenue.

When he got to the corner, the coupé was lost in city traffic. He rubbed the back of his neck and returned to the alley. Ask, he thought, and it shall be given unto you. I craved a change and I got it, a bat in the head. From someone I would recognize, what’s more, or else someone bent on dark deeds.

What adventure in the alley, among the trash cans? Better go back and look. … In the trash can?

“Ted,” he cried aloud as he bent over the wide mouth of the can. Then he knew it wasn’t Ted, because no trash receiver was big enough to hold Ted Colyer, all bent in half like that, his face bloody, dark eyes staring.

It was Alvin Colyer. It was Ted’s brother who was supposed to be upstate, running the hunting lodge. He was folded neatly into the can and dead.

There had been something peculiar in the genes of the Colyer family. Alvin, two years older than Ted, looked enough like him to be his twin. But Ted was tall and wide while Alvin was tiny and thin. Both had athletic ability; Alvin had been a top jockey until an accident had broken both legs and finished his career.

Jack’s first instinct was to yank the body from its undignified position, to try and straighten out the distorted limbs, close the eyes. Then he remembered police procedure from his OSS days. He backed to the kitchen door and called, “Louis.”

The sharp-faced chef scowled at him. “It’s busy in here.”

“It’s busy out here, too. It will be busier. Get one of your men to call the police. Ask that Sergeant Damon be informed that Alvin Colyer is dead in our alley.”

He felt it would be wrong to leave the body. Louis came out and stared and shrank back in horror and asked questions which he could not or would not answer. He sent the chef back inside.

He leaned against the wall and awaited the police. He had been deep in thought when he heard the cough, the hasty footsteps. He tried to recollect the moment

They had been rather fond of him in OSS because he was possessed of total recall. His mind was nimble in retrospect, he could run it backward or forward like movie film in a projector. Several points cleared for him now.

The cough had been so light that either a man or a woman might have been the attacker in the alley. The blow aimed at him had missed his skull and had not rendered him unconscious, the footsteps had been hard- heeled, that is, there was no soft-shoe involved, also furthering his premise.

The speed of the getaway implied a second party waiting in the coupé. It would have been almost impossible to open a car door, enter it, start it and make Third Avenue before Jack got close enough for identification.

Two people then, and Alvin in the alley, he decided. The blow that killed Ted Colyer’s brother had not been struck by one lacking strength, the front of the skull was broken wide open. Still, a woman could have done it with a weapon like a lead pipe.

Then he knew, suddenly, why his mind kept turning to the fact of a woman’s presence. There had been a scent, a wave of perfume as the person who had struck him came close. Not heavy stuff, more like a light toilet water. Still, it had been strong enough to leave an impression on Jack’s senses.

He thought about this, thought about Alvin Colyer.

He had never liked the ex-jockey, a dour little man with absolutely no humor. Alvin’s life had been unfortunate and Ted always made excuses for him. The two brothers were, from adolescence, suckers for the opposite sex and Alvin had been through three marriages which had drained his considerable resources to the point that his crippling injury left him broke. Alvin was a devious man on any count and Jack had always known that he was dishonest.

The Colyer Lodge had never made money. Jack had suggested that Max Somerwell be put on the books and the repercussions had been loud and long. The full facts were not known to Jack, but he surmised that Alvin had been siphoning off funds for various shady enterprises, including his romance with a beauty from Hobartville, the town nearest the lodge.

This girl’s unlikely name was Rose Marie Coole. Her family owned a prosperous farm, Jack had heard. She was a tall, ample, lovely looking girl, Ted said. It was amazing, somewhat amusing, the way those tall women went hook, line and sinker for jockey-sized men like Alvin Colyer.

Now it was certain that Alvin would never marry Rose Marie and the possible income from the upstate farm. He was crumpled into a trash can in a back alley and the police were on their way and trouble was in the offing, Jack thought, for Ted Colyer and everyone concerned.

The police from the precinct came first, then the Homicide boys and Sergeant Damon. Jack answered the stock questions, then Damon motioned him inside. They went up to the office and poured drinks.

Damon said in his harsh manner, “I tried to get you to check me out on Ted, didn’t I?”

“What’s Ted got to do with Alvin’s murder?”

“Tell me you didn’t know about the fight they had.”

“I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m asking.”

Damon sighed. “Ted’s your pal. Your lawyer and tax man, Somerwell, was investigating Alvin Colyer’s operation of the Colyer Lodge. But you don’t know anything.”

“I know what you just said is true.”

“Ted spent the afternoon with you.”

“You haven’t been wrong yet.”

“He left here with Lila Sharp.”

“Go on, fill me in from there.”

Damon took a deep drink. His eyes watered but they were sharp on Jack. “He didn’t say where he was going?”

“You think I lied to you?”

Damon lifted one thin shoulder. “Ted’s your buddy.”

“So he is, so he is. If you don’t want to tell me about it—whatever it is—let’s just go on with what happened in the alley, what I can remember that might help you.”

Damon said without rancor, “Let’s do that… first.”

Jack spoke slowly, again unreeling the moments of the action in his mind. When he was through, Damon held out his glass for a refill. There was a moment’s silence. Then the detective put down the glass and sat straight on his chair.

“Jack,” he said, “you’re no damned fool. You know there was hard feeling between the brothers.”

“Not exactly. Just a difference of opinion. Ted always took care of Alvin.”

“He did, he did. But Alvin was stealing him blind and your pal is not in such good shape financially. There’s been a rumble about him welshing on some bets… Well, they call it that. I’d say he had the shorts and was spreading it around, trying to make a comeback. But you know Cancelli and his people.”

Amazed, Jack said, “Now you’re telling me things I never guessed.”

“It figures, don’t it? A guy like Ted?”

He wouldn’t admit to this cop, but it figured. Ted had been riding high and unhandsome.

Damon went on, “You didn’t know Ted and Alvin had a big fuss in Toots’s the other night?”

“I didn’t know it.”

“Toots covered for them,” admitted Damon grudgingly. “They had it again in a cab. The broad… that is, Lila was with them.”

“I didn’t know about it.” His mind was working with rapidity now. He was remembering the deep trouble he had sensed in Ted.

“Ted Colyer is short every way you look,” said Damon. He seemed, in some odd way, to be enjoying himself. “You ought to know that.”

Jack waited a moment, then said strongly, sharply, “In my branch of OSS we learned about police procedure, Damon. They were working with the San Francisco force and we took some time on it. I told you before, don’t get cute with me. Talk straight and I’ll go along. Keep on with the clever insinuations and you’ll lose me.”

Damon shook his head. “Oh, no. I won’t lose you, Jack. Nor Ted. Nor the broad… Lila Sharp.”

Jack stood up. “Is that all?”

There was a knock at the door. A detective entered and went to Damon and whispered. Damon said in his cracked, sly voice, “Speak up, Malaney. We’re among friends.”

Malaney looked at Jack, then said, “It’s a fresh stiff. The M.E. guy says any time within the last hour. Hadda be fresh to be stuck in that can, and it was easy to pry out, I could see that my own self.”

“But then you’re one of the bright boys,” said Damon coldly. “The new kids, real smart, huh, Malaney?”

The detective was young and fresh-faced enough so that sudden color made his cheeks bright pink. “Whatever you say, Sergeant.”

“Goddam army, too,” said Damon. “That polite crap. Go on, solve the case. Wash it up, Malaney, you’re the boy to do it. You’ll get a promotion if you make it snappy, like.”

Malaney refrained from saluting, barely, then went out. Damon finished his drink.

“A fresh one. You were in the alley how long, Ware?”

Jack sat back and laughed. “You’re a sweet one, all right. A real lovely kid.”

“How long were you in the alley? Did you see Alvin alive?”

“A lovely cop.” Jack was angry all the way through. “You hang around midtown and listen and look. You eat your heart out because you can’t make Twenty-One or Toots’s or this place except on the cuff. You’d think we forced you to go on the cops, that you have some God-given right to belong to what you think is the class crowd. You hate everybody and you never miss when you can put your betters in the middle of a hot thing.”

Damon was white, his long nose pinched in. “You dirty, rotten sonofabitch, don’t you talk to me like that!”

Jack came out of the chair. He had Damon by the throat before the detective could defend himself. He picked him up, surprised even in his rage to find how little Damon weighed.

He spun the detective and marched him to the door on his tiptoes. He held him with one hand while he got the door open.

Damon flung back a heel, but Jack removed his shin in anticipation. Damon’s elbow dug at his ribs, but Jack shoved him. Damon went into the hall and against the wall. He right hand dropped to his gun holster, which was buttoned down over the weapon.

Jack said, “Draw it, you slob.” He knew a judo trick to counteract that maneuver. “Go for your gun, you crooked, lying bastard. I’ll beat out your brains.”

Damon stiffened against the wall. He croaked, “You’re under arrest.”

“Dandy for you,” said Jack. “I’m ready. Let’s go.” Damon’s hands trembled as he produced cuffs. He growled, “Put out your wrists.”

“Sorry,” said Jack. “You’ll have to wait a second.”

He turned and went back into the office. He dialed a number and heard Max Somerwell’s voice. He said, “I’ve just been pinched by Damon… Yeah, the jerk … I don’t know what the charges are, but I’ve a couple against him. Be there with bail, pal…”

“Wait a minute,” said Damon, behind him.

Jack lowered the telephone. Damon’s face was again calm, his voice was normal.

“Forget it.”

Jack said into the phone, “He’s changed his mind. Better get over here, though. Alvin Colyer got himself knocked off. … In my alley, damn it.” He listened to admonishments for a moment, then hung up and faced Damon.

“You came at me too hard,” said Damon.

“Maybe I did.”

“I’ve got to check out everything, you know that.”

“Like maybe I killed Alvin?”

“Look at it,” said Damon reasonably. “Ted is your best friend. He and his brother had a real battle, threats, all that. You’d do almost anything for Ted. Suppose Alvin came here, threatened you, made a fuss, and you slugged him.”

“With what?”

Damon turned toward the door. “Yeah. That’s it. No weapon. You didn’t have much time. Mind if I search your kitchen?”

“If you keep your hands off the food. City ordinance about that, you know.”

Damon remained impassive. “Yes, I know. About bail, and all… You better have Somerwell ready, I imagine. We’ll be bringing in Ted and the broad… Lila Sharp.”

He was gone. Jack sat down behind the desk to wait for Max Somerwell.

Ted, of course. Why hadn’t he spoken of the quarrel? He usually talked everything out with Jack.

Maybe because of Lila, maybe she started it and Ted was covering for her. Ted knew what Jack thought about Lila and her works.

Restlessness brought him to his feet. He took a quick drink. He went back to the desk.

He dialed a number. The phone rang several times and he was about to hang up. Then Lila Sharp’s voice asked, “Yes? Who is it?”

Taken aback, he stumbled. “You’re… you’re home?”

“Jack?”

“Yes … Is Ted with you?”

“No, he isn’t.”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know and… Oh, the hell with it. I do care. We had a fight and he walked out.”

“A fight about Alvin?”

“Al… How do you know that?”

He said, on impulse, “Stay where you are until I get there. Don’t talk to anyone, except Ted if he calls. Just wait for me.”

He hung up before she could expostulate. He wrote a note for Max, sealed it, took it downstairs and left it with Pat Shapiro. He went out on Third to look for a taxicab.

There were several things puzzling him besides the murder of Alvin Colyer. Not the least of them was the sudden unveiling of Damon’s hostility, his own attack upon the cop and the obvious fact that he had hit the bull’s eye, even in his off-the-top, hot anger.

Another was mention of Cancelli in relation to Ted. His friend had done a lot of race-track betting, sometimes with advice from Alvin which was no better than any tout’s guesses. That he had been betting off-track with the Syndicate people was news to Jack.

Maybe Lila knew all this, maybe she knew as much as Damon thought she might know. He wanted to get to her and learn whatever might be necessary to protect Ted Colyer.

Damon had been wholly correct about one thing. He had scarcely realized it before, but the ex-ballplayer was his best friend, a guy he had liked on sight and had been happy with ever since.

three

Izzy Blatsky was in front of Jack’s, which was far from unusual. He was a midtown hackie, he knew everybody, he made a good thing out of being on hand when needed. He was in his forties, a stout man but agile and his voice was raucous with the effort of making himself heard above the sound of traffic.

“Like I say, if you got a delly, you serve food, what can they do you? The taxes, even, you can beat because who knows how many samiches outa bread and a ring boloney? Once I hadda chance to buy into a delly, up inna Bronix, my wife she don’t like it. She figures she’s gotta help out, you know, with the samiches, beer, wait on tables. You wanna meet a lazy woman, you meet my wife. If she ain’t loafin’, she’s inna hospital. So what can I do, I drive a hack. A life a dog shouldn’t lead.”

“You’re alive, you’re healthy, what more do you want?” Jack had heard Izzy’s talk over the years. Horns blew around them, a cop yelled at an out-of-town car which had paused for one uncertain instant and thereby fouled up a lane of traffic a mile long.

Izzy said, “What I want is a chance to get off the streets. I don’t say I need a farm, already. I don’t say I want a million bucks. All I want, I should stop driving a hack, maybe my wife should live without another operation.”

“Things are tough all over,” Jack said, then wished he had not been so callous. There was a pathos in the droning complaint. Every man has his troubles, he thought, why not Isidore Blatsky?

“Maybe even a roadside joint. Maybe a breath of air, you could inhale without you cough. It’s bad? Why should she hate it like she does? I could hire somebody, she wouldn’t have to wait tables.”

“Don’t you turn here for Breitnal Place?”

Izzy turned the corner. It was one of those East Side streets which go from no place to a dead end. There were brick houses all in a row and Lila Sharp dwelt on the south side in one of them. Jack gave Izzy a five-dollar bill and said, “It you want to wait you can keep the meter running.”

The hackie looked at the money, then at the house in front of which they had stopped. “Miss Lila’s place, huh? Like I carry Ted Colyer a lot.”

“You carry everybody a lot.”

“I’ll wait.”

“Thanks.”

“Miss Lila, I know her good. A very fine lady. Ted, he is a pal of yours.”

“What the hell are you, guardian of morals?”

“It’s just I like Miss Lila so much.”

“Well, bless you, Tiny Tim. And nuts and carry six.” Taxi drivers, he thought, will some day rule the world. He went across the walk and up steps and rang a bell. There were two flats, or apartments, in the brick house, one up, one downstairs. Lila was on the second floor. There was a speaking tube and he heard her voice, breathless, worried, and identified himself and she pressed the door-release and he went in and up carpeted stairs to a dimly lit hall.

It was a well-kept place and Lila’s door was white and scrubbed, with brass fittings. She opened it on a crack, removed a check-chain and admitted him.

She was still wearing the gray skirt but had removed the jacket and the white, plain blouse did a lot for her torso, he admitted. She walked away from him, picking up a cigarette from a box on an end table.

It was a small room with a high ceiling. There was a fireplace and a mantel and some gilt-framed oils on the walls and rather too many pieces of overstuffed furniture done in pastel shades, but the room was comfortable. A single door led to a hall, this being one of the old houses with a railroad train layout. There was a large window overlooking the street, heavily shaded with beige colored drapes. There was no phony air of period decor, no sign of the hand of a pansy decorator, as he would have expected.

She said, “Jack, I’m scared.”

“Maybe you ought to be. They just picked Alvin out of a large trash can behind the restaurant.”

She lit the cigarette. Her hand was steady. “Dead, of course.”

“His skull was bashed in.”

She blew out smoke. “And they’re looking for Ted.”

“You know more about that than I do.”

“Yes. I was with him last night when he blasted Alvin for stealing.”

“Somerwell neglected to let me in on the stealing.”

“Ted asked him not to.” She sat down, crossing her long, lovely legs. Her slanted eyes were cool and honest, staring at him. “You ought to figure that.”

“All right. I figure it. Ted didn’t even tell me that Alvin was in town.”

“When we left your place, Ted was undecided whether to take over the lodge … or take the job you offered him. I wanted him to try the lodge.” She lifted one shoulder. “I knew you’d always give him a break.”

“You’re a smart cooky.”

“I sometimes think I am.” She shook her head. “Then Ted said he was going to take Alvin in with him, watch him, take care of him. I stopped being so smart.”

“Where was this? When?”

“Here. We had just come in.”

“Directly from my place?”

“Yes.”

“And Ted stormed out on you?”

“It happened quick—like a flash fire. I was so sick of Alvin. Ted had a date with him.”

“Where was this date?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

He sensed that she was lying, and if he knew it, Damon would know it twice as quick. “Damon will be here. You’d better tell me. Damon will get it out of you anyway.”

After a moment she blocked out the cigarette. “It was on Third Avenue. Not your place.”

“Alvin knew where he was welcome at my place. Where they found him, in the back alley.”

“I’m scared, Jack.”

“Sure. If Ted fought with you, then went to meet Alvin, he was steaming. He’s pretty far gone in love with you. It would only take a word from Alvin to set him off.”

“That’s what Damon will believe.”

“You don’t?”

She said steadily, “Ted wouldn’t lay his little finger on Alvin. You’re not stupid, you know that.”

“Not ordinarily. Not for stealing. But if Alvin put the big mouth on you?”

“Alvin wanted something. He wouldn’t get out of line.”

“What did he want?”

“Just what Ted meant to give him. Another shot at the lodge. Forgiveness for stealing. A chance to steal some more. Money to spend on that woman upstate.”

Jack said slowly, “There wasn’t any more money, was there? Between Cancelli and the tracks… and…” He broke off, uncomfortable.

“And me?”

“Well, Lila, you said it.”

“And me,” she repeated. She got up, took a few steps, a graceful woman, not exactly a dancer, but with ball bearings in all her neatly formed joints, he thought. An ecdysiast, a born seller of sex, he added to himself, trying to dislike her and failing.

She was being honest with him, that was what prevented him from judging her. She exuded honesty, not sexual attraction. It disturbed and confused him. He expected one kind of person and he was finding, for this time, another.

“Well, he spent a few dollars on me. He bought me some things. He took me places. The rest of it?” She wagged her head emphatically. “No, Jack. I wish I knew where it all went. I know some of it. I don’t know the whole truth. Maybe you can get him to tell you.”

“Not me, not anyone, unless Ted wants to tell it.”

“Maybe Max Somerwell can get it from him.”

Jack asked, “What about the Cancelli angle? Has he been betting a lot with Cancelli?”

“Pete Cancelli?” She went rigid. “Has Ted been…? Oh, no. Not Pete!”

“Damon says so.”

She went to the sofa against the wall and seemed to melt into it. One hand went to her face in an awkward, futile gesture. “Not that route. Please, not that way.”

Jack said. “I take it you are acquainted with Cancelli and his operations?”

“Oh, yes.” Her voice was muffled, he could not see her eyes. “Oh, yes, indeed, I am acquainted.”

“Could Ted’s money have gone down that rat-hole?”

“Money? His money?” She made a sound that could have been laughter, but wasn’t. “Cancelli’s not satisfied with money. Pete Dracula Cancelli. What he wants is—your life’s blood.”

There was a ring at a bell some place in the rear. Jack said warningly, “Don’t let anyone in but Ted.”

She said, “That’s Ted… that’s the rear door. He uses it… It’s better that way, he’s here so often… She started swiftly toward the rear of the apartment.

Jack took time to light a cigarette for himself. He wanted to check the bathroom for scent. He had not been able to identify the aroma he had smelled in the alley but in any case it did not make sense that Lila had killed Alvin. Everything depended on Ted’s story—Ted would certainly come clean now that Alvin was dead.

He had started for the bathroom when he heard Lila scream.

He dropped the cigarette and ran toward the kitchen. Lila seemed to be struggling with a tall man. He clenched his fists and went to them.

Then he saw that she was not in danger, she was supporting Ted Colyer, who reeled as though drunk. Her blouse was soaked through and the color was blood red. Pale, stricken, she was pushing Ted toward a chair in the kitchen.

Jack reached out a hand and Ted took it, grinning like a mask, muttering, “Jack, boy… Glad you’re here. It was rough… Alvin got in too deep… The booze department… the lousy booze… Almost made it home, at that…”

He went limp, his flaccid hand slipped from Lila’s tight grasp. Jack saw the jagged hole in his sports jacket and grabbed a tea towel to plug it. He said, “Is there a doctor nearby?”

“In the building.” She managed to keep her voice calm. “I’ll get him.”

Ted lurched horribly then. It was impossible to hold him and he slid to the floor. The handsome face went slack and vacant, the eyes fluttered.

“Made it here… Touched every bag… Hadda slide home… huh, Jack?”

Then the light went out altogether and Jack knew he was holding the head of a dead man in his lap.

It was a terrible, hurtful knowledge.

four

The hard-eyed men from downtown were efficient. They listened and neither believed nor disbelieved. Jack Ware spent most of the time watching Lila Sharp and wondering how she managed to remain so calm.

His own rage and grief were deeper than he would have deemed possible. When they took away Ted’s body in the long morgue basket he left the room abruptly and in the mirror of Lila’s boudoir saw himself weep openly for a moment or two.

Ted had been his friend for years. Until the advent of Lila, they had dated together, played together, laughed together. The big, sunny ballplayer had been for fun, always for fun.

Then the bad luck had set in and Lila had come along.

Jack went back into the sitting room. There was a tall uniformed cop on guard. He said that he was waiting for further orders. Lila went into the bathroom, dry-eyed, contained.

Jack sat on a chair and tried to think. First Alvin, then Ted Colyer. It did away with any hope of posterity in that family. Alvin had been childless through all his marriages. Ted had never taken the walk to the altar.

Who wanted the Colyer brothers dead? Surely not Cancelli nor other creditors. Dead men pay no bills.

Lila—what about her? She had gone out to meet Ted, returned with a dying man.

That was nonsense, there had been a blood trail leading up the stairs.

He thought of Isidore Blatsky. He leaped up and started for the door. The uniformed man put out a hand to stop him.

“A witness. Downstairs, a taxi driver. Blatsky, I remember his name.”

The cop said, “Sure, Izzy Blatsky. We talked to him first off, when we got here with the patrol car.”

Jack sat down again. Second-hand thinking, that seemed to be his dish for the day and night. Lila came out of the bathroom, her face clean of make-up other than lipstick. She had the complexion of a young girl. She looked at him and he saw that she was sympathetic, warmly concerned about him.

The door opened and Hal Damon came in. He was weary and more pallid than usual. He dismissed the policeman and sat down in a deep chair and leaned back. He put his hat on the floor and asked, “Got a drink?”

Lila went into the kitchen. Damon looked after her, shaking his head.

“Can’t pin this one on either of you,” he said. “That’s for sure.”

“Thanks a heap.”

“Well, what the hell?” The detective closed his eyes. He looked as dead as Ted Colyer for a moment. Then he lifted the corner of his upper lip and said, “Ted was in hock to Cancelli for fifty grand.”

“What?” It was a shock, there was no use trying to disguise the fact. “That much?”

“Cancelli spent tonight in the Greystone Club.”

“With witnesses, of course.”

“Plenty. There was a short beef. You know Cyrus Easton Camp pretty good, don’t you?”

“Camp was with Cancelli?”

“Camp claims someone tried to dope Gold Bug.”

“Gold Bug? You mean the wise money was down on him and he was doped and lost?”

Damon shook his head. “There’s two kinds of dope. This was supposed to make him go.”

“I see. They didn’t get to him, and he lost.”

“He figured to lose,” said Damon patiently. “He was in the race for exercise. Camp won’t talk much, but he gave Cancelli a hard time in the Greystone. Warned him. Cancelli didn’t take it so big.”

Jack thought about it for a moment. “Alvin. That’s his kettle of fish.”

“Could be.” Damon was ruminative, calm. “There’s too many angles to it. Why should they kill Ted when he owed them? We’ve been checking out on Cancelli’s gunsels. Too many alibis. We’ve been checking out-of-town people, which is impossible, in a way. Still, I got an idea Cancelli didn’t bump Alvin or Ted.”

“Was Cancelli betting on Gold Bug?”

“That I would like to know.”

Lila came in with the drinks. She handed them around, kept a dark-colored highball for herself. She stared at Damon and said flatly, “You can put it down that Cancelli was betting on Gold Bug.”

“Prove it.” said Damon. He squinted at her. His manner was mild and agreeable. “If you can, I got a way to go.”

“I can’t prove it. I didn’t even know Ted was down heavy on the horse,” she said. “That Alvin. He was a crook in his heart.”

“Prove it,” said Damon.

“Ask Max Somerwell,” said Jack wearily. “Ask anyone.”

“Sure, he maybe was taking from Ted’s camp upstate,” said Damon.

“You know a hell of a lot about Ted’s business,” said Jack.

“I told you I was curious. Remember? You bawled me out.”

“Then you’d been checking up? For a good reason?”

“Cancelli,” said Damon. “Ted was betting with Cancelli. I don’t like Cancelli. He ain’t a nice guy.”

“The understatement of the week,” said Lila.

Damon stood up, bent to get his hat. He finished the drink. He started for the door, paused. “I’m sorry about Ted. He was a nice guy.”

“Yes, he was a nice guy.”

Damon looked at Lila. “You’re the one ought to know. You know better than anyone about Ted.” He opened the door. “And about Pete Cancelli.” He went out, closing the door quietly behind him.

Lila took a big gulp of the strong highball. Then she sat down in the chair vacated by Damon. She said, “He’s a tricky bastard, isn’t he?”

“He confuses me,” said Jack.

“You know what he meant?”

“About Cancelli? I can guess.”

“Not quite. You couldn’t guess it all.”

“You had a thing with him, so what?”

She shook her head. She finished the drink. “God help me, I’m married to him.”

Jack came to his feet. “Married to him? Hell, that’s motive for murder.”

“Sit down,” she said bitterly. “Think a little. Pete and I separated ten years ago.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“He knew about Ted long ago. He knows—everything. He is a man who keeps informed.”

“But if he didn’t divorce you—or let you get a decree, there must be something there.”

“Something like love?” She laughed on a jarring note. “You think dear Pete still loves his Lila?”

“Not necessarily love. Possessiveness. You’re his wife, you were sleeping with Ted.” He stopped, thought a moment. “That’s why you couldn’t marry Ted?”

“I wouldn’t marry Ted. I could have gone to Mexico with him. He wanted me to.”

“Cancelli has a branch in Mexico.”

“Ted didn’t know. You think I’d put him on that spot? That would have triggered Cancelli.”

“Then you couldn’t marry Ted, like I said.”

“Couldn’t… wouldn’t.” She put down the empty glass. “I don’t know. I can’t judge myself. But I don’t believe I would have married Ted. Not under any circumstances. And if I’d known he was betting off-track with Pete, I’d have gone to someone. To you, probably.”

“Not me. You wouldn’t have come to me.”

Her slanting eyes were bright with unshed tears. “You are not very smart, sometimes. I know you don’t like me. But I also know you were Ted’s best friend.”

He felt that she was being honest. He had sensed honesty in her from the beginning, when he had first come to the apartment. He said, “Are you trying to tell me you were not in love with Ted?”

She nodded. She went quickly out to the kitchen. He heard the ice rattling, the gurgle of the bottle. He followed her and she was pouring herself a big slug. He took the glass from her and put half of it into his own drink. He said, “Let’s be careful. This will take some time.”

“I’m ashamed,” she whispered. “He’d be alive if it wasn’t for me.”

“That doesn’t cut much ice,” said Jack. He leaned against the sink. They drank, staring at one another. “It’s not that simple.”

“I feel it. I’m sure of it.”

“I like it better that he’d be alive if it wasn’t for Alvin.”

This gave her pause. She sipped at the drink, her color faded to normal shade. “Alvin. Yes, he was part of it.”

“A whole hell of a lot of it.”

“Yes, a lot of it. If he tried to fix that horse and they caught him…”

“They didn’t catch him. It would have got out. They may have suspected him.”

He paused, then said, “Camp went after Cancelli. You think Alvin was working for the mob?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past him. Maybe Cancelli was betting the horse big and Alvin failed to dope the beast and then Cancelli…” She broke off.

“Damon doesn’t think it was that way. He’ll be looking for something connected with you.”

“Let him.” She hesitated. “Ted didn’t know about it, if Alvin was trying to fix the race. Ted just bet the horse because Alvin sold him a bill of goods.”

“I hope so.” The girl defended Ted to the end, and it made him feel better. It softened the harshness of the situation, it helped him to banish the dead face of his friend from the foreground of his mind. “I’m not buying everything Damon says.”

She lifted one shoulder. “There was a time when Damon and Pete Cancelli weren’t enemies.”

“What? When was that?”

“Ten years ago, when Damon first made detective. Pete was his pal, the guy who helped him.”

“This is getting tangled,” he said slowly. “It’s more than I can digest at one sitting. You were not in love with Ted, Cancelli was once Damon’s friend, Alvin tried to dope a horse and failed. Let’s take it slow. Let’s start with you.”

She did not flinch. “I liked Ted. You think I haven’t slept with men I didn’t like? I was married, remember. It broke up ten years ago. I’ve been around a lot in ten years.”

“So you took Ted’s money, his love, and had nothing to give him in return.”

She lifted her drink. “To love. To marriage. To the friendship of Jack Ware and Ted Colyer.”

The irony bit deep. He remembered again that she had been honest since their first talk about Alvin and Ted. When he thought about it, she had never been dishonest. She had never pretended, not to anything. She had submitted to his distaste for her without presenting a defense.

He said, “Now wait. Slow down. Let’s get this straight. You and Ted—why?”

“He was a nice guy. Like you said. Like Damon said. A very nice guy.” She made an effort and her voice became clear again. “He wanted me. At first it didn’t matter, so long as a decent guy wanted me. Then I saw how he was. I wouldn’t marry him.”

“I guess that’s the way it was,” admitted Jack. He was all mixed up. He decided another drink might help. “He wanted to marry you… What about his money? Ted was worth a quarter of a million last year.”

She said, “He ran out.”

“I knew he ran out of luck. But that much?”

“When it starts, it’s all downhill. Cancelli got to him. Pete will take anyone, but it’s an extra kick if he gets a friend of mine.”

“Friend of yours,” said Jack. “I still choke on that.”

“I’ll make you gag for real,” she said. She seemed to be offering herself on the sacrificial block. He followed her into her bedroom.

It was a large room, with a chest, a dressing table, a slipper chair, wall closets behind sliding doors and a king- size bed with a white satin coverlet. Everything was spotlessly neat. Lila went to the dresser and took out a black metal box. She fumbled for a key and unlocked the box and up-ended it on the bed.

There was a picture or two, a stiff piece of folded paper and some jewelry, but not very good or very expensive jewelry, Jack saw. There were some other papers, but the one she handed to him was new, crisp.

She turned on a bed lamp. He leaned back and opened the paper. Last Will and Testament, he read, of George D. “Ted” Colyer.

She said, “He left it to me, all he had. I don’t know, right now, what to do with it.”

The will seemed to be in order, so far as he could determine. It stated that Ted did indeed bequeath to Lila Lee Sharp all his estate. It was dated a month previous.

“Anybody else know about this?” he asked. There was a small hurt in him; Ted could have left him one of the World Series mementos with which the place upstate abounded.

“Max Somerwell,” she said.

“Max knows a hell of a lot that I don’t,” he said. Then he added quickly, “What the hell, why not? None of my business.”

She said, “There’s nothing but the camp. Maybe not that. Maybe Alvin fixed that. I wish you’d see about it, Jack. You and Max. I don’t want it, not any of it.”

“Ted wanted you to have it. So you’ll take it,” he said harshly.

“The camp… I hate it. Because of Alvin.”

“It was Ted’s camp, he owned it.”

They glared at one another for a moment, then silence fell thick on them. He looked around, then at the empty glass in his hand. He was in the woman’s bedroom, where Ted had wooed her. He was feeling the effects of the drink. He was shouting at her about something which was none of his business. He stood up.

She put down her glass, in which there was half of her last, strong highball. She stood, running her hands down her hips, straightening the skirt.

They moved at the same time. Her remarkable body touched him at the foot of the bed. They sprang apart. He said uncomfortably, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.”

He followed her into the sitting room, still clutching the empty glass and the crisp paper which was Ted’s will.

She turned and repeated, “I’m not sorry. You came here disliking me. Now you don’t, any more. I need a friend.”

He thought that over. He put the will carefully in his inner coat pocket. He put the empty glass on the coffee table. “You’re right, on both counts.”

“I’m what I am,” she said. There were white lines at the corners of her lovely mouth. “I make no pretenses.”

“That’s all right with me.”

“If Pete Cancelli had Ted killed, I may be able to learn something. Pete can’t help gloating a little. Remember, I want to find the killer as much as you do.”

“I believe you.” He was, he found, unable to disbelieve her today. He caught a glimpse of what Ted had seen in her, what Ted had sought, had clung to despite her refusal to marry him.

She stepped back toward the bedroom and said, “I’m going to work tonight.”

He looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven. He was shocked—he had thought it closer to dawn. Between sundown and now the Colyer brothers had been wiped out. The time had flown, yet it was not midnight.

“All right. I’ll go along and eat a steak.” The alcohol was wearing off. He said, “You’re working the Greystone Club. I’d forgotten.”

“Yes,” she said. “The Greystone. The food is good, the liquor is bad. Do you know about the Greystone Club?”

He said slowly, “I know something about it. I know Cancelli and Porter Hull and I know it did no business until you went to work there.”

“Cancelli,” she said. “His alibi. Pete Cancelli. Stay away from him, Jack.”

He thought of Ted, dead on the kitchen floor. He said, “Maybe Cancelli should stay away from me.”

five

The Greystone Club was in the East Fifties. It was the hour of the after-theater crowd and there was an extra buzz of excitement. The news of the death of the Colyer brothers had hit the stands and everyone knew the Colyers and they knew about Ted and Lila.

Pete Cancelli was ensconced at a large table obviously reserved for him. Jack ate a steak and sipped at draught beer. From time to time he raked Cancelli’s table with curiosity, his mind turning over.

Cancelli was in the usual company, Bobo Simon, Katz Manning and women. Simon was a slim man with a heavy beard, very quiet, thoroughly dangerous. Manning was sleek and husky and addicted to silk suits and bright ties.

Cancelli was medium sized, heavy set, thick necked, with an incongruous narrow, hatchet face. Protuberant brown eyes were too big for him. His hair swept back in an old-fashioned pompadour, contrasting with the quiet, subdued, continental style dark suit, the white shirt and conservative narrow tie. He seemed Oriental, and perhaps he was, for his antecedents were unknown.

Cancelli certainly owned at least part of the Greystone. To see Porter Hall fawn upon him was to realize this. Hull, a prancing young man, was believed by many to be homosexual, but Jack knew his perversities to lie in another direction.

The customers filled the place, carefully refraining from looking at Cancelli, but fully knowledgeable of his presence, thrilled by it. The midtown crowd had an instinct for cabal, moved always on the edge of drama. Jack wondered how many of them knew that Lila and Cancelli were married. It had been a well-kept secret, but these people were privy to almost everything. It was amazing that so much went unsaid, at least aloud, among these denizens of the semi-fashionable sports and theatrical circle.

Well, Cancelli had his alibi well set, in case he was guilty. If the Colyer brothers had been killed by his orders, his two known gunmen had not been guilty. It was true that Cancelli was not known to consort with the Mafia people, the big Syndicate. It was a mystery just how he remained so rich and so powerful.

Jack finished his steak, ordered a brandy and sat back, waiting for the show. In a moment or two the band gave with a fanfare and Con Connor, the new, sick-type comedian who was now so popular, came on. His material was not new, it was deliberately old, but switched, turned backward in unhealthy fashion which Jack thought was not funny.

Finally Connor said, quite simply, “Ladies and gentlemen, I now give you the toast of the town—Miss Lila Sharp.”

The seven-piece orchestra was a mixed group of colored and white sidemen who had been gathered together by Will Parsons, a minor genius of jazz. They had restraint. Jack Ware, whose ear for the beat was finical, listened approvingly as they whispered the last sixteen bars of “A Pretty Girl” in two-four time, then segued into “Sunny Side of the Street” in an arrangement which went perfectly with the sinuous entrance of Lila Sharp.

She wore a chiffon gown, white and billowy, in the highest of smart style. Over it was a mink cape and in her piled hair was a jeweled tiara. Her long white gloves did not have the obvious implication of the common garden variety of stripper-gloves, but seemed right for a young lady of fashion. Working so close to the audience, she used a minimum of make-up and her skin shone in the soft mixture of the glow of the spotlight. She sang in her low, breathless voice, “Get your hat and get your coat…”

There was a sibilance of movement on Jack’s left. He swiveled to get a look and saw Cyrus Easton Camp’s plump profile. The millionaire owner of Gold Bug was alone. He motioned to the waiter, lifted an eyebrow for Jack’s permission, sat down across the table and turned his full attention to Lila’s performance. It was a perfectly natural thing to do, the place being crowded and Camp an acquaintance and sometime customer, but Jack wondered. It had never happened before. Camp, the new kind of rich man, was not frivolous, his stables made money, he worked at philanthropy and dabbled in politics.

On the small stage, Lila had discarded the mink, tossing it to Will Parsons with a careless gesture. She moved slowly across the stage, without the writhing, the bumps and grinds of her contemporaries, just walking in that natural, undulating manner which Jack recognized. It was stunning enough to hold the room silent and rapt.

The white gown was made so that it slipped easily as oil from her shoulders. There was no awkward fumbling for a zipper. As she moved, the dress simply melted down her exciting figure. She stepped out of it in a motion entirely graceful.

She was wearing a slip and a brassiere which could have been bought in any first class lingerie shop. The light dimmed still further at this point and someone exhaled too loudly in disappointment. She flashed a bright smile in the direction of the sound and lost the slip.

Her legs were enchanting. Jack found himself holding his breath with the other suckers and snorted in self-disdain. Of all the exhibitions in the world that he detested in theory it was strip-teasing.

Yet the girl was an undeniable artist. She hummed the song, moving about with no coyness, no hint of lewdness. She wore a panty girdle over her g-string. She began to move more swiftly, dancing, swirling and swaying as though she were a happy young thing in the privacy of her bedroom, snug at home. The effect was tremendous and when she reached for the snap-on brassiere Jack could hear the anticipatory sigh that went up from the males in the audience.

The brassiere came off—but the lights went down at the precise instant of its leave-taking. The music soared, the girl moved in almost total darkness. It was impossible to determine whether she had lost the rest of the costume before it was totally black, the saxophones whining. When the light sprang suddenly back, the items of clothing lay on the floor, including the panties—but the girl was gone.

No amount of applause could get her back. Cyrus Easton Camp leaned over and said to Jack, “She’s the cleverest ever, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know you were an admirer.”

Camp winked. “Come off it, old boy. Who isn’t?”

“Know her very well?”

“Look, old boy, I’m too rich and too smart. So knock it off. I want to know about the death of Alvin and Ted as much as the police or you or anyone else. Including Lila.”

“Have you checked with Mr. Cancelli?” Jack could see the protuberant dark eyes of the mobster searching them out, resting on them. “Because I think he might know all about it.”

“I had a go at him—as you probably know. He has an alibi. It is ironclad,” said Cyrus Camp.

“On account of the bit with Gold Bug,” said Jack. “That figures. You have to protect yourself.”

“Alvin rode for our stables years ago. We fired him.”

“It’s a wonder you ever hired him.”

“My father was alive then. You should have known him. He was a kindly man, my old gent.”

Jack said, “I’m sure he was. Did Alvin do something real bad, or was he just chiseling?”

“I’ll never know. Father didn’t say. I do imagine that he was willing to tamper with Gold Bug. I mean, Alvin was no good, right?”

“None at all,” Jack agreed.

“Ted was a bit of okay, though?”

“All the way, he was okay.”

Camp looked sad, shaking his head slowly. “Not all the way. He should have come to me when he knew about Alvin and Gold Bug.”

“If he knew, he probably prevented Alvin from getting to your horse.”

“Even so. He should have come to me. He was involved with Cancelli, you know that.”

“How come you know so much, Cy?”

“I have an agency working,” said Camp simply. “As you said, I must protect the stable, my family, the name.”

“I hear you gave Cancelli a hard time earlier this evening.”

“I’m sorry it happened. I can’t afford to get involved with his kind, you know.”

“You had the agency men on Ted?”

“On Alvin.” He adjusted the black tie he was wearing with a soft shirt and his tuxedo. “They reported his association with Cancelli.”

“There was no proof that Alvin intended to slip Gold Bug a dose of go-juice?”

Camp flinched at the terminology. “Enough evidence to convince me. He bought the—er—drug. He was seen lurking around the stables.”

“How do you know he had the drug in his possession at the time? How do you know he wasn’t merely seeking inside information on the horse?”

“I don’t know. But I do know about Alvin Colyer.”

“I see what you mean.” Jack pondered a moment. “You know whether Cancelli was down on Gold Bug?”

“I believe he was. I believe he bet heavily. I believe that was why Alvin Colyer was murdered.”

“But you and a dozen others can alibi Cancelli for the entire evening. He was here. You were here.”

“Yes,” said Camp reluctantly. “That’s true. Neither of Cancelli’s—er—cohorts left the place, we all agreed.”

“You mean you and the other witnesses?”

“Yes.”

“Porter Hull?”

Camp frowned. He had a round, full, pink face, strong-jawed. His mouth was curving, good-humored in repose; now it hardened. “I know that Porter Hull is Cancelli’s man. But there are others.”

He indicated a party at a discreet table near the wall. Jack recognized two bankers and their wives and the former Eloise Mannering, who was Camp’s second wife.

Camp went on, “Because of my little go-around with Cancelli, they were all aware, you see.”

“You mean none of the Cancelli party could have left without some of you noticing?”

“They are in our line of vision, you can see that.”

It was true. Still, Jack thought, it was not impossible that one of the Cancelli party might have left the place long enough to make a quick kill and return. Not that it made sense, he didn’t believe it had happened that way. Cancelli was too smart to set up an alibi which would not stand inspection.

No, there was more to it than a mere bet on a horse. Gang rub-outs were not in style. There had to be complications.

Camp said, “Just wanted to check with you, Jack. I know how close you were to Ted.”

“Not close enough to prevent what happened.”

The millionaire looked curiously at him. “Prevent it? I beg your pardon, but just how would you have done that?”

Jack returned the stare. “I couldn’t imagine. I only know I would have put a big try on it.”

Camp rose slowly. “I see. You consider yourself involved. Deeply involved. It may be dangerous, you understand.”

“It was fatal to the Colyer brothers, wasn’t it?”

Camp nodded. “Yes. Well, I’ll check with you at the restaurant. If I can do anything, let me know.”

Jack said, “You can keep your agency men working.”

“I intend to do that.” Camp waved and rejoined his party. His wife, a handsome brunette, smiled vaguely and Jack nodded to her. She had been a swinger around the cafés in her salad days, he remembered, a heavy drinker and caper-cutter. She had quieted down after marrying Camp, who was far tougher than he looked.

Lila came from the shadows as though she had been waiting her turn and sat down at the table. She wore a cloak over her costume for the next number. She said in a low voice, “Don’t trust Cy Camp.”

“I’m not trusting anyone this week,” he told her.

“He’s too clean on the surface,” she said. “I used to know Eloise. He’s taken something out of her. He was working on Ted. Nibbling at him.”

“In what way?” Jack was astounded.

“Pushing him down,” said Lila. She shook her head. “I don’t know just what I mean. He made Ted feel inferior, because Ted was out of luck and Cy Camp has everything. It was insidious. I think Ted began plunging because he wanted to show Cy Camp he was a big man.”

“There’s no sense to that.”

“That’s another quarrel I had with Ted.”

“Camp and Cancelli.” The coupling of the two names gave him pause. The multi-millionaire and the mobster-millionaire. “And poor Ted in the middle.”

“Ted tried. He was always trying, maybe in the wrong direction, but that wasn’t all his fault.”

Jack was watching Cancelli’s table. They were all looking his way at that moment, Cancelli, Katz Manning and Simon. There were women at the table but their forms were indistinct, they were just any women of midtown, they had no meaning. Slowly, Cancelli got up and started toward Lila and Jack.

“Go to your dressing room. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

She said, “I’m not afraid of Pete.”

“You’re afraid, all right. Go on!”

She left a moment before Cancelli arrived, seated himself without ceremony in the chair Camp had occupied.

“Sit down, Pete, have a drink,” said Jack with sarcasm.

“Funny, funny.” The round eyes did not blink. “You are killing me with your funnies.”

“Want to name them?”

“I’m not in the mood. I just want to tell you how sorry I am about Ted. On account of fifty grand.”

“Your sentiments are touching.”

Cancelli said, “You know about his affairs. What’s with that lodge, or camp, or whatever?”

“Ask your lawyer. You can’t collect a gambling bet from a corpse, Pete. You should have thought of that.”

“Why should I have thought of it?”

“You should have given him protection,” said Jack smoothly. “How come you let him get knocked off?”

“Oh, you are funny!” Cancelli’s face was grim. “You should be a cop, you are so funny.”

“The cops already checked you out. What are you worrying about? Fifty thousand isn’t much to you. What’s your beef? How come you’re giving me the stare? I don’t get it, Pete.”

“Fifty gees and a double cross. Then you turn up with Lila, you sit around with that bastard Cy Camp. You got the finger on me. You think I’m going to sit still for it?”

“No, I expect you’re going to holler like hell.”

“I do more than holler.”

Jack said, “You’re acting like a ten-cent hood. You know that. Now, why?”

Cancelli’s rage was deep and thick in his throat. “How the hell much do you think I’ve got to take?”

“From me, you take nothing. I’m not doing a damned thing. I’m minding my own business, you’re coming at me.” Jack chuckled. “I expect it’s because you can’t go after Damon or Camp. They’re too much. You’d like to take a whack at Lila, one way or another, for some reason I can guess; but of which I cannot be sure. I’m handy at the moment, so you charge me.”

“When I charge you, I’ll take you out,” said Cancelli. “You’re a goddam buttinski.”

“You’ve been drinking,” said Jack, maintaining his cool withdrawal. “You’re too smart for this kind of jazz. Why don’t you go back to your table?”

For an instant it seemed Cancelli would lunge across the white cloth, then he leaned back. Heavy lids fell over the frog eyes which had glared like twin taillights, red and menacing. “You’re a fascinatin’ sonofabitch. Your pal gets killed, you move in on his broad. You play it cool with the rich slob who got Ted in trouble. You mix it with Damon and you think you can screw around with me.”

“I haven’t said a thing about taking care of you.”

“I deal in what people have in their minds.” Cancelli was suddenly sober and intelligent. “In my business you learn to think ahead of people and all around them. I’m onto you, Ware. You’re goin’ to mess into things.”

Jack got up slowly and moved around the table. Cancelli jumped up hastily, overturning his chair. Jack pulled him close and sniffed at him. Then he gave him a slight shove toward his own table, where the two loyal bodyguards were already rising.

Jack said, “You know what, Pete? You don’t smell just right.”

He had put Cancelli between him and the advancing strong-arm boys. He waited, poised.

Cancelli did not turn his head. He said to his men, “Later. Not here. Later.”

Jack shrugged, went past them, past the bandstand, through the heavy curtains, into the small foyer off which were the dressing rooms. He knocked and Lila’s voice bade him enter.

She was sitting before the mirror. Their glances met in the glass. She was white and tearful.

“It just hit me hard,” she whispered. “Ted … his blood on my blouse.”

“Do your show.”

She agreed. “Yes, I can do the show.”

“There’s going to be trouble with Pete.”

“I knew there would be.”

He took Ted’s will from his pocket “Got an envelope?”

She went to a small writing case and found one. He sealed the will into it, addressed it to himself and said, “Stamps.”

She produced several. He stuck them on the envelope and said, “I’m going to mail this. I’ll be back before you finish.”

He went out and through the big room. It was filled with people, his own table was already occupied. He hit the night air and walked quickly toward a corner post box.

They must have telephoned ahead. He was attacked from an alleyway, two men, swinging blackjacks. They were very efficient.

He went down and rolled. A foot caught him in the ribs. He tried to protect his head and lash out with his feet. A kick in the ankle hurt worse than anything.

Then he caught a blow at the base of his skull and never knew the rest of it.

six

On the late show it was necessary to give the customers something extra, because they had been drinking and their inhibitions were loosened and they could not, for the most part, appreciate the subtleties of ecdysis. Lila moved with a more sinuous rhythm, swirling a weighted skirt of diaphanous material, working the cups loose from her breasts.

Her mind was not on her work, but then it need not be, after ten years. She was thinking of Jack Ware.

It was strange, the way she had been attracted to him long ago, on first meeting, the animosity which had grown on his part, the coming to understanding at Ted’s death. It was strange, and it was foreboding.

Even as she worked, with consummate timing, hearing the drunken gasps and beginning applause of the ring-siders, she was worried about the dark cloud which hung overhead. She wanted Jack Ware, she knew that. There was a mountain between them.

Not only because of Ted, she knew. Jack had understood that situation at once, had accepted it. She could tell, after the talk in her apartment, from the way he treated her since they had left the death scene. Maybe it was only the strain. She was fully aware of her exhaustion of this moment.

Yet she could go on. Pete Cancelli, sitting down there with his two hoodlums and his women, had made her tough. She was very young when she married Pete. She had thought she had ideals, as well as ideas, but she confused the two. It was a tragic error. Before she could extricate herself she had been indoctrinated into bedroom horrors which had forever callused her private life. She had learned endurance and stoicism as part of the practice of self-preservation.

Ten years was a long time. She was twenty-eight now. A young woman but eons from a girl.

She made the last swift gesture, fully disrobing in the fading light. She seized the robe hanging convenient to her hand, ran from the shattering handclaps and whistles to the dressing room. She flung open the door, calling Jack’s name, wanting sympathy, wanting surcease of some sort.

When she saw the room was empty, she threw on her street clothes without hesitation, knowing what she must do. Again experience was showing her the way. She said nothing to anyone in the club. She eased her way out, still wearing the light stage make-up. She looked up and down the street, saw a mail box on the corner, headed for it, her eyes going right and left.

She remembered a time when Pete had not been so powerful and they had got to him, several of the Hollihan mob, and she had found him in an alley, beaten to within an inch of his life, the beginning of an incision in his throat, which had been prevented from a death stroke only by her screaming advance. At that time she had been completely disillusioned about Pete, but she was eighteen and life had seemed important to her, even his life.

Now she was all nerves, as if they were extending from her like tentacles, reaching out to Jack Ware. She was certain that he had been attacked because he had not returned to the dressing room in the allotted time. She had that vision of an alley and when she came to it, she knew.

He was lying on his face, his arms outspread and she thought he was dead. She knelt down and gently felt for a pulse. It was beating with surprising strength. She tugged at him in the dark, realized that this was futile. There was blood on her hands when she regained the mouth of the narrow alley. For the second time that day there was a man’s blood on her.

She managed to get back to the Greystone and into a booth unnoticed. She dialed Max Somerwell’s home number. She told him swiftly what had happened. She hung up and called Dr. Stone, who had a private hospital in the Sixties and with whom she had a long acquaintance. Only then did she think of the police.

She decided against calling them. She fled back to the alley. Jack had turned over on his side, curling up, but he was still unconscious. She lit a match and saw the lump at the base of his skull like a hen’s egg, and shuddered.

She remained there. People came and went, solitary or in twos, along the street. No one as much as glanced into the dark passage in which she nursed Jack’s bruised head in her lap. She never knew how much time went by before Max Somerwell arrived.

He was a gnomelike man with a large, unwieldy head. He wore thick eyeglasses. He had an electric torch, which he shone carefully on Jack.

She said, “Max, he had Ted’s will in his pocket. He was going to mail it to himself. He was afraid Cancelli would get us when we left for the night.”

“You and Jack? You were… together?”

“He was working on the killings,” she said sharply.

“Oh.” Max had a small, asthmatic voice. “I see.” He felt in Jack’s pockets. “Nothing. They cleaned him.”

“I didn’t call the police.”

“Of course not. I knew you wouldn’t.” Max was a lawyer who did not practice, a CPA who handled some of the biggest private fortunes in town, a tax expert who cut only the corners he knew could be managed. “I think we are in bad straits as it is. Ted left a copy of the will with me, of course. That isn’t any problem.”

“You mean that Pete, knowing I’m Ted’s heir, will do something?”

“Among other things. Did Pete’s boys hit Jack?”

“No. They were still in the club when I phoned you.”

“Interesting. Someone was staked out, waiting for him.”

“Pete may have telephoned earlier.”

“Of course, my dear.” The little man stood up. There was the sound of a siren, muted. “Where do you think we should take Jack?”

“His place—or mine. Not the hospital, unless it is absolutely necessary.”

Max said, “All right. I can handle Doc Stone.”

They waited. She wondered about Max, as she had a hundred times before. He was everybody’s confidant. Including hers. There was something about the bent little man which drew confidences and inspired trust.

Was it all a trick? There was a thin line which Max must walk, as between Ted and Jack. He had not been frank with Jack in regard to Ted and Alvin; was this because he owed as much to one as the other? Or was Max using everyone to his own end?

Dr. Stone came, a man with every weakness except that of carelessness toward his profession. He was tall and thin and watery of eye and he smelled of alcohol, but his examination was thorough. He said, “Pulse strong, respiration good. Where do you want him?”

“The skull?”

“Concussion. No fracture, I’m positive. Lay him up for a while—days, perhaps.”

Max said, “His place, maybe?” to Lila.

“No. Not over the restaurant. Not enough privacy.”

“The hospital then,” said Dr. Stone.

“My place,” said Lila. “And we must bring him in on his feet. Drive around, Doc, work on him in the ambulance. I’ll go on and meet you at the hospital. I’ll have a cab. We’ll put him in and take him to my place.”

“That’s not too clever,” Max said.

“It’s the way I want it,” said Lila. Two strong men came and whisked Jack into the ambulance with such speed and skill that the few scattered onlookers attracted by the incident could scarcely tell what happened.

Max said, “I don’t like this. Damon will be snooping.”

“Let him,” she said, wondering why she had been so insistent, remembering now that Jack kept another apartment. “You’d better do something about Ted’s will. Maybe someone wants the shooting lodge. I don’t want it, but whoever does may have had something to do with the killings.”

Max said, “I want to talk to you.”

“Later, when Jack can listen,” she said. She was aware that he stared, that he was displeased, but then she had affected Max that way from the beginning, a long time ago, when they had first met.

He said, “Whatever you decide, Lila.” He went away, a misshapen small figure in the darkness. It was after two o’clock in the morning. She found the strength to walk to the cab stand. She was grateful to see Izzy Blatsky slumped behind the wheel. Everybody knew Izzy, it was the best of luck to engage him for this errand.

He said, “Mr. Ware? You bet, Miss Lila. Like a rabbit, already. Anything you say, believe me. Get in, Miss Lila.”

She sat back in the cab and wished she could fall asleep, even for the short ride. Her mind swirled around, grasping at the repeated tragedies of the past twenty-four hours, not quite able to comprehend them, much less their cause and effect.

Izzy kept talking, as usual. “My wife’s got the Asiatic flu, she should be international, yet. The Doc says she will be too weak to work for days. You should see the house. It’s like the atomic bomb fell out on it. Who gave Mr. Ware the hit on the head?”

“I wish I knew.”

“I wish I knew, too. Mr. Ware, he is a good guy.”

“We’ll take care of him.”

“Sure, you will. Doc Stone’s joint, huh? Many’s the time I took somebody there. Or took ’em home when they were dried out, huh? The Doc’s a great one, now. On the booze himself, so he makes a thing, yet, from taking care of booze artists. A good guy, though, he can operate on a brokester for nothing, keep his mouth shut, do a first class job. It takes all kinds to make up a world, Miss Lila. Good and bad, it don’t necessarily come in separate packages.”

“That’s right, Izzy.”

She stopped listening to the wry, kindly ramblings of the Bronx philosopher. She nodded, almost slept. When they stopped at a discreet distance from the private hospital she waited, still in a daze.

It was an hour before they brought Jack out, wobbling between the two strong attendants. Doc Stone helped put him in the cab. Jack looked at her and winked.

“How you, baby?” he asked faintly.

“Just fine,” she said.

Doc Stone said, “I see you’ve got Izzy. Between you, it’ll be all right. He’s coming around good. But keep him in bed until I give the word. Be around late tomorrow.”

“Whatever you say, Doc.”

The cab slid away, and Jack leaned against her. She held him tight.

He murmured, “Woozy. They gave me a good one. Doc says they were careful not to bust anything, just to work me over. Couple of experts, Doc thinks.”

“I don’t think Cancelli and his slobs left the club.”

“Cancelli’s too goddam smart,” sighed Jack. Then he seemed to lose interest. He was very heavy, leaning against her.

Izzy brought the cab to a careful stop, came around, opened the door. He said, “I can manage him, Miss Lila. You go ahead and open the door.”

The street was deserted. It was almost four a.m. Lila went up the steps and unlocked the door. Then she went halfway down and got on one side of Jack and they brought him inside and closed the street door and began the climb to the second floor.

Izzy was all tenderness. She gave him a ten-dollar bill and refused change and he beamed upon them. “You guys, you make it easier for me always. I can hire help, now, my wife shouldn’t get up too soon with the Chinese flu. If you want anything, you should call me, ask for Number 2012. Remember the number. I’ll be here, quick like a rabbit.”

He left. Jack, semiconscious from the effort of getting up to the apartment, was shaking his head. She lifted him to his feet, afraid he would fall asleep in the chair. She half carried him into the bedroom.

It was a task to undress him, but she managed. He gave her a slight struggle when it came to his undershorts and she left them on him, stretching him on the bed at full length, covering him with the blanket.

He murmured, “You smell… awful… good, Lila. Thanks, pal … for everything… Thanks … a heap.”

She staggered into the bathroom. The stains of his blood were still on her hands, the blouse she had worn when she had found Ted dying lay on the hamper. She shut her eyes, opened them again, saw her reflection in the mirror, saw the deep circles, the dark hollows.

She made herself run the shower, afraid of the tub for fear she would fall asleep and drown. She scrubbed and soaped and scrubbed again. She dried herself with a soft towel and wandered, half awake, into the bedroom. She meant to get a blanket and go into the living room and sleep on a divan.

She looked at Jack, bandaged, bathed in healing lotions. She went into the living room and called Max.

He was wide awake. “Yes, Lila. What’s happened?”

“I want you to start divorce proceedings against Pete.” There was a long silence. She repeated her request. Max said wearily, “I heard you, dear.”

She said, “I can’t go on being scared. I want to quit my job. I’ve got to be free.”

“You have an Equity contract.”

She thought about that. “Can he hurt me in Equity?”

“It’s a legal contract, my dear.”

“And I can’t get a divorce until I fulfill it?”

“You could—but you know who’s paying your salary. You know Pete. You know the whole score, Lila.”

His voice was weary, dead. She felt as though she were going to burst into sobs.

She said, “Max, what can I do?”

“I think you know that, too.”

“All right.”

“You should have acted when I wanted you to.”

“Yes. I know what I should have done. What about now?”

There was a long pause. Then he said, “These murders. They complicate matters. Wait a while. You’ve waited this long. Start your fight to be free when the thing is cleaned up. Maybe Pete will be in trouble by then.”

“Pete in trouble? Don’t be comical.”

“I don’t know what else to tell you, Lila.”

They hung up. She had never known Max to be uncertain, this was new and frightening. She repressed her tears, she felt she could not afford them.

She came into the bedroom and looked at Jack Ware beneath the covers. She stared at him for several minutes.

She took off the robe and climbed into the bed and lay full length against him. It was the only gesture of which she was capable.

She did not evaluate it in any way. She only knew that she needed reassuring and that sooner or later they would awaken and there would be no need for words, for discussion. Jack was strong, stronger than Ted, who had failed her in more ways than one. If she could gain a modicum of relief from him, she would be grateful forever.

Oddly, she fell asleep at once.

seven

Hal Damon rubbed a hand over his face, hard. He needed sleep. He drove the police car he sometimes used to a spot down the street from the Greystone Club and parked it.

He was frightened a bit, way down deep, but something stubborn made him clear of mind, able to think. He was a bit surprised to find that there was iron in him. He had not suspected that he could keep going, he had thought to remove himself from the case when it got too hot. Now he knew he would not do it, that he had to go on.

He was not displeased that Jack Ware had been hit in the head. He figured Ware had it coming to him. He was, however, preoccupied by the fact that it had happened where and when it did. His fear of Cancelli was real but he saw a way out for himself if he could learn enough about the attack on Ware.

He was also intrigued by Lila’s actions. He had known within minutes that Ware was in her apartment. He was so certain that Lila had been in love with Ted, had been ready to marry him, that he could not adjust to this circumstance. It lowered Lila in his esteem; it marred the picture he had of her.

He was, like the rest of them, enamored of the girl. He admitted it, but his dreams were lowly, he knew where he stood, even if that bastard, Jack Ware, had not told him in no uncertain terms. There were several other of them, midtown broads, for whom he lusted in vain. The hell of it was that damned Ware had been partly right. That’s what made it hurt.

To be born ugly wasn’t so bad. To be born poor and ugly was too much handicap for a man without any particular useful talent. Damon was also sensitive. The inside of him in no way resembled the outside.

He had aspirations without the wherewithal to realize them; a curse, indeed. He wanted to be comely and likable and suave and desirable to women. He was homely and crotchety and rough and women simply did not notice him.

That is, they did not unless he forced himself upon them. The hat check girl from the Greystone was named Nola. She was a dish-faced bleached blonde notable only for protuberant bosoms and long legs which looked well in a net leotard. She came hurrying out of the club, looking back over her shoulder, then slid into the police car like a plump ghost. She brought the aroma of perspiration covered with drug store perfume which Damon recognized only too well, the odor of all women he was able to make.

He pulled away without turning on his lights, went around the corner toward Third Avenue. She kept looking back every moment or so.

He said harshly, “Cancelli’s not tailing you.”

“How do ya know?” Her voice was nasal, flat, New York at its worst. “If he ever knew, he’d moralize me.”

“Did you keep your eyes open?”

“How should I keep ’em? He din’t leave the joint. None of his mob left the joint, I tole you onna phone.”

“What else did you learn?”

“What should I learn?” She did not quite pronounce it “loin,” which would be Brooklyn or Jersey City, she cut the sound in between, connoting the Bronx or Newark. “There was a beef, Lila she run out after Mr. Ware left, Pete was askin’ for her. Porter, he got smart with me. I should hang around with some people, I told him, no, I told him, I got a home, I got sore feet, what does he think?”

Damon yawned. “Nothing else?”

“What else should there be, except I told you onna phone? I gotta watch that phone business, they could catch on, you callin’ me.”

“Nuts. They think it’s your boy friend.”

She leaned toward him, her wide mouth grinning. “It ain’t true, a’ready? Where we goin’?”

He did not answer at once. He wished he could tell her to get out, to get lost, to go away. He had a rap hanging over her, shoplifting, nothing that would stand up well, but enough to scare her and keep her docile. He glanced at her with tired eyes and caught the lift of her breasts against a street light. They were real enough, a bit too heavy, but needing no artificial aid.

He said, “To my pad.”

“To the pad a’ready, without eatin’? I’m hungry,” she whined.

“All right, we’ll grab something.”

“Grab somethin’? Can’t we hit Lucy’s, get a steak?”

“I need some shut-eye.”

“Some shut-eye, you need? I need some food, I’m sicka hamburgers an’ java. Gee, Hal.”

He turned downtown. He lived on 15th Street in a walk-up flat he had furnished rather well from his pay and a few outside “investments.” He said flatly, “Look, I’m telling you, Lopez.”

“My name ain’t Lopez.”

But she was daunted. He only called her Lopez when he was sore at her. “My name is Nola Shenovitz.”

“Your name is mud if you don’t get off my back.”

He stopped near an all-night lunchroom and called in to have the car picked up. She went reluctantly to buy food. In a few moments a squad car came by and one of the officers dropped off and took over, driving away. Damon followed the girl into the food emporium and saw her slumped on a stool, overdone, blowsy.

This was his speed, he thought, Nola “Lopez” Shenovitz, once a prossie, sometime shoplifter, handy woman for Porter Hull and Pete Cancelli. He could—and would—take her to bed because he had to have somebody to assuage the fires. He would not gain other than momentary relief. Worse, he would in no way alleviate his utter, dismal loneliness.

He thought, then, of Lila and Jack Ware. He did not feel rage or resentment against either of them, he felt only sadness and envy. They were alike in many ways, they probably deserved each other. His cop’s mind took over and he began to wonder how he could use this alliance to his own ends.

He walked around the corner with the voluble, protesting Nola, went in the front door and up the narrow stairway of the converted tenement near First Avenue. He let himself in with the key, allowed the girl to go to the kitchen with the greasy package of hamburgers and the damp cartons of coffee.

He went to the phone and dialed Lila’s number. When she answered, her low voice full of sleep, he said, “Listen carefully, Lila… The way I see it now, there’s something upstate that needs checking. When Jack is able to get around, I want to talk to him about it.”

“It’s four-thirty,” she mumbled. “I’m too dopey to make sense.”

“Make a note,” he insisted. “I want Jack to start thinking about the lodge upstate. There’s a girl involved. She was Alvin’s girl.”

“What do you know about her?” She was waking up.

“Not enough. I can’t get permission to go up there. If I work the ticker, some small-town snooper may squeak and blow the bit. Jack will want to know, I tell you, that there’s something smelly up there.”

She said, “I’ll tell him.” Then she said sharply, “When I see him.”

Damon permitted himself the luxury of a meaningful chuckle. “Honey, you think I don’t know where he is?”

There was a moment’s silence, then she said, “The hell with you.”

“Good—uh—sleeping,” said Damon. He hung up and wiped sweat from his brow. He could see Nola in the kitchen, wrapping herself greedily around a roll full of meat, gulping coffee to wash down the unappetizing mess.

Well, he thought, join her. Swallow the garbage. Make her take a bath. Change the sheets on the bed. Drop some cologne around, so that she doesn’t stink up the joint. So she has body odor. Good enough for Hal Damon. A cop might scare some people, he might throw around some weight, he might mingle with the people he admires and wishes to emulate, but he goes to bed for free, with whatever he can get.

He shook himself. Not a cop, he reprimanded himself, not because you’re a cop. Because you’re Hal Damon, an ugly man with nothing to offer a better woman.

At least he had sown a seed in Lila, who would transplant it in Jack Ware. Or vice-versa, if it was the way he knew in the back of his mind it would be when Jack woke up in that apartment with that woman…

He went into the kitchen and reached for a hamburger. With the other hand he pinched Nola’s left breast.

The woman on Pete Cancelli’s right leaned close and whispered in his ear with consummate indelicacy, offering him things he did not, at the moment, want. He shoved her back to a semi-upright position on her chair and said, “You’re drunk. I don’t have anything to do with drunk broads.”

There was only the table lamp and around the table the indistinct figures of Simon and Katz Manning and the other women. There was one left over, a young one, with wide, slanting eyes of startling intensity. Now she was smiling wickedly at the drunk woman who had made the pass at Pete.

He got up and walked around the table and said, “Stick here, baby.”

“Are you sure you want me to?”

“I want you to.”

“What about her—the alcoholic lady?”

“They’ll sweep her out.”

“Are you going to be long?”

“Does it matter?”

She looked straight at him. There was a restrained ferocity in her despite her clear, literate speech, her fine, smooth skin, her youth. “Not tonight, it doesn’t matter.” He did not touch her. He went into Porter Hull’s private office. His manager looked up, nodded, tore a slip from a small electric adding machine and handed it to him.

Pete said, “It figured to be a good night for business.”

“Even if two customers got murdered.”

“Because they got murdered.”

Porter Hull said, “I liked Ted. Alvin was a stinker, but he was always nice to me.”

Pete picked up the phone and dialed a number. When a voice answered, he said, “Pete here.”

“You sure we ain’t bugged?” said the man on the other end.

“I’m goddam sure. What am I, an amateur?”

“Well, the way things are…” He spoke as an equal. “Okay. I got a few things. Ware is at Lila’s place. He ain’t hurt too bad, just bad enough.”

“Nothing’s enough to stop that bastard from being a nuisance. I wish he was dead.”

“You wish everybody’s dead, most of the time. Get that out of your head, Pete, it ain’t healthy.”

“You going to psychoanalyze me? I pay a stinkin’ fortune to a head shrinker already, he can’t do me anything. So I don’t like people, so screw them.”

“My head shrinker thinks that is bad. He is always after me, don’t hate, only a weak man hates. He says I am a strong man with a Napoleon complex. Like I wish I was boss over everything.”

“Don’t even think it.”

“Who thinks it? Who wants a concrete benny? So what is with you? That Gold Bug business, that was bad.”

“Fifty gees it was bad.”

“I didn’t like it neither, Pete.”

“Okay, okay. Look, I got to find out about a lotta things. Maybe you can help?”

“You’re all right with the boys. Just ask.”

“Business is good?”

“So long as the average dope plays the numbers, the baseball and football pools, we’re all right.”

“The houses still closed?”

“Yeah. Nothing left but a few call girls. You can’t hardly make it off broads no more.”

Pete said, “I dunno, that was always chicken to me. I was never in that. I hate a goddam pimp.”

“Pimps they still got. Us organizers is the ones that suffer. So far as broads is concerned, what the hell, they’re gonna peddle it anyway. We used to could keep the fuzz off them. We had doctors. What the hell?”

“I never went for it.”

“You got to take the buck where you find it. Me, now, I hate junk. A junky can drive me nuts. Is that any reason we shouldn’t make the buck off the dumb bastards who get hooked? What the hell’s the difference? Did we invent it? We got a right, way I see it.”

“Yeah, guess you’re right. Nothing else for me, huh?”

“Sure, there is. We get gassin’, I forget what the boys brought in. It’s about that cop, Hal Damon.”

“Screw him.”

“Well, it’s the hat check broad. Nola?”

“Yeah, the big Polack?”

“Yeah, with the tits. He picked her up when she left the club. You oughta know about things like that.”

Pete was silent for a moment, then he said, “I had a hunch, is why I asked for the check-up. Thanks, Frankie.”

“I’ll be needin’ a favor myself, some day. You got anything at the track for me?”

“Not anything for sure.”

“Okay. I don’t bet for fun, Pete. When you get something rigged, lemme know. But not like Gold Bug. I don’t want to hear any more like that one.”

“It went wrong. I offered to pay you back what you lost.” Pete’s voice was flat and sour now.

“Nothin’ like that, pal. Just remember, you owe me one. Okay, sweetheart?”

“Okay.” Pete hung up. He hated to think of Gold Bug and the way it had gone. He couldn’t stand thinking of failure. The head doctor had talked about that at some length, but Pete was inclined to get sulky under such pressures and scarcely listened. He didn’t know why he paid the man all that money. Maybe just because Frankie and the other mains went to the analyst, and all the Hollywood people and the Madison Avenue television boys that he secretly admired and envied.

He said to Porter Hull, “That Damon is makin’ it with Nola.”

“I’ll fire her tomorrow.”

“Don’t be dumb,” said Pete.

“But if she’s talking to Damon!”

“Let her. What can she tell him?”

“Well, if we’re careful.” Hull brightened. “We can feed her, of course. Now that we know it. I say, you are clever, Pete.”

“Feed her nothing. Damon’s no fool. I trained him myself. He wouldn’t trust his mother, much less that tomato. Just continue the way we’re going, careful of everything, everybody. Damn it, don’t try to think, will you? Stick to the club, you’re doing a good job here.”

Porter Hull sulked. “You shouldn’t scream at me, Pete.”

“That’s right. I shouldn’t.” The protuberant eyes retreated behind hoods, the thin mouth smiled. “I appreciate you, pal. Now, will you have that drunken blond dame taken some place, nice and quiet, no rough stuff?”

“She giving you trouble?”

“She’s loaded and I hate loaded broads.”

Porter Hull said slyly, “She’s special, if you know what I mean. Mind if I take her?”

“So long as you keep her away from me.”

“Can do.”

“Fine, pal. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

They shook hands ceremoniously, as if they had concluded a business arrangement. Pete went back into the darkened club. Simon and Manning were restless, they wanted to go to their apartment with the women. They shared everything, Pete thought amusedly, two brothers together.

He went to the dark girl and sat beside her. “Ready?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready.”

“Haven’t seen you around before.”

“You may never see me again.”

He said, “We’ll know better about that tomorrow. Let’s get out of this bat cave.”

She walked straight, one foot ahead of the other, as he had read somewhere that Indians walk. She was copper colored, maybe she had Indian blood. Fennimore Cooper, he thought. The name hadn’t come to his mind for years. He must ask the head shrinker about that, how a guy could remember like that, all of a sudden, about books he had read when he was a kid on Long Island. And about the dirt farm and his drunken old man and his flighty mother who used to lay the neighbors and the hired hand and anyone else who came along, which was why he couldn’t stand to hear traveling salesman stories. It would make the doc real happy to open up another can of beans along those lines.

eight

It was four days before Jack Ware could move without pain. There were still bruises, dark and angry, his ribs hurt and his left arm was a bit stiff, but he could dismiss these as minor. What he could not put out of his mind was the terrible feeling of helplessness which had come upon him when he was being beaten, or his hatred of the two men who had attacked him. He knew this was wrong, that the men had merely been hired to do a job, that they had instructions not to kill him, that on their part it had been a neat piece of work, without emotion. Still he brooded, wanting them, both of them, where he could have warning and a chance.

Maybe they would get him again, he thought, but he would at least give out receipts. He would at least get in a couple of tricky little things he knew about. He might de-ball one of them and blind the other. He imagined himself doing this but it wasn’t any good, he knew he could not identify the men and the odds were high that he would never see them again.

On the fifth day he snapped out of it. Lila sat up in the bed about noon and he was grinning at her, smoking a cigarette, admiring her. She covered her naked breasts with the sheet and said, “Well! You’re going to be all right.”

“And thanks very much.”

“For what?”

“For many things.”

“I hope everything was satisfactory,” she said meekly. He deliberately put out the cigarette and slid down next to her beneath the sheet. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and shuddered and met him, turning to him.

After a while she said, “I guess it was satisfactory, all right. I guess everybody is satisfied.”

“For now,” he said. “I got to get up out of here. I got to get back to attending to things.”

“The restaurant is doing fine.”

“Sure it is. They need me like a shot in the head.”

“My contract is up in another month. We could go away and I could get the divorce.” She added hastily, “For me, I mean. Because I want to. Not that it means anything to you.”

He didn’t answer that. He said, “Darling, someone killed Ted. The police haven’t got anywhere with it. Also, someone killed Alvin, and Damon gave us a pitch about upstate, the lodge. I am going up there and look around.”

“Damon is fishing. He can’t detect anything, so he throws you that line about the lodge.”

“Twice. He called twice. Damon is a smart cop when he wants to be.”

“What does he know about upstate?”

“Nothing that he can put his finger on. But enough to make him tip me that upstate can stand a going over.”

“You’ve already been beaten. How do you know what may happen up there?”

“Maybe the men who beat me are up there.” He got out of bed. “Or maybe it’s my turn to beat up somebody. Damon has something on his mind. I’ve been lying around here hating, and feeling sorry for myself and doing nothing.”

“I wouldn’t call it nothing.”

“All right, it wasn’t nothing. But it isn’t helping me learn who killed Ted.”

He went into the bathroom, trying to erase a picture from his mind. He attempted to rub out the vision of Ted in the bed he had just quit. It was something he could not yet manage and maybe he never would succeed.

He got under the shower. There was no one quite like Lila in bed, he thought, at least no one in his experience. There was no one kinder, more thoughtful.

Still, there had been Pete Cancelli and those others, who she had admitted she did not even like, and there had been Ted, a pal, but with whom she had not been in love. She was a repository of too many different phases of life. Maybe she was too much woman for him, maybe he couldn’t straighten it out, understand it.

At any rate, his mind was clear again and he no longer hated the guys who had walloped him, he only wanted to get his hands on them, just for grabs. He wanted to come to grips with something tangible. Maybe Pete Cancelli, but he knew that was difficult, because of Simon and Katz Manning and other background figures who could come swiftly to the foreground if needed by Pete Cancelli.

Maybe Damon was in it, maybe this upstate business was just a stall to keep him occupied. It was a complicated thing, and even the New York papers were mystified, although usually they took the attitude that they knew and if they wished they could blow the whistle and upset a lot of apple carts. It was a real mystery, who killed the Colyer brothers.

The reason for Alvin’s murder was pretty well known. Nobody had yet come up with any possible reason why Ted was stabbed to death with a large, heavy instrument like a butcher’s big knife. And there was nothing at all to identify the murderer or murderers.

Lila had brought him fresh clothing from the apartment long since. He was dressed in tweeds, light weight, with a pullover polo shirt of navy blue. She watched him from the bed. He went to the phone and called the cab company and asked for number 2012, saying that he wanted to go upstate and they told him he could have a sedan and that if Blatsky wanted to drive him they would permit it, and promised to let him know within the hour. Lila said, “You know what you’re doing, I suppose.”

“Don’t be unhappy.”

“I’m not.” There were shadows under her remarkable eyes. “I’ll worry, that’s all.”

“What was the name of Alvin’s girl, again?”

“Rose Marie Coole,” she said. “I’ll worry about that, too. A big, overstuffed blouse full of goodies.”

“After you, nobody,” he said. He sat on the edge of the mattress and kissed her. She was still unhappy. “You watch yourself. I don’t trust Cancelli.”

“Have you talked to Max since Tuesday?”

He frowned. “I haven’t been able to get hold of him. I don’t know about Max. I’m beginning to wonder a little.”

She said, “He’s all right. I think he’s a bit scared.”

“Nothing scares him. He worries, but he’s got more guts than a Marine sergeant. He’s also tricky.”

“He’s a good man to have on your side.”

“If he’s on my side, I’m not worried about him.”

“He’s on your side, and mine, too,” she said.

The phone rang and it was Blatsky. He was delighted to get a trip out of town. He would be right over with a Chevy sedan. His wife had arthritis. He hoped Miss Lila was in good health. Yes, he would be right over, five minutes, he would wait.

Jack braced himself. This was the longest he had ever been laid up. The malaise was hard to shake off. He kissed Lila again, on the cheek.

She said, “Maybe you can get some details for Max while you’re up there.”

He called Max. To his surprise, the little man answered the phone in person. Jack said, “Where the hell have you been?”

“Looking into things. Are you going up to the lodge?”

“Yes. Is it open?”

“A man named Horgan is taking care of things. Check with him.”

“Anything I can do for you?”

“I’ve got all the figures I need. Strange thing. Ted lifted the mortgage on the place after he made that will.”

“I see. He wanted to leave it free and clear.”

“For Lila,” said Max. “It could be a good thing for her.”

“All right. I’ll look at it from that angle.”

“Do that.” Max paused, then said, “Pete Cancelli hasn’t made a move that I can figure. Damon is nowhere. The Colyer brothers case could be closed, no solution, in a little while. Maybe you ought to just take it easy.”

“You know better than that.”

Max drew an audible breath. “Yes. All right. Have a good trip.”

Jack hung up, looked at his watch. He hesitated a moment. It was odd, but he sort of hated to leave the apartment. He looked carefully around at the now familiar objects, the furniture. Lila stared at him, unmoving.

He said, “I’ll call you.”

“Yes.”

“Take it easy now.”

“Yes.”

“Uh—well, so long.”

“Good-by, Jack.”

He went out, closing the door softly, as though at a funeral, tiptoeing down the stairs. He was all mixed up.

Izzy was sitting behind the wheel of a black sedan. Jack went across the walk and slid into the rear seat. He knew that he was being watched but it didn’t seem to matter. Izzy started the car, swung it around the corner, swung back, looking in the rear-view mirror.

Jack said, “Nobody’s going to follow us to Hobartville. Take it easy.”

“Cops,” said Izzy. “Nosy cops. I spotted ’em when I drove up. Staked out in a flivver. No official plates or nothin’. You want cops already?”

“If they want to come along it’s fine with me.”

Izzy looked back once more, then reluctantly turned toward the West Side ramp. “Cops make trouble like my wife’s relatives. I had to get her cousin to stay with her, such a female schlemiel you never saw. Where we goin’, did you say, Mr. Ware?”

“Hobartville is the town. It’s on the map. You’ve got a map, haven’t you?”

“Map?” Izzy was at a loss. “I need a map yet?”

“Look in the glove compartment.”

Driving with one hand, Izzy fumbled, triumphantly extracted folded maps, yelled out the window as he narrowly missed swerving into a truck, regained equilibrium and turned onto the elevated highway. “You tell me, Mr. Ware. I never been this way. Upstate I wouldn’t know. You tell me, I drive.”

Hobartville was on the Hudson, above Bear Mountain. Jack traced down the highways, chose what seemed the quickest way. He sat back, sprawling. He was, he realized, very tired, bone tired. The time in bed had not helped. Not after Lila had joined him. On the contrary, it had frazzled his nerves. His mind was not clear, he was worried about Max Somerwell. Much of his business was in Max’s hands and the little man was extremely important to him.

He dozed a bit, woke up on the highway when Izzy brought the car up to cruising speed. It was a lovely day. He should be enjoying the ride. He could only think of Ted, dead and Max, acting mysterious.

He deliberately did not think of Lila. He was not ready to accept the new relationship between himself and a woman he had suspected and disliked. He prided himself on his personal integrity and he felt dubious about his quick surrender to the flesh.

Some flesh, he thought irreverently. The best he had ever had. The most imaginative and yet the most tender flesh in his considerable experience.

Izzy talked. “Like this is the country. Always I knew it was around some place. Not the Catskills, not New Jersey already. Although my wife has got a brother-in-law, he says there is country in Jersey, like west of Newark. This I got to see some day.”

Izzy went on and on and Jack dozed off again, waking when he was hungry. The car had come to a stop before a gas station behind which was a lunchroom. They ate and took to the road again. They made very good time, turned off and down a two-car lane which seemed terribly narrow after the highway, but was paved and smooth.

They came to Hobartville in late afternoon, a town comprised of a store, a church, several houses, a town hall, all around a green square of grass which contained a Civil War monument of no artistic value. Now Jack remembered from his one previous trip to the lodge that there was a road leading toward the river. They found it and drove on lumpy macadam to a sylvan lane, no more, followed it about a mile and a half and came to Colyer Lodge.

There was a gate, which was open. They drove another quarter mile to the main building. It was one-story, rambling, an eastern rendition of a western ranchero. It had cost too much.

There were outlying cottages, shrouded now in twilight, there was a huge stable and several sheds. Everything for the convenience of Alvin and guests was included. The only trouble had been that upkeep was more than income.

Izzy parked the car under a porte-cochere. They got out and stretched. There was a light in the reception room.

“A Mr. Horgan, I believe,” said Jack.

“What we here for, anyway?” asked Izzy.

“I’m looking for something. Anything.”

“Like about the killin’s?”

“Like anything that would help solve them.”

Izzy said, “You ain’t scared of buttin’ into it?”

“What more can they do, except kill me?”

“I ain’t exactly a hero,” said Izzy doubtfully. “You couldn’t call me a brave man. Inna war I was nothin’. Scared all the time.”

“Nobody asked you to be noble. I just want company.”

“When I’m scared I ain’t even good company.”

“It’s too late, you’re here,” said Jack.

Izzy looked around, sniffed loudly. “Well, so it shouldn’t be a total loss, I can smell the good air. My wife should smell such air.”

“I wish she was here. Now, come on, gutless.”

They mounted three steps, crossed a wide veranda filled with gaily striped outdoor furniture. The door opened and a woman stood limned in the light from within.

She was taller than need be. She wore a loose print skirt and a tight sweater. The light shone through the skirt. She was what his grandfather would have called a fine figure of a woman. There was a compelling, tremendous lot of her, all well shaped. Her voice was strong, clear. “Who is it?”

“Jack Ware, from New York.”

There was a moment’s pause. She was not in the least discomposed, much less frightened. She said, “Jack Ware. Ted’s buddy. Come on in.”

They went in. It was a long room, with beamed ceilings. There was a reception desk, knotty pine, and a lot of other furniture of various woods and leathers and Indian rugs and blankets on the walls and the floor. It had an air of being put together by an amateur with scant idea of western decor and too much money.

“You must be Rose Marie Coole,” Jack said.

“That’s right.” She had round, blue eyes and long, ash-blond hair caught in the back, pony-tail fashion. She was quite young. Her skin was tanned and healthy.

“Is there someone named Horgan?”

“Danny? He’s out back. He’ll be right in.”

“He’s the caretaker?”

She said, “He was. He doesn’t know what he is now. I’m not sure I want to keep him on.”

Jack looked around. “Is there anything to eat? We’ve had a long drive.”

“Why not?” She led them into the kitchen. It was also out-sized and contained every known modern electrical convenience. There was a self-sustaining power plant on the property, Jack knew. The place had to be valuable.

Rose Marie bustled with precise efficiency, graceful and light-footed. She cut ham into slices, produced warmed-over biscuits from the oven, heated some vegetables and cooked eggs. Izzy stared at her every move.

Rose Marie, Jack thought, was a woman and a half. He tried to imagine love passages between her and the diminutive Alvin and could only conjure up a collection of risqué midget jokes. She was more than beautiful, she was handsome, like the Greek statuary in the Metropolitan Museum.

He asked, “Are you staying here?”

“Well, I do own the place.” She slid the plates around, went to a cabinet and produced a bottle of Hennessy’s Three Star brandy, poured three generous drinks into wine glasses. She sat down, sprawling like a healthy animal, extending her long legs.

Jack ate, paused to say, “I’m afraid I have bad news for you.”

“All right. Let’s have it.” Her gaze did not falter. Her eyes were intelligent.

“You’re not the new owner.”

“Alvin left a will,” she said. “It’s on file at the courthouse.”

“Sorry. The way things were going, Ted paid all those bills, then had to take over.”

“You mean Alvin didn’t own this place?”

“He never had more than a piece of it. Ted had to prevent him from running up any more expense. It looks like this is Ted’s entire estate.”

“And he left it to you?”

“He willed it to Lila Sharp.”

“Oh,” she said. “Lila. Yes. I see.” She drank the brandy neat, refilled her glass. She twisted a diamond ring on the third finger of her left hand. She said, “I guess you know I was engaged to Alvin.”

“So I heard.”

“It was in the papers. That makes it official, you know. My family hated the idea, but once it’s in the papers, what can you do?”

Izzy had finished eating. He could not take his eyes from the girl. He said, “How could a nice, pretty girl like you get engaged to Alvin Colyer?”

She looked at him and smiled. “Because I didn’t meet his brother until too late.” She returned her attention to Jack. “He lied to me, you know. The dirty, rotten little sonofabitch couldn’t tell the truth if he tried, could he?”

Izzy started, flushing. “Miss Rose Marie! You shouldn’t talk like that. It’s shameful, a girl like you.”

She said to Jack, “He’s finished eating. Can’t he go to bed, or something?”

Jack said, “Yes, I think so. We hadn’t planned to stay, but I expect we’d better.”

She waved a sculptured arm toward the door to a hallway. “Pick a room. Any room but mine. And thanks, anyway, whoever you are, for thinking I’m a nice girl. Good night.”

Izzy was bewildered, but willing to leave. He said, “You’ll excuse me, Mr. Ware? I got compunction. No woman should use curse words. You’ll excuse me saying something?”

“Have a nice sleep,” said Jack.

“The first door is my room. Take any of the others,” she called.

Some country girl, Jack thought. She was calm as a clam. He said, “I gather you were out of love with Alvin.”

“You knew him.”

“I knew Ted.”

She nodded, her face softening. She poured another brandy, refilling Jack’s glass. “Ted. He was grand. They were different as day and night.”

“What about your people? What do they think?”

“My family? Christians. They found out I was sleeping with Alvin. Then he got killed. Now I’m a fallen woman. I’ve changed, because Alvin can’t marry me, you see.”

He saw, all right. The girl was getting stoned on the brandy and maybe she had good reason.

“I’m sorry about the Lodge. It belongs to Lila. Maybe it’s not worth much, maybe she’ll want to sell it. But she inherited it, all right.”

“It’s worth plenty, if it’s run right,” she said. “Alvin just never would pay attention to it. He was too busy with the horses. Always the horses. He couldn’t ride them any more, but he couldn’t help betting them.”

“Well, maybe you could work something out with Lila. She’s a pretty good person.”

“Ted’s girl. But no Christian family. So she’s all right.”

“I wouldn’t say she’s all right. Look, I’d like to search this place real good. There hasn’t been any law here, has there?”

“What law?” She shrugged. “Nobody cares, except me. And Danny, of course.”

“Horgan?”

“Sure, Horgan. He was Alvin’s boy.” She went to a wall telephone, swaying a little. She pressed a button, spoke into the instrument. “You the caretaker? You are, huh? Then you better begin takin’ care. You got company wants to search the joint.”

She hung up and came back to the table. “Danny lives in his own little nest. Cool, man. He never had it so good, that Horgan. He is going to be trouble, believe me.”

“Trouble? How come?”

She giggled. “I think Alvin promised him a share in the Lodge, too. Alvin was very large with promises.”

“Yes. Alvin promised plenty.”

“Got me in bed with his promises.” She drank, poured again. She was getting quite drunk now. “Little Alvin, like holdin’ hands with a boy. Only different. Hell, I thought I knew about the bees and the birds and the cows and the bulls and the horses and the mares, me a country girl. I thought I knew until Alvin got started.”

Trying to get to her before she was too far gone in the brandy, Jack said sharply, “The New York police think there may be an angle on the killings up here.”

“Why not?” She burlesqued a well-known television comic. “If it wasn’t for plain good luck, I mighta done it myself. I coulda. The dirty little bastard. If I woulda known he didn’t own the Lodge, I mighta killed him.”

A throaty voice said, “Don’t talk like that, Rose Marie!” Jack whirled. Danny Horgan had come into the kitchen from the front, without a sound. He stood in the doorway, glaring at Rose Marie. He was six feet three in his moccasins, thick-muscled, young, covered with reddish hair. His eyes were green. He balanced like a professional athlete on the balls of his feet.

“You’re drunk again, Rose Marie.”

“Go turn blue,” she said.

He started across the room, ignoring Jack. He reached for the bottle of brandy.

Jack got to it first. He poured himself some, set it at his elbow. He said mildly, “Take it easy, Horgan.”

The man’s eyes went back and forth between them. There was meanness in them and purpose and probably jealousy. Jack felt a mounting warmth inside him. He would have to give this bucko a few pounds and a few years, but it wasn’t like being attacked in the dark by two accomplished musclemen from the mobs.

Horgan said, “Up to your tricks again, Rose Marie? Makin’ trouble again?”

She said, “Ask him. This is Jack Ware. Ted’s friend.”

“Screw Ted. The jerk. Alvin owned this place. Nobody searches nothin’ without a warrant.”

“I just wanted to look around and see if I could find anything relating to the murders.” Jack kept his voice down, watching the burly body, the thick arms. He decided to insert the needle. “You see, I represent the heiress to the lodge.”

“You mean… her?” A thick hand pointed at Rose Marie. “You’re workin’ for that bitch?”

“Nice fella, isn’t he?” Rose Marie was smiling. “He took lessons from Alvin.”

“You shut up about Alvin. I been hearin’ enough from you about him.” Horgan turned on Jack. “I don’t care if she did hire you. I’ll have the sheriff in here. You can’t come up here and pull that city crap on us.”

Jack said, “And what are you going to do about it, junior?”

The heavy fist swung. Jack was waiting for it. He slid off the chair, taking the brandy bottle with him. He handed it to Rose Marie and said, “Just stay out of it, will you, please?”

He let Horgan make his charge. The rusty head went by him and Jack reached out. The edge of his hand cut down and drove Horgan to his knees.

He deliberately refrained from kicking the exposed jaw. He let the man up. It was unfair, he supposed, but he needed to let off steam.

He made Horgan miss with another wild swing. He allowed him to close and grab. Then he lifted a knee. Horgan went back in pain. Jack hit him in the hard belly, realized that this was bad tactics, moved again and dealt a slash at the bridge of the nose. Blood spouted.

Horgan yelled then. The sight of his own blood seemed to drive him berserk. He dived in, clutched at the knees. Jack was caught off balance by the incredible speed of the attack. They went down, rolled over.

Horgan came up on top. Jack turned his head to avoid stabbing fingers aimed at his eyes. He drew up one knee and kicked. Horgan roared again, but his weight was immovable for the moment. Jack started to roll.

Horgan gave one more loud groan, then fell apart. Jack tossed him into a corner, came to his feet.

Rose Marie held the bottle by the neck, straddling with feet apart. Horgan lay quite still.

Jack said, “I told you to stay out of it.”

“He’s too strong.”

“In a pig’s eye. I had him.” He was red with rage. “I’d have turned him and finished him.”

She said, “So I clipped him and saved you the trouble. You’re not very nice, are you?”

He saw Izzy in the doorway, clad only in his pants. He saw the girl, regarding him with round eyes. He rubbed his hand over his face.

He said, “We’ll have to get some rope or something and tie him up. He’ll wake up like a lion.”

“Oh, he’s an animal, all right. More like a rat, but an animal,” she said. “He tried to rape me last night.”

“He couldn’t have tried very hard. You’re not bruised.”

She pulled up her dress. There were black and blue marks on her shapely thighs. She said, “I kicked him and then I ran. I got the meat cleaver.” She took another swig from the neck of the bottle.

Jack said, “Izzy, put all your clothes on. We’re going to search this place, then move out.”

Izzy was staring at him. “You are a regular Mister Moto, huh? With the judo cuts and all. I bet you harden your hand on a board, huh? Hitting on a board?” He illustrated with the edge of his pudgy hand. “Making calluses?”

“Making nothing.” His hand hurt. He was far out of practice. “Get some wire or clothesline or something.”

Izzy said, “It’s illegal, tying a man up.”

“It’s illegal what will happen to you if you don’t get dressed,” said Jack. His second looey voice was returning to full power. He looked around, finally went out back and found a garage. There was a coil of electric wire on a hook. He took it down and went back into the kitchen.

Rose Marie had not moved, but the level of brandy in the bottle had lowered. Horgan was trying to get up. Jack went to him.

“You want some more?”

Horgan muttered something. Jack wrenched his hands behind him and tied them with the wire. He asked Rose Marie, “Where’s a good place for this one?”

She said absently, “One of the rooms, I expect. He may have called the sheriff, you know.”

“That would be just dandy.” He rousted Horgan into the hallway, kicked open a door. The rooms were elaborately furnished, with deep, comfortable mattresses, large closets, drawer space in chests, semi-western like the decor of the entire Lodge. It could be a profitable enterprise, Jack thought, even as he tripped Horgan, threw him on the bed and tied his ankles.

Horgan said, “You’ll be goddam sorry.”

“You’re sorry now,” Jack pointed out.

Horgan said, “The hell with you. I ain’t sorry for anything except I didn’t beat off your can.”

“If you’d get it into your thick skull that I want to find the killer of both Alvin and Ted…” He broke off, seeing the hatred in the shallow eyes. The man was ignorant and prejudiced, there was nothing to gain by talking with him.

In the kitchen Rose Marie had thrust the bottle away, corked. She sat up straight and said, “There’s no use searching the place. I’ve already done that.”

“Maybe I can do a better job.”

“Maybe I’ve got what you want.”

She was far from a fool. He thought a moment, said, “What’s the deal?”

“If it’s what you want, will you take me to New York?”

“Certainly not.”

She made an effort to be sober and serious and what is more, Jack saw, she was succeeding. There was no doubt of her earnestness. “Look, my family practically threw me out. I’ve got no place to go, except New York. You can help me. I need a stake. I’ll need a job. I can make it if I have some backing from a guy like you.”

He said, “I can’t be responsible for you.”

She looked a bit surprised. “I’ll say one thing. You’re the first man I ever propositioned and you turn me down. Hell, I’m used to having it the other way around.”

“I’ve got reasons.” He’d already had Ted’s girl. Now Alvin’s ex-love was offering herself. The leavings of the Colyer brothers—it made him shudder. He said, “What is it you found?”

“No,” she said. “No and no and no. I’m desperate. Why do you think I’ve been staying here, fighting off Danny Horgan? Look, I’ve been over this place with a fine tooth comb. You couldn’t possibly find anything more in the short time you’ve got. You can’t stay here with Horgan tied up, with the sheriff maybe getting nosy, maybe already on his way. You’ve got to get going, and you know it. I’m going with you.”

It began to sound reasonable. He had the apartment at Waltham Gardens. He could put her in there and stay at the restaurant. He would not stay at Lila’s any more, he knew that now.

He said, “What have you got?”

“You’ll take me?” She stood up, leaning toward him. Her eyes were clear and completely sober now.

“Yes.”

She said, “Promise?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ve got a letter. It’s in my purse. And my purse is in the safe and I know the combination. Alvin left this letter for Ted. I could have destroyed it. I read it.”

“All right. Let’s go, then.”

Izzy was dressed. The girl led the way into the reception hall. She opened a wall safe behind the desk. She took out a huge purse. She extracted a letter from it and extended it to Jack. Her face was naked, pleading. “You won’t cross me? Please don’t.”

Jack said, “Izzy, bring the car around.”

“You gonna leave him in there? Tied up? It’ll get us in trouble.”

Jack said, “Stop whimpering and get the car ready.”

Rose Marie said, “I’ve got two suitcases. All right?”

“Bring them here.” He opened the letter. He walked to the light. It was addressed to Ted, and it was in Alvin’s tight, small, remarkably clear calligraphy, half-printed, half-written.

Dear Ted:

The way it goes, something is liable to happen to me any day. I got to say, you been damn good to me. I been lousy to you since we was kids and you fought my battles for me and I hated it, not you, but because I was so little I couldn’t fight my own battles. Maybe when I got older then I had to fight my own battles and being little like I am, I fought them my way, which ain’t your way.

But the hell with that. What I am mixed up in, it is more than the horses. It is Pete Cancelli. I got a bad feeling Pete is too tough for me.

It is also Cy Camp. He is not too tough for me, and his wife sure saw the day she was my mouse, but Cy’s money is too much for me. A millionaire is much. Funny, Pete and Cy, they both hire their muscles.

What I want to tell you, if Pete gives you a hard time, is that you should look for the alky. This is a big secret that not even the cops know. Nor the Feds. He has got the rights from Frankie Yarbo and the Syndicate because he found the place, the old Camp Coal Company that even Camp don’t know about, ha, ha! This is a lease deal, very legit. You can figure out the rest for yourself, with what you know. It is very large. If you know about it, you can handle Pete. You can’t muscle Pete, but he can be handled. Cy Camp can’t be handled or muscled, but his wife is a kook, and through her you might get some place, only you wouldn’t, on account of you don’t do things like that. Maybe your pal, that crap artist Jack Ware, could handle it for you. He is strictly for the birds, but kind of tough and mean.

This is all I got to leave you except maybe a tab here and there I forgot to pay. It will take care of Pete if you know what to do. Pete don’t like you, on account of Lila. He has got a funny thing about her, he don’t want her, but he don’t want anybody else to have her and won’t divorce her. He is an oddball. I know him good.

Ted, I’m sorry about a lot of stuff. I had some drinks, as you know, or wouldn’t be able to write this. I’m real sorry…

Al

The last lines were a bit uneven—as the liquor had begun to take hold. Still, the signature was clear and firm. Alvin had followed through his impulse.

Jack folded the paper, put it back in the envelope. He picked up two heavy suitcases, nodded to Rose Marie. “It’ll help. I’ll ask you later what else you found.”

She shrugged. “A will, leaving everything to me. I’m hanging onto that.”

“Sure.”

They went toward the door. Izzy honked the horn. She said, “A lot of bills, receipted. Ted paid them, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“That’s it. Honest. Oh, some pictures, family stuff. It’s all in the safe.”

He said, “Okay, let’s go.” They went out and he put the bags in the luggage compartment of the Chevy. Izzy was squirming behind the wheel.

“You can’t leave him like that.”

Jack went back into the house without answering. He opened one of the closet doors, examined the lock. It might do, he thought.

He unwound the wire from the limbs of Danny Horgan. He hauled the fellow to his feet. Circulation had been impeded, Horgan was wobbly.

Jack shoved him into the closet. Horgan cursed him. “It might take you a half hour to get out of there… You might call the law. I figure they won’t be able to do much. Maybe they’ll stop us, maybe not. If they do, I’ll be back and try you again. If you lay off, I may have Alvin’s killer lined up in a few days.”

Horgan told him what he could do.

Jack said, “Think it over. If I come back, you and me’ll have a real go-around and I can lick you and you know it. So long, Horgan.”

He closed the closet door and locked it, leaving the key in place. He went out and got in the back of the car with Rose Marie. He might be able to learn something from her—a hell of a thing, he thought, riding with all that woman and looking only for information. Life sometimes throws a curve.

His nostrils quivered and he sat bolt upright in the back of the car. Izzy wheeled around a curve and he was thrown close to the large girl at his side. He sniffed hard, then the motion of the car tossed him away from her.

For a moment he thought he had detected the scent of the person who had knocked him down in the alley when Alvin was killed. He must be a bit wheely, he thought, from the fast action of his visit in the country.

nine

Pete Cancelli wakened early that morning. He spun around in the silk sheets, but the girl was gone. He lay back, sighing, remembering.

The ceiling was high, with cornices of carved cherubs. The house had been designed by Stanford White and built to stand forever. It belonged, without mortgage, to Pete Cancelli. His mind soared back, savoring the time he had bought the place.

The clock radio, Fm-Am, suddenly emitted soft music. It fitted perfectly into his mood. The amazingly agile and wanton girl, the house in a discreet neighborhood, knowledge of all he had working for him, it all added up to peace and contentment. He did not want to think of stern realities this hour, only of his success.

Women were fine, particularly last night’s visitor from Nympholand, but they were not enough. He hoped he never saw that one again. Excess was good only once in a while, a siren like her would drain him. There were plenty others available.

Even Lila, if he wanted her. He put the thought of Lila sternly from his mind. It was an unfinished story and he liked to toy with manufactured endings, but not now. In due time he would make a finish to that business.

But the harm was done. He thought of Jack Ware, of Hal Damon, of the treacherous hat check girl at the Greystone. He tried all the mental tricks suggested by the psychiatrist, but he could not get back to that single moment of blissful dreaming. He had paid a fortune to that head shrinker, but it never worked for him.

He tried to reassure himself with another cliché advanced by the doc, that a strong personality needed a hair shirt, a goad to keep him in trim to face his responsibilities, Well, he was tough enough. He could survive a night like the previous one, he could wake up without regrets or fears, he could handle the day’s problems with a clear mind.

A stab of loneliness, of frustration, pierced him. He struggled in the entangling sheets, reached for the telephone, dialed.

“Frankie?” he said into the instrument.

“How are ya this mornin’, sweetheart?”

“Had a night. There was this broad. She had class, she was lookin’ for it.”

“It was nice, sweetheart?”

“It wasn’t chicken liver.”

“Fix it for me?”

“You wouldn’t believe. I didn’t even get her name.”

“One of those, huh?”

“Yeah. One in a million.”

“What else is on your mind?”

“Frankie, the way it’s goin’, I figure to need another drop. Maybe even another plant.”

“That good, is it?”

“Perfect. Also, I am buying three joints in Jersey from the Natachka brothers.”

“You are buying? With real money?”

“Frankie, I said in Jersey. You want war over there?”

“That’s right. It ain’t the old days. So we’ll keep it in mind, what you’ll need.”

“The usual cut to your outfit, of course.”

“Sweetheart, you always come up with the cut. That’s why you’re our boy. That’s why you can’t go wrong.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t be sensitive. You scratch our back, we scratch yours. We need each other. Only you need us a little more, so what’s the disgrace? You’d be surprised the big shots need us even more’n you.”

Pete said, “Who’s sensitive? It’s a business proposition.”

“We do you some favors. Like Jack Ware, he’s back from the Colyer farm. With the broad, the big broad, you know.”

“Alvin’s dame.”

“Yeah. He put her in his apartment.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know.”

“He slept at the restaurant.”

“Oh.”

“Disappointed? You were hopin’ he slept with the country mouse? Maybe he would not go back to Lila?”

Pete took a deep breath, then spoke in a low, dangerous voice. “Frankie, look. I told you before. Ixnay on Lila. Frankie, I am a peaceable guy, huh? I want to be happy. Leave me be happy, Frankie.”

There was a long, loud laugh on the wire. “You oughta see the doc about that, sweetheart. You ought to get that, now, block cleared up for you.”

Pete said steadily, “All right, I said my piece. Now, anything on Damon?”

“Only what I told you. Him and that Nola broad. She spent the night. You know, this is costin’ a pretty penny, coverin’ these people, I got half the private eyes in town workin’.”

“Who’s paying?”

“You’re payin’, sweetheart.”

“Anything on Somerwell?”

“We haven’t been covering him close. He is a money kid. I figure any time we want Somerwell, we lay out some more dough, he’s ours.”

“Well, I’d like a check on him. I’ll go for the price, don’t worry. It’s a little idea of my own.”

“Your ideas are expensive,” said Frankie. “You know, for anyone else I wouldn’t do this, you know that.”

“I appreciate.”

“Sure, you do. And you are appreciated here, remember that. You had a good idea there, it is paying off.”

“Two million last year, clear, to the Syndicate,” said Pete. “That’s from one man. Can you top it?”

“Well, truthfully, yes. But it’s good enough. Keep cookin’, sweetheart.”

“Who topped it?” demanded Pete. “Tell me who?”

Frankie sighed. “Sensitive, always sensitive. So there’s a guy in Florida, he runs a one-man book on the baseball, football, horses, numbers, everything. He topped you. But look Pete, I doubt his take was as big as yours. I doubt that. Happy?”

Pete said, “Okay, okay.”

“You sure you can’t get me that broad from last night?”

“Frankie, I kid you not.”

“Honest to Paar?”

Pete laughed. “Honest to Honest Jack.”

“Honest to Hugh Downs?”

“Even to him.”

“Okay, sweetheart. Goo’-by.”

“Remember the Maine.” Pete hung up, in good humor again. There weren’t six men who knew Frankie’s predilection for the late television show starring Jack Paar. You had to be on the inside of the inside to joke with the Boss about the slightly hysterical semi-comedian who nightly kept millions of Americans awake with his high and low jinks.

Yes, outside the Syndicate, he, Pete, must be the top money maker in the rackets. It was worth every dime he paid them to protect him and keep him, through their extensive organization, informed on cogent matters.

There was a time when he could have been in the Big Mob. He had proven himself by knocking off a couple of Syndicate enemies, including a nosy cop. He had never even been suspected because he was not a member. That gave him the idea of staying on the outside, paying tribute but working on his own.

He lay back and again conned the ceiling. Things were perfect. When you came right down to it, there was nothing in the world to worry about. He was practically legit. Nobody was camping on his doorstep, local or Federal.

He needed only to keep tabs on Lila, Damon and Jack Ware. There was a day when he would have got hot at Ware and knocked him off like shooting rabbits. Maybe it would still come to that—but if it did, he wouldn’t attend to it personally, he would have a perfect alibi and he would send flowers and mourn at the funeral.

He could get Lila back if he wanted her. He did not want her. He would not give her a divorce for good reasons—it kept him from preying women to know that he was married; it kept Lila on the hot spot to know she couldn’t get free.

The hell with Lila. He got up and went into the adjoining bath and scrubbed his teeth hard.

She wasn’t any good, anyway, taking up with Ware so soon after Ted. It wasn’t decent. He had thought better of her. He was disappointed in her.

To a great many people who dwell in large cities the midday hour is not noon, but waking time. To Sergeant Damon it was four hours after he had left his flat in possession of the snoring wad of flesh which was Nola Shenovitz and a half day’s work was done and he felt terrible.

In the four hours he had taken care of the paper work on his desk, received a bawling out for failing to get anywhere on the midtown murders of the Colyer brothers, parried the questions of several bored and cynical newsmen and consumed a gallon of water not as cold as he would have liked it.

He was in danger and he knew it. As the expert on café society he was expected to have answers. If he failed to come up with anything there would be reprisal. The one thing he could not bear to imagine was a transfer.

He was all wrong about that, he surmised. He would be far better off out in the boondocks some place. He had his rating, he could set his sights on retirement and maybe marry someone like Nola and the hell with it.

He would just as soon be dead. He rallied himself. He was far from dead, he had a couple of ideas.

He went in and saw a certain city official who owed him favors and asked for a search warrant in blank and went back to his desk and waited for it.

Sergeant Wynoski came in and asked, “You heard anything about the bootleg in midtown?”

“They couldn’t get away with it. Third Avenue, the Bowery, the Bronx, Harlem, that’s where the juice goes.”

“Yeah. Well, the Feds are gettin’ nosy. You know what they say? They say it’s a two billion a year industry.”

“They say a hell of a lot.”

“They say the town’s fulla stills and we oughta knock on some doors.”

“Screw them. Boy Scouts,” said Damon.

“The Mayor listens to ’em.”

“Sure, he does. He’s a fink, too.”

“Well, just thought you might have heard something from the mob.”

“Screw the mob, I got troubles of my own.”

“Why don’t you make a few calls and grab off the killer?”

“Get smart, go ahead, Wynoski.”

“If you found some big time alky cooker in midtown, they’d forget the Colyer brothers, maybe,” said Wynoski.

“Get lost.”

Wynoski laughed in a nasty manner and walked away. They either disliked him for his personality or were envious of him because of his job, Damon knew. He had few friends, and those were bound to him by ties not of love but of duty.

Malaney came by and Wynoski stopped, putting his arm around the shoulder of the younger man. Wynoski was an old gasbag. He had been on the force over twenty years and should never have been taken out of uniform, Damon thought. Now he was sucking around the college boy.

Malaney knew about the incident at Jack’s Place, of course. He knew Damon had been backed down and had been made to like it. He was the exact opposite of Wynoski, one of those new-type cops, too smart for their own good.

Damon’s search warrant was delivered by a clerk. He was thinking very clearly now, with the aid of the acid eating at him. He arranged for a ride, went down the hall past Wynoski and Malaney, heard them talking about the alky drops and stills, sneered at them and left the building.

He got off on Park Avenue. He went to the Waltham Gardens, showed the doorman his badge and took the elevator. He got off on the tenth floor and went to the door of Apartment Number Two. The name plate read Jack Ware.

He had several small, clever tools with which he worked on the lock. It took him some time.

When he finally got the door open, he walked in and closed it behind him. Then he leaned back against it, staring, stunned.

A tall, handsome young woman, dressed in nothing but panties and an uplift bra which bulged amazingly, said, “All right, you sonofabitch, hold it right there.”

In her hand was a .45 caliber army Colt’s automatic. The safety was off and she looked capable of handling the weapon. In fact, she looked capable and willing to shoot Damon in the belly.

He raised his hands, blurting, “Sure, baby, anything you say. With or without the gat, anything you say!”

ten

At noon Jack Ware was in his office above the restaurant, pretending to make decisions about the business, actually letting Pat Shapiro handle everything. He had no mind for the restaurant. He moved to the opaque window and looked down on the luncheon crowd.

Cy Camp and his wife were at the bar. There were dozens of other well-known faces. Television stars abounded. There were two boxing champions, the new, cleancut style, a couple of ballplayers and the coach of a metropolitan football team who was going into the pros.

Pat left and Brownie came in with his liquor list. Jack asked him to make a Bloody Mary and the head barkeep took his time, measuring the Worcestershire sauce, squeezing the lime with great delicacy.

Jack checked the list and signed it. He accepted the tall, cool glass and drank. “Nobody makes it like you, pal. Just right again.”

Brownie said, “I stick to the Smirnoff vodka. They keep touting me on other brands, but I stick with it.”

They sat a moment, Brownie working on bourbon over the rocks, then Jack asked, “How long have you known Eloise Mannering Camp?”

“Since she started around and about.”

“What about her and Alvin Colyer?”

“It was in the columns.”

“Was it true?”

Brownie considered. “Is this about the murders?”

“It’s not about Eloise’s private affairs unless it relates to the murders. I couldn’t care less about her. She could be a big nuisance if Camp didn’t hold her down.”

“Yeah. He holds her down. She was one of those dames from Westchester. There was a heap of ’em. Café society. My ass and general training.”

“Alvin moved in?”

“The tall broads all liked Alvin.”

“That’s been established. What’s new?”

“Well, they drank it up. It was just before Alvin busted out at the track. She had it bad for him, there.”

“Was Camp in the picture at the time?”

“He moved in and took over. Alvin didn’t give a damn, you know. He never did, he had dames all around.”

“But Camp did move in on him?”

“More like he moved in on her. Camp is tough, Jack. Camp is real tough.”

“You got a for instance?”

“Several. I knew his first wife. Camp is mean, real mean. Chubby little guy, fools you. He could hurt you, or me, or anyone, with his loot and his connections.”

“That’s a cinch. Matter of fact, we’ll be wrecked if you don’t go down and watch that till for me. Thanks a lot, Brownie.”

“She wasn’t so bad, Eloise. Not a good girl, either, you understand. Easy to get along with until she was loaded. I always kinda liked her.”

“Until she got loaded.”

“Oh, sure.” He hesitated. “Jack, about the vodka. There was some guy in here offering a terrific buy. Thirty-six bucks a case. Never heard of the brand.”

“We don’t want it.”

“I know, but I had to tell you.”

“Probably straight alky.”

“You don’t remember Prohibition, of course. It was heyday and nonny, nonny if you could get good straight alky. Make anything out of it.”

Jack stared at him. Alvin’s letter rustled in his pocket. He said, “Thirty-six bucks, huh? You know the guy?”

“Never saw him before, but he wasn’t kosher. He had that Prohibition look about him. Slick, but not a real salesman type. Pushers, they called ’em, and they carried heat. They’d brass knuckle a bar that didn’t buy.”

“If the character comes in again, I want to see him.”

“I thought maybe,” said Brownie. “It didn’t smell good.”

He went down into the bar. Watching, sipping his pink drink, Jack saw Lila Sharp come into the restaurant. She walked tall and straight. Eloise Camp stopped her and they chatted. Cy was busy talking to an editor of Life Magazine. Eloise made a sympathetic gesture and Lila left her and came toward the stairs. He went out to greet her.

They came into the office together and he closed the door and she kissed him. She smelled fresh and good and clean. He said, “You’re awful damn nice.”

She said, “You smell of drink.”

“What’ll you have?”

“Another kiss?”

They went close and an amazing flow of feeling passed between them. She was wearing a light tweed dress with a loose cape and he burrowed beneath the outer garment, seeking something, not quite certain of what, but knowing surcease. They gravitated toward the bedroom, neither speaking, scarcely breathing, their arms intertwined.

He had a brief thought while closing and locking the door. The proffered magnificent body of Rose Marie had not tempted him for an instant. Yet this woman, merely by existing, moved him in every fiber.

It was barely past noon when they undressed each other, lingering at every step of the process, kissing, kissing. It was like a dream, it was unreal, yet it was very real.

It was one o’clock when the private phone beside the bed rang insistently. At first he was not going to answer it, then he came to his senses reluctantly, realizing that Pat Shapiro had cleared the call.

When he heard Rose Marie’s voice he was annoyed, then her words brought him away from Lila and reaching for clothing.

“Someone is trying to break in,” the girl said.

“Are you sure?”

“He’s picking at the lock.”

“There’s a gun in the top dresser drawer. It’s an automatic. Do you know how to handle it?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Get it, and hold the guy, whoever he is.”

“You’ll come over?”

“In ten minutes.”

“I’ll hold him.” She was cool as a cucumber.

He hung up. Lila stirred and asked sleepily, “What is it, darling?”

“It may be a break. Someone’s picking the lock at my apartment.”

It was Lila’s turn to start fully awake. “The girl?”

“Never worry about that one. I only hope she doesn’t let some holes into the guy.” He was dressing in haste. “Will you stay here?”

“I’d love to. I do want to talk with Max again.”

“Call him from here. No one will bother you. Keep the bedroom door locked.”

He went out on the run. In the street he instinctively looked for Izzy’s cab, remembered that Izzy would be taking today off after the long drive from Hobartville. He caught a floater and the driver picked his way through traffic with a five-dollar bill tucked in his kick, making good time.

He went up to the apartment, hauling out his seldom-used key, thrusting his way into the room where he was stopped in his tracks by the tableau.

Rose Marie was wearing a light summer robe from his closet. She was sitting in an armchair, her feet dangling over the arm. The automatic was in her lap.

Sitting opposite her was Sergeant Damon. He scarcely glanced at Jack. His attention was rooted on the girl. Rose Marie said, “Seems like there was a mistake.”

“I see,” said Jack. “Just the law.”

“He’s got a warrant.”

Jack went toward Damon. “Let’s see it.”

Damon said, “It’s in blank, Jack. One of those things. I apologized to Miss Coole, here.”

She said brightly, “He explained that it was about Alvin. He thought maybe you were hiding something from him.”

“Well, now isn’t that just ducky.” Jack squared himself at Damon. “You want to apologize to me, too? Or do you want trouble?”

“Well, now, I can fill in the name on the warrant,” said Damon mildly. “Then it would be a Mexican standoff. You and me and the Commissioner. You know how those things go.”

“I could take a chance.”

“You see, I still ain’t sure just where you stand.”

“You thought I was in Hobartville and you’d ransack the place.”

“That’s right,” said Damon.

“What in hell did you expect to find?”

“Something I might use.” Damon kept looking at the girl. “Any kind of a lever. I’m in trouble, Jack, if I don’t do something. I’ve got to move.”

“What could I possibly have? Do you really think I had anything to do with Alvin’s death?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know a damn thing. That’s why I’ve got to look around.”

Jack sat down. This was a new Damon, seemingly frank, apparently defeated but resigned to the facts. After a moment, Rose Marie said, “Seems like we all ought to work together. I was telling him about Alvin’s letter.”

“I see.” That was why Damon was so friendly, then. “Well, you did send me up there. I wasn’t going to hold out on you.” He took out the letter and handed it to Damon.

Rose Marie said, “Not that we give a damn about Alvin. But Ted didn’t deserve to be killed. I’ve been thinking. The same ones must have killed them both.”

“You’re turning detective, Rose Marie?”

She said, “Well, I’m not as dumb as I look.”

“You don’t look at all stupid,” Jack assured her. “You just look sexy as hell. If you’d go and put on some clothing maybe Damon could pay attention to that letter.”

She smiled. “You should have seen me when he came in. I didn’t have the robe then.”

She got up and sauntered to the bedroom. Damon flicked one glance after her, then returned to the letter. When he had read it for the second time, he handed it back to Jack.

“Judas Priest,” he said.

“A salesman offered Brownie vodka at thirty-six dollars,” said Jack. “It fits.”

“Alky. Wynoski wasn’t a-birdin’,” said Damon half to himself. “The Feds don’t know. Hell, the Camp Coal Company was the biggest in the city. They own a hundred spots.”

“You can turn that over to the revenuers,” said Jack impatiently. “The important thing is that Alvin knew about it and Cancelli must have found out that he did.”

“Gold Bug,” said Damon. “All that jazz about doping the horse.”

“That figures, too,” said Jack. “Alvin thought he had the whip hand. If they caught him, he could holler cop on their alky operation.”

“No,” said Damon. “Camp ain’t in on it.”

“You want to bet?”

“I’d bet. This letter is aimed at Pete, not Camp. The thing with Camp and Alvin was about Eloise. Camp is a sonofabitch where she’s concerned. He’s weird about her. He could kill Alvin because they had a thing—but he wouldn’t.” Damon paused, then went on, “Jack, this checks out as a revenge murder. It goes on that Ted stumbled onto something, got himself in the middle and had to be killed. Believe me, that’s the way it sets up from a cop’s angle.”

“I can see it that way.”

“But this letter, this changes things.” Damon was puzzled. “We’ve worked over every stoolie in town. Maybe you know, maybe you don’t. There is never a gang job that we don’t get a rumble. Never. That goes for the Mafia, the syndicate, the whole bit. We may not be able to do anything about it, but we get a rumble.”

Jack considered this. “And there’s nothing on the Colyers?”

“Not a damn thing. No strangers in town, nothing.”

“What about this Frankie Yarbo?”

“Yes. I been thinkin’ about him since I read his name in the letter. He’s the Syndicate.” Damon shook his head. “The Syndicate wouldn’t knock off the Colyers. Not unless they had to. And Cancelli ain’t Syndicate. He’s got connections with them, sure, or he couldn’t operate. But they wouldn’t kill for him. It ain’t sensible, believe me.”

“Cancelli is bootlegging with Syndicate backing, right?”

“So Alvin says.”

“Let’s believe Alvin, just once. Then we have to stir up Cancelli in order to maybe find out who killed the Colyers.”

“It’s a long way around. Still, like you say, if Alvin was going to blow the whistle, it could be.”

“You’re not happy about it.”

“The Feds could take over,” said Damon. “We should call them, right now. If they take over, we get lost in the shuffle. We’ll never see Cancelli again—until he gets out of Leavenworth or Atlanta. He can do a jolt in those cans standin’ on his head.”

“We don’t call the Feds. I take the responsibility,” said Jack promptly.

Damon looked at him. “You can’t trust me, you know.”

“Who knows it better?”

“On the other hand, we might find the guy who killed Ted.”

“For once we agree.”

“That letter. Alvin was drinkin’. He never would have written it if he wasn’t swacked. He could be wrong about some things.”

“Not about Camp, nor Eloise. We know that.”

“I guess we got to give him leeway.” Damon got up from the chair. “If I turn this in, they’ll go to the Feds. It’s got to be among us chickens.”

Rose Marie came in. She was wearing a print dress which had not been manufactured in Hobartville. It emphasized every salient point, highlighting her thrusting breasts.

She said, “You boys. So serious. I haven’t had any lunch. And I must look for a job.”

Damon said eagerly, “Have lunch with me. Like to talk to you about Alvin and all.”

Amused, Jack said, “Yes, Rose Marie, go with Damon. He can help you find work. He knows everybody in midtown.”

She said, “I’d be delighted, Hal.”

They went out together. At the door Damon said, “I’ll be in touch, Jack. I’ll maybe need you.”

“Sure you will. Because you’re going it on your own, looking for a way out.”

Damon nodded. “That’s right.”

Jack picked the automatic pistol from the table where Rose Marie had left it. The safety was still off. He clicked it in place, started for the bedroom, then changed his mind. He went to the closet and rummaged until he found an old belt-holster. He unthreaded the leather around his waist and tried the effect. The pistol sat close and snug.

He went out of the apartment and took another taxi back to the restaurant.

eleven

Max Somerwell listened carefully to what Jack had to say. Lila moved restlessly, frowning. Downstairs the after-lunch drinkers argued back and forth about nothing. Jack’s head ached.

Max said, “Yes. I see.”

“You see what?”

Max blinked behind his thick eyeglasses. “Why, it all dovetails very nicely. Cancelli is operating a huge bootleg alcohol operation. I have some figures on that. The government is being cheated of about five hundred million per year in taxes. State treasuries lose another two hundred and fifty million. It affects the tax situation very severely.”

“Max, no figures, please. Do you know anything about this which will upset Cancelli?”

The little man folded his childlike, helpless hands. “Cancelli will be more dangerous if aroused. I fear for Lila. I’ve told her. Cancelli is determined to have Colyer Lodge to offset his losses. He does not need the property. He wants to hurt Lila in any way he can.”

Lila said, “I don’t believe that, not entirely. Pete wouldn’t stick out his neck to get the Lodge. He wouldn’t have Alvin or Ted murdered for it.”

Jack said dispiritedly, “There’s no evidence that Pete had anything to do with the killings. There’s no evidence at all, period. Except I could smell him out. That’s a hell of a nothing deal.”

“I advise you to remain out of it,” said Max.

Jack regarded him with dissatisfaction. “You advised Alvin and Ted. They got killed.”

The myopic eyes went blank. “I am looking out for Lila’s interests at present.”

“You damn well seem to be taking care of everyone excepting me. You’re discreet, all right, Max. Too damn discreet. If you don’t want to work for me, say so.”

Max said stiffly, “If I have a choice, I shall continue to look after Lila.”

“You don’t have much choice. You either work for me or you don’t.”

Max got up, trying to straighten his oddly bent body. “I will turn your affairs over to whomever you designate.” He took Lila’s hand, bending over it, making himself graceful by sheer dint of will. “My dear, you may rely on me.”

Lila looked past him to Jack, shook her head. She said sweetly, “Why, Max, thank you. Please keep trying. I will want that divorce, you know.”

“Nothing will prevent me from serving you.” He went out, not looking at Jack.

Lila said, “You shouldn’t have jumped on him.”

“The little jerk kept things from me. If I’d known about Ted’s affairs …”

She interrupted him. “I knew. Nothing could be done about Ted. He was too concerned about Alvin. He died because of Alvin, I am positive of it.”

The telephone rang. A woman’s impersonal voice asked, “Mr. Jack Ware?”

“Speaking.”

“I understand that you are willing to accept the bodies of Alvin and George Colyer?”

Stunned, he could not answer for seconds.

“Mr. Ware?”

“Yes… Who is this?”

“This is Mrs. Mole. The autopsies have been completed and the bodies are ready for release, sir. Will you accept them?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. I’ll make arrangements.” He hung up the phone. He sat back, sweating a little despite the air conditioning.

“What was it?” Lila asked.

“The corpses,” he said. His voice sounded odd. Ted and Alvin. The coroner and the medical examiner and the police are through with the clay. They have poked and cut and probed and pondered. We can have the remains.”

“Oh!” She mirrored his shock. “Oh. We haven’t really thought about them, have we? That they are dead bodies.”

“Like in the war,” he said. “A man is killed, you don’t think of it until after the action is over. Ted is gone. There’ll be a funeral. A big affair. All the sports people. A sermon. Flowers. The bar will do a roaring business that day.”

“Jack,” she said softly, “I’m sorry. You loved him, I didn’t. It should have been the other way.”

“A wake, they’ll hold a wake. It won’t be called that, but they always do it. The big spenders will be out.”

She said, “Jack, please.”

He called downstairs to Pat Shapiro. He said into the phone, “Pat, you’ll have to get an undertaker, arrange for things.”

“I got a cousin,” said Pat.

“Tell your cousin to call City Hall. Pick up Alvin and Ted and give them the treatment. Charge it to me.”

“Cousin John’ll know what to do. I—I’m sorry, Boss.”

“Flowers, the works,” said Jack. “All the way.”

“A double funeral.”

“Double header,” said Jack.

“Okay, Boss.”

There was a tap at the door. Jack went to it and opened it wide. Eloise and Cy Camp walked past him. They were not exactly steady on their feet. Eloise went to Lila and stood beside her, swaying.

Camp said to Jack, “Sorry to break in on you this way. Thought I ought to say something.”

“All I need is some trouble from you,” said Jack.

“No trouble.” The stout man looked at his wife. His voice was thick but he articulated clearly. “Alvin Colyer. No good. He was no good.”

“That is not precisely news.”

“Didn’t kill him. Wouldn’t have killed him. Eloise might have. She didn’t.”

“You might tell that to the police.”

“Police—I buy and sell their bosses. Money can buy them, but not everything.” He paused, looked at his wife uncertainly, went on, “Tried to tap Cancelli’s phone. Couldn’t make it. Cancelli gives me a look. As though he were laughing at me. I don’t like it.”

Eloise said suddenly, “He looks at Lila, too. He has got it in for you, Lila, I hope you know it.”

Lila said, “Pete has it in for everyone.”

Camp said vaguely, “Been drinking too much. Domestic matter. Hope you’ll forgive me.”

“Yes,” said his wife clearly. “He beat me last night again. See?” She turned her head and the light struck on a bruise ill-concealed by make-up.

“What I wanted to say.” Camp ignored her. “Found out through an agency man. Ted Colyer made his bet on Gold Bug after Alvin had been run off. I mean Ted couldn’t have been in on that, could he?”

“No.”

“You didn’t know that.”

“I didn’t have to,” said Jack.

“You trust people. Very silly, trusting people.”

“Especially your wife,” said Eloise. “You’re not cute, Cyrus. You never were. Alvin Colyer was cute and he was sweet.”

Camp lifted a hand and started toward her. His plump face was like hard dough, his blue eyes flamed. Jack stepped in front of him, shouldering him so that he missed his direction and sat heavily on a chair.

Camp said, “You dirty bitch. You rotten, lousy, bar-hopping whore.”

“You see?” Eloise was bland, calm. “Not cute. Not at all sweet. Alvin was both cute and sweet. Good in bed, too. Not good any other way, but good in bed.”

Camp tried to get up but Jack bore down, using his weight, careful not to manhandle him.

“I’ll kill her,” groaned Camp. “So help me, I’ll finish her.”

“A divorce is less trouble to all concerned,” said Jack. Dealing with drunks was an old story, but this was a special case, fraught with danger.

“I’ll never divorce her. I’ll break her once and for all.”

“You know, you nearly made it,” Eloise said brightly. She was in that stage of intoxication when for a brief time everything is superbly clear. “The whips and those other tricks, I nearly began to like them. It was because I drink too much. I always did. Then Alvin was murdered and I sobered up for a day. I wondered if you did it. I knew you would have liked to. Then I knew you didn’t have that kind of nerve.”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“That’s what I thought. But I can, you see. You’re a mixed-up little sadist, that’s what you are.”

Jack said, “Take it easy, will you? Both of you.”

Lila shook her head at him. She was watching Camp. The millionaire was growing smaller in the chair. It was probably the calmness of Eloise which had penetrated his drunkenness. He whimpered, “No. You can’t do this to me. It’s—it’s indecent.”

“I can do more than this,” said Eloise.

“No! Stop!”

“Pete Cancelli had Alvin killed, one way or another. If you had any courage, you’d go after Cancelli. Beat on him. You’re as rich as he is. He had Ted Colyer killed, too.”

“You can’t prove that, can you?” asked Jack.

“I don’t have to. You know it. The police know it. Even dear Cyrus knows it.”

“I’m drunk,” said Camp, putting his chubby hands to his face. “I never get drunk. Why? What’s wrong?”

“You’re losing your stomach for anything but the little whips,” said his wife.

Lila whispered, “I think you’ve proved your point, Eloise. I think you’re free, if you want.”

Camp said to Jack, “I should never drink. Have you got something I can take?”

“No, we don’t sober them up. We don’t make them buy it and we expect them to carry it out of here.”

Eloise said, “Money, money. Horses, horses. He poses for a man with everything.”

Lila touched her arm. “Maybe you’d better lie down awhile. Jack has a bed in there.”

“Not yet,” said she. “I want to tell him some more. About Alvin.”

Camp shook himself like a dog coming out of water. “Alvin was no damned good. I don’t care what she says. Ted was fine, but Alvin was no good.”

“Better than you if he had your money,” said the inexorable voice. “Better than you when he did have money.”

Jack stepped between them, unable to stand more. He said to Camp, “Look, I’ve a favor to ask. I’d like a list of your real estate holdings in New York.”

“Real estate?”

“The coal companies in particular.”

“Coal business? No good. All fuel oil, now. Family started in coal, wood, all that. Got out, silos rented to people.”

“Yes, I would like to know the locations and the lessees.”

Eloise started to say something, but Lila lifted her and led her to the bedroom. Camp watched them apathetically, saying, “Call Olson… Wait, I’ll do it.”

He put the call through, gave instructions. He sat back in the chair as Jack made a list of the locations. He seemed thoroughly confused. The list was long and Jack was very careful to get it right.

Downstairs everything ran as usual, Jack noted through the window. He moved behind his desk. Camp looked miserable, but it was impossible to feel anything for him but distaste.

The two men sat, ill at ease.

Camp mumbled, “I’m sorry. Dirty linen, all that.”

“It wasn’t particularly nice.”

“She’ll be sorry, too.”

“I doubt that.”

Camp asked, “You think I’ve lost control? Maybe I have, at that.”

“I think you could face it.”

Camp got up and went to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink.

Jack said, “That won’t help, not now.”

“I’ll take my wife and go home.” He started for the closed door of the bedroom.

Jack intercepted him, taking his elbow, steering him. “Sorry, but we’re all out of whips.”

“You can’t stop a man from seeing his wife.”

“Wouldn’t try,” said Jack. He tapped on the door. Lila opened it on a crack.

“She’s asleep.”

Jack said, “Let him look at her.”

Camp didn’t move. His eyes had turned hard gray and were slitted in his round face. “You’re in league with her. You and that other bitch just like her.”

Jack said, “Now you are asking for it.”

“Bitches. Both of them.”

“Then leave them alone.” He couldn’t take the first punch, he did not want to take a punch.

“I want my wife.”

“Something tells me you’re not going to get her.”

Camp made a quick move. Jack shoved him so that he caromed off the exit door, then slapped him hard across the chops. Camp drew back a fist, then dropped it.

“Want to try it?”

“I can’t whip you.”

“You ought to learn something else. When you whip a bitch, you’ve got to keep her tied up.”

“I can wreck you. All of you.”

“Maybe. The mood I’m in right now, I’ll give you reason. Alvin was right, you and Pete Cancelli are alike. You hire your muscle.”

“I’ll close this place. I’ll make a public scandal out of Eloise.”

“You can try that, too. I don’t care.”

“I want my wife.” It was a scream now, and he was over the edge. “Nobody can stop me from having my wife!”

Jack hit him as he charged. The flesh around the belly was soft. Camp let out a small, weird cry. He put both hands to his belly. He sat down on a chair.

Jack said, “I’ll give you time to recover your feet. Then I am going to kick your ass down the stairs for everyone to watch. Then I am going to run you out in the street for Third Avenue to see.”

Camp whimpered. After a moment he got up. He did not look right or left. He staggered to the door, went weakly through it and down the stairs. Jack watched from the window as he made his way out to the street.

He had built himself a powerful enemy. He turned back into the office and Lila held a finger to her lips.

“I gave her a sleeping pill.”

“One broad in the apartment, one in here. It leaves me no place to go.”

“You can always rent a room.”

“I think Eloise will be better off here, for now. He’ll beat hell out of her if she goes home.”

“What are your plans, if any?” she asked.

“I need Izzy. It may take days to drive to all these locations. Then, when I find a big alky still, I have to decide how to stir up Cancelli.”

“Couldn’t you just—you know—bluff him?”

“He might call me. I want Federal agents not far behind me. Cancelli is tough.”

She said, “I’m going with you.”

“All right. You’re better company than Izzy.” He called the cab company and they gave him Izzy’s home phone uptown. He called Izzy.

“Camp Coal Company? I know half a dozen of them,” Izzy said when he understood the plan. “There’s one up here. Look, maybe you could get a hack uptown, I could eat, already? It wouldn’t be too much?”

“We can do that.” He wrote down the address. He patted the automatic nestling at his belt. He said to Lila, “Maybe I won’t be in the restaurant business much longer. But this is getting to be important above it and everything else. Let’s go, baby.”

twelve

The Greystone Club bar was the only section of the establishment which opened at noon. There were a few tables and booths which lined two walls, not enough to make serving the food profitable. However, there was a large booze trade and Porter Hull, a man dedicated to his job, did not complain.

It would not have done him much good, because Pete Cancelli ate lunch in the Greystone every day, accompanied by his good friends, Bobo Simon and Katz Manning. They occupied a corner booth, from which they could watch the door and they were the best customers of the house. Not that they paid.

Cancelli watched Hull mince toward them and said, not for the first time, “If I didn’t know better, I’d be expectin’ a proposition.”

“He may be inclined,” said Katz judicially. “I ain’t saying either way.”

“He’s regular,” Simon maintained. “I seen him with many a broad. He’s regular.”

“Inclined, he could be. But, you know, a guy can fight it. He can refuse to go the tour,” said Katz, who was in a serious mood.

Hull came to the booth and pulled up a chair between Cancelli and Simon. His mouth was pursed in a cupid bow of dolor. He said, “The vodka is dreadful. It makes horrible martinis.”

“Sell ’em Bloody Marys.”

“You can’t sell a martini man,” said Hull petulantly. “You know that, Pete. Martinis are a career.”

Simon said sympathetically, “A lousy martini is worse’n poison to a martini man.”

“Well, maybe you better use the Smirnoff for martinis and the regular stuff for Bloody Marys,” said Cancelli. “I’ll have to see about it. Where’d the run come from?”

“The West Side,” said Porter Hull.

“I’ll look into it. They got to be more careful.”

“The next thing you know they’ll be using methyl alcohol, like that fellow in Atlanta,” said Hull. “Forty-two people died because of that batch. I don’t know how many were hospitalized.”

“All right, all right,” said Cancelli. “I said I’d handle it.”

“But my customers. I must buy several cases of Smirnoff at once.”

“So buy. What’s the matter with you today, Porter? You miss out with that broad last night?”

“She was terrible! She was too drunk to know what I was doing!”

His voice was so high in register that Katz looked meaningfully at Simon and said, “You see what I mean?”

“What’s that?” demanded Hull. His face was flushed, his fists balled and ready. “You cheap, two-bit hoods, if you put your dirty mouths on me, I’ll kill you.”

“You gonna love us to death?” asked Katz innocently. Hull upset his chair, coming to his feet. Katz slid a hand inside his coat and waited, grinning.

Cancelli said mildly, “Lay off the beef, both of you. Porter, boy, Katz knows you’re not one of them. He’s just taking you for a ride.”

“I’ll kill him with my bare hands!”

“He’s got a gun and a knife,” said Cancelli reasonably. “Now behave, the customers are looking at you.”

Porter Hull straightened, his fists unclenching. He looked guiltily at the bar trade, managed a broad smile, the corners of which were steely. “I’ll see you boys later. Must order that Smirnoff.”

He walked away, his hips swaying, trying to control them but unable to do so.

Katz said, “I still got my doubts.”

“You got doubts you was born,” said Simon. “Lay off the guy.”

“Bobo is right,” said Cancelli. “Maybe his genes got a little outa balance, what of it?”

“Jeans? What’s with tight pants? Porter don’t wear jeans, he is strictly continental. Brooks Brothers ain’t good enough for him.”

Cancelli said gently, “Him and me go to the same tailor.”

“I been meaning to speak to you about that,” said Katz. “Like some of the boys, they wonder. Are we going too high class? Like they talk, I hear ’em, I bat them down. But maybe they got a right.”

“Everybody’s got a right,” said Cancelli expansively. “Like down south, I believe those Negroes got a perfect right to sit down. We got ’em, ain’t we? Pay ’em as good as the white boys. Congress, the President, everybody says there is free speech.” He thought a moment, then added, “Gimme the names of some of those boys. They need talkin’ to.”

“You said they got a right.”

“Yeah, but look—I got rights, too.”

The logic of this impressed Katz. He nodded, wonderingly, and said, “Pete, I gotta hand it to you. I worked for Frankie Yarbo, I worked for the best. You got more of a way of makin’ sense than any of ’em. Tell the truth, a couple of those boys is jigaboos. And they work on the West Side. When we go over there, we can roust ’em a little.”

This decided, they turned to graver things, ordering lunch, calling the bookies to make their bets for the day, discussing the women of yesternight and pondering the prospects for tonight. Nola came in, although it was hours before her time to report. Cancelli watched her go into the darkened hatcheck room.

He said to Simon, “Move in there and gander on her.”

“That nothing broad?”

“Do like I say and keep quiet about it. Don’t let her suspect anything.”

Simon slid, slim, silent, grumbling that his lunch would be cold. Katz squinted at Cancelli, asking silent questions.

“The Erie,” said Cancelli. “She’s on it.”

“Why don’t we take care of her?”

“We’re too high class,” Cancelli said. “Also, we’re too smart.”

“Oh. I see.” Katz attacked lox and scrambled eggs, gnawed at a bagel. “The food in here is pretty good. It’s a kick havin’ a joint like this. I heard plenty about Larry Fay and Owney Madden and them, with their fancy speaks during Prohibition. What did they have that we haven’t got?”

“They had Helen Morgan, we got Lila,” said Cancelli.

“They didn’t put out any more stuff than we do.” Katz was feeling expansive. “They fought among themselves. We don’t. We’re at least as good, maybe better.”

Simon came back, scowling. “That dame is kookie. All she’s doing is free loadin’ lunch.”

“She didn’t make a phone call?”

“She tried to. No answer. She’s eating, I tell you.”

Cancelli did not reply. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Nola was here for more than lunch, he thought. She was checking for Damon. It had to be that way. She tried to reach him to let him know the score but couldn’t make the connection. Therefore Damon was some place he had not expected to be.

He hoped the agency men were keeping track of things. Of Ware and Damon and Lila and the others.

Damon was too smart, sometimes. Ware was an amateur, nobody to fear. But Damon… He worried about the police sergeant all during the lunch.

Damon was eating a hot dog, because the girl wanted a hot dog. He wasn’t hungry, but he was chewing and swallowing. He threw orange juice down his throat in an effort to clear a passage.

He said, “I’ve got to call in.”

“Sure, honey,” said the big girl. She was well aware that she had him thoroughly trapped. “Then can we see another producer?”

“Sure, baby.” She was so clean and rounded and maybe even she was ready, if he could swing a deal for her. She had class. She made Nola Shenovitz look like a two-cent piece left out in the rain.

He made his call and asked for a car. They argued with him at Headquarters, but he asked for his shamus and stubbornly went out on a limb. “I got a real lead that can take me to Cancelli. It might take a day or two. If they want to detach me, at least let me take a car. I can’t pay for taxis, you know that, not on my dough. I can take a lay-off without favor, but I need wheels.”

“You need a car in midtown?”

“It’s not midtown. It’s a cruisin’ job.”

“If you’ve got some dame on a string, Damon, this will be your finish.”

“Look, damn it, I got a dame for a decoy. This is strictly off the record, you understand? Christ, it’s a break. Cancelli has to be responsible for the Colyers. There’s never been any doubt in my mind.” He was lying, but this was his story and he was stuck with it and he might as well go all the way. “If I can roust him, I can hand him his head.”

“There’s people don’t want him nailed.”

“Not you,” begged Damon. “You’re not one of them. Jeez, if you are, I better hand in my badge.”

The politician on the other end of the wire debated with himself. He had a dozen irons in the fire. He had to choose between the people wired in with Cancelli and the Syndicate and those who were opposed for reasons not necessarily having to do with virtue or justice. He asked tentatively, “Can you give me a hint?”

Damon took a deep breath and breathed into the phone the one word, “Alky.”

Again there was an agonizing wait before the voice said, “You get the car. It’s your tail, though, if you miss.” Damon went back to the girl, wiping away the sweat from the telephone booth ordeal. She was drinking another glass of orange juice. Nedick’s best customer, he thought, but on the other hand she would look just as good in Jack’s Place on his night off, when he could show that he did rate some class.

The car would be a while appearing. He talked, asking clever questions about Alvin, trying to learn if the little man had ever mentioned alky, its ramifications.

She understood, and was duly thoughtful. “It seems to me he was awful excited lately. I thought it was the thing about the track. The Gold Bug thing, you know? He was awful high on Gold Bug, but he didn’t have any real money to bet, did he? Ted made the big bet.”

“That’s right. Now, if Alvin walked into Cancelli’s liquor racket and Ted came into it later…”

She said brightly, “I can see what would happen. Alvin was making a lot of mysterious trips into town. And… gee, wait!”

Damon waited, watching the emotions walk across the handsome features of the tall girl, adoring every shading of the thought processes.

She said, “The booze! Alvin had a gallon of vodka. Only it had a taste. You know? Vodka isn’t supposed to have any flavor, on account of the charcoal. Alvin read that, in Esquire magazine, I think it was. About putting it through the charcoal four times. This stuff had an oily taste and instead of being sore about it, he just laughed. That wasn’t like Alvin.”

“Then he’d been around the still,” said Damon. “It’s probably the West Side.”

She had lost interest. She was smiling at him. “You worry a lot. Look, what about that job? I’m broke. I’ve got to have work.”

They were at 42nd Street and Broadway. He had to wait for the car. He said, “I’ve ordered transportation. When it comes, I’ll park it and take you to see George Barbicon. He’s putting on a show at the Corsican Club.”

She said, “I can’t sing or dance or anything.”

“You can take off your clothes,” said Damon. “You walk real good, I can see that.”

“All country girls can walk.”

He said, “Barbicon will hire you.” It meant using up a favor he might need some day, but Barbicon would put her in the line. He had saved the producer from a lewd vagrancy rap not too long ago.

“You know what? You’re nice.” She beamed upon him without reserve.

“Thanks,” he said humbly, sincerely.

“You are. I guess I’m just soft for you skinny guys with big eyes. Like you need somebody or something.”

“Maybe I do,” he said huskily.

“I don’t mean just the hay department.”

“I hope you don’t, Rose Marie.” He heard himself say that, fervently, his eyes wet. Hal Damon, the midtown cop, stood there on the corner of 42nd and Broadway and bared his soul to a big broad from upstate whom he scarcely knew. “I sure hope you don’t.”

She patted him as one would a bouncing puppy. “You need taking care of. Maybe I’m just the one to do it.” He shivered with pleasure. He knew he was being naïve. He knew all the dangers inherent in believing this Amazon of a girl from upstate. The very fact that she had been Alvin’s woman was dismal enough. Yet he could no more help himself than a starving man can resist food.

The car arrived. He took over, dismissed the driver, called Rose Marie from the shelter of the Nedick’s stand. He pulled around the corner and parked in a prohibited zone. For a moment he sat and looked out the windshield.

Then he said, “If you get this job, will you ride with me this afternoon? I can use you for a front.”

She glanced fondly down at her blouse and said, “Why, baby, I do qualify, don’t I?”

They went up the street and into the office building which housed Barbicon.

Damon was already thinking that he would start downtown and work his way up through all the Camp properties. They were all on the river, where barges could, in the prosperous days, be unloaded with ease of their burden of anthracite and bituminous coal.

If he could get Cancelli over a barrel, there were several angles to work. If he could pop something that would break the Colyer case everything might work out for him. Maybe he could get a better pad, some place to do honor to this long-legged, luscious dame now going into the building ahead of him.

He might be Damon the ugly cop, but he could dream as good as the next one, he told himself in a moment of clarity. Dreams are dreamed to be dashed to bits.

thirteen

Izzy Blatsky dwelt in an apartment on the edge of the Puerto Rican belt. The halls smelled of bad cooking but the place seemed clean and orderly. Lila and Jack rang a bell and the door opened and a woman stared at them.

She was a short woman with a broad back. Her legs and arms were stumpy. She wore her hair in bangs and a page bob which was hugely unbecoming. Her skin was oily and dark and her eyes black and deep-set.

“I’m Sophie,” she said. “Izzy is just getting off the phone, you should come in already.”

Izzy appeared in the background, shrugging into a jacket. “They don’t wanna come in, we got business.”

“Awright, already, you got business,” she said. Her smile displayed uneven teeth. “I’m pleased to meetcha anyway.”

“Thank you,” said Lila. “It’s nice of you.”

“Don’t think a thing of it.”

The door closed with emphasis. Izzy winced and said, “Everything she does is heavy-handed.”

“She looks as if she recovered very well from the flu,” said Jack.

“She recovered. But her cousin is still inna kitchen, eatin’ me out of house and home.”

“Your wife was lucky she got over it so quickly,” said Lila. “It generally leaves you weak, exhausted.”

“You should be so strong as Sophie, like a horse,” said Izzy absently. “Here is the crate.”

The sun was shining, kids ran in the streets. The block was solid with apartments, rising to the sky. The rental auto was headed east. Izzy fussed with the keys. “Got to lock up everything double tight. They would loot it for laughs, even my car.”

Jack was looking at his list of properties. Most were on the West Side, low in Manhattan. There were two on the East River, coal silos, according to the description. He checked the lessee, the same in both instances, “Acme Corp. of America.”

He asked, “You know anything about this Acme Corporation on the East Side?”

“Yeah. A company sells supplies. Nothing,” said Izzy. “You wouldn’t be interested. The one I got in mind is on the West Side.”

“It’s not listed here.”

“From the old coal company?” Izzy peered at the list. “They missed it, already. It’s a big yard. Could be stills all over it. Right on the river.”

He opened the door of the car. Jack motioned Lila into the rear seat and shut the door behind her. He looked at Izzy’s round face, newly shaved. He waited until the driver had climbed behind the wheel. He got in beside him.

He leaned over and sniffed. He made himself laugh and say, “Whew! Some cologne you use, Izzy.”

“Cologne, smologne! After shave. From Sophie, a birthday. In a stone crock, it stinks good, huh?”

“It stinks,” said Jack. He had to be very careful of his voice. “Let’s try the East Side, just for grabs.”

“Nothing, I tell you.” Izzy cranked down the window and the odor lessened.

It was still the scent which Jack remembered from the alley on the night Alvin’s body had been stuffed into his trash can.

Izzy was turning the corner. He looked straight ahead and Jack saw that the round jaw was hard, the teeth set. The harmless, garrulous, semicomical hackie looked entirely different in this moment.

He cursed himself for allowing Lila to come along. He had expected to do no more than smell out a still, from a distance if need be. Once one knew what he was looking for it should not be difficult to detect the odor of mash when it was cooking.

He had detected an odor, all right. He was riding in the car with a man who had, at the least, been in on the killing of Alvin Colyer, who had belted him in the head in order to make a getaway.

He said, “The East Side, Izzy.”

Izzy took a deep suck of air, looked quickly in the rear-vision mirror, straightened out the car and headed for the East River. Jack looked back.

A small coupé was lurking behind them, a Ford or a Chevy, he thought. It could easily be the car he had seen that night, going into Third Avenue.

It could the more easily be the same car, Izzy’s car, with Sophie driving. Sophie’s recovery from the Asiatic flu would then not seem so miraculous, as Sophie indubitably never had the disease. Izzy Blatsky was a liar, an actor, and in all probability, a murderer.

It dawned upon him then that a hack driver, working midtown, was a perfect connection for a headman of a mob. If the mob was shoving bootleg liquor, it became even clearer, because the taxi driver would know all the spots, would hear the conversation of people going to and coming from them.

He would also be able to keep tabs on such as Hal Damon, to a certain extent, and on Jack Ware for a certainty, since it was easy enough, as proven, to become his personal driver and confidant. He was able, even now, to take Jack Ware into a trap. He had been on the telephone before leaving the apartment. The odds were a hundred to one that his principal was at the other end of the wire.

They drove eastward along the crowded street and the sun still shone. It was an ordinary day in New York, thought Jack Ware, like any other day… only different

He had to think about Lila. He had to make sure that Izzy did not know he was caught out, get rid of him and the car following and get to Damon. Or the Federals. Or someone. It was not his business to be riding with Lila in the car with the man he had been seeking for murder.

He had to make conversation. He said, “It’s a nice day for this time of year.” He felt like a dull clod when Izzy merely grunted.

Lila said, “How are we going to find a still? I wouldn’t know one if it bit me.”

“They have to have tall buildings for any kind of an operation,” said Jack. “Column-shaped stills, you know.”

“I don’t know a damn thing about them,” said Lila. “It is a nice day for a ride, but I’d prefer the country.” If he had let Izzy go on to the West Side, they would have found nothing and after a while he could have abandoned the idea with some semblance of credibility and then he could have called for help. He did not feel very smart and he worried more and more about the car behind them which was keeping a safe distance but persisting in pursuit.

He gathered his wits and knew he would have to take a chance that Lila might be hurt. He put his hand under his jacket and touched the butt of the automatic. A sound from Izzy distracted him.

It was a huge sigh, as though the entire inner soul of the stout taxi driver had expressed itself in one gulp. “Feel bad, Izzy?”

“Real bad, Mr. Ware. You don’t have to pull no gat on me, though.”

Lila leaned forward. “What was that? What are you two talking about?”

“Ask him,” said Jack, keeping his grip on the gun.

“Nothing good, Miss Lila. Nothing good, any way you slice it.”

Jack said, “Izzy wears after-shave lotion.”

“Izzy?”

Jack asked, “Who’s in the car behind us?”

“Sophie. And that fella from the Lodge.”

“I see. And how did that jerk find you?”

“There was a certain connection,” said Izzy sadly.

“With Cancelli,” Jack. said. “Did Cancelli order Alvin’s body stuck in my trash can?”

“Mr. Ware, I got to talk to you.”

“You picked a hell of a time.” The coupé behind them was half a block away. “Make a left turn. I want to drop off Miss Sharp.”

Izzy said, “That you can’t do, Mr. Ware. There is anyway another car, maybe more. They would grab her.”

“If we’d gone west, they wouldn’t have bothered,” said Jack. “Why did I have to get clever?”

“I got to talk to you. I can’t keep going,” said Izzy. “I got involved. Sophie, she involved me.”

Jack said, “Better you should talk to the police. Suppose you just start driving downtown.”

“We’d never make it. Honest, Mr. Ware. They know you are onto the stills, the alky. If I turn downtown, they will gun us.”

With Lila in the car he could not take the chance, he knew. They would have heavy artillery, they were desperate enough. The bootleg business was worth any odds to them. He felt helpless and his anger began to boil with each succeeding minute.

They slowed for a light and Izzy went on, “It was Sophie. Never satisfied, her and her family. Like a fool, I mentioned I could make a buck working for Cancelli, nothing, just information around town. Like I drove Ted Colyer a lot.”

“So you ratted on Ted.”

“Involved,” said Izzy weakly. “You get in, you can’t get out. Like I know Ted has got a date with Alvin on Third, near your place. They are going to talk. Ted is ready to blow the whole business to you. He has found out about Gold Bug, about Alvin and the bootleg business, how Alvin is trying to blackmail Cancelli, Camp, everybody.”

“Then Alvin wasn’t killed in my alley.”

“He was placed in your alley,” said Izzy. He was evasive now and his face grew flushed. He drove slowly on the wide street.

“You killed him.”

“No,” said Izzy carefully. “I hit you in the head. But not hard. Not to hurt, just to let me get away. You’ll admit that.”

“And Sophie drove you.”

“She drove me. You think I could manage Alvin in the trash can alone? She helped me. Then she ran and when you came out I was stuck there.”

“That Sophie is some woman,” said Lila. “Do you know any more female monsters?”

“Only I married one,” said Izzy. “Only I should be dead before I married one.”

“Ted,” said Jack harshly. “Who killed Ted? You were there. You were waiting for me.”

“You got to understand, I was involved.”

“You are involved,” said Jack. “Up to your fat butt. Who killed Ted?”

“You got to understand, Mr. Ware, I don’t know everything.”

“If I thought you killed him, you’d never make another block,” said Jack. “Who did it?”

“I was to keep track of you,” said Izzy. His voice was a whine.

Behind them a big sedan pulled alongside the coupé, hesitated a moment, then fell back into line. Another car turned the corner ahead of them, a green two-door. Izzy gulped, gripping the wheel.

“Closing in,” said Jack. “I’m sorry, Lila. We walked into something, thanks to my friend Blatsky.”

“Could I stop them? Could I stop anything since I took their first dirty dollar, I should buy a place in the country, get away from driving a hack? Could I fight them, the mob?”

It was broad daylight in New York. Women gossiped back and forth on the sidewalks, from window to window. Children went back and forth, everything was normal on the uptown street.

“This is crazy,” said Jack.

“I got to take you to the place,” said Izzy. “If we don’t make it, we’ll all be killed.”

The first thing they would do was take his gun. Jack removed it from the holster. Izzy turned gray.

“You got to listen, Mr. Ware. I didn’t want into this, now I want out. Any old way. I do not want Miss Lila hurt. Look, slip me the gat. They’ll never suspect me, I should have a gat.”

Lila said, “That’s an idea, Jack.”

“Who killed Ted?” Jack asked, his voice cold as ice.

“I don’t know. You gotta listen to me. I’m nothin’ to these people. They’ll kill you and me and Miss Lila, too. The still, it’s right by the river. They got cement all mixed, I’ve seen it there.”

They were coming to the corner of the avenue. Jack took a look behind. Then he said, “Turn the corner, fast.”

“No!”

He slapped Izzy with the pistol, grabbed the wheel. The light was green. He would have made it, too, had not a young, brown-faced, black-eyed child run off the curbing without looking to the left.

He slammed at the brakes. He looked desperately around for a blue uniform. There was none in sight.

The two cars came up very rapidly. The coupé went on, crosstown. He said, “Lila, run like hell.”

She could not get the door open. Katz Manning and Bobo Simon got out of the dark sedan. They had guns on him before he could extricate himself from Izzy and the wheel. Katz said, “I promise you, Ware, we will get the girl if you try anything.”

He almost told them to go ahead. He was completely frustrated, thoroughly disgusted with himself. He was also a bit frightened, more for Lila than for himself. He was pretty cold on himself at the moment.

Simon said to Izzy, “Get this crate over to the joint as fast as you can.”

There was nothing to do but get out of the car. People stared. Katz Manning said loudly, “All right, get back there. This is police business.”

Simon actually had a badge, which he flashed. In a moment they were in the black sedan, going toward the East River again. Lila sat close to him and patted his hand and he saw that she was not too frightened, in fact she seemed thoughtful.

She was a beautiful woman to take a last ride with, but Jack Ware would have planned it differently had they not taken away his gun.

fourteen

Malaney was doing a routine job. Sergeant Wynoski remained in the car because he was on the horn with Headquarters and because Malaney had the front to handle himself in a high-class joint like Jack’s Place.

Business was light at midafternoon, but Brownie was busy and Pat Shapiro was in the kitchen. Malaney felt that since he had been here before he might as well go on up to the office.

The door was locked, but when he tapped, it opened at once. Eloise Camp stood with a glass in her hand, weaving a little, blinking at him.

She said, “Jack’s not here. I thought you were my delightful and loving husband, come to say sweet things to me. I was just going to give him something to remember me by.” She took the other hand from behind her and displayed a heavy ash tray.

Malaney said, “I wanted to ask Jack some questions. About the Colyer boys and maybe about your husband, too.”

“Come in, come in!” she said. “Are you a detective? My, they are making them pretty these days.”

She was pretty drunk, but Malaney was college trained in psychology and something told him he had hit upon a subject ready to unburden. He closed the door behind him.

She was drinking straight gin. “My husband. Now there is a subject I can discuss, any time of day. What would you like to know about him? Would you like to see my scars?”

She pulled her dress away from her shoulder and part of her back. There were criss-cross lines, barely healing.

Malaney said, “That’s pretty terrible. But what I want to know, have you any information about your husband’s real estate leases?”

“I tried to tell them,” she said vaguely. “Lila put me to sleep. But I woke up and found the booze. Have a drink?”

“No, thank you. Then you do know about the leases?”

She said, “Oh, I listen a lot. People talk, because they think I’m drunk. But I have a phenomenal memory when I’m drinking. They don’t realize that, you see.”

“Sure, I see.” He waited, shrewd enough to let her ramble along.

“Acme Corporation. That’s Pete Cancelli. Heard him say so. Then there was this old coal company place. Cyrus thought he was real clever. Got a big price. Rented it. Bragged about it. Said Acme Corporation was some stupid outfit.”

“And do you happen to know where it is located?”

“Cancelli’s corporation and Cyrus’s property. Guess who’s laughing?”

“The address?” He was very gentle.

She put her dress back in place absently, sipped at her drink. “Nobody knows uptown addresses. They are out. Definitely out. Passé. No class.”

“Which side of town is it on?”

“Really, I wouldn’t know.”

If they could move fast, it meant a sure commendation, and he was coming up for promotion to First Grade. “Can’t you try to remember?”

“You’re sure you won’t have a drink?” She looked him up and down, measuring him. “I’m in the mood to do something about my husband. I’m leaving him. It could be a good start, maybe, if you’d have a drink.”

“After work,” he pleaded. “Later. The address.”

“I usually remember very well.” She picked up the gin bottle and slopped the tumbler half full.

He sat, giving her one more chance. It would save going to the City Directory. He was young enough to want to avoid waiting. He wanted action. They had permission to work with Damon, hard-wrung by Wynoski.

She drank. Her eyes brightened. She said, “Why, of course.” She went behind Jack’s desk. She rummaged around.

He said, “Does Mr. Ware have it?”

“No, silly. Here.” She produced a phone book. “Just look under the A’s. They have a phone.”

Damon pulled up at the curb on upper Tenth Avenue and said, “Might as well face it, we’re getting no place.”

“Oh, I don’t know. We’re acquainted. And I got a job. I’m so happy, I’d like to give a party.”

The thought excited him. He said, “You know what? I might just be able to manage it so you could do that, if I’m invited.”

“I don’t mean for you to take me out. I’ve got the key to the apartment. I’m a terrific cook, Hal.”

“A party in Jack’s joint?” The idea appealed to him overwhelmingly. “We could buy a steak, drink some of Jack’s booze.”

“We could do a lot of things,” she promised.

She had never looked at him as though he were ugly or unwanted. Not before he got her the job nor afterward. He couldn’t believe it. He wanted to, but it was terribly difficult. Maybe she had a blind spot. After all, Alvin… but they all said Alvin was “sweet” or “cute” or something.

He said, “Maybe we better go out.”

She leaned toward him and patted his knee. “You’d rather it was just us two. I know. You just don’t want to seem anxious. I like men who are gentle and don’t pick at a girl all the time.”

Hell, he’d been scared to make a pass at her. It really looked as if, at long last, he had fallen into a field of clover.

He said, “I’ll have to call in.”

He had kept the radio off during all the stops on the way uptown. He was in the clear, he knew. He now flipped it on. He reported his position to the operator.

A distorted voice crackled at him, “Damon, is that you? Where are you?”

“I just told you.”

“I mean exactly where.”

He repeated it. There was a pause and then the operator said, “Sergeant Wynoski and Detective Malaney left word for you. You are to proceed to Acme Corporation, a coal silo, on Roosevelt Drive at…”

He wrote it down. There went his party and there went a hell of a lot more, he feared. Wynoski and Malaney had somehow beaten him to it.

He came out to the car, his lower lip hanging. He said, “Look, you take a cab back to Jack’s apartment. I got a call.”

“Oh, no!”

He took out some money he could ill afford, gave her ten dollars. “I’ll be there as soon as I can make it.”

“Promise?” She was smiling, sunny.

“Double promise.”

He watched her go. It figured, he thought. It couldn’t happen to him, not with a dame who had any class. He got into the car and started toward the East River.

fifteen

There were three tall columns of concrete, connected on the floor level by a loading platform, on the roof by a fly-walk. There were huge, somewhat faded signs reading Camp Coal Company * Fuel Oil * Coke * Anthracite. The offices were downstairs also, and Lila walked with Jack Ware up the steps, over the platform and into one of them. It seemed an ordinary business office, bearing several identification marks of the Acme Corporation.

Izzy, Simon and Manning crowded in on the rear, and Jack saw that the outer office, manned by a bright-looking young man, was merely a blind. They went through another door into a spacious room without windows, with brick walls, a part of the towering silo. There was a stairway leading up and he could imagine the ascending ladders, the escape hatches, all built into old coal chutes. The stills would be cylindrical, leaving space for hoists, vents, exhaust pipes to carry the fumes of distilling high above the adjacent river.

It was highly efficient. Pete Cancelli hung up a telephone and looked at them from behind a desk.

“So you had to stick your noses into it,” he said. There was a hint of regret in his voice; his round, brown eyes surveyed them with sorrow mixed with vexation. “You couldn’t leave it alone.”

“At least we know why the booze in the Greystone is so lousy,” said Jack.

“Smart guy. Fun-nee,” said Cancelli. He motioned with his left hand.

Jack did not see it coming. Katz hit him from behind, a swinging, backhand slap that sent him reeling into Lila. He came all the way around and Simon was atop him.

He cut Simon behind the ear and draped him across Cancelli’s desk. Then Katz hit him again, with the barrel of a revolver this time. He stumbled and went down and Katz kicked him hard and the aches of the previous beating came back twofold.

Lila screamed and he staggered to his feet. Katz had slapped her onto a straight chair. Simon got up, groggy, and hit Jack again with his fist, and blood ran down his face.

Cancelli sat quiet behind the desk. For a moment everything was static, the silence broken only by heavy breathing.

Cancelli said, “Ware, you and your nose, and your wisecracks, you were great when you had it. But here, in this place, you definitely do not have it. Understand?”

Jack managed to say, “Screw you.” Then Simon hit him again.

Cancelli said, “What’s more, if you keep on insisting like that, we’ll go to work on Lila. There is a lot I could think of to do with Lila.”

Lila said, “There’s nothing you haven’t done to me.”

“Oh, yes there is. A few things, I’d say.” He smiled, barely breaking the rigidity of his narrow, incongruous face. He looked past them, toward the door. They all turned and saw Sophie Blatsky, framed against the light from the outer office. Izzy, behind her, seemed pallid and shadowy.

Her face was well oiled by sweat glands. Her eyes gleamed, like a cat’s eyes in the night. She was unclean, outside and in. Her attention was riveted on Lila, she went to her, reached out a claw and touched her, fingering the material of her clothing, probing, hurting. Lila slapped her away and Sophie crouched. There was murder in every lineament

Izzy said from the door, “Mr. Cancelli, don’t let her. It ain’t decent.”

Sophie whirled on her husband. “You nothing. You yellow-bellied nothing. You talk! You, who found the way and then didn’t have no guts.”

Cancelli said, “That’ll do. Shut up, already, both of you.”

“He couldn’t do anything right,” Sophie yelled. “He never could. I’m sick of him, y’unnastand? Sick of doin’ his work.” She raised both hands above her head. “What am I, a slave? I’m not a woman because I’m ugly? Because I ain’t got clothes like her, over there? Because I got the guts to do his dirty jobs?”

“Shut up,” said Cancelli.

“All I ask is plain justice,” she went on, unheeding. Her eyes were glazed, turned inward as she spewed words. “Already I got him for a husband, a nothing. I see where you can do us good, we can make it. I did the jobs, didn’t I? I did them. Not him, me!”

In that moment Jack knew who had killed Ted Colyer. It was in her, in her boasting, her whining. Ted would never have suspected a woman. “The booze bit,” he had mumbled. He had known about Alvin’s connection with Cancelli, that Alvin had somehow stumbled onto the alky set-up. He had been about to blow it all up, unquestionably he had been ready to take the job in California and wash his hands of Alvin and everything to do with him. The fact that he had cleared the Lodge would point to the surmise that he was leaving that, and that alone, for Alvin, with Lila as the heiress to it.

The virago was screaming, “When you kill them—put him also in the cement. I want him dead. I’ll work, I’ll do for you, Mr. Cancelli. I can be anything you want. Who looks at an ugly woman? What better a disguise-like, than a woman like me? Just take him off my hands, the jerky, stinking coward that he is.”

“Mr. Cancelli, you should excuse her. She’s sick lately, I don’t know what,” Izzy began.

Cancelli said, “Take her inside and shut her up.” Simon seemed the man for that job. He prodded her, while Izzy fussed at her side, and prevented her from hitting out at Izzy, managed her through a door into another part of the silo. Her yells gradually faded.

Cancelli said thoughtfully, “Made a mistake, there. But how could I know there even was a Sophie? Using Izzy, that was smart. Funny thing. He agreed to do it, to hit Alvin. Then he chickened, and she did it. You never can tell about people.” He shook his head wonderingly, then turned to Jack. “You know what you cost me, huh?”

“Plenty,” said Jack.

“Two million a year.” Cancelli seemed hypnotized by the sum. “Second biggest single cut in the country. I got to tear it down, throw it away.”

“You’re lucky you had the inside from Blatsky,” said Jack. “You’re lucky the Federal people can’t pin it on you.”

“A rap like that? Who cares, for two million a year,” said Cancelli. He lifted a corner of his lip at Lila. “Now I can use Colyer Lodge. I’m your legal heir, baby, don’t forget it. I’m your husband.”

“You’re my husband,” she repeated. The spark had gone from her. “I always knew you’d kill me, some day.”

“Yes. It figured,” Cancelli assented.

Jack said, “Damon will be on your tail, you know that.”

“Damon should be here any minute,” said Cancelli emotionlessly. “Him and some others, prob’ly. Glory grabbers. You think I don’t know them others? You think I ain’t ready for them?”

“I’ve got a picture of you killing several New York cops. You’re too smart for that,” said Jack. “You were too smart to show in the Colyer murders. You can’t kill cops, and you know it damn well.”

Cancelli said, “Who’s going to kill cops? Don’t let your imagination run away with you there. I got plenty time to do what I want to do. Cops? They can have the place now. The stuff is in the river. There’ll be a million drunken fish tonight.”

There was something odd about Cancelli, Jack thought. There was detachment in him, as though the blow had left him partially crippled. Worse, however, there was calculated murder in him.

Katz said, “Maybe we oughta get busy, Pete.”

“There’s enough to keep Damon busy out there, and the kid in the office has been paid to take the rap,” said Cancelli. “The boat is ready. All we got to do is mix the concrete on the boat.” He smiled and now the murder was plain in him. “I want these two to be alive when we sink ’em. I want them to know the score, all the way, every step of the way.”

Katz added, “What about Izzy and that broad of his?”

“They can be knocked off first,” allowed Cancelli, as one making a decent concession. “Any time, just take care of them the easy way. Just so long as they ain’t around to be hysterical.”

The young man from the front office came in. “Everything’s ready. There are two jigs don’t expect anything. Four five-gallon tins of stuff.”

“That’ll give the cops their hunka cheese,” said Cancelli. “They won’t want any more’n that.”

“Your friend downtown just called. Said Damon and a couple others are on their way.”

“Sure, they are.” Cancelli arose. Katz gestured with the revolver he held carelessly in his right hand. “Go on, get started. It’s a nice little walk. Right through the yard. Like in a prison. The last mile, all that jazz. From the motion picture, by Pete Cancelli.” His laugh was the most revealing thing about him yet. It was laden with hatred, with bitterness, with everything but humor.

They went ahead, through the door. The bright sun was blinding. There was a high fence about the back lot. Straight ahead was a dock and moored to it was a sixty- two-foot power cruiser.

Cancelli had it planned very well, Jack thought. The evidence to hold the police, the men surrendering, while the boss calmly took a trip to sea. It would take time for the Coast Guard to intercept the vessel. Plenty of time for Cancelli to rid himself of the people who might link him to murder.

He would make his play, Jack decided, when they were at the gangway. Maybe he could shove Lila into the river. He wondered if she could swim. If she couldn’t, she could at least drown while fighting. It was better by far than living through the ordeal of concrete overshoes with Cancelli gloating on the sidelines.

For himself, he would take a bullet. He hoped he could make them kill him. He would take Cancelli along if he had enough strength and enough time to get to him. He thought he could kill with one blow at the neck. He had never yet tried it, but he knew where to strike.

He saw Izzy and Sophie and Simon waiting. The brick wall did not quite reach the shoreline, which sloped to the water. It was all very clear in his mind.

Lila walked with her head high, but her face was pinched, colorless. Of course, she knew Cancelli better than he did. She could imagine punishments which he could only guess at. She had lived with Cancelli.

It was the ferocious calmness of the man which brought imagination to play, Jack thought. Cancelli was in shock. Something worse than the loss of his alky operation was eating at him.

It was probably that Lila was in at his defeat, plus the knowledge that he might never build so high again. In such a man this could be devastating. There were no lengths to which he would not go to repay this humiliation. Only by debasing his captives could he gain satisfaction.

At the end of the walk, Jack repeated it to himself. Katz and Simon both had guns. He would have to arrange it so that one of them was between the Blatskys and himself, so that only one gun was against him. He would have to estimate his distance with care and make his play on Cancelli. Maybe into the river, maybe he could drown the bastard before they got him.

Damon pulled up to the old Camp Coal Company silos just as Malaney and Wynoski arrived. They were all secretly sore that it had to be this way, but they acted as cops should act. They went in fast and caught two Negro youths with the containers of alky. They tagged this evidence while Damon, moving fast, went into the office.

The young man stalled a bit, but he knew the act was transparent. They brought the two colored boys in and questioned all three.

“Where’s Pete Cancelli?”

“Cancelli? Never heard of him.”

“You boys—you never heard of him, either, I suppose?”

“No, sir,” said the tall boy. “There’s a boss man, all right. Fancy man.”

The other boy said, “Plenty fancy. Them tight clothes.”

“We seen him,” they both volunteered. “We seen him maybe last month. He was here.”

“Last month. That’s great,” Damon said to Wynoski. “That’s a big help.”

“We know it’s Cancelli’s layout,” Wynoski said. He had the old officer’s stubbornness. “We’ll trail it to him.”

“If we can ever find him now,” said Damon disgustedly. He addressed the man behind the desk, “Had the news, didn’t you? Someone blew the whistle.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m merely an employee of Acme Corporation.”

Wynoski said, “Brother! Would I like to go after this one. Could I ever have a whack at him!”

Malaney said nothing, being outranked. His commendation was shot, that was for sure. Too many in on this, too little accomplished. A few gallons of bootleg, three inconsequential prisoners; it wasn’t enough.

Visions of Rose Marie Coole waiting in Jack Ware’s apartment mingled with the dictates of his cop’s mind as Damon said, “I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t take him over a few hurdles, Wynoski. He’s such a smart bastard.”

Wynoski lumbered to within arm’s length of the man behind the desk and asked, “What’s your name?”

“Castle, Jim Castle. Look, why don’t we go downtown,” he said. He looked older now, and tougher. “You’re not going to get anything out of me.”

“Well, they’re kind of funny downtown.” Damon looked at Malaney. “Why don’t you make those colored boys comfortable in the car? They can’t help us any.”

Malaney ushered the pair out. He wanted no part of what he imagined would happen to Jim Castle. He was against that kind of thing. He knew the old-timers would scorn him, would make it tough for him if he objected, but he was against beating up suspects.

Wynoski leaned over the desk and lazily swiped, as if at a fly. Castle’s head snapped.

Damon said critically, “You always did have a nice left, Wynoski. Try the right.”

Back went the head in the other direction. Slap, slap, slap, it spun back and forth.

Damon said, “Yep. Your left is better. Now, let me show you how to slap with the right.”

He went to work, not enjoying it, watching for the watering eyes of the young man to tell him when to stop. “You see? A little more shoulder into the right.”

Wynoski said, “You got a good right, there, all right. Ha! Right, all right. Ha!”

Damon sat down for a moment, crossing his knees. “Maybe Mr. Castle, Jim, would like a respite. That’s a fancy word for a rest, see?”

“Respite? That’s pretty good… respite,” said Wynoski. “You think maybe we should demonstrate on him downstairs? Inna gut? They can’t take it inna gut.”

“That’s right. Nobody likes it inna gut.”

Castle choked out, “Go screw yourselves.”

Wynoski said, “I bet this is a tough one. I bet he has got a record. I bet he has been worked on before.”

They ought to take him downtown. They would, too, only now he had challenged them. Two old-timers like Wynoski and Damon could stand about anything but a challenge from a prisoner who thought he was tough.

Castle said, “I’m asking you once more, take me downtown. I’ll talk to the Federals.”

“You see? Defiance,” said Damon. He could turn them over to the Federals and join Rose Marie. She had given every indication that she liked him. She would shack up, he knew it. You could tell, even with a high-class broad. She was maybe queer for guys who weren’t—well, like Jack Ware. First Alvin, a midget, practically, now Damon. He said, “Your turn, Wynoski. Downstairs, like you say.”

Wynoski picked up the man named Castle as though he were a rag doll. He shook him tentatively, then slammed the back of his hamlike hand into the midsection. Castle made a sound like an automobile tire losing all its air through the stem, a whooshing sound.

“It may take a little time. But we got time,” said Damon. He leaned back and lit a cigarette, not because he wanted one, but to impress the victim. “Don’t hurt your hand on his belt buckle, Wynoski.”

There had been a short delay in the brick-walled yard. Two men were hauling bags of cement and sand onto the boat. Cancelli relished this. He waited, watching Lila and Jack, purposely saying nothing, letting them figure it out for themselves. The ship’s engines were turning over, everything was in readiness to cast off and be gone.

Lila was standing between Simon and Manning, who had their eyes on Jack. It prevented him from acting. He was sweating down his back, down his legs. His face glistened with the ordeal of holding himself in. Sophie and Izzy stood apart, quiet; he with the look of the damned on his face, she with the evil shining out of her.

Cancelli said, “It takes time to harden, you realize. You stand there, waiting for it.” He stared at Lila. “We won’t dirty your fancy garments, my dear wife. We’ll see you don’t take them down with you for the fishes. I got a couple boys will want to use you. Not me, I wouldn’t touch you. But Katz and Bobo, they like to play games together. You won’t need clothes for that, will you, darling?”

She didn’t change expression. She was already lost, gone away, Jack thought. If worst came to worst she probably wouldn’t quite know what they were doing. Until they began their tricks, that is, then she’d know, if only in the agony of her body.

The men put aboard the last of the sacks. Cancelli said, “All right, get the show on the road.”

They all started toward the wharf, the Blatskys in the lead. There was no way to make his play, Jack knew, without getting nailed before he could die or bring it off. Izzy Blatsky stumbled and Simon cried out at him and gave him a shove which sent him half to his knees. Sophie jerked at his elbow, cursing him.

Izzy came up standing. He turned. He cried, “It’s too much. Her… you … all of it.”

They all turned to stare at him for an instant, so powerful was his cry. Then Simon aimed another blow at him.

Izzy grabbed Simon, still wailing, “Too much… too much.” He jumped. He held onto Simon. They both went into the water.

Jack had to take two steps before he reached Katz Manning. On the instant he saw that he had a chance. He hit Manning, went right on past him at Cancelli.

Sophie Blatsky dived at him. Her head down, she came in like a football linesman.

Jack said, “Lila! Into the river! Dive in!”

Katz reached out one hand and caught Lila’s ankle as she ran. She fell. Cancelli had moved back one pace.

He reached into his pocket and took out a small, snoutnosed, big-barreled revolver. He said, “All right. Take it here, then.”

He was pulling the trigger when Jack rolled. The bullet splintered the wharf. Turned toward the shore, Jack tried for the edge, tried to get hold of Lila. Everything was in a whirl on the edge of disaster, and Death was so close he could smell his fetid breath.

In the midst of this dreamlike occurrence he saw a strange sight. A small man had stepped from behind the brick fence, where it ended short of the wharf. He held a nickel-plated revolver in both hands.

It was Max Somerwell, and he pulled the trigger, pulled it again. Jack drew Lila to him and kicked Katz Manning in the jaw, hard enough to break the bone. Covering her with his body, he attempted to get a bead on Cancelli.

Sophie was howling gutturally, holding her middle. Blood ran between her fingers. Cancelli, half-concealed by the woman, was trying to shoot at Max. There were yells from the yard and Jack got a glimpse of Damon and another man running.

He turned Lila loose then. He leaped across the space between him and Cancelli. He grabbed the gun arm as Cancelli tried to turn on him, and twisted. He felt the bone break. He shoved the muzzle of the revolver upward, kicked for the groin.

Cancelli yelled something. Jack hit him with the edge of his hand with all the pent-up explosiveness which had been driving him to the verge of exhaustion.

Cancelli went limp. Jack was still holding him when Damon and the other man got to them.

Damon expertly made a quick examination. “You fixed him so he won’t stand trial.”

“The woman,” Jack said. His voice was weak. “Sophie Blatsky. She killed Ted Colyer.”

Damon said, “She’s maybe got a chance. Max made a lucky shot on her.”

“Dirty cossack bastards,” she was screaming. “Dirty rotten capitalists. Yellow bastards!”

Wynoski was looking into the river. “I guess Izzy took his boy to the bottom. I guess we need the morgue wagon more than the paddy wagon.”

Damon said, “It’s a hell of a mess.” Then he laughed.

Wynoski asked, “What’s so funny?”

“That Malaney. Guarding those nothin’ prisoners. Just because he didn’t like us kicking Castle around, he misses the whole bit.”

sixteen

It was crowded in Jack Ware’s office and downstairs the bar was crowded also. Cyrus Camp was at the bar, drinking heavily, Brownie had reported.

Eloise Camp was sitting on Jack’s desk, alongside of Rose Marie Coole. Damon was as near the latter as he could manage. Jack made drinks.

Max Somerwell was saying, “It was because I knew about the lease. I looked it up and through—er—sources, I learned who held it. The revolver is one I have had in my desk for years. I was somewhat surprised when it went off.”

Damon said, “The damn Spanish thing, it’s a wonder it didn’t blow you up. And that—uh—source of yours, I know him.”

Max looked nervous. “I was only looking after the interests of my client, Miss Sharp.”

“Sure, you were,” said Damon. “Hell, Max, don’t kid an old man. When you got mad at Jack you went to Camp and did the same thing we did, you investigated the leases. Lila told you about Alvin’s letter. You knew where to look.”

“I refuse to say any more,” Max told him.

Jack said, “In case I haven’t mentioned it, you’re re- hired, Max.”

“Thank you.” The little man accepted a drink, peered near-sightedly at Lila’s profile, heaved a sigh and gulped.

Damon said, “That Blatsky dame will wind up in the looney bin. She even had the tire iron and the marine diggin’ tool in her crate. She musta taken poor Ted by surprise and nailed him with the marine pick.”

Max murmured, “I wish I had killed her.”

“Bloodthirsty, ain’t you?” Damon was in high spirits. “I swear, us cops had nothin’ to do.”

“You made the arrests,” said Jack. “Your job is safe. What more do you want?”

“A favor,” said Damon. He winked Jack outside on the stairs, out of hearing. “Jack, could you lemme have a loan of some loot?”

“How much?” asked Jack, surprised.

“Just enough for a steak and a bottle,” said Damon, embarrassedly. “What I really want is, can Rose Marie and me use your apartment?”

“Rose Marie and…” Jack grinned. He took out fifty dollars and pressed the bills on Damon. “You’re pretty lucky, at that.”

Damon rubbed the tip of his long nose. “She likes us uglies. Hell, she’ll meet some john at the club and I’ll be out the window. But you got to take what you can get.”

“I hear they knocked off that hat check girl at the Greystone before they went uptown,” said Jack.

“Old Nola Lopez.” Damon shrugged. “Just a shopworn old grifter. Tough noogy for her. Well, thanks a lot, Jack.” He went to the door and called, “Hey, baby. You comin’ along on that errand we got?”

Rose Marie said, “You bet.” To the others she explained, “I go to work tomorrow night. Last minute things, you know. Everybody come and see me, now.”

She left with the policeman. Max shifted uneasily and Eloise Camp said to him, “Take me down through the bar. Cyrus is there.”

“You have nothing to fear. He has agreed to everything. I think Cyrus has had a lesson,” said Max. Nevertheless he squared his shoulders and escorted her from the office.

Watching them through the opaque window, Jack said, “I think Cyrus has had it, period. He is on the sauce all day, every day.”

Lila leaned against him. “I’m so tired, so beat. Thank goodness the Greystone is padlocked. I need a rest. I’d like to get away.”

Jack went back to the desk, sat down. He opened a drawer and took out a telegram and a check made out for five hundred dollars and signed by Ted Colyer. He handed Lila the wire and tore the check into bits and put it in the wastebasket.

She said, “Hollywood, is it?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have to be there to open the place. I have to find a man for the job Ted was going to take.”

“All right,” she said, “or I think all right. At any rate, we could try it for size. Maybe they’d like me in Hollywood.”

He nodded. He was looking at the torn scraps of the check. He was saying a silent good-by to Ted Colyer, killed because he was trying to make a fresh start.

Table of Contents

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