“GASCOYNE?” says a voice I can’t call familiar.

“Who else?” I say. “Who’s this?”

“Never mind. Rufus Roughah has just been shot between the eyes out in his country digs.”

“Don’t say. Why tell me?”

“Thought you ought to be among—” and then there’s a gargling noise and the thing hangs up.

I slip the thing into drive and squeeze my way into the Bastinado Street traffic mess and run it up to thirty-five, which is what everybody is trying to do in spite of the fact they haven’t got around to synchronizing the signals yet. But if you try to go slow they start rubbing the chrome off your rear bumper. Then the phone rings again. It’s Marge.

“Hi Marge.”

“Hello dear. Say, Ralph brought the Dodge back from the garage and gave me a bill for fifty-two dollars and sixteen cents. Somehow dear I get the idea I’m supposed to pay it.”

“Well why not?” I ask.

“Oh. Well you see dear in the past when I’ve had the car repaired there there haven’t been any bills because you said some time ago, Take your car over to Ralph’s and I’ll take care of the bills.”

“Well,” I say, “I didn’t mean all of the time Marge, after all we’ve got to sort of share expenses every now and then. Sometimes you are very extravagant, you know.”

“Now dear please don’t tell me that fifty-two dollars and sixteen cents for automobile repairs is an extravagance. The car had to be repaired. It wouldn’t run otherwise. It just sat there and made whistling noises.”

“Now Marge.”

“Well I can’t think of one at the moment Marge but I’ll think about it and tell you later. Say I just got an interesting piece of news.”

“What?” she asks, not very happy.

“Some anonymous guy calls me on the phone and says Roughah’s just been shot between the eyes.”

“Well that must mean he’s dead then. Are they going to make tomorrow a holiday?”

“Don’t know.”

“You’re sure he’s dead?”

“No, just what Anonymous told me.”

“Why don’t you call to make sure?” she asks. “I’d hate to celebrate before it’s time.”

“Good idea. ’Bye Marge.”

I hang up and dial Roughah’s number.

“Roughah residence. State your name and—”

“GASCOYNE here. Give me Rufus.”

“Moment sir.”

I slip into the fast lane on Bastinado to try to catch the next three signals. They’re not synchronized yet here either but if you can get through the orange on the first one you can hit green on the second and orange again on the third and it looks like we’ve got an orange coming up nicely on the first this time.

“GASCOYNE?” says unmistakably Roughah’s voice.

“Right. How’s things?”

“Cut the crap. What do you want?”

“So?”

“So, how are you and what are you doing?”

“GASCOYNE I give you two seconds to shape up.”

“Okay, honest, who’s there with you now?”

“Christ!”

So he hangs up and I squeeze through the orange light at about forty-five which means the second light’s all mine. Somebody says Rufus’s dead and it’s pretty clear he isn’t, something’s fishy is my verdict, and namely that somebody’s planned to bump him off but is behind schedule which happens often enough in this world. But they ought to be back on schedule pretty soon, I’m thinking, and it might be very interesting to be around the Roughah place about as soon as I can possibly get there to see exactly what’s going on. But of all the luck, somebody’s tampered with the timing of the third signal and all I see is a nice display of red lights. I slam on the brakes and because the right front brake grabs on occasions like this I come to a stop that takes up two lanes and after screeching of tires but no crunching of metal. I back up a little and pull the Nash back into its lane and really bang the accelerator down when the light goes green. According to my memory, this procedure may get me down to Mirindaranda Road without stopping for the two lights in between.

“Chester, you didn’t give my phone number to anybody lately, did you?”

“No boss, why?”

“Some anonymous guy called and told me Roughah’s been murdered.”

“That’s good news. No, so far as I know he could have got your number through Roughah himself or O’Mallollolly.”

“O’Mallollolly’s got it?” I ask.

“He wasn’t given it, but I think he could get it if he really wanted to.”

“Yeah I suppose you’re right Chester.”

“Say boss Mark wants to know if you’re in or out of the real estate thing.”

“Put me in for two thirds,” I say.

“Right.”

“No boss, things are pretty quiet today.”

“Good. Look Chester, I’m going to take a look around the Roughah place for awhile so don’t call me because I might not be in the car.”

“Right boss.”

I hang up and let up on the gas a little to pull the speedometer needle down to forty-three which is what you’ve got to run at if you’re going to make all the signals, once you get in step. I swing into the middle lane to avoid the left-hand-turn crowd and it’s the best place to be when you’re cruising like this because you can pull right or left when you run into that character going thirty-nine wondering why he has to stop for every red light when he can see them turning green way up there ahead very regularly. The secret is, if you’ve got anywhere from one to three green lights ahead of you, and Mirindaranda Road is one of those streets you used to be able to see down the whole length of but not anymore, with one to three green lights then you’re in step, but with four ahead you’ve got to speed up or you’ll get slapped by an orange and then a red and have to start all over again.

Things look damn quiet for a murder to be going on but then it could be a family affair. Still something tells me somebody’s there who isn’t there usually and I’m dying to know who. Since I can’t go up the drive without scaring away the wildlife I wonder about finding that back entrance I’ve always meant to look into but never have. I turn left and then right again onto Mangoldia Street which angles through housing tracts down to the south end of the Roughah layout and then runs along it. Just then I remember a couple of things I forgot and give Chester a ring.

“Chester I forgot to ask what’s up on the government surplus auction, you hear anything?”

“Got it all lined up. Three hundred jeeps, and you won’t even see the damn things.”

“Great. On the Jennings case I just thought of something. I want him trailed with a camera as I told you and her also.”

“Her?” Chester asks.

“Yeah I think this one’s worth playing both ends. Fat chickens.”

“Okay boss. Color or black and white?”

“Right boss.”

About then Mangoldia twists right and starts running along the south side of Roughah’s, with his woods to the right and run-down fruit groves to the left they’re staking out for housing tracts. I slow down and start looking for a place to stash the car and have the luck to find a bulldozer and one of those earthmovers dumped off the road and in the fruit trees a little. I swing in and stop the car behind them both which doesn’t exactly conceal the Nash from the road but gives the impression that we’re all one big family.

I slide out and lock the door and wait until a couple of cars go by and then cross the road to the edge of the Roughah woods and peek in but can’t see a damn thing. It hits me then that it’s a funny game I’m playing—Roughah is in a way a client of mine and it’s me who’s got to risk my neck to make sure he’s being smart with his own interests. Well that’s the way life bounces and so I plunge into the woods and hope for the best. In about ten yards I spot the first trip line and crawl under it without setting off the shotgun, and then I have no trouble finding the other two. Now all I have to worry about are the dogs but there at least I’ve got something of an in since Marge’s sister raised one of the German shepherds in the pack. Nothing to stake your life on but every little bit adds up.

I’m wondering hard all this time what O’Mallollolly’s doing here on Roughah’s grounds. I suppose there’s a first time for everything and there’s no sense expecting the earth to shake, but after all O’Mallollolly’s an elected official and something maybe big’s up when he starts paying social calls to Roughah whose only secret is how he keeps out of the fed’s hands. And Roughah himself said he left town during election time three and a half years ago because he couldn’t stand seeing O’Mallollolly’s picture plastered all over town. So I’m wondering how long they’ve been palsy-walsy like this and why and I’m pretty pissed off at being left out of this one. Been getting a little careless, I think, and decide to change all that.

Maxie finishes with his pipe and knocks the ashes out on his hobnail heel and then climbs in behind the wheel, slouching down with his cap over his head. Well this is nice and O’Mallollolly’s big long Cadillac is super tempting, so I carefully and noiselessly slip the silencer onto the automatic and zero in on the left rear whitewall at such an angle that it’ll go through the tire into the gas tank. It does just that with a nice little thunk and Maxie sits up and looks around to the sound of leaking air and gas. As he gets out I slip deeper into the bushes but turn around to watch him crouching and examining the little round hole in the tire. All of a sudden he jumps up with a horrible look on his face and raises his hands and tries to look at all the bushes at once.

Unfortunately I’m not the nature-loving type that really eats this stuff up so I can’t say I’m having a good time. Nothing like reinforced concrete to walk on, I always say, vegetables are fine but on a plate only. Aside from a few bird calls and that sort of crap I learned as a Boy Scout, I’ve been pretty well able to keep my dealings with nature down to a minimum and intend to continue that way. As far as I’m concerned, the guy who invents an insecticide to kill everything living except us humans is really going to make a fortune. Just what I could use now to clear this bush and vine business out of my way.

All of a sudden I find myself stepping on something squirmy so I pull the vines apart so as to be able to see my feet and when a space is clear there’s about a foot’s worth of fat snake, its head and tail disappearing into the jungle on both sides. It’s got one of those nasty diamond patterns on its back and I’m about to blast away at the thing when it occurs to me that it might be best to leave it alone or wait until his head appears. The thing is moving slowly but I can’t tell which way, whether its head has gone by or whether it’s backing up. I wait and pretty soon the thing starts to get smaller and in a couple of minutes the tail slithers by with the longest set of rattles I’ve ever seen, about seven inches.

Getting through the vines and bushes is like threading ten needles at once and it gets darker and darker because the leaves above are so thick and then suddenly I feel a dampness at my feet and quickly tear away the vines to see what I am standing in, which turns out to be water, about three inches. I think a moment about constructing a small observation tower to see where. I am but the bush branches prove too tough to break and I give up that idea and go on. The water gets deeper so at least I know I’m making progress in one direction. Pretty soon it’s up to my knees and then my crotch and fortunately for a good while it gets no deeper. It’s not very clean water, filled with black bush and vine leaves and a reddish algae which clings to everything it touches. Visibility increases slightly, up to about three feet again. Around now I think the worst must be over.

But I still haven’t got any idea of where I am. I thought I knew the Roughah grounds pretty damn well since last year I went over them when Roughah got into a financial bind and sold me an option on the whole place. I guess I missed this part and think that there’s going to have to be a lot of clearing and filling in if that time ever comes.

After awhile the furry-backed creature stops bouncing up and down in the water and I’m able to go on ahead. The vines begin to thin out some and suddenly my feet touch land under water and pretty soon I’m treading on completely dry land, able to dry out some. About now I begin to fear again that perhaps I have gone in a circle because the bushes and vines are exactly like they were on the other side of the water. But I keep on going and suddenly run into a stone wall with a stairway cut into it and so I climb up it and am greatly relieved to find myself at the rear of Roughah’s mansion, near the kitchen with nobody looking out any windows at me.

I sit down in a chair in front of the window mainly to rest a little from all that exercise which I’m not used to and before I can bat both eyes O’Mallollolly comes charging out the side entrance chewing on the stub of one of his Hong Kong Havanas. Something’s shook him up because the red veins of his face are more bulging and prominent than usual and he’s giving shifty looks to both sides. He stops and tries to wipe something off his left hand with a monogrammed handkerchief. He looks at his watch and then back at the house. Finally he tears off into the woods I suppose down the path I got separated from.

I figure the show is over for today and am about to get up when all of a sudden Roughah’s latest, a blond large-eyed number by the name of Nancy, comes running around from the rear of the house with not even a banana peel on. All I can say it’s a bad day for somebody. She’s running like the grass’s tickling her bare feet but that’s about the only sign of emotion I can read on her bouncing face. She goes in the front door and crosses the living room and that’s all I see of her.

I figure now the show’ll be complete if Roughah himself puts in an appearance, but I spend a long time just sitting and wishing the chair had a cushion on it and I’m about to pull out of there when all at once the window to Roughah’s study upstairs swings open and a coil of rope with knots tied in it every yard is thrown out. Something’s on fire, I’m thinking, but then a furry leg with big sharp claws is slowly stuck out, followed by another just like it and the furry rear of some creature about the size of a man, a little fatter. By the time the whole thing gets itself hooked onto the rope and starts to descend, which gives me a good view of its greenish fur and pointed head, I come to the conclusion the thing’s a giant tree sloth, or rather a man dressed up as a giant tree sloth because it’s smoking a filter tip cigarette. Why is one question I’d sure like to know, and what it was doing up in Roughah’s study is another.

Finally it stamps its feet on the ground and walks around to the front door and goes in across the living room and disappears. In a minute it sticks its head out of the window above and disappears again, reappearing in the living room below and coming out the front door around to the rope which it looks up at. It starts pulling at the rope again and at last the rope gives and comes piling down on top of the fake sloth, which knocks the cigarette from its lips into the matted greenish hair of its chest which instantaneously ignites in a burst of orange flames and thick black smoke.

It jumps into the shallow end of the pool and sinks right to the bottom, turning the water black and green. It stays down under for what seems like a couple of minutes and I start trying to remember all that artificial respiration stuff, but then it struggles to the surface and climbs out of the pool acting like it weighs a ton, which it probably does with all that water stuck inside the fake sloth suit and fur, probably none of it water-repellent. It stands at the edge of the pool draining itself with water pouring out the foot and hand joints and a long zipper joint going down its front, and after awhile it tries to shake itself dry like a wet dog but the long fur is too heavy with water and all it can do is swing slowly back and forth like an old washing machine, and even then it loses its balance and almost falls right back into the water. Then it takes off its hand-claws and puts them on the ground and with its human’s hands bunches up the fur on its body and squeezes it and wrings it out, getting rid of a good deal of water that way.

I sit there a long time trying to make out the meaning of all this and thoroughly expecting to see some more action, but nothing happens and the place is as quiet as a tomb so I slip out of the shed and walk over to the side of the house to see if the tree sloth dropped anything. All I find is the charred remains of a cigarette butt with enough lettering on it to make it identifiable as a Marlboro, not much but I keep it as a clue or for evidence, as the case may dictate.

The coast seems clear so I head down the direction O’Mallollolly and the animal went, down the lawn a ways to a break in the woods made by a path I always thought went only to the aviaries. I slip through as quiet as I can, gun ready, and pass the aviaries with three thousand birds screaming their heads off and then go on into the woods. I get to the clearing without incident but get a little scare when from a distance I see O’Mallollolly’s limousine is still there. However as I get closer I can see nobody’s there for one and for another Maxie the chauffeur must have knocked his pipe into the pool of gasoline because there’s nothing left of that Cadillac but a black and brown rusty burnt-out hulk. I get close and look around a little—another car’s been here to judge from the tracks, and I suppose Maxie called for help on the radio-telephone after I left.

“Hi Chester, what’s up?”

“Just got a call from MacGanymede at Police Tower and he says that Roughah has been bumped off and that O’Mallollolly is over at the Roughah place now filling out the forms.”

“Goddamn. I’ll call you back in awhile Chester.”

“Right boss.”

I slam the accelerator to the floor and bring it up to sixty, about the fastest I can let the old Nash go on Mangoldia. Well, so Roughah’s dead, no great loss as everybody will agree, but what I want to know is what’s O’Mallollolly doing so big in the picture? Roughah was bound to get it sooner or later because he didn’t know the fine art of stepping on people’s toes hard without them feeling a thing until it’s too late to complain, but I also thought he was smart enough not to tangle with O’Mallollolly. I don’t give a damn if O’Mallollolly did it, but I sure do want to know why I’ve been kept in the dark for so goddamn long. Also I’ve got to watch that this sort of thing doesn’t go to O’Mallollolly’s head.

I rev the engine up and shut off the ignition at the peak to keep the detonations down because the temperature needle is pretty far right, and slip out of the car and walk in the front door of the Roughah palace into the enormous living room. O’Mallollolly’s down at the far end standing beside the laid-out body which is mostly covered by a large sealskin rug, and Lt. Pestings and Maxie are pocketing souvenirs from the hermaphrodite collection on the mantel over the fireplace. I walk down to the body scene for a closer look and except for his hands and feet Roughah’s all covered up and you can see the body’s been moved some because there’s a bat-shaped bloodstain on the purple rug about two feet from his head. O’Mallollolly’s working on a crossword puzzle cut out from yesterday evening’s Herald.

“Well?” I ask.

“Suicide,” he says. “Simple as that.”

“Why?”

He looks at the sealskin rug a moment and chews at his cigar and says, “I just want things simple at the moment, GASCOYNE. Any objections?”

“Yeah,” I say, “I just might want to know who did it.”

“So you’re going to put it out that Rufus Roughah, prominent citizen and big crook, just couldn’t take it anymore and pulled the trigger?”

“That’s right.”

“Not going to sell many papers, that one.”

“Not my worry,” he says. “Hey Pestings, take this thing away and shove it in the trunk of the car.”

Lt. Pestings and Maxie come over and bunch up the sealskin around the body and haul it out.

“Okay O’Mallollolly, what are you up to?”

“Nothing, it’s simple,” he says with a smile I can’t quite believe in. “Roughah’s dead, nobody liked Roughah, so let’s not hurt anybody’s feelings with a lot of personal questions.”

“That simple, huh?”

“Sure.”

We head toward the door and find Roughah’s butler Grant standing in the portico with O’Mallollolly’s fedora and gold-headed cane. O’Mallollolly leans over to me and says in a loud whisper just as Grant swings the door open, “Psst, maybe the butler did it.”

Grant goes suddenly stiff and his eyes grow wide and then he just keels over.

“No,” O’Mallollolly says looking down at the body, “suicide’s a lot easier for everyone concerned. Except for the autopsy, that pretty well closes the case, doesn’t it?”

Maxie’s got the police limousine out on the drive and O’Mallollolly climbs in the back and as they drive off I notice they couldn’t get all of Roughah in the trunk because one foot’s hanging out and the trunk lid’s held down with a piece of yellow twine.

I climb in the Nash and try to figure out what the hell O’Mallollolly’s trying to pull. Roughah out of the way’s going to make things a lot easier for him, but not so much easier that it was worth bumping him himself which rather looks the case at the moment because of all those people in the house before the murder, Police Commissioner O’Mallollolly’s the prime suspect, if there’s really a big fat motive floating around somewhere. But whatever the reasons, I should have been consulted. O’Mallollolly’s playing games, and I don’t exactly like it.

I start the engine up and point the Nash down the drive and dial Chester.

“What’s up boss?”

“It’s murder all right but O’Mallollolly likes the way suicide sounds. I think something stinks, Chester.”

“I’ll say.”

“Well I’m going to wait a bit and see if O’Mallollolly comes up with any other bright ideas.”

“Right boss. Say, I called Mark and you’re in for two thirds on the real estate deal, just in the nick of time.”

“How’s that?” I ask.

“And does he know when the freeway’s coming through?”

“Two months the state’ll start buying the right-of-way and Mark’s even got the demolition contract all set up in advance so nobody’ll ever know what kind of crap the houses are made of.”

“Good,” I say.

“And boss, Jennings walked right into the bridal suite of the THUNDERBOLT MOTEL without suspecting a thing. We’ve got beautiful pictures and boy is she a dish.”

“Good, and Mrs.?”

“I think maybe she’s got bitten before.”

“Well keep at it Chester. And are you still working on the soybean oil?”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to dump it in the sea, not much choice.”

“That’s all right, you know I’m willing to take a loss there.”

“Yeah boss. Say, Marty called a few minutes ago and wants to know if you could use seven out-of-state Lincoln Continentals that are on the way into town now.”

“What’s the story?” I ask.

“Bad pedigrees.”

“How much?”

“Half price.”

“Offer Marty a third and put them into AIRPORT RENT-A-MOBILE and see Rolf about papers and plates,” I say.

“All of them?”

“Mainly the big one in the WESTBINDER BRANCH BANK. The state man is up for sale but I don’t know about the fed.”

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“Robinson.”

“Don’t touch him, he bites. Well think of something,” I say.

“Right boss.”

I hang up and slip onto Mirindaranda Road and take it easy for a change. Then I dial Marge.

“Well,” she asks first thing, “is he dead?”

“Completely.”

“Let’s throw a party dear.”

“You know I never throw parties Marge.”

“Pooper.”

“No I just don’t have the time, especially now.”

“Why now?” she asks. “Dear you just never seem to have the time for anything. You know I haven’t seen you for two whole weeks now and then it was just for a few minutes when you came in to get the keys for something, look I’m not trying to be possessive or anything like that, but—”

“Well Marge I’m sorry but this is going to be a long week too, but it’s not my fault that Roughah went and got himself bumped off.”

“Stop it,” I say.

“Didn’t he pay you for that sort of thing?”

“Technically. Say Marge I wonder if you could run up to the mountains for me?”

“Love to,” she says. “Something I do all the time without thinking, like brushing my teeth. What’s two hundred and fifty miles?”

“Hundred and twenty-five.”

“One way dear.”

“All I want you to do is take a quick look at Roughah’s hunting lodge up there, Condor’s Crag, just to see what condition the thing’s in.”

“What for?”

“Because my bet is that Nadine Roughah’s going to unload everything and cut out of here fast and consequently there’ll be a lot of bargains floating around, and that’ll be one of the best ones.”

“Why don’t you send Chester or one of your other characters?” she asks.

“Chester’s already on an eighteen-hour day as it is and I need everybody else in town at the moment.”

“Well maybe. When do you want me to go?”

“As soon as you can.”

“Now?” she asks.

“Can you?”

“If you’re not coming to dinner here tonight.”

“The hunting lodge is more important.”

As soon as I hang up the phone rings right back at me.

“Yeah?”

“Hello GASCOYNE, this is Nadine Corell.”

“Nadine who?”

“The late Mr. Roughah’s widow.”

“Of course.” I knew it all the time but I just wanted to see how hard she is, which is plenty hard. “Tell me Miss Corell, how did you get my phone number?”

“Your man Chester gave it to me.”

“I see. What can I do for you?” I ask.

“I want to see you. Now.”

“Where?”

“At the house.”

“Five minutes,” I say.

“Thank you GASCOYNE.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I go straight where Mirindaranda splits and in a second am back at the Roughah gate driving up the white gravel driveway. I pull up finally under the wisteria arbor and park in front of my nameplate. I slide out of the car and walk right in the front door without knocking and notice that already they’ve taken Grant the butler’s body away. The Widow Roughah is standing about in the middle of the purple carpet that covers about half of the black marble floor.

“You are two minutes late, GASCOYNE.”

“Mrs. Corell, I—”

“Corell is my maiden name. Miss Corell will do.”

“Miss Corell—”

“GASCOYNE let us get to the point. I want you to find the murderer of my late husband Rufus.”

“Why?”

“I have a passion for facts and I don’t think our Police Commissioner does.”

“The fact is that Rufus’s dead, Miss Corell.”

“I want to know how, why, et cetera.”

I look her square in the eye and say, “I have the impression you’re holding something back.”

“You’re being vague, Miss Corell. What would I get out of it?”

“Seventy-five thousand,” she says.

“But he owes me at least that in severance pay.”

“I’m afraid you’ll never get that, GASCOYNE.”

“Oh?”

“The estate is nearly bankrupt.”

I look at her emotionless face for a long moment while she pulls a cigarette out of somewhere near the top of her very low-cut gown and lights it with a long kitchen match ignited by a deft flick of a fingernail.

“How,” I ask, “can you afford to pay me seventy-five thou when the estate’s nearly bankrupt?”

“The identity of the murderer is worth exactly one million dollars to Rufus’s heir, GASCOYNE.”

I whistle. “I’ll do it for a hundred and twenty-five.”

“A hundred,” she says slowly in a nasty tone.

“Sold.”

“But you don’t get a damn cent unless you find him.”

“Of course. But tell me, how does it work out that you will get a million bucks if I find the murderer?”

“I can’t tell you at the moment.”

“When can you?”

“In three days.”

I give her the GASCOYNE-eye a minute or two and then say, “Perhaps I should leave then.”

“Why?” she asks, blinking.

She smiles and exposes her very attractive gums. “Please don’t.” She looks at me down her cigarette which she’s holding in front of her face. “Stay awhile,” she says.

“Thanks.”

“Well?”

“Well what?” I ask.

“Start staying awhile right now.”

“I really can’t,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Too many things to do.”

“Like what?”

“Something different every time.”

“Well,” she says shifting her weight from one leg to the other and picking at her teeth with her thumbnail, “what exactly is it you do, or how do you spend your time?”

“In a lot of ways. It just sort of passes, the days slip by,” I say.

“You’re not being very specific, GASCOYNE.”

“How?”

“I mean what exactly do you do?”

“Well,” I say, “the next thing I have to do Miss Corell—”

“You can call me Nadine.”

“Nadine is to ask you a few questions.”

“Oh?” she says.

“Would you mind if I did ask you a few questions now?”

“Shoot,” she says.

“Passionately,” she says longingly.

“The thirty years’ difference in your ages didn’t seem to matter then?”

“Only at night. There are some nights I will never forget. One for example—”

“That’s not necessary Miss Corell, I understand, but I do want to know how much money you had when you married Rufus.”

She casts her eyes up at the frescoed ceiling and taps an index finger on her finely pointed well-formed chin.

“Three dollars and eighteen cents,” she says.

“Well now Miss Corell, tell me where—and if my questions seem to jump around some, please don’t worry because in the end we’ll reorganize everything—tell me where you went with your chauffeur boyfriend Dmitri and diamonds early this afternoon.”

“To the beach.” She holds out an arm and turns it around slowly. “See my tan?”

I look at her tan and arm for a long time as she keeps turning it around, and when I’ve seen that one she holds up the other for a long time before letting it drop. They aren’t very tanned.

“And what happened to the diamonds?” I ask.

“I put them in a safe-deposit box.”

“Why?”

“Don’t you think that was a good idea?” she asks with a surprised look.

“Yes, but I want to know why.”

“Oh. That’s all right then. But I’d like to know now what Nancy, Rufus’s mistress, was doing around the place earlier this afternoon.”

She smiles and waves a hand at me and looks away and says, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“What’s your guess?”

“What’s yours?”

“I’m asking the questions around here Miss Corell,” I say.

“Of course.”

“What is your guess.”

She puffs on her cigarette and says, “My guess is that they were screwing.”

“It’s these little things that are important,” I say, “so please excuse me if I seem to push a little hard.”

“Of course. I understand.”

“Now, do you know anybody that likes to dress up as a giant tree sloth?”

She taps a thumbnail on her teeth again and lets fall an ash onto the purple carpet. “No, I’d say everybody I know would like to do that at some time or other.”

“Nobody in particular?”

“No.”

“I see. Well now Miss Corell will you be so kind as to tell me what Police Commissioner O’Mallollolly was doing here early this afternoon.”

I stride over to the huge grand piano and fling back the keyboard cover and pound on the keys randomly for dramatic effect. At the death of the last discordant note I say, “Miss Corell you have been lying.”

“I know,” she says quietly, going a little limp here and there.

“What is the truth then?”

“Please have patience GASCOYNE!”

“Am I or am I not being hired by you?”

“You are—the first part was true. Here!”

She pulls out a stack of hundreds and shoves them into my hands, about three grand, I reckon.

“All right,” I say.

“I should prefer to be alone now GASCOYNE.”

I head for the door shoving the wad into my pants pocket and I turn to nod goodbye to her and I notice suddenly she has moved away from the place where she was standing, and I can see now that all that time we talked she was standing on the small bat-shaped bloodstain left on the purple carpet by the late Rufus Roughah.

As soon as I hop back in the car and get rolling down the driveway I give Chester a call.

“Chester did you give Nadine Roughah my phone number?”

“No boss.”

“How the hell did she get it then?”

“Could be,” I say. “Not very important at the moment, but it’s a little irritating.”

“I understand boss.”

“Good. Now the Widow Roughah says the estate’s almost bankrupt and if I find the murderer she gets a million bucks minus my ten percent. Figure that one out.”

“It makes sense that the estate’s almost bankrupt. We hit him pretty hard though I haven’t seen the last quarterly financial statement yet.”

“What’s the last thing we got him on?”

“The Wyoming oil deal. He lost three hundred grand on that one without knowing it,” he says.

“Still there must be something else Chester.”

“I’ll have the files checked boss.”

“What about this million bucks?”

“If I had three guesses I’d say insurance three times,” he says.

“Good thinking.”

“If O’Mallollolly makes it suicide, there’s no money in that for Mrs. Roughah so it’s worth a lot to her to prove O’Mallollolly wrong.”

“I remember vaguely something about an insurance policy but damned if I know what. You remember anything?” I ask.

“Not a thing.”

“You’ve got photostats of every paper in Roughah’s study safe?”

“Nothing there?”

“Not a thing,” he says.

“For a million bucks he’d pay quite a premium.”

“Yeah and we’d have a record of it. Must be a couple of policies with different companies.”

“Well do your homework Chester and take a close look at this bankruptcy thing just to make sure nobody else’s stealing the watermelons. Another thing, put a tail on O’Mallollolly—”

“He won’t like that.”

“I know but he’s an elected official and there’s no law against following a man, doesn’t matter who he is. Also I want the Widow Roughah tailed, Dmitri the chauffeur, Roughah’s mistress Nancy, and check all the costume shops in town to see if anybody’s returned a giant tree sloth costume with a big hole burned in the chest. If you find out who, tail him too.”

“Roger boss.”

I’m heading downtown now and the top of Police Tower slips into view, which has been the tallest building in town since ’56, but only by twelve feet. It’s time to have a little chat with O’Mallollolly now because I want to see what he’s up to which I have the feeling is quite a lot. He was always the type who liked to play games with nasty little surprises in them but simple enough that any idiot could figure out the score before it was too late. But now I feel like he might be trying to go big time and if he is he’s sure starting out on the wrong foot. He ought to know where to start by now.

Beachshore Avenue drops me right behind Police Tower and as I pull in the back alley I think that this Roughah insurance thing rings a bell somewhere in my head but just can’t get through at all loud or clear. No insurance company in its right mind would have insured Roughah’s life for more than about ten bucks the way he was generally disliked by the people who carry guns in this town, but this is the logical way to look at it and my little ringing bell is telling me there is insurance but not telling me a damn thing else. Bad memory I’m getting in my old age, I think as I swing into the Police Tower parking lot and slip the Nash into the parking slot with my nameplate on it. Also, Rufus was way down deep the sort of ordinary guy who feels very bad if he doesn’t have exactly what everybody else does and he knew damn well that anybody who’s anybody’s got life insurance in this world. With exceptions of course, which he wouldn’t have understood.

“What do you see?” I ask.

“There’s somebody with my wife,” he says.

“Who?”

“Don’t know. Just beginning to make out the license number. I’ll fix his wagon.”

He writes down a couple of figures on a piece of paper and pulls himself away from the telescope and then screws a black plastic cover over the eyepiece. That’s not so much to protect the lens as to keep others from looking through it. The bastard keeps the thing all to himself.

“Well GASCOYNE,” he says, “I’m just wondering if I can guess what brings you on one of your rare visits to Police Tower, let me think. It couldn’t be that somebody wants you to find a so-called murderer of the late suicided Rufus Roughah, could it now?”

“Who told you?” I ask.

“And it couldn’t be that that somebody who’s hired you is pretty little Nadine Roughah, could it now?”

“How do you know?”

“And it couldn’t be she’s offered a nice round sum for this, could it now?”

“Nothing, I’m just guessing. GASCOYNE, listen to me and take my advice. Look, we’re all happy that Roughah’s gone now, aren’t we? It simplifies the situation so much, especially for you. Now you don’t need the money so why don’t you just forget about Roughah and we’ll go on the way we always have, only as I say it’ll be simpler now without Roughah.”

“I think I hear you talking pretty damn big all of a sudden, O’Mallollolly.”

“Who me?”

“Yes you.”

“Oh no, you know me, GASCOYNE, just another faithful obedient public servant.”

“Election time coming up you know,” I say.

“Sure, how could I forget?”

“Just want to make sure you’re not,” I say.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it no matter what,” he says with a nice smile.

“No matter what, you say?”

“The public just eats up my charming personality,” he says and then bellows.

“Be careful O’Mallollolly.”

“I am. Very.”

“And do me a favor and tell me something,” I say.

“What?” he says, “shoot.”

“What the hell were you doing at Roughah’s a little before he was supposed to have shot himself?”

I stand up and say, “Don’t try it, O’Mallollolly, you’ll ruin your future.”

“Do I look like the type who’d try something now?”

Yes, frankly, I think at that moment and then walk with the Goon Squad out the door and through the reception room. I invite all four of them into the executive elevator with me which makes one of them about pee down his leg with excitement. I push the one button and down we go.

“What’s going on, Vic?” I ask the squad leader.

“Oh you know how O’Mallollolly is, he gets into this kind of state every now and then GASCOYNE.”

“Umm. No more than usual?”

“No,” he says, “I think this Roughah thing bothers him.”

“Him?”

“Like you never know who’s next. But he’ll get over it.”

“Sure he will,” I say. “Look Vic if you ever need anything I don’t care what just let me know.”

“Sure GASCOYNE.”

“Oh God it’s so good to hear your voice again dear,” she says.

“You sound disturbed.”

“Oh God you don’t know what I’ve just been through!”

“What?”

“I left for the mountains just after you called and I was followed out of town,” she says a little out of breath.

“Get the license number?” I ask.

“I gave it to Chester and he thinks it’s probably a rented car. Well anyway I got out of the suburbs and was going into the foothills with the road twisting and all and you’ll never guess what happened.”

“You ran out of gas,” I guess.

“No. The front axle and wheels came off.”

“No Marge that’s impossible.”

“Well?”

“Well of course there were no brakes and the throttle was stuck full on and there was nothing to steer with and a two-piece gasoline truck was coming downhill around the corner with its brakes locked and skidding all over the road like a snake.”

“And?”

“Well fortunately the gasoline truck came apart in the middle and half of it went over the cliff on one side and the other into the bank on the other side, and I came to a sudden stop when the car hit another dip and dug its nose into the ground and went over on its roof.”

“Yes?”

“Well I unfastened my seatbelt and pushed the door open and no sooner was I standing up and about to powder my nose than I saw another great big truck barreling down on me. I jumped into the ditch just as the truck slammed into the poor old Dodge and blasted it into a hundred flying pieces, and then the truck sideswiped the ditch or something and turned over and threw its load all over the highway with the most horrible crash you have ever heard.”

“What was on it?” I ask.

“Yes of course.”

“Seven brand-new Lincoln Continentals.”

“Holy shit! Hang up Marge and call me right back and hang on till the line’s free.”

“What?”

“Do it!”

She hangs up and I dial Chester as fast as I can.

“Chester have we bought those seven out-of-state Continentals yet?”

“No boss, not yet.”

“Well don’t.”

I explain briefly and then let Marge back on the line.

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“Well then the tow trucks and police began to arrive and the garage man looked over the wreckage and told me that the front axle and wheels hadn’t come off all by themselves but had been unbolted.”

“Hmm.”

“What do you suppose it means?” she asks.

“Well it’s pretty clear somebody doesn’t want you to look at Condor’s Crag.”

“Yes.”

“Which makes it all the more imperative that you go up and take a look at it,” I say.

“Oh. But dear I’m rather tired.”

“Well Marge I know but you’re halfway there already and you might as well go on. Stay the night in the Wolverine Lodge if you want. Charge it to my account.”

“That-a-girl Marge, that’s the spirit!”

“Why don’t you come up for the night dear? It would be so nice.”

“I’ll try Marge. Say did you ask Chester to send up a car for you?”

“Yes Ralph’s on the way with a new Jaguar roadster from the agency.”

“A demonstrator I hope,” I say.

“Yes, I think so.”

“That’s all right then. You weren’t hurt or anything?”

“Where?” she asks.

“In the accident.”

“Oh no. Nice of you to ask though dear.”

“Well I’ve got to get moving Marge, give me a call when anything new comes up.”

I hit the Infracity on-ramp and zoom up it with the left directional signal blinking and merge in front of a semi and then pull left three lanes to hit the fast lane where I run it up to eighty and dial Chester.

“Yeah boss,” he says.

“We’ve got a hundred lemons sitting on the used-car lot and you have to go and do something like send a new Jag demonstrator up to Marge, what’s got into you Chester?”

“Sorry boss but there’s not one of them Ralph would trust over two hundred miles, especially in the mountains.”

“Not one? All right, but tell Ralph for God’s sake to fix a couple of them up, hell of a lot cheaper wrecking them than a new Jag. Also Marge has got to have something to replace the Dodge.”

“Ralph says there’s a ’52 Hudson convertible, good shape, runs nice.”

“Okay, run it over to her place, she’ll take it.”

“Say boss I just got the news that Louis slipped through TJ last night with a twenty-pound load.”

“Great,” I say. “When’s he due in?”

“About seven hours.”

“Call me right off when you hear.”

“Will do.”

I squeeze through and am pretty nearly bowled over to find the downstairs a shambles such as I have never ever seen in my whole life. Every stick of furniture and bric-a-brac in the living room has been broken up, torn apart or smashed, the carpet is all ripped up and the padding under that and the floor in places under that, pages from books and other papers are laying and floating around, glassware pulverized, the piano is a heap of splinters and wire and small metal fixtures, the cabinetwork in the walls hardly exists and the wallpaper and plaster moldings in piles here and there on the remains of the floor.

Outside double-parked is a huge flatbed truck with a crane on the bed and though the crane is lowered I can see what is on the end of the cable—a gigantic demolition ball which I estimate weighs a ton and a half. I look at this a moment and think and then I see the light. It’s pretty damn clear they’re going to demolish the house and cart away the rubble to sift and examine at their leisure and they’ve undoubtedly got themselves armed with all sorts of official-looking papers. And then, crazy things go on all the time in Betsy Hills so only some crackpot would call the police.

I do some more addition. There are two guys outside with the crane and another with a dump truck that’s just showed up and maybe two upstairs, a total of five, which is too many to take on so I slip back downstairs and out the back door and take cover in some bushes at the end of the rear lawn. Pretty soon the two guys upstairs come down and I gasp when I see one of them is none other than Roughah’s chauffeur Dmitri dressed in dusty overalls. They walk around to the front of the house and soon I hear the sound of the big diesel in the crane and decide I’d get a better view of things from the side of the house. I work my way through the bushes and discover a little tree fort that some kid has built in a tree and I climb up into it where I am completely concealed from everybody on the ground. Also I have a damn good view of the front and side of the house.

Then they hoist the demolition ball to a height level with the third story, left corner of the brick and marble façade, and pull the crane back and forth giving the ball a good swing. It strikes the brick wall with a dull thud and breaks through it and goes on through and pretty well guts the roof structure on the way out, and on the swing back it tears down the whole third-floor right wall which makes the roof sag. The second swing shoves the whole damn roof into the backyard where it lands with a big dusty crash and brings down most of the rear wall.

The bystanders who have grown to a considerable number applaud with enthusiasm and so do I until I remember that I am to remain concealed. The demolition ball now goes around the house and gives light taps to the walls low down near the ground and foundations. Next the ball is positioned over the center of the house at the maximum height of the crane. It sits there barely moving but probably the operator is waiting for it to become absolutely still. After a moment it moves a few inches right and back which causes it to start swinging some and again the operator waits for it to stop. I take a look down at the crowd and read tension all over their faces, it’s clear to everybody that this man’s a real artist and is about to try something really difficult that’s never been done before. A few people close their eyes and put fingers in their ears not knowing quite what to expect.

All at once I can see his hand pull the lever and the ball drops into the center of the house out of sight. For the smallest of instants after it has passed through the second floor and the first floor and the basement to strike what I figure is the furnace boiler with muffled booms, everything is so quiet you can hear the next-door canary cheeping and the only thing moving is a little puff of dust just above the hole where the ball went in.

Suddenly and without a sound all four solid brick walls are rent with tiny cracks that grow into fissures and crevasses. The walls buckle and begin to drop to the ground in huge chunks and all of a sudden the second floor collapses onto the first with a breathtaking and very dusty whomp and instantly the first floor crashes flat to the ground and lastly the whole shooting match drops into the very deep basement. Not one piece of house stands more than six inches above ground level. Only the thin cable up to the tip of the crane.

In a minute an excavating shovel rumbles over the lawn and starts scooping up the debris and dropping it into a dump truck and when they fill it up another one takes its place, and as I take down the license numbers of them all I find out that there are seven dump trucks. They take the rubble to a place forty-five minutes away, round trip, I calculate.

When they get the basement as clean as they can with the shovel, a crew of twenty workmen goes down and carries the rest out in wheelbarrows while another crew goes around outside and picks up the stuff that’s fallen off the house. All this takes a couple of hours, and I can’t figure out why they brought the bulldozer since they never use it.

I conclude that this is what they were looking for in the house. Worth anywhere from a hundred and fifty grand to a million—or more. But how? That’s the question to think about.

“I didn’t do anything with your house. Dmitri tore it down and carted it away.”

“The bastard. What did he do a silly thing like that for?” she asks.

“He was searching for something he wanted very badly.”

“What?” she demands with her cool blue eyes.

“Beats me.” I shrug.

“Well is he going to bring it back?”

“The house?”

“Yes.”

“I doubt it. Was it insured for theft?”

“Hell no,” she says.

“Tsk, tsk.”

“Shut up GASCOYNE.”

She hitches up her skirt and sits down on the front stoop exposing a good part of her lower thigh.

“What a silly thing to do,” she says. “Never did trust that Dmitri. Just wait till I see him. What do you suppose he was looking for?”

“Do you know if Roughah ever hid anything in the house?”

“He’d never have told me.”

“Think Nancy.”

“I’m trying.”

“Think hard. It’s very important.”

“You must remember something, some little thing.”

“Well,” she says, “it seems to me now there was something.”

“Try and remember.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she cries, “I remember now!”

“What?”

“I remember!”

“Good! What?”

“Yes! Of course!” she says almost shouting.

“Tell me!”

“One day about three years ago,” she says, “Roughah came to me here at the house and said, ‘Go, I must be alone a couple of hours.’ ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Because I have something to do in that time. None of your business what.’ Then he beat me and I left for a couple of hours. I have no idea what he did in that time.”

“Is that all?” I ask.

“No. About two weeks ago I happened to remember this and mentioned it to Dmitri.”

“And?”

“Dmitri asked me all sorts of questions.”

“And?”

“I didn’t understand what he was driving at until a little later and then I concluded that Roughah had hidden something here in those couple of hours.”

“Which Dmitri also guessed,” I add.

“Precisely,” she says.

“And so he’s torn down the house and carted it away.”

“Well I’ve got to be going Nancy, see you later,” I say.

“What should I do GASCOYNE?” she asks.

“Wait awhile. Be patient. Things will work out.”

I squeeze in the car and start her up and make a U-turn to head back the way I came. Then I dial Chester.

“Chester take this number down, memorize it and burn the paper.”

I give him the number minus one subtracted from the last digit and also the license numbers I’ve collected in the last couple of hours.

“What’s the first number you gave me boss?” he asks.

“That’s what I want you to find out Chester. It may be worth one hell of a lot to somebody, maybe us.”

“I’ll start work on it right away.”

“Good. What have you heard?” I ask.

“First, Gifford tailed O’Mallollolly up to an address on Rantananta Road in Betsy Hills where he mingled with a crowd to watch a house being demolished. He’s now driving down the Arthur F. Stravinsky Thruway. Second, Johnny tailed Dmitri to the same address where he started demolishing the house before the rest of the crew got there.”

“Where’s he now?”

“Out in an industrial suburb called Volts where they’ve dumped the rubble in an old aircraft factory. He paid over nineteen thousand bucks to UNIVERSAL DESTRUCTION DEMOLISHERS to have the house torn down and carried there.”

“Oh I thought you knew.”

“What?”

“We bought out UNIVERSAL DESTRUCTION DEMOLISHERS three weeks ago because they’ve got the freeway clearing contract with Mark.”

“Damn that’s right, bad memory I’m getting. What else’s up?”

“Roscoe followed Nancy to the beach where she still is, sunbathing.”

“What? Hell she is! I was talking to her two minutes ago. When Roscoe calls next Chester, ring me and switch the call over. I’ll fix him.”

“Roger boss. Now Nadine Roughah’s still at the estate, which takes care of everybody. About this tax man Robinson, it’s sure now boss that he’s teaming up with the state bank auditors to go through the WESTBINDER BRANCH BANK with a fine-tooth comb and I think we ought to do something about it.”

“Hmm,” I say. “See what sort of robbery-fire angle you can cook up, Chester.”

“Will do boss.”

I hang up and the phone rings right back and it’s Marge.

“Hello dear,” I say, “how are things?”

“Awful,” she says.

“Oh? Where are you?”

“At the gas station at the summit of Crankcase Grade.”

“What are you doing there?” I ask.

“Oh no.”

“Oh it’s nothing serious. The nice man at the garage told me it would be ready in about seven hours. Oh it’s nothing serious. Only seven hours. Just a little wait. What’s seven—”

“Calm down Marge, you should be able to borrow a book from someone or something. Don’t they have a TV set?”

“No,” she says, “I think they don’t even have a radio. The telephone’s ancient, you know the kind with things on wires you press to various parts of your body.”

“Well is there a café around?” I ask.

“No just a bar with four red stools in it. That’s where I am now, just having a few drinks for the road. So’s the nice cowpoke on the next stool. What’s seven hours?”

“Now Marge calm down. Why don’t you take a nice walk through the woods and get a little exercise and fresh air, the sort of thing you can’t do very well in town?” I say.

“Dear there aren’t any woods here. It’s ten thousand feet up in the air. The trees are all dead. That’s what happens when you try to exercise up here. You die.”

“Calm down Marge calm down.”

“What do you think I’m having a drink for, to calm down.”

“Well you sound a little better already. Call back when you get—”

“What?”

“I’m still being followed.”

“Who by?” I ask.

“The same car.”

“Well don’t worry dear, he probably just wants to see where you’re going.”

“Gimme another beer.”

“What Marge?” I ask.

“I was just asking this nice boy behind the bar for another beer.”

“Well all right Marge don’t drink too much and call me when you get bored.”

I hang up and the phone rings right back, busy day.

“Mr. GASCOYNE?”

It’s Roscoe.

“What time is it Roscoe?”

“Beg your pardon sir?”

“I said, what time is it?”

“About twenty after four, I’d say sir.”

“Good. You’re fired now Roscoe but I’ll pay you up to four-thirty. This will give you a little time to plan your trip. Try looking for work up north. I just don’t think you’ll find a damn thing down here.”

I turn left at the SOUR GRAPES COCKTAIL LOUNGE and wheel onto the Urban Circle Uptown Turnpike Tollroad on-ramp and get her up to sixty-five by the time I hit the right lane, and all’s clear so I whip over to the fast lane and crank it up to eighty-five. A state trooper suddenly sweeps out of nowhere and tails me for awhile all hot and bothered until he catches the license number and backs off.

I look at myself in the rearview mirror and notice I could use a shave so I pull the Schick out of the glove compartment and plug it into the cigarette-lighter socket and shave away, pulling down the sunvisor for the mirror behind it which is a little better for some angles. Mostly though I use my own reflection in the windshield since that way I can see where I’m going. And now as a matter of fact the Tollroad tollgates are coming up damn fast, twenty of them with little signals above each gate, and so I quickly shut off the razor and ring up the central phone and say, “It’s me GASCOYNE and I’m coming through number one.”

“Roger, GASCOYNE,” what’s-his-name says.

The Mirindaranda off-ramp pops up and I head for that and give a quick call to Chester.

“Chester do you have any idea where Dmitri and O’Mallollolly are now?”

“Dmitri seems to be on his way back to the Roughah place but we’ve lost track of O’Mallollolly.”

“What? How?”

“I was talking to Gifford a minute ago on the phone and he was about to tell me where he was and something happened and he was cut off.”

“Hmm. Wasn’t his phone went on the fritz, was it?”

“No, don’t think so. He said ‘Hey!’ in a funny way just before we were cut off.”

“Well keep the switchboard open for him, that’s all we can do now. Say’s the copter been fixed yet?”

“Not yet, tomorrow they say,” he says.

“Let’s hope.”

I get out of that mess in the nick of time because I can see out the rearview cars piling up right and left and hot damn if I don’t make the next signal, enough to make me feel good for the next ten miles.

Suddenly I have an uncanny feeling which I mistake for that feeling that at last things are fitting together. Well I’m wrong, because I hear a rustling sound behind me and just as I turn around I get it clang right on the head. Then everything goes blackish.

I begin to come to with this sort of nightmare thing where I’m a pedestrian on roller skates trying to cross a twenty- or thirty-lane freeway jammed with cars and the DON’T WALK light blinking on and off, but all that stops when somebody pours water over my head and starts talking.

“What?” I ask. “What?”

“GASCOYNE please excuse me for hitting you over the head, I thought you were Dmitri.”

It’s Nancy.

“Nancy do me a favor and call my doctor and tell him I’m coming right in to have my head looked at.”

I give her the number and she calls. My head hurts like hell and I’m not sure I’m going to live. She must have used a tire iron.

After she calls she helps me down to the car and I talk her into driving me in my car to the doctor’s which isn’t too far away. We walk around to the alley and I lie down in the back seat and she gets the thing going.

“Go down Mirindaranda Road east,” I say. “What did you want to hit Dmitri over the head for?”

“And tell me Nancy, what were you doing at Roughah’s the afternoon he was murdered?”

“Just screwing around,” she says. “Hey why do you drive an old wreck like this for?”

“Old wreck? It still runs.”

“Oh well you know GASCOYNE. It smells bad.”

“Smells all right to me. But never mind, tell me do you know anybody who likes to dress up as a tree sloth?”

“To screw in? I don’t go in for that kind of trick,” she says. “I like to do it in the raw.”

“Umm. Well do you know what O’Mallollolly was doing there the afternoon of the murder?”

She gives a little shriek and swerves and goes through a red light.

“How did you know he was there?” she asks weakly.

“Because I was there too.”

She gasps. “I didn’t know you were there.”

“Nobody else did either. Turn left at Lantana Lane.”

“Where’s that?”

“Next signal. Well what was O’Mallollolly doing there?”

“GASCOYNE please don’t ask, please!”

“Why not?”

“There are some things people just must never know,” she says.

“I won’t tell anybody.”

“Promise? Left here?” she asks.

“What’s it worth to you GASCOYNE?”

“Third building down.”

“The pink one?”

“The pink one,” I say. “Look Nancy it never pays to buy information like that. Either you tell me or you don’t.”

“But I’m broke GASCOYNE.”

“Broke? You’re broke? How can you be when you’ve been getting exactly thirty-two hundred a month from Roughah for the last three years?”

“How did you know that?” she asks.

“I know most everything. It’s my profession. Now you must tell me why you’re broke.”

She goes quiet and stiff. “I can’t. They’ll kill me.”

“All right we’ll talk about it some other time when they won’t. Stop here.”

She pulls up to the curb and we get out and she gives me back the keys.

“My car’s back at Dmitri’s,” she says.

“So?”

“How do I get back to it?”

“Take a taxi.”

“Sure,” she says.

I give her a crisp new dollar bill. She isn’t grateful. Sometimes she can be a real bitch.

“Hey Doc some broad hit me over the head with a tire iron. See what’s the matter with it.”

“Mmm,” he says looking at my head up close.

“And as long as I’m here, expect three girls on Thursday, four on Friday and nine on Saturday.”

“Good. GASCOYNE, someday you’ve got to tell me how you infiltrated the Salvation Army Door of Hope. Ha!”

“Easy, ducks in a barrel. Hey, I told you not to eat garlic on the job,” I say because boy does he reek.

“Ha!”

“Stop it for God’s sake.” Disgusting.

“There’s nothing wrong with your head.”

“You’re kidding,” I say. “It still hurts.”

“Then wear a hat to keep it warm a few days, then take off the hat.”

“Quack,” I say.

“Ha!”

“Next week,” I say, “I want you to raise your rates twenty bucks.”

“What do I get out of that?”

“Seven.”

“Cheapskate.”

“You know where it all goes.”

“Sure.”

*

I dial Chester but the line’s busy and then as I’m turning left onto Mirindaranda Road, Marge calls.

“Hel-lo dear,” she says.

“Hello Marge, how’s the time passing?”

“Oh not so bad but I’m horribly tired.”

“Tired?” I ask. “What from?”

“Oh nothing dear, just the altitude or something. The air’s so thin up here. Like pea soup.”

“Pea soup?”

“Isn’t that thin?” she asks.

“No, thick.”

“Oh.”

“Are you all right Marge?”

“Yee-es dear I’m fine, feel great, just a little tired though. My back aches.”

“Your back aches?”

“How’d that happen?” I ask.

“Well I must have strained a muscle in my thigh dear.”

“But how Marge?”

“Oh I don’t know dear, it’s the altitude or the bar stool or something. Oh I feel so good!”

“I thought you said you were feeling bad.”

“Oh no dear, I feel just grr–eat, it’s this fresh mountain air that just fills you up and renews you.”

“Are you sure you’re all right Marge? Are you with someone?”

“No that nice cowpoke left a little while ago. He was feeling rather pooped himself. No there’s nobody here but the nice boy behind the bar.”

“You’re sure you’re not drinking too much now Marge.”

“No dear I’m just taking a little sip now and then. I even had a cup of coffee a little while ago.”

“How nice.”

“The cowpoke made it.”

“How resourceful of him.”

“Not really. He went up to his cabin and made it.”

“What cabin?” I ask.

“He has a cosy little cabin right behind the gas station.”

“But are there any cows at that altitude?”

“Not a one,” she says.

“Then what does he do for a living Marge?”

“Oh. When will the car be ready?”

“Frankly dear I just haven’t got the energy to go out there and ask.”

“Well I hope soon,” I say.

“Of course dear.”

“Well Marge I’ve got to be going so give me a ring when you feel like talking again.”

I hang up and dial Chester again but the line’s still busy, very unusual and damn annoying. Suddenly I notice in the rearview a silver Porsche I think I saw behind me earlier on Mirindaranda Road and I wonder whether I’m being followed. My old Nash is no match against anything like that except ballistically, but anything is worth a try. But first I need gas and so I pull into the next BIG DADDY SERV-UR-SELPH STATION and stop the car and hop out and flip open the gas port and unscrew the gas cap. Then I stick the nozzle in and let go with BIG DADDY PURPLE CROWN HIGHER OCTANE ETHYL and tell the boy to shove three quarts of BIG DADDY ROYAL GRADE IMPERIAL 30 SAE SLUDGE BANISHING DETERGENT LUBRICATING LIQUID into the engine and add a little can of Garfield F. Geen’s Original Friction Stopper because I’ve got about seven clackety valves.

I remind him he’s got to do the glass and tires and I head for the John where I take a leak and a crap and wash my face and comb my hair and brush my teeth with the brand-new toothbrush I lifted from Dmitri’s. I always carry a small tube of toothpaste around in my pocket but a toothbrush I can never keep ahold of.

I go back outside and notice that the Porsche is getting a similar treatment at the Standard Station down the street, which means pretty clearly I’m being followed by them.

The guy hands me my bill for fifteen dollars and eighty-nine cents along with thirty-two BIG DADDY PURPLE PAISLEY STAMPS which can be redeemed at the end of every year for the appropriate number of cases of BIG DADDY SUPER KRAZY KOLA which cannot be otherwise obtained or bought from any source whatever. I pull out my BIG DADDY BIG CHARGE CARD and present it to the attendant and he goes through the usual facial gymnastics upon looking at it and of course when he goes into the office I can see him rounding up the rest of the staff to come take a peek at the BIG DADDY HIMSELF IN PERSON.

He mumbles some apology and helps me into the car which I start with a cloud of black smoke, which somehow happens every time I stop for gas. I bounce out of the station and immediately the Porsche is on my tail out of the Standard Station, I don’t know what they’ve got that I haven’t at slightly higher prices, and stays there so close that playing the signals game is out of the question. The only thing to do is to get out of town a ways and then try to clear matters up. I slip over into the fast lane and set the thing at forty-three. Then Chester calls.

“Where’ve you been?” I ask right off.

“Sorry boss, everything was going on at once and the switchboard just couldn’t handle it all so I had to use the private line. Here’s the situation. First, the U.A.R. man who was to take the jeeps off our hands didn’t show up for the rendezvous.”

“Damn!”

“Well we’re still waiting.”

“Didn’t we get a deposit from him?”

“Ten percent,” he says.

“That helps.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah boss, with all those shells going off the fire department will be scared to go inside.”

“Of course, I see. Well tell him he can do it for thirty grand,” I say.

“All right, he’ll take that boss. Now the next thing is insurance. We were going through some of Roughah’s office records for a couple of years ago and we found a vague reference to an insurance policy, that is, something about the high price of premiums.”

“That sure rings a bell somewhere Chester.”

“Wish I could help you boss but the thing dates from before my time.”

“Well keep looking.”

“Will do—” he says but is cut short by a coughing spasm like I’ve never heard before.

“What’s the matter, you don’t sound so well Chester.”

“Just a little tired boss.”

“Well hang on for another week Chester and I’ll let you have a little vacation. Just can’t spare you now, you know that.”

“That’s the spirit Chester.”

I roll past piles and heaps and rows of cars that have had it in one way or another and wish I could stop and poke through a couple of yards because that’s one of the things I like to do best to pass the time, especially in a junk yard that’s got cars running back into the thirties and miscellaneous mechanical junk besides. There’s something about stumbling across an old maroon ’47 Ford sedan, for example, that’s been totaled on the front end in a nasty way, that’s really moving because it calls back those days, not so far away really, with the new Fords in the showrooms and the smell and glitter and the ads all over, “There’s a Ford in YOUR Future,” and you can see all this in a rusty wreck with the steering wheel smashed up into the windshield, and that’s the amazing thing. Of course it’s a little sad in a way that new cars get old and rusty but that’s what keeps the economy moving.

I get a bit of a laugh when I run past one place and catch a glimpse of what looks like the charred remains of O’Mallollolly’s Cad limousine and think that’s one that might be picked up for a song, looks like the engine hasn’t been touched. Two months old, as I recall. A little paint and upholstery and it’ll look like new.

The farmland whips by pretty fast at least and soon we hit the hills and gulleys and canyons of Mallarmee Badlands and I have to pull back into the right lane and slow down because of the blind corners. I handle them pretty well in spite of the tires screaming their heads off and the right side of the car shuddering something awful on all the curves left, but then I begin to notice a slow drop in oil pressure and a slow rise in engine temperature and I begin to worry a little and it’s pretty clear this is one race I’m not going to win.

Then with one hand whipping the steering wheel through the curves I pull out my automatic with the other and unscrew the safety just as I hit a very sharp curve. The right front end of the car starts going whackety-whack-whomp with a lot of bouncing up and down and then the front tire goes out with a boom and I finish the curve in a nice four-wheel drift backwards, which deposits me otherwise unharmed on a nice wide hard shoulder. I turn off the ignition and crouch down behind the door as best I can, gun ready.

“Having trouble?” asks the driver, who’s got a green felt hat on with a feather in it.

“No just stopped to let the tire take a leak.”

The guy with the feather slams his gloved hands against the steering wheel and cackles a moment and turns to the guy next to him and mumbles something. Then everybody in the car cackles and slams their gloved hands against things, making quite a racket which must be pretty unbearable inside that can.

“Let us help you change it,” the feather says.

“Wouldn’t think of it.”

“Oh please,” he says as if he’s carrying a big bowl and God knows what in his gloved hands, “we have not anything else to do.”

About then I think I detect a slight foreign accent, sounds German.

“But you will get your gloves dirty,” I say.

“We have others.”

I smell something fishy but it’s pretty hard talking fast when you’ve got a flat tire underneath you and wondering what they’re carrying all those gloves around for.

“We even have a pair for you,” he adds.

“What size?” I ask to stall a little.

“All sizes,” he says.

The Porsche’s exhaust goes punk-punk-punk-ta-punk and I try to think of a fast way out of this one.

“You O’Mallollolly’s boys?” I ask.

Feather looks at me kind of funny and scratches his chin and mumbles something to Glovesies next to him. Glovesies shrugs.

“Never heard of him,” Feather says to me which pretty well throws me off my saddle.

“Okay you guys just what do you want?” I ask.

“To change your tire,” says Feather.

“No thanks, I’ll do it myself,” I say as menacingly as I can, which isn’t tame.

“As you wish,” says Feather with a shrug and then he throws the tin can into gear and just then I remember I haven’t got a wheel wrench.

“Hey wait a minute!” I yell.

He stops the car and backs up.

“Say do you suppose I could borrow your wheel wrench for a couple of minutes?” I ask.

“Sure,” he says and starts getting out.

“But no sudden moves,” I say and let the tip of the gun barrel show above the windowsill.

“Just drop it on the ground there,” I say.

He does that and climbs back into the Porsche.

“Okay now scram,” I say. “I’ll leave the thing here for you for when you come back.”

He gives me a nice little smile and off they go with a shudder and drive down the road about two hundred yards and then pull over to the side and stop, which sort of pisses me off, some people just don’t know when they’re not wanted around here.

I slip the gun into my pants pocket and slide out the right door and go around to the trunk where I swing down the continental tire kit which doesn’t have a tire in it and unlock the trunk and pull out the spare and jack. I cart all of this around to the front and slip the jack under the front bumper and pump away which is a hell of a lot of work and I swear that one of these days I’m going to get a chauffeur to do this sort of thing. I get the jack up and the tire off and slip on the spare which seems to have enough air in it and tighten everything up and let her down and pile the stuff back into the trunk including the wheel wrench which I decide to keep for all the trouble those jokers are causing me.

About then Chester calls.

“Say boss we’ve been giving that number—”

“Hang on a minute Chester, I want you to check out the license number of a fairly new Porsche,” and I give him the number of my friends behind, “and find out whatever else you can about the car, the bastards are following me.”

“Following you?”

“That’s right Chester.”

“Serious. O’Mallollolly’s boys?”

“To tell you the truth I’m not sure,” I say.

“Okay, just a second boss.”

I can hear him relaying the number into another phone.

“Okay boss,” he says.

“One other thing before I forget it Chester, and that’s O’Mallollolly’s limousine which has been towed down to Rex Auto Wrecks where I think Ralph ought to be able to pick it up for a song. All right, what else is new?”

“I’m pretty sure that number you gave me to memorize is a Geneva bank account number.”

“Which bank?” I ask.

“Well that’s what we don’t know. If we can find that out we’re all set.”

“Go through Roughah’s papers with a fine-tooth comb.”

“Good thinking Chester.”

“Now I’m beginning to get the impression from Mark that there’s some sort of hitch in the freeway deal.”

“What?”

“He’s not talking yet, just a hint.”

“Mmm,” I say.

“You know Mark.”

“Yes. Okay now Chester what do you think the chances are of snatching Roughah’s body out of the Police Morgue?”

“Why boss?”

“O’Mallollolly’s going to make the inquest say suicide no matter what so the only way we can prove he was murdered is to get the body to the right people.”

“Right boss. I think Subcommissioner MacGanymede’s got a foothold in Cold Storage and I’ll ask him what can be done.”

“Do that Chester.”

“Chester I’m switching over to the Kaiser in about ten minutes. Leave a message for Marge at the Wolverine Lodge.”

“Okay boss.”

In a minute I turn left onto the east end of Mirindaranda Road and take my time with no fancy traffic and signal work so they won’t lose me because they’ve got to be close if my little plan’s going to work. We roll down Mirindaranda at a fair clip and then I take it real slow on the right turn onto Songtongob Avenue where I try to lengthen the gap to about a half block, but not enough to trap them in the tricky signals. Again I take a slow right at SWEETE OLDE GRANDMA’S SUGARY PANCAKE HOMERESTAURANT onto Kidney Street and go two blocks and turn left down the alley that runs back of Marge’s place and race up that as fast as I can to the next street, where I make a quick right turn just as the Porsche enters the alley.

I unfasten the seat belt and spring the door open and from what I can see as I slide out it’s going to take my friends a little while to pry themselves out of their tin can in good health or bad. I hotfoot it down the alley to Marge’s place and up her back stairs, I hope without being seen or followed, and then unlock her back door with the key she always leaves under a couple of rounds of that artificial plastic dogshit you can buy at your local novelty store.

Inside the kitchen her cat is about to faint or explode so I stop and open a LARGE EXPENSIVE-SIZE CAN of PUSSY YUM-YUM VITAMINIZED CAT FOOD FOR CAT GOURMETS which stinks to high heaven, but boy does it ever sell. Then I run through the living room and down the stairs and let myself quietly out the front door. The coast is clear, but then it’s pretty damn dark out now.

In spite of not being used to this kind of exercise, I do get the thing pumped up and when I kick it it sounds about like the others, so I figure I’m okay. I stash the pump in the trunk, thoroughly expecting now the five sardines to come around the corner on foot and ask me for a ride, they’re that type. No signs, however, and I climb inside the beast which smells like an old couch somebody’s turned water on, but then the thing has been shut up and sitting in the sun for weeks now and the fog at night. I fire her up and after one hell of a lot of coughing and missing and smoking out the rear, she finally smooths out and acts like she’s ready to be moved, so off we go.

I steer the Kaiser into the huge floodlighted parking lot which is half the size of the largest runway of the municipal airport and roll along slowly toward the main entrance. There’s not one leaf of vegetation on the lot and most people notice that on the long hike from the car to entrance and think what a nice thing it would be to have trees around, and so we very obligingly surround the main entrance with the BONANZA-BANQUETTE GREEN OASIS NURSERY where they can buy a whole forest to take home if they want which some of them need since the B. C. CITY ESTATE HOMES were sold without one leaf of vegetation on them also.

Things are pretty crowded tonight whatever day of the week it is, and I push my way through the shoppers and turnstiles and look for the canned fish section which I can never remember where it is, somewhere over in the corner I think. I grab a shopping cart not because I need one but because I don’t want to give people the idea that it’s respectable to go through a supermarket without one, and if you’ve got a cart you’ve pretty well got to put something in it because you know how much they bounce and rattle when they’re empty. Also I want to try out this new kind of cart we’ve got and so I head for the conspicuous EXPENSIVE FANCY GOURMET FOODS AND DELICACIES DEPARTMENT and trundle along at an average fast shopper’s speed. As soon as I hit FANCY FOODS I feel the almost imperceptible drag in the cart wheels which is caused by a magnetic field in the floor actuating tiny magnets which push small abrasive pads against the cart wheels and thus slow the cart and shopper down to a slightly slower than normal browsing rate which is often enough to drag the shopper down to the average buying stance, which is characterized by an instant of total immobility and silence and a reflective look on the face immediately preceding the dancelike gesture which removes the can or whatever from the shelf and drops it into the cart while at the same time already moving on to the next item, or cash register.

“Anything else, honey?” she asks.

“Nope.”

She gives the cash register a last rabbit punch and I slip out a Presidential Voucher pad and write one out for seventy-nine cents and hand it to her. She looks at it and compares the signature with the master form and stamps it and gives me back the carbon and starts reaching for the next six-items-or-less load not even bothering to say thanks, of course she isn’t supposed to.

Good girl that one, I think as I hike back to the car, more of her and we’ll have six-items-or-less completely stamped out; what doesn’t pay ought not to exist, as I always say.

“Hey,” he says, “you’d better get this wreck out of here damn quick, this space is reserved for GASCOYNE.”

“It’s all right sonnyboy.”

“You think? Just get your ass out of here—”

“It’s all right I said, I’m GASCOYNE.”

He takes a look at the driver’s license I shove under his nose but I can tell he’s the skeptical kind and I don’t have the time to give him the whole proof. I don’t get around to these places very often so this sort of thing is common enough. I start up the Kaiser and race the engine to clear it out and shove it in reverse and take my driver’s license back. He gives me a mean look for his young age and I pull out of there.

I finish up the kippers and toss the can out the window and take on some more crackers as I get the Kaiser rolling again, missing a bit more than normal. All of a sudden I wonder where the hell I’m going and feel a little drowsy which is what happens every time I eat dinner though my memory’s something that sort of comes and goes. There’s this Roughah and O’Mallollolly thing to be cleared up, I know that, but I’m just too tired to think of how far I’ve got.

Nothing else to do, so I pull back over to the curb and turn off the lights and ignition and push the seat back and hit the hay.

I wake up about ten minutes later and pull the seat forward and turn on the ignition and lights and put the Kaiser into drive. Then I give Chester a ring.

“Hello Chester?”

“No boss, this is Steve.”

“Where the hell’s Chester?”

“Went out for a late night snack,” he says.

“Hell I told him to have his food brought in, what’s got into him?”

“Don’t ask me, boss.”

“Sorry I don’t know, boss. He didn’t say anything else.”

“That’s better. He didn’t tell you where Nadine Corell is right now?”

“No boss and I can’t make out a word of his shorthand.”

“Damn!”

I hang up thinking Chester above all ought to know better than to do something like that but there’s not a thing I can do about it at the moment so I decide to run over to the Roughah digs on the chance of finding the Widow Roughah there and seeing if she has anything new to say. I put on the supercharger and whiz up through the VIEWORAMA RIDGE FAMILY HOMES WITH GARDENS TRACT and then down to Mirindaranda Road where I turn right heading straight for the Roughah digs. Traffic’s getting lighter every minute and I always look forward to the time when there’s nobody else on the street but a few cops and street cleaners and drunks.

Pretty soon I get to the Roughah gate and looking left as far as I can make out the red and white and blue are still in the garage. Lights are on up at Mt. Vernon so somebody must be there. I turn right and leave the Kaiser, which is strangely wheezing, on the street out of sight from the gate or house. I turn off the lights and motor and stash a fistful of crackers into my coat pocket and pop myself out of the car.

However from somewhere upstairs I hear low-pitched pulsations and I spot the open window that they’re coming from on the second floor. I hotfoot it down to the tool shed out back that I’ve got a key to and unlock it and pull out a tall lightweight aluminium ladder which I tote back and lay against the house below the window. I take off my shoes and cram them into my coat pockets to keep the noise down and then I climb up the ladder to the window and what a sight!

First there’s the Widow Roughah stretched out on the bed naked as all hell and second more or less on top of her is the hairy-chested fake giant tree sloth, and I think some people sure like to butter their bread funny. I always thought there was more than meets the eye in that woman and now I know what. But I really feel sorry for the poor bastard inside the sloth suit which must smell like twenty-nine jockstraps in a pressure cooker. But maybe he likes that, you never know.

They finish up and now I figure is the time to go downstairs and make an appearance. I climb down the ladder and carry it back to where it belongs and go to the front door and pound on it and ring the doorbell at the same time. After about ten minutes the Widow Roughah opens the door in that slinky black gown of hers.

“What do you want GASCOYNE?” she asks with not very much interest evident.

“Are you alone?” I ask and nudge the door open wider and squeeze through.

“Yes.”

“You’re lying again Nadine.”

We walk into the living room which is the scene of the crime.

“Yes,” she says thoughtfully, “I am.”

“Well?”

“I have my reasons,” she says.

“Name one.”

“Sometimes I just like to lie, that’s all.”

“All right. Let’s get down to brass tacks. Do you know anything about a number with eight digits in it?” I ask, fingering the little gold coin in my pants pocket.

She counts on her fingers up to eight. “No, do you?”

“It doesn’t ring a bell or anything like that?” I ask.

“Well,” I say, “it really doesn’t matter what the number is if it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Give me the number,” she says, “and I’ll see if it rings a bell.”

“No I can’t do that Nadine.”

“Well give me part of it then.”

“What for?” I ask.

“Curiosity.”

“All right, one of the digits is nine.”

“Nine?”

“Yes, nine.”

“Nine. Which digit?” she asks.

“Well I just agreed to give a digit but I didn’t agree to tell you which digit.”

“Oh don’t be silly GASCOYNE. If I had all the numbers except one digit I wouldn’t need to know where it went, would I?”

“Somebody might have given you the digits in the wrong order,” I say.

“Still, knowing where the nine goes wouldn’t help all that much.”

“It might,” I say. “Supposing someone gave you the eight digits in the proper sequence but without telling you which digit began the number. Thus if I told you that nine was the third digit then all you would have to do to restore the proper number would be to count three to the left”

“No.”

“Please GASCOYNE.”

“No.”

“Now look here,” she says, “I’m paying you to find out little bits of information like this.”

“But I am the judge of which information is relevant to the case, Miss Corell, and don’t you ever forget that.”

She glares at me.

“Then,” I go on, “an eight-digit number with nine as one or more of the digits does ring a bell.”

“No,” she says, “it doesn’t ring a goddamn thing.”

“Pshaw,” I say.

She goes and flings herself stomach down on a sofa not far from the bat-winged bloodstain.

“Now Miss Corell it has come to my attention that there is probably in existence a life insurance policy purchased by your late husband which is estimated at about a million bucks with you presumably as the beneficiary,” I say as if I know it to be dead certain. “Is that right?”

“Close enough.”

“And who has a copy of the policy at the moment?”

“Only I,” she says.

“Might I be able to examine it someday?” I ask.

“Not on your life.”

“Very well. If that’s the way you feel.”

“It is,” she says.

“That’s correct.”

“Then you don’t really give a damn about the character or exact identity of the murderer or hypothetical murderer.”

“Murderer,” she corrects. “No, I don’t.”

“Thus you would have no objections to a frame-up.”

“None whatever.”

“Is there anyone in particular you would like to see framed up?” I ask.

“I can’t think of anyone at the moment but I’ll think about it and let you know.”

“I’d sure appreciate that Miss Corell. Now the next thing—”

Just then the doorbell rings loudly and there’s pounding on the door. Nadine though keeps laying there tummy down on the sofa looking wistfully at the bat-shaped bloodstain.

“Well,” I say, “aren’t you going to answer it?”

“GASCOYNE I’d like you to meet Jeremy Armstrong, an old friend of mine,” says Nadine in a hostesslike way that reminds me of the good old days.

Then as she’s showing us where to sit down she manages to get between us and looks at me and mouths in a whisper, “Just pretend like everything’s all right!”

“Well Mr. Armstrong what do you do for a living?” I ask as we all sit down.

“At the moment nothing. I’ve just come back from the wars.…”

“What wars?”

“Well I’m sorry I can’t say sir,” he says.

“Oh those wars. I understand.”

“Cigarette?”

“No,” I say, “I don’t smoke. I don’t drink either.”

Though right now I sure could use something because that octopus tentacle waving around is a little more than I can take. But he doesn’t seem to mind it at all. Funny what you can get used to. Of course what I want to know is where the other seven tentacles are and what they’re doing.

“Well Mr. Armstrong,” I ask just as soon as I can think up a question, “how do you intend to make your living now that you’re back from the wars?”

“I hope sir to find a position.”

“What sort?” I ask.

“An office position sir.”

He looks at me strangely and then stiffens up and his eyes jerk to a straight ahead position.

“Give it a peanut,” he says hoarsely and adding, “please.”

The end of the tentacle is now curled around like an elephant’s trunk which must be its feeding position.

“Give it a peanut!” Nadine whispers at me urgently.

I rummage through my pockets.

“I don’t have any peanuts. All I’ve got are Ritz crackers.”

“Give it a peanut,” croaks Jeremy Armstrong.

“We’ve got to give it a peanut!” says Nadine.

“What’ll happen if we don’t?”

“I don’t know but it’s pretty awful.”

I begin to get the picture. Armstrong’s still stuck in his trancelike state but the octopus arm is getting a little impatient and waving around with a hell of a lot of gusto.

“Get the butler,” I whisper to Nadine.

She reaches over the sofa and pulls the bell cord. About then Armstrong falls off his chair and doubles up on the rug with the tentacle making like it’s smoothing his hair.

“Damn!” says Nadine.

“What?”

“I forgot. The butler’s dead.”

“There must be other servants,” I say.

She pushed a little button at the base of a table lamp, revealing a round illuminated dial reading from left to right Butler, Upstairs Maid, Downstairs Maid, Chauffeur, Gardener, Gamekeeper, Chef, Lawyer.

“Who would have peanuts?” she asks.

“Give it a peanut,” Armstrong moans.

“Try the chef,” I say.

She turns the gadget to Chef and pushes a button.

Now the tentacle starts taking nasty jerks at Armstrong’s hair which makes him shudder.

The chef walks in the door sleepy-eyed and holding up his pajama bottoms with one hand.

“Man, get me a bag of salted peanuts this very instant!” Nadine shrieks in a state of near collapse.

The chef runs out the door and I get up to make sure he does in fact go after the peanuts but in a second he comes back in and I grab the box of peanuts away from him and Nadine snatches it from me. About this point the octopus tentacle starts picking Armstrong’s nose which is pretty disgusting. Nadine rips off the cellophane and the box top and pulls out a peanut and smashes the shell and picks out a solitary nut which she splits in half and offers to the tentacle. The tentacle sniffs at it a moment and then gingerly takes it and thrusts it into Armstrong’s ear-hole. Finally the tentacle curls up in Armstrong’s ear as best the space allows anyway and appears to go to sleep, which is what the rest of Armstrong is now doing with very loud snores.

“GASCOYNE you’ve got to do something to help the poor boy.”

“Who is he?”

“We were lovers before I married Roughah for his money. I haven’t seen Jeremy since the day of my marriage, I mean he came to see me as soon as he heard of Roughah’s death. He was here this afternoon, again with that horrible thing sticking out of his ear.”

“Where did he ever pick it up?” I ask.

“I don’t know. He obviously got it during the wars but of course he can’t say anything about the wars, you know how they are. But there’s something very strange back of all this GASCOYNE.”

“I’ll say. Uncanny. Weird. Unearthly.”

“Awful. Can you do something GASCOYNE? I mean the poor boy can’t go on like this. And what if it spreads?”

“Grows larger you mean?”

“No. What if it’s contagious?”

“Mmm. That would be serious,” I say.

“For my sake GASCOYNE do something.”

“Love him do you?”

“Yes,” she says.

“I’ll see what I can do. It’ll cost you a little extra you know.”

“I’ll pay anything GASCOYNE to have him freed from that thing.”

“You know we could just cut it off,” I suggest.

She shudders. “I couldn’t think of it.”

“Anything GASCOYNE anything!”

“All right. Now I’ve got an in with a man who knows about these things and it’ll take me a couple of hours to get out and back to see him. In the meantime I want you to put Jeremy here in a well-heated room with lots of salted peanuts. And don’t let anybody in or out of that room, understand?”

“Yes GASCOYNE. And thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I slip out the front door and hike down the gravel driveway and get about halfway down when I remember I forgot to give her the third degree on the sloth suit upstairs, I’m getting absentminded in my old age but then I can’t say that things going on at the moment are exactly simple and easy to keep track of, lucky I’ve got what memory I’ve got.

I get back to the Kaiser and climb in and get her rolling though she doesn’t want to much and then give Chester a ring.

“Chester what the hell do you think you’re trying to do by running out of the office at a time like this to eat?”

“It wasn’t only that boss, I had to get some pills.”

“Pills?”

“Yeah, I got some shooting pains in my chest.”

“Hell I told you you shouldn’t smoke.”

“Well all right all I want you to do next time you want to go out is just let me know, even if it’s just to go piss in the toilet next door. I don’t mind shooting pains Chester but a job’s a job.”

“Sure boss,” he says.

“All right what’s the latest dope?”

“First the Porsche you asked about was sold out-of-state and licensed here only this month under the name of Fritz Schmidt, whose address turns out to be a vacant lot.”

“Strange,” I say.

“That’s all we know. Now we still haven’t found out what happened to Gifford who was trailing O’Mallollolly but what’s-his-name trailing Dmitri saw O’Mallollolly go into Dmitri’s place with Nancy and Nadine Roughah earlier this evening.”

“That must have been about the time I was busy with the Porsche crowd. Well Chester get Willy or somebody back on O’Mallollolly’s tail. At this hour he’s either at Police Tower or home, and I want reports every half hour if possible, got it? The sooner I know what he’s up to the happier I’ll be.”

“Right boss.”

“What else is there?”

“Not much good,” he says. “No word on the jeeps yet. And we’re still waiting to hear from Mark. Something’s bad in the wind on the housing-tract-freeway deal but what it is he’s not giving yet.”

“Don’t know boss. Louis is now overdue on the TJ package.”

“What’s it worth?” I ask.

“About two and a half million.”

“Hmm,” I say.

“Yeah it’ll be pretty hot if he gets nabbed.”

“I’ll say. Well what’s the latest on Roughah’s body?”

“Afraid we’ve been anticipated there boss. O’Mallollolly’s got it set up that nobody can touch it with a ten-foot pole and MacGanymede’s pretty glum about switching bodies.”

“See what you can do Chester.”

“Sure boss,” he says with a voice that sounds a little funny.

“You all right?”

“Just a little tired boss, like I said.”

“A cup of fresh coffee can do wonders Chester.”

“I’ll try it boss.”

But at least the Widow Roughah is beginning to see the value of telling the truth now and then and there’s reason to suppose this might become a habit. What I really want to see is that insurance policy to make sure she’s on the level about that and because somewhere in the back of my mind Roughah and insurance policy are rubbing together in an unusual way and I want to know why.

About then some idiot coming the opposite direction on the Skyway jumps the center strip and goes end over end clear across into our slow lane and piles into a moving van and the whole shooting match plows through the side railing and sails off the Skyway into the SKYWAY VIEW HOMES FOR FAST-LIVING FAMILIES TRACT and the last I see of them is an orange glow down below out the rearview. Somebody down there’s going to have something to talk about over breakfast. That’s about the fanciest one I’ve seen in a long time and I get to see quite a few because one of the advantages of being on the road all the time is you pretty often find yourself in a front-row seat for freeway spectaculars.

“Hi Marge, where are you calling from?”

“The Wolverine Lodge dear, and I’ve got a beautiful room. View of the pine trees, the lake, Mount Pastiche with the sun coming up all over it, everything.”

“For how much?”

“Twenty-five dear, very cheap.”

“Well I don’t know about that. That sounds pretty expensive to me Marge; Didn’t they have any cheaper rooms?”

“Oh just one for fifteen practically in the basement,” she says.

“Did you look at it?”

“Of course not dear. The nice man at the desk told me frankly it just wasn’t suitable. Right above the boiler room and just under the kitchen,” she says.

“Oh no dear, it’s a double.”

“A double? What did you want a double for?”

“They didn’t have any singles left,” she says.

“Oh. How was your trip up?”

“Oh just marvelous.”

“No more car trouble?” I ask.

“Not a bit. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.”

“Oh?”

“Well dear I was very lucky. It seems that the nice boy who keeps the bar at Crankcase Grade Summit had to come up to Wolverine Camptown to pick up his car which broke down there.”

“Yes?”

“Well so I offered him a ride, and in fact I was so tired yesterday afternoon and really rather smashed that I just let him do the driving and I sat back and relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.”

“Well now Marge really I don’t think you should carry around strange men. After all that car is worth almost six thousand dollars and we can’t have it insured for everybody’s uncle to drive, and you know how these teen-agers are.”

“He’s not a teen-ager dear,” she says. “He’s twenty-three and quite grown up.”

“Did he drive safely?”

“Oh yes.”

“Oh let me see now. About three hours,” she says.

“Three hours? He must have driven very slowly.”

“Oh no dear, we stopped for a little picnic for a couple of hours, the weather was so nice at the other side of the pass.”

“Umm. What are you doing now Marge?”

“Just lying in bed watching the sun come up, you know, and digesting my breakfast. The air is so good up here that all you want to do is lie around and breathe. Exhilarating!”

“Well now Marge don’t forget what I sent you up there for in the first place.”

“Yes, I’ll get up to Condor’s Crag late this afternoon I expect. At the moment I’m just too exhausted. My whole body just sort of aches all over, very pleasant—”

“Whatever from Marge?”

“The altitude dear. Its effects are quite penetrating.”

“Funny I’ve never felt that before.”

“Well that’s just the way you are,” she says.

“Okay Marge I’ve got to go.”

Pretty soon I reach the place where the Skyway comes back down to the ground on the edge of the wheatlands and where you can first see the towers of Fort Frigge Army Base which everybody in town thinks is a big storage dump for things they’re going to use in the next war but the place is really a cover for NON-PROFIT DEFENSIVE ZOOLOGICAL WARFARE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED which is one of these government contractors with special milking privileges because we were able to talk the government into believing there was nobody else around with enough brains to do the job, no little trick that one was. Most of the joint is stuck under the ground or in places that look like warehouses and we’ve got about five thousand people working there secretly, but so that nobody gets suspicious and wondering why so many Ph.Ds in defensive zoological warfare are in the area they’ve put up a big fancy Agriculture Department Testing Station just down the road and they let it out that since there’s nothing these days for the zoological warfare people to do they give them work on peaceful plants and animals.

I slip the Kaiser into the G slot beside a huge building that’s supposed to have nothing in it but mothballed jeep pistons but the place really sits on top of the whole NON-PROFIT DEFENSIVE ZOOLOGICAL WARFARE SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATION AND LABORATORIES which go straight down into the ground for a hell of a long ways.

I climb out of the car and hoof it over to the main entrance of the building and give my visitor’s pass to an army security Pfc who gives me a little form to fill out. I tell him I haven’t got my glasses with me so he fills it out for me and pushes a button and opens a wooden hatch in the floor behind his desk and helps me into the hole which is almost too small for me. I get my feet planted firmly on the wooden rungs of the ladder, and since I’ve been through this about ten times before I don’t really mind that he’s picked my pockets, they give it all back to you when you leave.

I reach the bottom of the ladder with a lot of splinters in my hands and kick myself for forgetting the gloves I always mean to bring. The ladder ends in a small floodlighted room which is where army security leaves off and NONPROFIT DEFENSIVE ZOOLOGICAL takes over. One wall of the thing which is about ten by twenty-five feet is completely covered with a security poster with letters in white against black seven feet tall reading “SHHHHH!” and underneath in very small white letters SECURITY IS YOUR BUSINESS. ALSO YOUR JOB.… Why they put it here I don’t know since the regular employees come in an easier way but maybe they couldn’t find anybody who’d have the thing in his office, pretty clear why.

I go through a small door left into the reception office and a girl behind a typewriter is already looking over the stuff the Pfc sent down and the photographs and X-rays and things taken on the way down the hole.

“Mr. GASCOYNE,” she says in that snotty voice these typing chicks sometimes get, “I see you’ve gained two pounds since you were last here.”

“That’s right.”

“Constipation,” I say.

Her glassy wet eyes twitch an upper lid or two and her pen descends to the paper like a pin into a voodoo doll.

“We must be very careful you know Mr. GASCOYNE. Very careful indeed.”

Moments like this I pride myself on saying nothing at all. She goes and stamps a pass form and lovingly crunches a number slip onto it with a stapler that she bangs like she was delivering a fatal judo punch and then she grinds a finger into a button like she’s hoping somehow it’ll make a bomb go off somewhere.

After a second the secretary of Dr. Phialson, the man I want to see, clanks in and clips a little red SHHH! badge to my lapel which is to remind people I don’t have a security clearance, not that I need one, and it even glows in the dark in case they have a power failure down here. Then she puts the loop end of a long chain around my neck and puts the other end around hers which is to make sure that an uncleared person such as I am or any other visitor is always with his escort. All the chains themselves have a special security classification and must be kept in safes when not in use which enables the number of visitors in the place at one time to be monitor-confirmed and also if somebody finds a chain laying around it’s pretty damn clear something fishy’s going on somewhere.

“Grrfgh!” I reply with an appropriate gesture and march out.

We enter a hallway about twenty feet wide and a half-mile long and walk down it a ways and go past another security poster which shows in bright blue the mouth of a man sneezing with germ droplets flying everywhere with the caption “Keep Your Mouth Shut” with the usual pitch about security underneath.

“Turn left here,” says Miss Chain.

“Thanks for warning me.”

A black cloud of some little insect whizzes by next leaving behind a bad smell that makes my eyes water and makes me think I’m going to lose my last night’s sardine dinner but the smell goes away pretty fast. Then right off, this huge white fluffy round thing about seven feet in diameter comes staggering down the hallway on four tiny little feet underneath and then I see its little bitty face right square in the middle of this round ball and I realize the damn thing’s a white rabbit with a weight problem. It sort of bounces from one side of the hall to the other making the walls shake and then this secretary steps out across the hall to see what all the commotion is about and the large round white rabbit trips and knocks her down and rolls right over her and keeps on rolling down the hall out of sight while the secretary crawls back into her door.

Just a second later four guys in white coats and gloves and masks rush by like bats out of hell followed by a gun bearer, and a character with a foam fire extinguisher putting out the little fires. Next comes a little man dressed in black, nosing around everywhere and then he sees me and my SHHH! badge and comes over and says without even introducing himself or trying to find out who I am, “You have just committed a serious security violation by watching what passed pass.”

So then I remember he’s the security officer.

“Sure,” I say just to make the guy feel better, though he ought to know who I am and that I’m a busy man and don’t have time for dreams of any kind. He babbles on like that for a few minutes while Miss Chain caresses the back of my neck until I agree in a counterfeit sleepy tone that I haven’t seen a damn thing. He shakes my hand and runs off and Miss Chain and I go on our way. All I can think is that if I were a taxpayer I’d sure be pissed off at the poor state of organization in this joint, but of course the secret of getting profits out of these nonprofit things is to get the government so confused they don’t know where the money goes and pretty soon they don’t care either.

We turn a couple of corners and run past a guy killing flies with a bugbomb and then step into an office and old Miss Chain picks up a little wooden knocker and gives a big brass gong a whack. There are about ten girls typing and when they hear the noise they all look up from their typewriters and start pulling big SHHH! hoods, which are white with red lettering and tiny air holes, over their desks and bodies and heads and zip themselves up inside and that way conceal all the classified material laying around. We cross through them and go into the private office of Doc Phialson who’s in charge of the whole shooting match and he’s at his desk asleep over the comics section of the morning Times.

“Dr. Phialson?” says Miss Chain. “Oh Doctor?”

I almost forget that it’s a security violation for two people of different security classifications to shake hands and so does he but we stop in time.

“GASCOYNE! Sit down!”

Well I go and sit right down in the chair beside me forgetting completely about Miss Chain and so I give her a nasty jerk on the neck which throws her against the wall with a crash that really rattles her marbles and I stand up to help her but damn if she doesn’t fall to the floor which pulls me off my feet and I end up on the floor too under the chair I was sitting on two seconds before and bruised all over the place.

“Sorry,” I say.

“That’s all right,” she says, “it happens all the time.”

We make it back on our feet and Miss Chain passes her end of the chain to Doc who loops the end over his neck and then disconnects the thing in the middle and plugs my end into a special socket on his desk in front of me. Miss Chain staggers out of the room, what a nasty job she’s got, must be a tough bitch all right.

“Well GASCOYNE what the hell are you doing down here?”

“Well I’ll tell you.”

So I tell him about Nadine’s boyfriend with the ear trouble.

“Says he picked it up in the wars.”

“Did he now? Well he’s lucky to get back from the wars at all. Not many come back, you know. They like to use them up. Saves money and time and they learn a lot in the field. Can’t have a lot of boys coming back who haven’t had the full treatment, and that doesn’t leave much choice.”

“Can this thing be cured?” I ask.

“Presumably not. Otherwise they wouldn’t have sent him back.” He picks up a fine wire-mesh cage with a spider in it and tosses it from hand to hand. “However it would be worth trying a three-time daily rinse with a very strong solution of Tide detergent, the washday miracle. Also I should recommend mashing up a half peanut and adding to it a small quantity of aspirin or Miltown, but most of all I’d have the boy run out and buy himself a very large hat.”

“You think it’s that way?”

“Indeed I do GASCOYNE. These wars are frightful things.” He keeps tossing the cage back and forth and then stops. “You see here one of our most recent failures.”

“Oh?”

“Earthworms?” I ask.

“Well actually the group includes earthworms, snails, slugs and other low-lying sticky fauna. One would never suspect that the lowly earthworm could be used as an instrument of war and holocaust, would one?”

“Never.”

“Well that’s what we felt until a little while ago. Then we developed this strain of extremely virile and prolific earthworms, three times fatter and twice as long as the regular size, and with a reproductive cycle not only three times shorter but also producing three times the offspring. Now supposing we were to seed the enemy farmlands with these extra-large worms which because they live underground are protected from insecticides, et cetera, except those that also kill crops. Now because of the excessive number of these beasts which would soon be produced, the enemy would first find his farmlands prospering extraordinarily because of the manner in which earthworms enrich the earth. The later effects however are most interesting. You have undoubtedly heard of Merula migratoria.”

“No,” I say.

He leans back and takes a piece of chalk and draws a picture of a bird on the blackboard.

“Well now to continue. As you know robins like earthworms. The bigger the better. In fact we are presently developing a very prolific strain of robin, three times larger than any robin now known to exist. Well now in the first year of Operation Earthworm, earthworm production under enemy territory will jump ahead by leaps and bounds, bringing on a bumper robin crop the next year, robins which of course will be of this new variety. Now, you have undoubtedly heard of Felis domestica or Felis catus.”

“No,” I say.

He draws what looks to me like a cat on the blackboard.

“More commonly known as the domesticated carnivore which we call the house cat, the common house cat. Now it is a well-known fact that cats like to catch robins and this situation is aided by the fact that robins must be on the ground in order to catch earthworms, though confidentially our department is working on a flying earthworm.”

“What for?”

“Beats me.”

“Very simple. Because these new cats are larger, more powerful and faster, they will quickly decimate the rat and mice populations, giving the grain crop a boost it has never had before. All right, at this stage the situation is this: fat earthworms, fat robins, fat cats, bumper grain crop. Now just imagine what will happen when we introduce our Micro-Mouse.”

“What’s that?”

“Well no not exactly.”

“Well the Air Force is developing a special twenty-ton Pregnant Micro-Mouse Non-Recoverable Transport and Distribution Satellite, the PMMNRTDS for short, that will carry over seven million Micro-Mice, slightly over six million of which will land safely in enemy territory. Well now the complete reproductive cycle of these Micro-Mice is a classified secret of a classification which in itself is Cosmic Top Secret, and only two men in this world know the length of the Micro-Mouse Reproductive Cycle, the MMRC for short.”

“Who?”

“The mouse expert who invented the Micro-Mouse—and the President.”

“You don’t say.”

“But it’s pretty common knowledge that the MMRC takes about a day, conception to birth.”

“Good God!”

“Well …”

“No grain. No bread. No corn. Nothing. Just eating Micro-Mice and frustrated extra-large cats.” Doc pulls out a Camel and lights it nervously. “Of course, there’s a rub.”

“What’s that?”

“Once even one pregnant Micro-Mouse is out, there’s nothing anybody can do to stop it.”

“What about regular old-fashioned house cats?” I ask.

“They can delay the explosion for perhaps a year, perhaps much less.”

“So …”

“Yes you see. If just one pregnant Micro-Mouse were to get out of Fort Frigge we would of necessity have to turn into a nation of mouse hunters devoting our complete gross national product of five hundred billion dollars to stamping out the little bastards. Much more dangerous than H-bombs.”

“How many are here?”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Statistically inevitable.”

“I imagine the enemy would pay quite a pile for a pregnant Micro-Mouse.”

“Quite,” says Doc. Then he whispers, “The highest offer so far is nine hundred grand.”

“Not bad.”

Doc leans over the desk a little closer.

“Well as I see it,” he says, “one of these days a Micro-Mouse is going to make a break and of course its descendants will be running around the enemy embassy before you can yell mouse, so why not do what’s going to happen in the first place and make a little profit on it?”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Okay GASCOYNE if you can get me one-point-five million for them I’ll give you forty percent.”

“Fifty on this one,” I say, “after all you get sixty percent of the regular NON-PROFIT ZOOLOGICAL SYSTEMS profits.”

“Forty,” he insists.

“Fifty.”

“All right, fifty,” he says.

“You are to insert the grains into the largest hole one by one. Under no circumstances are you to unscrew the top.”

Then he pulls out two old perfume atomizers, one of them filled with a pink liquid, the other with a green.

“This pinkish one contains a liquefied cyanide compound which you are to spray into the jar if things get out of hand or if there’s an emergency, and the other contains a virus to which the two pair of Micro-Mice in the jar are immune but not their offspring. This will enable you to keep the population down. Any questions?”

“No Doc.”

He puts all the junk in his briefcase and hooks up the chain between us again and we head out the office around a corner to employees’ reception where we have to wait a couple of minutes until my personal effects and valuables arrive and when they do I’m happy to find the little gold coin among them though some underpaid government employee lifted a grand of the three grand the Widow Roughah gave me and I’m a little pissed off about that.

Doc and me shoot up to ground level in the elevator and they let us out of the building without even looking in Doc’s briefcase and also out of the base. I drive Doc through the underpass to the FORT FRIGGE BIG DADDY SERV-UR-SELPH STATION across the freeway where he’s getting his car greased. I stash the Micro-Mice in the glove compartment and drop him off.

“I get it.”

After I dump Doc I zoom back under the underpass and pull over to the curb in front of one of those old-fashioned grimy little grocery stores and leave the motor running in the Kaiser while I hop out and duck in for a couple of pounds of bananas for breakfast because I’m getting damn hungry all of a sudden. The old lady inside overcharges for the things in the first place and then to make matters really bad goes and weighs part of her left boob with them which makes me so burning mad I lift a pack of Wrigley’s from the counter while she dumps the bananas into a sack, though I still think she comes out about three cents ahead on the deal and I make a mental note to look into plopping a BONANZA-BANQUETTE SUPERMARKET down across the street, that’ll teach her.

I climb back into the Kaiser and throw it in drive and turn left up the Skyway on-ramp and floor it with the supercharger on. I hit the slow lane about sixty and merge in just in front of a gas truck and dodge over to the fast lane and wind her up to eighty-five and start unpeeling the bananas. There’s something about munching bananas helps my thinking machinery and then too there’s nothing quite like dangling banana peels out the window and having them whipped from your fingers by the wind. I let one go and give Chester a ring.

“First, Flash Fingers did a great job with the WESTBINDER BRANCH BANK. The whole place burned up and there isn’t a scrap of paper left there.”

“Good. Anybody hear what the tax man had to say?”

“Yeah,” he says, “he said it was a put-up job.”

“Sure everybody knows that but can he prove it?”

“He’d be a genius if he could.”

“Right. What else?” I ask.

“Let’s see …”

There’s a hell of a long pause so I say, “You there Chester?”

“Sure boss, just a little drowsy, sorry.”

“All right. Well anyway what else is new?”

“Oh. Those guys in the Porsche don’t work for O’Mallollolly and don’t seem to even live in the state.”

“Hmm. You sure they’re not under O’Mallollolly?”

“Not according to Al in Personnel.”

“Can you trust him?” I ask.

“Always have boss.”

“All right, keep looking. What else is there?” I ask. Old Chester sounds pretty sluggish this morning.

“What’s-his-name’s back in town, Fernando.”

“Well, well.”

“Yeah boss. He wants to set up a big motel on the Coast about a hundred and seven miles north for tired travelers of both sexes. He’s got a couple of hundred girls lined up.”

“No news boss.”

“Last thing, make a rendezvous usual time with old Nick Tsvkzov. Tell him I’ve got something really hot for him.”

“Right boss.”

He pulls up behind me on the shoulder and climbs out of his Mercury like somebody’s smeared the seat with honey and hitches up his pants loaded with ammo and scratches his crotch and waddles over to my door and says, “Going pretty fast in an old clunker like this, aren’t you Pops?” Then he sticks his whole goddamn garlic-flavored head including cap and dark glasses in the window and says, “And you ought to know by now that there’s a law against littering.” He reaches in his shirt pocket and pulls out one of my banana peels and throws it plop in my lap.

For me that’s about the last straw which means I’m really going to give this yokel enough rope to hang himself by both ends.

“I have half a mind,” he goes on, “to make you get out and go pick up by hand every banana peel you’ve thrown out for the last three miles.”

“Well!” I say.

“On hands and knees.”

That’s pretty abusive and I think this is one trooper who’s going to retire at an early age on about ten bucks a week and since he’s going to pay in the end I let him have his fun. He pulls out a super deluxe size traffic citation book and starts all the thumb licking and ball-point pen clicking the real dumb ones do.

Well I figure things are about to the point of going too far so I reach for the door handle and give it a yank to get out and the damn thing comes off in my hand. I toss it on the floor and reach outside for that handle and get out to face the world’s most inflated state trooper.

“Know who I am?” I ask.

“No.”

He chooses that moment to clear his throat right onto my front hubcap, the unsanitary slob.

“Does that license number look at all familiar?” I ask.

He leans back and looks at the front license plate.

“Nope, sorry,” he says.

I wonder what his I.Q. is. “Look,” I say. “It’s me, GASCOYNE.”

“Prove it,” he says but I can tell he knows and has known all the damn while.

I whip out my driver’s license and flick it to him. He glances at it and hands it back.

“So you’re GASCOYNE,” he says like it doesn’t make any difference at all.

“That’s right. I’m GASCOYNE.”

Just the same the idiot opens his citation book and starts writing.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask, mighty peeved.

Well he sort of goes huff and puff I’ll blow your house down and starts shouting at the top of his lungs, “What the hell do you think I’m doing? I’m giving you citations for speeding twenty miles over the legal limit, littering on five separate occasions, changing lanes without signaling, driving a car without stoplights, windshield wipers and a state inspection sticker, speaking with insufficient respect to a state officer of the law, and I’m going to recommend that this pile of junk be declared a menace to the motoring public and be banned from the public thorough-fares!”

All this shouting about turns his face blue and in turn I’m almost ready to pull out my big guns and vaporize this toad but I decide not to because it’s pretty clear, clear as glass, that he’s just following orders and I’d better save my energy for the ones who are giving them.

He tears out the ticket and I obligingly take it and make it into shredded paper that flies away in the wind.

“That’s on there too,” he says, “in advance.”

“What?”

“Destroying state property and littering the public right-of-way a sixth time. They said you’d do it.”

Well that’s just too damned much to take so I step back into the car and blast off without signaling and dial Chester as fast as the old dial allows.

“Not sure boss.”

“What do you mean not sure? You’re being paid to know these things Chester and you’d better get smart damn quick.”

“Sure boss but I can’t help it. We never heard from Gifford again and when I sent out Willy I never heard from him either. I mean I can send twenty people after O’Mallollolly but—”

“Okay Chester then you just tell me where you think he is right now.”

“I’d guess Police Tower. What’s the matter boss?”

“A state trooper stopped me for speeding.”

“Holy shit!”

“Yeah,” I say, “and this is going to stop right now before it really gets started. I’m going down to Police Tower right now and I want you to have Gilman and Gary and Albert waiting at the corner of Ninth and Broadway in ten minutes, got it?”

“Yeah boss but—”

“But what Chester?”

“Well just that why not wait for the election?”

“Drive the speed limits for three months, are you out of your mind Chester? No, O’Mallollolly’s on his way out starting right now, I’ve let him have a free hand till now but what has he done with it but try to bite the gift horse? No siree, out!”