The Meandering Corpse

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

For Mr. and Mrs. B. H. Snow

or

For HAD

who's got more zip than Shell

and MERGE

Who knows it

1

When I went through the front door of the Jazz Pad, Lilli Lorraine was singing in a voice filled with fever and the words hung in the smoky air like heat.

She stood in the center of the small dance floor in the blue beam from a baby spot, her head thrown back, eyes closed, lips kissing consonants and nibbling at husky vowels. She was a torch singer, an acetylene-torch singer, and when Lilli came on with “Love Me Or Leave Me,” nobody left. I figured if she ever sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the U. S. of A. would need a new anthem.

It was a Sunday night in the middle of March. Spring was still a few days away for the rest of Los Angeles, but here in the Jazz Pad it was sultry summer. Lilli was pouring “or leave me for somebody else...” into the ears and glands and secret places of the customers, especially the male customers, as I found a seat at the bar.

I recognized Domino from his mug shots.

He was at a ringside table with three other guys, a tall handsome lady-killer, and man-killer, with the kind of healthy black wavy hair women love to run their hands or even feet through—so they tell me. My own hair is only an inch long, when I let it grow, and you could hardly get your little toe in that. Besides, it's white and kind of bristly, and ... well, back to Domino.

Nickie Domano, known to the boys on the turf as Domino, was eyeballing Lilli with the expression of a man getting her message and sending back, “You and me both, baby!” He didn't look like a hood. But the three other hoods with him looked like hoods.

I didn't know them. I didn't know Domino, for that matter; that is, we hadn't met—yet. But I knew about him. For example, I knew he'd probably had one guy killed already today. I wasn't sure, but it seemed probable. The victim was more than probably dead; he'd gone down with four slugs in him.

“Bourbon and water, Shell?"

Shell, that's me. Shell Scott.

I glanced around at the bartender. “Yeah, same as usual. Thanks."

He knew what I drank; I'd been here before. For pleasure. This trip wasn't for pleasure, it was business. My business is guys like Nickie Domano, and the three apes with him, scratching their fur.

I'm a private detective, office on Broadway in downtown L.A., three-room-and-bath bachelor apartment in Hollywood. I'm six feet, two inches tall and weigh two hundred and six pounds between meals. I'm tanned the shade of a slightly used holster, and you know about the hair—the color of winter, springy as spring, and approximately as long as a little toe. As for the rest: gray eyes beneath white, peaked brows, a negligible scar over the right eye, a little hunk shot from the tip of my left ear—which sort of balances things out, I tell myself—and a nose I thought quite a nice nose before it got broken. Ah, but I was telling you about Nickie Domano.

He was wearing a black suit for which he had paid perhaps two hundred and fifty bucks of somebody else's money, a white shirt with a collar that did not quite cover his ears, and a white silk tie that glittered a little. He had the look of a cat who would wear monogrammed shorts. Or even silk underwear with his whole name printed on it. And maybe his picture. A picture of him in his shorts.

You've guessed it. Nickie Domano wasn't my type.

But, more, this simply wasn't the most joyous moment of my week. I had been anticipating an evening of madness with an Irish-Egyptian belly dancer named Sivana, who had promised to tell me all about the most appropriate jewels for navels, and exciting things like that. She had even promised to bring along her jewel. But I was here instead.

Here because of a sweet-faced, lush-bodied, warped-minded little teen-aged tomato named Zazu, a child as improbable as her name. I was the victim of juvenile extortion. I had been stabbed. Stabbed and extorted and vastly unnerved by Zazu.

But, to business. Lilli opened her big eyes and looked around, saw me, and bent her head to one side and then the other in a casual hello as I lifted my glass to her. I pointed toward her dressing room in the back of the club, and she nodded slightly as she finished her song, spread her arms wide, and then crossed them over her remarkable bosom, as though to hug and hold the sudden applause that washed over her—or maybe just because she liked to hug her remarkable bosom, which seemed a hell of a fine idea to me. And, surely, to all the other males here with glittering eyes and flaring nostrils.

One of the men with Domino, however, was staring not at Lilli but at me. He turned away and then back in a slow double-take. As I said, I hadn't met any of those boys yet, but I'm fairly well known in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, particularly among the hoodlum element. And I am not difficult to recognize, even on a dark, foggy night.

This guy was a thick one, thick of body and of head, the face too wide for its height, as if it had been repeatedly pounded upon and squashed, and his expression was that of a man recalling, without fondness, the squashing. Finally he turned away and spoke to the man on his right, a slim gray-haired citizen about twenty years older than the flathead, close to fifty, say. The thick guy appeared about thirty years old, my age.

In the next few seconds all four of the guys at that table had eyeballed me, apparently with interest. But nobody waved. I finished my drink, eased off the stool, and walked to the rear of the club. Lilli's small, cluttered room was at the end of a dark, narrow hall, and yellow light splashed past her open door into the hallway.

“Hi, Lilli,” I said. “You were great tonight. As usual."

She'd been looking into the mirror over her dressing table, and turned with a smile. “How would you know? You only caught half of one number, Shell."

“I could hear the guys breathing. I could see the veins popping in their eyes. I could feel ... I won't tell you what I felt."

She laughed. “You're good for me, Shell. I don't believe a word of it, but I love to hear it. But I'll bet you didn't come back here to tell me that."

“No, sad to relate. Here on business. Wanted to ask you some questions about a few steady customers. O.K.?"

Her big blue eyes closed just a little, the shadowed lids drooping. I guessed she had a hunch who I wanted to ask about, but she said, “O.K."

This Lilli Lorraine was a tall, hot-looking tomato with “Grrr” in her eyes and lips that helped explain the heat in her jazzy harmonies. She was about five-nine and not a lightweight, but even those who might have thought she carried a few extra pounds around—I wasn't one of them—would have had to agree that every ounce was superbly healthy, in exactly the right place, and maybe worth its weight in uranium.

She was on the honest side of thirty, say twenty-eight, with skin like cream and hair the color of peaches, long legs, provocatively feminine hips, the provocation accented by the kind of in-slanting waist you see on gals who wear those waist-cincher contraptions, only Lilli didn't wear any such contraption. She had on a blue-sequined dress the color of her eyes, cut low enough in front to make it apparent she didn't wear one of those bosom contraptions, either—like lifters, expanders, separators, elevators, pushers, poochers, upmashers, tiptilters, squeezers, and aprilfoolers—that have come along since plain old brassieres went out of style, and that are so adorable you almost want to leave the gal home and take her contraption out dancing.

Yes, Lilli and I might have clicked like wow except for one thing: She was hot for hoods, which cooled me; and, since I'm known to be a kind of antihoodlumist, that made me not her type. We were friendly, had several times enjoyed drinks and talk, but that was as far as it went. Lilli was one of that odd breed of lovelies who get warped kicks from mingling with the warped, who get a gutty thrill from thugs. There are more of them than you might think; there's one for nearly every hood, and there are a lot of hoods.

I said, “When the Alexander gang stopped hanging out here a couple months ago, I thought maybe—"

“I wish you wouldn't call them a gang."

“—all the crooks were going to steer clear of the Jaz—Pad—"

“Do you have to call them crooks?"

“Dear, Alexander and his boys comprise a cohesive group of crooks, which is, by simple definition, a gang. And they are indubitably crooks. So why shouldn't I call them a gang of crooks?"

She shrugged.

I went on. “Anyhow, I understand that for the last week or so there's been another gang of crooks practically in permanent residence here."

“I suppose you mean Domino."

“You suppose on the nose. And, since you are a gal who catches male eyes like a sharp hook, I figure it's eight to five you could, if you would, tell me more than a little about Domino and his gang of crooks."

She shrugged again, looking at the ceiling, and I wondered if I could think of something else to make her shrug. I wasn't looking at the ceiling. I was even wondering if I could think of two things in quick succession, but then Lilli said, “Well, they've been hanging out here for a week or ten days. They're kind of nice."

“They're beautiful."

“I get a bang out of talking to them."

“Hell, I'd get a bang out of—"

“They're going to be real big in this town, they tell me."

“Well, they haven't exactly been small potatoes at any time in my recollec—They tell you?"

“Sure. And apparently not just me. They've told a lot of people."

“Come on."

“I guess there's no secret about it."

“I guess not."

“They don't make any bones about it. They say they're going to take over the whole Los Angeles area."

“Go a little slower. I don't quite see—"

“I think they're serious, too."

“You ought to know. I guess."

“And let me tell you something else about them. Shell."

“Go ahead."

“They're not only serious; they just might be able to do it. They're the toughest customers I've had anything do with in a long time. They're really tough."

“I don't believe it."

“You'd better. I think if you got in their way they'd shoot you."

“Wait a minute. I'm losing my mind, I think. Yeah, that's what's happening. It's not so bad, either. In fact it's fascinating. Go ahead. I've always lived dangerously. Why? Why would they shoot me?"

“They just want the whole town, that's all. And they say nothing and nobody is going to stop them."

“Fascinating."

“Why are you so interested?"

“I've always been interested. Since I was a little fellow."

“I mean, in them, in particular."

“Well, they're very outstanding. What the hell kind of question is that?"

“Well, they've only been here a little over a week. Maybe ten days. They flew in from out of town."

“Huh."

“From Pittsburgh or someplace. I think it was Pittsburgh. But I suppose you knew that already."

“No, I didn't. And I think you're pulling my leg."

“Oh, Shell! Why would I do that?"

“Beats me. Something's pulling my leg. And if it isn't you ... No, it couldn't be."

“I'm only telling you what I've heard them saying, right out in the open."

“No kidding. You don't suppose they'd talk to me, do you?"

“I don't see why not. But be careful how you approach them."

“If you say so."

“I think they may have killed one man already."

“I suppose it could happen."

“Were you planning to do something about them tonight, Shell? Is that why you're here?"

“Well ... I'm just a little confused. You say they flew in from Pittsburgh?"

“That's what I understand."

“Don't you mean you had them flown in?"

“Of course not. I didn't know them before. It was their own idea."

“You can't possibly be telling me that now they've invented contraptions ... No, it can't be. I won't believe it. Not even if we send robots to Venus will I believe it Lilli, you don't really know what you're doing. You're mining one of my fondest joys, one of the things that keeps me—Good Lord, can you imagine a thousand or so flying through the air, coming in for a landing .... You're pulling my leg."

“Why do you keep saying that? You're—different tonight, Shell. You aren't yourself."

“That must be it. I know I wouldn't be sitting here listening to this rubbish."

“Call it rubbish if you want to. But most of it I got straight from Nickie himself. That is, from Domino. And he's the top man of—well, you'd call it his gang, I suppose."

“Domino. Ah. Don't say anything for a minute. I'm getting it. Ah. Sure, it's my old trouble, that old Achilles’ foot of mine."

“Achilles’ foot?"

“Yeah. It was your shrugging that did it. Gave me a hotfoot clear up to my kneecap. But I'm back now. I'm me again.” I paused, thinking. “In a way, I'm almost sorry. I was looking forward to a long conversation—"

She interrupted me. “What got you interested in Nickie?” she asked me. “Was it the police? Or your friend the captain?"

She knew Phil Samson, Captain of Central Homicide, was my best friend, and that he and the other boys downtown had on numerous occasions helped me when I was on a case. I said, “No, it wasn't the police, Lilli. A client has, well ... retained me, you might say, to mop up on the Domino gang, if possible. Anyhow, I'm going to do my damndest to get enough on them to send at least some of them to the slammer, if possible. Or at least make this area uncomfortable enough for them so they'll leave.” I grinned. “And maybe fly back to Pittsburgh."

But then I stopped grinning, wondering if maybe I'd said a little too much. It was possible Lilli had been running Domino down merely in the hope I'd spill something—which she could then pass on to “Nickie.” I doubted it, but that was certainly a possibility. I wasn't her type; perhaps Nickie however, despite her derogatory comments about him, was.

I was trying to sort out in my mind precisely what she had said about him. I figured it was going to take a little while.

But then Lilli said, “Shell, I thought you closed the door when you came in."

“I di—” I jerked my head around.

I had closed the door. But it was open about an inch. A minute or two ago I might have wondered if the door was listening, but not now. No, if something was—or had been—bending an ear, out there in the hallway, it was something I might want to hit on the nose.

I'd already started tensing my leg muscles to get up when the door opened. Nickie Domano eased his head in, nodded pleasantly at me, then said to Lilli, “Could I see you for a moment, honey?” He sounded sweeter than sugar pie.

She hesitated, then said, “Sure, Nickie,” and got up.

I got up, too.

Domino held the door open for her, and she went out.

In about ten seconds he came back in. Two other guys walked in behind him. One was the thick-bodied, thick-faced flathead with the joyless expression. The other was the fourth guy from Domino's table, a tall, thin-hipped, and broad-shouldered man who'd been seated at Domino's right. He had a pale face and a small mole on his left cheek, but it was just an ordinary face, except for the eyes.

I hadn't seen those eyes before, but I'd seen their brothers. They were deep, empty as space, and cold as the center of hell—I figure hell must be cold. Fire energy, enthusiasm, power, warmth, and there was none of that in those eyes, certainly no warmth. They looked as if they'd been stolen from a corpse.

He was a young guy, too. Not more than twenty-five or so. I wondered what, in twenty-five years, had made his eyes so cold. Death, the knowledge of death, familiarity with death, could have made his eyes that cold.

Domino said, his voice still sugary and ingratiating, “You're Shell Scott, aren't you?"

“That's right.” I'd moved back a step so I could see all of them at once. Domino was about a yard away on my right, the flathead near him in front of me, and the cold fish a yard or so to my left, arms folded across his chest.

“Well, I know about you, Scott. We're—I might as well say it—on opposite sides of the fence."

“Uh-huh. I got the word."

“And I happened to hear what you were saying to Lilli just before I came in."

“You happened to."

“That's it. Came back to see Lilli. Didn't know anybody was with her. Anyway, I just caught a little of the conversation, and I'm a man who believes talking's a lot better than muscle, or shooting, right?"

“Makes sense so far."

“As long as you're talking, you're not shooting, right?"

“Yeah, that's what the UN's for. So?"

“So I don't want trouble with you, Scott. You've got quite a rep. Even where I come from. I just want everything happy, friendly, live and let live."

“Peace, it's wonderful."

I wasn't being as nice as he apparently wanted me to be. But I'm a suspicious sonofabitch. I don't believe everything people say. Not when they're hoods. Not when they're liars.

So I went on, “You came back here to tell me that, eh? You and your two ... friends. It took three of you?"

A flicker of irritation moved over his handsome face. Handsome, that is, if you like guys who look like pimps. He had all that black hair, of course, wavy as a storm at sea, but with a little too much goose grease or something on it. Nice Roman nose, but a little thin. Full lips, big white teeth, not a bad chin. Separately there wasn't anything wrong with the features, but all in a bunch there at the front of his head they looked weak. I don't know; maybe it was just something I felt. Maybe I resented his being so much prettier than I am. I don't really think that's it, though; practically everybody is prettier than I am.

“You've got a big mouth, haven't you?” he said.

“I've been told."

He put the pleasant, icky expression back on. “Well, it don't matter. I'm telling you the truth. We don't want trouble. Not with you or anybody. I brought the boys back because I want you to meet them, know who they are, so there won't be no mistakes made.” He paused. “I figure you know I'm Nickie Domano."

I nodded.

“This here is Charles.” He nodded toward the thick, muscular ape. “Charles Haver. Called Chunk. Maybe you've heard of him?"

“Never heard of him."

Chunk grinned sort of foolishly and stuck out his hand. “You gettin’ it straight,” he said. “Don't none of us want no trouble."

Maybe these guys meant it, but I had my doubts. About a million of them. I shook his hand, though. First I got my feet planted the way I wanted them, and I grabbed the front of his fingers so he couldn't squeeze down on my hand, and I kept the corner of my eye on Domino.

Nothing.

Like I said, I'm suspicious. Maybe too suspicious.

“And that's Jay over there,” Domino went on. “Jay Werme."

I glanced toward Jay as he moved toward me fast. Too fast. I might still have kept part of my attention on Domino despite that too-sudden movement, except that right then a stray thought strayed through my mind. Domino had said he'd brought these two mugs back here so I could meet them, but he'd also said he hadn't known anybody was in here with Lilli. So how could he have brought them to meet me if he hadn't known I was here?

Well, this was no time for me to be playing with little mental puzzles, and it was no time for me to be giving most of my attention to Jay Werme. But the combination of his movement and my thought was enough to keep my gaze on him for an extra second—and the back of my head toward Domino.

That was all sugar-pie Nickie Domano wanted: the back of my head. He got it. He got it good. The sap came out so fast he must have carried it in a spring clip. I heard the swish—either as it came out of his clothes or moved through the air, I don't know—but then I wasn't hearing, I was feeling. Feeling the impact like a padded two-by-four smacking my skull, the almost audible roaring of pain through my head and down the back of my neck.

I knew my knees were buckling but I couldn't feel their movement; I felt the impact when they hit the floor, though. Jay hadn't stopped coming toward me. He swung a leg toward my side. I managed to get my arm in front of his shin, but it didn't stop the toe of his shoe from digging into my ribs. Another movement near me must have been Chunk. I was still almost erect though on my knees, but when the big fist slammed my right ear, I went down.

I don't know if I went out or not, but the next thing was Nickie Domano's face near mine, sort of floating in the air. He was smiling gently, and his voice was soft, syrupy. “I told you we don't want no trouble, Scott. But maybe you didn't understand what I was getting at. You understand now?"

I must have been on my side because I felt a sudden sharp pain in my back. The toe of that shoe again, probably. I couldn't quite figure it out at that point. I had another problem. I was trying to figure out how to get my hands on Domino, but I couldn't find my hands.

“I don't like trouble, especially trouble with fuzz, Scott. So I hate killing guys one at a time—means too much heat, and I try to avoid heat, got it? That's why you're not dead yet. Stay out of my way, don't bug me no more, or next time you're dead. Got it?"

I'd found one hand. I straightened it out, fingers stiff, and jabbed the fingers at his eyes.

I missed them, but my thumbnail scraped his cheek, gouged a small furrow there. I saw it start to fill with red.

I saw the sap, too, this time.

Then Domino's face, the sap, the room, everything faded away. The pain dulled and disappeared. Darkness billowed like a storm around me, picked me up, and became blackness.

Peace, it's wonderful.

2

Peace had ended. War was about to be declared.

I'd come to in my car, flopped on the front seat. For twenty minutes I had moved very little, except for probing several sore spots, but I'd achieved one major accomplishment. I had managed to sit up.

No bones appeared to be broken, except those in my head.

At least they hadn't killed me. More, I still had my own .38 Colt Special in its clamshell holster at my left armpit, and the car was my sky blue Cadillac convertible. So they weren't all bad; only ninety-nine per cent.

It was nearly eleven p.m. I'd been out close to three hours. I sat in the Cad for a few more minutes, then slid outside and walked around the car a couple of times. I could navigate. My gun was loaded. So I put it into my coat pocket, kept my hand on it, and went back into the Jazz Pad.

The ringside table was empty. I'd kind of expected it would be. Domino, Werme, Chunk, and the thin, gray-hatted citizen weren't in sight. I went back to my Cad, started it, and drove perhaps three feet. Then I got out and looked at the tires.

Make that a hundred per cent. All four tires were as flat as my head—flatter, since I had felt my head, and it was lumpy. They hadn't just let the air out of the tires, either; they'd used a sharp knife, slashed them, ruined them.

I climbed behind the wheel, lit a cigarette, and swore for a while.

Then I thought for a while. Things like: How did I get into this? Why did I get into this? Ah, yes, Zazu. Dear little Zazu.

With an expression that was probably very similar to the one stamped on Chunk's face, I sat there and thought about the glorious evening I had earlier been anticipating. Until Zazu ...

It was six-thirty p.m., dark outside the Spartan Apartment Hotel, and everything—including me—was ready, even though it would be an hour before I picked up Sivana, my Irish-Egyptian belly dancer. Well, she wasn't actually mine. Not yet. But I'd met her at a late nightspot on the previous evening, shortly after her last number.

During a particularly fascinating movement her ruby had popped out and rolled almost to my feet, so naturally I picked it up and kept it for her. I even kept it warm for her. It was easy. By the time she came slinking up to reclaim her priceless jewel, I had ascertained from the bartender what Sivana drank, when she drank, and I had two Melted Pearls waiting on the table. Also two bourbon-and-waters, for me.

After we'd drunk those, Sivana confided that she had “absolute muscular control” and that her ruby never popped out unless she popped it out. She could even aim it.

Absolute muscular control, hey? I'd said. Well, you just come up to my little old apartment tomorrow night, and bring your ruby, and I'll dig up a marble, and we'll play chase. Unlikely as it may sound, she thought that might be exciting. Might be, hell, I told her. It might be the damndest marble game L.A. had ever seen.

What's in a Melted Pearl? I asked her. Milk. Milk? Ye Gods, you drink milk? Only when she was working. Tomorrow night she'd drink Martinis. Could I mix Martinis? Ha! Could I mix Martinis! Why, I could mix a Martini that would pop that ruby out all by itself. She might wind up wearing a pimientoed olive. Or even a dilled tomato. Or even a dill pickle. Could I mix Martinis? Why —

But she'd only have a couple of hours. Had to make the ten o'clock show. Uh. Couple of hours, huh? Well ... O.K., so we'd start with a couple of hours.

Thus was I thinking, in my spic-and-span apartment at the Spartan. I'd cleaned up the joint, bought some dandy stuff for hors d'oeuvres at a nearby kosher delicatessen, selected some belly-dance-type records, and mixed a large jug of Martinis. The jug, with the ice removed, and minus one Martini, was now resting in my freezer chilling even more. It was minus one because I'd sampled my handiwork and found it satisfactory; it was beginning to bum in my stomach like a hot ruby.

I went into the living room, where I had fluffed up the thick shag nap of my yellow-gold carpet. I moved the two leather hassocks into a more exciting ensemble, then sat on my low, chocolate-brown divan. On the squat, scarred, highball-glass-stained coffee table before the divan sat, in solitary splendor on a square of black velvet, a large, round, marvelously veined agate. I wanted Sivana to know I'd meant everything I'd said; she could trust me.

Time passed as if something was holding it back. After a while I poured myself another Martini. Halfway through it I wondered if maybe I should glue my marvelously veined agate in my navel—but rejected that idea right away. Might depress Sivana. Besides, I didn't like the thought of glue in my navel.

Cling-clong.

That was the chimes at the door of my apartment.

I'd told Sivana where I lived. She'd come early. A whole half hour early. That helped. She hadn't even waited for me to pick her up. It wasn't even seven p.m. yet. I sprang to the door and threw it wide.

“Good evening, Mr. Scott."

It wasn't Sivana. I didn't know who it was. I didn't care. It wasn't Sivana.

This one was a little blonde gal, standing there in the hallway, looking up at me with soft brown eyes. Maybe little isn't the word; she was maybe five-four or five and might have had a rather nice figure—it was covered by a white coat that buttoned clear up to her neck and bulged extravagantly over her breasts—but she was young. Not more than twenty or twenty-one, I thought, maybe nineteen. She was a kind of plain mouse. She had good, regular features, though; maybe it was the absence of make-up.

I said, hopefully, “You didn't want this apartment, did you?"

“Yes. I'd like very much to talk to you, Mr. Scott."

“What about?"

“May I come in? Please?"

I hesitated. But both my office phone and the listed apartment phone are in the book, and my ad is in the yellow pages. There was half an hour left, too. I could spare this mouse ten or fifteen minutes.

“O.K.” I stepped aside, shut the door behind her as she walked in.

She sat on the divan, and I plunked down on one of the hassocks. “What did you want to see me about, miss?"

“It's because you're a detective. And a good one. I know a lot about you, Mr. Scott. I think you're the best detective in Los Angeles. I honestly think you can do things nobody else can do, nobody in the whole world!"

She spoke with the gushing enthusiasm of a high school kid describing some teen-aged Albert Schweitzer. It was flattering, but between her and me, on my coffee table, was my marble.

I said, “Well, thank you. But what exactly did you have in mind for me to do?"

“I want you to help my daddy."

“Uh-huh. What's your daddy's problem, and what do you think I can do to help him?"

“Well, he's a businessman. And some other businessmen are trying to run him out of business!"

Everything she said was very dramatic, filled with exclamation points. Actually, she was kind of a cute little mouse, I could see now. Vivacious, good voice, lots of energy and animation. With just a little artfully applied make-up she could have been quite attractive. But she was too young. Certainly too young for me.

True, I'm only thirty years old myself. But a while back, during the Johnny Troy case, a miserable hood had killed a little gal in my apartment. Raped her—and killed her. Some of the hood's friends had spread word that I'd been responsible, and though I was able later to prove the allegation totally false—and also able to shoot the bastard who'd actually done it—I had a very sticky time of it for a while. Consequently, since then I had been very circumspect, at least in public, and was seen about the town only with tomatoes who had ripened, at least minimally, on the vine.

Sivana, for example, was at least twenty-three or twenty-four. Possibly a year older than that. Yeah, Sivana—time to wrap this up and get on my way.

“Look, honey,” I said gently, “that sounds a little out of my line. Usually I'm working on a burglary or blackmail case, maybe a murder case. But interfering with normal business competition isn't in my field."

“This isn't normal,” she said, wide-eyed. “These other businessmen would just as soon muscle Daddy as not."

“Muscle?” The word sounded foreign coming from those fresh, young, unrouged lips.

“They'd just as soon shoot him as not."

“Shoot? They'd—"

“Why, they tried to shoot him today."

I started getting a queer feeling, like when you sit down in a puddle of water. I knew of one killing this afternoon, but ...

“They tried to shoot him?” I said finally. “Today?"

She nodded vigorously. “Yes, they did!"

I could feel the slow cooling of my spinal column. As though somebody had playfully poured a Martini over it. Even then I was starting to think about wasted Martinis.

“Dear,” I said softly. “What's your name?"

“Zazu."

“Za—Would you say that again?"

“Zazu. I'm Zazu Alexander."

The Zazu didn't mean anything; but the Alexander did. At least, maybe it did. “And ... your father?” I said.

“My daddy's Cyril Alexander."

First the Martini, then the ice cubes.

Cyril Alexander was merely the biggest mobster in town. Los Angeles is a cleaner city than most, at least as far as the rackets are concerned; but in any big city there's plenty of dirt. And Alexander controlled most of that dirt.

Cyril Alexander was the titular and actual head of the “Alexander gang,” and what little the Alexander gang didn't control in L.A. wasn't worth controlling. In fact, for the last two or three years they hadn't even had any competition to speak of, other hoodlums of any states steering clear of the City of the Angels.

Until today, maybe. This afternoon Cyril Alexander and one of his bodyguards, a grossly fat, dark-skinned and black-mustached trigger-man named Geezer, had walked out of a used-car lot Alexander owned. Somebody driving slowly by in a black sedan had let fly with six slugs, four of which had hit Geezer, two in his enormous mid-section, one in his heart, and one in his head. Alexander, except for getting mussed by diving to the sidewalk, had been uninjured.

“Zazu, dear,” I said, still gently, but firmly, “your daddy is not a businessman. He's a crook."

She didn't even blink. “It doesn't make any difference what you call him. He's in trouble, and I want you to help him."

“I don't work for crooks."

“I know that. But I thought maybe you would this time. There has to be a first time. I've thought all of this out very carefully, Mr. Scott."

“Maybe so. But there doesn't have to be a first time for this."

“You're real good friends with Captain Samson, aren't you?"

I nodded.

“And he's worried about some murders the newspapers have been writing about? And especially what happened today?"

“You can say that again."

Sam, as Captain of Homicide, was responsible for the investigation of all murders, as well as a lot of other things, and recently there had been a couple of still-unsolved homicides in the Central Division, one of the victims being a well-known and wealthy man. In consequence the newspapers had been riding the L.A.P.D., particularly the Homicide Division, pretty hard. Sam had even been called on the carpet by the chief a few days ago, where he'd had a small fire lit in his pants.

That was almost routine, bad enough all by itself. But lo there was this, today. Something that had all the earmarks of a gang shooting. And another body on the street.

Gang wars, with guns blazing in the street and such, went out decades ago. But there are still a few hoods who settle their differences that way on occasion; possibly this afternoon's violence had been one such occasion. The Intelligence Division downtown had picked up rumors that some out-of-town mobsters were in L.A. and might make trouble, but there'd been no corroboration of the rumors—unless fat Geezer's murder would corroborate them. The I.D. didn't know yet, and Sam didn't, and neither did I.

But if so, more important to Samson—and to me, for that matter—was the fact that retaliation, and more gunplay, might well mean the deaths not merely of hoodlums but of innocent citizens. A couple of those flying slugs this afternoon had narrowly missed an old character who until then had been interested in buying a three-year-old Chevrolet. He promptly lost interest and had a mild heart attack.

He'd been treated and released from a hospital, but the next time might be different. Next time a slug might hit a citizen, maybe a woman or a kid. A kid like this Zazu, for instance.

She went on, “If you helped Daddy get rid of these other businessmen...” She let it trail off, and smiled for the first time. It was a nice smile, believe it or not. “These crooks,” she went on, “you'd be helping your friend Samson, wouldn't you?"

It was a good point, I had to give her that. “True. But that doesn't make any difference.” I had to give her something else. She'd said she had thought this out very carefully, and it was clear she hadn't been kidding. I started to wonder what else she had up her sleeve.

“Daddy's done you a lot of favors, too."

“Also true—in a way. But not out of the goodness of his heart. If there's any in it."

She was referring to the fact that Cyril Alexander had on several occasions tipped me off—or the police—to the operations of other thugs in town who were invading what Cyril felt was his own rightful area of thievery. As a result several guys were doing big time at San Quentin. And Cyril had less opposition in L.A. It was undeniable that he'd given me info that helped me to close two or three tough cases, however.

Zazu had been quiet for a while. Now she said, “There're lots of reasons why you should help Daddy get rid of this other gang, Mr. Scott. Aren't there?"

“Let's skip that. In the first place, we don't even know there is another gang."

“I do. It's the Domino gang. Nickie Domano. And fifteen of his men."

I blinked. She'd sounded a little harder, right then. Even looked a little harder. But more, it checked with the info that the I.D. had been given. Nickie Domano and his boys. But they hadn't known how many.

“That's very interesting,” I said. “What else can you tell me?"

“Not a thing. Unless you promise to help me."

“We might as well get this straight right now. I'm not going to help. I don't work for crooks. And I am not going to do Cyril Alexander's dirty work for him. The answer is no."

She said, almost casually, “I knew you'd say that."

I looked at my watch. Man, if I didn't get a wiggle on I was going to be late. And I wasn't about to be late for Sivana. I had a hunch she had an Irish-Egyptian temper. Whatever that is. I didn't think it was good.

“So, dear little Zazu,” I said cheerily, “I think you'd better go now. It was a nice try, and I can understand your concern for Daddy, but ... Holy mackerel!"

She'd stood up as if to go, but she wasn't going.

I'd noticed the big buttons down the front of her up-to-the-neck coat. They were just for show. Underneath was a zipper. She unzipped it and slipped out of the coat. Underneath she wore a white skirt and white blouse, the skirt very wrinkled, the blouse ripped to hell and gone, practically baring her breasts.

And I mean breasts. Not brassiere. She'd torn the bra apart in the middle, and I could see part of its lacy pink cloth bunched beneath one of the big rips in her blouse. One big firm, high breast was halfway out into the room. Way out into the room.

It shocked hell out of me. But mainly it was the suddenness of it all. I just gawked for a few seconds, then I recovered and said slowly, “Baby, it won't work. This gag is as old as—"

“Oh, yes, it will,” she said flatly.

She'd sat down on the divan again and placed the white coat next to her, a hand in one of its pockets. Don't tell me she's got one of Daddy's heaters in there, I thought.

I leaned toward her, and she said suddenly, “Don't. Don't even try to get to me. You know I'll scream."

“I don't doubt it."

“I can scream loud. Louder than anything."

“I don't doubt that, either. It still won't work."

“Sure it will.” She took her hand out of the coat pocket. It wasn't a heater she'd had in there. It was a pair of pink pants. Also torn. Not much, just a little bit at the top. She threw them to the end of the divan.

I must have moved a little, because she threw both hands up beside her face and opened her mouth wide.

“Hold it,” I said. I wanted to think about this a little.

She smiled. No kidding, it was a nice smile. “I read all about that other time,” she said sweetly. “So did millions of other people."

“You know damned well—"

“I know you didn't do it. Most people know it. Most. Not everybody. And a lot of them would believe it this time. A lot of them. I thought it all out. I thought about it all afternoon. Ever since they tried to kill Daddy."

I tried to think of something to say, but there wasn't anything just right on the tip of my mind. I glanced toward the door.

“You wouldn't lock the door, would you?” she said. “That would be good. If I screamed, and they came up here and found the door locked. And me like this..."

I opened my mouth. Then I shut my mouth. I still couldn't think of the just-right thing to say. I knew I'd think of it, though. It had to be there somewhere. Obviously this little monster couldn't get away with her—extortion, that's what it was. Not with me, she couldn't.

She kept smiling and went on, “Of course, Mr. Scott, you could try to force my pants back on me. Maybe that would help. Of course, I'd fight you. And scream, and scream, and scream. And if they came in and found you fighting with me like that..."

She didn't have to say any more. Would you believe a mouth reasonably full of hot saliva could get bone-dry in, say, three seconds? Well, I can. I tried to swallow, and it practically pulled my tongue down my gullet.

She had me.

She really did. She had me.

Well, it was going to be rough. There'd be a stink, a scandal, probably headlines in the newspapers. But possibly I'd survive it. “So go ahead and scream,” I said. “And when the echoes die I'll start working on your daddy. And before I'm finished with him he'll be rotting in Q."

“Q,” she said. “San Quentin."

Yeah, she knew the language. And why not?

I started to get up.

She didn't scream. At least, she hadn't yet. Instead she said, “That's what makes this so good, Mr. Scott. San Quentin. That's where you'll go. I'm only seventeen. And they're sure to send you to San Quentin. If Daddy doesn't kill you. And all the people—"

She went on, but I missed the rest of it. In fact, I missed practically all of it.

As I said, I'd started to get up. But I only started. At a crucial point, I froze, sort of in mid-air, in a stooped and squatty position.

Slowly it sank in.

The part I'd really heard was the “teen” bit. Some-thing-teen.

Nineteen? No.

Eighteen? No, that wasn't it, either.

I, frozen in my squat, I said, “Don't scream. Don't make a sound. Just a minute. I'll get it. But—don't scream."

Seventeen. That's what she'd said. I was sure of it. I guess I'd been sure from the moment she said it, but my; entire nervous system had to recover, come back to life, start throbbing feebly again, before I could face it.

“Baby,” I said. “I mean, baby. You're only...” I couldn't say it.

She said it. “Seventeen."

“Yeah. You mean you're ... under eighteen, huh?"

“I won't be eighteen for twenty-two more whole days."

“That's grand. Great. Oh, boy."

“You're all right, aren't you, Mr. Scott?"

“Sure. I've just never been sicker in my life, that's all."

“I guess you wouldn't want me to tell Daddy you got fresh with me, then."

“I guess not."

“Or tell lots of other people. Or scream, or anything."

“I guess not. No, I guess not.” I paused. “You wouldn't want your daddy to kill me, would you? Or crazed mobs to tear me limb from ... Oh-h..."

Slowly I sat down on the hassock again. My back felt stiff, as if I'd been in my stoopy squat for a long, long time.

“Well, Zazu,” I said dully, “I imagine that when Daddy kicks the bucket, you'll take over the mob."

“I suppose,” she said smiling.

I scowled at her. “You sure as hell put some thought into this, sweetie. It just occurred to me—Hey, you didn't go out and attack some poor boy, just to—Skip it.” I didn't like her smile. I didn't want to know. I wanted a Martini.

Martini—Sivana. Well, that was shot, too.

My life was crumbling in ruins around my head.

Zazu said softly, “I'm really almost sorry, Mr. Scott. I am sorry. But I'm only thinking of Daddy. I love my daddy, Mr. Scott."

"Will you for Pete's sake quit calling me Mr. Scott?" I lowered my voice. “After all, I just raped you, didn't I?"

She smiled again. She smiled a lot. But, of course, she had to smile for both of us.

“Then you'll help? You'll help Daddy?"

I looked at Zazu's bare breast, the one sticking way out into the room. “You know,” I said abstractedly, “you sure as hell look older than seventeen."

“I started developing when I was only twelve years old. It was awfully embarrassing."

“Yeah."

“When I was fourteen, all the older boys..."

“Yeah."

“You wouldn't believe all the trouble it caused me."

“Yeah.” I sounded like a sick Beatle.

I was thinking that maybe I wouldn't believe all the trouble it had caused Zazu. But I'd have bet, bet almost anything, that it was nothing to the trouble it was going to cause me....

3

I was sitting there outside the Jazz Pad, in my Cadillac with its flat tires, feeling my lumpy head and groaning aloud. Not from the pain in my head, and ribs, and virtually all my anatomy—though that wasn't lots of fun, either—but because of thoughts of Zazu going through my brain like cannibal termites.

Merely the thought of Zazu wasn't the whole of it, either. There was Sivana. She'd hurt my ear. When I'd phoned her—only ten minutes late—to tell her we'd have to postpone our marble game because I had lost my marbles, I learned what an Irish-Egyptian temper was like. I'd been right: It wasn't anything good.

Her voice cracked my eardrum. I really shouldn't have listened to it all but I was trying to get a word in edgewise. Thus the tremendous sound of her hanging up the phone did my eardrum a lot more good. I'd stood there holding my ear—I'd dropped the phone—and thinking. Well, that tears it, I thought. Then I thought: The hell with her and her goddamn belly button. There are other belly buttons.

Before leaving the apartment I had talked to Zazu for another ten minutes, fondling my ear. She really did know a lot about me. For example, she knew that, if I promised her something, I'd keep the promise, unless I got myself killed, and even if she'd blackmailed me into the promise. Which is why I have to be careful what I promise people. The upshot of it all was that I told Zazu I'd give her twenty-four hours. I'd do my damndest to strike terror into the heart of Nickie Domano and his Domino gang; I'd give it my all, my utmost—for twenty-four hours. And, of course, she'd never get into my apartment again. Maybe nobody would get into my apartment again. At least, not without a birth certificate. So she'd never have another chance like this. She could take it or leave it. She took it.

Then she told me the Domino gang had begun hanging out at the Jazz Pad, which had once been the public headquarters of “Daddy” and his hoods. She also told me she knew who'd tried to kill Alexander and had popped Geezer instead. I didn't go along with her logic there but I did want to know who'd shot Geezer. She said Alexander had seen the man and knew who he was—and that she'd tell me his name if I got back. When I got back.

Yeah, Zazu was still in my apartment. With her coat back on, of course.

I left the Cad where it was, called a cab. Then I called an all-night garage, ordered four new tires and a speedy job.

Riding home, I rolled a few thoughts around in my head.

I wasn't doing so good.

I was working for a crook. I didn't like that much. And I was supposed to strike terror into the hearts of some other crooks. It struck me, instead, that I wasn't doing so hot at either end of this case.

When I walked into my apartment again, Zazu jumped up from the divan where she'd been sitting.

She looked me up and down. Wide-eyed, she examined what was left of me. She looked at my head, my soiled and rumpled suit, the positively enormous lump just left of center on my forehead.

And she said, “Oh, good! You found them."

How about that? Wasn't she a little darling?

“Get your seventeen-year-old ass out of here,” I said. I very rarely swear. And I don't snarl at little girls. Not even little girls so well developed as Zazu. But I wasn't myself, you know. Tonight I had been through—maybe hell is too strong a word. And maybe it isn't

"Get your—"

“What happened?” she said. “What happened?” She really seemed interested.

“What do you suppose happened?” I said sweetly. “They beat the living hell out of me, that's what happened."

“I'm sorry. Did you ... did you kill any of them?"

“Ah-ha. That's it. You wanted me to go down there with a machine gun and rip their guts out. You want me to slice them open with a big knife and yank out their hearts and eat them. You—"

She interrupted. “Mr. Scott, I—"

“Don't you dare call me Mr. Scott. I have given you the best night of my life. I have given you my head, at least one rib, and possibly my liver. Don't you understand? We're friends."

“Shell,” she said. “Shell, I just hoped it would be different. I told you, I honestly think you can do things nobody else in the whole world can do. That's why I came here. And I know, if anybody—"

“Flattery will get you—"

“—can help Daddy, you can."

“To hell with Daddy."

That shocked her a little, finally. “What?"

“To hell with Daddy. If I can, I will ruin your daddy."

“You mean ... you're going back on your word?"

“No. I promised you I'd spend twenty-four hours trying to massacre the Domino gang. Well, that's out, too. What I'm going to spend is the rest of my life, if I live that long. Not for Cyril Alexander. For me. If that makes Daddy happy, fine and dandy. He can sing and dance, if he gets that happy. But he'd better not get in my way, either. I'll make you an orphan. Or at least half an orphan...” I stopped, remembering Alexander was married. At least he had been married. Or ... maybe not, at that.

But I was sure I'd heard something about Mrs. Alexander. A regular rip-roaring old battle-ax, I'd heard.

I looked at Zazu. “Won't your mommy be worried?” I asked. “You being out so late? And in a man's apartment."

I thought that was rather good. But she topped me.

“Oh, Mama knows where I am,” she said. “It was my idea, but Mama helped me figure some of it out."

Well, what could I say? I walked over to one of the hassocks and kicked it. Kicked it clear over to the fake fireplace in the wall, under Amelia. Amelia is the garish yard-square nude I picked up in a hock shop, Amelia, peering from the wall, around her glorious fanny, at me and my criminal genius. Even Amelia didn't look so hot to me.

I stepped to the other hassock and plopped down on it. “What did I do?” I said. “What did I do? I know I must have done something. I'm getting paid off somehow. Maybe it's all those women I—"

“Shell.” Zazu was walking over the yellow-gold carpet toward me.

“All those women I—"

“Shell, tell me something."

“Don't you want to hear about it? You should gobble it up. Should be right down—"

“Shell, are you really going to stay on the case? Really?"

“I told you, didn't I?"

“Oh, I'm so glad.” She beamed down at me, on my hassock. “It's just what I wanted."

“Merry Christmas."

"Just what I wanted."

"Just what I wanted,” I mimicked her. “Just what I wanted. What is it?"

“Shell, I'm so glad."

“Great. Let's go out and celebrate. I'll take you to the Trocadero. No such place any more, but I'll take you to the Trocadero. I can do anything. Or maybe you'd rather go to Heaven. I can fix ... No, some things I can't do. But anything within reason—"

“Shell, you're simply wonderful,” she said. Then she bent swiftly and kissed me on the mouth. It wasn't a little-girl kiss, either. Of course, she'd told me herself she'd been developing since she was twelve.

“'Bye,” she said from the door.

Click went the door as it closed.

I sat there drumming on the side of my hassock with my fingers. Then I got slowly to my feet, crept to the bathroom, and showered my aches and bruises.

In bed I lay awake for a while. Lots to do tomorrow. I'd have to call on Cyril Alexander, for one thing. And, by golly, I'd forgotten to ask Zazu who'd killed Geezer. I wasn't surprised. Nothing would surprise me. It wouldn't surprise me if, by the tune she got to be fifty, Zazu—if she lived that long—owned the world.

Not even my dreams surprised me. But you'll just have to guess what they were.

I woke up angry and stiff and sore. My body felt as if rigor mortis had tried to set in and died trying. It was morning. Great. Big deal. Morning again. Same old thing, day after day.

I stayed in the shower for a long time. Hot, cold, then hot at full blast. It helped. Didn't make me look any better—I counted six separate areas that looked gangrenous, on side, back, and chest—but I felt better, and that was the important thing. The pot had finished perking, and I had three cups of strong coffee while I used the living room phone.

Half an hour later I had my lines out. I'd talked to seven of my best sources of information: four ex-convicts, a retired cop, a male hairdresser—women tell male hairdressers the damndest things—and a bartender. That was enough; they'd spread the word among others. By noon fifty people would be working for me, on spec; that is, they'd get paid or otherwise rewarded when and if, and only when and if, I got something of value to me. That's free enterprise.

The word was out that Shell Scott wanted info about Nickie Domano and members of the Domino gang, primarily the kind of info they wouldn't want me to have. I couldn't be much more specific at this point, but that was all right. It was enough that they knew war had been declared; and my agents were in the field.

While I was at it, I asked for the same kind of dope, if available, on Cyril Alexander and his pack of hoods. Not only was there a chance, in a case like this, that I might wind up as the hunk of meat between two packs of wild hyenas, but if the Alexander decided to retaliate—for the hitting of Geezer, say—against the Dominos, I wanted to know about it in advance, if possible.

That done I checked the Spartan's garage to see if my Cad had been delivered during the night. It had. So I climbed in and drove to the Police Building in downtown L.A. to see Samson.

The Homicide squadroom is on the third floor, and a couple of the men on the day watch were in there, drinking coffee from paper cups. I waved at them and stepped toward the closed door of the Captain's office as somebody behind me said, “Hi, Shell. What brings you to the working—"

He cut it off as I turned around and he got a good look at my face. Actually, it wasn't all that bad. The lump on my forehead was still pretty big and now discolored; my right ear was red and scraped a little, and my right cheek was puffed and bruised; and, of course, I had a dandy black eye.

“Morning, Bill,” I said. It was Lieutenant Rawlins, another of my very good friends in the department. Except for Samson himself, who rarely went out on a squeal these days, I considered Bill Rawlins just about the best and most knowledgeable detective I knew. He was in plain clothes, a freshly pressed dark suit, crisp white shut, blue-gray tie; a handsome but almost boyish-looking man, two years older than I.

“What are you doing here?” I went on. “I didn't know you were working the day watch."

“I'm not,” he said. “Not exactly. Putting in a little extra since that shooting yesterday.”

“You mean Geezer?"

“Yeah. Real name Harry Dyke, if you're interested."

“I am. Turn up anything?"

He shook his head. “Nothing worth a damn."

“I might have something later. Maybe, I'm not sure."

Bill raised an eyebrow. “You mean who killed him?"

“Uh-huh. But don't count on it yet. I'm supposed to get the guy's name from, well, from a witch."

He'd known me a long time, so he didn't say much to that. Just, “Yeah. Swell. Let me know when you solve the case. You haven't told me what happened to your complexion. Who worked you over?"

“Nickie Domano and a couple of his hoods."

He suddenly looked more interested. “No kidding. I suppose you asked for it."

“Well, I was slumming."

“We figure he put the finger on Geezer, but there's no way to tag him. Not yet. What got him mad at you?” He leaned closer, peering at my face, and added, “He didn't kill you, did he?"

I laughed. “Come on in and listen while I tell Sam. He in his office?"

Bill nodded and we walked to the door, knocked, then went inside.

Samson was behind his desk, looking just about as broad and solid as the desk itself. He's a big, strong man with a big, strong jaw that looks as if it would come out winners in a collision with a truck. Detective Captain Phil Samson, the best damn cop I ever knew.

He glanced up from the paper-cluttered desk and let his sharp brown eyes rest on my face. Then he picked up an unlighted black cigar from an ashtray and stuck it in his wide mouth. “Well,” he growled around the cigar, “you're looking good."

“Feel great,” I said. Then I leaned over and peered at him the way Rawlins had peered at me a minute ago. “You forget to shave this morning, Sam?"

He hadn't, of course. Only twice in all the years I'd known him had I seen any stubble on that pink face. And there was a good chance he'd been at his desk all night, too.

“I broke my stainless steel blade,” he said gruffly, “What the hell do you want?"

I straddled a wooden chair, and Rawlins leaned against the wall, while I told them what had happened last night, hitting the highlights—and most of the lowlights. I finished, “So when I leave here I'll call on Cyril Alexander. With luck I may run into his child monster and get the name of the guy who plugged Geezer. Hell, she may have done it herself."

Samson laughed. It wasn't that funny. He kept laughing. His laughter got louder, booming, explosive. No, it sure wasn't that funny. The door opened, and a cop stuck his head in, looked around in startled perplexity, then pulled his head back and shut the door. This didn't often happen; possibly it had never happened before. Could be they thought the captain was cracking under the strain. Maybe he was.

He scratched his iron-gray hair, whooped a couple more times, finally calmed down. “That's rich,” he chortled. “Oh, that's good.” I thought he was going off again, but he got everything under control.

Sam opened a desk drawer, pulled out a manila folder and opened it, found a page, and ran a thick finger down it. “Yeah. Here it is. Yeah, I thought so. Shell, you've made me a happy man. I was kind of down in the dumps, but ... waah!” He was off again.

“This is fun,” I said.

Sam blinked his eyes and looked at the spot where he'd stuck his finger. “Zazu Alexander, that's right,” he said. “That's his kid. Last night, let's see ... she was seventeen days and twenty-two years old."

“No, Sam, seventeen years. You've got it backwards. She was seventeen years old, she told—” I stopped. Sam was off again.

“Well, fooey,” I said. Actually, I didn't say “fooey.” What I said was a horribly repulsive word it's better not even to think about. “Fooey, fooey, fooey!" I said.

I thought Sam was going to fall off his damn chair.

When things simmered down, I said, “I'll fix her."

Rawlins chuckled. “Seems to me you already had your chance. Shell."

“You just shut up, huh?"

Samson grinned at me. “Best news I've had in longer than I can remember,” he said happily. “Here you're working for one hood, against what I've reason to believe is the most bloodthirsty gang of mobsters to show up here in this century—and you're not even getting paid for it."

“Of course not,” I said. “I like my work. I'm doing it for the sport."

Rawlins said, “Wait'll the rest of the boys hear about this."

That grabbed me. “You bastard,” I said. “Don't you dare breathe a word of this.”

“It's too good to keep."

“I'll pop you. So help me, I'll ... pop you."

“Go ahead,” he grinned. “As long as there's a breath left in me, I'll be saying, ‘Scott got screwed by a mobster's baby, but he didn't get—’”

Samson broke in, “Rawlins, pass the word to the rest of the men. To Robbery, Narcotics, Administration—"

“The Vice Squad!” Rawlins smacked his hands, together.

“—Burglary, Traffic, the Juvenile Division—don't forget the Juvenile Division—"

“And Communications!"

“That's it. Especially Communications. That's an order, Lieutenant."

I could have puked.

“Thanks, friends,” I said, smiling stiffly. “You've ruined my life. But what are friends for?"

It took about five more minutes before we could get down to business, but finally I said, “Well, I'm off. Mind if I use your phone, Sam? I'd kind of like to call Alexander from here."

“Probably a good idea. A guy as dumb as you are needs police protection."

I had a hunch I wouldn't live this down for a while. Samson went on, “I'll get him for you myself."

That was good of him. He wasn't all bad. And, after all, men, especially men who constantly deal with the seamy side of life, develop what might be considered a rather rough sense of humor. Can't hold a candle to some women, of course.

Sam got put through to the Alexander estate—estate was the word: ten acres, thirty-some rooms, perhaps three acres of just grass—and identified himself. Then he said he wanted Cyril Alexander called to the phone.

He listened a moment, handed the phone to me. “He'll be on pretty quick. We had him down here yesterday."

“Get anything?"

“Usual song and dance, and four attorneys."

Then the nasal voice was speaking in my ear. I knew the voice; I'd heard it several times before. “Captain Samson?"

“Not now,” I said. “He placed the call, but this is Shell Scott. I just happen to be calling from the captain's office."

Silence for a moment. Then, “Scott, huh? Hello. To what do I get this honor?” He talked like that, but you could understand what he meant. Usually.

“I'd like to come out and talk to you for a while this morning. All right?"

“Ah ... But, of course. Sure, you can certainly come. About what?"

“I'll tell you when I get there, O.K.? About an hour?"

“Fine, that's O.K."

“Tell the boys I'm the white-haired guy with the black eye, just in case you've got some new boys who don't know me. I'd hate to get shot by a stranger."

“Get what? I am not clear—"

Sam said, “Let me talk to him,” and I passed him the phone.

“Mr. Alexander?” he said. “Captain Samson. I would personally appreciate it if you'd give Mr. Scott all the coöperation you can.” He listened a moment. “I'm sure you're just as anxious as we are to apprehend Mr. Dyke's killer. Mr. Scott, as a private citizen, has also taken an interest in the case. A very great interest. He ... He...” Sam started grinning. “He...” He couldn't finish it.

I yanked the phone out of his hand. “We were, uh, interrupted by a catastrophe,” I said. “See you in an hour."

4

I pulled up to a stop before the ornate, and very solid, gate barring the entrance to Cyril Alexander's driveway. A lean, hungry-looking man opened the gate and waved me on.

I'd driven from L.A. through Hollywood and on past Beverly Hills, making good time. A few miles farther on, the highway passed through a stretch of more sparsely settled land, but even here in this meagerly populated residential area a man had room to spread out. Cyril Alexander had spread out over at least ten acres.

Inside the gate on my right were two little cottages—about five rooms apiece—and a block away on my left, behind a huge carpet of green lawn, the big pink two-story house loomed against the sky. Thirty yards or so from the entrance to the house, a group of men sat on the lawn in the shade cast by a colorfully striped canvas above them. Cyril, undoubtedly, and his segment of the Mafia.

I parked before the house and walked over spongy grass toward the group. Yeah, I could see Cyril, sitting in a canvas-backed chair, holding a drink in his hand. There were six other guys under the canvas awning with him. Should be enough, I figured, just for me. But Cyril usually had several armed creeps around him, to protect him from other creeps.

Cyril waved a hand as I walked up, and one of his chums moved an extra chair toward me with his foot. I sat down and said hello, nodded around. I'd met most of the men at one time or another and knew them all by sight, at least.

“Wanna drink, Scott?” Alexander said.

“No, thanks."

“More on the way. Clara's bringing some more out. Already mixed. You don't got to mix ‘em."

Big deal, I thought; that's class. But I said, “No, just want a little talk."

Cyril Alexander was about fifty years old, a medium-sized man with a thin, wiry body and a complexion that spoke of massages and steam baths. He had a sun-lamp tan—he didn't get out in the sun much—and I happened to know his thin black hair was dyed.

He was wearing pink slacks and a loose red silk shirt and-straw-colored sandals, and he looked awful. He had exceptionally large eyes, a sort of muddy brown with pale gray bags under them, and they bugged out a little, unappealingly.

Still, compared to at least three of the six others, he was a choice package. About a yard away on my left was Stacey, whose face was so red and shiny it resembled a piece of Alexander's shirt. He had cockeyed glands or something, or hot blood pressure, and he looked as if he'd been so horribly sunburned that in about two days his face would fall off.

Beyond him was Stiff, appropriately named. Stacey was five-five and a hundred and twenty pounds; Stiff was over six feet tall but didn't weigh much more. Where Stacey was red. Stiff was white. He had a face like chalk. If he stayed very still, you couldn't help thinking maybe he'd died. He looked as if he'd been starving, had sold all his blood so he could buy food, and had lost the money.

On my right, beyond a guy named Omar—Alexander's handyman, handy with figures, handy with books, deals, mergers, tax-evasion tricks, that sort of thing—was a hoodlum named Cork, who had, I positively knew, murdered three men. He'd done time for assault but never for murder. He was five-eight or nine, maybe a hundred and eighty pounds, solid, fit; but he had a cruel, twisted face. Broken nose, misshapen ear, knife scar by the other ear. One eyebrow was higher than the other. None of these guys really gave you a warm feeling.

Seated next to Alexander was Matthew Omar, his handyman, and he was the best looking one of the bunch, almost good looking. About six feet even, with good shoulders, slim in the waist and hips but with legs that didn't seem long enough for the rest of him. At least he was a reasonably pleasant looking man. But he wasn't for muscle or pulling triggers like the others; he was the brain guy, the figurer. About forty years old, he was probably the most ambitious of this listless crew, and undoubtedly the only one who could keep track of all Alexander's enterprises if Cyril should have to take a long trip, like to San Quentin, or Heaven. In fact, that was Omar's job right now, and apparently he was good at it; there was a lot to keep track of. I guessed that Cyril Alexander owned or controlled twenty businesses in Southern California—used-car lots, dry cleaning plants, night clubs, restaurants, a couple of car-wash corners, apartment houses. You couldn't say he wasn't a legitimate businessman.

The other two guys present at this charming gathering, Luddy and Dope—yeah, he was actually called Dope, for reasons that were almost instantly apparent—were simply muscle men. Beef-shouldered, ape-chested, sour of eye and stomach, thick of arm and thigh and middle, and practically everywhere, especially between the ears. Very little electricity between any of those ears; actually, I think Dope was a little brighter than Luddy.

We sat there. Luddy was picking his nose. Dope was watching him. Red-faced Stacey belched gloriously—he was drinking beer—practically in Stiff's ear, but not even that disturbed Stiff's corpselike lassitude, which is a lot of lassitude. Omar smiled pleasantly, but Cork stared at me, his one permanently raised eyebrow giving him a quizzical, ugly expression.

“Well,” I said, “so this is how the rich live."

“Yeah,” Alexander said, flattered. “Beats all hell livin’ in the city, don't it?"

“I guess."

“You should've come out before. Why'n't you never come out before?"

“I didn't want to get shot."

He laughed. “I wouldn't shoot you."

“Well ... somebody might.” Luddy had stopped picking his nose. That made me happy, but Dope seemed vaguely disappointed. I suppose there weren't many things that really interested him. I went on, “That's one reason I came out here this morning, Mr. Alexander."

“To get shot?"

“Nope. Nope, not that at all. On the contrary. I wanted to tell you I'm, um, working for you, in a way. I'll be prowling around, doing some digging here and there. And if word reached you, I figured you—and your boys—should know whose side I'm on."

“I can't believe what my ears is sayin'. You're workin’ for me?"

“In a way."

“How'd that happen?"

“Well, that's not important. Not now, anyway. But the fact is, I'll be trying to rid this entire area of Nickie Domano and various members of his gang, if I can. Which shouldn't make you unhappy."

“Make me happy. I'd like to kill that bastard. Like to kill all them bastards."

“Now, that's another point I wanted to talk to you about. I know for certain it wouldn't make Captain Samson happy—it would make practically nobody happy—if you decided to kill all them bastards. The captain asked me to pass on to you the word, which is to let the police—or even me, if it comes to that—handle Nickie Domano and his boys. He says you're to keep your heaters cool or you'll all get hauled down to the slammer. Got it?"

He opened those big eyes even wider and bugged them at me. “I was only shootin’ my mouth off, Scott. Can't bust a man for that. Live and let live, I say."

“Uh-huh. Only Geezer isn't living, is he?"

“No, there's no denyin’ that. Gonna bury Geezer tomorrow. Too bad you can't be there, Scott."

I wondered how he meant that.

He went on, “But it's private. Only family and, uh, business associates. And close friends, like us. But that don't mean he won't have everything. Just the casket's costin’ two and a half G's. Special hearse, best plot in the cemetery, every kind of flowers what is."

“Man, he never had it so good,” I said. “But I was referring to the word floating around that maybe Geezer was hit by some of Domino's wipers. And that you might try to get even by hitting back. Which is precisely the situation Captain Samson takes a very dim view of."

“He don't need to worry none. Not about us.” Alexander rolled the big eyes around at his boys. “We don't bear no ill wills. Right, boys?"

There was a chorus of, “Yeah,” “You know it,” “It don't make us no never mind,” and such, with expressions of such exaggerated innocence and purity it must have hurt their chops. They were like kids with double handfuls of cookies, saying, “What cookies?” So I guessed I knew what cookies. They meant to kill all them bastards.

But I said, “Well, I'm glad to hear there won't be corpses littering the streets. L.A. is untidy enough as it is. At least you won't mind if I lean on Domino and his buddies a little."

“Why should I mind? I'd expect you to try gettin’ even, anyways."

“Even?"

He looked off into space and up a little, as if following the flight of a bee, then turned back to me and said, “Was it somebody else fixed you to look like a basket case?"

“Smart thinking. No, it was Domino and a couple of his friends. Maybe you can tell me where they hang out in the daytime?"

He shook his head. “We been tryin’ to find out oursel—” He cut it off, looking displeased with himself. If Alexander had been a little quicker of wit than I knew him to be, I would have suspected him of knowing where Domino was, and of trying to make me think he didn't know. Apparently, however, he really didn't know where I could find them—or where he could find them.

He was looking past me, and I glanced around. A woman was walking toward us from the house, carrying a big tray loaded with drinks. “About time Clara was gettin’ here,” Alexander said.

Clara. His wife. She grunted up and put the tray on a table, turned without a word, and stomped back toward the house. “Lots of fun, ain't she?” Alexander said to nobody in particular.

She was something to see, I'll tell you. A few gallons of Metrecal would have done her a lot of good. But not enough. She was short, wide, and muscular, with the build of a wrestler who'd never lost a fall. And the face—ah, the face. Or maybe aahhk, the face! It was a face that would chew tobacco, a face about to spit, a face to which almost anything could happen without it making much difference. She looked like a guy who would carry a .44 Magnum in a clamshell shoulder strap. Yeah, it's true; money isn't everything. Of course, I've never said it was. I wouldn't even have blown her a kiss, not for a million dollars.

Alexander was passing the drinks around and he asked me again, “You want some booze?"

I almost took a drink, but I said, “No, thanks. You don't know where I might find any of the Domino gang, huh?"

“Beats me, Scott."

“It was some of his boys who blasted Geezer, wasn't it?"

“I don't know who it was. I was tryin’ to get in a crack in the sidewalk."

“Well, you were there. You must have seen—"

“I didn't see nothin'. Except that crack. Thought it was bigger'n it looked."

“Come on, Alexander. One reason I came out here was in the hope I'd get a little coöperation from you. Though I'll admit, coöperation between you and me would be something new in the world."

He laughed. “You can say that over again."

“If you know who shot Geezer, even if you've just got an idea, you'd be smart to tell me. If the police pin the job on one or more of the Domino slobs, there'll be one or more of them out of your hair. That would suit you, wouldn't it?"

“Suit me fine. It's just I don't know nothin', Scott."

That was enough for me. I wasn't going to get any real help from him. Or his crew of plug-uglies. They all seemed uncomfortable, as if they didn't like being this close to me unless they could hit me. I'd learned enough to make this visit worthwhile, though; and at least there was a kind of temporary truce arranged. Nobody knew better than I how temporary, but it was better than worrying about two gangs, with me in the middle.

The boys were getting restless, anyway. Cork had pulled his eyebrows down so far they were almost level; Luddy was picking his nose again; the others had started moving around a little, shifting their weight. The only one who seemed at ease was Matthew Omar. He leaned back in his chair with his short legs crossed, fingering the deep cleft in his chin, smiling slightly as if at a secret joke. Omar undoubtedly saw the irony in the situation and, alone of the group, was amused by it.

When Clara Alexander had brought the drinks, I'd noticed Zazu—at least, I guessed it had been Zazu—walking away from the house wearing a beach robe. I'd have thought she was going for a swim, except that I couldn't see a pool anywhere. But in the direction she'd been heading there was a large area enclosed by a red-stained fence about six feet high, maybe fifty yards from the two cottages I'd passed on the way in. Probably a pool there; and Zazu in the pool.

So I stood up and said, “I'll tell Captain Samson what you had to say, Alexander."

“Yeah, you tell him."

“When's Geezer's funeral?"

“Two-thirty ... Why?"

“Just wondered. It's at Eternal Peace, isn't it?"

“How in hell did you know that?"

“Morning paper. I just forgot the time of tomorrow's services."

“Paper? Why in hell they put it in the paper?"

“They do it Memorial services for local businessman Harry Dyke—that sort of thing."

“I didn't think they'd put it in the paper,” he said.

Alexander looked worried. And I had a hunch I knew why. If Nickie Domano and his buddies really wanted to find Alexander's gang assembled at some place other than this fenced and well-guarded estate, they'd know where the gang would be at two-thirty p.m. tomorrow.

Alexander, these creeps, plus another forty or fifty of Geezer's “family and business associates and close friends.” Which added up to half the thieves and gunmen in Los Angeles.

Well, just in case there should be a gang war, a cemetery seemed the place for it.

I said, “Nice place you've got here, Alexander. Mind if I glance around a little?"

He hesitated, then said, “You mean—on your way out?"

“Yeah, on my way out."

“Sure, glance. On your way out."

I parked my Cad—for the second time—at the side of the crushed-rock driveway. The first time I'd just gotten out and looked idly around, and had seen the seven men leave the awning's shade and walk up to the house. This time I parked near a flagstone path which slanted through the grass toward that red-stained fence. I walked over to the path and down it to the fence, found a wide gate in it The gate wasn't locked, so I pushed it open and stepped inside.

It wasn't a very large swimming pool. Probably it had been put in when the two cottages were built. I knew Alexander had bought them and the whole area, then built his pink house in approximately the middle of the acreage.

I could see the beach robe Zazu had been wearing, crumpled on a foam rubber mat, but I couldn't see her. The surface of the water swirled where somebody had just dived in, though. A few feet ahead of me were the curved metal bars at the top of a ladder extending down into the pool, so I walked over the cement toward it.

Just before I reached the ladder I saw Zazu swimming under water toward it. The pool's surface rippled and tossed darts of sunlight at my eyes, but the water was clear, and I could see Zazu quite well. At least I guessed it was Zazu. Whoever the swimmer was, she—there was no doubt about the she part—was wearing either the latest thing in jazzy swimsuits or nothing at all.

She reached the ladder and started to climb up it and out of the pool, nonchalant as a bird in the air. A jay-bird.

I'd been right about two things. No suit. And it was Zazu.

5

Zazu tossed her head, whipping back her wet blonde hair, and then from the corner of her eye caught sight of something. Me.

She made a high, squeaky, eeky sound and snapped her head back toward me, crying, “You know you aren't supposed to come in here. You know it!"

Zazu hadn't recognized me yet. She was blinking water out of her eyes, apparently thinking I was one of Alexander's hoods. No wonder they weren't supposed to come in here.

She'd got halfway up the ladder. Starting back down, she went on, “When Daddy finds out, he'll—oh-oh."

She'd recognized me.

“Hi,” I said brightly.

She'd got part of the way down the ladder, and seemed stuck there, with the water midway up to her waist.

“You can see I'm working,” I said. “But we forgot part of your end last night, Zazu. Uh, your end of the deal. Who shot Geezer?"

Her mouth was round, and her brown eyes were wide. She blinked them a couple of times, silently. I noticed she had lipstick on this morning. Somehow I noticed. Looked good on her. She was quite the young lady.

“Come on," I said. “Who plugged Geezer?"

She took a deep breath, let it out suddenly. The eyes blinked again. Then she said, “A man named Werme. Jay Werme. He's a tall—"

“I know who he is. We met last night, just before I attacked you."

“Oh. Well ... Oh."

“How do you know it was Werme?"

She got unstuck, slid down till the water came not quite into her mouth. Eyes rolled up toward me, she said, “Daddy saw him. He's sure it was Werme. I can't prove it, but that's what he said."

“Good enough for me, Zazu.” I noticed that her last few sentences had been delivered in an even more breathless little-girl tone than the first ones. She was trying to slip back into character. And a fat chance she had of making it. Even if I'd still thought she was seventeen, pushing eighteen, I'd have figured she was sure using adult pushers.

“Well,” I said sorrowfully, “I guess we've no more to talk about."

Her eyes rolled downward, then back up toward me.

“Do you always swim in the nude, dear?” I said.

“Yes. I'm the only one who uses the pool in the morn...” It trailed off. She was thinking. And she was a pretty good thinker. “It feels good. Probably I won't do it when I'm older."

“I thought that's when girls did it."

“It just ... feels good."

“Gee, I'd like to jump in there, Zazu. Hell, there's plenty of room for two. I'd like to just jump in there and ... and feel good."

“Oh, dear. Oh, no.” She wasn't doing so well. She hadn't had time to prepare for this.

“I'd stay way down at the other end,” I said. “I think."

Her eyes rolled down, up, sideways, all over.

“Zazu,” I said gently, “climb up the ladder."

“What?"

“Climb up the ladder. Oh, not all the way. Just a little bit. Maybe one rung."

“Why?"

“I'll tell you. When you get up here close enough. I want to whisper."

She squeezed her eyes shut, and pushed her lips out a little, as if the strain of thinking was becoming a drag. “You don't have to tell me. I ... mmm ... don't want to know."

I believe she was beginning to get it.

“Up the ladder,” I said. “Upsy-daisy."

“I don't..."

“Oh, heck, I think I'll come in with you instead."

She started up the ladder.

“Ooops,” I said. “That's far enough. Don't want to overdo this, do we?"

Water swirled around the top of her hips, ran down from her big white breasts. I cocked my head on one side, then the other. “That's what I thought,” I said. “Looks to me like...” I lowered my voice and whispered, “Like thirty-eight, twenty-one, thirty-six, twenty-two."

The brown eyes rested on my lips. She whispered back, “Thirty-eight, twenty-one, thirty-six ... twenty-two? What's twenty-two?"

“You,” I whispered, "know what's twenty-two."

Driving back toward L.A., with the top down on the Cad and the wind cool on my face, I had to smile once in a while. She'd had the grace to blush, had Zazu. Even the big white breasts had become pink. Like her daddy's house. No, I'll take that back. Not at all like her daddy's house.

I had lunch on the Strip and used a pay phone to call Samson and report on Werme and the rest of it. I didn't want to go down there, to the Police Building, unless I had to.

Sam asked me how Alexander had reacted, and I said, “Sweetness and light. He carries no grudges toward whoever put four big ones into Geezer. Live and let live. Not a thing to worry about."

“That's bad."

“You're telling me. If he'd stormed and growled a little more I'd feel better about the situation."

“We got word something's sure as hell building up. Shell, anything you get, pass it on, will you? Even if it doesn't seem important."

“Sure, Sam. And all you have to do is put a clamp on Bill Rawlins before he opens his big yap—"

“It's too late."

“Too late?"

“Too late."

“I was afraid of that."

“I don't mind telling you, I'm worried. Shell."

“I'm worried, too. Damn that Bill. Couldn't you put him in jail—"

“Oh, shut up. We've had word from a couple of our sources that Domano and his hoods are going to pull something today or tomorrow, damn soon. And it's not going to make Alexander any happier than the Harry Dyke hit did. If we knew what, we could probably stop it. But we don't know what it is."

“You pull in any of Domano's boys?"

“Can't find them. That's another thing bothers me. They're not in any of the usual joints where they hang out."

“Funny. I asked Alexander where I could find them, and he said he didn't know. Moreover, I believe him. Something else, Sam. Yesterday Alexander made arrangements for Geezer's funeral, and I saw the write-up in this a.m.'s paper. When I mentioned it to Alexander he started getting worried, I thought. Apparently he hadn't figured on the info being in the obits so soon. It's possible—even if not probable—that some of Nickie's gang plan to show up there."

“We thought of that, naturally. I doubt it, but there'll be two or three radio cars, in the area just in case. Besides that, I'm personally passing the word to Alexander that police will be present, even if not inside for the services, and any hood carrying a gun is going to get the book thrown at him. And not one out of ten of those mugs has a permit to carry a concealed weapon."

“Make that one out of twenty. Well, I've got some lines out, Sam. If I hook anything I'll call you back."

“Come on in if you've got time. Some of your friends want to talk to you."

I hung up on him.

By ten o'clock that night I was bushed. Not from the legwork, but mainly because nothing had happened. It was frustrating—and puzzling. I'd driven fifty miles and probably walked ten, talking to informants, trying to get a line on where Nickie Domano was and/or where members of his gang were. Nothing. This was Monday night, and the Jazz Pad was dark Mondays.

At ten p.m. I was relaxing with a drink in my apartment and wondering what the hell the score was. And what the next development would be. The only thing I was convinced of was that something was going to happen soon, and it wouldn't be good.

The phone rang.

I scooted over on the divan, grabbed the phone, and said hello.

“Scott?"

“Yes."

“This is Matt Omar."

I sat up a little straighter. This was the first time any of Alexander's men had ever called me. “What's up?” I said.

He beat around the bush for half a minute, talking about my visit to Alexander's this morning, and finally I said, “Chop it. You called me for some reason, Omar. So tell me what it is."

He sighed gustily into the mouthpiece. “Yeah. O.K.” He didn't sound like his usual self, not the normal cool and collected Matthew Omar. His voice was higher, strained, as if he was all wound up, nervous or something.

“It's about Alex,” he said, “Cyril. I'm expecting him here at the house any minute, and I'm getting the hell out as soon as—"

I couldn't even hear his breathing in the phone. “What about Cyril?"

There was more silence, then I heard him swearing softly. Well, he was still there, and breathing again, at least. I wondered what he was trying to pull. And then I heard the phone go click in my ear.

I hung up, waited. Nothing happened.

I didn't know where Omar had phoned from, but I did know he lived with Cork in a small house in Hollywood, on Pinehurst Road. I had the address and his phone number in my book, in the bedroom. I stood up—and the phone rang again.

I grabbed it. “Omar?"

“Who? That you. Shell?"

“Yeah, who's this?"

“Bill. Bill Rawlins."

“You still up?"

“They called me when I was driving home to hit the sack. That is, Sam did—he's still downtown."

“Something happen?"

“You might say so. We found Jay Werme. He just got himself shot."

“I'll be damned. Bad?"

“Didn't do him any good. Killed him."

“Where'd it happen?"

“Madeleine. Up in one of the penthouse suites."

The Madeleine was a swank apartment house in North Hollywood. Not the land of place where Werme would live, I imagined.

Rawlins was going on. “I called in when I got here, and Sam told me to give you the story; you might want to come up and look around. Since you know both of them, Werme and the gal who says she shot him."

“Gal?"

“Yeah, this Lilli Lorraine."

“I'm on my way."

The lab men were still busy when I got there. Rawlins and a detective named Goss, both in plain clothes, were standing together near a dark wood and black leather bar, talking. Beyond them the million lights of Hollywood at night sparkled through a wall of glass. The room's colors were subdued, pale gray walls, lighter gray carpet, heavy dark furniture, teal blue divan against the wall on my right. On the divan sat Lilli, sobbing every once in a while. A third plain-clothes man was seated next to her, saying something.

Jay Werme's body lay about two yards inside the entrance to the penthouse suite, relaxed in death, a small stain of blood on the gray carpet beneath him. Fifteen feet farther into the living room, near an open door through which I could see a bed covered with a quilted, multicolored spread, was another pool of blood sinking into the carpet's gray nap.

Werme lay on his stomach with his right arm flopped limply behind him, pulling his body up a little. The side of his face rested against the carpet, jaw hanging slightly ajar, eyes staring—those eyes cold as space, cold as hell; they looked just about as I remembered them.

Rawlins saw me as I came in and skirted Werme's body, bending to peer down at him briefly. Bill jerked his head, and I walked across the room to where he and Goss were standing.

“This is a sweet one,” Rawlins said quietly, as I stopped next to him.

“What happened?"

“It stinks.” He looked at Lilli, then at Werme. “She gave us the story, with a lot of boo-hoos in it, and it might make sense—if it wasn't Werme."

“She shot him?"

“Says she did. Came home—” He glanced at Goss. “Get that gun, will you?” Then he went on, “Let herself in, started toward the bedroom, thought she heard something, took out her gun, turned the light on. Werme was there—” he pointed toward the open bedroom door—"coming toward her, and root-te-toot-toot. Or rather, root. Shot him once."

“Where in hell was Lilli carrying a gun? And why?"

“In her handbag. Says she always carries a gun. Seems she knows some low evolutionary types who won't take no for an answer. Some of them won't even take yes for an answer. And she's got some valuable jewelry."

“Jewelry?"

“I'll get to that. Werme fell, there by the bedroom door. Got up. Fell again, where he is now. Didn't get up."

Near that first bloodstain, half a dozen small objects glittered against the carpet's gray nap. I'd missed them on my first glance around. “Those the pretties?” I asked.

“Right. She says the thief had them in his hand, must have been leaving with them when she came in. Dropped them when she hit him with the slug. Here's the gun."

Goss had come back with a snub-nosed, lethal-looking S&W .38 revolver. Of course, they're all lethal-looking. It was the regular businessman's heat, no chrome or mother-of-pearl or pretty pictures.

“Where'd she get the gun? She got a permit for it?"

“Hell, no. ‘You mean, you have to have a permit?' she says. Like, ‘You mean, you can't just go around shooting people?’ One of her men friends gave her the gun. As a present. A long time ago, she can't remember when. Or who, naturally.” Bill's lids drooped over his eyes. He looked sleepy. And I knew he must be tired.

“It stinks, all right,” I said. “The way I get it, Werme was Domano's number one pistol, and that's all. Bodyguard and killer. He sure as hell isn't a jewel thief. Not unless he just turned jewel ... Hey, not unless the Werme turn—Skip it. If he came up here, you ask me, he came to kill somebody."

“Sure. Who?"

I opened my mouth, shut it. “Bill, I was talking to Lilli last night just before Domino and Chunk—and that one over there—walked in on us. I know they heard some of what she'd been telling me, and she'd been telling me plenty. I wasn't concentrating on her verbal revelations as much as I should have, maybe, but as I recall it was not a bit helpful to Nickie Domano."

“You think he might have sent his boy up here to chill her?"

“Could be. I'd like to talk to her."

“I want you to talk to her. You know her a lot better than any of us. You might get something we missed."

“Well, we're not exactly, uh, thick as thieves, you know. Just hello, and an occasional belt or two."

A fleeting grin came and went on his face. “You mean it isn't like the enduring relationship between you and Zazu—"

“But—"

“Yeah.” He looked toward the divan, caught the plain-clothes man's eye, and moved his head slightly. In a few seconds the detective got up and came over. Bill spoke to him briefly and sent him away. Then he said to me, “She's yours."

“Let her sit there a minute or two. Let her think about it alone for a while."

“O.K. Well, what's your impression?"

I looked at the two bloodstains, fifteen feet apart. “Could've been somebody here with her. They traded shots, and Werme got the big one."

“We'll check those stains out. If they're from two different people, that'll sure make Lilli a liar, won't it?"

“Sure will."

“No sign of a slug anywhere in the walls or furniture, none that we've been able to turn up yet. If another shot was fired, it must have hit somebody."

“So you can check the docs, of course. If a slug hit him it must still be in—Wait a minute.” I stopped thinking. “When did this happen. Bill? Pin it down as close as you've got it so far."

He pulled a notebook from his coat pocket, flipped it open. “Call came in to the complaint board at nine-forty-seven p.m. I was rolling home in my own car when Sam called me on my mobile phone, and I got that at ... nine-forty-nine, two minutes later. I got up here in the suite at nine-fifty-four p.m. Checked in with Sam, called you at ten-oh-five."

“Lilli called the complaint board?"

“Right."

“And that was at nine-forty-seven. Say Werme was shot right before then, or even a few minutes earlier .... Bill, a minute or two after ten, just before you called me, I was talking to Matthew Omar."

“You called him?"

“No, he called me. That's why I think it might be important.” I told him about the conversation.

He grunted. “Funny."

“Maybe it gets funnier. Let me throw a wild one at you."

“Throw it."

“Omar was here with Lilli. Werme comes in—to hit Lilli—and trade slugs with Omar. Omar's the brain boy, fast with the figures and books, but he probably carries a gun. Werme went down right where he is now. Omar bled a little, there—” I pointed toward the stain before the bedroom door—"then fixed up a fast story with Lilli and took off before she called the police."

“And called you? Why? Alibi?"

“Maybe. Depends on the timing. He said he was home—he might have been, for all I know. He could get there from here in fifteen, twenty minutes. But he could have phoned me from anyplace, pay phone booth, you name it."

“Some holes in it."

“Maybe. And maybe we can plug them up. What gets me is his calling me in the first place. He never did tell me why."

“And he sounded—"

“Nervous, worried, under strain—I thought then. But he might have been hurt."

“Let's check it."

I gave Bill the name of the street where Omar and Cork lived, and he said he'd call in and get the number. He turned and walked toward a phone on the dark wood and leather bar.

And I walked across the room toward the teal blue divan and Lilli Lorraine.

6

“Hello, Shell,” she said, when I sat down beside her.

“Hello, Lilli."

“You look awful."

“Yeah. You look great."

It was starting. Every time I got within eighteen feet of this female, I got a sort of warm, fuzzy feeling, the way a peach must feel when it's ripening. It was as though she had a warped terminal somewhere that reached out and grabbed me by a kind of aerial osmosis.

She was wearing a pearl gray dress made out of jersey or one of those new miracle fibers, and it looked miraculous on her. It was cut down to approximately her navel—for a brief hot moment the vision of Sivana flashed before my eyes—but the bottom half of the long V was held together by three little bitty white buttons. To hold the top half together would have required at least three great big huge nuts and bolts, I figured. The way she dressed wasn't really fair to her face.

I looked at her face, the yummy red lips, creamy complexion, sparkling blue eyes—just a bit less sparkling than usual because of the recent tears. “You killed him, huh?” I said.

“Yes. I feel terrible, just terrible."

“You're a good kid, Lilli."

“Terrible. It was awful. Oh-h—” She sobbed a little. A few tears, real tears, came out of her eyes. Maybe three. “Oh-h,” she said again. “Shell ... is my mascara running?"

“No. Not really. I think it's walking a little. Tell me about it."

“About what?"

“The murder."

“I didn't murder anybody. I shot somebody. But I didn't murder—"

“Don't get excited. I meant the shooting."

“Well, I came home. He must have been going through my drawers and he found my little green box."

“Your ... green?"

“That's where I keep my jewels."

“No kidding."

“So I shot him."

“I don't blame you."

“I'd turned on the lights in the living room, and he was just coming out of the bedroom, with my jewels in his hand. I saw them sparkling, and I guess I thought he had a gun. I was just terrified, anyway."

“Yeah."

“So I shot him. He fell down, then got up and came toward me. I backed up to the door. He just kept coming toward me. But just before he reached me he fell down again. Then I called the police."

“Rawlins, the lieutenant, told me there was no gun found on Werme. He always carried a gun. So what happened to his gun?"

“I don't know. Shell."

“O.K. Who was with you when you blasted him?"

“With me? I don't know what you mean."

“Who besides Jay Werme, I mean. Like boy friend, lover, girl friend, aunts, uncles—"

“Nobody."

“O.K. You said you were out and came home. Where had you been?"

“To a movie."

“In that outfit?"

“Of course."

“O.K. What was the movie?"

“It was that new one from Carbuncle Productions, called Youth's Fling. It's all about these students who sign a petition against studying. Then they decide to go on a riot. It was very exciting."

“I'll bet."

She told me some more about it, clear up to the climax when the kids set fire to the university. She'd seen it, all right. Of course, it had been playing for two weeks, but Lilli said she'd seen it only tonight, her night off.

We talked another minute, then I got up and walked across the room to Rawlins. “You come up with anything?” he asked me.

“Yeah. She didn't do it."

“How'd you figure that out?"

“Beats me."

“Well, we'll take her downtown and interrogate her."

“You'd better do it by telephone."

“What does that mean?"

I was coming back to reality. My fuzz was wearing off. “Maybe its just me,” I said. “Next time I'll send her a telegram. You come up with anything on Omar?"

“Yeah, I just got a call. Checked his house. His buddy Cork is there, but Omar isn't. Cork claims he'd just got home, didn't have any idea where Omar was. Pretty well boozed up. The team's still going through the house. There's a desk in the corner of the living room, phone on the desk. Under a throw rug next to the desk—rug looked out of place, so the men moved it—there was fresh blood."

“Uh-huh. And no sign of Omar, huh? Or maybe no other sign."

“That's right. Something else interesting. This Lorraine woman's been living here the last two months, at the Wilmington Hotel before then. You got any idea how much the rent on this joint is? A thousand a month."

“Maybe she's got a friend. She sure makes a guy feel friendly—"

“This is the top, the fourteenth floor. Actually there are only thirteen, but it skips from twelve to fourteen. Private elevator for the two penthouses."

“Two?"

“Yeah, this one and the other across the hall. Two months ago a man calling himself Mr. Ames leased the other penthouse for six months, paid in advance. Tall, nice-looking guy with short legs. Deep voice.” Rawlins paused. “I might have missed it, except you and I had been talking about a guy looks like that.” He gave me the rest of the description he'd gotten from the manager of the Madeleine; it even included the deep cleft in Mr. Ames's chin.

“Matthew Omar, huh?” I said.

“Sure sounds like him. And it seems to fit."

“It does, at that."

Rawlins looked at Lilli. “Were you serious when you said she didn't do it?"

“Well, not exactly. Not then. But I am now. One thing's sure: Werme wasn't here to lift brooches and earrings. She either shot him for another reason, or murdered him in cold blood, or somebody else shot him and she's covering up for the somebody. And that's the one I buy, the last one."

“I'll buy it, too.” Rawlins chewed on his lip. “Werme without a gun bothers me. If he came up here to kill her, chances are a hundred to one against it winding up like this. Unless she's a hell of a lot better with a heater than we've any reason to suppose."

“Yeah. But there's one way she might have got the drop on him. She's got a couple of heaters .... No. It wouldn't work on a guy with eyes like Werme's."

They were taking the body out now.

Rawlins and I talked a couple more minutes, and he said he'd let me know how all the bloodstains checked out and if they dug up anything important or found Omar.

Then I headed for home. As I climbed into my Cad, the ambulance was just leaving with Jay Werme's body. On the way to the morgue. Where he'd sent Geezer.

I was having black coffee again in the morning when the bedroom phone rang. That's the unlisted phone, and the guy calling was one of my informants who knew the number.

“You're interested in what happened to Matt Omar last night, aren't you?” he said.

“You bet I am. What you got?"

“Word is three of the Domino guns went into his pad and scratched him. He was alone, else they might have got some more. You hear about it yet?"

“First I've heard."

“That's good. Remember I got it to you first."

“I will. What do you mean, first? Expect me to hear it again?"

“Well, it's all over town, how it happened. Doesn't seem to be no secret about it."

That was a little odd, I thought. It took no stretch of the imagination to imagine Domino's hoods killing Omar and any other of Alexander's gang within range, but it hardly followed that they'd broadcast news of the killing. There was the call I'd received from Omar last night, too.

“You didn't have any trouble getting this dope? And don't worry—I don't care how you got it. The info's the main thing."

“Hell, I heard it three places already."

It sounded as if the story might have been deliberately spread. And I wondered if maybe Omar—wounded, perhaps—was holed up somewhere and had himself spread the story of his getting shot to pieces. By, naturally, the Domino gang.

“Where's his body supposed to be?” I asked.

“I don't know. It supposed to be somewhere?"

“I know it wasn't found in his house. That's where it's supposed to have happened, isn't it?"

“Yeah. Well, I guess they hauled it away somewheres."

“Maybe,” I said. “If Omar didn't just walk out."

He laughed. “Who ever heard of a corpse walking around?"

“You get anything on who the guys were who shot him?"

“No. Just that they work for Domino."

“What time did it happen?"

“You got me. Last night some time. Want me to try digging it up?"

“No ... I think I know about when it happened."

I thanked him, told him I'd be in touch and express my thanks more suitably, and hung up. During breakfast—two more cups of black coffee—I thought about the affair at the Madeleine last night, that call this morning, a few other things. There was one way it all made sense, maybe a couple of ways. I let it simmer.

At eight a.m. I phoned the Police Building and got Captain Samson. After the hellos, I passed on the bare facts I'd been given on Omar's alleged killing, and he said, “Yeah, we heard the same thing a few hours ago. Even got a couple names. Guy named Chunk, and a heavy they call Two-Time."

“Well, I know Chunk. At least, I met his knuckles. Never heard of this Two-Time.” I lit a cigarette from the butt of another and added, “Maybe it really happened."

“What does that mean?"

“Just thinking out loud, Sam. You got anything else you can pass on?"

“Couple things. Blood in the penthouse at the Madeleine and the smear found in Omar's house; it's still in the works. Precipitin test proved it's all human blood, and it's all type O. But that doesn't mean much. We'll have more later this morning."

“Both stains in the Madeleine were type O?"

“That's right."

I knew that more than forty per cent of Caucasians had type 0 blood, so the tests hadn't proved anything yet; but it was a step in the right direction. I'd have been happier if those stains in the Madeleine had been two different blood types, though.

“No sign of Matthew Omar yet? Or his body?"

“No.” Sam swore. “And I hope he doesn't show up dead. One more corpse will make it about three too many. Worries me we haven't got a line yet on Domano and his punks, too. Be just lovely if they're all shot up somewhere."

“Not likely. Sam, you're getting pessimistic in your old age."

He grunted. “Maybe. But I'll feel better when they get Dyke put away."

“Dyke? Oh, yeah—Geezer.” That was right; he was going to be buried at Eternal Peace today. In his two-and-a-half-G casket. “You get word to Alexander that his boys are to leave their machine guns at home?"

“You damned bet I did. Talked to him myself.” He sighed. “I've arranged for a few teams to be in the area. I'm going out there, too. I don't like all those hoodlums being gathered in one place—especially with the word out that the Domino gang hit Omar. From what we hear, the whole Alexander bunch is boiling now. They were hot enough after the Dyke hit."

The situation struck me as more than mildly explosive, too, but I didn't say that to Sam. Instead I told him, “It'll work out. Don't forget, I'm on your side."

“That's what worries me. I wish you'd join the force, so I could keep track—"

I interrupted him, “You bring Lilli Lorraine down last night, Sam?"

“Had her here a couple hours. Tested both hands. Nothing. Either she wore gloves—which she'd already denied before the tests—or she didn't fire a gun. Couldn't shake her story, though."

That was all the news of importance, so I told Sam I'd check with him again later, then went and looked into the refrigerator. Eggs. It was either mush or eggs. But I usually ruin the mush, and eggs look so horrible lying there in the pan, all sloppy and hideously naked, that they're not much fun, either. No matter what I cook, the food spoils my appetite, anyway. I had a glass of milk.

By nine a.m. I was ready to go. I'd stayed near the phone till then, either using it myself or waiting in case a call came in. Two more had, reporting or corroborating the info about Domino's mugs blasting Omar, but there'd been nothing new. So at nine o'clock I was sitting before the fish tanks, watching the assorted tropicals and home-grown guppies eat some brine shrimp I hatched from eggs.

I don't mean I sat on them, or anything like that. You just pour the little sand-colored eggs into salt water, and they hatch all by themselves. I noticed that the female guppy who'd been gravid two days ago, when this case had started, was darting after the little white shrimp as speedily as her brothers and sisters. Even though she'd given birth to several fry, and had gobbled them up. It's not all sweetness and light in the fish world, either.

I strapped on my gun harness, put on my coat, and the phone rang. In the bedroom again. I grabbed it.

“Scott?"

“Yeah."

“Can't tell you who this is. But I tipped you to something pretty good three months ago. Almost to the day. You got it?"

“Well...” The voice was familiar, but I couldn't pin it down.

“You give me a C-note. Nearly three months."

That tied it together. A short, thin guy named Kahn. Ben Kahn. He'd been a mildly successful stick-up man for a year, and then had been retired to San Quentin for two years. He'd added it up and decided to go straight, being a pretty smart character to begin with. But he still knew most of his former associates, and hadn't informed them he'd turned square.

“Yeah,” I said. “I've got it."

“Meet me the same place."

“O.K. I'm just leaving. Give me twenty minutes."

He hung up.

On the way out I glanced into the two aquariums again. The brine shrimp were gone; the frantic feeding activity had diminished. My sleek, sharklike Panchax chaperii male was nudging his sweetie toward a massed clump of green myriophyllum, and a color-splashed male guppy swam lazily through lighter green cabomba. A small, half-grown catfish scavenged in sand at the bottom of the guppy tank.

It was the lovely, peaceful scene I often watch, sometimes for hours, feeling the blood slow down, the nerves relax. My daily medicine: fish therapy. I carried some of the calm with me out the door. Peace ...

Maybe, I was thinking, this would after all be one of those peaceful days.

I should have known better.

7

The “same place” was a service station on cahuenga—a Shell station, at that.

Nineteen minutes after Ben Kahn's call, I left the Cad next to the gas pumps, asked the attendant to fill it up—with Super-Shell—and walked into the men's room.

Nobody was in sight, but the door of the enclosed john was shut. “Benny?” I said.

He came out, lit a cigarette. “'Lo, Scott. Maybe I make another C-note."

“I hope, so, Benny.” I did. Not only was he staying straight, and putting his girl through, college, but I hoped his information was worth that much.

He didn't waste any time. “You're still interested in where Nickie Domano and his men are, right?"

“And how."

“I'm not sure, but I think maybe I made it. I was driving in about an hour ago, on Cypress. Some guys in a big Imperial passed me, going like hell—I was hitting sixty—and I got a look at the guy on my side as they went by. Guy was Pete Peters, they call him Irish Pete, on account of he drinks Irish whisky. Know him?"

I shook my head.

“Works for Nickie. Was in the Engineers when he did his bit in the Army, blew up bridges and stuff, got out and started blowing safes. Expert, can figure to the ounce what it'll take to pop the can open. Damn good man. Main thing is, he works for Nickie."

“He's the only one you saw?"

“Three, four others in the car, but he's the only one I made. Should be enough. About a mile ahead of me they took a left on a dirt road. I didn't stick around to watch, but maybe half a mile in, up pretty high, there was a house all alone. Not much out there, just trees and junk growing in the ground. Could be where they're at. Some of them, anyhow."

“Good enough. You've no idea why they might be holed up out there?"

He shook his head. “The bit worth a C?"

I thought about it. “Yeah, if you can pin down the location."

“Easy. Little ways past where they turned off, I drove by a big old wood house looks like it's going to fall down. Out front was an old guy looks like he's going to fall down. He was digging some holes—said he was going to put up a sign, ‘Eben's Animal Farm,’ he says. Going out, you pass that zoo place—only house along there—and keep on maybe a mile, little under. Then you'll see the dirt road going up to your right."

“Zoo? You mean, like animals in a tent?"

“Yeah, only there's no tent, just some pens back of the house. From there I couldn't see the place where it looked like Nickie's boys were headed, and if I couldn't see it, they couldn't see me, so I stopped and jawed with the old duck. Jawed a minute and then worked around to asking if he knew who else lived around there, or if he'd noticed a bunch of guys moving in, like that. He knew from nothing. He'd just moved in himself, from some dump fifty miles or so away where he'd been sticking the farmers two bits to look at his animals. Or maybe him. Put him in a cage, I'd pay two bits to look at him myself. I could afford to see him four hundred times. I think."

He was hinting. I pulled out my wallet, extracted a hundred-dollar bill, and handed it to him.

“Don't put it away,” he said. “I got another one. The big one."

I smiled. Maybe a little thin, but I smiled. “Saved the big one for last?"

“It's business, Scott."

I found a fifty, two twenties, and a ten, kept them out, and put my wallet away. “About this big?"

“Easy. You won't even kick."

I folded the bills in half and held them out toward him.

“Try me."

“Your phone's bugged."

I stared at him. “You're sure?"

“Sure enough. In fact, it's both your phones."

I gave him the hundred.

“You know the Tropics, don't you?” he asked.

“Sure.” It was a jukebox bar in downtown L.A., owned through a front by a two-time loser who enjoyed having birds of his feather around. It was a bar where a man fresh out of stir could go for a drink and feel he was among friends. Tourists who stumbled in would probably think the place very drab and colorless; but if you knew the hoods’ lingo, and weren't a tourist, you could on occasion hear some very interesting and colorful conversations.

“I was in there last night,” Benny said, “having a beer and riding the Earie, just in case I could pick up something you'd like to hear about. Who comes in but one of your colleagues, Neal—don't know his last name. Little round-faced guy with fat muscles."

I knew who he meant. A former private detective, who'd lost his license but hadn't lost any of his encyclopedic knowledge of electronics, of bugs and bugging. We'd always been reasonably friendly. I had a hunch the reasonable friendliness was about to end.

Benny went on, “He was with a blond twist about two feet taller than he is. Stacked.” He flashed a quick grin at me. “She had pretty fat muscles herself. They slid into the booth clear in back, near the gents’ can. Both full of sauce to start out with, and they started drinking straight shots."

He opened the toilet door and flipped his cigarette inside. I heard the psst as he made a bull's-eye. “To make a long story short, I stepped into the can and kept the door cracked. Neal is selling himself to this babe, but she's not buying the whole store yet. So finally he tells her he just got through bugging Shell Scott's pad. He says, ‘I got that sonofabitch wired so he can't belch without me taping the echo.’ That impressed the twist."

“Grand. He said, ‘that sonofabitch,’ huh?"

“Yeah. For a start. You want to hear how he finished?"

“Never mind. He bug the phones, or my whole apartment?"

“Just taps on the phones. I heard enough to be pretty sure of that."

“He drop who he did the job for?"

“No."

“Any idea where I could find Neal now?"

“No again."

“How come you didn't call me last night, Benny?"

“I did. He and the blonde came in about eleven, and I called you near midnight. No answer. I was a little leery about calling you over a bugged phone to start with. Slept on it and—hell, you should be glad I called at all."

“I am. I'm more than merely—"

“I spent forty minutes in that damn crapper. Forty minutes, wagging my ear and holding my nose.” He looked around him, at the white-painted walls. “Cans. The story of my life."

“You want a little for overtime, Benny?"

He shook his head. “Two C's I'm after, two C's I got. I'm satisfied. How about you?"

“I think I'm getting the best of it."

“That's good. That's the way I want it.” He flashed me the quick grin again. “Now that I'm honest."

It was nearly noon before I headed out the Freeway toward Hollywood again, headed for Cypress Road and a look at the area where—maybe—Nickie Domano and his gang were now headquartered.

I'd spent the rest of the morning running down a few calls that had come in to my office in the Hamilton Building—Hazel, on the switchboard at the end of the hall, had taken the “no comment” calls and passed them on to me—and trying to find friend Neal. The calls turned out to be unimportant as far as the Alexander-Domano case was concerned, but I had to check them out.

At the Tropics I learned the first name of the blonde Neal had been with last night, but not where I could find her—or Neal. I didn't find either of them. But when I did find Neal, by the time I got through with him he was really going to think of me as “that sonofabitch."

I pulled off the Freeway and swung right around the curve into Sunset. I made the stop at Sunset but, wrapped in thought, didn't check the Boulevard to my left as closely as I should have. A horn blasted with the sound of a diesel locomotive's whistle, and I hit the brakes as an enormous red gasoline truck roared past a foot from my front bumper.

I managed to get into the traffic stream on Sunset without having a collision, or a heart attack, and I was thinking, “Man, a guy doesn't have to get shot to get killed; you can get killed all kinds of ways. Like being a little careless..."

Right then it hit me.

Ideas roared through my head like little red gas trucks.

They seemed to zip up my spine and keep on going till they hit my skull, with the click-click-click of castanets, or maybe the sound of slot-machine tumblers stopping on jackpot.

It's said that a man drowning, or maybe a man dying, sometimes sees his whole past life flash before his eyes. Well, that didn't happen to me, but that gas wagon ripping by so close moved those mental tumblers just a little. Everything that had happened since Zazu rang the chimes at my apartment rolled through my mind, from that beginning cling-clong to the right-now click-click-click, and I said aloud, “Why, hell yes. Why not?"

I rolled it around, weighed it, and when I stopped at the next red light I reached under the Cad's dash and grabbed the mobile phone there, gave my name and number, and called the L.A.P.D., Homicide Division. By the time the light turned green, I had Samson on the other end of the line.

“Sam, Shell. I think I know how we can find Matthew Omar's body."

“Body? You sound pretty sure he's dead."

“Hell yes, he's dead."

Sam swore lustily. I hadn't stopped to think that the last thing he wanted right now was another corpse with holes in it.

“I suppose you can prove that,” he said.

“Well, no. But—"

“That's what I figured. Shell, I've got to see the chief again in ten minutes—during his lunch hour. My lunch hour, too, for that matter. And in about two hours there'll be maybe forty hoods gathering for Harry Dyke's funeral, every one of them already griped at Domano and all his hoods. Dyke was bad enough, then Werme was killed, and now if this Omar turns up knocked off—"

His voice petered out. It wasn't that he'd run down, but that my mobile phone was on the blink. I'd been having trouble with it off and on for over a week. I'm not very good with machinery and radio tubes and such, but I'd managed to fix it every time so far. What you do, you kick the little box holding the tubes, and if you kick it just right something happens and it works again. For a while.

“Just a minute, Sam, I can't hear you—” I cut it off. He couldn't hear me either, of course. I felt a little silly, the way you do when you dial and the voice says, “You have dialed a wrong number" and you say “Oops, gee, I'm sorry,” and the voice continues, “This is a recording."

I lifted my leg, aimed my cordovan, and thunk. Got it just right. Either going to have to get the radiophone fixed or buy a new pair of shoes. Worked again, though.

Right after the thunk: “—then they'll listen to the eulogy about what a fine chap their buddy was, and they'll file past the casket and look down at him, getting madder and madder—"

“O.K., Sam, I know you're busy. Forget it."

Sam just didn't go on like that, not once a year. I knew he was under a lot of pressure now. Newspapers had been chewing up the department, and the chief had been chewing out Sam, and I guess he had to let off steam himself once in a while. Besides, I was sure he hadn't slept for at least a day and a half, maybe longer. He was in no mood to listen to an involved explanation.

I was rolling along Sunset, and Vine Street was up ahead, so I swung over into the left lane and said, “Ignore everything I said, Sam. I've got another idea."

“I don't like the sound—"

“Anything new from SID?"

“Blood in the penthouse, both places, was type O, Rh negative. Under the rug there in Omar's house, Rh positive. But that's still not much help. For all we know, Omar's blood type is O or A or AB or what the hell. We won't know till we find Omar himself. Or his body."

“That's great."

“What's so great—"

“I'll find him for you ... I think. Sam, don't worry about it—just do me one favor, will you? Stay by that phone till I call you again, O.K.?"

“I told you, in ten minutes—hell, five now—"

“Sam, I'm in my Cad. Practically home.” I was. I was slowing for the signal at Vine Street. A few blocks down Vine it becomes North Rossmore, and on North Rossmore is the Spartan Apartment Hotel. “I've one more little thing to do, but I'll call you as soon as I get inside my apartment. Shouldn't be more than five minutes. Maybe less. O.K.?"

He swore softly some more. Then he said, “O.K. But I hope to hell you know what you're doing."

“And don't worry about what I say, just play along with me. Deal?"

“Deal.” He paused, then said again, “I hope to hell you know what you're doing."

I hoped so, too. But I didn't tell Sam that. I told him good-bye and stuck the phone back under the dash, made the left turn into Vine, grabbed the phone again.

It was five minutes after noon. It took me three minutes just to get the man I wanted, Jim Nelson of KBTV, local Channel 14. He produced a half-hour national-and-local news program, telecast each week night at seven-thirty. A five-minute feature of the show, when there was suitable footage, consisted of scenes filmed from Channel 14's roving, camera-equipped helicopter, named, perhaps too cutely, “Chopper 14."

The two-man helicopter crew covered fires, disasters like floods and earthquakes, pile-ups on Freeways; and when there was nothing sufficiently gory or catastrophic, they merely poked down from the sky into various portions of the city for light commentary or human-interest narration about the City of the Angels, and Hollywood, by day and by night.

By the time Jim answered his phone, I had parked behind the Spartan and glanced around the area—I always glance around, since I'm less than popular with certain segments of L.A. society at any time, and especially today, I figured.

“Jim,” I said, “this is Shell Scott."

“Well, hi. Shell. What've you been—"

“Jim, I'm in a helluva hurry. Please Just listen to this, and let me ask you a favor, and then say yes."

“Even if it wasn't you, I wouldn't say yes—"

“I want you to send your guys in the helicopter out here to pick me up—"

“Wait a minute. Out where?"

“I'm at the Spartan now, so all they'll have to do is set it down across the street, on the grounds of the Wilshire Country Club, and pick—"

“You're out of your mind—"

“—me up. It's nice and flat, and I'll already be there waiting—"

“You are out of your mind."

“Jim, could be I am, but please don't interrupt till I've finished.” It was ten minutes after twelve. Probably Sam was right now supposed to be sitting, or maybe standing, or maybe even saluting, in front of the imposing desk of the even more imposing Chief of Police of the L.A.P.D.

I went on rapidly, “Look, I know you don't owe me any favors. But do this and I'll owe you a big one. I give you my word, any time you can use a private detective's services, you call me and—so long as I don't have to break my word to somebody else—you've got me. Free. Day or night. For as long as you want, and whatever you want."

I made myself keep quiet while he said, “Uh ... ,” and thought for a few seconds. Then he said, “Funny, I just might want to ... Skip that for now. Why do you want the chopper?"

“I want them to pick me up and go where I tell them—I don't know yet where that'll be. But, if I'm right, they can then get a beautiful shot for your telecast tonight—as a bonus—of some hoods opening up a dead man's grave."

“What hoods?"

“I ... don't really know yet, not for sure. Actually, I am pretty sure, but..."

I was trying to think of too many things at once. And some doubts were creeping in. Maybe that big gasoline wagon zooming past my bumper had merely addled my noodles. It had all seemed so clear, so clearly logical, then—ah, the hell with doubts.

“Whose grave?” Jim asked.

“Matthew Omar's."

That interested him. “Yeah, we got that. He's dead, huh?"

I swallowed. To hell with doubts, I reminded myself.

“Yes."

“And ‘Chopper Fourteen’ will get footage of crooks digging his body up?"

“Yes.” I swallowed again. I couldn't do it. “That is, Jim, unless I am actually out of my mind."

“Which, if I know you, you are."

“If it was just me I'd say there's a ninety-per cent chance. But to you, well, it's fifty-fifty. At least.” I paused. “But—think of it, Jim. If you do get a shot like that, that big old Zoomar lens on Chopper Fourteen's camera zooming in, man, you'll have a real news beat, a scoop, a triumph—"

“Don't go ga-ga—"

“Hoods open grave of murdered man, dig him up, wow, flash, scoop! Why, you might win the Nobel Prize—"

“They don't give No—"

“Or even a Pulitzer Prize—"

“And not a Pu—"

“Hell, an Emmy. An Oscar. Some damn thing. And think of the public service—"

“All right, calm down. Let me think. Well ... I'll do it. That is, I'll try to do it. Just this once."

“Jim, it isn't like this will happen again."

“I'm a member of the club, and I think I can clear this at the top. But how about the members—"

“No time for that."

“Shell, there's a heliport on top of the Lee Tower. Why can't we pick you up there?"

“Jim, there simply won't be enough time. After I call Sam again, there may be only two or three minutes...” I let it trail off, thinking. More to myself than to him I went on, “Yeah, there's Sam waiting for my call. And it may be too late already. If this thing doesn't get moving, those hoods will already have left for the cemetery—"

Jim broke in, “Omar's in the cemetery?"

“No, I was thinking of a funeral. Jim, I've got to go now, no matter what. Will you call the ‘copter and start them out here? So they can be on their way while you're checking with the club? You can always call them back—"

“All right, Shell. But if this is a fizzle—"

His voice stopped. The phone had fizzled. Thunk. Nothing. I kicked it again. Nothing. It seemed a bad omen.

I shoved the phone onto its hook, jumped out of the Cad, and sprinted into the Spartan.

I was dialing from my apartment phone at twelve-fourteen. Sam answered. “Shell, Sam,” I said. “I've—"

“Dammit—"

I was afraid he might, accidentally, say the wrong thing in the heat of the moment, so I rushed on, “Just listen a minute, old buddy. We were talking earlier about Matthew Omar, and that bloodstain under the rug in his house."

Sam came in, his voice controlled. “Yeah, that's right."

“You need Omar so that you can check his blood type against the blood in his house. Well, I think I'll soon have my hands on Omar—or, rather, his body."

Just a short silence, then Sam came in, beautifully, “His body, huh? You think he's dead?"

“Hell yes, he's dead,” I said, just as I'd said it to Sam a few minutes—too many minutes—ago. But this time I went on, “I've got lines out all over town, and in a few minutes I should know where he's buried, I'm leaving the apartment right now, Sam, to get the info. You got that?"

“Got it."

I wanted to be sure it was completely clear, however, that I was not going to get the information over the phone, here in my apartment. So I repeated it. “I'm going to leave here as soon as I hang up, Sam. A few minutes later I'm pretty sure I'll know where Omar is. Now, when you get his body downtown, you'll check the blood type, of course, but I imagine you'll also check the bullets in him against those you've got on file. Right?"

“Naturally."

“So start with the slugs you took out of Geezer, huh?"

“Geezer?” He was surprised—but he recovered fast. “You mean Harry Dyke. Yeah, naturally..."

His voice trailed off. There were sounds in the ear-piece, as if he was moving. Maybe standing up. Then I heard him say, “Uh, hello, Chief."

Well, that tore it. I could hear another man speaking, but I couldn't make out anything but a gentle murmur, like a very, very distant tidal wave. The chief was speaking in his low, calm, quiet voice, and that wasn't good. That was lousy.

But I finished it up. “I'll call you as soon as I've got something solid. Thanks. And, uh, sorry I held you up, Sam."

Then I put the receiver down, mentally wished Sam well, and took off.

The chopper was already overhead when I trotted out through the Spartan's entrance and down the steps. I gashed my wrist a bit on a wire, going over the Wilshire Country Club's fence, but when I dropped to the grass inside, the Channel 14 helicopter was hovering only a few feet above the rough—yes, rough; there's a dandy golf course inside the fence.

Once before I had disturbed some golfers lining up long putts—and short ones, which are the worst kind—and all they had tried to do was kill me, with putters, golf carts, drivers, and those wickedly sharp nine irons. A helicopter coming out of nowhere and settling down a bit off the fairway is enough to ruin even an easy four-wood shot, much less a short putt, so I—so I wasn't going to think about it.

I ran toward the chopper. It settled down, swaying a little, and the door in its convex side opened. I clambered in fast and said, “Up. Up!"

Up we went.

I let out a sigh that seemed to start at my toes. Then I told the pilot where I wanted to go and that I wanted to go fast. The beat of the rotors overhead picked up as he twisted the throttle open. I scrambled into a jump seat behind the two in front and got settled as the pilot lifted the control stick, working both hands, turning the chopper as we rose speedily higher.

The pilot turned around and looked at me. “Would you kindly tell us what in hell this is all about?” he asked.

He was a black-haired, craggy-faced man about forty years old. In the seat to his right was the cameraman, a younger guy with bushy brows over small eyes, a tight mouth, and a perplexed expression. I didn't know either of them; we hadn't met before.

“Well,” I said, “I'm Shell Scott—"

“We know that much. Jim told us to pick up a Shell Scott at the Wilshire Country Club, just over the fence from Rossmore, and do whatever you told us, but that's all he said. I made him say it twice."

“And you recognized me from the air, huh?"

“Recognized you, hell. Who else would be waiting there for a helicopter?"

“Yeah. You've got a point. Well, in about a minute...” I stopped, peering out and down. From a mile or so in the air you can see a hell of a ways, and I thought I could pick out Cyril Alexander's big pink house already. I said, “You've got some glasses here in the cabin, haven't you? Binoculars?"

“Sure."

“Mind if I use them a second?"

“You're the boss."

The pilot had been speaking, but now the cameraman leaned down, then passed the heavy binoculars back to me. I got them focused, found the pink house. It was Alexander's, all right. I could see the striped canvas on the lawn and the two cottages inside the ornate metal gate. There was no sign of activity, either inside the grounds or on Oleander Drive, the road running before the house—except for one car poking along at twenty or thirty miles an hour, and that wouldn't be it. So I took a peek at the pool. Empty, worse luck. Probably Zazu only swam there in the morning. And probably these guys in the ‘copter could have told me that.

Then I raised the glasses and moved them left, hunting. I know the Hollywood area well—from the ground. It looked a lot different from up here. But after a few seconds I found tree-lined Cypress Road. It was three streets up from the road fronting the Alexander estate, and when I'd spotted it I just kept moving the glasses west, toward the ocean.

The house was five or six miles west of Alexander's, out in what is as close to the sticks as you can get in this part of Southern California. It was alone at the top of a low hill, or slightly rounded elevation in the earth, and I was sure it must be the place Benny Kahn had described. Not only because a dirt road led to it from Cypress, but because there were three ... no, four automobiles parked behind it.

Half a mile or so this side of it, on Cypress itself, was the nearest other building, undoubtedly the old house Benny had mentioned: some kind of family zoo or farm.

When I swung the glasses back toward Alexander's, the activity had started.

Four men were running—and I don't mean loping along, they were running — from one of the cottages to a pale blue sedan parked in the red, crushed-rock driveway. Each of the men carried something that looked, from up here, like a toothpick.

But I knew what they were. They weren't toothpicks.

They were shovels.

8

It surprised me a little when the carful of crooks barreled out of the driveway and turned left, toward Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Maybe because I'd been thinking of the Domino headquarters—if that's what it was—half a dozen miles farther west, I'd expected them to head thataway.

But they roared on at about eighty miles an hour or more, east on Oleander Drive. Ten miles from Alexander's house, on Oleander, was the Eternal Peace Funeral Home and Cemetery, and for a perplexed minute I wondered if they were actually going there, an hour or two in advance of their appointment with Geezer.

But they only traveled about halfway and then skidded left—they were really in a hurry—into a two-lane asphalt road, the blue sedan swaying dangerously as it straightened out. The direction made sense to me now. On their previous trip they would have been coming out this way from Pinehurst Road in Hollywood, coming from civilization to a slightly less populated area.

My two companions had been pretty quiet. A little while ago I had said, “There they go. Follow that car.” And the tight-mouthed cameraman had sort of sneered and said, “Gee, just like the movies.” So I figured I'd better tell them what was going on.

“You got a lot of film in that camera?” I asked.

“More than we'll need."

“How far away from them can we be and still get a reasonably close shot?"

“Zoom in from two or three miles. Depends if you want to see their whiskers. If it's people you're after."

“It's people. Four live ones and a dead one. The four in the car are hoods—"

“Hoods?” That was the pilot, angling his craggy face around again.

“Yeah, thugs, crooks, killers. Last night they—or some of them, probably not all four—buried a dead guy. Now they're going to go dig him up. That's the film Jim wants for tonight's show. Probably can't use closeups of the stiff, but the rest of it should be interesting."

The cameraman's mouth got a little looser. “No kidding?” He seemed pleased, at last. “That's what we're doing?"

“Right. You might get a shot of the car now, if you want. Sort of a lead-in to the grave digging."

I cautioned the pilot to stay far enough away so the four men below wouldn't tumble to the aerial tail. But I wasn't really very concerned. They had no reason to expect any kind of tail, certainly not a helicopter overhead. Three or four miles up the asphalt road the driver pulled over and stopped.

Eucalyptus trees lined the road, and farther away were scattered oak and pepper trees. The land rose gently, then after maybe fifty yards dropped down into a gully or ravine, almost like a dry river bed, beyond which a low hill rose and then fell. Men down in that gully would be out of sight of anyone driving by. Of course, last night it would have been a lot easier; it would have been dark. The job would be a little trickier now, in broad daylight.

I guess the driver had figured that out, too. He swung off the road and drove slowly over the ground, headed toward that gully. Some of the earth was reasonably level, but in spots it must have been pretty bumpy, because I could see the car rock and sway. I could also hear the whir of the movie camera here in the cabin, as the cameraman busied himself getting a few shots.

I said, “We can stay pretty well off until we see where those guys end up. But once we know where they're digging I've got to get down there—as suddenly as possible."

The pilot said, “You think they're going in that gully there?"

“Looks like it."

“Well, why don't I drop down low, other side of that hill, and let you off over there?"

“Fine. Yeah, they won't see us that way. And I sure as hell don't want them to see me."

“What you have to go down there for?"

“Well, you let me off and go back up—and keep using that camera; it'll interest the L.A.P.D., and a captain I know, among others—and as soon as you actually see a body, either phone the police direct or call Jim Nelson and have him send the cops out here. I'll hold the men till they arrive."

I took out my .38, swung the cylinder open, and checked it—a bit nervously, I'll admit.

The pilot said, “They're crooks? You mean they got—” he was looking at the Colt as I put it back in its holster—"guns?"

“You bet they've got guns."

“There won't be any shooting, will there?"

“I hope to hell not. But it's possible. If this works smoothly, they're going to be more than mildly shocked anyhow, and I doubt—"

“Make a sweet picture,” said the cameraman.

I scowled at him. But I suppose maybe you get that way after covering enough disasters.

The blue sedan had stopped about halfway to the gully. There remained twenty, possibly twenty-five yards of open ground over which they'd have to walk, both going and coming. Coming back, of course, would be the tricky part.

The hoods piled out. Four hoods, four shovels. I put the glasses on them. They didn't look up, and the helicopter wasn't as close as I'd have liked—at least for this one moment—but I made two of them. Stacey was almost easy, because of that flaming red face; and one of the other men was so big and broad-shouldered and bulky I knew it had to be either Luddy or Dope. He looked back over his shoulder at something. It was Dope.

“Let's get over on the other side of that hill,” I said. Before the helicopter dropped down low enough so that the hilltop blocked the men from our view, we'd seen them start digging. It was a fine place. Not even under a tree. Just open ground with a few pepper trees nearby, but nothing to obstruct the view of an overhead camera. On the other hand, there wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of cover for me, just those trees and a few bushy shrubs which looked awfully small and spindly from where I was.

There was no need for the chopper to land. I jumped out through the door when we were still three feet off the ground, and the helicopter's rotors picked up speed as he swung away in the air, then up. I waved, feeling a little lonely.

Then I turned and ran to the top of the hill.

Going down was easy, for half the distance. The green fullness of a pepper tree hid the men from me, and vice versa. But then I had to move in the open for a hundred yards, bent low and going like sixty. I kept my eyes on the men, and they didn't even glance toward me.

“Chopper 14” was on the other side of the blue sedan now, about a mile away as the crow flies, and circling. One of the men did raise his head and look at it, then resumed digging. For the last thirty yards I got down on my belly and gave it the knee, toe, and elbow approach, gun in my right hand. I was ready to use it, but I didn't have to. They were busy, digging and swearing, and beginning to sweat. It was a warm day, and these boys weren't accustomed to physical activity.

They were active at the moment, however.

I'd used the trunk of that pepper tree, and its drooping limbs, to conceal me from them as much as possible, and finally I was under the tree itself, up against the trunk. The four men were hardly more than thirty feet away, and I could hear the shovels slice into the earth, the grunts and cuss words

I peered around the tree trunk. A few thin, green-leafed limbs hung down before me, but it didn't affect the view much. I could see Stacey leaning back with one hand on his kidney and the other on his shovel. “Keerist,” he said, “I think I sprung a disc. You know, like when your back goes out of joint—"

“Shut up and swing that shovel."

It was a cold voice. Cold man. Wobble-browed Cork, a scowl on his mean face. He wiped sweat from his broken nose with the back of one hand, looking at Stacey. Stacey started shoveling vigorously, sprung disc and all.

They were down about four feet already. They'd buried him deep. That was good. If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing well. Dope was down in the hole, throwing dirt out of it like a machine. At the other end, with not much room for maneuvering, was one of Alexander's men who hadn't been present at the lawn party yesterday morning. He was a mug named Brill, a tall, round-shouldered weed with a face like a vulture.

So, of those from my meeting with Alexander and Company, only cadaverous Stiff and even-dopier-than-Dope Luddy were missing. But these four would be a very nice haul. If I could haul them. Suddenly I very badly wanted a cigarette.

Earth flew. Finally Brill climbed out of the hole, leaving only Dope down there, working to the last. The other three stood watching him, breathing heavily. They were really out of shape, those guys.

“Hey!” That was Dope, in the hole. “Here he is!"

“Where the hell you expect him to be?” That was Cork, naturally. “Grab him and shove him out here, Dope. We ain't got all day."

Cork glanced up. That ‘copter was a little too close for comfort. Theirs—and mine.

Thump.

Dope had lifted the body and shoved it from the grave like a man doing a two-handed shot-put. The corpse landed and rolled only a little, becoming still with the face turned away from me. The corpse was rigid. If he'd been killed around ten o'clock last night, he'd been dead for nearly fifteen hours. Rigor was complete. He was stiff as a frozen octopus, one leg bent, arms awkwardly angled, hands like claws.

He didn't look like a man. He had been. He had been a rather pleasant-looking man. Dope climbed from the hole, and he and Cork rolled the body over, and it was what was left of Matthew Omar. He wore dark trousers and a once-white shirt and was covered with dirt, but I could see where the slugs had caught him; he'd taken one in the head and two in the heart.

“Hey, I don't like that heeleecopter,” Brill was saying. “Maybe we better drag Omar under that tree there."

There from his point of view was here from mine. He was pointing at my pepper tree.

Cork glanced up. The chopper was going away from us. “Come on, let's get the hell out of here.” He bent down and grabbed an arm.

Brill and Cork got the arms. Dope and Stacey the stiff legs. Stacey took time to wipe the shovel handles with a rag, then simply tossed all four of them into the hole in the ground. In a few more seconds the grisly parade was moving away from me, back toward the car. Up front, Cork and Brill to left and right; to the rear. Dope on my left and Stacey grunting next to him.

They carried Omar away.

It wasn't an easy job, even with four of them—or maybe four was a couple too many. Besides the stiffness of the body, the ground was not at all level, and now they were going up the gully's side.

But they were all looking ahead, and occupied with what they were doing, so I stepped out from behind my pepper tree.

Stepped out, and walked up behind them.

9

When they reached the top of the gully, i was only six feet behind Dope and Stacey. Nobody had looked around. Nobody had noticed me. They hadn't even heard me yet.

I was just waltzing along behind them, breathing easily—of course, I wasn't carrying anything—Colt ready in my right hand. I figured the men in “Chopper 14” had surely by now observed the proceedings and called the police, but that was one thing I wanted to be sure of. So I waved my left hand at them, then put the Colt up near my mouth, as if I were talking into a phone.

The helicopter swerved back and forth a little; so they'd seen me. They were coming straight toward us now, but the four men hadn't noticed, or at least had not yet become alarmed.

I was thinking this was almost like a stroll in the countryside—and then Brill turned his head and said, “Man, I'm pooped. Wouldn't want to do this every day."

I ducked low, went into a crouch, and flipped my gun toward him. But apparently he hadn't turned his head around far enough to spot me. I walked up behind the men again, but not breathing quite so easily.

The land was more level now, and I could see the blue sedan about twenty-five yards ahead. Almost there. Brill said, “Hold it a second. Man, I got to catch up with my breath."

“Yeah,” Stacey agreed, panting. “Gahdamn disc of mine's sprung. I think it's split plumb in two."

“O.K., just a second,” Cork said, and they all stopped.

I stopped too, but about half a second later, and my shoe hit a little pebble.

The little pebble rolled over the ground, passed a couple of feet to Dope's left, and stopped. He just happened to be looking that way, and saw it.

“Hey,” he said.

Nobody answered him.

“Hey,” he said again. “I got to have help with this one."

Without looking around, Cork snapped, “What in hell you gabbing about, Dope?"

Dope screwed his head around slowly and looked at me. He looked straight at me. Then he screwed his head slowly back around again.

“Hey,” he said, “wait a minute. How many of us is there?"

“Oh, shut up, Dope."

“No, they's something ... Lessee, you got a arm and you got a arm, and you got a leg, and ... I got a leg?"

There was silence for a few seconds. Finally Dope said, “What in hell has he got?"

“He?"

“Yeah, him.” Dope looked around at me again. And at my gun. And, I suppose, at about half a grin on my face. “Fellows,” he said, “they is five of us."

“Sure, counting Omar—"

"I ain't counting Omar!"

Well, this could go on forever. So I said, “He means me. Fellows, you're all under arrest. For grave robbing."

It hit them all at once and in almost precisely the same fashion. First, rigidity. Followed by a kind of blah looseness. Then they swung their heads toward me and almost immediately up toward the now-unmistakable sound of the chopper's rotors nearly straight above us, their four heads whipping around at me and then skyward like citizens watching a vertical tennis match.

Cork said a foul word.

And I said, “I'll shoot the first guy who lets go of Omar."

They stood there, debating.

“Let go of him one at a time,” I said. “Make it easy for me."

They stopped debating. “Carry him to the car,” I said. “But don't drop him when you get there."

They moved. Swearing, but moving.

At the car Dope looked at me and said, “How'd you know we was digging him up?"

“Well, I had a hunch you were transplanting him."

It was odd. We were talking about Omar as if he were a bulb. But, after all, Omar wasn't here any more, just his used skin and bones and such.

“We didn't kill him, Scott,” Dope went on seriously.

“Who says you did?"

“I wouldn't want you thinking that, Scott. The boss told us who done it. It was Chunk and Two-Time and Liver."

“How'd Alexander know that?"

“He got there right after it happened. At Omar and Cork's house there."

Remembering the holes in Omar I said, “Don't tell me Omar's supposed to have spilled that to Alexander, with his last breath."

“Hell, no, he didn't have no last breath. Boss seen them bastards leaving. If they'd seen him it would've been different. We wouldn't've known who done it."

I remembered that phone call from Omar. He'd said he was expecting Alexander any minute. Expecting him “here at the house any minute,” if I recalled his exact words.

I said, “How come Alexander went there in the first place?"

“Beats me. Just Omar wanted to see him about something, he said.” Dope paused, then went on, “Look, you got to believe we didn't kill him. Not Omar."

“I believe you."

“We just buried him. They blasted him, but we couldn't leave him layin’ there for the fuzz to stumble over. So the boss told us to plant him."

“I know.” I did. It was the way it had to be. It just didn't make sense that Domino's hoods would blast Omar and then haul him out and bury him—caught with a stiff in their car they'd really be in the soup; they could draw San Quentin for speeding. No, simple logic said that if they planned to kill him they'd simply blast him and leave him where he lay, or else take him alive to the sticks and shoot him.

So it had been obvious that, whoever killed him, or even if Omar had shot himself for target practice, it had been Alexander's boys who planted him, like a bulb. And, therefore, if anybody dug him up, it would have to be Alexander's boys who dug him up.

Stacey looked at me, his face a kind of visual grumble. “This guy's awful heavy,” be said. “Besides, I got this thing in my back—"

“You just hang on anyway, friend,” I said. “All of you hang on. You'll have plenty of time to rest."

The pilot did not land “Chopper 14” on the Wilshire Country Club grounds again, for which I didn't blame him. Instead he cleared to sit down atop the tall Lee Tower on Wilshire Boulevard, let me off, and was on his way—back to the studio. The cameraman was in a fever of impatience to get his films developed.

I was a little impatient myself. I guess there's a bit of the old ham in all of us, and I was sort of looking forward to seeing myself on Channel 14's seven-thirty telecast. I hoped those films came out. I hoped I looked brave. I hoped I lived till seven-thirty.

I took the elevator down to the ground floor of the Lee Tower, called a cab, bought a newspaper, and went out onto Wilshire to wait. It seemed as if it should be about nine o'clock at night, but it was only one p.m.

Not one, but three police radio cars had arrived at the little do-it-yourself graveyard, only about a minute and a half after I'd told Stacey to keep hanging on to Omar. The helicopter pilot had phoned in even before Omar's body came into view, almost as soon as those four hoods started digging; after hearing my story, he said, he figured they weren't looking for oil. I told him that was smart thinking.

Anyhow, the hoods were on their way to the slammer for interrogation and incarceration, even before I finished telling my story to a couple of sergeants. I told them I'd be downtown later and took off. Took off literally, in the helicopter.

When the cab arrived I climbed in and gave him the Spartan's address, glanced through the newspaper. Nothing very exciting; maybe tomorrow's paper would be better. One p.m., and a few ticks after. I guessed Alexander's gang—what was left of it—was climbing into the black suits and somber ties, putting on their diamond rings, and diamond tie clasps, and diamond cuff links, getting ready to go see Geezer. For the last time.

Even deleting Cork, Brill, Dope, and Stacey—and Omar and Geezer, of course—I guessed there'd be about a dozen members of Cyril Alexander's criminal cabal present in the flesh at Eternal Peace; plus another fifteen or twenty of Cyril's part-time associates, and a scattering of miscellaneous thieves, muscle men, torpedoes, bank robbers and such, assembled to give their late colleague and fellow creep a proper send-off.

Aside from those I knew quite well, there'd undoubtedly be black-eyed and thin-mustached Tamale Willie, a Mexican killer who liked to use a knife; Big Horse, who'd stomped two guys to death; Sad Mick McGannon, an old-timer who'd done time in Folsom after peppering a number of his friends with a machine gun in a fit of pique; and no telling who all. It was going to be a sight to see, and I almost wished I could be there this afternoon to watch them all filing gravely to the grave.

Come to think of it, for the Alexander gang this was a big day for graves.

The cabbie turned off Beverly into North Rossmore. The Spartan was just up ahead on the right, and—as I've mentioned is my habit—I looked over the area, almost casually. And then looked again, not so casually.

It was just a little thing.

At the top of the Spartan's cement steps, leaning against the wall, was what appeared to be a delivery boy. At least he held a package and was wearing a green cloth coat and a billed cap. The package was an oblong box like pretty flowers come in. I could even see the flowers—gladioli, I guessed they were—sticking prettily out of the end of the box. There was just no way you could mistake that package for anything but a box of flowers. That's what got me. I couldn't remember ever seeing flowers sticking out the end of their box.

Besides, the delivery boy was pretty old for a boy; catching up to forty, I'd say. And he was eagle-eyeing the street in front of the Spartan as if it were filled with uninhibited dancing girls instead of asphalt—and a taxicab beginning to slow down.

I leaned back in the seat. “Keep going."

“Isn't this the place?"

“Not any more, it isn't."

I kept out of sight, going by. My Cad was still parked behind the hotel, so if anybody was looking for me it was at least possible they would expect me to arrive in my car. They, not he.

Because across the street was a panel truck, another guy standing alongside it, also watching the dancing girls. I slumped way down in the cab's back seat, but managed to notice that the side panel of what was apparently the delivery truck didn't have “Pretty Flowers” or anything else painted on it.

“Where you want to go?"

“Up ahead for two or three blocks, pull around and hit Beverly Boulevard again, and turn right on Rossmore. Do it over again."

“You mean back where we was?"

“That's it."

He shook his head. Didn't make sense to him. I didn't give a hoot. Made sense to me.

If that guy was waiting on the Spartan's steps for a little old lady, so he could give her a box of gladioli, I wanted to get my Cad and head for Cypress Road and the possible hangout of the Domino gang. But just in case he was waiting for me, I wanted to know that, too.

If a hood is looking for you, with evil intent, the best thing you can know is the time and place. It's when you don't know the time and place that you get severely killed. On Beverly I found a bill in my wallet and pushed it over the front seat.

“Here's the fare and a little extra."

His hand found the bill. “Hey, that's a lot of—"

“You'll earn it. Just before we get to the Spartan, slow down. But don't stop. I'm leaving while the cab's still moving. When I hit the street, dig out. And don't take your time about it."

“I don't get it. Why should I dig—"

He was turning into Rossmore for the second time now, and I didn't have time to argue with him. “You can stick around if you want to. But there's a small chance if you do you might get shot."

I had my Colt out, and draped the newspaper over, holding it against the Colt with my thumb. The cabbie glanced around, saw what I was doing. “What the hell—” he began, but cut it off. He turned his head back, stared straight ahead, and said, “Yes, sir."

Delivery Boy was still there. The other man was standing next to his panel truck. We started slowing. I held gun and newspaper in my right hand, left hand on the handle of the door. When the front of the cab was ten feet short of the Spartan's steps, I shoved the door open and jumped to the street, kept going toward the Spartan's entrance.

I heard the cab's engine pick up speed fast.

I wasn't sprinting, just sort of loping toward my hotel. If that guy was a delivery boy, I was merely a tenant carrying a paper, in a hurry to get home.

He wasn't a delivery boy.

When he got a good look at me, his eyes widened, and an audible sound of surprise popped from his lips. While it was still popping, he whirled, lowering the package, shoving his right hand into the back of the box, swinging the bright and colorful end of the box toward me.

It was obvious. He was going to kill me with flowers.

His knees were bending, and his expression had the tortured rigidity of a death mask. The box was moving fast, almost centered on me. Almost, but not quite yet.

Not before I poured two into him.

I squeezed the two shots off and jumped to my right as he staggered, turning away from me. The posies exploded. He'd convulsively triggered the gun and the deep, heavy blast sent shredded blossoms—and buckshot—flying past me. A shotgun, sawed off. Shot hit and glanced from the sidewalk before the hotel, and simultaneously I heard a yell from behind me.

Across the street the man by the panel truck was looking down at his left arm. He grabbed for the truck's door, started to clamber in. Delivery Boy was on his knees—but that box was still in his hands. His death-mask face was dissolving in pain and shock, but he was still trying to pull the hidden shotgun barrel toward me. I fired again, and he fell, that last slug in his head.

The truck's starter ground. I heard the engine catch—and the sound of a siren only a few blocks away. Across the street the man fed gas to his engine, and the truck jumped forward. I leveled my Colt, turning, but couldn't get a shot at him. Brakes squealed as he swung around the corner. The siren was much louder, close now. I trotted into the hotel, up the steps, and turned in the hall, headed for my rooms.

I would have sworn the car with the wailing siren was on Rossmore, almost in front of the Spartan. But it couldn't have come here in response to the shooting—not within seconds. As I reached my apartment door and got it open the siren growled into its lowest register, started to stop. My phone was ringing. And, unquestionably, the car outside had stopped right out in front.

I slammed the door shut, jumped to the phone. There was a muffled pounding on the carpeted stairs I'd just come up. With the phone to my ear I heard a voice saying, “Shell? You all right?” It was Samson's voice.

Feet thumped in the hallway.

I aimed my Colt at the door, thumbed back the hammer. The door flew open, and Bill Rawlins was there, gun in his hand.

I didn't realize I'd been holding my breath, but it went out of me in a gush, and I lowered the Colt. “Yeah, Sam,” I said into the mouthpiece. “This is Shell. Hang on a second."

“You all right?"

“Yeah."

I eased down the hammer of my gun and shoved the Special back into its clamshell holster. “What in hell's going on?” I said to Bill.

He said the same thing Samson had, “You all right?"

“Sure, I'm all right. I don't even think I leaked in my pants yet. I guess you saw the dead guy."

He nodded. Then his chest rose and fell as he sighed deeply, relief showing on his face. He put his service revolver back in its belt holster and said, “I didn't check to see if he was dead. My partner's down there now."

“Well, he's dead. I don't know who he is, though. Never saw the sonofabitch before. Sawed-off in the flower box, by the way."

Bill nodded. He didn't seem a bit surprised.

Samson's voice sounded tinny, filtered through the phone in my lowered hand. I put it to my ear again and said, “Sam. Bill Rawlins just came in like a landslide. What's—"

“Thank God for that,” he said. “Shell, every hood in town is going to be trying to kill you before the day's out."

I laughed—not much—and said, “Surely not every—"

“Every one with a gun,” he interrupted. “Whoever hits you gets twenty-five grand."

“You're kidding."

“Twenty-five G's. No questions asked, in cash to the man who kills you. Must be fifty punks getting set to have a try at you already. No trouble yet?"

“Well ... a little.” I stopped, remembering finally that my phone was tapped. Probably it didn't make too much difference now, but I figured I'd better end the conversation anyway. I said, “Sam, I'll get the rest of this from Bill, as long as he's here. He can fill you in later on the situation."

Rawlins had come inside and shut the door, was sitting in my big leather chair now.

“All right, as long as you're O.K.,” Sam said. “Bill can give you what we've got so far. I have to get out to the Eternal Peace, anyhow. Late now."

That was right. Services for Geezer started at two-thirty. I looked at my watch. One-twenty-five p.m. already.

Sam was going on, “We haven't got much yet, still checking. We got the word from one of those four hoods you sent in. How in hell did you manage that?"

“Uh, let's skip it for the moment, Sam."

“That wasn't a bad piece of work,” he said grudgingly.

“Sloppy, very sloppy ... but at least those four are out of circulation. And, thank God, nobody else was killed."

From Samson that was monumental praise. I grinned and said, “Ah, then you've forgiven me for slightly disturbing your relations with the chief. I'm glad, Sam. That's the spirit I—"

“The hell I have!” he roared. “The hell I have. You should have heard—"

“Well, if that's the way you want to be,” I said cheerfully, “as long as you're on the line you might as well send the meat wagon out here. I just killed a guy on my doorstep."

In the silence, I hung up.

“What's this about twenty-five G's for my scalp. Bill?"

“Straight goods."

“Who's the philanthropist?"

“According to our information it's Cyril Alexander."

“Good old Cyril, huh? I didn't know he cared—not that much, anyway."

“Well, there's no corroboration yet. It's always possible this is a plant, a phony. If it is Cyril and not somebody else, we'll pick him up. But we need more than one guy's word."

“Which guy? Sam said it was one of Alexander's men, one of the four I sent in."

“Yeah. It was the one they call Dope. Officers who took them in split them up for interrogation. Dope started talking right away, no hesitation at all. The other three clammed."

“Dope, huh? Well, he just might tell you the truth. What he believes the truth to be, at least. But he'd be pretty easy to con, too. What was his story?"

“Claims Domino's triggers shot Omar last night, and that he and Luddy, Stiff, and Brill, the four of them, lugged Omar's body from his house and buried it last night. Idea was to keep it quiet he'd been knocked off."

“That fits. Buried him on Alexander's orders, the way I get it."

“Right. Also on his instructions, they hightailed it out to dig him up and bury him somewhere else. At the same time Alexander told them to move the body, he chewed hell out of you, said you'd double-crossed him, broken it off in him."

“Double-crossed him?"

“That's what Dope claims Alexander said to the whole bunch of them. At the same time he told them there'd be twenty-five thousand clams for whoever knocked you down. The word was going out not just to them but to any interested ears."

“Uh-huh. Smart. The prospect of a little competition usually makes a man try harder, hey?” A thought struck me, and I smiled, a little sadly. “Wouldn't it be amusing if one of Domino's hoods could plug me—and collect twenty-five G's from Cyril Alexander?"

"If it's really Alexander who's behind this. Until we know a lot more. Shell, you'd better take it very, very easy.” He paused. “What happened here? Who's the guy downstairs?"

“Beats me. You don't know him?"

He shook his head. “Just an ambitious punk, I guess."

“There was another guy with him.” I gave Bill a rundown on what had happened and added, “He's undoubtedly ditched that buggy he was in by now. How'd you happen to get out here so fast?"

“Well, the word about the price on your fat head must have gone out over an hour ago, but when I heard of it I was in my car on the Freeway, heading for Hollywood. As soon as Dope spilled the beans, Samson got it and relayed the story to me. I was nearly in Hollywood then, so he told me to get the hell over here in a hurry."

He got up and walked to the phone. There he looked at me soberly and said, “Shell, you talked yourself out of going to headquarters after turning those four guys over to the police, but now—with that guy shot down there—you'll have to come in with me."

I didn't like that. Once I got there I'd probably be tied up for the rest of the afternoon. And being tied up for the rest of the afternoon didn't fit in with my plans.

“No, thanks, Bill,” I said. “Later, O.K. But right now I—"

“Dammit, don't give me an argument. Shell. I ought to pull you in just for your own protection. So don't make me get tough."

I thought about that. With hoods conceivably heading toward L.A. and the Happy Hunting Ground from San Francisco, and maybe even as far away as Seattle, Washington, Bill might actually take me into a kind of protective custody as a “friendly” gesture.

“My phone's tapped,” I said.

He yanked his hand from the phone as if it was hot.

“Use the one in the bedroom,” I said. “But they're probably both tapped, so be careful what you say."

He frowned, started to ask a question, but then walked toward the bedroom, his back to me.

As he went through the bedroom door, I went out the front door and ran down the stairs.

Rawlins’ partner was walking across the lobby toward me, a black notebook in his hand.

“Ah, there you are,” I said. “Bill's reporting in to the captain right now. He's using the phone in my apartment. Probably be glad to hear anything you've learned."

“Like what?” he said. But he didn't stop me as I went on past him and out the Spartan's rear door.

I hustled to the Cad, and in another minute I was well on my way to Cypress Road.

10

Heading up oleander drive, i went right past the Eternal Peace Funeral Home. There was already quite a bit of activity. Twelve or fifteen cars were parked along the street in front of the low gray building itself, and I could see a group of six black-suited men bunched at the entrance, half a dozen guys thinking less of Geezer, possibly, than of the twenty-five thousand clams they might have a chance at if they didn't have to stay for the damned funeral.

Behind the gray building, the flat acres of the Eternal Peace Cemetery stretched green as a golf course, dotted with hundreds of little white hazards: headstones, markers, monuments. Rich men, poor men, beggarmen, thieves; some beneath ten-thousand-dollar monuments, some in the only land they'd ever owned. Kids cut down before their prime, and even guys like fat Geezer.

Ten miles past the Eternal Peace, I went by Cyril Alexander's big pink house. I imagined that Cyril was already at the funeral home. A minute later I swung right, continued on to Cypress Road, and turned left. According to Ben Kahn—and my view earlier from Channel 14's helicopter—the house reached by that dirt road should be only another five or six miles ahead.

I'd figured it just about on the nose. My speedometer had clicked up sixteen miles from the Eternal Peace when I saw the dilapidated house on my left, and a big wooden sign in front of it—Eben's Animal Farm. Beneath the name were exciting comments like, “See the wild animals!” and the price for viewing them, “Only 250!"; and at the bottom of the sign was the name of the animal farmer, “Homer Eben!"

A man whom I assumed to be Homer Eben! was pulling open a sagging wire-mesh gate before the driveway running alongside the old house when I stopped the Cad and got out. Beyond him, parked just off the road, was a pickup truck with a long, rickety, canvas-covered trailer behind it. The truck's engine was idling.

“Afternoon,” I said, walking up to the guy tugging on the gate.

He gave the gate a big heave, and it swung open, then he turned to face me. He had a long, thin face, a full white mustache, and a white goatee sprinkled with gray. The goatee was long, like a goat's, and made his face appear about six times as long as wide.

“Afternoon,” he said. “Not open for business yet. Will be tomorrow."

I chatted with him for a minute, instead of immediately broaching my reason for stopping here. “Just moving in?” I asked.

“Yup. Been movin’ two days now. But I'll have her open tomorrow. Just brought in the last load."

“Load?"

“My animals.” He turned and appeared to point at the trailer with his goatee. “Get them moved in, I'll be near ready for the first show. Course, I don't expect much till the word spreads around a bit. Usually takes a couple weeks for the word to spread around."

“I suppose.” I glanced at the trailer. “What you got in there?"

I half expected he'd tell me he had some goats and pigs and a banty rooster, and maybe one aardvark for a loss-leader. But he surprised me. “Couple lions, a bear, a zebra—she's a little sickly, though. Must be the climate."

“Or the smog, maybe."

“Maybe. A crocodile. And coupla sweet little skunks. Well, they will be sweet.” He grinned, showing me teeth that went every which way. “Haven't had time to get ‘era fixed—deodorized—yet. I been plumb worried about Ethel."

“Ethel?"

“She's my zebra."

“You named a zebra Ethel?"

“Of course,” he said, looking at me as if I were a dummy.

“Well,” I said, without a great deal of exuberance, “you've sure got quite a circus here, haven't you?"

He shook his head, scowling. “No circus. Animal farm. I don't make ‘em do tricks. Cruel to make ‘em do tricks."

But dandy to keep them in little cages, apparently.

“They just stand there, and you look at ‘em,” he said.

Well, I'd learned all I really wanted to know about Eben's Animal Farm, so I said, “Say, I don't get out in this area very often, but isn't there another house up there?” I pointed toward the one I'd spotted from the air earlier, with the four cars behind it.

He waggled his chin whiskers. “Yup. Only other one for a mile or two."

“Anyone living there? I mean, have you seen cars going to or from the place?"

“Must be somebody there. Car full of men stopped here yesterday. They pulled out of that dirt road there as I was bringing a load in, late. Stopped here and talked a little."

“What about?"

“Wanted to know what I was fixing to do here. Didn't have my sign up then—just finished putting it up a few minutes ago. I didn't tell ‘em nothing. Didn't like the way they acted."

“Kind of rough, you mean?"

“Looked kind of rough. It was the way they talked got me down on ‘em. ‘Hey, grampa,’ one of ‘em says, ‘what in hell you think you're doin’ here?’ Like he owned California. Well, even if he does, he don't own me. I told him, watch what he said or I'd bust his nose for him,"

I groaned inwardly. “What did he say to that?"

“Just laughed. They all laughed, then drove on in that big black car they were in."

I guessed, assuming they were Domino's men, they'd figured they had nothing to worry about from Homer Eben. I asked him if he could describe them, and he tried, but no bells rang for me.

“You interested in seeing those ruffians?” he asked me.

“That's right. At least, I'm anxious to know if the ones I'm looking for are the same ... ruffians."

“Well, here they come again,” he said. “Flag ‘em down and ask ‘em if you want to. Me, I got to get my animals in. Especially Ethel."

“Sure,” I said. “Especially Ethel."

His words were just starting to sink in.

Here they come?

Yeah. There they were.

A big black Imperial sedan was roaring this way, heading toward town—toward the Eternal Peace? I wondered. Of course, I shouldn't have been standing there, wondering. I should have been getting the hell out of there.

The car was traveling about eighty miles an hour, but it wasn't fast enough. Because, as it zoomed by, at least two faces were turned toward me, and it made sense to assume they recognized me—standing there stupidly, wondering—since I had no difficulty in recognizing the gorgeous-but-gooey black hair, the nice nose, and the interested pimpy expression of Nickie Domano on my side of the back seat, and the equally interested but much more squashed and muscular and miserable expression of Chunk, up front with the driver.

There were one or two blurs on the other side of Nickie, too, so there were at least four, maybe five, professional corpse-makers in the Imperial.

Even if I hadn't recognized them, I might eventually have figured out something was amiss, because the front of the Imperial dipped down and tires screamed as the wheelman hit the brakes. The car swerved, straightened out; the brakes caught again, and the car swerved, and then—you've got me. I wasn't watching any longer.

I was running like a fiend toward my Cad, diving in, twisting the key in the ignition. They must have burned ten dollars’ worth of rubber off those tires, though, before they got the heap stopped. They wanted to see me, I told myself; they were anxious as hell to see me. And I had a hunch, though I couldn't be positive, that they wanted to see me so they could kill me. There was twenty-five G's in it, sure. But I had another hunch. I had a hunch they'd do it for nothing.

Cra-ck-whing!

Now I was positive.

They'd stopped the sedan, and one of the men had leaned out, taken aim, and let go with one. It hit the street and ricocheted off over the low hills. I slapped the gearshift and dug out—and hit the brakes, cramping the steering wheel right.

Homer Eben was in his little truck, pulling his canvas-covered trailer out into the road so that he could drive through the open gate into his driveway. He was just pulling away from the road's edge, but I was parked on the same side of the street, facing him, and had to slow in order to get around him. But there was still room, and I made it.

With the open road ahead, I jammed the accelerator down and glanced at the rearview mirror. The Imperial was turned around, just straightening out to come after me. I heard two more shots crack out but didn't even hear the bullets fly past. As I pulled my eyes down from the rearview mirror I saw the bulk of Homer Eben's truck and trailer, in the middle of the road now, moving in an arc toward his driveway.

But then I was staring straight ahead, still going only about thirty miles an hour but thinking of a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten. I got up to forty.

There were two or three other shots that didn't do any damage, but then one that was different. Immediately after the crack of the gunshot there was a kind of pffeeooo-clingg followed by the clunk-clunk-clunk as my right rear tire went flat and I was riding on the rim against rubber. The Cad pulled hard to the right.

I had to make up my mind in a hurry. Actually, there wasn't any choice. I couldn't go fast, or far, on a fiat tire. So I didn't fight the wheel. I let the Cad pull right, off the road, threw the door open, then jumped out and started sprinting. A quick glance right and left showed me brush and trees on both sides of Cypress Road, but what looked like heavier brush—and cover—on the left. So that's the way I went.

I'd barely started to run when the shrill of brakes filled the air again, followed by a hellish crash, and the screaming protest of metal bending, ripping. There was a brief moment of silence and then another crash and the sound of splintering glass.

I looked back—and stopped running.

The long rickety trailer was on its side. The Imperial was slewed sideways in the road, almost facing back in the direction from which it had been coming. Its front was mashed in and mangled, the metal of the hood sticking up into the air. The right front door of the black sedan had sprung open, and Chunk sprawled face down on the asphalt.

But he didn't stay down. As Chunk staggered to his feet, the back door opened and Nickie Domano stepped out, wobbling a little. After him came two more guys, apparently unhurt. When I'd heard the crash I'd thought maybe, if those guys were wrecked, I could get back to my Cad and away, even on the flat tire.

But no soap. Three guys—I didn't wait to identify them—were already trotting toward me; probably in a few seconds there'd be a couple more. I slid my Colt out of the spring holster—but there were too many of them. And I'd never make it back to the Cad. That would be going the wrong way, back toward them.

I ran. Only twenty yards off the road was a big clump of weeping willow and among them a few birch trees. I put my head down and sprinted toward them. And it's a good thing I put my head down.

There had already been two or three more shots as I was running off the road, but all had been well wide of the mark, which was me. But then there was another blast that sounded like the lethal cough of a .45, and the slug actually sizzled through my hair. Even for a miss, that was good shooting, since I don't have very much hair. Or rather, though I have lots and lots of hair, it doesn't stick up very far from my head.

Consequently that sizzling slug poured adrenalin into my blood and put wings on my feet. I charged at those trees going like sixty—at least sixty, whatever it means—and was well in among them when a strange thing happened. It felt as if those wings on my right foot had picked it up and were flying away with it.

My foot went sprack and was suddenly way off to the side somewhere. That was one of the feet I was trying to run like sixty with, too, so the next thing I knew I was skidding flat on the ground pointing at a tree trunk with my head—and then: THUD!

Hurt? Well, I hope to shout it hurt I lay there for a while. Not long, only a second or two. And not on purpose, either. I was trying frantically to get up. I was reaching all around for something solid, like the earth, but I couldn't find it.

But finally I got my hands on the ground and pushed myself up. On the way I got a look at my right foot. The heel of my shoe was half gone. Shot away—a slug had ripped through it. That was bad. I remembered how they used to do with artillery—one long, one short, and the next one smack in the middle. First my hair, then my heel. They had me bracketed.

They? There was something about “they.” Who were they?

I'd been running from somebody. Yeah, that was it I'd been running from they. Or, rather, them—my head was clearing. And I remembered now: Them were going to kill me. That was it. Those guys had been pretty close behind me, too.

I was all charged up to start running again, only I was still a little addled and wasn't sure which way I'd been going. I wanted to run some more, all right, but I didn't want to run at those guys.

When I'd clunked my head it seemed to have affected my hearing, but now sounds began filtering through my ears. I could hear the thumping of feet—behind me. Lots of feet. And then, crack, a gun spat and the slug thumped into the tree trunk inches to my right.

I spun around, crouching, and shot the guy with my finger. At least that's what it seemed like. I hadn't even realized I'd never let go of my gun; my movement was sheer reflex. I aimed fast, raising my right arm, and when I saw the thin gray-haired egg ahead of me among the trees I curled my index finger in. If I had dropped my gun, that would have been the end of me, because the thin guy had a Colt .45 in his hand, and a few feet behind him, slowing down, were four other men.

But I hadn't dropped my gun, and the slug caught him in his middle. He didn't fall suddenly but dropped his .45 and started sinking to his knees, hands clapped against his belly.

A tall, bald-headed ape was closest behind the man I'd shot, and I flicked the gun toward him, fired too suddenly, and missed. I took more time with the second shot and hit him, either in the chest or the shoulder, as two guns blasted and a slug nipped my coat.

Two of the remaining men were diving for trees, but I could clearly see Nickie Domano, in the open, feet skidding over earth and leaves as he tried to stop. A gun was in his right hand, but it wasn't pointed at me. Not yet.

I'd kept track in my mind. One slug into the gray-haired man, two at the second ape. Three gone, three to go. I'm smart; I keep track of my shots.

I aimed at Nickie Domano, squeezed the trigger. Click. Right on his heart. Chunk leaned out from behind a tree, and I snapped the gun onto his head, and click. Domano was still standing, so I poured the last one into him. Click.

What's this? I thought. What's this click-click-click?

My head wasn't operating with total perfection yet, but I had enough sense to realize something wasn't quite right What's this click-click-click? I thought again. Shouldn't it go bang-bang-bang?

Then I remembered: Three into that delivery boy at my apartment. Then sirens, Sam on the phone, Rawlins in the door, everything happening so fast I'd committed the unforgivable sin. I hadn't reloaded my gun.

That's me. Smart.

11

Actually, Nickie Domano got it faster than I did. While I was waving my empty gun around, killing hoods right and left, he threw up one hand and yelled something. I didn't quite catch it, not really caring what he said at that point, but it must have been some kind of instruction to his pals. At least, no more shots were fired.

Apparently because Nickie wanted that pleasure for himself. And, conceivably, wanted that twenty-five thousand, that quarter of a century of G's, for himself.

He walked toward me.

“Well, how about that?” he said, grinning. “How about that? Lucky Scott has run out of luck."

I guessed he was right. Well, I'd put my share—more than my share—of hoods, and punks like Domano, out of circulation. Either in the slammer or in the graveyard. He couldn't change that. He could only kill me once.

There wasn't a chance I could get away. There wasn't any point in running. Domano stood only a couple of yards from me now, and the three other slobs still on their feet were ranged alongside him, guns pointing at me. The gray-haired man—I realized now he was the one I'd seen at the table in the Jazz Pad the night this started—was on his haunches, bent over and grunting, arms across his stomach.

But four with guns was enough. And at this distance they couldn't miss. So I didn't try to run any more. If I got it, I wasn't going to get it in the back.

“Don't you want to beg a little, Scott?” Domano asked me. In his voice was the sugar-sweet tone I'd heard before.

“You can shove that up your ear,” I said. Or words roughly to that effect

He flushed, and his gun jerked a little. But he didn't fire. I guess he was enjoying this moment too much. Well, I wasn't going to make him any happier if I could help it. I didn't like seeing him happy.

He raised the gun a little, held it on my face. I couldn't quite look at it. There's something about the bore of a .45 automatic, and the thought of a fat slug in your eye, that makes the back of your knees a little weak whether you like it or not. I tried to look at the gun, but I couldn't do it.

“I can make you get down on your knees, you bastard,” he said—and this time his voice sounded more like the real Nickie Domano. “All I got to do is shoot your legs out from under you."

He might just do it, too. I wondered if there was one chance in hell I could jump him and get his gun, and last just long enough to kill him. Probably not. But I was going to try it. The Colt was still in my hand, too. Unloaded—but I could throw it.

Beyond the group of men there was some kind of movement. I couldn't see who was coming but I could hear the soft sounds. Probably more of his hoods coming up for the fun, I thought.

Domano said, “Hell, they tell me you're a big man with the words. Aren't you going to jawbone your way out of this, Scott? Don't you even have a last speech? Like, I only regret I got only one life to give—"

“Yeah,” I said. “I've got a speech."

Because I'd just gotten a clear look at what had been making those sounds, at what was strolling up, just about to sniff at the pants of Domano and his boys.

“Well, give, man, give,” Domano said. “This ought to be good."

“Pretty good,” I said. “There's a big lion right behind you."

He started to scowl, then his pimpy face creased in a grin. He chuckled softly. “How about that, boys? The oldest gag in the world and it's the best Scott can do.” He laughed a little louder. “Well, at least you didn't say it was a guy with a machine gun or a bazooka. I got to give you that."

“Man, I'm not kidding. There's—you won't believe this.” They probably wouldn't. Homer Eben hadn't told them what he was doing here in the hills; he'd put his sign up only a little while ago; and these guys sure as fate wouldn't have been looking for signs while trying to shoot me.

I said, “Nickie, I swear you'd better get moving. You're going to get your butt bitten. You're going to get eaten entirely maybe. There's a lion and—no, there's two lions! And a bear—"

Well, they simply broke up. All of them. Nickie started the laughter, and the other men standing joined in, one of them bending over and whooping.

“Dammit, it's the truth!” I yelled. “Two lions and a bear and—yeah—a sick zebra named Ethel."

I might possibly have been able to get away from them then.

There were whoops and hollers, and their strangled guffaws and screeches rang out over the hills. Nickie slapped his thigh—with his left hand, not his gun hand—and said, “Oh, ah, that's good. Scott—waah! Scott, I could almost like you, if I wasn't going to kill you."

Then he straightened up, dabbed at his eyes with his left hand, shoved the gun forward, and, I am absolutely certain, started to squeeze the trigger. But then:

RRROOOAARRR!

Actually, it wasn't really a RRROOOAARRR! It was more a kind of coughing-grunting horribleness damn near impossible to believe. It was like crackling thunder and the Jolly Green Giant munching large celery and hail on a plastic tent, among other things. And loud? I'll swear to my dying day it blasted leaves from nearby trees. All things considered, it was likely the sound was brand new to all these ears here.

The effect upon Nickie Domano was very striking.

He simply threw his gun away.

No kidding, he tossed it about fourteen yards out over the landscape, an act I felt pretty sure was not by design but pure reflex. Both his arms flew out sideways, swish, and at the same instant he managed to get his mouth open wider than I thought the laws of anatomy allowed. The gun flipped from his startled fingers and hit a tree, way over there. And Nickie stood, unmoving, like a stone cross—that is, with nothing moving except his eyes, which were trying to turn around and look past his ears at the erupting volcano, or herd of angry buffalo, or whatever cataclysm had thundered up behind him.

Maybe Domano was rigid, but the other hoods were moving. One hood turned and screamed with the hoarse agony of a man getting his most priceless possessions pulled off. Another snapped a peek over his shoulder and cried. “Great balls of fire, it's—” and didn't finish. No, he was running instantly, looking back at the two lions, the bear, and the sick zebra named Ethel—I'd told them—and by now a little black and white skunk; and, since he was not looking where he was going, and there were lots of trees about, he ran speedily into a tree and, it seemed apparent, knocked himself silly.

There was probably lots more, but to tell the truth I watched almost none of it. I was on my way. When you get a gift from Heaven like that, you just say a little prayer of thanks and you don't get greedy; you don't ask for the heavens to open up and for lightning to strike the enemy; no, you give thanks for what you've got, and you go. I went.

The land slanted upward, and I went way up the hill and hid behind a rock. But I suppose I could have climbed a tree or just run around in circles and it would have worked out the same way. Because from behind my rock I could see activity below. Hoods were streaking away over the landscape.

One, two ... three. And four.

They streaked to the banged-up Imperial, got it going, and rattled down the road. Toward that house at the end of the dirt road, I presumed.

But only four had left, and five had arrived. Which meant they'd left behind the gray-haired cat I'd shot in the gut. I trotted back down to the trees where I'd last seen him, on the ground, grunting.

Whew! The stink! Maybe that was another reason those four mugs had been in such a hurry. At least one skunk—though to me it smelled more like a couple dozen—had let go with everything he had. The way it stank I didn't blame him for letting it go.

There was a lot of stink among the trees, but that was all. No wounded thug. Even the animals had left. I didn't waste time looking for the gray-haired man, not only because of the overpowering odor, but because those guys who'd fled so precipitously might soon recover and come zooming back.

I ran down the hill to my Cad, looked at the flat tire, then got the trunk open, pulled out the spare and tools, and jacked up the car. With the tire changed I started the Cad, turned around in the street, and headed toward town. But as I passed the sign, Eben's Animal Farm, Homer himself was walking from his house toward the gate.

I stopped, slid over on the seat, and rolled the right-hand window down.

His animals had saved me; I could at least tell him where I'd seen them last.

He walked up to the car. “This don't seem like the place for an animal farm,” he said.

“Don't get discouraged.” I told him where I'd seen his lions and such.

He nodded. “They won't go far. They're tame, stay together, close to home."

“Tame, huh? Keep it under your hat, will you?"

We traded a few more words, then I started to slide back over the seat, but stopped. I sniffed. Then I got out of the car and sniffed. It was faint, but it was skunk smell. Even with about one molecule to the billion you can recognize that smell. But the interesting thing was not the smell alone, but the wind.

The wind was not blowing this way from those trees where the skunk, or skunks, had sprayed. It was blowing in nearly the opposite direction. Either one of Homer's little black and white pets was home already, or it was the gray-haired citizen with my slug in his middle. I had the clue in my nostrils, and to solve this case all I had to do was follow my nose.

But if I was going to hang around here there was something else to do first. I kept thinking that maybe Nickie Domano and his boys were gone now, but it might not be long till they came back. So I tried my mobile phone again. I kicked hell out of it, but apparently I'd lost my touch. Still nothing.

Eben was walking toward his house. I called to him, “How about using your phone?"

He glanced over his shoulder. “Don't have one yet. They'll put it in next week.” He continued on into the house.

Great. Next week wasn't quite soon enough.

I didn't much like staying here, and my spine pulled a little tighter, but I got out of the car again and started hunting for the gray-haired citizen. And found him. It was easy; I tracked him down by smell.

The old house had a porch on it, and the wounded man had made it to the house, and crawled under the porch. I pulled him out. He was groaning, hands pressed to his middle, blood seeping between his fingers. He didn't look good. And, of course, he smelled terrible.

I checked his pockets. No more guns. A wallet with a few bills and some identification. Name, Arthur Silk, forty-nine years old, five feet, seven inches tall, a hundred and thirty pounds. While he lay on his back I also checked the wound. It didn't look fatal. He'd lost some blood and was in shock, but the bleeding had nearly stopped. He'd make it.

I did not, however, tell him so.

He groaned, rolled his eyes. “I'm killed,” he said. “I'm dyin'."

Squatted on my haunches, I looked at him and shook my head. “Well,” I said gravely, “we've all got to go sometime."

“Get ... me a doctor."

“Well, that's up to you. First, you answer some questions, you sing like a bird, and—"

He started to swear at me. He wasn't about to spill, not to me.

“O.K.,” I said, “Crawl back under the porch.” I got up and started walking toward my car.

He let me take three steps. “All right."

I went back and squatted by him. “Like a bird, remember,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah. Only get me a doctor. What the hell kind of bas—” He groaned. “Oh-h, I'm goin', I'm gone. I see a big bright light—"

“That's the sun, you idiot. Now listen close and don't waste time answering. I don't want to be here when Domano and your pals come back."

“They won't come back.” He stopped, ran his tongue over his lips. Apparently he still had some reservations about talking freely.

I stood up.

“They won't be back,” he repeated quickly. “What time is it?"

I blinked. It was an odd question. But I checked my watch and said, “Quarter after two."

“Nah, they won't come back. All the guys is going to be around the TV from two-thirty on.” He groaned again. “I'm supposed to be there, damn it. That's why we was heading for the house."

“The whole gang's at that house half a mile or so from here? Up the dirt road?"

“Yeah, that's it."

“How many are there?"

“Sixteen—no, not now. Fourteen now, since Jay and I ain't gonna be there. Get me a doc—"

“What's so important about two-thirty?"

He hesitated. But then a ripple of pain coursed through him, and he said, “Hell, that's when Geezer goes off."

I assumed he meant that was when Geezer's pals would gather to give him a proper sendoff, say good-bye with bushels of flowers and such. The thought of flowers reminded me of that delivery boy at the Spartan and his lethal gladioli, and something wiggled in my mind. Wiggled only briefly, and then stopped wiggling. But an uneasy feeling stayed with me.

“Which one of Nickie's boys plugged Geezer?” I said.

“Jay done it. Hell, Alexander was lookin’ right at him when he let go the first slug. He knows it was Jay."

That checked with what Zazu had told me. But she'd also told me she was sure the killer had been after her father and Geezer had been killed by mistake. I hadn't been so sure then, and still wasn't. Jay had pumped four into Geezer but had missed Alexander entirely. To me that meant he might have been after Geezer in the first place. But I was wrong.

I said, “How come Werme hit Geezer when the big boy was right next to him?"

“Alexander just moved too fast, that's all. Seen it coming and dived down, got behind a car. Geezer couldn't move his fat gut around that fast, so Jay settled for him. Figured if he couldn't get both of them he'd settle for fatso.” Silk closed his eyes for a moment, then went on. “Turns out it worked better this way, on account of that big gut of Geezer's. Alexander don't have no gut at all, to speak of."

“Alexander knows it was Jay Werme who plugged Geezer and tried to get him. Is that why Domano's been keeping himself and his boys scarce?"

I almost missed his answer, because I was thinking of what he'd last said. I think I started getting it then.

“Nah, they're just holed up waiting to see how it goes today,” Silk said. “No sense taking any chances if there's no need to. They just been waiting till—well, about now, I guess.” He stopped, swore softly. “Get me a doc. You going to let me die on you?"

He was going on, pleading, but that uneasiness of a few moments before was filling my body now, and I reached slowly for him, bunched his shirt and coat in my left hand, and lifted him toward me.

“Shut up. Spell it out—and fast. And what the hell do you mean about Geezer's big gut?"

His eyes rolled up toward mine. “Nickie's got him stuffed with more dynamite than a Thanksgiving turkey's got dressing. He's gonna go off like a volcano."

“Dynamite? In Geezer? How..."

Silk was still hanging from my fist, his face close to mine. My fist holding him tightened, and he shrank back a little. Then he said rapidly, “It was a breeze to fix up. Nickie sent Irish and a couple other boys into the joint where Geezer's laid out, that Eternal Peace joint. They did it early this morning, after midnight. Had the dynamite already wired, clock set, everything ready. Just sliced him open and put in the bomb, then sewed him up. Not very neat, but his clothes cover everything up anyways."

Benny Kahn had mentioned seeing a Pete Peters, called Irish Pete, with Domano in a car this morning. A demolition expert—undoubtedly the Irish this gray-haired creep had just told me about.

“Dynamite?” I said. “And a clock? You mean a time bomb?"

“Yeah, he's a bomb, all right. They just scooped him out and stuffed dynamite in him like guts. There's enough in him to blow that whole funeral joint and half the block into the next block."

“But, my God,” I said. “The people..."

“That's the idea. Nickie decided on it last night, after Jay got killed. This way he only has to plug one guy. Fat Geezer. Then when Geezer goes off he takes the whole Alexander gang with him. No risk like if you knock off eight or ten guys individual."

I had unconsciously relaxed my grip on his coat, and he fell back to the ground. I stood up. “But it's not just Alexander and his men,” I said, more to myself than him. “There's the minister, wives, kids..."

“Well, like Nickie says, you can't have an omelet and the eggs both at the same—"

"When?"

“Huh?"

“When is the bomb set to go off?"

“Oh, Geezer's supposed to blow up...” He grunted, and his eyes squeezed shut. He turned his head to the side. “About now, I guess."

“You bastard, tell me when!"

“He's set ... to go off at two-thirty. When they'll all be there in the chapel."

I looked at my watch. My fingers were shaking. It was eighteen minutes after two p.m. Twelve minutes until two-thirty—and the Eternal Peace was sixteen miles from here. I stood there, with a feeling almost like panic slowing my thoughts. A phone—but Homer Eben didn't have one; and my radio-phone wasn't working. But I couldn't get there myself, not in time. There had to be some way to get word ...

My heart kicked suddenly, as if a small bomb had gone off in my own chest. I was thinking of the others besides Alexander's hoodlums who would be in or near the Eternal Peace at two-thirty, were probably there now. Not only a lot of innocent people, including wives and kids, maybe friends of Geezer's who had nothing to do with the rackets. Police officers, too. Maybe not inside, near the body, but at least nearby.

And—Captain Samson. Sam.

“Hey! You ain't gonna leave me—"

The hell I wasn't I'd left him.

I was in the Cad, starting it, gunning the car down Cypress Road.

12

It was hard to breathe. My throat seemed squeezed almost shut. Sixteen miles to go. And twelve minutes left—less than that now. And even if I got there ...

I didn't let myself think about it.

I squeezed the steering wheel tight in my fists and jammed my foot down on the accelerator, jammed it all the way down and left it there.

I had to slow and turn right toward Oleander Drive and again when I turned left there, but after that I didn't ease my foot off the gas pedal. I was going well over eighty miles an hour when I went by Alexander's estate but after that I didn't look at the speedometer. Or at my watch. For one thing, I had to keep my eyes on the road; but also I didn't want to know either my speed or the time. It didn't make any difference how fast I was going or how much time there was left. I just had to keep going now.

But I prayed that no other car would pull out from one of the few side streets ahead before I reached the Eternal Peace. I know I wouldn't be able to stop in time. There wasn't a chance I could stop. I could hear the wind hissing past, feel the growing vibration of the car. My throat was dry, and my heart was thudding in my chest like a hammer.

The miles from Alexander's to my first sight of the cemetery were a blur of kaleidoscopic images and frozen thought. But finally I saw on my right the flat green acres of the cemetery. Less than half a mile ahead was the low gray building in which, now, the men and women were gathered near the casket, in which the services were about to begin—or, probably, had already begun. But the building was still there. Solid, in one piece still.

I started to brake the car, and the steering wheel pulled against my numbed fingers. A long row of cars was ahead, parked at the side of the road before the funeral parlor. Beyond them another car was coming this way, toward me on my left. It grew nearer with shocking suddenness, flashed by. It was a police car, only a blur in the corner of my eye.

I was fighting the wheel, skidding, easing my foot off the brake pedal and then shoving it down again. The tires shrilled on the surface until I was afraid they'd burn through and blow out. The funeral parlor was looming on my right, and cars parked along the street raced back past me, but slower now.

I let up on the brake, pumped it, hit it again. I'd slowed so much it seemed I was barely moving after the speed of moments before, but still I wasn't going to be able to stop in front of the entrance. I was going to skid yards past, and some unconscious mechanism ticking the seconds away told me the time was up. I was out of time. I could almost hear the ticking inside my head, getting louder and louder.

I braced my legs, spun the wheel right, and tightened the muscles of my arms. The Cad's right front fender slammed into a long sedan parked at the curb, jolted it sideways and forward with a screech and bang of metal. The Cad shuddered, rocked, came to a stop. Before it stopped moving, I was out the door, eyes falling momentarily on the watch strapped to my wrist

Two-thirty. Even in that fraction of a second I saw the minute hand pointing straight down and, almost next to it, making one little jump, one little tick, the second hand moving. It was already after two-thirty, nearly half a minute after.

I jumped to the rear of the dark sedan and then sprinted toward the funeral parlor's entrance. I could hear organ music, hear the full, round, gloom-filled tones pouring from the gray building, washing over me. I was covered with sweat and could feel the air cooling my face and neck as I ran. On my left, two men several yards away turned toward me. One of them was Samson.

The big double doors ahead were closed, but as I neared them one was opened—probably by somebody who'd heard the sound of the crash. The organ music swelled louder. There were four cement steps leading up to the door, and I went over them in one leap, shoes sliding when they hit the level cement landing beyond. A man in the doorway jumped back as I slid toward him, then I was by him, inside the building.

On my left dark red draperies filled an arched doorway. The deep, quavering tones of the organ—from beyond those draperies—suddenly softened as a man began to speak. I jumped toward the drapes, slapping them aside with both hands, and skidded to a stop in the chapel.

Right ahead of me were benches, row on row, filled with somberly clothed men—and women. They extended to my right for ten yards or more, and before the front row was an empty space beyond which rested the ornate casket. On a slightly raised platform the Reverend stood, with his mouth opened in speech and one hand raised in a gesture. His head turned toward me, his mouth opened wider, and the hand began to drop suddenly.

But by that time I was moving toward him. Because I had seen not only the heavy casket and the massed banks of flowers before and around it, but the body of Geezer. I could see part of his profile, the dark, mustached face—and the vast, swollen belly.

I must have known what I was going to do all along, at least what I was going to try to do. An aisle covered with dark red carpet stretched from me to the front of the chapel, and I was leaping down that aisle. The Reverend's last words still hung in the scented air. “...Here gathered, not to..."

There had been no other sounds. Not yet. No shouts, or even gasps. It took perhaps five seconds for me to burst through the draperies into the chapel, turn, and get to the casket. I slid to a stop against it, feet sliding over the carpet, mid-section banging into its metal side.

Before I'd even stopped moving, I shoved my hands into the casket, got a good grip on Geezer, and yanked him up.

He came up easily enough; that was the easy part. He snapped to a sitting position, and his head flopped limply forward.

Then there was some shouting.

In fact, there was a lot of shouting.

13

I damn near ruptured myself.

But I got it done, and I got it done fast. I wrestled him half out of the casket, bent my legs, gave him a big heave, and flopped him over my shoulder.

He was hard to hold, because of that vast belly of his, but I clamped both arms around him and turned. Toward the approximately seventy people gathered here in the chapel. Including at least twenty or thirty, and probably even more, of the most venomous, miserable—and astonished—hoods in the State of California.

The astonishment was only now growing from the bud of confusion into the full flower of befuddlement. Not only was what had occurred a most unlikely occurrence for this time and place, but it had actually taken very little real, measurable time. I had been moving about as speedily as it is possible for me to move, and, or so it seemed, even more so.

There was that one sudden, sharp, howling outrush of sound from several throats, the involuntary blend of gasp, scream, and shout swelling in one chord of flabbergasted ejaculation. And then—silence.

Silence total, frozen, absolute.

Not a sound, not a breath, not a whisper.

And in that silence I heard Geezer ticking.

He was draped over my right shoulder, the curve of his mid-section mashed against my ear, and I could hear him clearly, very clearly.

Tick-tick-tick ...

Shock roared through me like an explosion. My nerves seemed to twitch and writhe, quivering and undulating like thin worms stretched in every part of my body. Because, for seconds, or perhaps even minutes, I bad forced from my mind the consciousness of that bomb in Geezer's gut. I'd focused my thought only on getting here, doing what I had to do.

Now, though, the realization slammed into my awareness with physical impact. Now I thought again about that bomb, the pounds of dynamite—against my ear.

It kind of addled me, I'll be honest. Besides, I'd been under a bit of a strain to begin with. But I had the sudden conviction that my head was a bomb and its fuse was lit and I could hear it sizzling, only not with a sizzle but with a—

...tick-tick-tick....

And a strange think happened. The sound in my head went—

...tick ...

And stopped.

I knew, though, that it wasn't the ticking that had stopped; that each tick was a second or part of a second, exactly like those that went before and came after; and that the next tick would come no sooner or later than any of the others or all of the others; it was only my awareness that had changed.

Time—and its rush toward death, or life, or boom, or whatever—hadn't changed; but my perception of its passage had become wackily warped. Between one tick and the next was an arc of time which stretched fluidly, spread amoebically. I could see everyone and everything in the chapel clearly, and I could think about what I saw almost leisurely.

And I didn't like what I saw any more than I liked what I was thinking.

I was thinking: I'm killed. One way or another I'm killed positively. If my head didn't blow up, there were at least twenty guys out there who'd be glad to shoot it off for me. Assuming, of course, that any of them had shooters. I could see several who would—merely on impulse, with kind of automatic and for them perfectly normal reflex—haul out their cannons and pop me.

That's what they'd do under ordinary circumstances, and just for the hell of it, the sense of accomplishment, the sheer enjoyment. But now there was also that prospect of twenty-five G's—and some of these creeps would commit suicide for twenty-five G's.

I knew, however, they'd been warned that if they packed heat they'd be slammed into the cooler; and I was sure at least some of them, under the circumstances, would have been shaken down by the police before they got inside. So maybe they didn't have guns in holsters; but they sure had murder in their eyes.

At least, some of them did. Some of the others hadn't got that far yet in their comprehension. A few who'd heard my feet thumping down the aisle had turned with expressions of total disbelief, as if thinking nobody, surely, could be that anxious to peek into the casket; and they still wore those same expressions. Others stared with open mouths and bugging eyes.

In the front row, Cyril Alexander was halfway to his feet, mouth open, chin down so far I could see his tongue curling. Next to him—Zazu, shrinking back, hands in small fists against her cheeks. Then Clara Alexander, solid, heavy, scowling, looking pretty normal. Three rows back was beef-shouldered, vacuum-faced Luddy, looking as if he'd started to pick his nose and couldn't find it. On his left Stiff was springing to his feet like a corpse come suddenly to life. In the second row were two little kids who looked like twins, a boy and a girl maybe six or seven years old; next to them was a woman who might have been pretty when she wasn't screaming.

In back, on the left, those red draperies were billowed out, and Sam was just coming through them. And near me, close on my right, two burly men stood just beyond an open arched doorway. They were torpedoes, killers for hire. Big Horse and Sad Mick McGannon, old friends of Geezer's.

Yeah ... Geezer.

Tick!

It was over.

I was still turning. Geezer's weight pulling me to one side. Sounds crashed against my ears. Yelling, shouts and foul swear words, thumping of feet, pandemonium. Above all was the shrill, thready screaming of that woman in the second row.

It wasn't merely over; everything seemed speeded up, sounds high and squeaky like a record run too fast, movements jerky and too rapid. Men were popping out of their seats; Alexander jumped toward me; in that left aisle the drapes snapped back behind Samson as he jumped toward the front of the chapel.

I planted a foot, shoved myself toward the door on my right, toward that door and the two men just beyond it. I knew I couldn't get out the way I'd come in. And not merely because Samson—who would sure as hell stop me—was in the aisle now, but because, before I could get near him, at least half a dozen mugs would land on me—even if one or two of them didn't have guns handy, handy enough to shoot me.

The last thing I saw in the chapel as I swung around and started toward the door was Alexander coming toward me, his hands flapping up jerkily like puppet hands yanked by strings, Samson leaping down the aisle, and in that fourth row Luddy trying to get out, moving in one direction, and Stiff moving in the other. Then I was plunging through the doorway, my weighted body slamming into the two men there.

I went between McGannon and Big Horse like a pro fullback hitting a high school line. They spun, flew in opposite directions. Light caught my eye, and I turned toward it, to the right. I was in a narrow hallway. At the end of it a door stood open, but another door, screened, was closed there. Beyond it was the light, sunlight pouring down on the cemetery's green grass. I ran toward the light with sound bubbling wildly behind me, trying to pull my body erect, force it to the left to counteract the massive weight of Geezer on my shoulder.

I hit the screen door head on, and it splintered like brittle ice. A shard of wood pinwheeled in the air ahead of me, and I heard the crash as the door slammed open and another fainter crash as part of it swung around and hit the wall.

And I heard Geezer, too. The tick-tick-tick was faster, louder, booming in my ear, exploding inside my head. Faster, as I sprinted forward, trying to keep my feet. The tick-tick-tick became ticktickticktick and then TICKTICKTICK until it was one continuous roaring through which I ran, pain shooting up my right leg whenever it hit the ground, a fiery ache in the muscles of my shoulder.

Greenness danced and shimmered before me. But in the greenness was a splash of vivid color. Massed banks of flowers. And a dark scar in the green grass. An open grave. And because of that mountain of flowers it almost had to be Geezer's grave.

Whose it was didn't matter. The important thing was that it was a deep hole in the ground. And that would help.

It would help—if I made it.

The grave was still thirty yards away, under a hundred feet, only a hundred miles. I sprinted forward, forced my legs to move, kept them driving. There was a roaring in my ears, a hissing roar like a thousand little sounds blending, as if I could hear all the different pitches and whispers made by the blood as it squirts through arteries, veins, capillaries, the thudding of heart and swish of hot redness through the brain. And, like the conductor's baton tapping the podium or a skeleton finger strumming its ribs, like a stick on a picket fence, over and through and above it all was the TICKTICKTICKTICKTICK—of Geezer.

Of Geezer, exploding.

With every step I took, in my mind Geezer exploded, crashed open, erupted. As if over and over I heard that final thunderous booming in my ear. Twenty yards. Ten. I loosened my grip, let my arms slide down his body, got my hands beneath him, fingers digging into his dead flesh.

Five yards, and I bent forward, shoving, pushing him from me. I started to fall and gave him a last shove as I fell. He turned slightly in the air, sagging like a huge rag doll. I saw him hit short of the grave, start to roll. But then I landed flat on the grass, skidding, turning, rolling myself.

I had been running as fast as I could with that dead weight slowing me down, calling on every ounce of strength and will in me to keep going, and when I fell and the weight was released, for a moment I was as limp as a corpse myself. It was as though in that instant all the energy and strength left in me drained from my nerves and muscles. I tumbled, rolled, eyes wide, grass and sky and limbs of a tree and gray of granite-headstones spinning before me.

And Geezer, too. In a blur I saw him flop over, hang on the edge of the grave. But then I'd rolled again, clutching at the grass with my hands, trying to stop. And finally I did stop, left hand buried deep in grass, fingers digging so hard I could feel the nails bending back, tearing, and my right hand over—nothing.

It didn't register at first, didn't penetrate. I thought my right hand must be up in the air. But then I saw Geezer.

I was on the very edge of the open grave, right arm extended stiffly, fingers clutching, clawlike, as if I were reaching down for the corpse. He lay on his back below me, turned a little sideways, coat napped open, distended belly swelling beneath part of a white shirt, tie under his chin. His eyes stared, and strands of hair lay on his forehead like black seaweed. One of his eyelids drooped, as if he were winking.

It was a sight that, if I lived, I'd carry with me for the rest of my life; and if I didn't live I'd take it into the next world with me. I rolled away, got to my feet, ran from the grave. Ran—not very fast. I ran as fast as I could, but it was all I could do merely to move.

But I kept moving.

And there came a time, somewhere in there, when I realized I'd made it. I wasn't going to get blown up, after all. But ...

But by running from one grave it seemed likely, even probable, that I was running toward another. Because by running away from Geezer I was running straight toward—well, I can only describe it as what appeared to be an entire funeral leaping at me. They weren't taking me to the funeral, they were bringing the damn thing to me.

I was in such a pooped and all-gone state that when I realized I apparently wasn't going to get blown to little bits, a surge of something like elation swirled up in me. So even though I was now physically in a state approaching total collapse, I was mentally elated, even exhilarated.

That must be why the sight of approximately thirty bellowing hoods racing toward me struck me as almost amusing. I recognized Alexander, Luddy, Stiff—he was really a sight, running through the graveyard—Tamale Willie, the two mugs I'd bumped into on my way out of the chapel, half a dozen other familiar faces.

They were pretty well strung out, and scattered, but all running like hell, the closest man no more than twenty yards distant. One of the hoods had a gun in his hand. But of the others, at least twelve or fifteen were grabbing at their zippers. Down went one zipper, then two more, then half a dozen.

What's this? I thought.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was a sight perplexing enough to make the brain tilt. All those creeps clutching at their flies, grabbing at their zippers, here in the graveyard, here in the Eternal Peace Cemetery. It couldn't be.

But it could.

It was.

I understood.

With a great sinking sensation I realized what had happened. There was only one sane, logical, sensible answer.

I was dead.

Geezer had blown up. He had blown me up with him, into little bits. And this was:

Hell.

14

Dead.

I skidded to a stop.

I skidded just like always. I could feel myself skidding, and everything. It was just like living.

Maybe I was in limbo—or whatever they call it.

For millions of years I would carry Geezer, throw him into a grave, and he'd blow up and kill me. Then I'd be running toward murderous hoodlums who would blast me with .45's, .38's, .22's, club me with clubs and knife me with knives. Then Geezer again. And hoodlums ...

This is sure as hell no way to live, I thought.

But there was one good thing. If I was dead, that funeral couldn't kill me. How could they? I felt I was on the verge of a great discovery, but then something very interesting caught my eye sockets.

Or, rather, several things. That one guy with a gun in his hand had stopped and was taking aim, leveling the gun at me. A few feet behind him was Phil Samson, lunging toward him, hands outstretched. And all those lunatics, running awkwardly, were still yanking at their zippers.

One man quite near me had yanked his zipper down, dived in, and grabbed—hold it—a compact blued-steel pistol, which he then nipped up till it pointed at me. Another scratched around and came up with a snub-nosed revolver.

I got it. I'd figured it out. It was clear.

I wasn't dead.

I had at least a quarter of a second to live.

I almost wished I was dead. Ah, life was sweet. It's never sweeter than when you've got a quarter of a second to live. But it only took me about a sixteenth of a second to realize what had happened.

Yes, it was clear. Several things were clear. At least a dozen and maybe more of these hoods had come to the funeral armed: armed to repel the suspected invasion or attack by the Domino gang. Knowing the minions of the law would shake them down and not only appropriate any artillery found but fling the artillerymen in the can, they had with at least minimal cleverness secreted their cannons, not in shoulder holsters, not in belt holsters, but in shorts holsters. And they had obviously assumed—correctly, as it had turned out—that not even the fuzz would shake down their shorts.

Something else was clear.

Flies were open all over this segment of the graveyard, and in consequence at least half a dozen guns were aimed at me already, and there were more heaters flashing up from the secret places, and right away I was going to get shot not less than fourteen or fifteen times.

Even if I'd had time to run I couldn't run back toward Geezer. That was out. I couldn't run closer to those hoods, either. That was out. And it was beginning to dawn on me that it made very little more sense, if any, for me simply to stand here making a honking noise.

Ah! There was one thing. I could flip out my .38 Colt Special and ... No. This time I remembered. The Colt was empty. Ye Gods, everything was out.

I've been in pickles before. Yes, I have. But I couldn't remember a pickle more pregnant with the prospect of nothing than this one.

This was the moment of truth.

And the truth was that, whatever happened, it was just going to happen. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. It happened.

It was even louder than the lion, much louder than the lion, and also much sweeter to my ears. Even though it practically killed my ears.

I didn't care if my ears died in agony—if the rest of me lived. And there was a chance the rest of me would.

Because that sweet noise was a crashing, booming, thunderous, enormous, air-shredding and earth-shaking CHRROOM! Or bang, or boom, or crack, or crraack-whoom. No matter, it was loud. Geezer exploded.

Slowly the earth and the day and the scene came back together.

To say Geezer exploded is like saying Vesuvius leaked. He disintegrated. Bits of Geezer soared like gnats through the graveyard. Geezer filled the air. Geezer covered the ground. Geezer—but enough.

He saved my life. At least for the moment. No guns were going off. Not only were no guns going off, but it was eight to five it would be a while before some of the people here even remembered they'd had guns in their hands.

With the booming crash, the earth literally jerked beneath my feet, and a blast of air like a wall of water slammed against my back. I went down, ears ringing, numbness in my body. Then I was on my knees, shaking my head.

About half the men a few yards from me were flat on the ground; a couple of others were struggling to their feet. Blood trickled from a few noses. Some of the thugs still held their guns, but I saw other pistols resting on the grass.

I got slowly to my feet. Aching weariness pulled at every muscle. I think I was as tired as I've ever been in my life. And I didn't mind a bit. It might be a long time before I kicked about anything. Because anything was better than going from Geezer to hoods to Geezer....

Perhaps fifteen yards away, a little to the left of the group of men, Samson stood rigid, looking left and then right, left and then right again. Three more guys got to their feet, wobbling a little, and in a few more seconds all those hoods were standing, looking at me and all around—but mostly at me.

They were, quite naturally, in a state of shock. My initial appearance must have been something of a jar, especially since they'd been in a somber mood, listening to the Reverend saying, “We are here not to praise Geezer, but to bury him,” or something like that. But also they couldn't have expected their old buddy to pop. So I knew they were for the moment confused, hesitant, indecisive.

But I knew, too, what their last thought had been. Kill! And when they snapped out of shock, the last might become first again. So I walked, as briskly as I could, toward Samson.

On my way I passed near big, strong, dumb Luddy. His chin was hanging down, so loose a mild breeze would have wiggled it. “Hey,” he said to me in a dull voice, “What wazzat? Wazzat ... Geezer?"

“Was is right,” I said. “Geezer is no more. And you can guess who loaded him with the boom, can't you? To blow all you guys to hell? Domino, of course. Nickie Domano. Think about that, Luddy—and maybe you'll want to thank me."

I didn't give a hang if they thanked me, or even thought about it, but I spoke loud enough so the rest could hear me, because I wanted them thinking about Nickie Domano. Let them concentrate on killing him for a change.

Samson looked at me as I walked up, and several times he started to say something but never quite got it out, just moved his mouth after the fashion of a cow chewing its cud.

“Sam,” I said, “you been in touch with your office lately? Within the last half-hour or so, I mean?"

He scowled at me and kind of bit his teeth, then said, “Of course I have.” His eyes wandered around the landscape again, flicking from tombstone to tombstone. “I called in to tell them things were still...” He lifted his arms up, let them flop down. “Quiet."

Two plain-clothes officers came trotting up, looking slightly dazed. Sam spoke to them rapidly and softly, and they ran back toward the funeral parlor—for reinforcements.

Then Sam glanced around again at the gang of men, flipped his coat back, and pulled out his gun.

I asked him, “What's new from the lab? And how'd Omar check out?"

He gave me the technical answers, but it boiled down to the basic facts that Omar's blood was type 0, Rh positive, and matched the bloodstain in Omar's house; both type 0 stains in the Madeleine were Rh negative, and identical as far as the lab had been able to determine. Sam finished it up. “So Werme did the bleeding in the Madeleine, Omar in his house. The bullets in Omar matched the four...” He stopped, let it trail off. “How come you made such a big point of having them checked with the slugs we dug out of Harry Dyke?"

“It was Geezer, then?"

He nodded. “Identical markings, no doubt about it.” He glanced around again, brows pulled down and that cast-iron jaw of his jutting out. “I heard you say Domano was responsible for what just happened to Dyke. That right?"

“Yeah, crammed him with dynamite, made a time bomb out of him—idea being to wipe out the whole Alexander gang at once."

“That miserable sonofa—” He cut it off, looking at me oddly. “It's just getting to me you took a hell of a chance busting in here and hauling that—that bomb out, to save a gang of hoodlums.” He sank his front teeth into his lip. “You weren't thinking maybe I—"

I interrupted him, grinning. “Even hoodlums deserve their turn in the gas chamber. Besides, there were some women and kids down in front, boy and his sister, I guess—little bit of a tomato.” I paused. “Them, too, Sam."

He raised a hand and started to put it on my shoulder, then let it drop suddenly, as if embarrassed. Then he coughed, stuck his big chin out, and growled, “Well, you sure made a mess."

“That's gratitude for you. Which reminds me, that's something these characters don't have loads of. They're going to be stirring into life pretty quick. Or something else."

I wasn't kidding.

I could count the men now, and there were twenty-eight of them, every one a known hoodlum. The bunch included the entire Alexander gang—or what was left of it. I ticked them off mentally: Geezer and Omar dead, Cork, Stacey, Brill, and Dope already in cells downtown. Six gone. And the rest of them were going, too. The other mugs here were all very mean looking, for a very good reason—they were mean.

Consequently a lot of the men now starting to shift uneasily from foot to foot must have been aware they would soon be on their way to the local slammer, if not the state pen, depending on their records. Some of them still had guns in their hands, too. It was highly unlikely they'd simply stand around much longer—unless I could somehow keep them standing and listening, keep them interested. There was a chance I could.

So I said to Sam, “I'm going to talk to these guys."

“You'd better talk to me first. I want to know—"

“No point in telling it twice, Sam. Besides, these creeps are getting restless, understandably. Until about two dozen cops get here, we're outnumbered."

He shrugged.

“So cover me, huh? This might get a bit ticklish in spots."

“What the hell are you up to now?” he growled. “What the hell else?"

“With your permission, old buddy, I'm going to make an arrest."

He reached automatically for the cigar that was almost always clamped between his strong teeth, realized he had no cigar and made a very menacing face instead. “Arrgh,” he said. “You're going to drive me ... Oh, go ahead. Arrest all the bastards. Take them to jail. Take them on a picnic. I don't really care—"

“Not all of them, Sam,” I said. “Just one."

Then I walked toward the bunch of crooks and stopped in front of Cyril Alexander.

I raised my gun, my empty gun, and aimed it at one of the pale gray bags beneath Cyril's big muddy brown eyes. I thumbed back the Colt's hammer.

Then I said, “You're under arrest, Mr. Ames. For cohabiting out of hammerlock—I mean wedlock—for carrying a concealed weapon, for indecent exposure, for conspiracy to conceal evidence of a felony, for bugging my phone, for bugging hell out of me, and for the murder of Matthew Omar. Now, stand there easy or I'll blow your head off."

15

Cyril's Hand Twitched.

I considered it a significant twitch, because Cyril was one of those hoods still holding guns. His was a large Colt .45 automatic pistol, and when his hand twitched, the .45 twitched. If you want the truth, I twitched a little myself. It was a pretty twitchy moment.

But it could have been grand, nonetheless. He could have shot me, or turned and run, or said smoothly, “Preposterous, my good man!” Something like that.

He gawked at me and said, “Huh?"

Hoods. No class. But then his shoulders slumped. He lifted them up, then let them drop with an air of resignation. “I guess the jig's up."

“Not so fast.” The bastard. I hadn't even explained it yet. He'd been practically ready to confess, and I wasn't even started yet. “You just hold your horses,” I said.

Then I looked around at all the hoods standing here in the graveyard. “Men,” I said, “let me have your attention."

That was a pretty silly thing to say. I had their attention. But I went on, “Men, I guess we all know that Nickie Domano's triggerman, Jay Werme, shot Geezer there.” I pointed. “And there ... and there. But Cyril told you Domino's boys pooped Matthew Omar. Well, Cyril lied. Because the cat who pumped three into Cyril Alexander's dear old friend was Cyril Alexander."

I waited. As I've hinted, I guess there's a little ham in all of us. Actually, I almost wished I'd had time to call Jim Nelson again and have him send “Chopper 14” over. But you can't have everything. I waited some more.

Finally Luddy, who was standing four or five feet away on my right, gave his nose a little pick and said, “How about that?"

“Well ... isn't it exciting? Doesn't it—rock you?"

“Why'd he poop him?"

“Because Omar had tipped Jay Werme that both Cyril and Lilli Lorraine would be in the penthouse at the Madeleine. Omar sent Jay there to kill Cyril—and probably Lilli, too. But from Cyril's point of view the important thing was that Omar had tried to knock him off. So, naturally, once he got past Jay, Cyril blasted Omar."

Alexander sighed and stuck his .45 into the top of his pants. “Yeah, the jig's up,” he said, his nasal voice even more lifeless than usual. “I knew it as soon as you—"

“Cyril, please," I said stiffly.

I'd never seen a guy so eager to confess. But, hell, I figure a confession's no real good unless you already know what it has to be. Unless you outwit the hoods, where is the triumph of good over evil? Where's the joy in your work? Where's the satisfaction of a job well done, and all that inspirational gunk? Gee whiz, I thought.

And then—briefly—I thought something else. Could it be that the strain of these last hours had strained something in me past its springing-back point? You can stretch a noodle only so far, and then it becomes spaghetti. Was it possible I had spaghetti in my noodle? But the doubts lasted for only a moment. Then my usual keen grasp of everything returned.

“I don't get it,” Luddy said.

Most of the other mugs, I noticed, had slowly edged forward and now were bunched in a ragged half circle around Alexander, Luddy, and me. Under other circumstances I might have considered their slow, creeping edging forward a little menacing, but now I realized they were hanging on my words. This was more like it.

Tamale Willie brushed his black mustache with a thumbnail, looking at me with eyes glittering like knives. Big Horse glanced toward Samson, then rolled his big head around on his thick neck till he was staring at me again, hairy, gun-weighted hand hanging at his side. Stiff moved up to stand beside Luddy, giving me a spooky look.

“Well,” I said, “first we have to agree that Cyril and Lilli Lorraine had a thing going, a not unlikely assumption even if we were guessing, which we're not. To begin with, there is Clara—strike that. It has been rumored that Lilli Lorraine more than occasionally gets heat for hoodlums ... ah, for gentlemen of the turf, gentlemen of the turf. And Cyril has been, until now, L.A.'s Mister Big. Thus they were a natural combination, especially since for quite a while most of you headquartered informally at the Jazz Pad, where Lilli holds forth with acres of libido in evidence nightly. Enough acres to burn the blood of a brass monkey, and certainly a Cyril Alexander, even if he didn't eat breakfast confronted by the appalling visage of—strike that."

“They was millions of times I wanted to,” Alexander said, sorrowfully. “Millions. Every morning I wanted to strike it, right in the middle—"

I hurried on. “But about two months ago, when Cyril, for reasons of his own—which perhaps you are beginning to guess—transferred your boozing headquarters from the Jazz Pad, Lilli Lorraine moved from the Wilmington Hotel to a luxury suite. I give this to Cyril. When he does a thing he does it right—His and Her penthouses at the Madeleine."

“Two G's a month, and it was worth—"

“So that's where we start,” I said. “Then the Domino gang moves into town. Here's the chronology, the bare bones. Sunday Domino sent his number one trigger on a hit. Jay missed the big boy, Cyril, but hit the fat one, Geezer. Monday night he tried for the top man again. Werme showed up at the Madeleine, and since Werme was not a jewel thief but a killer, it follows that he was there for lolling. Clearly, for lolling Mr. Ames, or Lilli—or both. So we must assume he knew Mr. Ames was Cyril Alexander. But Cyril either got lucky or knew somebody was coming up to the suite and plugged—"

“No luck to it. When the elevator goes past twelve there's a buzzer goes off in the bed—"

“—And plugged him with one shot from the .38 S&W that lolled him. Probably Cyril fixed up some kind of signal, so when the elevator went past the twelfth floor a buzzer went off in the bed. Ah, in the bedroom. Anyhow, after plugging Werme, Cyril left in a hurry—to kill the man who'd fingered him, who'd tipped Werme and sent him to the Madeleine."

Stiff spoke for the first time. The first time, come to think of it, in my memory. “Domino?” he said.

“Omar. There would never in his lifetime be a more made-to-order time for Omar to get rid of Cyril, if he wanted to. Anyway, in order to kill the finger man, Alexander required a gun. Not an hour or so later, but right then. Before the finger man got the wind up an blew—which, by the way, Omar was about to do. I fact, he phoned me and practically told me so, only didn't get it then. So, Cyril needed a gun right away, and obviously he couldn't take his own gun, the .38 S&W with which he'd just shot Werme. Which explains why Werme's gun was never found."

They seemed interested. Sad Mick McGannon had moved up alongside Big Horse and was whispering something to him, and Big Horse was nodding. Stiff looked almost alive. But Luddy appeared nearly as intent on my words as anybody else, so I spoke directly to him.

“Clear so far, Luddy?” If he got it, I figured they all would.

He stuck out his tongue and bit it, concentrating. “Why coulden he of took his own gun?"

“Because Lilli Lorraine was going to lie a little—a lot, actually—and say she'd shot Werme. And if that tale was to have a chance in a hundred of holding up, the bullets in the gun she said she'd shot Werme with had to match the bullets in Werme. She could hardly plug him with a .45, say, and then stand there weeping with a .22 pistol in her hand, could she?"

“Ah,” Luddy said. “Ah. Ah ... yeah, like when they put it under the microscope and look at it. Ah."

“Good for you, Luddy. That's it. The test bullet from the heat and the lethal bullet from Werme had to match under the comparison microscope. O.K. Werme left his own gun with Lilli. So what gun did he take with him when he left to blast Omar?"

“Beats me."

I suddenly had an unaccustomed and warm feeling for dedicated, underpaid teachers, striving to pound knowledge into little heads. “Look at it this way,” I said. “Werme brought a piece to the Madeleine, but didn't get to use it for the hit on Cyril. Instead Cyril used his own heat to chill Werme. Cyril left his gun with Lilli and took ... "

“Werme's? Hey, he took Werme's piece. What else?"

“What else, indeed. Good for you, Luddy. And it turns out the bullets Werme fired into Geezer and those which Cyril later fired into Omar—from the same gun—matched under that comparison microscope you mentioned. As they had to."

Luddy was pleased. He was thinking. He was biting hell out of his tongue. And he asked a very sensible question. “So how come the boss went and pooped Omar?"

“Because Cyril certainly realized somebody must have told Werme he could be found at the Madeleine as Mr. Ames. Knowing that, he would also know it had to be Omar. Omar, who acted for Cyril in practically everything, and who in fact had rented the suite in the Madeleine for Cyril. He was undoubtedly one of the few people, maybe the only person other than Cyril and Lilli themselves, who knew the score. Omar, the ambitious one, the man who knew all details of all Alexander's operations. Omar, the thinker, who wasn't the type to do his own killing. Omar, who was best equipped, and undoubtedly most eager, to take over Cyril's operation—including the Lilli Lorraine operation, you can bet. You can at least swallow that part, can't you?"

Luddy—and twenty-seven other hoods, who had cast lingering eyes upon Lilli Lorraine—not only could swallow that, but appeared to be digesting it. A little stick-up man named Squeak started chewing on his lower lip as if it were a filet mignon, and Big Horse lifted his .45 and scratched his cheek with it, dreamily. Luddy filled his chest with air, and that was a lot of air, then sighed tremulously. Stiff blinked slowly several times, as if fluttering soft earth from his eyes.

But when Luddy finished sighing he said suddenly, “The bastard.” I looked at him. He went on. “You said Domino, heard you talkin’ to Lilli about him, and she puked all over him. Maybe Jay went up there to bang Lilli."

“Maybe, but not her alone. If Werme had gone there only to kill Lilli, Omar would still be alive."

“Huh?"

“It's simple. Cyril's motive for killing Omar was his knowledge that Omar had tipped Werme to the fact he'd be alone—without bodyguards—with Lilli at the Madeleine, that he was, in a word, Mr. Ames. We've already been through that part.” I paused. “Besides, it's eight to five Werme told Cyril who'd fingered him before he conked."

“Who says?"

“The bloodstains in the suite says. Two of them, fifteen feet apart, both from Werme. So Werme didn't die right away. A corpse can't get up and walk. He flopped, got up and made it at least fifteen feet, then flopped again. There was time."

“Time for what?"

“Skip it.” That's what I said. But then I repented. Luddy was obviously wrestling valiantly with the various problems, and had asked a couple of fairly probing questions at that. So I went on. “Look, we can say Cyril was fingered, right?"

“I'll go along with it. I'll buy that"

“O.K. You can bet whoever fingered Cyril would suddenly, immediately, almost instantly, wind up dead. So who suddenly, immediately, almost instantly wound up dead? Omar. So who fingered Cyril?"

A look of gladness came into Luddy's eyes. “Omar!"

“You got it."

“It don't sound good,” Stiff said. He was getting almost gabby. “I don't like it. So it was Werme's piece used on Omar. So maybe Werme used it on him."

“Nope, Omar was shot with Werme's gun, sure, but when it happened, Werme was dead, and the police were already at the Madeleine. Omar was waiting by the phone at home—probably for a call from Werme, saying the job was done. Well, he didn't get that call and he must have realized what that meant. He called me, but not quite soon enough. The point is he got hit right then, at the phone. He didn't get plugged at the Madeleine, say, and kick off later. He died when he got hit. I had a look at his body today. He had three pills in him, and any one of them would have done the job. Naturally enough. I imagine Cyril was only a few feet away when he shot Omar."

Luddy, almost convinced now, said, “Yeah. Yeah ... but the boss said Domino's droppers done it. He seen them—"

“Sure, he told you and half the county that. If it had been Domino, you can bet the word wouldn't have leaked so fast; this was like a flood."

Luddy looked at Cyril Alexander. “You fink,” he said.

I'd won. Won something. But what? My head was hurting, clear down to about my fourth lumbar. But I finished it up.

“There's plenty more,” I said. “For one thing, I learned my phone was bugged, and used the bugged phone to say I expected to soon know where Omar's body was. Minutes later four guys were on the way to Omar's grave. But not from Domino's—from Alexander's. At the same time twenty-five thousand clams was offered to any guy who killed me, not ... not by Domino, but by Alexander. Hell, it's obvious. Alexander bugged my phone, and Alexander was the one who didn't want the body, or the bullets in it, found. Alexander put up the twenty-five G's for anybody ... who ... "

It was funny. Every time I mentioned the twenty-five thousand bucks, twenty-eight guys moved. Not much. Maybe a little jerk here and a twitch there, a lip lifting, nostrils pulsating. Probably I shouldn't have mentioned it. Shouldn't have reminded them. Certainly not twice in a row.

Besides, I realized, all these guys had been moving forward while they hung on my words. They were practically on top of me now, and there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of movement that struck me as, well, restless. These natives were restless, all right. There were twitching lips and pulsating nostrils and all kinds of jerky movements everywhere I looked. These guys weren't much fun to look at to begin with, and now ...

Yeah, time to wrap this up and get the hell out of here.

So I looked at Cyril Alexander and said, “Well, that's it Cyril, your goose is cooked."

“It's a bum rap,” he said. “I been framed. I want some lawyers."

16

I said, “Huh?"

I was looking at Alexander. The hoods were on my right, pretty close. And, like the slow, deliberate movement of a many-hooded monster, the mass of twitching, snorting, pulsating crooks surged even closer.

But there was also movement farther to my left, past Alexander. Even past Samson. Four men running this way, then two more, followed by another four.

Cops.

Beautiful cops.

I'd been expecting to hear sirens. But obviously they'd come zooming up with sirens silent. Perhaps wisely, at that. There'd been moments when a sudden backfire, or even an explosive sneeze, might have gotten half a dozen guys plugged here. Sirens could have had the same effect on people allergic to sirens.

“Fuzz!” somebody yelled. “All kinds of fuzz!"

It was a sticky moment. But in a few seconds the stickiness ended.

In five more minutes all the guns—and hoods—had been gathered up.

With everything under control, for what seemed to me the first time in at least a week, I suddenly felt hauled down by gravity, as if I still had Geezer on my shoulder.

Samson had been directing the roundup, calling in for more cars, efficiently bringing order out of near chaos. I was sitting on the grass, leaning back against a tombstone, when he walked over and squatted next to me.

He looked at me, then at the tombstone. He peered at it, as if reading. “Here lies Shell Scott—"

“I am not a liar. Everything I said was the truth."

“Yeah. Well, you covered everything but the color of Alexander's socks. You didn't leave anything out, did you?"

“Oh, sure, lots of things. Like Lilli the hood-lover breaking it off in Domino, telling me she thought he'd had one guy killed already, and Cyril knowing it was Domino's charmers who pounded on me, things they just might have learned elsewhere but probably learned from each other. And we all knew Werme wouldn't have gone to the Madeleine without his gun—"

“I'm sorry I asked. One thing, Alexander was playing footsie with Lilli Lorraine, huh?"

“Well ... footsie? I rather imagine, not only with both feet—"

“You know what I mean."

“Yeah, he sure was. But I can't find it in me to think too harshly of him for that. After all, he had a monstrous cross to bear. Her name was Clara. And a grosser looking bear I've never—"

“That's Mrs. Alexander? I never met the woman. What's she like?"

“It's a little difficult to say, Sam. I can't think of anything to compare it with. But I can tell you this. She would darken a room at high noon. She—"

“Ah, the hell with you. We've got enough. You want a ride to town? You've got a flat tire."

That reminded me. Not that I'd forgotten, really. “There's one more thing."

“Yeah? Like what?"

“Nickie Domano. There's still one whole gang of hoods at large. We must keep on keeping on, strike before the iron rusts, attack until every hood in the world—"

“Yeah, how'd you find out about that bomb? You know where the Domino gang is? By the way, your eyes look a little glassy."

“I know where they were. Probably are, for that matter, crowded around a TV set.” I stopped. “Also, there may still be a very odorous hood, lying where I left him. Glassy?"

It was nearly seven-thirty p.m., dark now.

We were half a mile up that dirt road running north from Cypress Road. All was in readiness. Last act of the drama coming up. We knew that, but we didn't quite know what it would be, or how it would end.

The odorous hoodlum, Arthur Silk, had indeed been where I'd left him. Or at least near there. He'd made it about a hundred yards west and then passed out. When he came to he was scared—and very talkative.

Domino and his whole gang were in the house off Cypress Road, he said, at least, so far as he knew. They'd planned to stay there, keeping the television set on for the newscasts, knowing that, if they managed to blow up the Eternal Peace Funeral Home, it would be on the airwaves for sure. They figured they'd very likely be suspected but that nobody could prove they'd planted the dynamite in Geezer.

Sure, they were nuts. Even more nuts than that. Silk repeated, and again repeated, that in case anything did go wrong the whole gang was in the house, armed to the teeth and tonsils with virtually every kind of artillery except an antiaircraft gun, and with not the slightest intention of peacefully surrendering to anybody.

At least, that's what Silk said, and he added, “You better believe it."

Well, I believed it. If they weren't warped to begin with they wouldn't have been hoods, especially the kind of trigger-happy, bloodthirsty hoods we knew them to be. And anybody who would massacre seventy people in order to blow up a dozen or so ... Yeah, I believed it.

We knew they were still there.

A team of officers had kept the place under observation during the afternoon, while a whole passel of thugs was being booked, mugged, printed, and jailed downtown. Besides, when the small army of us arrived, after dark, there'd been lights on inside the house. Samson used one of the bullhorns, told the men they were under arrest, ordered them to come out peacefully, the usual. Nothing happened—except the lights in the house went out.

So we knew they were there—and they knew we were here. Only they couldn't be sure, not really sure, why we were here. Because no word had been leaked about the explosion at Eternal Peace, or the mass arrests. Not yet. Sam, with a good deal of help from the Chief of Police, had managed to keep the lid on.

Yes, he and the chief were practically kissing kin again. When Sam walked in with the entire remaining troops of the Alexander gang, plus several other assorted thieves, muscle men, arsonists and such, and with valid reason to book the entire assortment, the chief had been—shall we say pleased?

So nothing now remained except to gather up the creeps almost but not quite responsible for Southern California's biggest and bloodiest mass murder.

Only that—and my personal Alpha and Omega in this case.

It had started with soft-voiced, pimp-pretty Nickie Domano and his hoods; and it was going to end, one way or another, with Nickie Domano and his hoods. It was funny. I'd started out at least to annoy, if not entirely demolish, the Domino gang. The Everest of my achievement in that endeavor had been plinking one little guy in the middle—but I'd managed to help put my “client” and his whole caboodle of crooks behind bars, every man jack.

It seemed backwards. But the way my head felt, backwards was not easily distinguished from frontwards. Ah, my head ... but I'll get to that.

In the meantime, while the Alexander gang had been approaching its just but unlikely fate, the intended object of my disaffections had been ruining me. First that sap in Nickie's practiced hand, followed by his and Chunk's and Jay's hands and feet all over me. Then earlier today, after tossing several slugs my way, he'd gotten to within a second of killing me. And it was because of Nickie and his dynamite that I'd spent what I would never be able to think of as a restful afternoon.

So it wasn't merely the old truth that if you let a hood—or anybody, for that matter—get away with pushing you around, you are, if not actually dead, at least dying. That's true for everyone, but especially for a guy like me. For a guy like me, if you let them get away with it you're a sabre-toothed tiger without any teeth; and when you live in the jungle you either bite or get eaten.

Well, my teeth felt as if they were sharpened to little points. From about seven-thirty p.m. Sunday night until now, for almost exactly forty-eight hours, the festering thought of Nickie Domano had never been far from my mind. Even when I'd been carrying Geezer, consciously concentrating only on that TICKTICKTICK and running like hell, a part of my mind had identified every ache in those six gangrenous-looking parts of my body and every pain in my head and neck and spine and legs and even my aching butt with Nickie Domano, and in a black recess of my subconscious I'd been saying, “Nickie, you bastard, I'll get you."

Well, now was the time.

It was ironic the way everything had worked out so far; but maybe, very soon, I could strike while the irony was hot. Or at least strike back. It wasn't just me, of course; not by a long shot. I didn't know how many police officers were here—local, Beverly Hills, from Hollywood, and the L.A.P.D. Central Division downtown—but I guessed there must have been fifty. I say “I,” however, because I got to give the signal. The signal that would burn the bridge and start a lot of cops—and me—advancing forward, up the low bare hill toward, well, toward whatever was going to happen.

We were all in position. Everything was set, ready to go. Just as soon as I gave the signal. Because of the bit at the cemetery and because I'd led the police here—and, partly, because Sam knew I badly wanted at least a small part in the ruination of Domano—I'd been granted that honor.

Actually, there was nothing much to it. All I had to do was say, “Go.” It was a pretty big thing to me, though.

I was keyed up, you can bet.

I heard big feet crunching in the near darkness, and Samson stopped next to me. “Well, we're all set. You ready?"

“Ready. You bet. Yeah."

I'd been ready for forty-eight hours. A little too long, maybe. I peered up the hill toward the house, no more than fifty yards away. I—and the policemen, of course; couldn't forget them—were in the only cover available. Shrubs, bushes, a few trees. For a radius of roughly fifty yards all around the house the growth had been cleared away, and the house sat alone, dimly visible at the top of the gently rising hill.

Sam's words meant that police officers were on both sides of the house and beyond it, waiting. At my signal half of the assembled force would advance, the remainder waiting. Waiting to see if we got killed. At least that's the way I had it figured.

Almost like war. Yeah, I thought, bang, over the top, charge, rat-tat-tat —

“What?” Sam said.

“What?"

“What did you say?"

“Beats me. What did I say?"

“Something like rat, tat ... or—"

“Ah, those dirrty rats. Those dirty rrrats! Oh, actually I was thinking about when we move out. When we go. Seems like we ought to have some music. A martial air, tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys—or something like, 'they're breaking up that old gang of mine'; that's the ticket—"

“Not so loud. How do you feel. Shell? You've had a pretty busy day."

“Splendid. I feel splendid."

I did. At least, sort of. I really wasn't tired, as I'd been earlier. I was just filled with a sort of quivering intensity. Part of it was undoubtedly because of what I'd been through, getting killed and all that. And the tension building up now. All the glands working overtime, filling my bloodstream with extra adrenalin, thyroxin, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and maybe even neon gas for all I knew.

That was an interesting thing, by the way. I did seem to be sort of flickering on and off inside, like a neon sign. I almost wanted to step outside and look in my open mouth to see if I was lit up down there.

“You know how to use the Vocom, don't you?” Sam asked me. “New issue, but nothing to it."

“Yeah, I got it."

He referred to the compact, self-contained transmitter I held in my hand. Vocom was short for Ultrasonic Voice Communicator, and it was almost like an ordinary walkie-talkie, except that the beam or wave was a sound beam—ultrasonic, at a higher pitch than the human ear can hear. The little gadget converted the spoken words to ultrasound and then, at the other end, reduced the beam to an audible vibration. They were effective only for short distances, but the signal couldn't be picked up by anybody else unless they had a Vocom, too.

“Well, it's practically foolproof,” Sam said. “Just press that little red button there."

“Yeah. Little red button.” Ah, Sivana, I thought.

“And talk into the screened hole there.” Sam pointed to the hole. He didn't really have to point at it. I knew where it was. Hell, it was the only hole in the damned thing. Who could miss it?

“Uh, Shell, you all right? Your eyes seem ... Well, you look sort of feverish."

“It's probably the moonlight.” I looked overhead. The moon was in its last quarter. Just a thin sliver of silver, I thought poetically. A man doesn't know what he can think till he thinks about it. It looked as if a dragon had gobbled a big gob out of it I shook my head. No, poetry wasn't my line.

“You do look flushed. Shell. And your eyes—"

“Yeah, glassy. It's probably all the running around I've been doing today. Got overheated. Blood's still cooling, in the moonlight."

“You're sure you're O.K.?"

“You bet. Fine and dandy. Feel like a million. A billion."

I did, too. I was feeling better all the time. Charged up like a nuclear rockpile, or whatever they call them. But that was good. Just made me more alert, my senses more keen, my brain more ... ooh. Had a little shooting pain there. Just like somebody had shot me. Ah, that was a dopey thought. No more of those, I told myself.

“You sure you got it, now?” Sam said.

“Got it?"

“How to use the Vocom. It's important"

“You bet it's important."

“Just push the little red button and talk into the hole."

“Little red button,” I said. “Pine and dandy."

Sam jerked a thumb. “O.K. I'll be with Bill Rawlins and the others over there. I'm going in with you.” He walked away.

“Right. I'll see you in there, Sam.” With those dirrty rats, I added under my breath.

It was nearly zero hour. That's funny, I thought. Zero. It means nothing. It was nearly big-nothing hour. That didn't make sense at all. I'd better alert the men.

I pushed the little red button, spoke softly into the mesh-covered hole, checked the other positions. All was well.

“O.K.,” I said. “Just wait for the word, then. We'll go on the count of three. Only a few more minutes now."

I lowered the Vocom and checked my watch. It surprised me to note, squinting in the faint moonlight, that there was only a minute and a half left. Probably I shouldn't have said a “few” minutes. Few sounds like a little more than a minute and a half.

Only a minute now. I could feel the tension building in me. But maybe the Domino gang wouldn't put up any resistance after all, would come along quietly. That, of course, is what Sam hoped; he hoped this could be handled without bloodshed. If they didn't come along quietly, this wouldn't be any picnic, that was sure.

I could feel the familiar tightness in my stomach. But what was I getting nervous about? There'd be maybe twenty-five other men with me—policemen, at that. With teargas, shotguns, lots of things. When you're going to barge in on a gang of armed thugs you can't ask for anything better than twenty-five cops.

Less than a minute to go. I gazed at the second hand of my watch, sweeping around the dial. In the deep silence I could hear it.

Tick-tick-tick, it went ...

...tick-tick-tick ...

17

It reminded me of the ticking of Geezer.

Tick, tick, tick went my watch, and for a moment it was the tickticktick of a time bomb. I wondered, idly, if my watch was going to blow up. Springs and numbers and valves and such flying up at my chops. I could wind up with quarter past three on my nose.

That wouldn't do. Bring the old attention back, Scott. Tickticktick.

I was keyed up, all right. No question about that. Some strange things had happened to me today. Tonight, too, for that matter. A couple of times I'd sort of imagined myself suffocating in my skin and stepping out for a breath of fresh air, as in a dream. It was almost as if I could see myself from three or four feet away, like a big dummy.

I could control the dummy, awkwardly, with a kind of pasta telepathy. All I had to do was send a big bolt of thought up into my spaghetti like flickering neon sauce, and he'd move—a lot like Frankenstein's monster. There goes an arm up. Criiick. There goes the other arm. Criiick. It was fascinating.

Tick.

Ooh. There went another of those little shooting pains. But at least everything was back to normal. “Well, here we are, old buddy,” I mumbled. Twenty seconds to go. Then—charge. No ... we were supposed to sneak up on them, weren't we?

As I watched those last few seconds jerk over the small dial, like bits of distance instead of time, I could actually feel heat growing in my face as if blood were rising in me like mercury in a thermometer. I knew very well that high emotion sends all kinds of slop into the bloodstream, and I began to wonder if I might be filling up with glandular garbage. I was sure that plenty of adrenalin, for one thing, had earlier been poured inside me from inside me, but I had the queer impression that both whole damn glands were breaking loose from their moorings and putting round and about, two freed adrenals floating like Red Sails in the Sunset, little motors going pah-pah-pah ...

Ticktick ... And then: pah-tick.

I didn't like that. Ten seconds to go and then—charge!

Five seconds.

Pah-tick ... pah-tick ... pah-tick.

Two seconds.

Pah ...

Something was wrong. It wasn't supposed to do that.

Pah ...

Everything was screwed up. No turning back now, though. It was time. Quarter past three on my nose.

Ah, that wasn't it. What was it? Seven-thirty. Of course. Seven-thirty on the nose.

I lifted the Vocom to my lips and said, “All right, men. At the count of three—charge. One ... two ... three!"

Then I dropped the Vocom and was up and away. As I ran I reached beneath my coat and grabbed my Colt Special—loaded, for a change—pulled it out. There was only fifty yards or less to go, but it was a little uphill. I ran fast, then faster, something in me urging me on, heart starting to pound, blood rushing, gushing, racing, squirting, everything going criiick, criiick — pah—tick — pah—tick ... pah ... pppp....

“Come on, men,” I whispered. Softly, then louder. As the garbage built up in me, I whispered louder and louder until pretty soon I heard the echo booming back from the direction of Pasadena.

“COME ON, MEN!"

Nobody else was whispering, though. I couldn't even hear any feet pounding. Except my own feet pounding, jarring my head. Almost there now. Fifteen yards. Ten. Boy, those feet really jarred my head. Or else it was the effect of all those little unmoored adrenals floating around in me, like Red Sails in the —

Red ...

Little red button.

Well, fooey, I thought. As you know by now, it wasn't really fooey, but another word for which fooey isn't even a euphemism.

I'd forgotten to press that little red button.

18

I had made up my mind to stop and turn and run back for police protection, and was glancing over my shoulder, when brilliant light blazed all around me. With a part of my mind I was aware that the brilliance poured from floodlights atop the house, but with most of it—that is, with most of what remained in the wreckage—I was noting that the clearing was indeed empty. Except for me, of course.

I snapped my head back toward the house—filled with the horrible realization that a dozen or more vicious hoodlums, at least, were in there listening to me yelling, “Come on, men!"

And at that instant, the previously darkened house also bloomed with light. Light inside the house now, and lights every which way all over outside. That was all I needed: lots of light.

I had truly intended to spin about and whip back to where I'd come from if not a good half-mile farther back, but when I snapped my head around I noticed not only that lights were flashing on inside the house but that the door toward which I'd been running lickety-split, and had determined to run away from just as lickety-split, was approximately eight inches from my nose.

It was too late.

I was going to get killed again.

Well, so long, old dummy. No turning back now, even if we wanted to. And we sure want to, don't we? Too late.

But I guess it had been too late when I forgot to press that little red button.

THUD—CRASH—AAAAHH!

My big deal was getting my nose out of the way.

I got it out of the way and hit the door with my head. Actually, I hit it first with my shoulder and then with my head.

The door cracked and splintered, and my head cracked and splintered, then the door sprang open, then my head sprang open—at least, that was the vivid impression I got of what was happening, but I was beginning to think maybe my impressions weren't very reliable this evening. One thing I was sure of: It damn near knocked me unconscious.

It was a moot question whether the door had driven splinters into my head, or vice versa, but that wasn't terribly important. Terribly important was the fact that I was sailing hind end over sprung head into the room. The room full of bloodthirsty hoodlums.

Blam, BLAM, crash, crack, ouch!

That was lots of guns blamming and me going ouch.

But not from getting shot. Not yet. That was only a matter of time, naturally. The ouch was mainly from those splinters in my head. That plus landing, skidding, yelling, and somehow getting my feet under me again.

Well, I'd made it. By golly, I'd made it. I was here. Alone. Not ... exactly alone. There were thousands of hoods, it seemed, and all of them with thousands of guns. And the other invaders were still outside there, waiting for my signal. What the hell did they think was going on here in the house? This shooting and screaming and clattering around and such. They think the criminals were all knocking themselves off?

Of course, I was thinking all this like lightning, since I was moving. But not faster than bullets. I'd been nicked a couple times but hadn't been knocked down. What I think helped was that most of the men kept looking toward the splintered door for those other guys they expected to pour through it. All those guys I'd been yelling at. "Come on, men!" Those guys. Besides, I had been squeezing the trigger of my Colt almost from the moment I'd crashed inside.

Some of it, or all of it together plus developments I might not have been aware of, somehow kept them from killing me. Guns were going off like firecrackers in Hong Kong during the Chinese New Year, but I wasn't dead yet. At least I didn't think I was. It was hard to be certain of anything in this mess.

I didn't yell any more. But somebody else was yelling. What he yelled was, “Well, fooey! Douse the lights!"

Why? I wondered. Could it be they didn't know the men weren't coming? But I wondered that only for a split-instant because I had plunged across the room almost to the far wall, and straight before me a man was spinning around as he lifted a submachine gun in his hands, and next to him another man—Chunk—was slapping back the slide of a .45 automatic.

I was still pulling the Colt's trigger, and my last two slugs went into the chest of the man on my right, into hard-knuckled Chunk's chest, and the gun's hammer fell on a spent cartridge. Then I slammed into the guy with the chopper.

It wasn't part of any plan or tricky maneuver on my part; I just couldn't stop moving. The air went out of the guy with a huge whoosh, and I lost a lot of air myself, bouncing back a couple of feet as the man started to sag.

Staggering back, spinning to my left, I saw across the room a high, wide window. I bent over, hand scraping the floor—and suddenly the room was in darkness. Not only the room, but beyond that window, outside, it was dark, too. Somebody had hit the light switches. But when that happened, my legs were already unwinding, and I was jumping forward in blackness split by gun flashes and then leaving my feet and leaping toward that window.

I hoped.

I hoped it was toward the window. I hadn't had a lot of time to aim myself. What if I was aimed at the wall instead of the window? But when I thought about that, my feet were airborne. And when you come right down to it, I didn't have the faintest idea where I was aimed. I was just plummeting toward something, through blackness in which jets of flame flashed and nickered.

When my feet left the floor I seemed to lose all sense of orientation. I seemed to lose all sense. There wasn't even any sense of movement. It was like being an astronaut in free fall, weightless. It was almost like being a rocket .... Well, that was a dopey thought, and not my first, either. A guy couldn't be a rocket. He could be in a rocket, but he couldn't possibly ...

By golly, I could hear those old rocket engines going, at that. Pow, bang, crack, BLAM. Sounded like they needed a little work. Rat-ta-tat, BLAM, rat-tat, BLAM, pah, pppp. Hell, they needed a complete overhaul. I had a hunch I was in trouble.

I couldn't even remember where we were going. Some kind of dangerous mission. Yeah. It was those dirrty rats —

CRASH.

Hell, we weren't going anywhere. We'd cracked up. We'd just gone up a little way, then back. That had been a great, splintering, and painful crash. Splintering ... glass. It was coming back to me. Yeah, in through the door, out through the window. I knew where I was. I was about twenty-five yards from the house, running like a fiend.

Yes, running, I wasn't sitting back there like a dummy, outside the window. Maybe the dummy would; not me. I was running into the darkness, away from the noise behind me.

Noise ... there was still noise back there in the house. Gunshots. And for brief moments the cha-cha-cha of a chopper.

My destination was all those men I'd been yelling at earlier. They weren't gathered in one spot, of course. They were all over the place—waiting for my signal.

But I did find a group of half a dozen men, standing together in a kind of huddle, mumbling at each other. In the faint moonlight I could see the heads move, could see the heads shake and wag. And turn toward me, questioningly.

“All right, men,” I said. “Let's try that again. And this time..."

19

The last shot had sounded seconds before, the last echo had died. The night was still.

I stood panting—and bleeding—before the small group of men. Obviously, they hadn't understood a word I'd said.

A grizzled old police sergeant was looking up toward the now quiet house. He cocked his head on one side, then the other. Then he looked at me, uncocking his head.

“What they shooting at?"

“Me."

He laughed.

Footsteps. Heavy footsteps. Captain Phil Samson, head of L.A. Homicide, Central Division, lord and master of all he surveyed, came thumping up and surveyed me.

I tried to beat him to the punch. “Well,” I said, “where were you?"

It didn't help. He chewed hell out of me. Finally he said, “And you didn't press—"

“Sam, please. Let's let bygones be bygones—"

“That little red—"

“Sam! I'll pop you. Old buddy. Think how long we've been friends. You aren't going to let a little old—"

“You—"

“Ah, Sam, it could happen to anybody. Everybody's entitled to one mistake."

“Ha!” he roared. “If that was all...” He roared some more, wrapping it up with, “So we're going in. But this time I'll give the signal."

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Well, that final charge by twenty-five Southern California police officers—and me, limping—will probably be remembered as the great anticlimax in the history of the L.A.P.D.

We charged.

I really didn't have my heart in it this time.

All the way up the hill I was wondering if maybe I was dotted with bullet holes and gashes, and if all my blood and junk was flopping out. I hadn't looked. I hadn't had time to look. But, mainly, I was too big a coward to look. If what I thought had happened to me had really happened, I might faint.

And after Zazu, and now this tonight, if I topped it off by having a fainting fit while charging, I'd never be able to live it down.

Up the hill we thundered. Somebody else went inside first—I'd had my turn—and flipped on a light switch.

Not a shot was fired.

Man, you wouldn't believe the shot-up guys. The blood. The bleeding. The—ahhck, it was a mess. It was like walking into a wax museum, there were so many waxy-looking guys in there.

Only four of them were totally dead. But two more were out cold, and half a dozen others were bleeding profusely. With the lights on. Bill Rawlins spotted me. He'd been talking to Samson, and now walked over.

There was an odd expression on his face, as if he was smiling on one side and frowning on the other. The thought sang in my head like a popular song. I could almost hear music. “Smiling on the left side ... crying on the right side ... boop-be-boop-be-boo..."

“Shell,” Rawlins said, “did you do this?"

“Well, not all by myself,” I said modestly. “They helped."

I thought about that a moment. “Kind of makes up for the times when they weren't helping me, doesn't it?"

Boop-be-boo ... By golly, I wasn't nuts. I did hear music. And then I got it. “Hey,” I said happily, “look! I'm on television!"

It was true. A commercial had just ended—that's where I'd heard the music. And the newscast was picking up in the middle—with the shots filmed today from “Chopper 14."

Sure, I thought. The hoods would have had the set on for the nightly seven-thirty p.m. telecast. I'd charged smack at seven-thirty. They would have lost interest in the show, yes; but they hadn't turned the set off, either. The only thing I couldn't understand was why it hadn't been shot and killed.

Everything was under control here by now, and my voice cut through the groans and sounds of dripping blood. Everybody looked at the set. There was a long shot, and then ...

Yeah. That was me. Oh, boy. Oh ...

It was horrible.

How could it happen? I thought. At the time it had seemed so ... Oh. Ughh, ahhck. I was dying.

There were four guys carrying what looked like a sack of potatoes, and there was I, strolling along behind them. I waved wildly at the camera—at the helicopter, actually; that's when I was hoping to make sure they'd phoned the cops—and then appeared to bite my gun. Then a little more strolling, and suddenly I went into a fierce squat, lips peeled back, teeth almost venomous and certainly very toothy, gun whipping up like lightning—and nobody paying any attention to me.

It was awful.

Gee, I thought, I don't look brave. I look like a nut.

“Someone turn that damn thing off,” I said. “Who wants to look at television at a time like this?"

On the screen was a shot of lean, self-possessed police officers clapping handcuffs on four dangerous criminals. They looked brave, you can bet.

That wasn't the only thing bugging me, either.

Ever since we'd come in this time—the first time I hadn't even noticed him, understandably—I'd been bugged by Nickie Domano. First of all, he hadn't been killed. Secondly, and almost worse, be wasn't even wounded. I had the depressing thought that if the good die young, he might live to be two hundred years old. And I didn't want him to. I wanted at least to hit him.

But in this whole damned case I hadn't so much as laid a knuckle on him. It didn't seem fair.

He was in a sharp beige-brown glittery suit, and was wearing one of those damned shirts with a high white collar and sparkly tie. It wouldn't have surprised me if he had glittery pajamas with the collars practically up to his ears. He looked as if he'd been out having tea and crumpets, or looking at yachts, or checking his whorehouses. I really did want to hit him, but I didn't have any excuse. The fight was over. But I sure wished I had an excuse.

The police were herding the hoods out in ones and twos. I was standing near the door. A pair of uniformed officers pushed Domano toward the door. He wasn't handcuffed, but each of the men had one of his arms.

And, at least, Nickie didn't look happy. His face was contorted with anger and frustration; he was practically frothing at the mouth. That helped a little. Not much.

As the threesome went past me, Domano swiveled his head toward me and tried to yell something, but the officers yanked his arms up behind him and cut the words off.

“It's O.K.,” I said to the uniformed men. “Let him go. Hell, we've got free speech, haven't we?"

They shrugged, releasing him.

He took one step toward me, face flushed, lips curling. “You bastard!” he said. “You dirrty rat—"

With a song in my heart, I hauled off and smacked him; he'd given me my excuse. Wow, the smack was loud. Rawlins, on my left, whirled toward me and the now unconscious, and toppling, Nickie Domano.

“What happened?” he said. “Why'd you hit him?"

“Hell,” I said, “he stole my line."

Clunk, he'd landed, way over in the corner. That had been one of the best, the most prodigious mashers I'd ever launched. But it hadn't killed him. Hadn't done him any good, either—or maybe it had. At least he didn't look pimp-pretty any more.

Bill Rawlins was still standing next to me when Samson charged over. “Well, what the hell now?” he growled. “Are you never satisfied?"

“Take it easy, Sam. Relax. It's over, isn't it? What's to worry—"

“What's to worry? Why, nothing. You have merely devised havoc, hell, chaos—"

“Sam, just a minute. A couple of days ago it looked like bloody gang war in L.A. Between the Domino gang and the Alexander gang. Well, they're all in jail or else headed there now, aren't they? Could you ask for a happier ending? Aren't they all out of circulation? Sam, you should be happy..."

He'd gone white.

“Sam? Sam, say something. Look at me. Sam?"

Finally, staring right through me, he said, “I never stopped ... to think about it that way.” His eyes were glassy. “This is awful. You're right.” His hands made that little flopping movement “Boy, am I happy."

20

It was hours later, nearly midnight, and I was home again, in my rooms at the Spartan Apartment Hotel.

Alone.

Having a drink. And sitting kind of still.

I had lost merely the skin over one kneecap, a sliver of my left thumb, possibly an ounce of healthy white hair, four of my two hundred and six pounds, and at least a pint and a half of fantastically rich blood, which had sprung from seven gashes only one of which was enormous. Plus, of course, both adrenal glands.

But now I was plugged, patched, and bandaged. And alone.

Usually at the end of a case I can think of nothing more rejuvenating than relaxing in the company of a lovely, say a tomato of languorous eyes and smoky glances, of femininity unbounded, of sweet lips and fluid curves and warm heart. But not tonight. Tonight I needed too much rejuvenating.

So I'd just been sitting, swallowing a little bourbon, and thinking of the two days just past. Of Zazu, and the way it had started. Zah-zoo-zah, Zazu! Young Miss Alexander—but not so young as all that. And Lilli ... She'd make out. She hadn't killed anybody—unless that great fever-filled voice had knocked over a few old, weak ones. And Sivana. Yeah, hooee, wow! Especially Sivana, and her little red button.

But those were the live ones. There had been a lot of activity in the family of corpses, too.

Stiffs being buried, dug up, moved, carried, exploded. Corpses virtually peripatetic, strolling around, gadding about. Me, for example.

That was my trouble: I was practically a peripatetic corpse myself. The living dead. Something new. I didn't like it, either. But we've got to face the facts. Oh, I could move under my own steam, but there wasn't much steam in the old boiler. Not, at least, enough steam for Sivana.

I mean, you've got to be at your best with a gal like Sivana. There are other belly buttons, true; but how many are there that can throw a ruby sixteen feet and hit a man's shoe? Somehow, no matter where my thoughts strayed, they kept coming back to that gorgeous, wiggly, Irish-Egyptian tomato.

I was almost tempted to call her tonight, even if I died getting to the phone—it was clear at the far end of the divan. But, no, not after racing through the hills, and carrying Geezer, and the charge at those dirrty rats on Domino Hill. Tonight I was going to be sensible. Practical. I'd rest, relax, heal a little, get some steam in the old boiler.

I know when not to overdo a thing, I do.

The phone rang.

Should I answer it? I thought. Why not? What can I lose? Maybe another pint of blood, getting to the phone. But, hell, I've got lots of blood. Criiick, I got up. Made it to the phone, grabbed it.

“Hello,” I said.

“Helloo-o, Shell?"

It was a feminine voice. A very feminine, sizzling, lilting voice that attacked my ear like little nibbles.

“Lilli?” I said.

“Yes. Is that you. Shell?"

“Yeah. At least, I think so. Yeah, more of me than I thought there was, come to think—"

“Shell, I had to call you. Everybody's talking about you, it's on television and radio and everywhere."

“What ... are they saying?"

“About what you did today—and tonight. At the Eternal Peace, and then with Nickie and all. And I just saw you on television. The eleven-thirty news—"

“Oh, oh. You weren't watching Channel 14, and the—the helicopter shots, I hope. They didn't rerun that film—"

“That's what it was! And, Shell, you looked—you looked so brave!"

“Huh?” I shook my head around a little. “Say that again."

“You looked so brave!"

“Can you possibly be saying I didn't look like a ... nut?"

“It was wonderful. It gave me goose bumps all over."

“Surely not all—"

“You with your gun, and snarling and everything."

“Yeah.” I remembered snarling, all right. I remembered looking like a nut, too, no matter what Lilli said.

Ah ... I was starting to get it. I must have looked like a hood. Yeah, there had been something definitely criminal about my appearance, and actions, and everything, I recalled. Lilli must have been thinking maybe there was a chance I'd turned crooked.

“Shell,” she said, “I hope you won't hold Cyril against me."

“I wouldn't think of holding Cyril against you. In fact the only thing I'd consider—"

“It didn't mean anything, you know."

“What does that mean?"

“It wasn't anything ... you know."

“No—"

“I'm really kind of glad. You know."

“What's all this ‘you know'?"

“Don't you know?"

“Lilli—"

“You should see the Jazz Pad, Shell. It's half empty.” Ah ... I was getting a little more. Not only was there hope, perhaps, that I could be un-rehabilitated, but Cyril was in the clink. More, practically all of her potential boy friends were also in the clink. Well, hell, I wouldn't mind being un-rehabilitated for a couple of hours or so. Not tonight, of course. But maybe soon ...

“Do you think you might get down to the club tonight, Shell?"

“Well ... not tonight. Pretty quick, though. Yeah, pretty quick.” I thought a moment. “Incidentally, Lilli, how are your relations with the police? Considering the pickle Cyril's in—"

“Oh, I'm on a kind of probation. I have to be good."

“You do, huh? Gee—"

“I'm not supposed to associate with ... you know."

“Yeah. Finally."

“I had to go down and talk to the fuzz tonight. I just got back to the club. They were nice, though. Actually, I didn't do anything. It was Cyril did it. I was just scared, I felt so helpless..."

“I can see that."

“But they're not going to put me in jail or anything. I guess the fuzz aren't so bad."

“Fuzz...” I closed my eyes. “What were you wearing when you talked to the fuzz, Lilli?"

“The same thing I'm wearing now—I wouldn't have had time to change."

“Naturally not. Describe it for me, will you, Lilli?"

She described it. Must have been really something. Yeah, cut way down in front.

Then she said, “I've got to run, Shell. Time for my numbers. Do come down when you can. I know you must be awfully tired tonight."

“Well, kind of. But I'm beginning to feel ... peachy."

“'Bye, Shell."

“'Bye, Lilli."

I discovered, as I hung up the phone, that I was smiling. Hurt a little, but I was smiling.

I'd finished my bourbon and started to mix another, but then I remembered that jug of Martinis I'd prepared Sunday night. That's what I wanted. Nothing like Martinis—once you start smiling, anyhow.

They were damn near frozen. I'd stuck them into the freezer for “a few minutes,” Sunday night. Naturally I hadn't even opened the freezer since then. But I got down one of my double-Martini glasses, the ones usually reserved for nights of Total Madness. And the phone rang, just as I sipped my first frigid sip of two-day-old Madness.

I got to the phone with reasonable alacrity this time. It helps to move around a bit, instead of just sitting in one place, stiffening, and getting creaky in the joints.

“Hello, there,” I said.

“Shell? This is Zazu."

“No kidding. Well, how about that?"

She, too, was well up on all the news, including telecasts, and told me so. Then she said, “Shell ... I forgive you."

“You what?" I shifted my half-frozen tongue to the other side of my mouth, thinking. “You forgive me, huh? That's nice. I guess. For what?"

“For what you did to Daddy ... You sound funny. Is your mouth hurt?"

“No, it escaped relatively undamaged. It's just, well, I hurt my tongue on a Martini."

She didn't say anything. After a silence she went on as if I hadn't spoken. “He's in jail, but it had to happen sooner or later. Mama and I knew that."

“Mama, too, huh?"

“Yes. And, after all, you did save his life. The bomb ... the dynamite thing.” She paused. “Shell?"

“Yeah?"

“Do you forgive me?"

“Well...” I had to think about that for a bit. I really did. She'd given me one of the most horrible moments of my life. But, on the other hand..."Why the hell not?” I said. “Sure, all is forgiven. Hey, you really are twenty-two, aren't you?"

“Yes,” softly. And still softly, “I guess I was terrible, Shell."

“Well..."

“But, after all, he's my daddy. And I had to fight for him, didn't I?"

“I suppose so. I'll tell you this, Zazu. If I'm ever in a real jam, and need somebody to fight for me, I hope to hell you're on my side."

“I am on your side, Shell. In a way."

“Yeah? What ... way?"

“Oh ... you know."

There was that damned you-know again.

But we talked a few more seconds, and when we hung up I had a pretty good hunch I did know.

I skipped into the kitchenette, and back with my Martini. Then, seated on the divan again, I had another cautious sip. It was still too cold, of course. But something else was missing. Something ... ah. I'd forgotten the pimientoed olive.

Just as the thought flitted through my mind, my eyes fell on the low, scarred table in front of the divan. On the table, still, was that square of black velvet. And centered on the velvet was—yeah. My marvelously veined agate.

There was no help for it. No matter where my thoughts strayed they kept returning to—you know.

So I picked up the agate, dropped it into my Martini. Ah, this was more like it. Warmed it up a lot. It even tasted better, and if I kept my eyes wide while sipping I could see the aggie rolling around down there. It was beautiful.

I finished my beautiful Martini. I set the glass down on the table and stared at it, thinking beautiful thoughts.

And the phone rang again.

I sprang to my feet. I reached the phone in one gazelle-like bound. I'll tell you, I felt good.

“Hello!” I said eagerly. “Sivana?"

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1993 by Richard Scott Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9868-6

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20