Everybody Had a Gun

A Shell Scott Mystery

Richard S. Prather

For my mother, and for Bill

Chapter One

IT’S A FUNNY THING. If you were in the middle of the African veld and heard a couple of high notes from a hot trumpet, you'd undoubtedly think it was some animal sounding off. Or if there were a python hissing on one of the top floors of the Empire State Building, you'd probably think it was an office boy whistling through his teeth.

Maybe that's why, when the first bullet whizzed past my ear right in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, it didn't make sense right away, didn't mean anything to me.

I'd just finished forcing down my usual toast-and-coffee breakfast while reading the big black headlines about L.A.'s newest murder—the killing of one Lobo Le Beau, which looked as if it might lead to violent complications. Then I'd driven up Broadway and parked my ancient yellow Cadillac convertible in front of the Hamilton Building. I sat there a second, blinking sleepily at a hazy world as gray as my gabardine suit.

It was one of those extremely dry, electric Mondays we get sometimes in Southern California after summer is over and before the rains begin, and an east wind had been blowing all morning. We'd had the wind off and on for days now, and everybody was tired of it. It was the kind of irritating breath that dries out the land and the trees, chaps lips, rubs nerves raw, and puts a sharp edge on tempers.

I blinked at Monday, got out of the car, and started angling across the wide sidewalk toward the Hamilton Building and my office, when that first whisper raced past my ear.

It didn't mean a thing. I heard it, wondered what the hell was flying around in the L.A. smog, and kept right on going.

Broadway at ten o'clock in the morning is pretty well filled with people hurrying to one of the big department store sales or stepping out of offices to get coffee, and one of the big orange and green streetcars was rumbling up toward Fourth Street clanging and making a lot of noise, so I didn't even notice the small crash and tinkle as the bullet bored through the plate-glass window of Pete's Bar, next door to the Hamilton Building.

But I took one more step and then I saw the little hole in the glass with the cracks radiating from it and all of a sudden I got it with a jolt that tingled every nerve in my body. My subconscious dredged up the memory of a hundred sounds like that nasty whisper, sounds that I'd heard when I was a Marine in the South Pacific, and I stopped thinking and let my reflexes take over. I dived for a crack in the sidewalk as if it were a foxhole, and I hit the cement rolling. This time I heard a crash as the second shot smacked into the big window over my head, and I scrambled on my hands and knees toward the alley at the left of the Hamilton Building.

It took a second or so, but it finally penetrated. Somebody was trying to turn Shell Scott, private detective, into a six-two corpse with stand-up blond hair and cold, cold blood.

I caught a glimpse of a couple of pedestrians staring open-mouthed at me as I reached the alley and slithered up against the brick wall at its edge. I got my feet under me, dug under my coat, and yanked out my .38 Special, and the guy nearest me stopped staring stupidly, let out a squawk, and disappeared. I could hear his feet slapping the pavement and a little yelp once in a while, getting fainter.

Everything had happened so fast that I hadn't had time to think about what was going on. I squeezed back against the rough brick of the wall behind me, revolver tight in my fist, and tried to look everywhere at once. A woman walking down toward Third stopped at the edge of the alley on my right and stared at me. She didn't scream or run, just stared bug-eyed at me and the gun in my hand as if she were paralyzed. The only thing that moved was her mouth. It dropped open and she pulled it shut, then it opened and shut again, as if she were chewing ten sticks of gum. I guess I looked pretty silly, but not as silly as she did. A man came up alongside her and strained his eyes at me, and I waved them both back with my left hand. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back out of sight.

I couldn't stand there all day. If somebody had taken a couple of shots at me, he was probably long gone by now. But it was time I started finding out what the score was. My Cad was parked just across the sidewalk, and if I leaned out I could see the front fender. It looked like a hundred-yard dash to get there, but I bent over and leaped toward the side of the car.

Nothing happened. I slammed into the door and huddled down behind the car, facing the window of Pete's Bar. I could see the two holes, one high up, the other near the bottom of the glass. I could see, too, where the bullets had hit Pete's display inside. He had an off-sale license, and bottles of whisky were arranged inside the window. One of them, over at the left of the bullet holes, was shattered, and the liquor had spread out over the shelf that the bottles were on. That meant that the shots must have come from the northeast somewhere, farther down Broadway and up high. Probably from one of the office buildings along the street. I slid on my fanny back toward the rear of the car, far enough so I could get the door open, reached up, and pulled on the handle, wondering if there'd be any more bullets flying my way. As the door swung open I glanced up the sidewalk.

There must have been twenty damn-fool people standing there milling around and looking at me as if I were nuts. If I had been off my rocker I could have blasted hell out of them with the gun in my hand, but there they were. All of a sudden I wondered if maybe I was nuts.

Goofy or not, I slid up into the car, then hunched over, and with the back of my neck tingling I got the car started and wheeled it around in a U turn, headed north on Broadway. I stuffed the Colt revolver back in its clamshell holster and looked down the street. There were several buildings on my right where a guy could have planted himself with a rifle or pistol and had a beautiful view of the sidewalk where I'd just been—or even where I was now. There were too many places to check, but I was going to do some prowling anyway.

Forty-five minutes later I'd done a lot of running around and asked a lot of questions and got a lot of nothing. It was hopeless to try to find an empty office or a room overlooking the street from which somebody could have sniped at me. There must have been a million places the guy could have been. I gave up.

When I got back to the Hamilton Building there was a gray police radio car parked in front. I pulled in behind it and sat in the car. A uniformed patrolman was talking to a woman in the Hamilton entrance, and a plain-clothes sergeant I knew, Danny Russo, was looking at the bullet holes in Pete's window. Pete was inside looking out, examining the damage and shaking his head. Danny turned around and saw me.

"Hi, Shell," he said. "Better watch yourself today. Some screwball's running around loose."

"Screwball?"

"Yeah." He walked over to the car and leaned in the window. "Some guy's running around waving a gun and shooting things up."

"That's me."

"Huh?" He stared at me. I was getting used to it.

"Probably me," I said. "Those holes in the window." I nodded toward the plate glass. "Somebody used me for a target. I climbed into the alley and yanked out my gun and scared a lot of people."

He kept staring, then his lean face relaxed and he grinned. "Sure. What you smoking nowadays?"

"Damn it, Danny, I'm serious. I tell you somebody took two shots at me. I've just been trying to find out where the guy could've been. With no luck."

"Fact?"

"Fact. So help me."

Danny opened the car door and slid in beside me. He pushed back his brown hat and scratched his head. "Wouldn't you know," he groaned. "They tell me this guy came panting into headquarters and said a guy had a fit down here and flopped on the sidewalk, then yanked out a gun and started shooting up the town. Guy was all out of breath—ran all the way, he said."

That must have been the character who ran away yelping. My office is between Third and Fourth Streets on Broadway, and the City Hall is a long four blocks away. Farther than I'd like to run, and I'm in condition.

Danny was grinning at me. "Get this. We got a good description of the guy who threw the fit. According to the man that ran down to tell us about it, this madman had tape over both eyes and was about five feet tall, fat, and completely bald."

I was insulted. I'm just a fraction under six-two and weigh 205 pounds right now. There's no tape over my eyes—that's my eyebrows. They slant up from the middle and then angle down at the ends of my gray eyes, and they're almost white, like my hair. Tape! And I am not bald at a mere thirty years of age. My hair's blondish and it sticks up over my head about an inch long. But it sticks up all over my head.

I said, "Well, it was me, no matter what the guy says. I was stooped over. Just don't let that description of his get around."

Danny grinned and asked me, "Who shot at you?"

"Dunno. Haven't got any idea."

"Come on, boy. Who you think it was?"

"Don't you get it? I tell you I don't know. It just happened. I damn near fell on my face when that slug whistled by my ear." I grinned. "Matter of fact, I did fall on my face."

He kept looking at me and whistled softly. "Tell me all about it," he said finally.

I told him what little there was to tell, but it didn't satisfy him. That was nothing; it didn't satisfy me, either.

He said, "You must have some idea who'd be mad at you. Don't be dumb, Shell. If somebody's after your hide, you'll need all the help you can get."

I shook my head. "That's it, Danny. That's all of it. If I knew any more, I'd give it to you. Hell, you don't think I like this?"

He got out cigarettes, stuck one in his mouth, and passed me the pack. While he lit one match after another from a book of paper matches, and while the wind swirling in the open windows of the Cad put out one match after another, he asked me casually, "Uh, Shell, you wouldn't know anything about Lobo, would you?"

The Lobo he referred to was Lobo Le Beau, the guy I'd been reading about while I had my morning coffee. He'd been found dead in a ditch a little way out of the city with three bullets in his head. There had been absolutely no love lost between Lobo and me, and as far as I was concerned, his head was a dandy place for three bullets to be.

I'd learned to dislike Lobo heartily about three months back. I was on a job for a man named Marty Sader, who wanted to know the weekly take of one of the horse parlors on Slauson Avenue. At the time I hadn't inquired into Sader's reasons for wanting that kind of info, but he informed me it wasn't information one could get by calling the place or asking the police, and he didn't want to get involved personally. He'd explained that he'd checked the local "talent," as he called it, and decided I was the best man he could hire. I said to myself, Flattery will get you nowhere, Mr. Sader, but when he blew me and some tomato—whose name I've forgotten—to an evening at his night club, the Pit, and explained there was a fat fee if I got what he wanted and kept his name out of the deal, I gave it a stab—and learned nothing.

I did my best on the job, and nobody scared me off; I just couldn't figure out anything definite. But I met Lobo, who tried to scare me. I spent four days on that job, and on the second day Lobo Le Beau stopped me, said he'd heard I was snooping and asking leading questions, and for me to get the God-damn hell out of the way. I thanked him kindly for his interest and kept snooping. The next day Lobo wasn't so courteous. He threatened me some more, and when I told him it was a free country he grabbed me by my knit wool tie and started to yank me around, whereupon I broke his thumb and he let go of my tie.

The only violence after that was verbal, and Lobo told me if I didn't stop messing around I'd have to suffer the consequences. He never did tell me bluntly what the consequences might be, but he had said, as I recalled it, "Scott, you're too young." He didn't develop that, but we both knew what he meant. I hadn't liked the idea of dying that soon, but even though he'd bothered me I'd gone ahead with the investigation till it was obvious I wasn't going to get anything out of it and all my leads had dried up. I'd reported as much to Sader. I didn't get the fat fee, and Sader had intimated, not too subtly, that his feelings toward guys who let him down were not exactly cordial. Nothing I could say—not even the evidence of Lobo's broken thumb—could persuade Sader that I hadn't double-crossed him and got a fat fee for not getting the information he wanted. But he couldn't prove anything, so that was the end of it—I thought. I couldn't help wondering, though, what might have happened if Lobo and I had run into each other a time or two more. Well, with three holes in his head, he wouldn't bother me.

Even before he got his holes, though, Lobo hadn't impressed me as the type of muscle who diagrams the plays, but rather as the kind who carries the ball for somebody else. And I knew one more thing about him. He was, or rather had been, right-hand man to Collier Breed, a big man in L.A. Breed was big around the middle, but he was also big in that he had his fat fingers in a lot of pies, legal and illegal, all up and down the West Coast. Some came right out and said Breed was the West Coast representative of a national "combination" that controlled most of the rackets. Breed had been up before the U.S. Senate Crime Investigating Committee, but he'd claimed he was simply an honest businessman and nobody had yet proved any different.

Lobo had been very close to Breed—until this morning—and thinking about that reminded me of what might yet be the most important result of my thumb-breaking altercation with Lobo. About a week after that, word had filtered down to me that Breed, the big man himself, wanted it impressed upon me that, and I quote, "If that ass Scott sticks his nose in my business just once more, he'll be the late Shell Scott." That told me two things: the business I'd been sticking my nose into was Breed's; and he didn't like me worth a damn.

Danny was on his fifth match so I said, "Here, let me light that damn cigarette for you. And, no, I wouldn't know anything about the job on Lobo." I dug into my coat pocket and hauled out my pride and joy: one Zippo "one-zip windproof lighter" that the winds of the last few days had forced me to buy. I guess the ads had sold me: "Why, zip, zip, zip. . .when one zip does it!"

I went zip and stuck the torch against Danny's cigarette, blackening half of the end of it, and added, "All I know is what I read in the papers, Danny. And all I know about Lobo is that somebody punctured him. Not much loss."

"Not to L. A., maybe," Danny said, "but Breed won't be happy."

I lit my own cigarette, took a drag on it, and blew smoke out my nose like Bogart. "So what's that got to do with me? I didn't know anything about it till an hour or so ago."

"O.K. Seems funny you don't have any idea who shot at you."

"Yeah. I think it's funny, too. I'm in stitches." I thought about it a while and said truthfully, "Look, Danny. I've helped send a few local boys up for stretches, but they're all safely tucked away. That's straight. I honestly can't think of a single damned reason why anybody would shoot at me."

"Somebody did."

"Agreed," I said. "Somebody did." He didn't say anything, so I added, "About Lobo—well, we had a run-in a while back, but it blew over."

"What kind of run-in?"

"Job I worked on. Nothing came of it. I couldn't get enough info to help my client. Lobo thought I should lay off. Seems I was tromping on his toes, or somebody's toes."

"I heard something rumored about that. You lay off?"

"You nuts, Danny? Hell, no. I couldn't find anything, is all. Anyway, I didn't knock off Lobo, so we're getting nowhere."

"You've got no idea at all who blasted at you?"

"None. That's all, period, Danny."

He looked at me a while. Then he said, "All right, Shell. You want some protection?"

"Uh-uh. Not till I know more about this thing. Maybe it was a backfire."

He looked over at the bullet holes in the window. "Sure. That's it. Why didn't I think of that?"

We grinned at each other, pretending we were happy, then got out of the car. I didn't stand around in front of the building, but waved to Danny and the patrolman, went inside, and took the self-service elevator to my office, on the second floor. I looked at the printed letters on the window of my office door, "Sheldon Scott, Investigations," wondering if somebody would be scraping the paint off in a few days for a new name and a new occupant. With that cheery thought I unlocked the door and went inside.

I peeked before I barged in, just to be sure there was nobody waiting for me, but the only life in the office was on top of the bookcase to the right of the door. That's where I keep the ten-gallon tank and the guppies. That's fish. Little lusty tropical fish with color like surrealist prints and rainbows and vegetable soup. I pushed the door shut behind me, walked over to the bookcase, and said, "Hi, guppies," which was just about as foolish as I could get, but I was still a bit unstrung. The guppies flipped their tails and ogled me, and a few of the more enterprising males seized the diversion to make sneak attacks on the females. Not that they needed a diversion. I checked the water temperature to make sure it was around seventy-four degrees, dropped a little crab meat into the feeding ring for the mammas and papas, and sprinkled some baby manna and grated shrimp on top of the green Riccia floating at the top of the water so the babies could sneak up and grab an occasional mouthful.

If you have guppies, you have baby guppies. Like people, guppies are always having babies like mad, but guppies, instead of holding wars, keep the population down by eating their babies. Hence the Riccia for the babies to hide in. If only people had Riccia; I could have used some myself.

I relaxed, watching the colorful little fish cavort around the tank for a while, then walked over to the big window that overlooks Broadway, and stood at the side of it eyeing the citizens and wondering about that whisper past my ear.

Violence is part of my trade and I've been shot at before. I've been a private detective in Los Angeles ever since shortly after the end of World War II and my discharge from the Marines, and I've had several slugs tossed my way. As a matter of fact, one slug snipped off a small slice from the top of my ear, causing many people since to ask stupid questions like "Wha hopen your ear?" I tell everybody that a girl bit it off. The ear, coupled with a nose that got busted on Okinawa and still slants a little—a very little—gives me a slightly menacing aspect that hasn't scared anybody yet, but that takes me out of the boy-model class.

Like I said, I've been shot at before, but almost invariably I either knew who was doing the shooting or had an idea who it was and why. This time I knew absolutely from nothing. L.A. has its share of murders, but as far as I was concerned, Lobo Le Beau was L.A.'s quota for the day.

There were some odd angles to that killing. Even the newspaper story describing Lobo's sudden demise had been concerned less with Lobo himself than with two other guys: Collier Breed, Lobo's fat boss, and Marty Sader, the boy who'd started me on the job that tangled me with Lobo—and that, in itself, was interesting, now that I considered it. Since that job I'd done a little checking on Marty Sader, out of curiosity, and I'd heard from some of the characters I run into in my business that Sader was a citizen with big ideas and little principles. It seemed that the night club at which I'd spent that one bibulous evening was, though profitable, only part of Sader's money-making enterprises. It seemed, further, that the club was probably the only legal enterprise.

The newspapers had hinted that Marty was muscling in on somebody else's "territory," and without actually saying so, they'd managed to put across in a couple of well-chosen paragraphs the idea that the territory was Breed's. There was beginning to be a pattern somewhere in all this, and now Breed's boy was killed off and I smelled trouble in the morning air.

Danny's asking me if I knew anything about Lobo's killing had started me along this line of speculation, but I shoved it out of my mind. At least I tried to. That trouble I smelled was one deal I wanted no part of. At first glance it didn't appear likely I'd get any: Boys like Breed and Sader have other methods of settling their differences than hiring private detectives. Such cute methods as bombs, cement, and sawed-off shotguns.

But the more I thought of that "muscling-in" rumble that was spreading, and the longer I considered how soon after Lobo's murder somebody had taken two near-lethal shots at me, the less I enjoyed the skittering flights of my morbid imagination. In that little altercation with Lobo three months back, I'd been squeezed a bit between Sader and Breed; and I couldn't help wondering if somehow I'd got squeezed into the middle again. Now I was getting morbid, and I told myself the hell with it.

I was standing at the side of the window, keeping fairly well out of sight in case people still wanted to shoot me, when I saw the girl. Or, rather the woman. By no stretch of an elastic imagination could she be honestly described as a girl I'd just about decided to shake my mood by going back to the bookcase and digging out a copy of Henry Miller's Tropic of Capricorn, given me by a guy named Garvey Mace to replace some Frank Harris books that a couple of Mace's goons ripped up a while back. I was going to settle down in my swivel chair, prop my Cordovans on my mahogany desk, and reread some of those liquidly flowing Miller passages. But when I saw the woman I forgot all about Miller, which may be some indication of the kind of woman she was.

The first thing I noticed was the way she was dressed. She had on a pair of boyish, dark blue slacks and a fuzzy, light blue half sweater, and she was wearing her tummy bare in the breeze. She was on the far side of the street in the doorway of a shop, but even from that distance she caught my eyes and tugged. Her face wasn't clear, but I could see she had red hair that was worn long the way it should be: the kind of hair a man means when he speaks of woman's crowning glory. And even from there I could see she was slim, but with bold breasts that had a happy tilt, and a woman's hips in her boyish slacks.

Even if she hadn't been such a lush gal I'd have watched her because she was acting funny. She kept looking up and down the sidewalk and keeping back in the doorway, where it would be hard for anyone on the street to see her. And at first I thought I was imagining it, but I got the impression she was looking up toward my window, toward where I was standing.

And then I was sure of it. She looked up toward the window, took a couple of hesitant steps as if she were going to cross the street, then went back to where she'd been standing and looked up at my window again. I got so interested I forgot about keeping pretty well out of sight, stepped out right in plain view, and stared down at the gal.

She spotted me and straightened up. Then damned if she didn't start waving at me and making gestures with her hand. My mouth must have dropped open like the people who'd gawked at me a while earlier, and it dropped even farther in the next second.

She kept looking up at me, left her spot in the shop doorway, and started running straight across the street, jiggling like crazy. Man, it was pretty.

Traffic was heavy, but she must either have forgotten about it or ignored it, because there was the squealing of brakes as a guy screeched to a stop barely short of her, and there was a bang as the car behind him slammed into his rear bumper.

The noise startled her and she stopped suddenly and put one hand up against her face and looked around. Guys in the cars were staring; this was the nicest thing they'd seen in a long time. One vulgar lout even stuck his head out a car window and gave the whistle. I couldn't blame him.

I might even have whistled myself, except that it suddenly occurred to me I made a beautiful target standing where I was. And it also occurred to me that just possibly I was looking in the wrong direction—out the window instead of toward the unlocked door leading into my office.

Only I got both my bright ideas too late. I hadn't even started to turn around when trouble came in the door behind me.

Chapter Two

THE TROUBLE was in the person of a little skinny guy about forty years old with a great big gun in his right fist. I knew the gun—a .45-caliber automatic pistol—but I didn't know the guy. What's more, I didn't want to know him.

He said, "Come on, Scott. We're leaving."

"Leaving? For where? What's—"

"Don't stall, mister," he snapped at me. "Right now. Hurry it up." He wiggled the gun a little.

It was getting to me. Somebody was real mad at me and was going to a lot of trouble to prove it. Well, I was convinced. I didn't argue any more. I kept my hands in plain sight and moved around the desk toward him. When I was four feet from him he said, "That's close enough. Put your hands behind your head. Lace 'em tight."

I did exactly as I was told.

He said, "Don't try anything, Scott," then pointed the automatic at the middle of my chest and reached out easily with his left hand and slipped my gun out of its holster. Then he slipped my Colt in his pocket and stepped back away from me. He jerked his head toward the door. "O.K., out ahead of me."

I walked to the door and stopped. He walked up on my left and said quietly, "Hurry it up. You want lumps on your head? Snap into it."

"How about a rough idea?" I asked. "What's up? You the guy that took a shot at me?"

He shifted the gun a little in his hand and the corners of his mouth pulled down. He was a real tough guy. He was a couple of inches over five feet high, but the gun in his hand made him nine feet tall. He was a giant while he had that gun pointed at me.

He said softly, "You must not have heard me right, Scott. I said hurry it up. Now move!"

I was slow this morning and it had taken a little while, but I was starting to burn. I'd have loved mashing this nasty character's face into a block of cement. He was about three feet from me, just to the left of the door. So close I could reach out and touch him. But I didn't. He was ready for anything I might pull, and I didn't know any way to distract his attention.

He clamped his teeth together and his jaw muscles bulged. I unwound my arms from behind my head and started to reach for the doorknob, and then I heard it. We both heard it. The click-click of high heels hurrying down the hall outside.

I let my right hand fall back to my side and looked toward the little man. He licked his lips as the click-click got louder. This might be the first hitch. He shrank about a foot.

I said, "We'd better wait and see. . . ."

He didn't answer me, but he kept looking at me, and the muzzle of the .45 kept looking at me.

The click of the high heels came rapidly up to the door of the office and stopped. The doorknob rattled.

There was a trick a bouncer friend of mine told me about once. He worked in one of the toughest joints in town and on occasion he'd had to fight two or three guys. He said a trick that hadn't yet failed him was to look at the first guy and sock the second, then look at the third and slug the first. If you slugged hard enough, that left you with only one guy. Of course, they weren't supposed to have large guns.

Well, I had only one guy. I kept looking at him as the doorknob rattled and his eyes got a little wider. The door started to swing inward and I pulled my head around toward the door and at the same instant I shot my left fist up hard and hoped to Christ this wouldn't end in a Shell Scott obituary. I waited for the explosion, but the only pop was the small one my fist made on his chin.

The door came rapidly open about twelve inches and slammed hard into the shoe on my right foot as I jerked my head back around to my left. The little guy was just folding, the automatic already dropping from his hand. He flopped to the floor against the wall and lay quietly. I felt like stepping in his face.

The door banged my shoe again but I didn't move my foot. I had a pretty good idea this was the delightful dish I'd seen starting to cross the street, but even as luscious as she was, I had more important things in hand. I'd been shot at already this morning and the little guy slightly unconscious on my carpet might be able to explain that for me.

It was the confused doll that stopped traffic, all right. She'd pushed halfway into the room, squeezing between the wall and the door, and it was some of the nicest squeezing I'd seen in my life. She stopped there, left hand clutching a little black handbag with red drawstrings at the top, and with half of her wool sweater tilting happily at me, and when she gasped, "Oh, Mr. Scott!" I looked up at her face.

It was nice enough to have rated first look. Her eyes were a bright blue that went with the red hair tumbling over one shoulder, and her lips were moist and shining and inviting.

"Oh, Mr. Scott," she gasped again. "Thank God you're all right."

Sure. I was fine. I was dandy. I was shaking like a leaf. And now I was really going around in circles.

"Honey," I said, "I'm busy right now. I—"

She didn't hear me. She started babbling and it got to me that she looked ready to come apart at the seams. Her lovely face was twisted and her bright blue eyes were frightened.

She said rapidly, running the words together, "They locked me inside, but I went up the dumb-waiter to Clark's. I came here as soon—"

"You what?" I yelped. "You went up what?"

She still didn't hear me. She kept on going like mad: "As soon as I could. I called and called, but nobody answered. Oh, I was so glad when I saw you."

"Baby," I said. "Take it easy. What in the hell are you talking about?"

She looked blankly at me for a moment, then sighed heavily. "I'm sorry. I was just so scared. I—Aaah!"

I'd been glancing down at the little guy to make sure he stayed put while the gal was spraying words at me, and she finally followed my gaze and saw him sprawled on the floor. He was lying with the right side of his face pressed into the carpet and the left side up so it was in plain view, and as soon as she spotted him she let out a squeak.

I thought she was just startled to see a man lying on my floor. It isn't an everyday occurrence. But she surprised me some more.

She sputtered, "What—how—he works for Sader! Oh!" And then she started squeezing back out of the door and into the hall.

"Hey, wait a minute," I yelled. "What gives here?"

"I don't want him to see me. He mustn't see me. He works for Sader. Get rid of him. Get rid of him!"

"Honey, I can't toss him out the window. What's the matter?"

"I've got to talk to you. I have to." She looked ready to start bawling.

"Baby," I said, "get a grip on yourself. Relax. It can't be as bad as all that. Look. Downstairs, just to the right of the entrance, there's a bar called Pete's. You go down there and have a double shot. Have something. I'll be down as soon as I get rid of this." I gestured toward the man on the floor.

She said, "All right. But hurry." She paused, then blurted rapidly, "Sader's after you and—oh, mister, you're in awful trouble. So am I. They want to kill us. They will. I know they will. And it's my fault—all my fault." She finished that up almost wailing.

Then she slipped out the door and went click-click back down the hall and I craned my head around and stared after her and I couldn't even enjoy the delightful sway of her hips. My eyes must have looked like the crosses they put in cartoons.

She had said, "They want to kill us." Not sue us, or call us names. Nothing simple like that. I was playing with it, and wondering where this tied in with my previous brainspins, when the guy on the floor groaned.

I pushed the door shut, slammed the bolt, picked up the automatic, and got my gun out of the guy's pocket. Then I walked over to the fish tank. I scooped up some water in my hands, careful not to get any baby guppies, and splashed the water into the little man's face. I still felt like stepping on it.

After another double handful of water he groaned again and blinked at me. I grabbed him under the arms, wrestled him across the room, and slammed him, urgently, down in the swivel chair behind my desk. He shook his head, looked up at me, then shifted his eyes nervously around the room.

I bent over the little guy and said, "I'm going to tell you something, friend. And then I think I'll break your jaw. Or maybe your neck. You start right at the beginning and spill everything you know about this job. Who are you? Why'd you shove a gun at me? Who shot at me this morning?"

He licked his lips and looked at me from nervous eyes, but he didn't say anything.

I remembered the girl had said something about this lug's working for Sader. The more I thought about the girl, the more anxious I was to see her, find out what had been eating her and what she'd started to tell me. And some damn thing about her visit—besides what she'd said—was worrying me, but I couldn't pin down what it was. Seemed like I was forgetting something. I shook the feeling off and grabbed the little man by the lapels of his coat and rattled him. I shook him so hard his head bobbed around as if he had rubber vertebrae; then I dropped him back into the chair.

"Buster, start talking, and fast. Who put you up to this deal?"

He breathed a little faster and his eyes darted back and forth more rapidly, but he didn't say anything. I wanted to paste him one, but I couldn't quite make myself do it. When he'd been jabbing a gun at me it was easy, or if he hadn't been so obviously helpless now or had been a little bigger maybe I could have. High on the list of my pet peeves are guys who point guns at me. Maybe I couldn't quite make myself hit him while he sat there refusing to look at me, but I sure came close.

I balled up my right fist and held it in front of his small face, practically blotting it out. I said, "Five seconds, beetle, and you spill or I start busting your teeth."

It wasn't any good. He let out a couple of little wheezes but he didn't spill anything. He was more afraid of talking than he was of me. I had a creepy feeling I'd spent enough time with this guy for the moment; I wanted to talk to the jiggling redhead. I grabbed the phone off my desk, dialed police headquarters, and reported a man with a gun to the policeman at the complaint board. I reported the guy as at my office, hung up, and waited.

The little joe was still not talking when the radio car arrived with two patrolmen, and right behind them came Detective Sergeant Danny Russo. I unlocked the door and let everybody in.

Danny frowned at me. "No peace," he said. "No peace at all around you. What the hell now?"

I jerked my head toward the desk. "This little guy wanted to take me for a walk. Or a ride." I handed Danny the .45 automatic. "He used this to persuade me. Know him?"

Danny looked past me and spotted the little man hunched over behind my desk. "Uh-huh. Ex-con. Ozzie York, one of Marty Sader's boys. What's Sader got against you, Shell?"

Sader. The girl hadn't been kidding when she'd said, "He works for Sader." I wondered if she'd been kidding about any of the rest of it. I told Danny, "You got me. I'm starting to wish the hell I knew. And I've never even met this punk. Take him away, will you?"

Danny raised an eyebrow at me, then walked over to the desk. "What is this, Ozzie?"

No answer.

"Make it easy on yourself, Ozzie," Danny said.

I butted in. "He won't say anything, Danny. Wouldn't open his yap for me anyway."

Danny looked over his shoulder at me, then back at Ozzie. "We'll see," he said quietly.

I hurried the boys up and Danny slipped the handcuffs on Ozzie's small wrist. Danny said, "Well, come on, Shell," and started out.

"Uh, Danny. You go ahead. I'll come down to Homicide later. O.K.?"

He frowned. "Look here, Shell. You're the guy that called in on this—"

"I've got urgent business, Danny. I'll come down and make the crime report soon as I can. What difference does it make whether I give you the report now or later? I'll be down."

He sighed. "O. K. But don't wait all day. Room Forty-two, pal."

"I'll be there. Thanks, Danny."

When they'd gone I checked my .38 Colt Special, released the catch and pushed the cylinder out and made sure all the chambers were loaded, then pressed the cylinder back in place. Me and my gun were ready to go. I locked the office door and took off to see if the double shot had calmed my hysterical redhead.

And I wanted her calm. I'd been a bit too busy to concentrate on what she'd been saying when she'd squeezed into the office, but now I remembered the words she'd forced past her fright: something about Sader's being after me for something or other, people dying to kill me, and everything was all her fault—the whole thing gasped out as if the world were coming to an end. It looked as if the nervous lady might, once she got a grip on herself, be able to explain who had been aiming at me this morning.

The Hamilton Building has two big, wide doors that fold back when the place opens up in the morning. I was starting out between them when something on the floor behind the right-hand door caught my eye. A little flash of black and red. I think I knew what it was before I bent and picked it up. And I was right. It was a black purse with bright red drawstrings that pulled the top shut by puckering the cloth up and squeezing it together. I'd seen that bag only a few minutes ago, clutched tightly in the redhead's hand.

I picked up the bag, suddenly feeling a little sick. She could have dropped it accidentally. Or it could have been another bag just like it. Sure.

I sprinted outside and to my right into Pete's Bar. Pete was lazily wiping the counter for lack of anything better to do. There was nothing better to do because there wasn't a customer in the place.

My voice was a little tight when I said, "Pete, where's the girl that came in here? The redhead."

He stopped wiping the counter top for a moment and looked at me. "Girl? Haven't seen no girl, Shell." He moved down the counter a couple of steps and started polishing again.

"You sure? It's important. Long red hair. Slacks. Beautiful shape."

Pete looked up at me again, slightly annoyed. "What's eating you, Shell? Haven't had no customers all morning. Business is—"

But I didn't hear the rest of it; I was going out the door.

Chapter Three

I RACED across the sidewalk, tossed the black pouch bag onto the seat, and dived under the wheel. I started the car, gunned away from the curb, and barreled down the street for two blocks before I realized I didn't know where I was going, or even where I should be going. I pulled over to the curb, parked, and cut the engine. Then I got out a crumpled pack of Luckies and my lighter, lit a cigarette, and called myself names. I was mad. I was burning up.

I guess one of the things that gripes me most, or gripes anyone, for that matter, is knowing you're in the wrong or that you've made a fool mistake. But the first step in cooling off and starting to think again is admitting, to yourself at least, that you are wrong and then finding out why.

So after I'd called myself a number of uncomplimentary names I tried to figure out what was going on and where I stood. I'd screwed up for sure in letting the girl out of my sight. As soon as she piped, "They want to kill us," I should have tied that in tight with the shots tossed at me earlier and latched onto her good.

And right then, a little late, I got a cold crinkling along my scalp. She hadn't said they wanted to kill me, but us. She was included in the deal they'd cooked up for us. Whoever they were. And whoever she was.

And now I knew what had been bothering me after she'd squeezed out of the office. It had been a little scraping in my subconscious trying to make me add the obvious two and two together: The girl had been scared to death of Ozzie when she'd seen him sprawled on the floor, and if she was scared of him, it followed that she'd undoubtedly be equally scared of Ozzie's partner—if he'd had one.

And, almost surely, he'd had one. Ozzie wouldn't have tried pulling a job, particularly a job like this one, alone. He'd have had help, a partner at least. Somebody to wait in the building, or out on the street, or in a car. Christ! There must have been a car. If Ozzie had figured on taking me for a trip, he sure as hell wouldn't have planned to walk. There'd have been a car waiting for us, and there'd have been somebody to drive it while Ozzie kept his.45 tucked into my side or pointed at me through his coat. It was elementary, completely clear, and obvious. Now.

I groaned, picked up the bag, yanked the mouth of it open, and dumped the stuff it contained onto the seat. While I went through the stuff I wondered how I'd got so stupid in thirty years. A lot of this morning's stupidity might be traced to my constitution. I'm so healthy it's disgusting, but it takes me a while to wake up. I creep around mornings in an ugly world till I have a couple of mouthfuls of food and plenty of coffee. Not much food, because food is not appealing when I first wake up, but plenty of coffee. This Monday morning I'd groped my way out of my Hollywood apartment and come straight downtown, had my toast and a cup of coffee while I skimmed the paper, then, still a little bleary-eyed, I'd started for the office. Too many things had happened too fast for me since then. I'd been a step behind all the way. Well, I was awake now, but where did I go from here?

There was the usual junk in the purse: lipstick, comb, compact, and so on. But there was a check made out to Iris Gordon, signed by Martin Sader. Well, well. Identification and social-security cards also bore the name of Iris Gordon. A driver's license told me Iris was five feet, five inches tall, weighed a pleasant 127, was twenty-five years old, and single. Well. Single like me. And even her fingerprint was pretty. The identification card also gave me her address: the Caldwell Apartments, Apartment 7, on De Longpre Avenue in Hollywood.

I leaned back and took stock of what I knew and, more, what I had to find out before this Monday got much older. That is, if I wanted to get much older. Obviously somebody wanted me killed and had missed one chance at me this morning; Ozzie, whom I was going to see more of later, had a hand in some unpleasant designs on me; and the redhead, Iris, who obviously had some connection with Ozzie's boss, had been trying to warn me of something before she'd taken off—or been taken off. So now, out of all the people in Los Angeles I knew of two who might explain why bullets were flying past me: Ozzie York and Iris Gordon. Ozzie didn't feel like talking while Iris had been dying to, and I didn't have either of them.

I threw my cigarette away, got out of the car, found a pay phone, and called police headquarters. I learned that Ozzie wasn't even saying hello, but I passed word on through Sergeant Russo that I had an idea Ozzie might know plenty about the bullet holes in Pete's window. I went back to the Cadillac, knowing that the police would keep after Ozzie and my play was to keep after Iris. Maybe Iris Gordon had problems of her own, but right now I was more interested in my problem and her conversation. I checked the address on the identification card again and started the car. I wanted to see that redhead, sure; I had to see her if I could find her, but I'd done enough foolish things for one day. Before I started throwing my weight around, I wanted to know more about the lovely Iris.

I headed for De Longpre Avenue and the Caldwell Apartments. Number 7 was on the second floor. I walked right up, paused in front of the door, then knocked.

I didn't expect Iris to be home, and I didn't really expect anybody to be there. I certainly didn't expect what I got.

I got a barefoot gal in a pajama top. Uh-huh. Pajama top.

It wasn't Iris Gordon. It was another girl, taller and heavier, with a strange quality about her face that I couldn't place right away. She cracked the door a few inches and looked out at me.

I said, "Good morning. I’m Shell Scott. Is—uh—is Iris here?"

"No."

She answered quietly, looking at me, but she didn't elaborate. I was carrying the ball, so she waited and watched me.

I said, "I'm a private detective. Iris—Miss Gordon—seems to be in some sort of trouble. It may be bad trouble and I'm mixed up in it. I'm trying to help us both. I thought perhaps you might. . ."

"Oh? You're a friend of hers?"

I hesitated a moment, then said, "No. Actually I just came here hoping to find something that might help me find her. I think she's. . ." I let my voice trail off. I'd started to say I thought she'd been kidnapped, but all of a sudden it seemed a little silly. I went on, "She had something important to tell me and she's disappeared. I think she may be in very real danger."

She frowned slightly, then opened the door wide. "Please come in, Mr. Scott."

It was then that I noticed what she was wearing, and under different circumstances I'd have leaped inside and barricaded the door. But I walked in sedately and she nodded toward a chair. She didn't seem to be embarrassed by her costume, or lack of it. She didn't even seem to be aware that my eyes were hanging by their stalks. The pajama top was several sizes too big for her and several sizes too small for me—any way you look at it. But it hung down far enough, leaving her shapely legs bare a delightfully disturbing distance up her white thighs.

I sat down and swallowed twice, strenuously, and she smiled, just the ghost of a smile, a slight movement of full lips. She said, "Excuse me," and walked out of the room into another room in back.

I watched her leave, walking easily and gracefully. Moving slowly, taking her time, which was all right with me. She was a big girl. Not ungainly or awkward, but large, a little buxom, with heavy breasts and hips and a look of strength about her. She was barefoot now, but in high heels she'd have been nearly as tall as I am.

When she came back in she still had on the pajama top, but it was tucked into a dark skirt, and slippers were on her feet. I appreciated the fact that she hadn't taken more than a half minute or so out of the room, hadn't stopped to pretty herself up. Some women might have, even though I'd made it obvious that my call might be important. She hadn't been wearing make-up when she'd answered the door, and she didn't have any on now. She sat down on a couch opposite me and asked, "What is it you want, Mr. Scott?"

I said, "Just to be sure we're talking about the same person, Miss Gordon is a redheaded girl, isn't she? Very attractive?"

She nodded. "I think she was wearing dark blue slacks and a midriff sweater in light blue this morning."

"That's the one. She does live here, doesn't she?"

She nodded again. "We live here together. We both work at the same night club and share expenses here."

I thought I knew what night club she meant even before I asked. "This night club? The name?"

"The Pit."

Marty Sader's club, the Pit. And there he was again. Sader was looming up more and more as a man I had to see, and maybe had to see damned soon. I thought back to the one evening I'd spent in the club. The setup was a little screwy, but similar to clubs I'd seen in San Francisco. An alley ran straight through the middle of the block, from Seventh Street down to Sixth Street, and you walked from Seventh about twenty feet down the alley to a door into an elevator on your right. You took the elevator down into the club, and the tourists loved it. The elevator crept slowly down, taking about a minute to go twenty feet below street level, and by the time it stopped, you thought you were a mile underground. Just a plain night club, no gambling or anything extraordinary, but it was an intimate place and seemed shut off from the rattle and bang of the city above you.

It wasn't very well known because of its out-of-the-way location, and, as I remembered, the food service was among the worst in town—which was one reason I hadn't been back since that first time. But they'd had a red-hot floor show, and I looked approvingly at the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl opposite me on the couch. I remembered thinking on my first visit to the Pit that the star dancer was hot enough to be a fire hazard, and in a place like the Pit she was dangerous. As far as the public knew, at least, the only way in and out of that fire trap was the elevator. The place was designed more like a fortress than a night spot.

I said, "Sader does own the Pit, doesn't he?"

"Yes. Marty Sader. He owns the whole building, the building up above and the club underneath it."

"Something else," I said, "if you don't mind. What do I call you?"

"Mia. Forget the last name. It's Italian and you couldn't pronounce it." That ghost of a smile again.

"Mia, when was the last time you saw Miss Gordon?"

"I'm not sure of the hour. It was this morning. I was sleeping late, and Iris said she was going to pick up her check. She forgot it last night."

"Check? From the Pit?"

"Yes. Monday is our day off, so we get paid before we leave Sundays, and I guess Iris forgot her check. I think she called the club and then went down to get it this morning."

"I see." I didn't really see, but I was getting a glimmering. I'd stuck the little pouch bag in my pocket when I'd left the car. Now I pulled it out and opened it. I took out the check I'd found in the bag.

Mia was staring at the bag, and for the first time she looked worried. She was frowning and she asked me quickly, "Where did you get that? It looks like the new one Iris bought."

"It is," I said. I figured I'd better tell her what had happened up till now. I ran over it in a hurry and finished, "No Iris around, but there was her bag. It had this address in it, and I hoped by coming here I could find some lead to where she might be."

Mia got up from the couch and started walking slowly back and forth in front of me. I sighed. In a moment she sank down on the couch again, biting her full lower lip.

I asked, "Any idea what's going on?"

"None. I can't understand it. I wish I did know. I can't understand it at all."

"No reason you can think of why anybody might want to kill her or—or the two of us?"

She shook her head. "No. Why—why, it's simply fantastic!"

"Yeah. Just fantastic enough to be fatal." I handed Mia the bag and check. "It looks like she got her check, all right. Here it is. You said today was your day off. That means the club's closed today?"

"Yes. Every Monday."

"Isn't that a little unusual?"

"A little. Most places stay open all week, but I've worked at others that closed up one or even two days. Depends on the boss."

That was true enough, and Marty probably wasn't worrying about the one day's take from the club. I thought a minute about what Mia had told me, then I said, "You say she forgot her check last night, then this morning she called the club—but it's closed."

She frowned slightly, looking at me. "I hadn't thought about that. I was half asleep. Of course, Marty or somebody might have been there, but I'm not sure where she called. I think she talked to Marty. I heard her using the phone, then she came into the bedroom and told me she was going to run down and pick up her check. She had some shopping she wanted to do today."

It all sounded simple and uncomplicated: a night-club girl sleeping late in the morning, another one starting out to pick up a pay check. But it didn't explain why somebody wanted me dead. Or what was happening to Iris Gordon right now.

"This Pit," I said. "I've been there. That's the place in the alley, isn't it? Elevator business down to the club?"

She nodded.

"That the only way in and out?"

"It's the only way anybody uses. There are some steps up to Seventh in front—fire rules or something—but they're always locked off." She raised a dark eyebrow. "Much more mysterious that way."

"Yeah. What do you two do at the club?"

"Part of the show."

"Oh? I was there about three months ago. Don't know how I missed you."

"I've only been there about two months. Iris has worked there four or five months now; that's where I met her. Iris sings. I'm"—she smiled ever so slightly again—"a dancer."

She didn't look like a dancer. One thing was sure: she didn't dance ballet. But whatever it was, and I had an idea, I was pretty sure I'd enjoy it.

Looking at Mia, I was reminded again of the strange quality I'd seen about her face when she'd come to the door. Her face wasn't beautiful, but calm and pleasant, and it seemed to be traced with a vein of savagery, as if under the quiet surface were primal emotions that made you keep looking at her and wondering, with more curiosity than lechery, what she'd be like in a wide, strong bed. She made you think of flickering firelight and heavy drums booming in a sweaty jungle. She seemed to belong, a little bit, to the jungle herself, and I think it was that about her that showed in her face: she didn't look quite civilized.

While we'd talked, I'd been struck by her voice. It sounded as if there were a lot of power behind it, but she kept it low-pitched, like a murmur of wind in deep grass. It was an intimate voice and, whether it actually was meant to or not, it sounded like a whispered invitation. She said what she had to say, or answered my questions, then kept quiet and looked at me. She wasn't bold or arrogant about it; I was there and she was talking to me, so she looked at me. That was all, but it was disconcerting. The way her eyes rested steadily on me, I found myself wishing it were dark so I wouldn't feel the slight discomfort it gave me—and that gave me two reasons for wanting to draw the blinds or turn off the lights.

Suddenly I realized that we'd been staring at each other for two or three minutes without saying a word. Something had been building up between us; something dark and heavy and elemental that thickened the air in the room and the air in my throat.

I said, "I'll have to go. There's nothing you can tell me that might help me find her? Nothing else?"

"No."

I got up. "Thanks for your time. And the information. It might help."

"Let me know. Or if there's anything I can do." She hesitated. "We're very close, Mr. Scott. I think a good deal of Iris."

"I'll let you know."

I went out. Mia didn't come to the door; she sat on the couch and watched me leave. It was just as well. I had a feeling I'd wasted enough time already. Not that a little more would really have been wasted.

Chapter Four

I DROVE AWAY from Mia's thinking that, actually, the time I'd spent talking to her, aside from the fun it had been, had also been quite productive. I'd learned that she and Iris both worked for Sader at the Pit, and that Iris had apparently called Sader and then left the apartment to get her check. The separate items seemed easy to add together, but I didn't like the total I got. Those early-morning shots at me, plus Sader's boy Ozzie waving a .45 in my face, plus the fact that Iris had apparently seen Sader this morning, when added to the fact that the next thing I knew of Iris was that she was gasping at me in near panic and babbling that Sader was "after me," seemed to indicate pretty definitely to me that Marty Sader, himself, was behind Iris' disappearance—particularly if she'd run into the "partner" I was assuming Ozzie'd had. I didn't like that apparently logical total because it left me banging my nose up against a peculiar problem. It went like so: by now I was convinced that Iris was my best port in the bloody storm that seemed to be brewing around me, and I felt that I had to find that redhead so she could finish gasping at me and turn my fumbling fancies into some kind of solid fact; but if, as I had assumed, Sader not only still carried his grudge against me and was "after me," but also had Iris tucked away somewhere, that meant my finding Iris would let Sader find me!

Anxious as I was to find Iris, what I was doing seemed a bit like springing the trap with your neck in order to spare your foot. But there was always a good chance my logic was loony and my addition addled—so here I was, at Sader's home.

I parked the Cad off the pavement on Nichols Canyon Road and walked the last half block. I'd called headquarters again and learned that Ozzie was making like a clam except when he was screaming for a lawyer and his "rights." Except for him, my only lead was Iris, and up to now my only lead to Iris was Marty Sader, so I'd then checked the phone book for the exact address of the Pit and also for Sader's home address. His home was a lot closer to where I'd then been, in Hollywood, than was the Pit, which was clear downtown in L.A. I'd decided to try his house first.

As I walked toward the house there was a tight spot of muscle and nerve around my spine. It had been there all morning, right about where a bullet would be likely to plow into the middle of my back. I wasn't feeling particularly brave.

Nichols Canyon Road winds up into the hills north of Hollywood, twisting and turning like a tortured snake, and the occasional houses perch on the tops of hills or cling to the side of deep slopes of land that drop suddenly away from underneath them. Sader's place was a hundred yards or more away from any other home, in one of the few spots that had room in front for a big lawn, but on each side of the house the ground sloped downward, leaving the house perched up in the air. It was one of those big, two-story frame jobs built many years before, made entirely of wood, and neither very modern or sturdy. But there was a brand-new coat of white paint over its outside and it stuck up in the air like an explosion. Actually it was a lot wider than it was deep. It spread out into two wings, one on the north, the other on the south, and there must have been twenty rooms inside. It wasn't the kind of place I'd want to own. The roof was flat, a horizontal line cutting harshly across the sky, and the house looked squat and dumpy even though there were two stories. Regularly spaced windows broke the flat front of the house, many of them open, but all curtained.

The big white house was set back about fifty feet from the road in front, and a curving drive looped around in an arc before it. The lawn was all across the front, and tall hedges were at either side of the lawn. I sure as hell wasn't going to prance up the driveway or across the grass, so I walked to the outside of the nearest hedge and along it toward the house.

I walked parallel to the thing till, almost at the house itself, I found a carefully cut opening in the green hedge. Before I went through the opening I pulled the .38 out of my shoulder holster and put the gun in my right-hand coat pocket. If Sader were here, this could be a damned unhealthy spot for me.

I kept my right hand on the revolver, walked up on the wide porch that fronted the house, and rang the bell.

I waited but nothing happened. I knocked and still nothing happened. I was jumpy anyway, and I started getting nervous. I reached out and twisted the knob on the big door and the door swung inward.

Well, Scott? What the hell do you do now? I knew what I was going to do; I was going in. And I knew I could be making one gigantic fool of myself if Sader were completely disinterested in me or Iris Gordon. But it didn't figure that way from here, so I shoved open the door and walked inside.

I was in a little hallway with an old-fashioned coat rack, and doors leading off from the left and right. A flight of rickety-looking wooden stairs led up to the second floor. There wasn't a sound in the house except my knees knocking. I went through the door on my left. In ten minutes I'd gone over the entire lower floor, kitchen, dining room, library, den, and others, even a bathroom, and found nothing but dust. If what I was doing was looking for Iris, I was doing lousy.

At the foot of the stairs I paused and looked up, wondering if I could trust them to hold my two hundred plus pounds. That's how beat-up the place was. Sader seemed to have a weakness for fire traps. Maybe he was an arsonist at heart. I walked up the stairs, running my hand up the wooden banister until I saw I was picking up a mess of dirt. I hadn't noticed, but I'll bet that bathtub below had a ring in it.

The stairway ended in a long hall running left and right from the top of the stairs. Twenty feet on my right the hallway ended at a wide window, but the hall extended about sixty feet down to the left and ended in a door that must have been practically at the end of the house. I'd have to be careful going through that one; it might be a trap. Maybe guys like me were supposed to walk through it into nothing but air.

I still hadn't seen or heard anybody, and I'd got the feeling I should have made the longer trip directly to the Pit. But I was here, so I kept on looking. I checked all the rooms opening off the forward side of the hall—the side toward the front of the house—wondering every time I opened a door if I'd pop in on some fat old bag doing her exercises. Or maybe Marty loading a gun. Nothing. I reached the end of the hall and cracked the door at its end to see if it was a trap. There was more than air there. There was a little room and a short flight of wooden steps going up to the roof. I went up. Hell, I'll try anything. At the top of the steps there was a little hinged door in the ceiling, and I pushed it open and peeked around. This opened onto the roof, but I just glanced around without seeing anything and went back down. If this shaky old pile of timbers were to collapse suddenly, I didn't want to be up that high.

Up the other side of the hall. Nothing. I'd been through every room in the house and found little except two bedrooms on the second floor, both with unmade beds.

I'd wound up in the last room, the second bedroom I'd visited. It was obviously a woman's bedroom, and I was staring at the flowered wallpaper, wondering what had ever made me think I was a detective, when I heard the shot.

I swung my head around toward the back of the house, where the report had come from. There was an open window in the rear wall, and as I took one step toward it there was another shot.

I reached the window just as another report cracked out, and it dawned on me that the shots were regularly spaced, not fired in haste or erratically. More like timed fire at the Police Academy. I sidled up to the window and peered out and down into the grounds at the rear of the house.

There was a lot of space behind the house, then a big wooden building like a barn, and beyond that a lot of shrubs and brush and hills and more hills. But forty or fifty feet from the back of the house was one spreading pepper tree, and, in the shade underneath it, a woman was sitting. She appeared to be a middle-aged gal dressed in a riding habit, and comfortably sprawled in a battered and weather-beaten easy chair. She held a little gleaming gun in her right hand, and as I watched her she leveled it at the back of the house down below the window where I was standing, and the little gun went crack.

What the hell was she doing? Shooting up the house? Four or five slugs in this heap and it would fall down.

In her left hand she held a glass. She fired one more shot at the back of the house, then put the gun on a little table beside her, tilted the glass to her lips, and glugged away. She dropped the glass on the ground and calmly began reloading the little gun from a box of cartridges on the table.

I wasn't sure, but there was a good chance I'd found me a queer one. There was a way to find out.

I hustled down the stairs, out the front of the house, and around to the back where the old coot was. When I got to the back of the house where I could see her, I stopped just as she saw me. She waved the gun at me in a friendly sort of way—if a gun can ever be waved at you in a friendly sort of way—and I jumped a couple inches and said, "Hi!" in a voice that cracked through three octaves.

She bobbed her head. Finally I decided she didn't intend to shoot me, so I walked up beside her.

"Hello," I said. "Good afternoon."

She said, "Good aft-ternoon," in the careful voice people use when they're teetering between the edge of tipsiness and the middle of a good old-fashioned drink. That hadn't been Coca-Cola she'd been drinking. She added, "Who are you?"

She sat in the old overstuffed chair with the gun in her right hand and blinked up at me from her private haze. She wasn't really middle-aged yet. She was about forty trying to look twenty, but it was a cause long lost. It wasn't even a nice try. It was like shearing the snakes off Medusa and leaving the stumps; it made a difference, sure, but it still wasn't pleasant to look at. Her hair was frizzled into a bunch of curls dyed an indigestion brown, and the best curve she had was in her lower plate.

The riding habit she wore gave an artificial swell to her hips, but it was obviously artificial. Either that or the deep wrinkles where the pants drooped inward meant she was in even worse shape than I'd figured she was. And she'd been riding too long; she smelled like the horse. Hell, she'd been riding longer than that; she looked like the horse.

I finally answered her question, but I didn't give her my name. I lied glibly, "I'm a friend of Mr. Sader. Is he here?"

She blinked at me and said flatly, "How would I know? I'm only the louse's wife."

Well, she was sorry for herself. And so, I'll wager, was Marty. She mumbled a little when she spoke, and I couldn't make up my mind whether she'd said she was "the louse's wife" or "the lousy wife." I didn't ask her.

Instead I asked, "You're Mrs. Sader, then?"

"Yes," she said. "I'm. . ."

Her voice petered out and she looked past me somewhere. I glanced over my shoulder where she was looking, but I couldn't see anything except sky. For no good reason, I shivered.

"Hello," I said softly. I didn't want to startle her. Maybe she could see things I couldn't.

She kept on staring bleary-eyed past me. Off into space, I guess.

"Mrs. Sader? Are you there?"

She looked at me and blinked.

"You are Mrs. Sader, aren't you?" I said.

"Of course I'm Mrs. Sader." Ah, she was back with me again. She went on, "I'm Mrs. Vivian Sader. Who are you?"

Hell, I could tell this bat; she wouldn't remember. I said, "I'm Shell Scott. Marty here?" We were right back where we'd started.

"No," she said simply.

"When do you expect him, Mrs. Sader?"

"Whenever he feels like it."

"Well, thank you, ma'am," I said. "I'll be running along now. Uh—you know where I might find him? It's really important that I find him."

She bent over and picked up the glass from where she'd dropped it on the ground. It had picked up some blades of grass and some dirt, but what's a little dirt? She bent over to the table, and I noticed there was a bottle of Seagram's and a pitcher of water there I hadn't noticed from upstairs. She mixed up a nice little glassful of whisky, water, and mud, pulled at it, then looked back up at me.

I'd also noticed that on the table was a pile of artillery.

There were three guns on the table, one of them the biggest revolver I've ever seen. I guess it was a revolver. It looked like one of those cannons used to start boat races, or maybe more like part of a printing press with a hole in the end and a trigger underneath. There's no gun like that made in the States, so it was either a foreign gun or a job from a custom gunsmith, and the bore looked an inch wide. The other two were an ordinary .45 automatic and a .32 revolver. Cartridges for all the guns were on the table, including some for the little chrome-and-pearl .22 revolver she was still holding in her right hand.

She said, "Where you find him? He tol' me he was going to the club, but he's prob'ly chippying around. He's one louse." She hiccuped. "Who'd you say you were?"

"Name's Scott, Mrs. Sader. When did Marty leave?"

"I dunno. Early, likely. He slept here last night. I think."

"Well, thanks," I said. "I'd better be going."

"Want a drink?" She smiled.

"No. No, thanks."

I figured it was safe to take my eyes off her, and turned my head to see what she'd been blazing away at. Piled up against the house, two on top and two on the bottom, were, of all things, four bales of dry hay probably destined for the horses I supposed were back in the barn. Or maybe she ate it herself.

They were right underneath the second-story window from which I'd been peeking down at her. There were two bales next to the house and two this side of it, so there was no chance the bullets would go through, but I wondered what the hell was going to happen to the horses when they finally bit into the stuff. She'd potted away at the top bale till she'd clipped one of the wires holding it together, and the place was getting to be a mess. But on the bottom front bale was a big picture of Truman, well punctured with holes. There were a couple of holes in the new paint job of the house.

I said, "Lots of fun, huh?"

She gave me a blank look and said belligerently, "Not so much."

She made me a little uncomfortable, so, just to make conversation, I said pleasantly, "You sure fixed Truman, ha-ha. Why him?"

"I'm a Republican."

That was as good an answer as any, so I let it go. She'd loaded the little gun, and now she pointed it at Truman and slammed a bullet into the ground two feet underneath him.

This was where I came in. I said good-by to her and started off as she gave me a smile. A blade of grass clung to her upper lip. It didn't help her appearance any, but it didn't hurt it either; it was almost the same color as her complexion. I frowned and glanced up at the spot in the sky she'd been staring at, wondering if she really had seen something up there, and then I walked back to the Cad, wincing a little each time a shot cracked out behind me.

Chapter Five

I PARKED my Cad around the corner on Olive Street, walked down Seventh to the middle of the block, then took a left. I walked between the shoe store on my left and the cafeteria on my right, into the alley about twenty feet, and stopped right in front of the elevator door. The elevator was there on my right; all I had to do was climb inside and be merrily on my way.

And maybe not so merrily. It occurred to me that even though I was twenty feet or so from Marty Sader's Pit, I was a long, long way from getting inside. I remembered that the elevator took a long time to get down, and there'd be plenty of opportunity for anybody inside to get ready for me if he had any such desire. I dredged up my memory of what the spot below was like. You didn't even have to turn around in the elevator, just stepped in, rode on down, then stepped straight out into the club, and you were in the main room. There were tables scattered around, a bar along the right wall—probably in front of the locked doors Mia had mentioned—and booths along the near wall on the left and right sides of the elevator. The dressing rooms, office, and whatnot were beyond the velvet-draped left wall, and against the far wall ahead of you was a little platform for a small combo, and the usual small dance floor.

That didn't help me much, and I was still standing in the alley looking at the door to the elevator when I did the first fairly sensible thing I'd done all day. I had a very small thought.

It was obvious that, if Sader had picked up Iris, no matter what his reason, he could have parked her almost anywhere. But the only place I knew where Sader might hang out were his home and here. I'd scratched the home off, and assuming Sader was here—and maybe Iris, too—Marty, the way I had him figured, wouldn't be in the least happy to see me. So then I had my small thought.

I was going back over in my mind all that the nearly hysterical Iris had babbled at me, and I remembered the bit she'd blurted about being locked up. Somewhere in there she'd said she went up the dumb-waiter to someplace. To—Clark's? That was it.

I walked back out of the alley to Seventh Street and took another peek at the cafeteria edging the alley on my left as I came out.

Uh-huh. The sign on the windows said, "Clark's Cafeteria." And right underneath it was Marty Sader's Pit. Looking in through the glass front of the cafeteria, I could even see the right-angle extension jutting out on the left wall and extending to the back of the cafeteria. Part of that space next to the wall might be a storeroom, but I knew at least a six-by-six-foot square of it was taken up by an elevator reached from outside.

There was a little twitch in the bunched nerve and muscle still in the center of my back. Unless Iris was a psychiatric case, she'd sure as hell been locked up down below in the Pit just before she'd come bobbing across the street to my office.

I was feeling fairly pleased with myself when a motion on my left made me jump. The shape I'd been in for the last four hours, just a worm turning would have made me jump. But this was a long black Plymouth sedan turning into the alley a foot on my left.

There were two guys in the front seat and they paid no attention to me. That was O. K. I'd had more than my share of attention today. But I knew I'd seen the guy sitting beside the driver somewhere before. I stopped thinking about dumb-waiters long enough to run the thought down.

Then I remembered where I'd seen his mug: in a newspaper story a month or so back saying he'd been picked up on a suspicion-of-robbery charge, with no subsequent conviction. That wasn't much, but the guy who'd gone bail for him was Collier Breed, the chap with his sticky fat fingers in pies, the boy to see if you wanted into any of the racket gravy around town. I didn't know for sure what the black Plymouth meant, but things were getting complicated. And I had a gruesome feeling that I was industriously working my way into the middle of the complications.

I edged over to my left and watched the car for a minute. It pulled up in front of the elevator where I'd been standing a few minutes before. It stopped, and the guy on the right got out. He pulled a big watch from his pocket, looked at it, then stuffed it back into his pants. He said something to the driver, then crossed his arms and leaned back against the door of the car. Nothing seemed to be happening, so I walked over to the door of Clark's Cafeteria.

Dumb-waiter, Iris had said. That sounded like a kitchen. I looked through the glass window of the cafeteria, past the tables and the long serving line with its steam tables at the right, to a pair of swinging doors in back. As I watched, a man in a white jacket came through the swinging doors and walked behind the steam tables. I said, "Here goes nothing, Scott," and went in. I walked past the sad-looking characters shoving food down their throats, down the length of the serving line, and stopped at the cashier. She'd been busy making change and hadn't seen me.

I leaned over toward her and said, "Say, miss. I'd like to compliment somebody on the food here. Best meal I've had in a month."

She smiled halfheartedly like that was great but I could drop dead if I felt like it. "Thanks," she said listlessly.

"I mean it," I said. "Food never used to be this good here. It's chock-full of downright goodness."

She batted her eyes at me. "New chef," she said. "About the nine hundredth. Tell it to the boss." She nodded vaguely toward the front of the cafeteria.

"Thanks. New cook, huh? How long's this been going on?"

"Couple weeks." She frowned. "I don't remember you, mister."

I grinned at her. "That's too bad. I sure remember you."

"Oh, gowan," she cooed.

I left the gal, waited till she was making change, and walked through the swinging doors in back.

It was a kitchen, all right. It was almost two-thirty P. M. now, and only one man, a cook in a white puffy hat, was in the kitchen. He was stirring a conglomeration in a big metal pot with a long wooden ladle.

He glanced around at me as I came through the doors. "Hey!" he said. "Don't you know you're not supposed to be in here."

I smiled pleasantly at him and said, "You must be new here. I'm making an inspection. I'm Scott, L.A. Bureau of Sanitation. Been a complaint."

So far I was on fairly safe ground. The L.A. Bureau of Sanitation does make inspections of complaints, and I had plenty to complain about, and my name was Scott, and I was making an inspection.

There was one short, bad moment while he stared at me, then glanced around the kitchen, but then he wiped his hands on his not very clean apron and stuck out a paw toward me.

I shook his hand and he said nervously, "Sorry. I only been here a couple weeks. I think everything's all right, I think."

While I shook his hand I glanced slyly at his fingernails to see if they'd pass, then let go of his hand and said, "I'll take a look around. Where's the boss?"

"Out front. Want me to get him?"

"In a minute, maybe. Not yet." I sure hoped it wasn't yet.

I took out a notebook I carry and made doodles with a pencil while I wandered around glaring at the pots and pans. The kitchen ran the entire width of the back of the cafeteria and was about as wide as two or more ordinary rooms. I'd noticed when I first came in that there was a closed door in the kitchen's left wall, which was next to the alley outside, and in the right wall were two little doors about a yard square.

I worked my way over to the little doors, swung them open, and found what I wanted.

"This thing," I said. "What's it for?"

He wiped his hands some more and said nervously, "There's a club down under here. Night club. No kitchen there. Didn't used to be a club. They use this place for what food they serve. Don't serve much. I don't have nothing' to do with that, though. Boss could tell you more."

I nodded. "How about getting him for me?" I didn't care if I never saw the boss, but I wanted to get rid of this guy.

He said, "Sure, sure," and went out.

As soon as his back disappeared I raced clear across the kitchen, yanked open the door leading to the alley outside, left the door open, and jumped back to the food lift. I hoped that open door would make it look as if I'd left.

It was a tight fit, but I got inside the lift, facing in toward the far wall of the kitchen and the open door to the alley, and I couldn't help thinking as I grabbed for the doors to swing them shut that I'd have a hell of a time explaining this to the boss if he should bust in while I was sitting there cross-legged like a yogi and not even contemplating my navel.

But I got the doors shut, pulled the little rope that lowered the dumb-waiter, and was on my way.

I wasn't sure what I'd be getting into down below in the Pit, but I had an idea it wasn't going to be good, and even though I was going down, down, down, I felt as if my stomach were still up there in the kitchen.

Chapter Six

THE LIFT stopped at the bottom of the shaft with a slight jar and an almost inaudible thud that was quieter than the sound of my heart beating in my ears. I pulled the.38 out from under my coat, squeezed it tight in my right hand, and waited a moment, listening.

I couldn't hear a thing. There wasn't even any light snaking through the crack that I could feel in the little doors before my face, so I guessed the room ahead of me was dark. I shoved gently on the doors and there was a faint click as they swung outward. I couldn't see anything. Leaning out, I looked around and saw a thin slice of light spilling from under a door about ten feet straight ahead of me. In the glow, as my eyes got used to the darkness, I could see I was at the edge of a small room undoubtedly at the back of the club. This was where the waiters picked up food that occasional customers might order. And now I knew why the service at the Pit had been so lousy.

I eased my cramped legs outward and down till they touched the floor, then I slid out and straightened up. Soft, rustling conversation reached me like someone talking in a dream. I walked slowly to the door on my right, letting my feet down gently on the floor and shifting my weight carefully as I moved. With my ear pressed against the door, I could hear voices, one deep, rumbling voice and two higher-pitched ones. One of them sounded like a woman. I listened for about a minute but couldn't understand any of the words of conversation. The other high-pitched voice seemed to be doing most of the talking, but it didn't tell me anything.

I'd come this far; I couldn't just stand here. But if there was a canasta game going on inside I was going to look damned silly.

I grabbed the doorknob in my left hand, lifted, and turned the knob. It moved easily and the door cracked without a squeak.

I shoved the door hard, swung it wide, and stepped into the room with the gun solid in my right hand, hunched over like Billy the Kid.

It was a good thing. There wasn't anything like canasta going on and I didn't feel a bit silly any more. I felt relieved and a little scared.

Iris Gordon sat in a chair with her right profile toward me and I could see that her hands were twisted behind her back and taped. She turned her head quickly toward me and opened her mouth, long red hair swirling as she moved. Behind a big, pure-white desk on my right a man was sitting, leaning forward with his chin cupped in his hands, his elbows on the top of the desk. On the far side of the room two men leaned against the wall, casually. Both of them were tall; one was heavy, one thin.

As I busted in, the guy at the desk jerked a little, then started lowering his hands slowly to the desktop. One of the men against the wall, the thin one, spun around fast to his left, his legs spreading wide and his left foot hitting the floor with a solid smack. The motion sent his unbuttoned coat swinging out away from his body, baring a gun nestled against his left arm. As he spun around and crouched, his right hand streaked toward the gun and slapped against it before I could get a word out of my mouth.

He was good. He was better and faster than I am, but I had my .38 already in my fist.

As his palm slapped the gun butt I said, "Watch it." I didn't have to speak loud. The room was so quiet I could hear the dull smack of his hand against the gun metal.

The words dropped into the room and hung there. The guy froze with his hand crossed over his heart. He didn't move. He didn't take his hand away, but it didn't come out full either. I'd flicked the muzzle of the .38 over toward him, ready to squeeze down on the trigger if I had to. But I didn't want any shooting. I still didn't know who the hell I'd be shooting or why.

The man at the desk moved his right hand slowly, out in plain sight with no menace in his movement, and still looking at me he waved his hand a couple of times toward the two men. The tall thin guy relaxed a little and let his hand come away from the gun. Both men held their hands slightly in front of them where I could see them.

So far nobody had said a word except me. For a moment there was a sort of tableau, with the three men motionless and Iris staring at me, and in that moment I thought to myself that I hoped to Christ this caper started making sense pretty soon. In all my L.A. private eyeing I'd never run around so much or stuck my neck out so far without knowing what the score was or who was winning. And here I was throwing down on Marty Sader, calm and quiet behind his big, white desk, two other guys I'd never seen before, and a beautiful girl who'd said maybe twenty frantic words to me.

This way, I thought, lies the booby hatch.

And then Iris was spraying words at me for the second time this topsy-turvy day. Seemed like she couldn't see me without busting out in quivers.

"Shell, Shell, Shell," she said in a gasp like one word. "Oh, Shell, I'm glad." I thought she was going to say, "Glad! Glad! Glad!" but she didn't. She stopped talking and stared at me as if I were her mother.

Sader had his hands flat on the top of the desk now. He looked at me and said disgustedly, "Well—" and added a vulgar monosyllable I never use.

I eased the door shut behind me with my foot and leaned back against the wood. I said, "Hello, Marty."

He inclined his head. "Mr. Scott."

His was the high-spirited voice I'd heard doing most of the talking; I remembered it now. No nervousness about him. Calm. Almost pleasant. He might have been at a cocktail party for all the nervousness he showed.

Marty didn't look particularly formidable except for a solid, square jaw—and his complete calm. Sitting behind the big desk, he looked even less than his five-nine or five-ten. He had black hair that was starting to thin at the top, and it was carefully combed sideways over the pinkish spot. A few flecks of gray dotted his hair and the close-trimmed temples. Brown eyes stared at me from behind rimless glasses. I'd say he was in his late forties, but he was well barbered and looked tanned and in pretty good shape. He was half smiling, and his teeth were so white they almost glowed at me. He wore a black suit and was wearing a black knit tie over a white, long-collared shirt. He really stood out against the white of his desk, a fairly good-looking guy.

He kept the little smile on. "What can I do for you, Mr. Scott?" I almost grinned. He acted as if I were a customer instead of a man with a gun on him. I said, "Just everybody keep still for now."

I was tired of trying to watch all three men at once. I jerked my head at the tall thin character up against the wall. "You," I said. "With your left hand, very slowly, take out that gun you're carrying. Thumb and first finger

—and your left hand."

He didn't move right away. He glanced at Marty Sader and I could see Sader nod his head slightly. Damn it! I was supposed to be in charge.

But the thin guy eased his hand up slowly, got two fingers on the gun, and pulled.

"On the floor," I said. "Drop it."

He dropped the gun.

"Now you," I said to the other one. "Same deal. And no tricks if you're left-handed."

He hadn't moved since I busted in. Maybe he hadn't even breathed. I didn't expect any tricks from him and I didn't get any. He dropped the gun on the floor.

"O.K.," I said. "Kick 'em over toward me, then shove your coats back off your shoulders. Both of you. Leave your arms in the sleeves, but drop the coats down to your elbows."

The thin guy started to say something, but stopped. He shrugged and they did as I'd said. That was the best I could do for the moment, but they'd have a hard time pulling anything or pumping me with their arms cramped in their coats.

I looked at Sader. "Your turn."

He kept smiling. "Interesting, Mr. Scott. Neat enough. But I never carry a gun."

He grabbed the lapels of his black suit gingerly and pulled them apart. No shoulder holster.

"Shove back from the desk," I told him. He moved back. "Now stand up and try it again."

He got up and held the coat out from his body.

"Turn around."

"All right," he said easily.

There wasn't a gun in sight anywhere, but I said, "Now the coat pockets, Sader. Inside out."

He shook his black head. "I'll say one thing for you, Mr. Scott. You're thorough." His white, pleasant smile came back. "Maybe that's why you're still alive."

While I tried to figure out if there were anything between those lines, he started to dip his right hand into his right coat pocket.

"Uh-uh," I said. "Left hand."

"Awkward," he grumbled, but he reached across his body, first with the left hand, then with the right, and turned the pockets inside out. If he had a gun on him I'd eat it.

"All right, Mr. Scott? That enough? This isn't very neat—and there's a lady present."

I wonder what it took to get him rattled. I nodded at him and walked over to Iris. She whispered to me, but there was no point in whispering. It was so loud and ragged you could hear it bouncing off the walls.

"Thank God you came! They'll kill us. They'd have killed me, Shell. Get me out of here." She was coming apart at her beautiful seams. I listened, but somehow she didn't have to repeat that bit about Marty's wanting to kill us; even if it didn't make good sense yet, that idea had never been out of my mind. Well, I'd wanted in here, and I was here, and now that I was, I was dying to get far away.

Iris' hands were taped together, and I reached behind her and felt for the end of the tape and yanked. She let out a little gasp, but in a few seconds she had her hands free and was rubbing them together.

Then she stood up and pressed against me, clinging to my left arm. This was one hell of a time for her to start pressing against me, but I didn't shove her away. I'm weak. I could feel her heart beating fast like a rabbit's.

She whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm so damned sorry."

Sader spoke up. "It won't work, Scott."

"What won't work?"

"You won't get out. Even if you should, you couldn't get far. It will take you exactly sixty seconds to go up in the elevator." He stopped speaking and frowned. "How did you—" He clamped his teeth together and ridges of muscle bulged at the sides of his square jaw. He glanced up toward the ceiling above the wall in front of him—the wall separating this office from the rest of the club. I followed his gaze and saw a small unlighted light bulb above the close door leading into the club. He looked back at me and said, "But of course you didn't use the elevator. Stupid of me. I deserve this."

Then he glared at Iris. It had suddenly hit him how I'd come in—and how Iris had got away from him earlier. He said to her, "Then I did lock you in, didn't I? I'm glad to know I wasn't that careless." He shrugged and added more to himself than to any of us, "I've been careless enough."

Iris whispered, "Let's go. Let's get out of here."

That was fine. That was great. What were you supposed to do, dissolve? I couldn't see both of us squeezing into that dumb-waiter. Not that it wouldn't have been fun; there just wasn't room. And, besides, our three chums couldn't be expected to twiddle their thumbs while we played footsie in the dumb-waiter. Or, for that matter, while we were crawling twenty feet in an elevator.

Sader said to me, "Complicated, isn't it, Mr. Scott?"

They were just idle words. I could have sent Iris up the lift while I stayed here like Galahad, but I was damned if I was letting her out of my sight again till she'd cleared up all the loose ends that were dangling around me. But there had to be another way out besides the dumb-waiter and the slow-moving elevator.

"Sader, how about that front exit? There must be more ways out of here than the elevator. Where are they?"

He looked at me and shook his head slowly.

"I'd hate to rough you up, Sader. But we're leaving."

He didn't say anything.

I was temporarily stumped. I could shoot them all, but obviously if I entertained ideas like that I was getting as near the padded cells and strait jackets as Mrs. Sader had appeared to be. Or I could simply bat them all on the head—during which process I'd probably get well batted myself.

I said, "Look, Sader. You haven't got a prayer. I can work on you guys one at a time or all at once, but you'll spill."

He started to speak, but though his mouth stayed open, he didn't say anything. He was looking over my head toward the door again. I turned sideways and glanced up where he was staring. The light I'd noticed him look at before was burning brightly now.

"What does that mean?" I asked him.

He frowned. "It means we're having company. That light goes on whenever the elevator starts down. It's—ah—a precautionary measure."

And then I remembered the Plymouth that had whizzed by me when I'd been standing in front of Clark's Cafeteria. I tried it for size.

I said, "That reminds me. Before I dropped in here I noticed one of Breed's boys up in the alley. Seemed like he was waiting for something."

"Breed!" For the first time he lost some of his noise. But not for long; I don't imagine he ever lost it for long. He said rapidly, "Perhaps I've acted hastily, Mr. Scott. There is another exit in this very room. In the corner." He jerked his head toward the corner of the room at his right. "You can see it if you look closely enough. Even from where you are. Here." He ignored the gun I had on him and fished in his pants pocket. He pulled out a key ring, separated one key, and placed the ring on the desk. "That unlocks it. There are steps up to the alley at street level. You may leave."

What the hell? I stood stupidly in the middle of the room with Iris pressed warm and close against me while the seconds ticked away.

Sader added, "I told you it takes one minute for the elevator to reach the floor. That light"—he nodded toward it—"goes off when the elevator stops. We have about twenty or thirty seconds left."

Seconds left for what? Why was this guy so anxious to get rid of me now, when a minute ago he wouldn't budge? My brain was vibrating like jiggled jello and I was getting nothing but a headache. I didn't trust Sader from one atom to another, but I couldn't figure this. It could be Breed or some of his men on their way down, and it could also be some of Sader's chums. Or, for all I knew, it could be a real gorilla. Whatever it was, I didn't like Sader's abrupt about-face.

He said quickly, "Are you leaving, Mr. Scott?"

The guy was too anxious, rushing me too fast. I said, "I'm curious about this, Sader."

He licked his lips, and I thought he got a little paler under his tan. He reached out slowly and picked up the keys. He said, "Then I'm leaving. You'll have to let me leave, Scott." His voice was tight, and he licked his lips again, but he walked stiffly away from the desk and stopped at the corner of the room, and I heard the scrape of the key in a lock.

I stared at him. I was pretty sure he didn't know me well enough from our very brief association to be sure that I wouldn't shoot, and as far as he was concerned he was taking a chance on a slug in the back. While I looked at Sader, just swinging the door open, I thought of that elevator and wondered if some of Breed's men were coming to this party—and right then a picture flashed through my mind of Breed somewhere, snarling and saying, "If that ass, Scott, sticks his nose in my business just once more, he'll be the late Shell Scott."

Sader started out into the darkness beyond the door, and if I'd felt like it I could have shot him in the back of the head. I almost felt like it. The two other guys against the wall suddenly scrambled after him and out of the door, their coats still down off their shoulders.

I let them go. All I wanted right now was to get Iris and me to a reasonably safe place—if there was one for me in L.A. any more—but I was afraid if we followed Sader out the door we might be stepping into some kind of trap. Even as I watched it, the door slammed shut and decided that angle for me. The door had probably locked, but even if I didn't have to shoot off the lock, I didn't like the idea of stepping into that darkness.

I snapped at Iris, "Baby, I've been confused long enough. What the hell is this all about?"

"Sader will kill us," she said. "He wants to kill us."

This gal was stuck on that line. I told her, "You said that before—and I was already convinced. Now, why?"

"He shot that man in the paper-that Lobo."

I opened my mouth to ask her what that had to do with us, and then I noticed the light over the door on my left blink out.

Chapter Seven

"COME ON!" I grabbed Iris by the arm and ran with her back out the door I'd first come in. I shut it quietly behind us and we were in darkness. I left her for a moment, stepped to the dumb-waiter, and threw the doors wide open. At least Iris could get out of the way.

Sure. Next week, maybe. My groping hand found a mess of space and a rope. Cookie or the boss had retrieved their property.

It had been five or ten seconds since the light winked out. I stepped back to Iris and grabbed her arm with my left hand. This whole party was making a little more sense now, and whoever the visitors were, I was pretty sure they weren't going to kiss us. If I remembered the setup of the club, we were now almost at the opposite side from the elevator, with the main room straight ahead through some draperies.

"Iris," I whispered, "where's the entrance from here into the club?"

She didn't answer, but pulled me by my left hand through the darkness. I hoped she knew what she was doing; I'd have hated kicking a gong around right now.

She stopped, and when I put my hand out I could feel the drapes I remembered. I pulled at them and looked through the opening in the middle.

Over at the right of the darkened club, the electrically operated door of the elevator was about half open, light spilling out of it from its one dim bulb, shining part way across the main room of the Pit. We couldn't stay where we were. I grabbed Iris by the hand and slipped through the curtains and into the room as guys started coming out of the elevator.

I didn't have to tell Iris to be quiet; we could both see the men on our right in the light from the elevator, even though they couldn't see us—yet Four guys came out, and four guns were in their respective fists.

What I wanted to do—the only thing I could think of doing now—was to get to the far side of the club and around to the far side of the elevator while the four guys were going to our right. I put my mouth up to Iris' ear and said, so softly she must have had to strain to hear me, "Get to the far wall of the club. Can you lead the way without banging anything?"

She squeezed my hand, moved out in front, and started pulling me after her. The faint light from the elevator didn't reach this far across the room, and I could have banged into a table or chair before I ever saw it. I hoped Iris knew her way around well enough to get us across. There was carpeting under our feet, so we moved soundlessly enough as long as we didn't bang anything, and we might be O.K. if nobody found a big light switch.

I figured if we could get around the club and to the elevator before the four guys finished—Damn! There were five guys.

The fifth one came out of the elevator and stepped around to his left and stopped right on the fringe of the light that had outlined him. I didn't see a gun in his hand, but it wasn't tough to imagine one.

Iris slowed up and pressed my hand and I yanked my head around from where I'd been staring to my right and looked at her almost indistinguishable outline ahead of me. Then she moved slowly to her left and I followed. I put out my hand and it brushed against a cloth-covered table. Then she started moving faster, making time till we reached the far side of the club.

I got my mouth up against her ear again and said, "Take a right now, honey. Keep it going. Those boys won't be in Sader's office long."

Apparently there wasn't anything in front of us now, and in five seconds we were across the room and about fifteen feet from the elevator. The guy who'd remained behind was on the opposite side of the elevator from us, leaning up against the wall. I could barely see him, close as he was to the light, and I knew he couldn't see us. Not yet. But I'd have to get closer if we wanted out. I started ahead and shoved Iris back as she tried to follow me. Then I bent over and moved forward.

I was ten feet from the guy when he moved. I sank down to my knees, with my revolver centered on his middle just in case. But nothing happened. I dug in my pants pocket with my left hand, found a coin, and pulled it out. I could make out the form of the guy a few feet from me, his right profile toward me, but I couldn't tell who he was. I drew back my left hand, then tossed the coin by him and twenty feet beyond as I got my feet under me, ready to jump forward.

The coin hit with only a tiny thump on the carpeted floor, but I didn't have to wonder if the guy heard it. He let out a little grunt of surprise and whirled away from me toward the sound. He'd hardly stopped moving when I jumped forward, took one more big step, and jammed the muzzle of my gun into his back.

He went "Uh!" and I hissed at him, "Not a sound, friend! Not a damned sound."

He froze and I whispered, "Iris. Make it snappy." As soon as I said it I wished I hadn't used her name, but it was too late to worry about it. I couldn't hear her footsteps, but I knew she'd be coming up behind me as the guy in front of me started to crane his neck around.

I'd stepped back and pulled the gun away from him as soon as I was sure he knew what the score was. When a gun's touching a man he always knows just where it is—and knowing where it is, if the guy knows what he's doing, gives him a fifty-fifty chance of batting it aside before you can pull the trigger.

But he wasn't trying anything. He just twisted his head around far enough to see what was going on. I was curious myself about who he was. He had absurdly tiny black eyes in a thin, flat face I'd seen before, but I couldn't remember where I'd seen it. He remembered me from somewhere, though.

"Scott," he said softly. "So you're one of Sader's guns now, huh?"

Iris touched my shoulder from behind and I was so jumpy I almost squeezed the trigger. I've stoned the hammer and sear of my gun till it's got an easy one-pound pull, and I almost squeezed a bullet through the guy. But I held back and told him, "Turn around."

He turned obediently away from me and I lifted the revolver, slipped my finger outside the trigger guard, and slammed the gun against the base of his skull.

He didn't make a sound on the way down. It was the only way I could think of to keep him quiet for a while, and I'd tried to sap him as gently as possible. He wasn't going to like me when and if we met again, though. There's really no such thing as a gentle sap.

Iris and I got into the elevator and I snapped at her,

"Work this damned thing."

We had a long trip ahead of us and it might possibly last for eternity. She jammed a long red fingernail at a button on the wall and the door started closing like a snail with a hangover. As it crept shut a dim flash of light on the left caught my eye and I looked toward the drapes we'd come through. Light was behind them now; somebody'd found some switches. And just before the door finally eased shut, light flooded the interior of the club.

The door was shut; we were inside the elevator; but nothing seemed to be happening. There wasn't any point in whispering now so I asked Iris, "This thing moving?"

She nodded and her voice was twisted in her throat when she answered, "It's slow."

That was a neat understatement if I've ever heard one.

Iris was still wearing the half sweater and the dark blue slacks. She still had the happy tilts and the proper curves, and at close range like this it was something to see and remember. But I couldn't concentrate as much as I'd have liked to; there was still plenty I wanted to know. We'd be in here for another fifty seconds or so, and if I was going to die when we went over the top, I wanted to know what the hell I was dying for.

"Baby," I said, glaring at her, "start talking. Rough in the high points and give me the details when that's out. And fast!"

She took a deep breath and spoke, oddly, in the calmest voice she'd used so far. "Sader killed Lobo."

I remembered that. "What's that got to do with you? And with me?"

"I found out about it and—"

"How? Never mind—go on."

"And Sader found out I knew. He was going to kill me; I know he was. He almost said so, said I was dead! I—Shell, I. . ."

"Damn it, go on. Whatever it is, it's done."

"I learned of the murder last night. When I came here for my check this morning, Sader guessed—found out—that I knew about it. He threatened me, and I was scared to death. You do understand, Shell?"

I must have looked ready to yank her arms off, because she blurted the last part out in a breath: "I told him I'd seen you and told you everything I knew. That you knew about the murder, too. That you'd help me. You'd know, if anything happened to me, who did it and why."

I stared at her. "Me? Why me?"

"I saw you talking to Marty at a table here one night two or three months ago and asked him who you were and he told me. I knew you were a detective. And then you've been so much in the news, in the papers lately—about that Hollywood blackmail thing. Well, you popped into my head."

I felt like popping her head. Popping it good.

I said weakly, "Did it have to be me?"

She said violently, almost ready to burst into tears, "No, it didn't have to! I was scared, and—well, it's done"

There wasn't time for more conversation. The elevator had stopped and the door started sliding open. I grabbed the revolver tight in my slippery little hand and shoved Iris behind my back. Why, I don't know. I should have held the bird-brain in front of me.

Nobody was in front of the elevator door. The boys downstairs might not have found the guy I'd sapped yet, but probably they had. And they either knew of the exit Sader had used, or they didn't. I'd soon know.

I stuck my head into the alley. That was safe enough. Bullets wouldn't hurt it. Not my head.

The alley was empty. The black Plymouth still stood in front of the door, but nobody was in it. And there was no sign of Sader. So far, so good, but I wondered how long our luck could last. I stepped toward the car. With a little more luck. . .But we weren't getting that much. The keys weren't in the car and I sure wasn't going to fiddle around crossing ignition wires now.

Iris edged out the door behind me. "Wait here a second," I told her. Then I sprinted to my left down toward Clark's Cafeteria. A few feet from the end of the alley I stopped and slid forward slowly till I could peek out onto the street. In front of the cafeteria was another black car, a long Cadillac, and inside it was a man I didn't know and another one I did.

The guy I knew was in back: Collier Breed himself. I didn't see him right at first, but on the sidewalk next to the car I saw his trademark, so to speak. Two partly smoked cigars smoldered on the sidewalk, and I knew Breed was probably puffing nervously on another that would shortly follow the first two out the window. At a buck a crack, that can get expensive, but it was his one extravagance; nobody loved money more than Breed. He was sitting in the back seat, puffing away industriously, and I could barely make out his florid face behind the clouds of smoke. And that explained where the rest of the boys downstairs had come from.

I saw it all in one quick look, slid back into the alley and ran back to Iris. I grabbed her arm and hustled her away from Clark's and pell-mell down the alley. There weren't any explosions and no roofs caved in, and we made it clear to the alley's end at Sixth Street. I hauled Iris around to the left and we kept going. It was a little hard to believe that couple of minutes before we'd been creeping though the darkness of the Pit, and now we were breathing the cool air of Sixth Street, a part of the pedestrian traffic.

At Olive Street I looped Iris' arm through mine, turned left, and started walking rapidly back toward Seventh. She gave me a startled glance, but I said, "Keep talking. Give me the rest of it—all of it."

She kept up a stream of words as we reached Seventh and crossed the street. To the left, second door from the corner, was a pawnshop. And that's where I was headed.

We hit the pawnshop. And went inside, and every time Iris started to question me I shut her up and kept her spilling the dope I was interested in. I wanted to know everything she did before this deal went any further.

While she talked I looked around the pawnshop for what I wanted. The little white-haired owner bustled up to me trying to crack his knuckles. I dug a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and handed it to him, then picked a pair of high-powered binoculars from underneath a sliding glass counter.

I want to use these for a minute," I told him. "You'll get them back."

He sputtered a little, but I turned away from him, slipped the leather strap over my shoulder, and walked to the window in front of the store. By edging to the left of the window I could look back to my right and see the alley and Clark's Cafeteria and the black Cadillac parked in front of it.

The little white-haired guy came up behind me and Iris, trying to sell us the store. Possibly I shouldn't have been so free with that five-dollar bill. I waved him away. "Look," I said. "We want a little privacy, O.K.? Just got engaged."

He gave me a wide-eyed look, but faded away from us. Iris had finished telling me most of what had happened the night before and was looking at me like a pup expecting a whipping. I thought about what she'd told me while I turned the binoculars on Breed's car and focused them.

Boiled down, it appeared she'd been a little late getting out of the club Sunday night—or rather, this Monday morning—after the club closed. Mia had left about ten minutes before, and Iris had just finished removing her make-up and was ready to leave, herself. Then she'd heard loud voices from inside Sader's office, like the beginnings of one hell of an argument, and though she couldn't make out many of the words, she'd heard the name Lobo repeated a few times. That meant nothing to her because she'd never heard of any Lobo. She'd stood listening for a little while with woman's natural curiosity, but she'd begun to feel uneasy about eavesdropping, even unintentionally, she said. Then, when the argument was waxing pretty furious, all of a sudden everything stopped. No more yelling, no more noise, no nothing. Just quiet. It had frightened her and she beat it out of the club. Once outside, she realized that in her nervousness and haste she'd left her bag down in her dressing room, and her pay check was in her bag. She'd stood at the juncture of the alley and Seventh Street for a minute or two, trying to make up her mind whether or not she should go back down into the Pit and get the purse.

Then things had got a little more complicated. A car, with its lights out, turned into the alley from Sixth Street and stopped in front of the elevator door. Right after that two men came out of the elevator half carrying another man. That was as far as she'd taken it.

I made sure the pawnshop owner wasn't near enough to listen, and said, "This guy, Iris. He was dead?"

"I don't know. That is, I didn't then. I thought maybe it was just a drunk, but I knew there hadn't been any customers when I left. Anyway, it scared me. It was dark in the alley and the men were so quiet. I was frightened, even if I wasn't sure what was going on. I left right then and caught a cab home—I had a little money in the house for the fare."

"O.K. What about Sader? What's the rest?"

She was twisting her fingers together nervously now.

She said, "This morning, in the daytime and everything, I thought I'd been silly, imagining a lot of crazy things—and I wanted my check. I knew the club was closed, but I called there and Marty answered. I told him what I wanted and he said to come on down. Well," she swallowed, "I got the bag and stopped in Sader's office to say hello and thank him. He was reading the morning papers when I came in, and I could see the big headlines. 'Lobo Murdered' was all I needed to see. All of a sudden what I'd heard and seen the night before made sense. I remembered the argument, and the name Lobo, and the men carrying—" She shuddered. "I guess I looked scared to death and I must have been staring or pointing at the newspaper. I'm a little confused about it now, but I suppose I blurted out something to Sader."

She stopped talking for a moment and sighed deeply. Then she took a breath and went on, "Sader jumped out of his chair and grabbed me by the arm. Look." She showed me the soft flesh of her inner arm where Sader must have grabbed her. Four purple bruises discolored the white skin.

She said, "He twisted my arm and growled at me and I don't remember exactly, but I must have accused him of killing that man. I did later, anyway. But right then he—he was furious, and that's when he told me I was dead or something like that. I was scared and—well, you know now. I told him I'd already been to see you. First he started to make a phone call with the phone on his desk. Then he looked at me and shoved me into the next room and locked the door—there's a door behind the drapes we went through into the club, but that was already locked from the night before. Sader must have unlocked it after he found me gone. Anyway, I got away and tried to phone you; then went to your office."

"You did go up the food lift, then? The dumb-waiter?"

"Yes. Luckily there wasn't anybody in the kitchen right then."

"Uh-huh. You didn't hear any shots last night?"

"No."

I thought about that and said, "When the argument suddenly stopped, somebody must have slugged Lobo. Looks like that's what happened. Then Sader called for help and he and his boys hauled Lobo to a ditch and finished it. Probably when Mia went up in the elevator, Sader's little light flashed on. He must have thought that emptied the club."

Iris didn't say anything. There really wasn't much more to say. It all made sense now; most of it, at least. Sader, with a brand-new murder on his hands and two people able to finger him for it, must have figured he'd have to get rid of Iris and me before we could spill what we knew to the police—and even if we got to spill, killing us, even afterward, would effectively keep us from testifying in court. Iris would be tops on his kill list because anything I had would be hearsay evidence and wouldn't stand up by itself in court, where Iris had eyewitness info, which, even if not of the actual murder, was still the most damning circumstantial evidence. But if Iris were killed, I'd know who'd done the job. So good sense said, as long as Iris was safely locked up, get Scott first. At least that was probably what Sader had been thinking at the time. And still was thinking, undoubtedly. Well, I thought sadly, now he was right about me.

There was another angle, too. Lobo had been one of Collier Breed's prize boys, which probably explained, at least in part, what Breed and his pals were doing outside here now. But it might also explain why Sader hadn't been willing to let go of me and Iris till I'd mentioned that Breed's boys had arrived. Even if Sader thought he was relatively safe from the police, he must have known Breed would smell the fishy odor surrounding Lobo's death. Marty might have dreamed up a good story with which to satisfy Breed—but if either Iris or I should get to Breed before we were good and dead, no story Sader might tell Breed would hold much water. So he not only had to keep both of us from the cops, but perhaps even more important to him would be keeping us from Breed. That must have been why, down in his office, he'd been willing to let us go out his little corner exit while he stayed to talk with Breed or his goons. Then when it hadn't appeared I was leaving fast enough to suit him—with that elevator on its way down—he'd taken a chance on a slug in the back rather than meet Breed's men, unarmed and without protection, and while Iris and I were in the same room. Even if he figured he could talk his way around Breed, he sure couldn't do it while Iris and I were in the same room blatting our brains out. Things would have blown sky high and it wouldn't have been pleasant for Sader. So he'd walked out. What difference does it make whether the slug's in the back of your head or the front, as long as you're going to get it anyway?

I was thinking that Ozzie York, who might well have been the guy who took those first shots at me, must have been sent by Sader to get me about the time Iris had been scooting up in the food lift, and that my next stop would be to see little Ozzie again, when I remembered Iris had more to tell me.

"Look, sweetie. After you left my office you sort of disappeared."

"Oh. I started to go to the bar you said, but as soon as I got downstairs, before I even got inside, a man grabbed me. He had a gun in his pocket and made me get in a car that was at the curb. I—I managed to drop my bag, hoping you'd see it."

"Yeah. I saw it. Lucky you dropped it. Maybe lucky for both of us."

She said softly, "I guess that was the only sensible thing I did. Anyway, we sat in the car and the fellow seemed nervous. He was the tall thin one down in Sader's office."

I nodded and she went on, "He kept watching the entrance to your building as if he thought somebody'd be coming out, but then a police car drove up behind us. I don't know where it came from. The fellow had his gun pointed at me, and I couldn't yell or scream. And, anyway, he drove away as soon as he saw the police car stop and the policemen go into the building. Then he brought me back to the Pit."

I said, "You're lucky Marty didn't haul you some place besides his club. Lucky, for that matter, that he didn't pull the same trick on you he pulled on Lobo. What kept him talking so long?"

"He seemed worried and kept asking me questions. Just kept it up, over and over. He wanted to know if I'd told anybody else, and why I went back to see you—he didn't know, of course, that I hadn't really seen you before. Then he asked me about the police car that came up, and more about you—and that man in your office. I—Shell. I had to tell them about him being on the floor in your office when I got there."

"That's O.K. Probably worried Marty more that way. The guy's in jail now."

"Oh. They wondered about that. They wanted to know if he was dead, or what. I didn't know, myself. It's a good thing you came when you did. They were getting tired of talking to me, I think."

Iris must have been pretty tired, too, by then. She'd had a rough time, and I couldn't help thinking that, even if she was largely responsible for the mess I was in, it had taken a lot of courage for her to make her way to my office and try to warn me when she couldn't reach me by phone. No wonder she'd been so frightened. Up until now I'd been anxious to find her primarily so I could get the information she'd just finished giving me; now I felt as if I owed Iris something. I could at least give her a helping hand if the opportunity arose. Anyway, I wouldn't pop her head.

What she'd told me seemed to have brought me up to date, but I had the uneasy feeling there was more I should know. I had the binoculars focused on Breed, sitting in his black Cadillac, and he was on his fourth cigar when I saw him throw it out the window, open the door, and get out of the car.

He was looking down the sidewalk, and I swung the glasses to my left. All five of the men who'd been down in the club—at least, I assumed it must be the same men—were coming out of the alley and walking toward Breed's car. The main reason I'd wanted the glasses was so I could get a good look at whoever might be around, and I stared at those boys till I'd have known them anywhere.

One of them was gingerly rubbing the back of his head as he started talking to Breed. It was the flat-faced guy with the little berry eyes, the one I'd slammed on the noggin. Breed's fat jowls quivered as he snarled something in reply, and even from there I could see his big belly shaking. He finally turned and pulled his 260 pounds back into the car, and the driver roared away from the curb. They went right past the pawnshop and I got a look at the driver before they skidded around the corner. The rest of the goons trooped up the alley toward the Plymouth, my chum still patting his head.

I took a big breath and let it out slowly. Finally there was time to breathe a little easier. And I was damn near starved. My mouth watered as I thought of a juicy, red-rare steak.

I turned to Iris. "Well, honey, we're all right for a while. Lord knows how long. But you sure can't go back to your apartment. We'll have to find some safe place for you to lie low a while. There's a damn good chance Sader'll head there and try to pick you up later. You can't—"

I stopped and frowned down at her. She was staring at me with an expression of horror on her face. "Shell," she breathed. "Shell, they will go there. And Mia's there. Mia's there alone!"

Good old Shell. Still a lap behind.

Chapter Eight

I SPUN AROUND and barked at the pawnshop owner, "Where's your phone?"

The suddenness of it startled him. He stared at me, shaking his white head. I yelled as I jumped across the room toward him, "Where's the phone? Quick, man!"

He sputtered, "Why, in back. But it's a pay phone—just for business."

I went through the back door of the shop into a small hallway, yelling at Iris for her phone number. I found the phone on the wall and dug a nickel out of my pocket as she called the number to me, and I heard her run up behind me. I was already dialing the number.

The phone buzzed and buzzed and I started to sweat. If Sader had hustled directly to Iris and Mia's apartment, he might have got there by now. I didn't know. It was a good twenty-minute drive from this part of town. But he'd have been in a hurry.

"Iris," I snapped, "would Mia be there? She going anyplace?"

"No. I'm sure she wasn't. She said she was going to lie around the house and rest up."

I swore softly under my breath, remembering the animal sensuality smoldering under Mia's swelling curves, her rustling voice and disconcerting stare. I wondered what Sader would do to that if he got hold of it. He was smart enough not to overlook a bet, and he'd figured he could force Mia to wait till Iris got in touch with her, then double-cross her roommate. And for all Sader knew, Mia might know just as much as Iris did—they'd been together all night after Iris had seen the business in the alley outside the Pit.

The phone kept buzzing. Then, finally, the receiver went up at the other end.

"Hello." Soft, like wind in deep grass.

"Mia?"

"Yes."

"You all right? Anything wrong?"

"Of course I'm all right. Who is this?"

"Shell Scott. I talked to you right after noon. Remember? Get—"

She interrupted smoothly, "Oh, I remember. Of course I remember, Mr. Scott."

"Get out of there," I said. "Get out of the apartment.

I haven't time to explain, just get the hell out!"

"What? Why—"

"Mia. Remember I talked to you about Iris? She's here.

She's with me. And you're in trouble now. Get out of there. Quick."

It hadn't quite sunk in yet. She said, "Iris? Oh, that's wonderful," and there was real feeling in her voice. "I was worried. But I'll have to get dressed. I'm naked."

"What?"

"I was soaking in the tub. I haven't anything on."

What was I going to do with this gal? I said harshly, "I don't give a damn if you've got scarlet fever. Get the hell out of that apartment!"

The urgency in my voice must have got through to her. She hesitated only a moment, then said, still softly, "All right, Mr. Scott."

I pulled Iris up in front of the phone and said, "Say something to this gal quick. Tell her to meet us a couple blocks away from there. We'll be in a yellow Cad."

Iris said into the mouthpiece, "Mia, honey, it's no gag. Meet us at Hampton and Curson. Please hurry, hon. It's—"

I grabbed the receiver from her hand, slammed it down on the hook, and pulled Iris after me as we started out.

The little man started yelling, "My glasses! My glasses!" and I suddenly remembered I still had the damn things slung over my shoulder. I yanked them off and tossed them to him as we went out the door. I didn't look to see if he caught them.

We slid around the corner at Fountain and Curson, a block from Hampton Avenue, and I saw her right away, standing at the corner. Shucks. She wasn't naked.

But she damn near was.

We stopped in front of the curb and Iris swung the Cad's door open and Mia jumped in. I shoved the accelerator down and we were on our way. Mia had some dresses crumpled up in her right hand, and as she got into the car she dropped them in her lap. Maybe it was a good thing. Anybody with half an eye could see she had nothing on but a thin cotton dress—and I've got twenty-twenty vision.

She said softly, "What's this all about? You actually scared me. I just got into the first dress I found and grabbed these others."

She didn't have to tell me that.

She added, "I didn't even take time to dry off."

She didn't have to tell me that, either. I forced myself to look at the road ahead of me, and a picture flashed through my mind of Mia hanging up the phone and running frantically around the apartment, grabbing a dress and wriggling into it.

Wriggling. . .I groaned.

Iris said, "Shell, what's the matter?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing. Just thinking."

I looked over the menu. No prime ribs.

The girls hadn't been especially hungry, but I was so empty I was beginning to shake, so we'd pulled into a little café on Gower Street. And even though they were both on a diet—what woman except a fat woman isn't always on a diet?—they said they'd have a salad while they watched me. That was O.K. by me. I almost stabbed my cheek watching them watch me. Anyway, while I put down a thick top sirloin rare enough to have blood oozing out of it, but hot all the way through, Iris brought Mia up to date with occasional help from me.

Mia's eyes got round as she listened and asked a question once in a while, but by the time I'd stuffed myself she had it all.

She looked at me. "Mr. Scott—"

"Look, we're old pals now. Call me Shell."

"Shell, you're really a detective, then? I wasn't sure when you came to the apartment. I—thought maybe it was a trick of some kind."

"No trick. And I'm a detective."

I lifted the gray lapel of my gabardine suit and showed her my gun. That always gets 'em.

She smiled a little. "You shoot people with that, don't you, Shell?"

"Sure. Hundreds of them."

Iris said, "Oh! You silly."

"Yeah. I was kidding. I just wear it when I go out with girls."

Mia blinked at me. Then she said, "I just can't believe it. About Marty, I mean. He always seemed pretty nice."

"Uh-huh. And he's probably kind to animals. Lots of pretty nice people kill people. Look where he'd be if we ran around loose."

"I know," she said. "You read about things like that, but it's always somebody else. Not somebody you know. He—it's funny. He told me once between shows at the club that he was going to have a million dollars. And he was serious. Said he never had enough to eat when he was a kid; something about the first big meal he had, he thought he was sick, his stomach felt so funny."

"Kid, he was just feeling sorry for himself. Or else he wanted you to feel sorry for him, which is probably more like it. Lots of guys don't get enough to eat when they're kids, but they don't go around killing people."

My stomach felt funny, too. Maybe I'd kill Marty.

"Come on, lovelies," I said. "Let's go."

It looked like a good place. I'd remembered relaxing up here overnight in this little house a friend of mine owned near Brush Canyon. It wasn't much of a house, more of a cabin really: one room with a double bed, and one other small room with a wood-burning stove, which classed the little room as a kitchen. But it would be a good place for the girls to lie low. We'd made good time and it had taken only about twenty minutes to get up here. Now I parked the Cad at the side of the cabin and said, "End of the line. How you like this for a vacation spot?"

Both the girls squealed and clapped their hands in front of them. Not very close in front. Neither of them could get very close.

It wasn't a bad spot. The cabin site, that is. Lots of shrubs and brush around the cabin, a few trees, and little animals like rabbits and squirrels running around. We got out and went inside and it wasn't so pretty any more. But it would do.

I said, "Here's where you two stay till the smoke clears."

The two-room cabin was bare as a bone except for reasonably clean bedclothes, and it was obvious there wasn't any food in the place. There were cups and glasses and plates and silverware. That was about all.

I added, "You relax and I'll bring you up some food. later on. That wood stove's not much to cook on, but it'll have to do."

Mia asked, "Isn't there a store around here anywhere?" Even asking a simple question like that, her eyes were fixed on me and it sounded like "Come here and shred me like cabbage." That's the way she was.

I said, "Yeah. Store somewhere, mile or so from here. I don't remember where it is, but it doesn't make any difference. You gals better stick inside. You know how rough this is now, Mia. Let the groceries go. I'll bring some stuff back from town."

Mia walked over and bounced on the bed. I damn near died. She said, "Bring some romaine and olive oil and lemons and spaghetti and hamburger. I'll make you a list. When you come back I'll fix salad and spaghetti."

Iris said, "Shell, will you be all right? I mean—"

I grinned at her. "Sure."

Iris went over and flopped on the bed. She bounced almost as well as Mia. I kept standing. There weren't any chairs in the cabin; the only place to sit down was the bed, and the girls had most of that. Oh, there was still room, but I just didn't have the time.

"I'll see you later," I told them. "Stay put in here and I'll get back when I can." I looked at my watch. "It's already four-thirty. Figure forty-five minutes or an hour just to get in and back—and I've got some things to do downtown. It might be fairly late before I get up here again, but don't worry."

Iris said softly, "Shell, we will worry. Be careful."

Mia didn't say anything; she leaned back with both arms behind her on the bed, and blinked slowly at me.

I took a last look at the prettiest sight I'd be seeing for a while, told the gals good-by, and took off. Reluctantly.

Phil Samson is a big, husky guy with iron-gray hair, a clean-shaven pink face and a jaw like the business end of a sledge hammer. He is, first of all my very good friend, and secondly, a hard-working, honest, and efficient cop. More specifically, he's captain of the Los Angeles Homicide Division.

Right now he wasn't too happy. I'd told him I wanted to talk to Ozzie York, which was all right, but I'd also said I wanted to talk to him alone, which wasn't so all right. We'd been going around and around for ten minutes.

He mangled the end of a black, unlighted cigar. "Damn it, Shell. You're not a Homicide man. You're just a lousy private snoop."

I grinned at him. "Not so lousy."

"Why you gotta see this guy alone?"

"Talk. Maybe he'll be more at ease with me if there's nobody else in the room. Maybe nothing. But I might get something—and it's not as if I were taking him for a walk. He's right there at the felony jail, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Lincoln Heights."

Ozzie had been taken, after futile interrogation at Homicide, to what is now called the Main Jail in Los Angeles. It's the old Lincoln Heights Jail, and not many people call it the Main Jail. To most of the old-timers, Samson included, it's still Lincoln Heights.

"Well, Sam?" I asked. "Can't hurt anybody. Maybe I'll get something. All in the interests of justice, Captain, sir."

He jerked the cigar out of his wide mouth, growled, "Go to hell, Shell, sir," and stuck the cigar back in. He sat quietly, frowning for a moment, and I didn't say anything. Finally he looked at me.

"All right, Shell. I'll send Lieutenant Rawlins over with you. Make it snappy. And let me know if you get anything."

"I will if he'll let me."

"Huh? If who'll let you?"

"Ozzie. I might have to make promises."

Sam's pink face got pinker. "You—"he started to shout. Then he dug out a wooden match, ripped it along the underside of his desk, and puffed vigorously on his cigar. He fixed his brown eyes on me through a curtain of choking smoke. "Go on. Get the hell out." He added sweetly, "You will be kind enough to drop in and say hello after a while, won't you? Just for fun?"

"Knock it off, you old walrus. Yeah, I'll drop in. Just for fun."

I got up and Sam said, "But, Shell. Better make out that damned crime report before you get out of here. I want that in the files in case you get killed."

I grinned at him and went out. Across the hall I dictated the crime report on this morning's gun waving by Ozzie to a cute little gal, then walked back into the hall just as Lieutenant Rawlins came out of Sam's office.

"Come on, Shell," he said cheerfully. "I've got the assignment of my life. I get to take you to jail."

Rawlins took me in a radio car out to Lincoln Heights and we went up to the jail. A jailer brought Ozzie out of his cell and I gave Rawlins my gun, then went with Ozzie into one of the interrogation rooms on the felony floor. Rawlins waited outside and said to me as we went in, "Get me the winner of the sixth at Hollywood, genius."

"Sure thing," I told him. Then Ozzie and I were inside and the banter stopped.

We sat in hard-bottomed wooden chairs on opposite sides of a pine desk and Ozzie asked, "What is this?"

"Talk, Ozzie. Information. From you to me."

I knew I couldn't slap him around, and it probably wouldn't do much good anyway, so I went off on another angle. "Ozzie, you wouldn't talk this morning, but if you want to make one smart play in your life, give me the whole thing. Give me the straight copy. I know most of it anyway."

His lip curled and he kept right on not having anything to say to me. Maybe he thought I was bluffing.

"O. K.," I said. "How do you like this? One, Sader sent you and your partner to kill me. Marty Sader of the Pit on Seventh. I've just had a talk with him."

He frowned at me and I went on, "Two, you're in with Marty on the kill of Lobo, and—"

His jaw dropped open and all of a sudden I realized that explained why he couldn't talk to me up to now. If he spilled that Marty had sent him after me, it would come out that he was tied into last night's murder. Probably he'd been one of the two men who'd lugged Lobo out of Sader's place after closing.

I followed it up. "I know that, Ozzie, but nobody else does yet. Nobody of any importance to you so far. As long as I do know, you might as well fill me in."

His lip curled and he stayed shut up. It was like that for five minutes. He still wasn't talking, and finally I made up my mind I'd have to play.

I said, "O.K., Ozzie, here's a deal for you. You're in plenty of trouble right now. You're an ex-con and you waved a gun at me this morning. Just for you to have a gun on you is a felony. So you're stuck already with a felony rap for possession of a deadly weapon. But you're in deeper than that if I press charges against you for assault with a deadly weapon. At your arraignment in a couple of days, no matter how you plead, you're sunk. Particularly if I press charges against you. Give a listen to this: spill to me and I won't press any charges against you for waving that rod. Also nothing you tell me goes to the cops. You'll be in better shape than you're in now."

He squinted at me, opened his mouth, and shut it. Then he shook his head. "I dunno. What good's that do me?"

"You get me off your neck for that play in my office. That's something. You need all the help you can get. Any load I'll take off your back is pure gravy."

"I'll be outta here in no time." He gave me a sneer, but it was a weak one.

I laughed in his face. "Remember, I won't spill anything you tell me. Maybe you know me, Ozzie. If I make a deal with you, I'll stick to it even if it gags me. Christ knows I don't like making any kind of deals with you. But if I make it, I'll stick to it."

"What's the deal now?"

"I don't press charges; I don't spill anything you tell me to the cops. That means I'm sticking my neck out if I bury any info. But that's the deal. Don't forget I know most of it anyway—Sader, you, Lobo, the rest of it."

He sucked on his upper lip. "What you want to know?"

"Just verification. I know that you—skip that—somebody shot at me. I know you and your pal, the tall thin one, were supposed to pick me up. But what then? Were you taking me to Sader? Or were you just supposed to lose me?"

"No charges? You drop it?"

"That's right. But one thing, Ozzie. That's all I promise. No charges and what you tell me doesn't go to the cops. Anything else, or anything the cops get out of you, that's not my worry. I'm a private detective, which is practically the same thing as saying a private citizen. I carry no weight at all with the cops or anybody else. You're not a popular guy with the authorities, and the Deputy D.A. may go right ahead and draw up and issue a complaint against you. He undoubtedly will. But you're a goddam fool if you don't take advantage of everything you can get. Including anything you get from me."

He nodded, sucking on his lip. Then he said, "What the hell. Look at it like this. Suppose—" he squinted up his eyes and ridges grew in his narrow forehead. He was thinking. "Suppose you was supposed to go for a—a ride, say, with me and my friend. And you just kept on goin', sort of got disappeared."

He paused and looked at me. I nodded, and he went on, "Then that'd make everybody happy, huh? That's all I know about it. I didn't even see Sader—just supposing this."

"Sure. Well, supposing, then what? Maybe you go back to see Sader?"

He sighed. "I make a phone call. I don't see Sader at all. I don't know he's got anything to do with anything."

"Call where?"

He sucked strenuously on his lip, then wiped the back of one small hand across his mouth. He reached over and scratched his sleeve, not looking at me. Finally he said, "Hollywood three-two-two-seven."

'That Sader?"

"I dunno."

"What were you supposed to tell the other end?"

He squirmed uneasily without answering.

I said sharply, "You'd better loosen your lip, Ozzie. And give it to me straight."

He sighed. "I'm supposed to say, 'I delivered the flowers.'"

"Delivered the—that all?"

"Yeah. So help me."

"O. K., whose number's that?"

"You got me. I'm finished. I don't know nothing' else. Keep your end up now."

"Christ, you've told me nothing yet." Actually I'd got most of what I lacked on this deal from Iris, but I'd been hoping Ozzie could make the view plainer. "O.K.," I said. "Another thing. What's between Marty Sader and Collier Breed?"

"You gotta ask?"

I had as good an idea as most people who brush up against the rackets, but I wanted it straight. "Just clear it up, Ozzie. You've got to balance this if you still want that deal."

"Nothin' much to it. Breed's just a bastard wants all the gravy. Somebody gets a good deal started in what Breed thinks is his territory and he's gotta get his damn fat fingers in the pot. What else? Him and the big boys behind him."

"What big boys?"

Shrimpy lifted his head up and peered down his nose at me. "Good Christ. How long you been living? Who the hell you think I mean?"

I guess he was right. He didn't have to give me names.

Maybe they didn't have names this far down the line, but he meant the smart, smooth-talking "businessmen" that Senator Kefauver and the income-tax boys were after. I left it there.

"Sader's got a good deal?"

"Hand over fist."

"That does it, Ozzie. Nothing else?"

He shook his head.

"O.K. Who's at that phone number, and I'll take off."

"I told you all I know."

I got up. "All right, Ozzie. If you don't know, you don't know. But better you should tell me if you do. I can get it out of the police files, but it might start people wondering."

He swore softly and expertly. "Yeah. Christ Well, it's a dame's place. Sader's dame—one of those mistress things. Me, I couldn't never afford nothing like that. Name's Kitty Green. And that's all I know. Don't even know where she lives—but Sader pays the rent. Now stop messin' with me."

I said, "O.K., Ozzie, you got your deal," and went out.

I wanted to make a phone call, but first there was something else I might as well do while the chance was handy. On the ride back to City Hall I told Rawlins what I wanted.

"Here's what I'd like. I got a good look this afternoon at half a dozen men who work for Collier Breed—at least, I think they do. And two who work for Marty Sader. Just for hell I'd like a peek at any pictures you've got of guys you know are thick with Sader or Breed."

I had the feeling I'd be seeing one or more of those goons again, and the more I knew about them, the better. I wanted what I could get on those boys.

Rawlins said, "You get me that sixth race?"

I shook my head. "You know what I did? I forgot all about that. Play number seven."

He grinned. "You know I don't play the ponies. You get anything else?"

"I'm not sure. But—uh—I'm not going to press charges."

He frowned. "Huh? And you the guy that started all this?"

"Wait a minute, Rawlins. Don't pop your top. I didn't start this; Ozzie did. Or somebody behind him. I told him I wasn't pressing charges—something I couldn't do if I were a cop. And act your age. I also told him that anything else that messed him up was his worry. You know damn well he's going up, charges or no charges. I told the guy as much."

He glared at me for a moment without speaking, and to change the subject I said, "This picture deal. That too much of a job? Won't take too long, will it?"

His face relaxed and he grinned. He didn't say anything, just kept grinning.

I thought I knew why. I know a lot of the officers in the department well, and with one or two exceptions—among which Rawlins wasn't included—we got along like buddies. I'd learned a lot about the functioning of the Los Angeles Police Department, and one of those things was that the place was efficient as hell.

This time wasn't any different. At the City Hall we went inside and I suddenly discovered we weren't headed for the Records and Identification Division. I asked Rawlins, "You lost? Don't we go to the 'I' room?"

"Not this time, Scott. We go to the Intelligence Division."

I lifted an eyebrow at him, but kept quiet. In Intelligence, I sat down behind an empty desk while Rawlins walked off. I lit a cigarette, but before I could really settle down to smoking the thing, Rawlins was back, still grinning.

"Naw," he said, "it won't take long."

He tossed two neat packs of small photos onto the desk in front of me. He tapped the thick one and said, "Breed."

Then he tapped the thin stack and said, "Sader."

"Oh, you're cute," I said. "Don't look so damn smug, Rawlins."

He grinned.

"How come so handy?" I asked him. "You can't have all the tough boys in town cross-indexed like this."

He sat down opposite me. "Well, maybe not quite that good. But since the Lobo homicide. . ."

"You like Sader?"

"Could be. He's stepping on Breed's toes, it looks like. You can't be sure, but he's a funny one."

"I like him, too," I said. "I like him better than you. I think the bastard had me shot at"

He frowned. "Look here, Shell. You got anything for us, give. You're getting one hell of a lot of co-operation here. I saw that report on you this morning, and you told Russo you didn't have any idea who let fly at you."

"I didn't." I deliberated about spilling the whole deal so far, but what could I tell him? That a girl had sung a song in my ear? I didn't have any reason to doubt the story Iris had told me, but I wondered what Detective Lieutenant Rawlins of the L. A. Homicide Division would think of it. Of course, there was Ozzie's dope, too, but damn it, I'd made a deal with the punk. He'd given fair trade for it, but I sort of wished I hadn't got tied up in it now. Sure, now that I had the dope I wanted.

Rawlins was looking at me. I said, "Fact. I didn't know it was Sader. Possibly it wasn't. Look, Rawlins, you know how I work. I blunder around and get knocked on the head and make faces. Right now I've got a headful of ideas, but nothing you'd call proof. I'll get back in here later some time, tonight probably, and give you all I can—if I've got anything."

"Yeah."

We glared at each other for a while, then I dug into the photographs. Right on top of the "Breed" stack was the pale, flat face and button eyes of the guy I'd sapped before getting out of the Pit.

"This one," I said. "I'm especially interested in him."

"Arthur Botten. Monicker's Flick. He's got a dozen aliases—ex-con from ten years back or so—but he's always stuck to Flick."

"Yeah. Funny the way they do that."

"Not so funny, Shell. Some of them have a hundred or more aliases and change their names so much they've gotta have one permanent handle their pals know them by. This Flick, he drifted out here from New York a couple of months back. Tied up with Breed about six weeks ago. He's Breed's newest boy, and he's a bad one."

"How bad?"

"Armed robbery. Sent up for that. Suspicion of murder twice, but no conviction."

That was enough for Flick. We went through the rest of the stack in half an hour. Sader's two boys were one Pete Derrick and another called Lunger. I settled them in my mind, identified the driver of Breed's car as Ray Clock, then paid most of my attention to the four boys who left the elevator before I hammered Flick's head—those four boys with four guns. They were little "Joe-Joe" Klein, a big ape named Harry Fisher, "Shenandoah" Hamlet, who was the mildest and least bloodthirsty of a bloodthirsty bunch, and finally a big ugly guy named "Lonely" Wagner with a beat-up face that explained why he was lonely.

I stared at the boys till I knew them, thanked Rawlins, and took off. I kind of hated to leave, though. I'd sure felt safe there in the City Hall.

I'd found Kitty Green's address in the phone book, along with the number Ozzie had given me, and four blocks from her house I parked, found a phone booth, and dialed Hollywood 3227.

While I waited for whatever I was going to get, I clucked my tongue at Marty Sader. This must be the "chippying around" his wife had mumbled about. Naughty boy, but remembering old horseface, I could see what had sent him straying.

And knowing what Sader was married to, I expected the grating voice of a blowzy Ma Barker to rattle my ear right after I heard the phone go up at the other end of the line.

Did I get a surprise.

Chapter Nine

YOU KNOW mint in a frosted julep? You know the cool freshness of pine needles under mountain trees? That's what came out of the receiver and whispered up against my ear. A soft, fresh voice that didn't sound like Ma Barker, but did sound like your kid sister or your steady when you still had a lot of illusions.

It surprised me so much that I didn't answer right at first. It said, "Hello. Hello? Who is it?" And I listened to the sweetness in the voice and wondered where I'd got off the track. Shrimpy must have lied to me, or I must have dialed the wrong number.

I asked, "Is this Hollywood 3227?"

"Yes, it is."

I felt foolish already. I said, "I delivered the flowers."

There was silence for a moment, then she said, "Say that again."

I said it again.

"I'm sorry," she said. "You must have the wrong number. Who is this, please?"

"I delivered the flowers," I said.

She laughed, a little happy laugh, and said, "Who is this? Goodness, you sound funny."

I hung up and headed for Kitty Green's address.

It was a little place on Colgate Avenue, almost out to the Beverly Hills city limits, one of many houses almost alike. It was small and white and the grass in front was neat, like the house itself. Trees lined the street and a narrow cement walk led from the sidewalk in front up to the steps of the house. There were a few leaves on the sidewalk, but you could tell it had been swept not long before. The place looked pleasant and cheery, like the voice that had come over the phone. I parked, got out of the car, and went up the walk, wondering if the girl could be anything like the voice and the house. I didn't see how she could be. But I was wrong.

I heard her quick footsteps inside right after I rang. Then she looked out at me, framed by the lights inside the house. It was nearly seven-thirty now, long after sunset, and all up and down the street, lights were on in the houses.

She was a little bit of a thing. Five feet, maybe, with dark hair hugging her ears and a surprised look on her young face.

She said, "Well, hello. Who're you?" And it was the same voice.

"Hello, there," I said. "I'm Shell Scott. I wonder if I could come in and talk to you." I thought about it, then handed her my wallet, opened to my state license in the celluloid envelope, and added, "I'm a detective. Private detective. All right?"

She glanced at the wallet, pressed her lips together, and lowered her head a fraction, looking up at me. Then she said, "Don't know why not. Come on in, Mr. Shelscott."

I went in and said, "It's two words."

"What's two words?"

"Shell Scott."

"Oh." She let laughter bubble out of her again. "How silly. Me, I mean. Sit down, Mr. Shell," pause, "Scott."

I sat down in a straight-backed chair and she sank into an overstuffed one three or four feet from it. I said, "Shell's good enough, Miss Green. It is Miss, isn't it?" It was a good bet. She wasn't more than nineteen or twenty, with a schoolgirl face and a slender, almost boyish figure.

She looked surprised. "Yes, it's Miss. But how did you know it was Miss Green?"

"Isn't that right?"

"Yes. Catherine Green—but everyone calls me Kitty." She smiled, "You, too, if you want. After you explain."

I didn't know quite how to begin. She seemed like such a sweet kid. I said, "It has to do with Mr. Sader."

"Marty? What's the matter with Marty?" There seemed to be real concern in her voice. "He's all right, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he's all right. So far. But. . ." I was having a hard time, and finally I decided I'd have to be a lot tougher than this if I wanted to stay alive. This little chick could be snowing me under for all I knew. They come in all kinds of packages.

I said abruptly, "You know Sader pretty well, don't you?"

"Yes."

"How well?"

She frowned. "Isn't that my business, Mr. Scott?"

That was the trouble. It was her business, and ordinarily it wouldn't be any of mine. But this had been an extraordinary day. I said bluntly, "I know of your—friendship with Mr. Sader, Miss Green."

She tossed her head, and before I could go on she said, "Mr. Scott, did you come here to deliver an essay on morals, or did you have something else to say?"

"I'm sorry," I said. And then I threw it at her. "But Marty Sader ordered me killed this morning."

I waited for the reaction, if any. It came slowly. It bounced right off her at first and she kept looking at me with the slightly fixed and belligerent expression she'd had just before. But then she got it on the rebound and the stern lines of her face relaxed. She cocked her head and said, "What? What was that? You must be—"

I kept going. "And when I was good and dead, his boys were supposed to phone this number here and say, 'I delivered the flowers.' That meant me—murdered."

Shock spilled over her face, then she pressed her lips tightly against her teeth and her face started getting red. "Why, you dirty, dirty liar!" she said softly. Then her voice rose higher and higher as she started yelling at me. "Why, you were the one who just called me. You did that! You thought I—Oh!" She yelled that I was low and unfit and cheap and out of my mind and a lot of other things, and finally she was on her feet and standing over me.

She hauled one little hand back and launched it at me and I stuck up my arm and her hand bounced off my sleeve. She kept yelling at me and swinging and clawing, and it looked as if she were getting madder and madder every half second. Finally when she couldn't get a good grip on my face, she whirled around, took three steps away from me, and grabbed a foot-high vase that might have cost a dime or a hundred dollars, but was worth about two cents when she got through with it. She swung it around behind her head and hurled it at me, and if I hadn't ducked I'd have been picking vase out of my face for a week. It crashed into the wall behind me, shattered, and rattled to the floor.

I was getting nowhere this way.

I got up, took two steps toward her, and grabbed her small wrists. I held her so she couldn't get away—or get at me—and I said right into her face, "Listen, little tiger, somebody tried to kill me. Somebody took two shots at me and almost spilled my blood. And if it wasn't your Marty Sader, I've got to find out who it was."

I knew damn well it was Sader's doing, but I couldn't talk with a buzz saw. Little five-foot Kitty had a ten-foot temper.

The words got past her anger a little way, and finally she calmed down enough for me to let go of her. She walked over to her chair and sat down rubbing her wrists. "I'm sorry," she said. "But I just knew you were lying. You—you hurt me."

"My apologies, Miss Green. You damn near hurt me." She smiled, then laughed lightly. "Now, what's all this nonsense?"

"It isn't all nonsense, Miss Green."

"Kitty. Let's make up."

"O. K., Kitty. But can I talk to you without your getting mad again? I'm in a lot of trouble and I'm trying to dig my way out."

She nodded. "I won't get mad, Mr. Scott—Shell."

"Good. Don't forget. Now, was Marty here this morning? Before noon?" I figured if Ozzie had given me the straight copy, and I thought he had, I could cross off Kitty as the person supposed to receive the message. Maybe it wasn't entirely logical, but that's the way it was. If so, then Marty had probably figured he'd be here himself.

But she said simply, "No."

"He been here today?"

"Not at all." But she was honest about it. She added, "He comes in and out any time. He might have meant to come out, then changed his mind."

One phrase stuck with me. "He comes in and out any time." I glanced over my shoulder toward the curtained window. This would be one hell of a time for him to pop in.

The whole idea so far made sense, though. It looked as if Marty had called his boys and sent them after me, planning to take the call at Kitty's—a relatively safe place for him to be. But then when he'd found Iris had flown his flimsy coop, he'd been too busy to stick to his original plans. Which had almost wound him up with Breed while Iris and I had been in the Pit.

I said, "Kitty, you believe whatever you want to, but I've got good reason to think Sader bears me no good will. I've talked to Sader's hired muscle, his wife, even Sader himself, and things have happened today that—"

There was no point in going on. She wasn't hearing any of it. She was staring at me as if I'd slapped her when she was expecting a kiss. Her mouth was open and her eyes were wide. I couldn't figure out what had happened.

Then it was easy to figure. She gasped, "His wife! What do you mean? He doesn't have a wife!"

I felt like walking over and putting my arm around her or holding her hand. She wasn't kidding; she meant it. And what the hell was I supposed to say?

"Kitty, honey. Didn't you know he was married?"

"Why, that's silly. I know he isn't." There was a small tremor in her voice, no matter how positive she tried to sound.

I said, "I talked to his wife this morning, Kitty. I saw her. Did Marty tell you he wasn't married?"

"Well, not in so many words. But it—he just couldn't be. We—I don't believe it." Her voice got stronger. "I just don't believe you, Mr. Scott."

"Have you ever phoned him at his home?" I asked.

"N-no. I never phone him at all. He—doesn't want me to." Her voice trailed off and she picked up the phone and dialed a number.

I said quickly, "What do you think you're doing now?"

"I'm going to call him. I'll show you."

"Honey, I wouldn't advise it. You'd better not."

"I don't care what you advise!" Then she was holding the phone to her ear.

"Hello," she said. "Is Mr. Sader there? He isn't? When will he be back?" She listened a moment, nodding her head, then frowned. "Who—who is this speaking, please?"

I watched her face. I knew what was going to happen, but knowing didn't stop it from getting to me, twisting my insides a little. Her mouth got round, then sagged; her whole face seemed to fall apart, slowly. Then her teeth came together with a small click and her chin dimpled up as she pressed her lips tight. She sat quietly for long seconds, the receiver still pressed to her ear, her eyes staring at the table. Then she said, "What? Oh, I'm—Kitty Green. No, I—I won't be calling again." She listened a moment longer and said, "Oh!" suddenly, then slowly, "Yes. Yes, I will." She hung up.

She sat very still for a moment, then without looking at me she said, "I guess you were right about—about that. But I don't believe anything else you said."

"Kitty," I said, "I'm sorry." There wasn't a lot I could say. It was time I left.

I stood up. "I'll be going."

"No. Please don't. Mr. Scott, she—she knew about me. About Marty and me. She wants me to come out and see her. Will you take me?"

The hell. In the first place, I didn't think it was a good idea for Kitty to go out there. In the second place, I didn't think it was a good idea for me to go out there. Marty, wherever he was, didn't like the idea of my living. And the more I thought about the son of a bitch, the less I liked the idea of his living. But added to that was the probability that now even Breed's boys were after me. I hadn't seriously considered that angle yet, but it figured. First of all, there was no doubt that Breed recalled me, with no great fondness, as the guy who crippled Lobo's gun hand about three months back. Then, down in the Pit, I'd sapped another of Breed's boys, Flick, and Flick had thought I was "one of Sader's guns." By now it was nine to five that Breed thought so, too.

I think what rankled as much as anything was the idea that people might think I was on the same side of anything as Marty Sader, but that wasn't really so important. The important thing was that Breed and Sader and all their respective boys seemed to be right at each other's throats over the rackets and the racket gravy: Sader muscling in, and Breed starting to shove back. That part was all right, but the other part wasn't. And that was me, Shell Scott, right in the bloody middle.

I said to Kitty, "It's not a good idea. Why don't you forget about going out there? You—you won't get any kick out of it."

She faced me. squarely. "I'm going. I want to see her. I'm going if I have to walk. Will you take me?"

"You have a car?"

"No. Marty was going to get me one when we—" She stopped, looked away, and blinked rapidly. Then she said angrily, "Well, are we just going to stand here?"

I knew I wouldn't have let her go alone even if she'd had a car. It was a lousy idea, but she'd made up her mind and I figured I'd go along. I didn't like thinking of Kitty alone with Mrs. Sader, either. Marty's wife had been too near the edge, as I remembered. Any moment now she might decide to fly and take off for the moon. Besides, Kitty looked as if she could use some company.

Chapter Ten

IT WAS colder now as we drove up toward Hollywood Boulevard, the Cad's headlights slicing a path before us. There wasn't much either of us had to say, and we spoke in monosyllables. I kept hoping Kitty would change her mind, but when I finally asked her if she still wanted to go, she said quietly, "Yes," and I let it ride.

As I turned into Nichols Canyon Road I shook my head, wondering why I was taking a nice little gal out to see the potted horror who was the wife of a guy who wanted me cold and dead. And on a miserable night like this.

It was a nice night for corpses, if any night ever is, for it was the kind that sends imaginary shadows sweeping across your mind and flickering in front of your eyes. The stars burned cold and hard in the sky and there wasn't any moon. The wind still prowled around outside the car, swelling and sighing, then dropping to a lonesome whisper.

And on a night like this we were going out Nichols Canyon Road to see a witch. On purpose.

I could see light before we got there. A porch light was burning at the big white house and I drove right up in the driveway and parked. As I stopped the car I saw the front door open and Mrs. Sader's horse face hanging out in the air. It could use some air.

I went around and helped Kitty out of the car and we walked up to the wide porch in front of the house and up the steps. Mrs. Sader stepped out of the door and impaled me with a look.

The look wobbled a little, but she finally got me with it. There was no glass in her hand this time, but you could bet it hadn't been gone long, because she was long gone.

She glared at me and said with more care and less success than she'd had about eight hours earlier, in the afternoon, "What're you doing here?"

"I came with Miss Green, Mrs. Sader. I drove her out here."

"Well, go 'way."

I shrugged, but Kitty laid a small hand on my arm. "No, Shell. Please stay. I hope it's all right, Mrs.—Mrs. Sader. I'd like him to stay."

Mrs. Sader turned and looked at Kitty for the first time, and then I realized she'd never seen her before this moment. Her bleary eyes fell on Kitty's youthful features and fresh complexion, and unconsciously she ran a hand over her own tired-looking face. She let her eyes run over Kitty's trim little figure and neat suit, and for a moment I almost liked her. At least, I felt sorry for her, and that's pretty close to the same thing.

She said softly to Kitty Green, "You're pretty."

I got the impression that this was all she'd really wanted: to see the woman her husband had been with, was seeing some of these days and some of these nights. So far she'd simply been catalogued in my mind as "Old Goon-Girl," but now I wondered how a woman felt when she knew her husband was tired of her, or was finding his pleasure with a younger, lovelier woman. And I wondered most of all how a woman like Mrs. Sader would feel.

But then she sucked her breath in between her teeth with a sharp hissing sound and flipped back into character. She said violently, "You're the new one. You're the new one. You're the new slut he's got."

Kitty gasped and Mrs. Sader stuck her head forward and glared at her.

I said, "Look, lady, lay off the—"

Mrs. Sader busted in; she'd seen the pain on Kitty's face and she liked seeing it. She whinnied, "Slut, slut, slut, slut! You aren't even married. I'm married to him. You're cheap, you're. . ."

Her voice trailed off and she pulled her head around and looked at me. I guess she looked at me. It was more as if she looked straight through my eyes at something unpleasant on the back of my head.

Kitty spoke quietly. "Why did you ask me to come?"

Mrs. Sader kept her eyes pointed at me. "You go away," she said. "I didn't ask you."

Kitty spoke more loudly this time. "I want Mr. Scott to stay. I asked him to stay."

Mrs. Sader whirled on her, spewing whisky fumes in a nauseous half circle. Not that whisky fumes are nauseous; it was what came along with it. She cried, "This is my house. My house! He has no business here. You don't have any. You don't belong here."

"But, Mrs. Sader," Kitty began in a tight voice. Maybe her temper was beginning to perk again, and I didn't want that to get started. Not with me in between these two.

"Maybe we'd better forget this," I said. "I'll take you home, Kitty."

But Mrs. Sader wasn't through. Perhaps she'd planned to be fairly reserved and pleasant—as pleasant as she could be—but it wasn't working out that way. It was getting out of hand and making me uncomfortable. It must have been doing worse than that to Kitty.

Mrs. Sader leaned close to Kitty and grabbed her by the arm. Looking into her face she said, "You think you're clever, don't you? Think you've been smart. You haven't been. You've just been shameful. He's my husband. He'll get through with you. You're not the first one he's had—and there'll be more, a hundred more."

I'd been looking at Mrs. Sader. Her eyes were staring and her mouth was working, lips wet with saliva. But now I glanced at Kitty and saw her wince at Mrs. Sader's last words.

Mrs. Sader saw it too. She almost grinned and shrieked, "I've counted them one after another for ten years. He'll soon be through with you. But he keeps me. He keeps me! Me! I'm the only one he loves."

She stopped talking, with her head thrust forward on her skinny neck, looking at Kitty and gasping, almost sobbing. Her chest rose and fell spasmodically as animal sounds pressed out of her throat and mouth.

Kitty stared at her, shrinking from her, then shook her arm free and turned. Her face was twisted and pinched as she spun around and walked rapidly to the car. I followed behind her as she opened the door on my side and slid under the wheel and up against the farther door. I got in, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway.

Kitty didn't say a word. As we drove back toward her house I glanced at her from time to time. She never once looked at me; her face was turned away from me, pointed out the open window of the car, and once in a while her shoulders would shake a little, then relax.

It was a lot longer drive back than it had been coming out, and it was still the same kind of night. Neither of us said a word. I parked in front of her house and climbed out of the Cad. By the time I reached the door on her side of the car she was out of the car and running up the walk, heels clicking on the cement.

I followed her up to the porch and opened my mouth to speak, but she ran inside and slammed the door in my face.

I turned around and went back to the car and sat there for a while, smoking a cigarette. Then I drove away thinking, Marty, I'd like to cut out your stinking heart!

Chapter Eleven

I ROLLED the wind wings out and drove a fast mile, hating Marty Sader every foot of the way, then cooled off a little. It was already after nine o'clock and I decided it was past time I got some food up to Iris and Mia, my two babes in the woods.

I turned off Fairfax Avenue onto Santa Monica Boulevard, the lights of a car behind me bouncing off the rearview mirror and into my eyes momentarily. I felt in my pocket, made sure I had the list Mia had given me, and headed for Kelcey's Market on Kingsley near Santa Monica. I bet Mia could whip up a nice batch of spaghetti; it was too bad I wouldn't have time to stay and help the girls put it away.

I was starting to feel a little hungry myself, and I was beginning to get a bit tired. I arched my back, pulling the kinks out of it, and light from the rear-view mirror splashed into my eyes again. I felt annoyance at first, then I wondered. I'm somewhat more sensitive than most guys about cars following me. They might just happen to be there, but there's always a chance it's more than coincidence. When I'm on a job I don't like headlights sticking too persistently on my rear bumper.

When I'm on a job. That was a little funny, come to think of it. As a private detective, an investigator for hire, I take cases from clients who usually pop into my office because they're in some kind of trouble. Not this time; I was my own client.

I suppose it had actually started with Iris, although I couldn't really call her my "client." But her cute little trick of squealing to Sader that she'd been to see me and that I knew everything that she did had put me in a hell of a lot worse spot than if she'd walked into my office and said, "Mr. Scott, here's a zillion-dollar retainer. Please help me with my problem." Like most of my clients do. Only they don't say a zillion dollars. It was a new way for me to get a case; I think I liked the old way better.

I was a block from the market and the car was still less than half a block behind. No reason that meant anything; there was plenty of traffic at this hour. I drove the last block, swung left, and parked near the market in a dimly lighted spot. Then I twisted around to look over my shoulder out the Caddy's window. The other car went buzzing right on down Kingsley, a shiny green De Soto coupé. I shook my head. Guess I'm getting to be a worrier.

I loaded up inside the market with everything Mia had listed and threw in a couple of sirloin steaks the gals were going to have a tough time fixing on that wood stove. I'd have liked making it three if I'd had time; they looked like what the radio boys would probably describe as "a taste thrill," but the price took all the thrill out of it. Fifteen minutes after I went in, I came out with a small box containing the groceries and a gurgle. In case happy days were ahead, I'd picked up a fifth of Old Grand-Dad to make the happy days happier.

I thought about dumping the box in the back of the Cadillac, then shoved the stuff in the front seat. No sense getting that far away from Old Gramps. He'd be pleasant company on the drive ahead. I could reach over and pat him once in a while.

I started the car, swung my head around to make sure no cars were coming, and stopped swinging my head before it got halfway around. Right across the bloody street was the bloody De Soto coupé that had been behind me. Either that one or its twin.

I blinked at it, trying to figure if I were getting jumpy nerves or if some character actually was on my tail. I took a look around and spotted a little guy on the sidewalk in front of the store. He was right out in plain sight, staring at me, and if he was a tail he was being careless about it. I wasn't going to stick around and find out.

I started to pull out of my parking slot when the little guy took a step toward me and said, "Hey."

I stepped on the gas. He took a couple of quick steps toward the car and yelled, "Hey! Hey, you!" and then I was gone.

The back of my neck crawled and I wondered if there were any good reason for it. The state I was in, pretty soon I'd figure every guy I saw with a beard was a Russian saboteur. But nerves or not, I had a funny feeling.

I spent fifteen or twenty minutes making damn sure nobody was following me, and it was getting close to ten-thirty when I got to the little cabin. I gave a couple of short toots on the horn and yelled, "Hello," picked up the box of food and bourbon, and climbed out of the car.

Iris opened the cabin door. Light streamed out around her and hugged her waist and hips and kindled sparks in her hair. I was home.

She said, "I was starting to get a little worried about you, Shell."

"Hungry, huh?"

She smiled at me. "That's not what I was worried about. But I am hungry."

She swung the door open and I went inside, kicked the door shut, and set the box of groceries on the floor. There was still plenty I had to do this night, but it seemed a shame to go back to town. I couldn't think of a better place to start a vacation than right here. Or a better way.

Iris had looked good when she opened the door, and she sounded better than she had at any time up to now. She was relaxed and rested, and it showed in her voice. Actually, this was the first good chance, except for the short time in the café on the way up here, that I'd had to see her relaxed and at ease, and I'd been missing something. I knew her hair was red and long, but I'd missed the glinting coppery highlights that quivered through it when she moved, and the grace of her body in motion. Her blue eyes were bright, and dark lashes waved as she blinked up at me.

I went over and sat on the edge of the bed as Iris spied the bottle of Old Grand-Dad, turned away from me, and bent over to grab it. She still wore the wool half sweater and the boyish slacks I remembered, and, as I also remembered, only the slacks were boyish.

She turned around gripping the bottle by the neck and said, "You wonderful man. Want one?"

The way my mind works, I almost gave the wrong answer to that, but I recovered and said, "Good idea. Haven't had a drink all day." I looked around the bare little room. "Got three glasses? We—" Well, Jesus Christ! The room was barer than it should have been.

"Where the hell's Mia?" I asked.

"She'll be back in a little."

"I said where is she?"

"Don't get excited. She just went to the store."

"Went to the store! What the hell for?"

Iris came over and sat down on the bed beside me. She patted my knee but it didn't calm me down. That would never calm me down.

She said pleasantly, "Mia forgot to tell you to get some garlic. Can't make Italian dressing and garlic bread without garlic, she said. There's a little boy that lives up near here with his folks, and she asked him where the store was. It's only about half a mile, Shell."

These were two delightful women. There was nothing wrong with their bodies; it was just their brains. I said in a soft, strangled voice, "You think I brought you gals up here to flit around the countryside?"

"Oh, Shell! Flit! She'll be back in fifteen or twenty minutes."

"How do you even know the store's open?"

"The man lives there," she said. "Now calm down and I'll mix a drink."

"O. K.," I groaned. "Mix the damned thing. I need a drink. It's a wonder I don't drink right out of the bottle."

"That's better. I'll—Well, golly."

She was looking down at her sweater and slacks as if she'd just discovered she was wearing them. It was a nice place to look, but this was a funny time for it.

She said, "I'm not dressed for a party."

"Not gonna be a party. I've got time for one drink and one only. I'll have to take off soon as Mia gets back here."

"Well, we'll have a little party. Shell, you haven't seen me in a dress. You don't know how I'd look."

"You'd look good."

She glanced sideways at me, smiling, then she pursed her lips, got up, and turned to the head of the bed. The dresses Mia had grabbed from the apartment were draped over the pillows. Iris picked one of them up and held it in front of her. "You like this?"

"Fine."

She examined it critically, dropped it back on the bed, and picked up the other one. "This one better?"

"Fine." It was thinner.

She smiled at me. Slowly. "Shell, I think I'll put this one on. Get out of these slacks."

I swallowed. My tongue felt like it was wrapped in molasses, but very softly I said, "Fine."

Iris was standing, facing me, about two feet away. She was close enough to bite. The sweater was buttoned up the back, and she stretched her arms behind her and fiddled with a button. It was murder what happened to that wool. It was murder what happened to me.

She said, "Now, don't peek."

Don't peek! Hot damn. Hell, yes, I was going to peek. But I didn't want to lie to her. I just grinned.

She grinned, too, and turned her back on me.

There were four big white buttons running up the back of the sweater, and I peeked while she unbuttoned the bottom one and moved on to the second. I was wondering why she'd waited till now to change, and also wondering if Mia had really gone after garlic.

Iris reached the last button and shrugged the sweater off her smooth shoulders. There wasn't anything underneath the sweater, and I was thinking she sure had a nice back. With a back like that, the front would have to be stupendous. If—I didn't finish the beautiful thought.

My heart was clattering around inside my chest as if there were rocks in it, but I thought I'd heard something else. I cocked my head, listening, then I remembered Mia should be showing up pretty quick.

Then I was almost sure I'd heard something outside, out in front of the cabin.

"Hey," I said. "Iris. You hear anything?"

"What?"

"I thought I heard something outside."

"What?" she whirled around.

She shouldn't have done it. I'd been right about her front, but it was the wrong time for me to notice. I was paralyzed just long enough for the front door to crash open and the hard, grating voice to hit my ear.

"Hands in your lap, Scott," it said. "Don't move a muscle."

That's the way it goes. I wasn't even going to get that drink.

Chapter Twelve

"DON'T MOVE a muscle," he'd said. He didn't know what he was asking. I turned my head and looked at him. He was a little guy, and a heck of a lot less exciting than Iris, even if there was a big gun in his hand. The gun was pointed at me, but he was looking at Iris. Who wouldn't?

He snarled, "Just keep still, now."

But Iris, no matter what the guy had said, was having none of it. I almost keeled over, and I let out a squawk when she moved, but the guy didn't shoot. She spun around with her back to the guy and started squeezing into the sweater again. It was a tight squeeze. I know; the little guy had me cold, so there was no use watching him.

He said, "On your feet, Scott," and I placed him. I'd seen him come out of the Pit with the boys who'd talked to Breed while I watched them through the binoculars, and I'd seen his picture later at Police Headquarters. One of Breed's men—the one named Joe-Joe Klein. Another little man with a big gun. Funny how they grow.

I said, "What the hell is this, chum?"

"Where's Sader?"

"Where's who?"

"Sader, stupid."

"You nuts? How the hell would I know where he is?"

He took a step closer to me and yelled, "Knock it off, stupid. Answer pretty."

"The answer's still the same: I don't know where Sader is. There's no reason I should know."

He smirked. He didn't believe me. The smirk didn't help his looks any. He wasn't ugly, but he had coarse brown hair that hadn't been cut for a month, and his nose had been broken and then set with even less skill than mine had been. He could point to the right just by wiggling his nostrils.

I said, "You can take it or leave it, but I've got no idea where Marty is. Why should I?"

"Knock it off. I know you're in with him."

I sighed. I should never have let Flick see me; I should simply have walloped him one. I said, "I suppose Breed knows that, too?"

"Natch."

"Well, I got news for you, Joe-Joe. You're all nuts. I'm not working for anybody but me, and I'm sure not working for Sader. Now, go away like a nice moron. Hey—how the hell did you find this place?"

He grinned, real happy, and his nose aimed south. "You brung me, stupid. In the back of your car." He frowned. "Smart, huh? But where's Sader?"

The back of my car! Damn it to hell. I'd spent fifteen minutes shaking a tail, if any, and the guy'd been in the turtle. That explained the green De Soto coupé and the yelling guy at the market. The hell with you, Scott.

But this guy had a one-track mind. "Look," I said, "if you had a half-brained idea I was going to see Sader, you're all wet. He sure isn't here, and I don't have any idea where he is."

He grinned nastily, looking at Iris. "Yeah. I can see he isn't here." He frowned some more, then said, "Come on, both of you."

"Come on where?"

"Never mind where. You won't talk to me, maybe you'll talk to the boss. He's gonna be happy to see you."

"Sure," I said. "You'll get a promotion."

I started toward the door holding my breath and thinking maybe Joe-Joe would forget to take my .38. But he was dry behind the ears.

He said, "Wait a minute. You, girlie. Get his gun. Easy does it, girlie."

Iris was all dressed now and facing the guy. She glowered at him, but she reached over and pulled the gun out of the holster under my coat. Her eyes widened a little as she grabbed it and I thought she might try getting smart. Which could get us both killed.

I said, "Easy, Iris. Don't try anything fancy."

She ran the tip of her tongue over red lips and paused, the gun loose in her hand.

"Drop it," Joe-Joe said.

She dropped it, then when he told her to kick it over she nudged it toward him with her foot. He kneeled, keeping his gun on me, scooped up the .38 and dropped it into his pocket. He jerked his head.

"O.K., you two. Go out ahead of me. Out slow. You first, girlie."

This was it. This was the time for me to pull something devilishly clever and then rend Joe-Joe limb from limb.

Iris would squeal at me and fall into my arms and we'd see what we could do about getting her into that dress. There was only one trouble. I couldn't think of a thing. Joe-Joe waved his gun and we moved. Iris went out ahead of me and I followed her and Joe-Joe fell in behind as we went out the door. He prodded me roughly with the gun a couple of times, but he just prodded my back, didn't leave the gun where I could feel it. I didn't try anything; my back punctures easy.

As we got into my Cadillac I wondered where Mia was. Mia and her stinking garlic. This might not be a bad time for her to show up, but there was the chance that, if she did, Joe-Joe could get nervous. There wasn't a sign of her, though, and we settled in the car.

Joe-Joe made me drive, with Iris close to me in the middle while he sat pressed against the right side of the car. I did every single thing he told me to, and I did it without hesitating. He had his gun pointed squarely at Iris' right breast, and I sure wasn't going to take a chance of that getting shot off.

It was a small office building on Riverside Drive, right on the main drag. We went up the sidewalk to the door of the building and Iris pressed the buzzer when told to. The gilt lettering on the door proclaimed the place to be the "Salem Finance Co., Inc.," but I couldn't help being dubious about the type of financial transactions that went on inside.

Footsteps pounded toward the door. It opened and the big-chested guy I remembered from the pictures as Harry Fisher looked out. It should have been Hairy instead of Harry; he needed a shave, and black bristles sprouted from under the drooping neck of the T shirt he wore under a plaid sport coat. And he was bigger than I'd thought; about my height, but heavier.

"Where the hell you been, Joe-Joe? What—" He broke off when he spotted us.

Joe-Joe shoved us in past him, then Harry went on ahead of us and opened another door in back.

Two things were sure: we were at Breed's headquarters and, even if they hadn't expected us, we had one hell of a welcoming committee.

As Iris and I went into the brightly lighted room, I spotted Breed first. There were others, but he was easy to spot quick because he was far and away the biggest man in the room. He sat behind a dark brown desk, spread out in a big swivel chair, and shoved back from the desk so there'd be room for his belly. He looked like a pregnant woman, and the florid pouches at each side of his face shook as he swung his head toward us.

He shifted one of his dollar cigars in his thick-lipped mouth. "What goes on here?" he asked in a deep, velvety voice. He looked past us to Joe-Joe Klein. "O. K., Joe." It was an order.

Joe-Joe explained hurriedly, "Boss, I followed this guy, see? I thought he'd latch up with Sader and I could bring 'em in?"

Breed was glaring at him, and by the time Joe-Joe finished his sentence it had turned into a question. He went on, "Scott goes up into the hills and sees this doll here. So—so I bring 'em here. All right? All right?"

Breed didn't answer for a moment; then he nodded. "Yeah, Joe. That's fine."

Joe-Joe grinned. "I pulled a coup," he said. "It was smart how I got 'em, boss. I—"

"Never mind that," said Breed, and Joe-Joe's face fell. I'd have enjoyed making it fall clear to the floor, then bouncing it up and down.

Breed turned his attention to me and I looked around the room at the other men. Besides little crooked-nosed Joe-Joe, who'd brought us here, the burly Harry, who'd let us in, and Breed himself, there were three others. I spotted Flick's tiny black eyes on me right away and he looked as if he were remembering, with no pleasure, that moment when I'd clobbered him. Joe-Joe had given Breed my .38 and was back poking me occasionally with his pistol, and Flick had an automatic out, too, and was pointing it at me as if he'd love to squeeze the trigger. I hoped he didn't; it was a .45 automatic. Everybody seemed to have .45's.

Looking short alongside the six-foot Flick was mild-appearing Shenandoah Hamlet, and standing on his right was tall, thin, and ugly Lonely Wagner, and a hell of a lot of things had happened to his face. He was a mess. Lonely wouldn't ever have to worry about getting hit in the face during a fight unless he tangled with a guy so strong he could knock Lonely's head clear off. And when you come right down to it, that would have been an improvement.

Lonely and Shenandoah had been sitting in wooden chairs when we came in, but now they were standing. Polite. I didn't have to go over the crowd again. This bunch looked like more than I could handle. It looked like more than the Marines could handle.

Breed's velvety voice rumbled at me. "You give us some trouble, boy. Maybe I oughta let the boys shoot your guts a little."

"What the hell for?" I asked him. "I haven't given you any trouble. Breed, I don't get this at all."

He roared with laughter, his belly shaking. "You just sapped my man Flick," he said finally. "That's all." Then all the mirth went out of his tone and he said, "Besides, I don't like none of Sader's hands till we get this straightened out."

"I'm not one of Sader's boys."

He lifted bushy eyebrows. "Of course not," he said sarcastically. Then to Flick, "Tie him and the girl up. Maybe they talk better that way."

Flick grinned. "A pleasure," he said.

Shenandoah went out and came back in a moment with a length of rope. Flick took a small knife from his pocket and cut off a chunk of the line.

"You first," he said to me. "Sap me, huh? You won't mind if I cut off a little circulation, huh, Scott?"

There was no point in answering. Shenandoah brought over the two wooden chairs he and Lonely Wagner had been sitting in, and five minutes later Iris and I were bound to the chairs with our hands behind our backs.

Flick stepped in front of us when he'd finished knotting the ropes. He looked at me, then took a good look at Iris. With her arms stretched behind her she had a shape that would bruise your eyeballs, and Flick took it all in. He stepped over to her, reached out, and pinched her lightly where he had no business pinching.

"Hi, cutey," he said romantically.

Iris' face flushed and she sucked in her breath. She didn't say a word for a moment, just looked at him. Then she said flatly, "Untie just one of my hands and I'll knock you down."

He flushed. She'd hurt his feelings. "Why, you bitch," he said. "I had better than you the last two nights in a row."

"Flick! Knock it off." It was Breed. He grinned at Flick and added, "Remember, boy. Business before pleasure."

Flick grinned widely, looked down at Iris, and pinched her again. Only this time it wasn't for kicks; he hurt her. She turned her head to the side, biting her lip.

I lunged toward him and got about two inches, the ropes biting into my wrists. The back legs of the chair I was sitting in tilted up, angled forward, and I watched the floor come up and smack me in the kisser.

You great big hero, Scott. Go ahead; bite his foot.

Shenandoah and Lonely grabbed the chair when they stopped laughing. They tilted me back upright and I saw Iris looked in my direction. She didn't say anything, but she wrinkled her nose and blinked her eyes at me.

Breed slid his swivel chair around in front of us, gripping the arms of his chair and grunting as he dug his rubber heels against the floor, moving like a man in a wheel chair. He chuckled a little at me, then said, "Calm down, Scott. You might as well be reasonable. I guess you can see you're going no place, boy." He roared some more, then stopped laughing. "Where's Sader, Scott?"

"I don't know."

"You work for him, Scott. You know where he'd be, boy."

"Damn it, Breed," I said wearily. "Can't you get it into your head I don't know where he is? That I don't work for him?"

Breed pushed thick lips forward and back, then looked over my head and nodded. I couldn't twist around, but I could see Flick and Shenandoah across the room on my left, and Harry and Joe-Joe leaning up against Breed's desk. I couldn't see the other guy, but I found out where he was.

At almost the same instant that Breed nodded, something slammed into the back of my head and pain shot from my skull down into the back of my neck. Breed's face blurred for a moment in front of my eyes, then limped back into focus.

I shook my head and said, "Hold on, Breed. Listen to me. I'm not working for Sader. I never—"

Breed's eyes flicked up over my head again right in the middle of the sentence. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

Wham! Harder this time. Pain exploded in my skull and throbbed and swelled, then died, swelling up again each time my heart pumped. The lights dimmed and hot sickness swelled in my throat. I started to reach up to my head and my right hand scraped on the rope that tied it. I shut my eyes for a few seconds and let my head hang down on my chest.

I heard Breed's voice saying dimly, "Not too much muscle, Lonely. Keep the bastard awake."

I raised my head and looked at Breed. I was so Goddamned mad I'd have jumped him with a toothpick if I hadn't been tied. I don't like punks messing with me or trying to shove me around in the first place. But these guys weren't trying; they were doing it. And tied up like this, there was nothing I could do about it except dream. Even untied, I'd have had to dream or get shot.

Breed stuck his fat red face up close to me and smiled. "How is it, boy? Better? Now, you're a smart fellow, Scott. Get just a little smarter and you'll be O.K."

I took a big lungful of air and said, "Listen, Breed. Can I ask you one question without getting slammed on the head?"

He wiggled his lips. "One."

"What makes you think I'm tied in with Sader?"

"You want that answered?"

I nodded and decided next time to answer yes or no. Rivers of fire trickled up and down my neck and skull.

He said, "Flick told me you were down at the Pit when Sader powdered. We know he was there, but we didn't know you were. Simple, boy."

"And that means I'm on Sader's side?"

"It does to me. Besides, I know you were checking up on the Slauson parlor for Sader back when he was trying to get a line on our take. You weren't nice to my boy Lobo."

So he not only knew about that business, but he also knew that I'd been checking for Marty. I wasn't in the best possible position. I said, "Look, Breed. I'll admit I did that checking for Sader—and didn't find out a thing—but that was the end of our relationship. It was just a job he hired me for, because I'm supposed to be good, and I didn't inquire into his reasons. Hell, that's my business: I'm for hire. But I swear positively I haven't done business with Sader, or for him, since."

Breed just looked at me, not speaking.

I hadn't been hit on the head for a good thirty seconds now, so I asked, "Why do you want to see Sader?" and waited for the ax to fall. It had felt like an ax.

It didn't fall. Instead Breed wiggled his head, his fat cheeks swinging. "You know why, Scott."

"Lobo?"

"That's right, Lobo. Sader's got to—explain about that. Maybe you can explain for me."

"Maybe. You think Sader did that job?"

"That's what you tell me right now. Unless you want some more lumps first." He paused and leaned forward slightly, then added some more words I didn't like a bit "Or did you do the job for him, Scott?"

Me? Sweet Christ! I hadn't even guessed Breed might think I'd killed his boy. I could understand how Breed might have got the impression I was on Sader's team, but now he was jumping too far to his conclusions. I didn't say anything for a moment. Obviously, if Breed felt very confident that I'd killed Lobo, I wouldn't still be living—and he seemed primarily concerned with locating Sader. Apparently, then, he thought Sader had killed Lobo, but wasn't positive and was still working on it. I could clear up that part for him—and I wasn't worrying about Sader—but where did that leave me? If I filled in all the little details of Lobo's death, describing how and where it had happened as described for me by Iris, Breed was almost sure to think that the only reason for my knowing all about it was because I was one of Sader's sidekicks—or else had actually helped pull off the kill. And even if he didn't think I'd been a party to the murder, Breed gave me the definite impression that no friend of Sader's was likely to live long. Particularly once Breed was positive Sader had finished Lobo. I felt somewhat ill. Well, it had been a short, happy life.

I said, "If I could prove to you that Sader killed Lobo, what then? What about the girl and me?"

"Why, you can go then," he said smoothly. He lied easily, without batting an eyelash. He went on, "Just tell us and you can go, Scott, old man."

It was a sweet deal. I knew damned well he was lying, and he knew I did. I pushed a few vagrant thoughts through the pain in my head. Finally I said, "He killed Lobo, all right, Breed. But I didn't—remember I can't finish this if I'm unconscious—I didn't know about it till late today."

I was acutely aware of Lonely, still standing behind me, but apparently now that Breed had me started he was content to let me talk. And I was fairly sure he expected me to lie. I crossed him up: I told him the truth.

"No matter what you think, Breed, you've got the wrong angle on me and the girl. Here's what really happened and got us into this thing." I told him about the shots at me and sketched in most of what had happened to me this day. I added enough of what Iris had told me so he'd get the background, brought him up to the point where Sader had left the Pit, then I said, "Iris and I were sort of between two fires—Sader and you. We went out the room next to Sader's office, through the club, and around to the elevator. Then I sapped Flick and we took off. That's all we've got to do with Sader."

Breed stared at me coldly.

I said, "Don't you get it, Breed? We knew Sader had bumped Lobo, and for that reason he wanted to kill us. We could tell the cops or we could prove it to you. As long as you weren't sure, maybe Sader could talk you out of any rough stuff. But we could prove it on him. Make sense?"

"About Lobo it makes sense," Breed said. And the way he looked at me it appeared I hadn't been convincing enough. He added in a coaxing, gentle tone, "And he wants to kill you, so you drop in to see him?"

"Damn it, Breed! I told you he had Iris. I told you what the score was. How stupid—"

Breed looked over my head in a way I was getting to know, nodded pleasantly, and looked back at my face to see what changes might take place in it.

I hunched my shoulders involuntarily and thought, Oh, Jesus Christ, here it comes again, here it. . .

It was the last of the ninth, two away, and the bases were loaded. The Shell Scott Flatheads needed one run to win. With two strikes on me, I stood at the plate scowling at a pitcher with a fat red face, drooping jowls, and a big jelly belly. He picked up a bazooka and fired a fast one right over the plate. I leaned forward and got my flat head in the way, and the ball met my head with a soft, squishy sound. I straightened up as the umpire bawled, 'Take a walk!"

The crowd went wild.

I fell forward flat on my face.

I kept falling and falling and falling and finally I slowed down. I huffed and I puffed and I cracked my eyes and I looked at a round shiny thing an inch from my nose. It was a button. Well, well, I thought, a button.

And then I heard voices. Finally it got to me and I remembered where I was. Breed was talking again. I wanted my hands loose. I wanted it so badly. I wanted to reach up and see if my head was really flat.

I could see Breed now, but there were two of him, one blending into the other. I couldn't see very well, and I felt like the losing gladiator, but I remembered everything. At least, I thought I did. Maybe I wasn't thinking right, at that. It occurred to me that if I'd forgotten anything, I wouldn't be able to remember it because I'd forgotten it. I went over that again and decided I'd been hit on the head pretty hard.

And it seemed that I'd had the glimmerings of an idea just before the baseball hit me on the head. Or whatever it was that hit me. Ah, Lonely it was. I'd kill Lonely, that's what. That would fix him. I wished I could remember what the hell that idea had been. It seemed I was going to talk my way out of here. Right out of this place and into the sweet cool air.

Sure. I didn't need to feel my head; now I knew it was flat.

Breed was saying, "Scott, old man. You feel better now, don't you, Scott?"

I got my mouth open and finally he went back to one man. Shenandoah and Flick and hairy Harry and Joe the Joe solidified in the background. My eyes were focusing, but I still couldn't remember. I said, "Sure, Breed. Feel fine and dandy. Love it. Hit me again."

He chuckled. "You'll tell us where to find Sader now, won't you, boy?"

Oh, Christ. Back there again. He just wouldn't believe me. And right then and there I remembered what I'd been trying to remember.

"Breed," I said. "I'm groggy. Lay off a minute. How about a glass of water?" I had to have a little time to think. Another few bats on the skull and I wouldn't be able to think of my name.

"You ready to talk?"

"I'm ready for a drink of water. I can't even think straight."

Breed chuckled, then nodded at somebody behind me. I thought, Oh, no! but he was just sending Lonely for water. I'd won a big point.

Lonely came back with the glass and I got to see his ugly puss for the first time since he'd taken up his stance behind my chair.

I said to him, "Hello there, you gruesome, stinking son of a bitch," and he threw the water in my face. Glass and all.

That wasn't what I'd planned, but I jerked my head and the glass barely skimmed my cheek and some of the water splashed my face.

Breed shoved himself up out of his chair and stood over me. "I'm an impatient man, Scott, and my patience is all gone. No more funny stuff. Let's have it."

I didn't say anything. I didn't know where Sader was, but I was finally thinking.

Breed turned to Flick. "Work on the girl. Maybe that'll get him started."

Flick said, "Sure, thanks," walked over in front of Iris, and grinned at her for a moment. She looked straight back at him. Then he slapped her twice, hard, with his open hand whipping across her cheeks.

Her head snapped back and forth, the long red hair swirling around her neck. After a moment she glanced at me, then back up at Flick, her bright red lips curling. She didn't say a word, but what she thought of Flick was spread all over her face.

He drew back his right arm, doubled up the fist, his lips peeled back.

"Hold it!" I yelled. "Stop him, Breed. I'll tell you."

Breed snapped a word at Flick just in time. Then he turned to me and said. "This better be good, Scott."

"You win," I said. "You're right. I've been working for Sader."

Chapter Thirteen

BREED let out a sigh, but Flick turned and looked at me, his lips still peeled back. I think he was sorry I'd opened my mouth.

Breed came back and squeezed his monstrous behind down into the chair in front of me. His voice was smooth and pleasant as he said, "It's about time, Scott." He chuckled. "You know what? I thought we were going to have to kill you."

I said, "You were right all the way down the line. I've been working for Sader for months. Everything I told you before was a lie."

"I knew you were lying." He shook his head and said, "Scott, I've heard about you and your fancy talk, but that don't go with me, boy. What made you think I'd swallow a dumb story like that one you give me?"

I didn't even try to answer that. I had the germ of an idea; a lot of unrelated information was combining in my brain, but I needed a little more. Just a little—and a little more time.

I said, "Tell me this, Breed." I buttered him up some more. "You're supposed to be pretty smart. You're the top man in this neck of the woods. Now, can you tell me this? Why would Sader want me?"

He frowned a little, then got out one of his cigars, bit off the end, and got it lighted. "Some extra muscle, maybe," he said finally. "He's got delusions of grandeur. He thinks he can buck me, but," he chuckled, "I guess you know he's wrong, huh, Scott?"

"Yeah. I know it."

I had to feed anything I had into my spiel as I went along. I was fiddling around, talking, lining up in my mind what I wanted to say, and it was getting clearer. There didn't appear to be a chance in a hundred that I could talk my way out of this, but if it worked, I was going to buy myself a medal.

"O. K.," I said. "So Sader's got delusions of grandeur, like you mentioned. As a matter of fact, Breed, he figures to take over your spot."

He didn't give me a double take or anything like it. He said, "Keep talking. Tell me something I don't know. But how stupid can Sader get? I got this territory; I got the whole combination behind me. He can't buck that, Scott."

"Sader must think he can."

"He's got a screw loose, then."

I grinned. It wasn't easy, but I lifted my lips. I said, "If you weren't around, it'd be easier, wouldn't it? Keep that in mind for a minute, Breed. I'd like to make a deal with you."

He shook his head.

I shrugged. Or rather I started to, but the ropes grabbed me. I asked, "How about loosening these things? Or untying my hands? They're cutting off the blood."

"Keep talking."

"All right, how about a deal, Breed? Let the girl go. I'm on the inside with Sader. I know his operations; I can get you damn near anything you want. Let the girl go and I'm your boy." If he could lie to me, I'd lie right back at him.

He said harshly, "No deal, no nothing. You maybe stay alive if you're very co-operative. You better make up your mind."

"It's made up. You want Sader? O. K. I wasn't kidding before—I don't know for sure where he is. But I can get him for you. And I guess you know he's got dough, got a lot of money."

"He should have. He's cutting into my take."

"Sure. He keeps a lot of it in the club. In the Pit."

The greed that had pushed him into the rackets flickered momentarily in his eyes. "Yeah? Who says so?"

"I do. I know where the safe is, but I don't know the combination. I might be able to get it from Marty. You'd like that?" I grinned again. "No income tax; no cut, even—except the boys here."

So far he wasn't too impressed. He was listening, and he was greedy enough, but I hadn't stirred him up much. A while back I'd been mixed up in a deal the newspapers called the "Case of the Vanishing Beauty." I'd run across some lists of names in the possession of a guy named Narda, and remembering them a few minutes ago had given me part of an idea. I tried it out.

"Another thing, Breed. Sader's worked himself up a little deal—you might say a deal à la Mafia. You follow me? He's making dough hand over fist."

He was squinting at me. I don't know whether he was following me or ahead of me, but he was interested. I said, "He's got pushers getting the stuff out to the hypes all over town. Everything from tea to morphine. And he's making a pile. He's got a list as long as your arm of the guys pushing the stuff. That's where I come in, Breed. I can get you the list, and it'll line you up with a whole flock of hopheads. I don't know how many, but it's money in the bank."

I waited to see how he took it. This was the first I'd heard about any lists, and maybe it was too steep for him. Steep or not, he was the kind of guy who'd hate to pass up a chance at big gravy. And this kind of talk was in the multiple thousands.

He didn't say anything, just looked at me, not moving. Well, I'd been saving my trump for last. It looked like I'd have to shake him up a bit. It was worth a try.

I ran over again all the things that had occurred to me, before and after bats on the head, and I said, "Maybe you think I'm talking through my hat. Maybe you already know everything I've said. But I'm going to tell you something now I'm positive you don't know."

He perked up a little bit and I glanced around the room. Flick was over leaning against the far wall, and at least he didn't have his automatic pointed at me now that things had quieted down. Lonely and Shenandoah were on my left sitting on two more wooden chairs they'd dragged in. Lonely had straddled his chair and leaned on the back while he watched me and idly spun the cylinder of a .38 revolver in his fist. Joe-Joe and Harry leaned casually on the desk.

I turned and glanced at Iris and that sent a surprise all the way through me. Maybe it shouldn't have, but I'd practically forgotten about her while I talked.

She was looking at me with her eyes wide and horrified, her lips curling in disgust. She must have been thinking this was all on the level, that I really was one of Sader's boys. If she'd stopped to figure it out she'd have known better, but come to think of it, that was a good sign. If I had her convinced, at least temporarily, I might be getting a wedge into Breed.

I turned back to him. "Listen to this, Breed. Sader's bucking you. He wants your top spot. You've already said that's no news to you. But you must also know he's no fool. He's been planning this thing for a long time. Remember he's smart. And remember, too, that a little while ago I told you to keep in mind how much easier it would be if you were out of the way."

I paused a moment for him to think about that, then I said casually, "One of your boys, Breed, one of the boys right in this room, is on Marty Sader's payroll."

Chapter Fourteen

BREED's fat hands came up and gripped the arms of his chair. Lonely stood up suddenly, clutching his revolver, his wooden chair toppling over and crashing against the floor as Flick came away from the wall and stopped. Shenandoah's right hand crept nervously up toward his armpit, and the burly Harry and little Joe-Joe Klein stood up straight beside Breed's desk.

Breed leaned over and grabbed the front of my shirt with one pudgy hand and shook me.

"Take your damn hands off me, Breed."

He looked surprised when I said it. It even surprised me a little. I was in no position to tell Breed what to do or what not to do. It made no difference. He kept on shaking me. He half yelled, "You bastard! You're lying. You're lying to save your own damn neck."

"Let go of me, Breed." Finally he did and I got my breath and said, "Hell, yes, I'm trying to save my neck. But it might save your fat neck, too. And I'm not lying. For Christ's sake, get smart, Breed. Sader is. He got to me months ago with so much dough I couldn't say no. There's not a dick in town, private or otherwise, with a cleaner rep than I've got. So I can get plenty of info Sader can use—and he got to me. Is that dumb?"

He kept looking at me and he didn't look friendly. But at least his hands were off me, and he was listening. I went on, "Sader's been getting ready to take you over for months, Breed. And I'm just one of the little angles. I've talked part of his plans over with him. Not much, maybe, but enough so I know what's going on. Think about it, master mind. If Sader's after your spot, isn't he going to get rid of you? And if he's after your scalp, is there a better way to get it than by planting one of his boys right next to you?"

I'd finally got to him a little. He licked his fat lips and shook his head like he was saying no, but not believing it. I grinned at him. Now it was easier. I looked over at Iris so she could wrinkle her nose and blink at her hero.

She was wrinkling her nose, all right. Like she was smelling a slum sewer. I stopped grinning.

"Who?" Breed said.

I came back to him. "What?"

"Who is it, Scott? Which one of my boys?"

There'd been a little scuffling of feet and sounds of throats being cleared and chairs moved. It all stopped.

And this was it. From here I went either up or down.

About six feet down, if it worked out that way. I needed some luck mixed with my logic, but here it went.

I strained forward a little against the ropes that held me and I said, "Watch him, boys. Watch him now."

Then I looked across the room and I said as if I meant it, "I'm sorry, Flick. It's your neck or mine, and I like yours better."

As soon as I looked at him he knew what I was trying to pull and he started toward me. Lonely grabbed for him as he went by, but he twisted away, his eyes on me, and jumped at me with his fists clenched. Harry and Joe-Joe shoved away from the desk and leaped for Flick, but they weren't fast enough and he got by them. He swung his balled fist through the air at me and I jerked my head up, but his knuckles piled into my chin and I felt my teeth grate against each other. His left hand cut through the air and slammed into my right ear just as Harry and Joe-Joe grabbed him and pulled him away from me.

There was a ringing in my head, and I was dizzy, but I wasn't near going under, and the funny thing was that the back of my head hurt more than where he'd hit me. But it shot my thoughts all to hell for a while.

Then I saw the two guys holding Flick, and Lonely taking away his gun while Shenandoah held an automatic on him. I remembered the whole thing now. I'd started the ball rolling; I wondered where it would stop.

Breed's velvety voice rumbled in my ear. "Don't get any ideas, Scott. I'm pretty sure you're lying. You've got plenty explaining to do. And Scott, if this is a gag I'll let Flick shoot you right here."

Flick yelled across the room, "You lyin' bastard! If I get my hands on a gun, I'll plug you in the stomach. So help me, I'll shoot you in the stomach."

I looked straight at Breed. "Just give me time and I'll convince you. I'll even prove it for you. Who's your newest boy, Breed?"

He frowned. Slowly he said, "Flick is."

"I know it. I know more about him than you do." I shook my head trying to remember how long Lieutenant Rawlins had said Flick had been with Breed when I was looking over the photos at City Hall. I said, "About six weeks, right?"

"That's right."

"And a small point, Breed. I'm tied up. I've been slapped around a little. But you notice Flick didn't mess with me till after I'd spilled the beans about him."

It was just luck he hadn't, and neither had the other boys except Lonely, but I might as well use it. I needed everything I had.

Breed swung his head around to look at Flick, then turned back to me. I said quickly, "Here's something else. Something else you don't know. Tell me this first: Why did Sader kill Lobo?"

He lifted his cheeks, squinting at me, but he didn't answer.

I said, "Just tell me, Breed. You're wrong, anyway. But tell me what you think the reason was and I'll show you where you're wrong." I knew what I was going to tell him, but I wanted to know his angle.

He said, "I don't think I'm wrong, Scott. Sader's been getting too big for his britches, trying to take over some of my places and start some of his own—hell, he even had you checking that Slauson place of mine as long as three months back. Well, he's been getting a little start, see? That's O.K. as long as he kicks in, but he wasn't.

"I sent Lobo to Sader with orders that Sader had to either kick in his fifty per cent from now on or blow—or there'd be trouble. And I told Lobo to make it strong and definite. It looks to me like Sader knew things had come to a head, and maybe he was ready to make his move. He wasn't going to kick in, anyway, so he shot Lobo. As simple as that. Maybe they had trouble; maybe they didn't. But you'll have a hard time convincing me that wasn't it."

Well, he'd cleared up that part for me. I didn't question Breed's explanation; undoubtedly that was what had actually happened—but it wasn't much help to me like that.

I nodded wisely, as though I'd known all along what he'd just told me, and said, "You're still wrong." I hesitated while I got it straight and went on, "You've got most of it right. Lobo did go to Sader with the word, and Sader didn't like any part of the deal. He was getting ready to make his move—not this soon, but soon—and he got rid of one tough boy in his way by killing Lobo. But the important thing is that Sader didn't have to kill him. It's like the guy, sure, but why couldn't he have stalled Lobo and waited till everything was set and you were pushing up daisies? After Flick had shot you in the back, Breed!"

He swallowed, and I gave him the rest of it. "There's the real reason Lobo was killed."

Breed still looked blank.

I said, "Don't you get it? Christ, man, Flick was there. Flick was with Sader, and Lobo walked in on them before the club closed up for the night. He smelled the double cross right away and got killed for it"

I settled back with my heart pounding. This was the shakiest part of my whole spiel, and I knew it. I was on eggshell territory, and if Flick had been kidding about being with "better than Iris" the last two nights, I was going to bust right through.

Apparently he hadn't been kidding. At least, nobody spoke up and said Flick was with them at the time Lobo had been getting slugs in his head.

I let out a breath while Flick swore viciously at me, then kept it going. "Flick must have gone to the club to warn Sader you were sending him an ultimatum. I'm guessing there, Breed, but it makes sense." I pushed it a little. "Or don't you think so?"

He nodded slowly, eyes on my face.

I asked him, "Could Sader let Lobo come back and tell you Flick was getting ready to stick a knife in your back? How do you like that, Breed? Think about it. Flick's your newest man; he slugged me after I spilled; he's the real reason Lobo was killed. Doesn't it make sense that Sader would love to have a man on your inside, all primed to knock you off when Sader gave the word? Ready to kill you?"

It was obvious that Breed didn't like the idea of anybody killing him. The other way around was O.K., but for anybody to kill him was a lousy idea. I had him hooked, but he wasn't landed yet. I shot my last wad at him.

"Breed. Get this. You can understand it now. I didn't sap Flick. I wasn't even there."

I let it hang there. I wanted Breed to think it out for himself. He'd believe it a lot quicker than if I just told him.

And then I remembered Iris and it scared me. What if she should pick this time to open her yap and spill my whole barrel of beans? I turned my head and glared at her. Her mouth was open all right, but she slowly closed it. Some of the disgust was fading out of her eyes and she looked puzzled.

I turned back to Breed. "Well? How does it read?"

He was nibbling at it. He'd got most of it now, so I laid it out for him a piece at a time. "Simple, huh? Now you know how Sader managed his powder."

It didn't make any difference whether the boys knew about Sader's back way out; almost surely they did because the door was obvious after a little looking. But the only guy who'd seen me in the Pit was Flick before I slugged him. And apparently nobody had seen Sader leave. It looked as if maybe this part of the deal, at least, was on ice.

I went on, "I don't know quite how it happened, because, like I said, I wasn't there. But you've told me enough tonight for me to get the picture. Sader got away from you and somebody sapped Flick. Flick is Sader's boy—his prize boy. Now, how do you suppose Sader got out?"

For the first time Breed turned and spoke to Flick. He said, "You should known better, Flick. You shoulda."

That was all, but Flick got paler. He said, "Christ, boss. He's making' this up, He's lyin'. Please, boss. I swear he's lyin'."

Breed said flatly, "Shut up."

"But, boss, it was him that sapped me. While the rest of the boys was in the office. Where's he get this? God Almighty, he—"

Breed growled, "Shut up, I told you. Boys, if you have to, shut him up good."

I butted in. "What do you bet, Breed, there's not much of a lump on Flick's skull? I shouldn't think Sader would tap his prize boy too hard. Hey! Maybe nobody sapped him."

Flick put a hand to the back of his head and mumbled, "Oh, Jesus. I was sapped. Feel it. He sapped me." Then he shut up fast as Lonely moved toward him.

I seemed to be out of the oasis, but I was still in the middle of the desert. I said, "Well, Breed? Am I making sense? How about a deal? Why not let the girl and me go? I can get you everything you want. Money, those lists I mentioned, even Sader."

"Let you go?" He was politely amazed. "Scott, if you'd double-cross Sader, you'd double-cross me." He chuckled.

"Don't get the idea I've swallowed all your talk, boy. So you double-cross Flick, that's all."

Hell, I wasn't even out of the oasis.

I said, "Let her go. All you need is me."

"And have her come back with a bunch of Sader's pals? That's a laugh."

"All right, all right. But how's this? I'll get in touch with Sader, get the money, the lists, get Sader." Hell, I'd have promised him Mars just to get out of this room with no ropes on my arms. "Then that'll prove I mean what I say. O. K.?"

Breed screwed up his red face and was quiet for a while. Then he said, "Here's your deal. You get Sader. Do all you've said you'll do. Then you can leave. You're your own boss then."

He sounded sincere as a preacher. He lied better than I did. I said, "O.K. Deal. Untie me and I'll get going."

"You can get in touch with Sader?"

"Sure I can get in touch with Sader. You think I been kidding you?"

And just like that I'd gone and done it. Things had been going my way too long and I had to get cocky and overplay it.

Breed smiled and said, "Fine. Then you can phone him from here. Got a phone on the desk. He knows you're his good right arm, so he'll be glad to talk to you."

This guy wasn't so dumb. He was no genius, maybe, but he was top boy in his line. And he had me squirming. But I had to blunder through with it now or I'd ruin everything I'd accomplished up to here.

I must have looked funny because Breed said, "What's the matter?"

I sighed. "That's not the way I wanted to do it, but you're the boss, Breed. Untie me. I can't phone with my hands tied."

I was starting to sweat. Breed, with five of his men behind him, probably wouldn't mind letting me call, and I could fiddle around with the phone—but what happened when I didn't get Sader? And life had never seemed sweeter. I glanced at Iris and she looked straight back at me. There was no disgust in her eyes any more, but she looked a little scared. If she was only a little scared, she was a lot braver than I was.

Joe-Joe went around behind me and cut the rope on my hands. They tingled as the circulation picked up. They'd be hurting in a minute. That sure worried me.

The first thing I did when my hands were free was to reach up and feel my head. Then I got up and walked slowly over behind Breed's desk and moved a wooden chair from the wall to the desk. "O.K. if I park here? I'm cramped from that damn chair you had me tied in."

Breed nodded, then scooted his swivel chair over to the opposite side of the desk and watched me. I wondered if any of what I was going through showed on my face. If it did, I was gone; I couldn't even remember the number of the Pit. I'd seen it when I looked up the address in the phone book after I'd first called on Mia, but I was double damned if I could remember even one of the numbers. Mia—I wondered where she was this fine night. I wondered a lot of things, but I pulled the dial phone over to me, lifted the phone off the hook, and stuck my finger in one of the holes. There was a sort of haze in front of my eyes and I'd have had to squint to make out the number. It made no difference; I didn't have the faintest idea who the hell I was calling.

I dialed a couple of random letters, then five numbers, looking determined and businesslike. Then I put the phone to my ear and listened to my heart pounding.

I listened to something else, too. The howling in my ear that meant I'd dialed a big nothing, a nonexistent number. It was a fairly faint noise, but I held the phone close to my ear where there was little chance Breed would hear it, then I pressed my fingers down on the receiver and looked across the desk at him. I said in as calm a voice as I could, "It's busy."

Iris knew the number of the Pit. All I had to do was ask her what it was and I'd get shot; I was afraid even to look at her. Sweat should have been splashing off me. Breed stared curiously at me as I hung up the phone.

And then Iris, dear, delightful, happy-tilting, wonderful Iris, did herself proud. Sweetly she asked, "Did you dial Michigan one-one-six-four-five?"

I loved her. I forgave her everything. From here on in we were even.

But I didn't look at her. I said gruffly, "Of course. Where the hell you think I'd call?" Michigan 1-1645. I repeated it once to myself, but it wasn't necessary. Those numbers were burned into my brain.

Breed squinted, his eyes licking from me to Iris and back to me again. He hadn't liked it. "Where's that?" he rumbled.

I took a small chance. What was a small chance? "That's Sader's number at the Pit," I said, like any fool would know it. "I think he'll be there by now."

Breed let it go. He still had all the cards; he could afford to be generous. I figured it was all right now to glance at Iris. She had a pleased-with-herself look on her face.

I waited as long as I could. Then I pulled the phone to me and dialed Michigan 1-1645.

The phone went buzz, buzz, buzz in my ear. Busy! For a minute it shocked me. Then I knew I couldn't mess around any longer. Breed was suspicious already. Besides, it wasn't too bad this way. I was the only one who knew the line was busy, and if Sader were at the Pit it was just as well I didn't start babbling nonsense at him. The boys here in the room might hear him yelling clear through my head.

I held the receiver tight against my ear and said, "Sader? Scott. Something's busted wide open. I'll tell you about it when I get there. And, look, the lists of the boys pushing the stuff. Have 'em there. Yeah, the lists. What? Hell, I haven't got time to explain, Marty. I'll be right down."

I paused as if listening, and I was thinking I was really playing it smart, when Collier Breed reached across the desk, snatched the phone out of my hand, and started to stick it up against his ear.

For a moment I froze. I just stared at the phone in his fat hand, moving toward his fat head, and the thought flashed through my mind that as soon as that buzz, buzz, buzz hit Breed's ear he'd hit the ceiling and the L. A. population was due to start decreasing. I'd made a nice stab at this, but all the time I'd been digging my own grave.

And then, with the phone halfway between me and Breed, I did the only thing I could do, and I did it fast. I slammed my fist down hard on the base of the phone and broke the connection.

Breed's face started getting purple. He glared at me, holding his breath, then he let it out in a rush. "Just what the hell was that, Scott?"

I thought in a hurry. "You want to spoil the whole play? One word out of you to Sader and he'd know I was with you. That blows up the whole deal. I don't get you, Breed."

He lowered his voice. "Oh, you don't? You don't get me? God damn it, I wasn't going to say anything. I was going to listen! You—Scott, you'd better be on the level." He pulled the phone toward him and said, "Now tell me that number, Scott. The number of the Pit."

He had me. Maybe he knew the number; maybe he didn't. But if he did and I gave him a phony number, it wouldn't be good. I said, "Michigan one-one-six-four-five."

He dialed the number.

I couldn't take much more of this. I was getting weaker and weaker. If I lived I was going to quit the business. I was going to be a file clerk—join a monastery.

Breed listened to the phone, then held it toward me. "Busy," he said. "How about that?"

"What do you expect?" I asked him. My voice cracked; I couldn't help it. I almost yodeled.

He leaned toward me. "What's the matter with you, Scott? What's the matter with your voice?" Cat and mouse, the bastard.

I took a huge breath. "Well, Jesus Christ, man. You pick up the phone and call Sader and you can still ask? If he gets wind of this double cross I'm dead. You trying to get me killed? Even if you didn't say a word, just called him and hung up, he'd smell something fishy. You pull that again and I'll have a heart attack." I wasn't kidding, but it seemed to satisfy him.

He asked, "What'd you mean just now? You asked me what did I expect."

"Just that. Sure the phone's busy. I told Sader there was some trouble. Also that we had to have the lists of pushers. He's almost sure to be on the phone, getting the lists and maybe calling some boys."

It was weak from my point of view, but Breed sighed and leaned back in his chair. "O.K., Scott. Get busy. But it'd better be good." He turned to the boys behind him. "Lonely, tie Flick up. You got his gun; give that to me. Then you boys take Mr. Scott on his little errand." He considered a moment and added, "All you boys better go, in case there's trouble."

"Hey!" I said. "If I bust in with a mob, what's Sader going to think?"

Breed chuckled. "It doesn't matter what he thinks; he won't think it long. That's one reason all the boys go with you. Besides, Scott, you didn't think you were going alone, did you?"

I hadn't. And I'd been a little behind, too. With what I'd given Breed, it was obvious that Sader was due for a deep grave. And, I asked myself, where does that leave me? And Iris, too?

"Breed," I said, "how about the girl? You can let her go."

He shook his head. "She stays with me and Flick. Till you—uh, get back." He grinned and I knew damn well what that meant. Somehow the idea of my not getting back wasn't a bit humorous to me, but I guess it's all in how you look at it.

I was practically twitching, and I'd burned up about a million brain cells, but I had one more thought. Maybe it wasn't worth much, but I played with it. The way it stood now, Lonely, Shenandoah, Joe-Joe, and Harry were all going to be my escort—and all concentrating like mad on me. Breed was going to be here with Flick and Iris, both of whom would be tied up. If Flick sat here with Breed, he might be able to go over my story piece by piece and find the flaws in it Flick might even get Breed to check with the girl he'd said he'd been with.

But if Flick went along with us, not only would he not be able to talk to Breed, but the boys would have to keep an eye on him, diverting a little of the attention from me. I wondered, though, if I could make Breed see it my way.

Lonely had already given Flick's gun to Breed and was starting to tie Flick's hands when I said, "I didn't think you'd want Flick tied up, Breed."

He looked at me, surprised. "You think I want him loose?"

"Uh-uh. That's not what I meant." I smiled, weakly, and added, "Somehow, Breed, I get the impression you don't trust me entirely. I think I've got you convinced about Flick, but why not let me prove it? It looks like I'm going to be working for you from now on—if I'm working for anybody. I'd like to prove I'm telling the truth about Flick; I want you as convinced as I am."

The idea of my working for him must have practically convulsed him, but he was content to let me dream. He asked me, "How you expect to prove that?"

"Simple. When we hit Sader's your boys can watch the play. Sader will welcome Flick with open arms. That'll be your proof."

He thought about it. Then the idea seemed to appeal to him and he nodded. He turned to Lonely. "O. K. You all go. But watch 'em. And," he added quietly, "if Scott is trying to pull a fast one, don't bring him back."

There wasn't any way I could twist that around so it meant anything except I'd be dead.

Breed said, "Get going. And, Lonely, you phone me. One way or another."

The boys herded Flick and me out in front of them and followed close behind. They separated us outside to put us into different cars, but before they did Flick hissed at me, "It won't be long, Scott. This is gonna bust right in your goddam face. And when it does, I'll kill you."

Lonely drove the black Cadillac I was pushed into, and Joe-Joe sat in the back seat with me. Joe-Joe and his 45-degree nose and .44 automatic. Behind us came the black Plymouth with Flick, accompanied by Shenandoah and Harry. Flick would be bending their ears all the way into town.

And so, one car right behind the other, we went rolling merrily on our way, like a stray segment of a funeral procession. And I couldn't help thinking that undoubtedly that was exactly what it was.

Chapter Fifteen

THERE WAS little traffic at this quiet hour. Now it was just after midnight, that lonesome time of morning, and the sky was partly overcast, with film across some of the dim stars. Occasionally headlights appeared coming toward us, flashing briefly upon our faces as the lights grew large and bright and then whipped by us. Then shadows would leap up inside the car again and it would seem darker than before. But always there was illumination from the street lights and from that other car following us into town.

Lonely kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, and Joe-Joe sat silently sucking on a cigarette and watching me. I could see, when I glanced at him, the automatic in his hand, centered on my middle.

And it was cold. Cold and windy. The gusts of wind that had been alternately swelling and dying all night long had grown in frequency and intensity until now, every once in a while, the Cadillac would sway momentarily as a heavy wall of wind buffeted the car. Lonely drove up Riverside Drive to the Freeway at Figueroa, then turned right and headed for the Civic Center.

I'd been perspiring back there at Breed's, and now my thin shirt was damp and felt like ice on my skin. The cold seeped into the car and ran up my back and crawled down inside my stomach.

It took fifteen or twenty minutes to get from Breed's "finance" company to the Pit. Lonely pulled into the alley off Seventh Street and parked outside the elevator that led down into Marty Sader's club. He left the keys in the ignition when he got out, I noticed. That was a break; things were really going my way. The other car pulled in behind us and stopped. The lights of the cars were turned off and I stepped out into the black alley.

The wind hit me as soon as I got out of the car. It was a raw, rough wind that scraped the skin on my face and bit into my lungs. I was shivering, and it was cold enough to make a man shiver, but that wasn't the only reason. The closer we'd come to the Pit, the bigger the ball of fear had grown in my stomach. Depression had been growing inside me, too. I tried to shake it off. Hell, I thought, I'm not dead yet. And that cheered me up so much I damn near threw up.

I'd talked my way out of Breed's office, but I wasn't patting myself on the back. Silver-tongued Scott. Sure. That was like talking yourself right out of the lion's mouth and into his stomach.

I wish I knew what was coming when the crowd of us stepped out of that elevator and into the Pit below. There were a lot of possible angles. Sader might have a dozen gunmen there ready to blast us; Breed's boys might find Marty alone and kill him, or they might go hog-wild and shoot up anybody that was in the place. Or it could even be that the Pit was empty now, though there'd been somebody there thirty or forty minutes ago when I'd phoned and got a busy signal. But of all the possibilities, I couldn't find one that meant I could keep on living.

In the time since I became a private detective, and the four years before that, as a Marine in a bigger murder mess called, euphemistically, World War II, I'd been shot at and scared and almost killed a lot of times. But never in all those years had the dead weight of hopelessness weighed me down like it did now. I had the feeling that this was finally it, that I was washed up. I was tired to the bone, my head ached and throbbed, and I was weary of even thinking. I'd been up for fifteen or sixteen hours already and I felt it. There was a physical and mental exhaustion all through me, so leaden that I could almost say I didn't give a damn what came next. Almost, but not quite. A man always has a little something in reserve somewhere, and I knew if I got any kind of chance I'd do something with it—and if I could, I'd take one or two of these boys who were casually planning to murder me right along with me.

We all gathered around the elevator. The door was unlocked and the elevator was up at the top, and it looked to me as if maybe nobody was down below. That perked me up a little. Even if Marty had been here before, if he'd taken the elevator up and gone someplace else, I might be able to stall my guards for a while. Tell them Marty would show up, something like that. At least it was something to hang onto.

The four boys shoved Flick and me in first, facing out the way the door would open below, then got in behind us. If anybody shot at us, we'd get it first. A new way to get it going and coming. Then we started down. There wasn't any sensation of movement, and I remembered the last time I'd been in here with Iris—only we'd been coming up. Well, I'd got my wish. Then I'd wanted to know what the score was, what was behind all the screwy activity of the morning, and I knew now: Sader had been trying to muscle into the rackets and Big Boy Breed had sent the "upstart" an ultimatum with Lobo—and Sader had killed Lobo. Then Iris, me, and a madhouse—the beginnings of a gang war, and me in the middle of no man's land with a slingshot. I knew all about it now, but I'd felt better this morning before my curiosity had been satisfied.

The elevator stopped, the door automatically started sliding open, and I finally remembered that little bulb over the door in Sader's office. It had been burning for sixty seconds now. The boys I was with might not know about that gimmick, but I did, and I knew that whoever was in the Pit knew there was company on the way.

My throat was dry as the door opened and there was nothing but blackness ahead of us in the club. I was still in the middle: Sader in front, Breed behind, Breed's boys all around me, and Flick right next to me dying to put a bullet in my belly. And none of us could see a thing out there in the darkness.

Somebody shoved me from behind and I stumbled out of the elevator, Flick alongside of me. One of the boys pushed the elevator door shut and the light was squeezed out behind us. It took a few seconds for my eyes to get accustomed to the darkness, but when they did I saw a narrow thread of light under what would be the door to Sader's office. Then there was a hand against my back and we were all moving toward the light.

I knew that every step gave me less of a chance and I was thinking up a storm. There was somebody in there, and if it was Sader—and I didn't know anybody else who would be here this late—I was headed for hell and no place to grab. But if I could get the boys to let Flick and me go in alone, on the pretense that Sader would "welcome" Flick, I might—I might what? Leap up through the ceiling? But it was better than nothing.

I tried to slow down and started to whisper my brilliant idea to the man behind me, but a horny hand was slapped over my mouth and the cold, hard muzzle of a gun was shoved roughly against the back of my neck.

That settled that, and now that we were so close, part of my fear was dissolving into a kind of desperation. We reached the door. One of the men brushed by me, felt for the doorknob, and flung the door open. Hands hit my back and practically hurled me into the room.

I tripped on the carpet at the edge of the door, staggered forward into the room, and grabbed the sharp corner of the white desk to keep from falling. I blinked in the sudden flood of light and looked across that gleaming white desk right into Marty's eyes. His dead eyes.

They didn't find the hole in Sader's head right away, but finding him like that was a fat shock for me. I'd half expected guns to roar and people to die all around me, and maybe with me, and finding Sader dead jarred me so hard I stopped moving and my mouth dropped open.

Flick shut it for me. He whirled on me with his lips in a hard grin, and his hand shot out and grabbed at my throat. His knuckles glanced off my chin and jolted my teeth together. I slapped his arm away and reached for him, but I didn't get to him. Big, burly Harry grabbed my arms, and Shenandoah and Lonely latched onto Flick. Flick's face twisted and he yelled at me, "You smart son of a bitch!"

Then Lonely shouted, "Shut your trap, Flick. What the hell is this?" He glared at Flick for a moment, then walked to the desk and looked down at Sader.

There'd been a surge of voices, but everybody quieted down now except Shenandoah. He gawked at the dead man and said softly, "Jesus," shaking his head.

Marty had fallen onto the desk, his right arm stretched forward over it and his other arm dangling over the side. The left side of his face was flat on the desk top and his eyes were open, staring blankly. His rimless glasses lay unbroken on the desk, two or three inches from his head. The carefully combed black hair was only slightly mussed, but the fine hair had fallen aside and Sader's bald spot gleamed dully in the strong light. It seemed almost indecent.

Flick hadn't taken his eyes off me except for a brief glance at the body. He ran his tongue over his teeth and squinted his small black eyes. I knew he was thinking, getting ready to make a little spiel of his own, and he looked as if he were enjoying imagining how I'd squirm. I had an idea I'd squirm plenty.

Lonely lifted Sader's head casually by a few strands of hair, looked curiously at it and at Sader's chest, then pointed at the back of Sader's head with his other hand. "Lookit," he said. "A little one. A twenty-two or twenty-five, maybe." He might have been asking the time of day. He let Sader's head flop back on the desk. I felt the thud in my spine.

Everybody had to take a look except Shenandoah and Flick. Shenandoah took Lonely's word for it, and Flick was more interested in me. Lonely glanced at a smear of red on his finger, and wiped it on Sader's black coat. Little Joe-Joe Klein looked Sader over and started prowling around the desk while one of the other boys roamed around the room. Shenandoah, at a word from Lonely, went into the next room and threw on switches that flooded the entire club with light. He left the door open when he came back in, and I glanced over my shoulder, out the office door to the inside of the club, where lights flooded the chairs and booths and tables.

Then Joe-Joe straightened up. "Hey, boys! Lookit this!" He held a wisp of a handkerchief in his hand. A woman's handkerchief. He squinted at a corner of it. "What's this?" he asked, then read off the letters, "C-A-G." He laughed. "Who's that, huh? Cag? Short for Cagney, maybe? Wait'll Bogart hears about this." He haw-hawed.

I thought about it, myself, wondering who C. A. G. might be. I mentally listed the women I knew in this deal: Mrs. Vivian Sader, Kitty Green, Iris Gordon, Mia—something or other. "Something you couldn't pronounce," she'd said. Nobody seemed to fit.

And then I stopped even wondering because I realized it didn't make any difference to me, and I started realizing fully and completely what this new development did mean. It looked as if, with the death of Sader, had gone any and all of the cracked and cockeyed hopes I might have had of pulling something, anything, to get myself out of the mess I was in.

And Flick took that very moment to start in on me.

"Lonely!" he snapped. "All the rest of you guys. Listen. Now you see what this Scott bastard's been trying? I told you guys he was lyin'. I tried to tell you. You gonna listen to me now?"

All four of the other men straightened up and walked over by Flick. They all had guns in their hands, and they kept both Flick and me covered, but they grouped around Flick and looked at me. I'd never had them really convinced, and I'd lost them now. But Flick had at me anyway. He'd been dying for this chance ever since I'd screwed him up in front of Breed and his chums. He took advantage of it now.

"Scott," he said softly, "get with it. Let's have a little co-operation, bright boy. Where's this safe with all the cabbage? Give us that goddam list you was singin' about." He stopped and looked at me.

I licked my lips and my tongue felt like a dry corncob. There wasn't even one gun pointed at Flick now. It was my scene; I'd had my cue, and five pairs of hostile eyes stared at me. And four guns pointed at me. Three .45 automatics scattered around, and one .38 revolver in Lonely's big right hand. It seemed like every time I turned around today I ran into a guy with a gun. Everybody had a gun—and they were all pointed at me.

And the boys with all these guns right now were waiting for me to muff my answer to Flick. I couldn't do anything but muff it.

I said, "Take it easy, boys. Don't jump to conclusions. Nothing's changed." Just words, and they knew it and it showed. "Look," I said, "I couldn't have known about this. It must have happened after I talked to Sader and made the arrangements. I. . ."

I stopped. I wasn't getting anywhere. This was one spot I wouldn't talk my way out of. But there was another reason for stopping. Flick had the widest grin on his face I'd seen all night He'd apparently been waiting for just what I'd said. I'd walked into his trap.

"You hear that, Lonely? Hear what he says, boys?" Flick stooped to the floor on the far side of the desk. I couldn't figure what he was doing at first, but he came up with a phone in his hands. It was the phone that had been on Sader's desk, and apparently when Marty had slumped forward, his left arm had knocked the phone to the carpet. Now Flick held the phone toward me, the base in his left hand, the receiver in his right.

Grinning, he said, "Scott, old pal. Somebody calls Sader now, what's he get? A busy signal, maybe?" He looked from one to another of the men around him. "That's what Breed got when he called. That right? It was busy? Why the hell wouldn't it be busy with the phone off the hook?"

Joe-Joe pulled on his slanting nose, separated himself from the crowd, and walked around behind me, his gun held carelessly in his right hand.

Flick looked at me. "You smart son of a bitch. You smart, dead son of a bitch. Talkin' to a dead man. Talkin' to nothing."

I knew it wasn't any use, but I said, "He was alive when I talked to him. Hell, you heard me; you were in the same room with me."

Lonely grew a sneer on his ugly face and Harry chuckled in his deep chest. Nobody said anything, and that was worse than if they'd started yelling at me.

I said desperately, "Don't let Flick throw you guys. He's just getting back at me, trying to save his own skin. Christ, use your heads."

It was no good. Silver-tongued Scott. Hah! The boys smelled blood now, and they were starting to enjoy it. I shivered; the blood they smelled was mine, and it was all I had.

I tried to think, think of something I could do, but that was no good either. There wasn't a thing. And being in a room with death didn't help me think any clearer. Sader's glazed eyes stared past me at nothing.

Flick slowly put the receiver on the white top of the desk, then jiggled the phone's hook up and down two or three times. He lifted the receiver to his ear, whirled the dial once, and said, "Operator, I've just discovered my phone's been off the hook for a while." He chuckled. "I'm expecting an important call. Any chance you could tell me how long the phone's been off the receiver?" He waited for a long minute, or half an hour. I don't know. Probably only a few seconds, but my time sense was shot and I kept staring at the phone in his hand.

Then Flick smiled and hung up. He said, "She doesn't know for sure, Lonely, but I'll bet it's an hour or more."

Lonely said, "Looks like it to me, Flick." He lifted his revolver and stepped toward me. I swallowed and tightened my muscles to jump. If he was going to shoot me, I was at least going to give him a fat lip.

Flick stepped forward and grabbed Lonely's arm. He was one of the boys again. "Wait a minute, Lonely. What you gonna do?"

"Breed said if this was a gag, not to bring him back, Flick."

Shenandoah piped up. He'd seemed the mildest and most nervous of the crew all along. Now he said "Shouldn't we be getting outta here?" He glanced toward Sader's body and added, "I don't like this."

Harry rubbed a hand along the black bristles on his chin and boomed, "Maybe we should dump this guy in the sticks someplace. What you think?"

These guys were full of ideas. As far as I was concerned, that's not all they were full of.

Flick spoke again. He turned to Lonely, who seemed to be in charge, and spoke earnestly. "Lonely, listen to me. You and all the boys is friends of mine. We been pretty thick. But this bastard turned you on me. He even got the boss thinking' I'm a fink. He's mine, Lonely."

They were treating me like the last pork chop. But I could see Flick was going to have his way. He said, "You heard me back at the office, Lonely. I swore I'd get the bastard in the gut. Another thing. Breed himself said if Scott was pulling one, he was all mine. You heard him."

Lonely made a casual decision—casual, again, in the way you look at it. "Sure, Flick. Take him up Benedict Canyon?"

Flick shook his head, grinning. "Uh-uh. I got it figured. I got it all figured." He stepped toward me, then stopped and turned to Shenandoah on his left. "Gimme your gun, Shen."

Shenandoah bobbed his head and handed over the gun as if he were glad to get rid of it. It was one of the Colt .45 automatics, and Flick pressed the magazine catch and expertly slipped out the magazine, loaded fully with its seven metal-jacketed cartridges, then snapped the clip back into the handle of the gun and, holding the gun in his left hand, jerked the slide back and let it snap forward. Then he transferred the gun to his right hand, cocked and ready to go, with the hammer laid back like an angry horse's ear and a 230-grain slug in the barrel chamber. He looked at me while he talked. "Scott comes in here, see, and he plugs Sader. Scott gets shot in the stomach."

He lingered lovingly over the word. "Shot in the stomach, and he drags himself out of the room here and dies. After a little while he dies."

My voice came out thick and a little hoarse. "That doesn't make sense, Flick. How would I shoot Sader in the back of the head, then get shot in the stomach and crawl around? That wouldn't make sense." My mouth was dry as a Texas prairie and I was cold as the night outside.

Flick snickered. "Who cares if it makes sense, Scott? You don't care, do you?" More of the damned cat and mouse. He didn't care what anybody thought, or if the deal was logical. He'd had enough of my logic. So had I; what had it got me? And Flick was simply getting a sadistic kick out of baiting me. He wasn't through, either; not quite.

"How you like that, Lonely? It looks like he crawls out of the room. Maybe we stick him out on the dance floor. Have him dancin'." He laughed. "We'll sprinkle a little of his blood around so it looks good."

My blood? So it looks good? I glanced out the door on my right, thinking it would be better to run than just stand here. But there wasn't any place to run.

I must have looked scared, and Flick was eating it up. He jerked his head toward the door and said, "Go on, Scott. Get ready."

I didn't know for sure whether he wanted me to move or not, but I took a couple of slow steps toward the door leading out of the office, my leg muscles so tight they were trembling.

Then Flick said, "Hold it a minute. Maybe I should pull it here. Huh?"

I saw Shenandoah hunch his shoulders a little, then wave a hand at Flick, and Flick said, "Go on, Scott. This is all mine. Slow, now. Awful slow. You can have it in the back if you want it like that."

I went through the door with Flick right behind me. He jabbed me with the gun and shoved me to the left outside the door. He told me to keep going. I took a couple of steps with my back crawling, which was just what he wanted. Then he said, "Hold it."

He stepped up behind me and all the banter had gone out of his voice. He jabbed the gun into my back and growled, "This is for you, baby. This is for playing me for a sucker, you black son of a bitch."

But he jabbed the gun into my back and left it there.

The idea had been burrowing in my head all day—from the moment I poked my gun into Flick's back in this room hours before—and now I didn't even think about what I was doing. Some of that old Marine training slammed into my keyed-up brain and went racing down the channels of a built-in conditioned reflex, and I spun around to my right with my right arm bent and tense and my left hand raising fast, thumb up, fingers straight out, and my whole hand stiffened into quivering rigidity.

My elbow banged into the gun as it went off with a roar that hammered my ears and the fire from the blast licked along my sleeve, but my open left hand was slamming down in a hard fast arc that ended against the taut muscles of Flick's right forearm. The gun dropped from his paralyzed fingers and a squawk started bursting out of his throat.

As soon as the edge of my left palm slugged into his flesh, I grabbed his arm. I could have snapped it in two, but I couldn't let that surprised yell get out of him. Off balance, I jabbed with the rigid fingers of my right hand and they cut into his throat as the yell died in a gurgle and I wrapped my fingers around his neck, squeezed till my arm muscles bulged, then pulled him toward me and threw my left fist into his face.

My fist landed high on his cheekbone, a glancing blow without the power I wanted behind it, but he went limp and folded forward. I dropped to one knee, scooped up the automatic from the carpet, and waited for trouble. The shot that had ripped past my sleeve had also raised a terrific racket inside the club. The boys inside would have heard it, and I waited for them to burst out the door.

I knelt there, tense, for long seconds before I woke up and realized they'd have been expecting a shot. A shot when a bullet was supposed to have ripped into my stomach. That was only temporary help, though I wanted out of here in the worst way, and I hadn't a prayer. Even if the idea of the dumb-waiter hadn't been idiotic, I couldn't get to it without passing the open door of the office—and I couldn't get to the too-slow-moving elevator without walking in bright light past the other open door.

"Flick? Hey, Flick?" somebody called from inside. "O. K., Flick?" It was Harry's rumbling voice.

I couldn't answer him. I tried to think what Flick might have done, and I laughed softly and as nastily as I could. It came out like the bleat of a starving lamb.

They'd be coming out in a minute. I couldn't get away, so there was only one thing left for me. If I stayed where I was, I might as well blow my brains out to speed it up. The only thing I had was a little element of surprise. I was supposed to be dead or dying, even if the boys were already starting to wonder. I knew what I had to do.

I was going back in there.

I was going back in with Flick's automatic in my fist, and I was going to go in there pulling the trigger and trying to kill all of those murdering bastards before they killed me. It was brutal, maybe, and it was going to be damn near murder, but it wasn't as brutal as their shooting me in the stomach, and I didn't have a second choice.

My hand was sweating so much I wondered if I'd drop the automatic, but I stood up straight, grabbed the gun tight in my hand, and started walking toward the open door of the office, clumping my feet heavily and carelessly on the carpet as if I didn't have a care in the world.

Chapter Sixteen

I WALKED close to the wall so I'd step out into the doorway suddenly. I stopped for a second, six inches inside the door's edge, and right then and there, with a kind of sickening rage at myself, I knew I couldn't start shooting and killing as soon as I went in. I've shot men before and maybe I'll shoot them again, but not in cold blood. I couldn't murder a man, shoot one in the back or the side of the head when he wasn't looking at me or expecting a shot.

And even if I could make myself do it, common sense screamed I'd never get away with jumping four men. Hell, not even Sam Spade could do that. But wait a minute—there weren't four to worry about; the gun in my hand was Shenandoah's, so he was unarmed.

I heard Harry's voice again, and his footsteps moving toward the door, as the thought raced through my mind that this cut it down a little, dropped the impossible odds, and if Harry. . .

For one fragmentary, detached moment of indecision I stood there. Then, as Harry's heavy foot fell just inside the door, I flipped the automatic's safety lock up and stepped the last six inches forward, raising the heavy gun high over my head, gripping trigger guard and barrel, the butt extending down beneath my hand. As Harry looked out the door I slammed thirty-nine ounces of gun down hard onto the middle of his skull.

My weighted arm must have traveled three feet before it cracked sickeningly against Harry's head, and even before he fell I pushed the safety down, slipped the butt of the gun back into my palm, and leaped past the falling man into the room.

"Hold it!" I yelled. "Don't move!" I caught a glimpse of Lonely at the desk with his hands full of phone starting to dial a number, just as a swirl of movement danced in the corner of my eye. Joe-Joe was on my right looking toward the door, with a gun in his hand swinging up toward me as a yell burst out of his lips.

He must have started toward the door after Harry, and he wasn't stopping now unless I stopped him. I snapped the gun toward him as I spun right and squeezed hard, almost convulsively, on the trigger. He was too close to miss. Flame leaped from the automatic, almost touching his chest, and I heard the heavy .45 slug smack into his body as it slammed him backward clear across the room, twisting him around as his own gun bucked in his hand. He squeezed down on the trigger of his gun again, but it was pointing toward the floor now. Then the gun fell from his hand as he hit the wall. He didn't go down right away, just spread his hands behind him against the wall, but I jerked my eyes away from him. I'd heard the phone clatter from Lonely's hands to the desk top and thud to the floor as he dug for his revolver, and he got it out just as I wheeled toward him.

I jumped to my left, leaning toward him, flipped a shot at him, and missed as he raised the .38 and fired almost point-blank. The slug smashed into my chest or shoulder somewhere high on the left side and spun me up against the left side of the door as I triggered the gun again. I was hardly conscious of the pain yet; my right arm extended toward Lonely with the gun at my arm's end blazing. There was a frozen moment while we faced each other across the room, and I saw the red blink from the muzzle of his gun and then I saw the bridge of his nose grow dark as a bullet slammed through it and into his brain, thrusting his head back suddenly and hurling the back of his skull against the wall behind him. He staggered heavily, then fell backward away from the desk.

Shenandoah was standing to the left of the desk, facing me, and without even thinking, my heart pounding so hard it seemed almost to shake my body, I twisted the gun toward him and stopped myself a fraction of a second before I pulled the trigger.

He stood there without moving a muscle, scared stiff. I'd almost forgotten that it was his gun Flick had taken and that was in my hand now. I'd almost shot an unarmed man, but if he'd had a gun, I'd have been dead for sure. I stepped toward him and he stood rooted in his tracks. He didn't look as if he intended giving me any trouble, so I kept the gun on him while I kicked the automatic Joe-Joe had dropped across the room, then fumbled in the drawers of Sader's desk. I remembered Iris had been taped up when I was here before, and I kept looking till I found a white roll of adhesive tape. Shenandoah didn't let out a peep while I wrapped him up like a Christmas package.

I looked around me then, reaction starting to set in. I still couldn't believe it, and I was suddenly almost sick, my stomach churning.

The place looked like a Roman amphitheater after a tag match. At my feet Shenandoah rested quietly like a partially wrapped mummy. Harry was sprawled face down in the doorway, and over against the wall Joe-Joe breathed raggedly through his open mouth. He'd slid down the wall to the floor and sat there with his eyes open and swimming with shock, his hands pressed against the right side of his chest. He flinched away from me as I looked at him, a faint noise squeezing out of his throat as a little red froth spilled over his lips and bubbled from his nose. I hated to think what the inside of his chest was like.

Lonely wasn't breathing. He was all through breathing, and he didn't have a back to his head. And Marty Sader kept on staring out the open door behind me.

In the sudden flurry of guns, and among all these damn bodies, I'd forgotten about Marty. Come to think of it, he'd started all this; he'd wanted some extra bucks, some extra power, something—I wouldn't ever know what he'd really wanted. A full meal, maybe. Maybe just some more weight to throw around. "What can I do for you, Mr. Scott?" he'd said, calm as hell, unruffled. Well, he'd finally lost his poise. I couldn't feel sorry.

I sighed and transferred the automatic to my left hand, then ran my right hand under my coat. Pain jumped through my nerves as my fingers gouged the spot where Lonely's bullet had hit me. I'd been crouched a bit, leaning toward him, and the bullet had struck high on my chest near the armpit and torn through the flesh and out under my arm, burning a separate, short furrow under my left arm itself. Another couple of inches, I thought. As it was, I'd carry the scar for the rest of my life—but there was going to be a rest of my life. At least the prospects were better.

Surprisingly there wasn't much bleeding, and I thanked my luck that Lonely had carried a .38. The bullet apparently hadn't hit anything important—nothing important, that is, except me—and there was just a little blood and a lot of burning where the slug had sliced through.

I did what I could to stop the bleeding, using two handkerchiefs—the pretty one from my coat and the other one from my hip pocket—clamped my arm to my side, and walked over to the desk.

I could use my left arm, although it burned and hurt when I moved it, so I dropped the automatic into my coat pocket, bent and picked up the fallen phone, shifted the receiver to my left hand, and jiggled the hook with my right. I got the buzz in my ear and dialed City Hall and Police Headquarters. I had a long, lousy-story I was finally ready to tell the boys at Homicide.

I didn't tell it, though.

I had to do something stupid. I guess it wouldn't have been me if I hadn't, and though I could see all the boys in the room in case they moved or started jumping up and down clicking their heels, I'd shoved Flick into the back of my mind and buried him there.

It wasn't smart. I should have known that in my excitement and hurry when I'd slugged him, I hadn't made sure of a good job, but there was no point in remembering now.

He didn't burst in and start blazing away at me, though. I didn't even see him. But as I lifted the receiver to my ear and glanced toward the door, I saw the little light bulb burning brightly above it. The elevator was already going up and I slammed the phone on the desk, jumped to the office door, and looked out. No Flick. He was on his way. I ran back to the squawking phone, grabbed it, and yelled to the man at the complaint board, "Gang killing at the Pit on Seventh. Dead guys all over," and even as I jammed the receiver back on the hook, the light over the door blinked out.

I jumped toward the door in the corner of the office, the one Marty had gone out of for the last time. It was locked, with no knob in sight, but I could see the keyhole where Marty had inserted his key. I didn't have time to start looking for his key ring; I knew damn well that Flick would head straight for Breed and spill the lowdown on me, and I knew what that would mean for Iris. I had to catch Flick or get out there before he did.

I jerked the gun from my pocket, aimed at where the lock should be, and fired two shots into the door. The wood splintered. I kicked the door and it gave; one more kick and it was open. I found the ladder Sader had mentioned, and went up it and into the alley. I could hear the police sirens now.

The black Cadillac was gone. As I ran toward the second car, the Plymouth, I started to jerk the clip from the butt of the automatic and check the full loads. I started to, but there was no need to do it. The slide stop had caught the slide and was holding it open, which meant the magazine was empty. What slugs I hadn't thrown around down below, I'd blasted through the lock on the door. I flipped the slide release, the slide snapped forward, and I dropped the empty gun in my pocket, then yanked open the Plymouth's door as the sad and eerie wail of the sirens grew louder in my ears.

Chapter Seventeen

THE KEYS were in the ignition.

I switched them on, ground the motor alive, and gunned ahead straight through to the end of the alley, then skidded around to my left in a screaming turn that slued the car from one side of Sixth Street to the other. I straightened the car out and jammed the accelerator to the floor boards.

As I barreled across Olive Street the sirens were shrieking close, and from the corner of my right eye I caught the red glare of the police spotlight on a car speeding hell for leather this way on a "Code 3." I kept my eyes straight ahead till I reached Figueroa, then ripped right toward the Freeway and the hell with one-way streets and stop signs. In two minutes I was roaring at eighty miles an hour down the six-lane highway. Up ahead I could see the bobbing red spot of a taillight I couldn't be sure that was Flick, but whoever it was, he was in one hell of a hurry. I was gaining on him, though, and that surprised me, because Flick was in the faster car. But, then, he wouldn't know I was back here.

Then I was almost certain it was Flick. The car ahead was black, and though it might well have been a Cad I couldn't be positive from this distance. But the outline was the same. And then it started pulling away from me—just what Flick would do when he realized somebody was coming like a bat out of hell behind him. I was sure that was Flick ahead of me now, and he was headed straight for Riverside Drive.

I flicked my eyes to the dash long enough to see the needle swinging between the eighty- and ninety-mile-an-hour marks. That was faster than I cared to go, ever, and I wished to Christ I had my Cad. It's old, but it's fast, and I know everything it can and can't do. But I sucked in a breath and shoved the throttle down as far as it would go.

Not much happened. Flick kept pulling away from me on this straightaway, then went out of sight around a curve, but the needle on the speedometer of the Plymouth crept slowly up to ninety-five and hung there quivering. I quivered right along with it. We were damn near there; it wasn't going to take any twenty minutes at this speed, and in a mile or less we'd hit the sharp and narrow left turn up ahead leading into Riverside Drive. I caught a glimpse of a taillight up ahead, flaring brighter, then it went out of sight again.

I was through the four tunnels and on the turn almost before I knew it, but I was already riding the brake. I gave it all I could without sluing into a skid, and the car's speed had dropped as I angled to the left and hit the inside of the curve.

I caressed that steering wheel as if it were a woman's thigh, eased the wheel over holding my breath and jamming my teeth together as the car reached the center of the short curve's arc, then slipped my foot off the brake and rammed it down on the accelerator, squeezing toward the outer edge of the road and the curb before the pavement and the low cement wall there. The motor roared and I heard the wheels skidding, spinning a little as the car slipped sideways, but I kept my foot on the throttle. If I let up now, I'd go right over the wall. She skidded some more, jerked slightly as the right wheels brushed the curb, and the cement wall on my right ripped backward past me like a white ribbon spinning past the car.

The road started to straighten out as the tires squealed, then I was gripping the wheel and the car was racing parallel to the curb, an inch or two from it, and still bearing to the left. But I wasn't skidding any more, and now the road was straight ahead of me. I went right through the stop sign beyond the end of the curve.

I wanted to stop the car. I'd made it up to here, but I wanted to get out of the Plymouth and lie down on the street and roll around. But I'd lost more ground; the red taillight was farther away, two or three hundred yards from me.

Then the light flared brightly as he braked and stopped, the rear end swaying as he skidded. Breed's. Breed's Finance Company, and Flick was there. But I was eating up the distance, and I was close enough to see a man leap from the right door of the car and turn up the walk as I started braking.

He was out of sight as I skidded a little, let up on the brake, then shoved it down again thirty feet from the Cadillac. The Plymouth slammed into the back of the Cad and shuddered to a halt as I jumped for the right door of the car and outside with the sound of shots crashing against my ears. I landed, sprawling, then got my feet under me and sprinted for the open door ahead, digging for the automatic in my pocket. An empty gun, but better than nothing.

There was no sound now except the slap of my feet on the pavement as I raced through the open door of the building and caught the flash of light spilling from the room in back. Except for the noise I made, the place was silent as death. And I had the tight, heart-laboring feeling that I'd find death inside that farther door standing ajar.

If I went in I had to go in fast, no matter what was in there and I kept my legs driving and hit the door with my extended left hand, the useless gun in my right. Pain leaped in my arm and chest as the door burst wide open and I leaped inside the room. I took two steps and stumbled over something on the floor, and fell to my knees, my left hand slipping through a slime of blood.

My head snapped down toward the floor as I fell and a spinning flash of white features and blood leaped up at me before I pulled my head up again and caught a blurred glimpse of Iris hanging forward in a wooden chair, her head drooping forward on her limp neck. And then I saw Collier Breed above me, a gun in his right hand slashing downward toward my head.

On my knees, I jerked to my right and the gun jarred against my left shoulder, pain knifing through my arm and chest. But Breed's fat paunch was right in front of my eves and I jammed the automatic in my right hand hard against it and damn near buried the gun in his flabby flesh.

Breed let out a panicky cry. "No, no! Don't—gun's empty! Don't shoot! Please, God, don't shoot!"

Hell, I wasn't about to shoot.

He dropped the empty gun to the floor and raised his hands high over his head. "Don't," he said again.

With his jelly paunch jutting out and his arms high over his head, Breed looked like a flesh copy of Hotei, the Chinese happiness god, only he wasn't happy. He was so nervous his lips were shaking and the loose jowls of his face were trembling.

"Turn around, Breed," I told him.

"Scott. Don't shoot me, Scott."

"Turn around, you bastard."

He turned around and I glance down again at the dead body of Flick on the floor. He was blood all over, and he'd been pumped full of holes. It was easy to figure now: Breed must have emptied his gun into the guy.

I glanced at the back of Breed's head. I wasn't going to shoot him, but I was going to try caving in his skull. It was getting to be a habit. It seemed as though I were making a career of batting guys on the head. This one, though, was going to be a pleasure.

I switched the empty gun around with the barrel in my hand and I asked Breed's back, "What's your name, boy?"

He said, "What?"

I said pleasantly, "That's the wrong answer," nodded happily at a spot over his head, hauled back my arm, and let him have it good.

He went plop on the floor and I looked down at him and I asked him, "How is it, boy?" Then I walked over to Iris.

She was still lashed to the chair where I'd last seen her, her head hanging forward. I didn't need to feel for her pulse; her breasts rose and fell with her slow breathing and color was in her face. I left her for a moment while I hunted up the lavatory. There was a washbasin there, and I ripped off a piece of my shirt and soaked it in water. She was still out when I got back. Before I touched her, I turned her chair around so she faced the wall, away from the bloody thing on the floor. Then I picked loose the ropes binding her wrists and held her while I pressed the cold, water-soaked rag against her forehead and the back of her neck. Finally her smooth lips twitched a little and her eyes fluttered.

It was plain enough what had happened here, but I wanted to get it from Iris, too. She probably wouldn't enjoy it; I imagine she was as shot as I was.

Her eyes opened and she blinked, her eyes not quite focusing. Then she gasped, opened her mouth wide, and screamed right in my face. I slapped her once, hard, and the scream stopped abruptly.

"It's all right, Iris," I said. "It's O.K. Relax."

She blinked at me, then sighed deeply, put her head down, and shuddered. When she looked at me again I said, "Hello, honey," and she sobbed, "Oh, Shell," and put her head forward on my chest and sobbed some more. She wasn't crying, just gasping and sobbing, saying, "Oh," over and over.

Finally she smiled a little. "I'm all right now."

"Can you tell me about it?" She nodded. Then she sat quietly for a few moments. I said, "Hang on a second, honey," took the ropes I'd untied from Iris, and went back to Breed. He was lying forward on his face, and I put his arms behind his back and cramped his legs up next to them and hog-tied him, which seemed appropriate for Breed. When I let him go he looked as if he'd rock back and forth if you pushed him, like one of those curved desk blotters.

As I looked at him lying on his stomach I noticed that, while his fat buttocks bulged up into the air under the sloppy triangle made by his bound arms and legs, the left half bulged better. And right then it occurred to me that either he was deformed or else he'd suddenly become my client and I was going to get a fee out of this mess.

He wasn't deformed. I slipped my hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a wallet that was as much overweight as Breed was. I looked inside the wallet and eyed a flock of green bills and deliberated at length for maybe half a second, thinking that I'd been shot at, roughed up, and sapped while Breed gazed happily at me, and that all because of him I'd been recently surrounded by so much blood that I'd felt like a red corpuscle—and surely, in view of all the unrest he'd caused me, he wouldn't begrudge me a small fee.

I pulled out eight C notes and four fifty-dollar bills and transferred them to my wallet. On one of my business cards I wrote the date and scribbled, "Received from Collier Breed $1,000 for services endured," signed it "Shell Scott," and put the card in his wallet and the wallet back in his pants. There was enough left in the wallet so that he still looked deformed.

Feeling jollier than I had for hours, I went back to Iris, kneeled down by her, and asked her to fill me in from the start.

She began, "He—Breed—kept getting more and more nervous after all of you left. He asked me if I knew Flick was working for Sader. I kept it the way you'd started it, told him I thought so, that I'd seen them together."

She took a deep breath, then went on. "When it was time for that man, that Lonely, to phone him, he started walking back and forth, back and forth. Finally he dialed the phone himself. I think he called the Pit. He talked to somebody there, then hung up and just sat for a long time. He looked worried and frightened." She put a hand to her head and shook it. "Still a little dizzy," she said.

"I'll get you some water. But, Iris—don't turn around."

She flinched. "I won't."

I found a glass in the washroom and filled it with water for her. I could see what had happened to Breed: when Lonely hadn't phoned him, Breed must have called the Pit while the police were there and found out enough to scare the pants off him. Then he knew damn well I'd been giving him a snow job, and he must have figured Flick was right in it with me. And Flick was the boy I'd said was supposed to murder Breed. No wonder he'd been nervous.

I took the water back to Iris, and she went on after she drank it. "Breed got out the gun he had, mumbling to himself about you and about Flick. I couldn't understand it. He didn't say anything to me. After a while I heard a car drive up outside and someone running up the walk. Breed jumped to his feet and pointed the gun at the door and—and Flick came running in. Breed shot him. He shot him and kept on shooting. I'm afraid I fainted."

I could understand that. I said, "Well, honey, it's over. Most of it. If nothing else, Breed's stuck with at least a second-degree murder rap. Forget it."

"I'll never forget it."

I believe that. I'd never forget this business either. I'd been rubbing Iris' wrists, and she winced as the circulation started picking up. But she was lucky there was nothing more than that wrong with her.

I went over to Breed's dark brown desk and used the phone to call Homicide. I told them what was out here, hung up, and went back to Iris.

"The police are coming out, Iris. Be here in a few minutes." I paused as I remembered something. Then I went on. "Honey, you'll have to talk to the cops anyway. Do you mind waiting out front till they get here, then telling them what's happened? The whole thing, starting from yesterday morning?"

"No, Shell, I don't mind. Why?"

"I won't be here. Come on."

We went out front and waited by my old Cadillac, still here from the time Joe-Joe had driven us from the cabin. It seemed like a week ago. I climbed in and Iris waited outside. I sat there till I heard the sirens getting close, then I started the motor.

Iris asked me, "Where are you going, Shell?"

"Some things to do. Unfinished business, honey. I'll be down at headquarters later. Probably see you there. Keep your chin up."

She smiled, and I drove away just before the radio car came up and stopped in front of Breed's building. I wanted out of here not just because I'd get tied up for a long time—that was coming sooner or later—but because I was thinking about the initials on that tiny handkerchief Joe-Joe had found by Marty Sader's desk, and remembering that Kitty was short for Catherine.

Chapter Eighteen

I DROVE FAST, concentrating on the road, keeping my mind on the highway ahead and the wheel in my hands. I didn't want to think about anything else, but the thoughts kept crowding up anyway. The drive didn't seem to take long; all of a sudden I was there.

I parked, cut off the motor, got out of the Cad, and stood looking at the little white house for a moment. It looked the same as it had when I'd been here for the first time. A light burned inside, as it had before, and a few leaves blown by the wind scraped over the cement walk as I went toward the house.

I remembered Kitty's face falling apart while she talked on the phone, and I remembered the fury flashing in her eyes as she hurled a vase at me, and I remembered the silent trembling of her small shoulders when I'd last driven her here. But most of all I thought of her mint-cooled voice and her bubbling laughter, and I had an idea I wasn't going to like this; I wasn't going to like it at all.

But I had to be sure. The door was unlocked. I opened it and went inside, and the funny thing was that the first thing I saw was the gun. It was on the carpeted floor, only two or three inches from her dangling right hand. She had on a pair of bright cotton pajamas and she was lying on her left side against pillows piled at the end of the couch across the room from me. Her head dangled forward, the short, dark hair slightly mussed, and a small, almost dainty hole was in her right temple. The little gun was a .22 and it was under her hand where it would have dropped after she shot herself in the head.

Only, of course, she hadn't shot herself.

I walked over to the couch and looked down at her, and I said softly, "I'm sorry, Kitty. I'm sorry as hell. You were worth ten of her any day." That didn't do either of us any good.

There was a framed picture in her lap and I looked at it. It was of Marty Sader and inscribed, "To my darling Kitty." There was a letter, too, on the floor, but I didn't read it. All the props were there, but there were so many things wrong with it that it screamed out loud.

I went out of the house and shut the door quietly behind me and headed for Nichols Canyon Road and Mrs. Vivian Sader, who had practiced too long with her little .22 revolver.

I drove right up in the driveway and parked. I'd been seething all the way out here and I was looking forward to seeing old horseface inside. I hoped she was inside. If she had a hole in her head, I was going to lose the last of my sanity and crawl gibbering to the nearest asylum.

I got out of the car and trotted up to the door, noticing there was a light on inside, and started to knock, and didn't. There was no hole in her head, but I might wind up with one in mine. Take it back. If anything, I'd wind up without a head at all.

It wasn't a cannon, but it was the monster bore of the lethal piece of machinery I'd seen earlier—yesterday it had been—out behind the house where Mrs. Sader was popping away at Truman's picture tacked onto some bales of hay.

Now it was in Mrs. Sader's right hand, and it looked too big for her hand, but her finger was curled around the trigger.

She said, "Come in, Mr. Scott," in a flat voice, all on one level with hardly any inflection. She had some kind of beads around her neck and she kept playing with them while she spoke.

I shivered at the eerie pitch of her voice, and looked at her, and suddenly I wasn't looking at the beads or the bore of the big gun. I was looking at the madness staring out of her eyes.

"Come in, Mr. Scott."

Mrs. Sader said it again and moved the gun slightly. I went on inside as she backed up. I'd had so many guns pointed at me I was used to it. The one she had was just bigger, that was all.

I said, "I wish it had been you, damn you."

She smiled sadly and said, "Bad, bad, they were bad." She looked right through my eye sockets as she had before, as if there were something unpleasant on the back of my head. After what Lonely had done back there, I guess there was. She hissed, "Sinners! She deserved to die. So did he."

"You didn't really think you'd get away with it, did you?" I was watching her. Just as soon as I got the chance, if I ever did, I was going to jump her and maybe break her neck.

She answered me flatly, "I did what was right. I did what was right."

I laughed at her. "But you sure tried to make it look like murder and suicide. How'd you get Marty to go back to the Pit?"

"I asked him to. It was"—she frowned—"important. It was important."

It had been important to Marty, all right. It didn't really make much difference what she'd told Marty to get him there; she'd done it. I said, "And that sweet little kid. Was she in bed when you went out there? Did you get her out of bed and get her sitting on the couch and shoot her in the head? Then leave that junk around her?"

She looked at me out of those frightening, staring eyes. She didn't say anything, but she was humming. Humming! This was a picnic.

The blood boiled in my head. "If I get my hands on you, I'll kill you, woman." I don't know whether I meant it or not, and it wasn't a smart thing to say, but I hated her in that second. And then I got what she was humming. I couldn't place it for sure, but it was some kind of hymn.

And it hadn't made any difference what I'd said to her. I don't think she even heard me.

"Come," she said.

"What?"

"Come." She waved toward the back of the house. Not with the gun, though. With her other hand. She wasn't that crazy.

I didn't get this. Was she going to take me out back and shoot me? Maybe she had a big grave already dug out there somewhere; she looked like a gravedigger. It was going to be real cute if I shot up a whole roomful of hoods, charged all over hell throwing my weight around, and then was blasted to small pieces by a little old lady with her marbles scattered.

I did what she said.

I walked toward the back of the house as a little dizziness swept over me and I got that hot sickness in my throat again. And the place where I'd been shot throbbed and burned. I noticed that every damn light in the house was on. I kept on walking and she tramped along behind me humming that hymn. I wasn't sure, but maybe I'd heard that hymn at a funeral.

I got clear to the back door of the house before she stopped me. There was a switch on the wall to my left and she said, "Stop there. Turn on that switch, please." She was polite about it.

I started to lift my hand, and pain jumped through my arm and chest. I stopped and reached with my right hand, and she spoke again.

"Wait! Why did you stop?"

I turned and looked at her. "My arm's hurt. I got shot. O. K.?"

She smiled a sweet, sweet smile, and nodded toward the switch. She stayed several feet away from me and played with her beads.

I turned on the switch and light flooded the whole back of the house. I could see the pepper tree under which I'd first seen this witch sitting, the branches bending and whipping now in the high wind.

"Go on out." Then she started humming again.

I went. I kept hoping for a chance to jump her, but I wasn't getting any. Most of the time my back was toward her, and the rest of the time she was too far away. She might not be a very good shot, but all she had to do was nick me with one of the balls from that bazooka, and the impact would probably unravel me.

I kept going and we walked to the tune of her off-key musical accompaniment till we got to the barn. There was a long, heavy ladder lying alongside the barn.

"Pick up the ladder," she said.

"What?" This was a new one. Maybe she thought she was going to climb to heaven. Well, I'd be glad to hold the ladder for her—till she got to the top. I grinned, thinking about it.

She snapped, "Pick it up!"

Apparently she meant it. I'd had time for some of my shock and anger to die down to a dull throb inside me by now, and I was getting increasingly worried about the possibility of getting a hole through my frame. There wasn't any way to figure this cracked gal; she might suddenly take it into her mind to pot at me instead of Truman.

I bent over with no more hesitation, not grinning any more, and got hold of the ladder about the middle. I managed to hoist it off the ground, but the strain sent pain gnawing at my chest and left arm. The dry, stiff wind snatched at the ladder and made it even more unwieldy.

And now I could tell how tired I was. I'd been up since early the morning before, and I hadn't been resting. My heart pounded a little faster with the strain of lifting, and a throbbing began inside my head.

I thought of swinging the ladder around and busting this gal, but it felt as if it weighed a ton, and I barely got the end of it swinging toward her when she said, "Walk away from me. Don't try to get away, Mr. Scott."

She said it calmly and flatly, but the end of the ladder had another ten feet to go and was moving about six inches a second. This was a losing game. I walked away from her toward the house, dragging the rear end of the ladder on the ground behind me. She tripped along, humming her dirge.

Finally it hit me that maybe I wasn't going to get away from here alive. Not without help. And here we were far from town and a good hundred yards from another house, so where the hell would I get help? This was great. Private-eye Scott and a cracked little woman. And I needed help.

At the house she said, "Put the ladder up to the window."

It puzzled me, but I worked on it. I got the ladder halfway up the side of the house and rested it against the wood momentarily. I was probably scratching that brand-new coat of white paint. I was glad.

Mrs. Sader said, "Go on."

I turned halfway toward her. "I'm beat. I'm ready to drop." I wasn't kidding, either. "I told you I got shot, and I'm just plain tired. Let me rest a minute, then up it goes."

She was content to wait. She wanted that ladder up there. I started getting an idea why, and I looked up toward the window. I'd stood there yesterday watching Mrs. Sader at target practice. It was her room. The blinds and curtains were drawn, but I could see there was a light on inside. And right underneath the window were the four bales of hay. My brain started clicking again, slowly.

I said, "Mrs. Sader, I—I'm dizzy." I shook my head and reached into my right-hand coat pocket and wrapped my fingers around my Zippo cigarette lighter.

She raised her voice. "Stop! Stop! Stop! I'll shoot you."

I froze. "I want a cigarette. I told you I'm dizzy." I didn't think she'd shoot unless she had to. Maybe she was nuts, but she had a plan and she'd stick to it all the way if she could. At least I thought she would. Be hell if I was wrong.

"No!" she said. "Put up the ladder."

I moved slowly and brought my hand out of my pocket with care, and reached up and got hold of the ladder. But the lighter was still in my right hand. I shoved the heavy ladder up another six feet and there were only about four feet to go till it hit the window. And I was two feet from those four bales of dry, dry hay, some of it now scattered by the wind.

I looked at Mrs. Sader. "Far enough? Don't know if I can make it."

"No." But she helped. She moved to her left a few feet, watching me, the bore of the gun steady on me. It helped because that put her a little to the left of the bales, and that's where I wanted her.

"O.K.," I said, and made a great show of straining at the ladder. I pushed the top up till it touched the sill of the window and slid the base of the ladder in toward the wall of the house, and strands of hay brushed at my coat.

Mrs. Sader had a clear shot at the middle of my back, but maybe, maybe she couldn't see my right hand, and I moaned, "Dizzy. Christ, I'm dizzy," and leaned up against the bales of hay and shoved the lighter up against the crack at the bottom of the two top bales.

I flipped the damn little flint on the damn little lighter and nothing happened except that Mrs. Sader said, "Come away. Come away now," and I thought merrily, Why zip, zip, zip. . .when one zip does it!

"Come away!" she piped, and I saw I had the lighter backward in my hand and I twisted it around and went zip again, and the most beautiful little flame in all this wide world flared and flickered in my hand. I shoved the lighter, still open and burning, between the two bales of hay and stepped back from them and took a step toward Mrs. Sader so she'd look straight at me.

She did, and she backed up a step and said, "Go in the house."

Maybe she meant in through the back, but just in case there was a little fire smoldering, I didn't want her to spot it yet. I walked around to the front, up on the porch, and inside with her right behind me.

"Up the stairs," she said, and I went up the wide old stairs to the second floor, stalling as much as I could. She directed me into her bedroom and there we stopped. Her bedroom. Why did it have to be her bedroom?

I turned around and said, "Say! This is wonderful. Wonderful!" I wasn't sure how you humored a crazy person, but I had a stab at it. A woman, even a crazy woman, should react to flattery, I thought.

She did. Not much, but it was a start. "Do you think so?" Still not much inflection in her voice, but some.

"I sure do," I told her. "I'd never have thought of it, myself. And another thing, Mrs. Sader. The rest of it was smart, too."

She beamed. Then she frowned. "I thought so. I thought it was perfect. But you figured it out."

"No." I shook my head solemnly. If I could just keep her talking a little while. Talking about anything, just to use up time. "Not at all," I said. "But you did plan it all, didn't you? You got Marty to go to the Pit and shot him there. Then you shot her at her place and fixed up the letter and picture. Isn't that right, now?"

She nodded slowly. "That's right; that's right. But I didn't think—"

I cut her off. I wanted her to stay happy. "But I didn't figure it out, Mrs. Sader. You were very clever. Very clever. I certainly admire you."

She was still frowning. "But how did you know?"

In a confidential whisper I said, "I saw you." Then I wondered if maybe I was nuts. How stupid was I going to get? But she didn't laugh at me. That's right; she was nuts.

But she didn't get very happy. She said, "Go over by the window."

Here it was. It was getting close. And now I was sure I knew what her warped mind had planned for me.

I moved, all right, but I stopped before I got to the curtained window where she wanted me and I said, "How did you ever think of this?"

She stared glassy-eyed at me, fiddling with her beads and humming, and didn't answer.

I swallowed and said quickly, "See if I got it! I'm coming in the window and you shoot me. Right?"

She nodded.

"Boy!" I said. "That's swell!" The words stuck in my throat.

She smiled a little.

I kept on going, trying to keep her interested. "I'm coming in through the window. I sneaked out here and got the ladder and started to sneak in. I got just inside the window and you shot me. Right?"

"That's right."

"I'm coming in to—to attack you!" I was really getting carried away.

Her lips pressed tight. I'd said the wrong thing again.

"Over to the window."

I was damned if I'd move. If I got there I was sure she'd blaze away at me. Blaze. . .If I wasn't imagining things, it was warmer here in the bedroom.

She wiggled the big gun.

"Tell me one thing," I yelped. "Why did you do it? To them?"

"They were evil. They were sinners." At least she was still talking. And I could hear her.

"Sure," I said. "But why kill them?"

She hummed a few snatches, then she said, "He told me."

I gawked. "Huh? Who?"

"He."

"Who?"

"He."

I was afraid if I gave out with another "Who?" she'd shoot me. I wouldn't have blamed her.

I heard it then. At first I though it might be my imagination, but I listened till I was sure. The cracking and the roar of fire.

"Mrs. Sader," I said. "Listen."

She listened and she frowned and she said, "What—what is it?"

I said, "Perhaps, Mrs. Sader, perhaps it's a sign."

She looked straight at me, but she wasn't humming.

She was still listening. The noise was getting louder now, rising high over the wind swirling about the old house. It was the roar of a good-sized fire, and suddenly the acrid smell of smoke was in my nostrils. I'd been too busy to notice it before. And it was definitely warmer.

I grinned at Mrs. Sader. One thing, if nothing else: I'd set her goddam house on fire.

She had a little frown on her face and she looked more like a horse than ever. A sick horse.

I yelled at the top of my voice, almost screaming, "It's a sign! It's a sign, Mrs. Sader!" and right then the heat swelling outside and running up the dry wooden wall and eating away at that new coat of white paint cracked all hell out of the bedroom window. The glass gave with a sharp splintering sound and fragments tinkled to the floor, and dear old wild-eyed Vivian let out a strangled moan and ran hippety-hop out of the room.

I hesitated a second, then I raced out after her. It was sort of funny. Here I was in a burning house, with a crazy woman, and the two of us were scampering around the top floor like mad, and like mad was right. It suddenly stopped being funny.

I piled out the door and I spotted her about twenty feet down the long hall leading to the north wing, and just then she spun around and leveled that great big gun at me and blasted away.

I dived for the floor and skidded on the carpet as the glass window crashed at the end of the hall on my left. I kept rolling, pain raking through me, as she blasted at me and missed again. I came up against the door, reached for the knob, twisted it, and fell into the room. Pretty soon my nose would look like Joe-Joe's.

Then I heard her footsteps thumping down the hall away from me, getting fainter. I jumped back into the hall in time to see her running with her skirts pulled high up over her knees. It didn't do a thing for me. She went through a door on her left, on the forward side of the house, before she reached the door at the hall's end. For a minute there I'd thought she was headed for the roof.

I got out of there.

I walked to the stairs, ran down them, and got outside. My Cad was parked close to the house, and the way the place was blazing now, the car was going to get burned too. I climbed in, started the engine, and backed out the drive. I parked on the street in front, then walked back to about fifty feet from the house and stood watching it burn.

Flames were shooting high into the air now, twisting in the wind, and I wondered when the fire engines would be getting here. That had been the main reason I'd started the blaze, and I'd hoped the fire boys would have arrived before now. This was more than I'd bargained for. I didn't like the idea of getting shot, but all I'd wanted was a little help, not a holocaust. I strained my ears listening for the sound of sirens, but I couldn't hear anything over the crackling roar of the flames. Already heat licked out at me and swept across my face, even where I stood.

I started getting worried; this damn thing was getting out of hand. When were those blasted engines going to get here? I could hardly leave Mrs. Sader, no matter what she'd done, in there to burn. I got out a cigarette and nervously fumbled for a light. No lighter. That was a small loss; I had a whole house now.

I crumpled the cigarette in my hand and threw the weed away. I still couldn't hear sirens, and the whole back of the house was flaming and shooting sparks into the air. Flames were licking even along the right side of the place, up at the front. It wouldn't be long now, with those dry, drafty walls cooking and half the windows in the place open.

The hell with it. I went back in. Insanity must be contagious.

There was smoke swirling all through the lower floor and it bit into my lungs as I ran through the front door and pounded up the stairway to the top. I was here, but how did I get to the stupid woman?

I walked left down the long hall to the door I'd seen her enter. When I got there I was afraid to open it. I was afraid if I did she'd spot me and take another shot at me. I stood there two or three minutes, maybe longer, undecided what to do, and then I heard her singing. She must have been singing as loud as she could, because the sound was coming from my left, back toward the stairway, and I could hear it even above the rising noise of the wind and the flames.

She came out of a door forty feet down the hall, the huge gun still in her hand. She looked up toward the ceiling, then around her, alternately coughing and singing away like mad till she spotted me. She stopped singing just long enough to level the gun. The song had words, but I couldn't make them out; I probably wouldn't have understood them, anyway.

"Boop-boop-be-doop. . ." Then she leveled the revolver and let fly a slug the size of a billiard ball.

She missed me by four feet, but I didn't give her another chance. I opened the same door she'd gone through a little while back and jumped through, then eased back and peeked at her. She stood where she'd been when she shot at me. She kept on singing.

I watched her a while, fascinated, then decided the hell with this old coot. She'd had all of the unwanted help I was putting out this night. I was going to get out of here some way, and she could stay if she wanted to. And then I saw that, even if I could get by her without picking up a bullet on the way, it wouldn't be much good. Beyond her another twenty feet, flames licked up toward the ceiling at the top of the stairway. I'd been so cute I was stuck up here with my crazy woman.

Chapter Nineteen

THE LADDER!

Sure. That was as brilliant as most of my ideas. The first part of the house that had started to burn was the part the ladder leaned against She was between me and its ashes, anyway. And from here it was a long jump to the ground.

Now, finally, I heard the sad and lonesome wailing of sirens Only this time it was a sweet, pleasant sound, and it was about time. I backed into the room and locked the door. I was damned if I was going to have Mrs. Sader sneaking up behind me. Then I turned to the front of the room so I could throw up the window.

But there wasn't any window. There had been, but the heat had cracked it and flames licked through it now. The curtains caught and flared as I started forward, and I almost singed my white eyebrows black. The front of the house was cooking, too, and I got a twitch of panic in my stomach. This whole blasted place was going to go before much longer. I was coughing frequently now, and my eyes were streaming.

Sirens screamed to a stop in front of the house, more wailing behind them. I imagined men scurrying over the lawn, but I couldn't see them. Those big trucks would have a tough time stopping anywhere but in front and in back of the house because of the sloping sides of the hill the house sat on. And here I was. How the hell—The roof! From the roof I could see them and they could see me. I remembered when I'd first searched the house for Iris I'd found the steps to the roof. Here we go, Scott. Over the top again.

The steps to the roof were down here, right at the end of the hall. I was going through that door, Mrs. Sader or no Mrs. Sader. I unlocked the door of the room and looked out. She wasn't in sight, but the hall was so filled with smoke I could hardly see to the end of it. The fumes itched at my eyes and choked in my throat. I yanked off my coat and held it in front of my mouth, breathing air through it almost hot enough to sear my lungs. I ran down the hall, through the door at the end, and up the steps there as I had once before.

At the top of the short flight of steps I pushed open the little door in the roof and climbed out, the roar getting louder in my ears. I ran to the edge of the roof at a spot where flames weren't licking continually over the edge. Over at the left, beyond the front of the house, I could glimpse the big red trucks with men around them. And down below me on the slanting hillside were two uniformed firemen wearing khaki coats and pants, knee-length rubber boots, and dark helmets.

I threw my coat out over the edge of the roof and down toward them. One of them grabbed the other and pointed up. Hell, they probably thought that was me. Then they spotted me and I yelled and waved. They ran away.

The bastards! What the devil? But then in a minute they were back. About a dozen men lugged a circular thing—a net. A net I was supposed to jump into.

Me? Jump? That was a laugh.

Yeah, it was a laugh, all right. The roof quivered a little. Maybe I imagined it, but it was either the roof quivering or me. I didn't have to make up my mind; I had to jump.

The men were waving and shouting things I couldn't hear and suddenly I realized those guys down there were sticking their necks out for me. If this place should go, if a wall should topple, those guys down there might get it right in the neck.

They might even get hit by me.

I took a big hot breath, held it, gauged the distance, and let my breath out. It wasn't too far, maybe, not more than a mile down, but that little white thing looked like a piece of lint. Scott, you devil, you. How the hell did you get up here?

I took another breath and my legs shook a little as I bent them.

I jumped.

I did like I'd seen them do in movies, and jumped so my feet flew out in front of me, and I guess they were pointing at the horizon. I wondered if I'd land on my head in some gravel, and then I was looking up into the air at a lot of spinning stars and screaming my fool head off.

There was a mixed-up flash of flames and flying sparks and white streaks across the sky, and then my back slammed into the net.

I'd actually made it. I hit and bounced and I came down again, and my chest hurt and my arm hurt and my head exploded, but it wasn't gravel I didn't want to move. I just wanted to lie there on that sweet old net.

Hands grabbed me and pulled me up to my feet.

"You all right, guy?"

"Sure," I started to say, only nothing came out. I nodded my head.

"Anybody else in there?"

"Yeah." I got a word out.

"Sweet Christ—"

"A woman," I said. "She's up there somewhere. Running around singing."

"What?"

"At the top of her voice."

"What?"

"Singing hymns or something. She's—"

"Hey!"

"She's got a gun."

"Hey, mister. Relax. Everything's O. K. It's all under control."

"Damn it!" I yelled. "I mean it. She's up there—"

"That's fine, fellow. That's sure swell" He jerked his head at a man who came running up carrying a little metal case with a white cross on it.

I gritted my teeth and looked up at the roof just as one of the men said, "We better get the hell out. She's gonna go right soon."

And as I looked up I saw Mrs. Sader. She was standing almost where I'd been, only now the flames were shooting higher and they'd hide her for seconds at a time.

'There she is!" I shouted.

I pointed up and heads followed the direction I indicated with my finger. One of the men cursed and they spread the net again, some of them holding it up high under their chins, some holding it lower because of the slant of the ground.

I said, "I dunno, you guys. She's got—"

And then it happened. It wasn't as loud as it would ordinarily have been because of the noise of the fire itself, but a round hole appeared near the center of the net.

I yelled, "Damn it, it's a gun! She's got a gun!"

They dropped the net and scattered. I scattered right with them. After about a minute of scurrying, most of us got together at a spot near the front of the house, out away from it far enough to spoil Mrs. Sader's aim.

The guy I'd been talking to before looked at me as if possibly I wasn't crazy after all. He said, "What the hell is happening?"

I said, "The gal up there has flipped. She's cuckoo. And she's got a gun."

"A gun? A cannon she's got."

"I tried to tell you before."

He shook his head. "You couldn't have really expected me to believe you. Hey, why didn't you people clear outta there? Fire couldn't have started that fast."

I couldn't tell him. He wouldn't believe me. I couldn't tell anybody. It was my little secret. I said weakly, "One of those things."

There was activity all around us. Uniformed firemen in their khaki-colored clothes ran across the lawn or busied themselves near the equipment out front. There must have been a dozen pieces of equipment: truck companies, engine companies, the battalion chiefs red sedan near the hedge on my right. One of the big red engines, its motor roaring, pumped water from its water tank through hoses men wrestled with on the lawn. Streams of water poured onto the house, but the men were only going through the motions. They weren't going to save this one. It suddenly seemed like a fine time for me to blow my brains out.

The fireman next to me said, "Couldn't get the ladder over at the side where you were." He nodded at one of the big trucks with metal ladders on its back. A ladder was being extended up toward the front of the house, but nobody was going through the fire up there to get to it. The fireman shook his head. "Why they build houses like this. . .Jump hurt you? You all right?"

"Yeah. Thanks. Scared hell out of me, though."

"How'd it start?"

I couldn't very well say, "I did it with my little Zippo," so I shrugged. "Don't ask me," I said. Then to make it a little more honest, I said, "Please don't ask me."

He squinted at me, then one of the other men shouted, "Back! She's gonna go!" and I turned and ran.

I heard it after he did, but I heard it. The ominous, horrible creaking of the weakened timbers starting to give.

I looked over my shoulders as I ran, then I stopped and turned around. As I watched I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Sader, or thought I did, before the flames shot up high over the roof of the house. Then, with a final crack, the house shuddered and the roof toppled inward. She might have been dead before that, from breathing fire into her lungs, but I'll bet, as long as she could, she was singing.

The roof fell with a great roar of flame, and heat surged against my face and I felt the suck of air as it was drawn into the updraft of the fire. Then there was a sharp crackle of flames, like a dog gnawing bones, and a great shower of sparks shot up toward the sky, swirling higher and higher and higher like a huge spirit shooting up toward heaven.

Somehow, though, I didn't think that was Mrs. Sader.

Chapter Twenty

AND that was that.

I stood watching the house burn and the last of my strength seemed to run out of my body into the ground. Sparks kept flying and a wall collapsed, but I hardly noticed.

Mrs. Sader was dead and unrecognizable by now, somewhere in those leaping flames, but she wasn't the only one who had died in these last hours. Marty, too, and some assorted hoodlums. And Kitty. Somehow that seemed to me like the worst part of a lousy mess. I'd liked little Kitty.

One of the firemen was standing nearby looking at me. There was a funny look on his face. I looked down, remembering I was in shirt sleeves, and then I saw what he was looking at. There was a rip in my white shirt, and blood from the spot where Lonely had got me had stained the shirt a red brown. The wound was open and bleeding slowly again and the stain slowly widened. I saw, too, my empty shoulder holster; I'd forgotten about that.

I said casually, "That gal—one in the house. She had a gun, you know. Off her rocker. Pinked me a little."

He didn't answer. He glanced up at my face, then walked away toward the front of the lawn. I looked toward the street. Out there near one of the fire engines was a police radio car. I hadn't heard it come up or noticed it, but there'd been so many sirens one more hadn't made any difference.

I turned and walked toward the radio car. I had a story to tell, quite a story, and remembering the look in the eyes of the incredulous fireman, I slowed down a little. But I kept on going. I was so beat I didn't care whether they believed me or not.

The next four hours weren't happy ones, but we were lucky it wasn't longer. The "we" was Iris and me. I met her at Police Headquarters and we talked our throats dry. She'd been through it all—all of it she knew—and I stuck my part in and we went around and around. There were the innumerable questions, the growls, and the headshaking. Red faces and frowning brows and more questions and more talk and explanation. In the quiet of City Hall, away from the whining wind and separated by a little time from what had happened, it seemed even more unreal, fantastic, and horrible.

But finally we'd spun it together till it fitted satisfactorily. By the time everything was in on the fire—which hadn't spread beyond the house, but which completely destroyed the house itself—Breed's part in the mess, and the party at the Pit, it made sense of a sort. I managed to spill my story without telling what Ozzie York had given me, but he was tucked away, and would be for a long time. Breed was locked up, of course, and if nothing else he was stuck cold with the murder of Flick. Locked up, too, was Shenandoah. Harry and Joe-Joe were in the jail ward of the County Hospital, Harry with a concussion and Joe-Joe with a large hole in his chest. A .45 in a man's chest usually does a lot more than bore a hole; it breaks ribs and rips flesh and muscle and lung. Before much longer Joe-Joe would join Marty, Lonely, Flick, and Kitty in the morgue.

The Doc had fixed up my wound with medication and bandages, and it didn't give me too much trouble now. I was just weak and worn out. It wouldn't have bothered me much if I hadn't run around trying to be an iron man. Now I know: the only iron in me is between my ears.

The sun was high when they let us leave, and the wind was still kicking around, but more weakly. Captain Samson, having a big twenty-four hours, was around, and he went down in the elevator with Iris and me. He'd been a raging hunk of captain for a while, but he was calmer now. He walked to the Main Street entrance with us.

At the door he stopped and looked wearily at me from red-rimmed eyes. "Shell," he said, shaking his head, "so help me, you'll be a case yourself one of these days. You ought to have your license jerked just to save your neck."

I grinned at him. "License, hell. I haven't been working. Not really. This just happened to me, Sam; I got in the middle."

"A good place for you, Shell. You should confide in Pappy."

"Well, Pappy," I said, "believe it or not, I just didn't have the time."

He shook his head some more and growled, "Beat it. Get yourself killed. But get back here when you rest up."

"Yeah," I said. "That'll be about a year."

That had been two hours ago at eight o'clock of a Tuesday morning. And now it was a little hard to believe it had all really happened. I wouldn't forget any of it, but it was fainter in my mind; the sharp edges were getting blunted. And I wanted it that way.

Birds outside were swelling their throats, and there was a strong, cool breeze whispering outside. We were back in the little cabin; Iris and Mia, my babes in the woods, and me. Mia had explained that she'd come back loaded with garlic to find the cabin empty. She'd waited a while for us, then gone to bed. Cursing us, she added slyly. The three of us had talked about what happened, then tried to forget it.

We were all lethargic. Mia hadn't slept much, and both Iris and I had been up for a long twenty-four hours. We were tired and sleepy and lightheaded with weariness. And we were still pretty full of spaghetti.

Mia looked at me, unblinking, and asked in her rustling voice, "How'd you like it?"

"The spaghetti? Never tasted any better, Mia." She asked, "You still angry?" Her eyes rested on me and her full lips twisted slightly with the merest start of a smile.

I grinned. "Certainly. You know that was a damn fool thing—charging down to the store after. . .The heck with it. Maybe it worked out better."

Iris said to me, huskily, "You don't look very comfortable, Shell."

She and Mia were relaxed and lazy on the bed. Mia had on the dress she'd wriggled into when she beat it from the apartment, and she looked just the same as then, except she wasn't wet. Iris still hadn't got into that dress. Me? I was sitting on the damned floor, leaning up against the wall of the cabin.

I blinked at them from under heavy eyelids and said, "It's a little cramped."

Mia got up off the bed, moving slowly, smoothly. I was reminded again of the quality I'd first noticed about her: that look of the jungle, the strength and animal grace in all her movements.

We'd used the glasses in the cabin once already this morning, for a mixture of the Old Grand-Dad and water, and now Mia walked toward me and asked, "Ready for another drink, Shell?"

I nodded. "Fine. Want me to mix 'em?"

She shook her head and bent over in front of me to pick up the glass on the floor by my feet. Hot damn. She would mix all the drinks.

She fixed three drinks and passed them around. When she got to me I said, "Uh, just put it on the floor, Mia."

I got the biggest smile I'd seen so far, and for a couple of seconds we grinned cheerily at each other. Then she went back to the bed and relaxed on it, stretching like a tigress.

Iris sipped her drink and said, "I'm glad you brought us up here, now. We're out of a job temporarily, but it's time we had a vacation." She glanced at Mia. "Don't you think so, honey?"

Mia nodded slowly.

We all had another drink. The bottle was getting empty. We all smiled at each other. We had another drink. The bottle was empty. We smiled. I leered.

Iris said, "Shell, you look awfully uncomfortable. You can sit on the bed if you want. We won't bite you." She giggled.

Mia wiggled over a little farther toward the head of the bed. I closed one eye. Looked like there was room.

Iris took a deep breath and yanked at my eyeballs. I couldn't help wondering if Flick had bruised that. . .

Iris said, "Mia—Mia, honey. Isn't one of us going to leave?"

Mia didn't say anything for a moment. Then, without taking her eyes off me, she said quietly, "Mmm-hmmm. By, Iris, honey."

Iris giggled. "Oh, Mia!"

Nobody moved.

Silence built up in the room. Hot, pregnant silence. I cleared my throat and said, "Look, lovelies. I gotta go. Time I left. Things to do. Clean my gun. Sleepy. Long trip. Things. . ."

They looked at me. Then, all of a sudden, they swung heir heads around and stared at each other. They smiled, as if they'd both had an idea at the same time. Then they turned, they both looked at me again, and they said almost in the same breath, "Shell. . ."

You know what? I was just too damn tired.

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 © 2000 Richard Prather

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4804-9887-7

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty